Progress On Electric Cars 594
Mike sends along a couple of items of interest to those anxiously awaiting the era of production electric vehicles. First, there's the upcoming Aero EV, which Shelby Supercars claims will charge in just 10 minutes and will be able to produce over 1,000 horsepower, powering the vehicle from 0-60 mph in less than 2.5 seconds. Then there's the announcement by Aptera of the first pre-production model of the Aptera 2e, which will have a top speed of 90 mph and go around 100 miles on a charge. This EV also features a strong and aerodynamic body, a lithium-based battery, front-wheel drive, and an improved door design. Release is planned by October of 2009.
Re:That's it? (Score:5, Informative)
Say "Yes" to nuclear. It's less radioactive than coal, has killed barely a minuscule fraction of the number of people coal has killed, and we have enough supply to easily last for as long as we can reasonably project our energy requirements.
Oh, and it's a key component for any serious attempts at interplanetary or interstellar space travel. Which could be important if we want to research more efficient solar collection or need to go track us down more nuclear materials. (Or you could send missions to Titan and supply the Earth with a near-infinite supply of $10billion/gal gasoline. :-P)
Re:That's it? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:That's it? (Score:1, Informative)
I believe that having 3 wheels allows a car company to skirt those pesky "safety standards" that regular 4 wheel cars currently must abide by.
Re:That's it? (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't matter *WHAT* was used to generate the electricity, it will *still* be cheaper and cleaner than burning gas in cars. Large power plants are tremendously more efficient and clean because they have the scale... even burning coal (as long as they are modern plants). Don't focus just on coal & oil. Throw in natural gas, solar, geothermal, nuclear, hydro, and wind... they already account for a huge percent of electricity production and increasing each year.
And using electricity means that everyone has a fuel source right at home, ready to go. No new infrastructure. No hazardous or explosive alternative fuels (like hydrogen or LP gas). No special equipment or training. Plug it in... Done.
Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by (Score:3, Informative)
CFCs were much worse and HORRIBLE for the environment, it really would have cooked us to death. Thats why they were phased out across the globe in 1994, we'd have been seriously screwed had we not. Same idea goes for CO2, it is just less obvious.
Re:That's it? (Score:2, Informative)
Big list (Score:5, Informative)
I've compiled a big list of upcoming EVs and their stats here [daughtersoftiresias.org].
In fact (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Math (Score:2, Informative)
Watts != Energy
Watts == Power!
Huge difference there. But I do agree that charging batteries for 100 miles/161km in 10 minutes will require a lot of Energy. I'll give it a try...
I read somewhere that a car needs about 30 hp on the highway at 100 km/h (62mph). If that is true, you will need about 22.37 kW for 1.61 hours. This means about 36 kW-hour of energy. Now, back to your house, in order to charge that in 10 minutes, you will need a power output of 216.1 kW. Using 240 Vac, this will result in a current of 900 Amp.
I may be wrong, but 900 Amps is a lot more than what the tipical house can take (200 Amps over here).
Even coal is better than gasoline (no, really!) (Score:5, Informative)
According to a DOE study [pnl.gov] conducted at PNL, switching to EVs is a net win even on our current grid. The main reason is that power plants are a lot more efficient than gasoline-powered cars at turning fuel into energy, while transmission and charging are very efficient. Also, EVs, which mainly charge at night, reduce the need for spinning standby, allow plants to operate more efficiently at night, and so on. The net result is that you could switch 84% of our cars over on our existing grid and you'd cut CO2 emissions by a third, increase PM somewhat, NOx would drop slightly, SOx would stay the same, and CO and VOCs would be nearly eliminated. The pollutants that would be emitted would be emitted on average much further from people's lungs and so affect them less.
Interesting (Score:5, Informative)
For you questioning the "charge in 10 minutes" claim : be aware that a lithium ion battery exists that DOES have this feature. Altair nanotechnologies is shipping a battery right now that supposedly has an improved anode that solves the problems that prevent rapid charging conventional lithium ion batteries. Actually, they claim 5 minute recharges in their marketing materials.
They ALSO claim to have solved the other big problem with lithium ion batteries : finite lifespan. They claim their batteries do not 'wear' and can be put through at least 20 years worth of power cycling. Again, note that these special batteries can be purchased today, they are not vapor-ware. (I don't know if their claims are valid, but I do know the physical batteries exist)
Yes, I am aware that a 10 minute recharge would strain the capacity of standard electrical service. You would need the electric gas stations to either have extremely high amperage connections to the grid, or to have some kind of energy storage technology at the station. Such as super-capacitors, a bank of precharged batteries, flywheels, ect.
So could it be done? Mass produce these high end lithium ion batteries by the billions, putting banks of them in every new car and truck on the road and in electric gas stations? I think it could, but the huge upfront costs of such a conversion are going to put it off well into the future. The ultimate long run costs might be the same or cheaper than fossil fuels, but in the short term consumers won't pay for something that is significantly more expensive.
