Tesla Turning the Corner

If only we could fit three steam turbines operating at multiple input/output pressures and temperatures in a car yeah? The inlet to outlet temp on those is only about a 10 degree C difference

Thermal efficiency, sure. You lose the rest in the mechanical transmission from the output to the wheel.

See "Well to Wheel" efficiency figures page 37:

BEV = battery electric vehicle

A gas engine only carries half the fuel that it needs - air is free - and just dumps the combustion products and heat. A battery has to haul all its chemistry around.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics

Enjoy your fuel cell car. I like my 3.2 l Audi.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics

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This group is famous for a lot of people saying really stupid stuff. But J ohn Larkin takes the cake. His data is just plain wrong and always slanted to the way he wishes to argue. On top of it all, he doesn't show any work .

The efficiency of auto engines is very bad and put them in a car with an au tomatic transmission and they are worse. The number I've read is about 20% of the energy in the gasoline makes it to the wheels.

But none of that is relevant. Just work with the mpg figures for gas cars and the m/kW figures for electric cars. What is important is fueling the c ars for the distance they will drive. Everything else is subject to variou s missing factors and errors.

I stand by my numbers in my more recent post.

Rick C.

...and back home.

his concluding argument was "Yeah but my Audi."

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could

An unused boat uses no power and delivers none. Efficiency is output divide d by input (which have to be in the same units) so John's assertion is abo ut zero divided by zero, which makes his assertion fallacious - not for the first time.

Admittedly, if you see the purpose of a ski boat as an investment in being admired, it can be effective, even if you don't use it, which might well be the way John Larkin looks at these kinds of things, but efficiency doesn't come into that sort of evaluation

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Bill Sloman, Sydney

Too true. My guess is that he's too vain to admit that he could ever have made a mistake. This does make him look like an idiot (which he isn't), and may be locking him into persisting with bad choices, which has to be unwise.

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Bill Sloman,

It's not a new observation - the Proceedings of the IEEE had a paper on it some decades back - but the extra generating capacity required back then was closer to two or three times the existing plant.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney

Thanks. The consensus seems to be it would be necessary to add 2x to

3x the existing capacity to charge EV's. That sounds more reasonable than my 44,000x increase. I suspect that the numbers are based on average power required, and did not consider peak power, where EV owners charge when the Time of Use rates are lower, or when solar charging is available.

Also, I think I found some major sources of error in my calcs. My gasoline consumption figure of 15.1 billion gallons includes aviation gas and gasoline use by trucks, construction equipment, and other engines that are unlikely to be converted to electric. Also, making it specific to California was perhaps a bad idea because of the difficulty of finding Calif specific numbers. It's easier to get national statistics from the DoE. I'm still playing with the problem. If I get inspired to grind the numbers again, I'll probably switch to national.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

There have been lots of attempts at steam-powered cars. The problem isn't the boiler or the engine; it's the condenser. The steam railroad engines didn't usually have a condenser, just used a lot of water. Steamships had the entire ocean handy, but the condensers were still huge.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

Thanks. The consensus seems to be it would be necessary to add 2x to

3x the existing capacity to charge EV's. That sounds more reasonable than my 44,000x increase. I suspect that the numbers are based on average power required, and did not consider peak power, where EV owners charge when the Time of Use rates are lower, or when solar charging is available.

Also, I think I found some major sources of error in my calcs. My gasoline consumption figure of 15.1 billion gallons includes aviation gas and gasoline use by trucks, construction equipment, and other engines that are unlikely to be converted to electric. Also, making it specific to California was perhaps a bad idea because of the difficulty of finding Calif specific numbers. It's easier to get national statistics from the DoE. I'm still playing with the problem. If I get inspired to grind the numbers again, I'll probably switch to national. ========================================================

Jeff, didn't post at the time because it was late and I ASSuMED that someone else was already typing :-), but I'm pretty sure you lost the kilo in kilowatt hours when you did the gasoline gallon equivalent substitution so your 44000 should be 44.

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Regards, 
Carl Ijames

:

Consensus is not what is important. The facts are important. Using the bo gus GGE is not valid. It is a simple calculation to take the gallons of ga soline used and convert that to miles using the national average of 24.7 or another average figure near this value. Then use the 3 miles/kWh figure t o convert the miles to kWh. Compare that to the total power generated in t he US and you will find it is a fraction of the total, not several times la rger than the total.

I already gave references for these figures. Why worry with California rat her than the US?

Rick C.

Yeah these 2x and 3x times _total_ US electric consumption figures are straight wackadoo.

It takes about 10-30 kWhr to fully charge an EV overnight. It would be like if everyone just left their residential lighting on all the time instead of turning it off when they go to bed. So like an extra 10% of the current total.

Probably an overestimate 15 kWhr can get you 100 miles in a lot of EVs most people don't drive 100 miles every day.

My condo complex has all electric utilities, the average total electric bill is probably about 10k monthly. You could full charge two dozen Volts here every night and hardly make a dent in it.

At overnight off-peak rates it costs like a dollar.

Keep the steam engine where it is and use it to run an air compressor and then use the compressed air in the car like you would steam in a steam engine