For the conversion to occur, one of these has to happen
1. "Moore's law" makes lithium ion batteries so cheap that electric cars are cheaper than gas
2. Oil shortages make gas so expensive that even electric cars look cheap
3. The government puts a huge tax on gasoline/diesel and artifically makes electric cars seem cheap
A lot of people have pointed out that an electric car is actually simpler than gas. The motors are a lot smaller, and the battery banks consist of thousands of identical battery cells. The only other thing in the car is the power handling circuitry, which is solid state. If the batteries didn't wear out with age, then an electric car would probably be much cheaper to maintain.
Re:Aptera (Score:3, Informative)
I haven't checked the site for a while, but all of their proposed plans had REAR wheel drive.
The switch was made last January, but wasn't publicly announced until December. Switching to FWD gave a huge number of benefits, including much better regen, handling, and more room in the back.
the plan was ~20k, but last I checked the total was closer to ~30k
The plan hasn't been ~20k since mid 2007. You have been following them for a while! ;) When the Typ-1, Mk1 ("Zen") was unveiled in late '07, the announced prices were $27k for the Typ-1e and $30k for the Typ-1h. When they switched to the FWD 2e, they announced a price range of $25-$45k for the 2, depending on "options and drivetrain", and that there will be "a number of drivetrains" and "many options".
I didn't like the plan for the windows to be static (immovable)
Steve announced very early on that the windows *would* roll down in the final version.
Unfortunately after a quick navigation of the website, I could not find the information I had once perused.
Yeah, unfortunately, their site is in a bit of a transitional state right now. I'm not too impressed with Saxony Creative (who does their web work), personally.
Re:Earth calling Mars (Score:3, Informative)
Because its hard to make a brick become aerodynamic. The majority of the energy of moving a car down the road goes into making the air that is in front of the car get back behind the car. Its not at all about being yuppie, its just if you want efficiency this is what you need to do. The more it looks like a space pod the more efficient it generally is. Perhaps a Porsche is more your style?
I happen to work in a physics lab, and I had been gathering ideas on exactly what I wanted for the past year, and had almost started buying equipment and materials to build it. Now I am just glad to see that someone actually did it for me, and there is not much wrong with it that I would want to change. Other than its availability in the other 49 states, like mine for one.
Re:Electric cars are dumb. (Score:3, Informative)
Oh, is that what's tripping you up? Here:
https://nrich.maths.org/discus/messages/8577/7263.html?1071520520 [maths.org]
v = u + at
27m/s = 0 + (a * 5s)
a = 27m/s / 5s
a = 5.4m/s^2
5.4m/s^2 * 4,865kg = 26,271 newtons = 26kW
That sounds about right. Snack time!
Fig newton?
Re:That's it? (Score:3, Informative)
But not as heavy as you might think. 20kg/100kW for an in-wheel motor is about the state-of-the-art, and given that it replaces the brake assembly and (part of) the drive shaft it ends up only slightly more than a conventional hub. For example, see:
http://www.pmlflightlink.com/motors/hipa_drive.html [pmlflightlink.com]
Since last time I checked out that company, they have a) moved everything to do with this to a much less informative website, and b) gone into administration. That is doubly unfortunate, as I think they had some of the best motor technology out there.
Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by (Score:3, Informative)
But I remember reading that conservation organizations are trying to shut down wind farms because of the damage they do to birds and (more recently) bats. Is this still the case?
Even the Audubon Society supports Cape Wind. The "environmentalists" opposing these "controversial" wind farms are mostly just wealthy landowners who don't want the value of their homes to drop. The bird thing is largely a myth. Even taking into account the relatively small percent of our power that comes from wind, wind farms are just blips on the radar in terms of bird deaths in comparison to glass windows and housecats. The Audubon Society supports wind farms because pollution from fossil fuel power plants is a lot worse for birds than the very rare turbine-caused bird deaths.
Although this seems astoundingly short -- I wonder what current would be required?)
Depends on the size of your pack. On Oahu, they already have a network of AeroVironment Posicharge chargers, 60kW. Aerovironment makes them as big as ~250kW. As for generator capacity, the really big chargers use their own battery banks, which they trickle charge. And in the future, hopefully, will be able to smart charge and even feed power back.
Re:That's it? (Score:3, Informative)
Three wheels helps them get a vehicle to market faster and cheaper, that's quite true. But there are also a wide range of other benefits. Insurance is cheaper. The car can more easily follow the optimal teardrop shape. Reaction time to driver input is faster. Cost of construction is lower. Maintenance is lower. The car is lighter, and thus has less rolling drag. Lower rolling drag and lower aero drag means faster charging times and less power consumed. And so on down the line.
Even with all that reduction in cost, it still doesn't make economical sense for me (and most people I would assume) to own this.
I mean, somebody needs to compare owning this to a subcompact car, for 10 years and about 12000 miles/year. My quick calculation shows me its not worth it, even at $5/gallon.
Add on top of the economic factors, the practicability factors, and the only reason I see today to buy this is if you have money to spare and want to be green. Sadly most people cant afford to be green at that price.
Re:In fact (Score:5, Informative)
First, I'll point out that I believe that nuclear weapons aren't in the same category as nuclear power; that'd be like adding deaths from tank weapons into automotive deaths.
Still, I think it's an interesting topic.
Hiroshima: 140k
Nagasaki: 80k
Chernobyl: 57 direct deaths, 4k 'additional cancer cases', estimated, not all of which would be fatal.
Other: Various accidents; under a hundred. Less than 1% of the above, easily within the margin of error of the nuclear weapons usage.
224k total, of which 1.8% can be attributed, partially, to nuclear power(Chernobyl was also a weapons material plant, which affected it's design).
If you believe this [msn.com] article, 24k lives are 'shortened' by coal power, cause 2.8k cases of lung cancer a year, 4k deaths from asthma, heart attacks, etc... At 4k, we're killing a Chernobyl's worth of citizens each and every year. In the 63 years since the nuclear attacks in 1945, that would be 252,000 people.
On to China - They've [chinadaily.com.cn] made it a 'goal' to reduce their annual coal mining deaths to a 'mere' 5k in 2007 over the 7k of 2003. In 1988 - "chronic [american.edu]
obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) was 26% of all causes of death. If even a fraction of a percent of those deaths are from the pollution from coal power, 26k a year isn't outrageous from a country of over a billion.
Basically; I figure coal power kills more people every year than Chernobyl accident did period, and it bypasses our nuclear bombings in less than five years.
And people wonder why I'd shut down all the coal plants if I could...
Batteries of any kind don't work well in the cold (Score:2, Informative)
The simple fact is that electric vehicles will only ever be very practical in the southern part of the United States. Get north of Utah and the weather is simply too cold for lithium-based batteries to work well. Even lead acid batteries struggle in the cold. Certainly in Canada an electric vehicle is a no go 5-6 months out of the year. Even if you find a way to heat the batteries and keep them warm, that takes electric power that you can't use for actually driving. When stopped you'd obviously plug in your car to charge and warm it. Even still, on those 40 below mornings (yes parts of the US and Canada do experience them from time to time), as I coax my gasoline car to life (which will barely crank over when left unplugged), I am reminded as to some major flaws in the electric car idea.
Re:That's it? (Score:5, Informative)
The most common number for the lower-cost EVs for range seems to be about 100 miles. About what percent of Americans do you think travel more than fifty miles to work and then 50 back? I'd bet under 10%. Probably under 5%.
but don't kid yourself, anything approaching a 10% adoption rate of EVs could easily crush the grid
This has been studied, over and over again. No, they don't. EVs are actually a rather sedate grid load in that they don't suddenly kick in, draw a huge amount of current, then stop; it's a steady load. And easily most of the time, it's a nighttime load, which is a boon for the grid, not a bane.
But yes, our grid could use some overhaul because it's not good at dealing with our current loads. We need HVDC for long-distance transmission, a smart grid for timing loads, and EVs for variable loads and, potentially, V2G.
Re:In fact (Score:3, Informative)
If by coal mine deaths, you mean deaths from mining accidents, etc., then you also forgot black lung disease [wikipedia.org], which on average kills over 1,000 Americans per year by itself (on average over the last decade). Source: Wikipedia.
Re:I meant too much water vapor. (Score:3, Informative)
Do you have any idea how much more will be released if every car on the planet is replaced with a hydrogen-powered car?
Why, yes. But let's not stop there: What if all of the world's energy needs were met by burning hydrogen?
The annual global energy consumption is somewhere around 5e20 J. That would mean burning 3.5e12 kg of H2 to create 3.1e13 kg of water. Worldwide annual precipitation is 5e17 kg of water, which is more than 16000X greater.
In other words, even in the worst case our impact on humidity levels would be lost in the statistical noise. And as others have pointed out, any of this insignificant excess would rain out within a couple of days (in contrast to CO2, which lingers for centuries).
We undoubtedly already cause much larger variations in humidity by building dams and other activities that alter the balance between land and water surface area. Maybe you should worry about that instead of hydrogen cars.
Re:That's it? (Score:3, Informative)
>On a standard, 110 volt, 15 amp circuit, it takes 32 hours to fully charge
No doubt. But it should be much easier to provide a 220 volt, 20 amp circuit (4,400 watts) which is 266% more power than the energy of 15@110 (1,650 watts) (compared the the exotic 70A Tesla circuit). And, unless one is doing a LOT more than just commuting to work, one will rarely have to charge the car all the way from dead. So a half-charge top-up with 266% more power might be more like 6 or 7 hours.
Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by (Score:2, Informative)
That's not too far off from what happens on Mars. Maybe you just got your planets mixed up.