RE: Detroit '09: Dodge Circuit EV

[theluckyman]

Scuffers said:

skint_driver said:

Burning fossil fuels in a power station to run electric cars is more efficient than using internal combustion engines. This is good for the environment, even if you ignore power generated by wind,solar,tidal,hydro and nuclear power - all commercial methods of generating power which can't easily be put into a vehicle (unless you have a "Mr Fusion" handy?).

The reason is that IC engines are really inefficient - IIRC only about 20% of the energy in the chemicals goes into moving the vehicle - the rest is lost in heat, noise, and operating the engine (alternator, valves, ignition all sap power). The turbines in a power station do a much better job.

Actually, although you have a point, your numbers are way off.

modern petrol IC engines these days are making 30-35% fuel efficency (diesel car engines are aproaching 50+%).

Yes, Turbines are way more efficent at using the energy in their fuel, but now consider that for every KW generated in a power station, only ~60% at best ever comes out of the socket, transmittion looses are not insignigicant.

skint_driver said:

Also an IC engine rarely runs at its most efficient speed, as the speed of power generation is linked to the speed of the vehicle by the gearbox. This means that an electric drive vehicle with a small on board battery and a diesel generator may be more efficient than a traditional IC-powered car.

Yes and no, same issues with electric cars (and no gearbox) as IC engined cars, Tesla worked way more efficently with it's two speed box, they just could not get it to work reliably.

skint_driver said:

The only problem with electric vehicles is the time it takes to charge them, but the infrastructure required to (for example) put 70-amp charging stations in car parks would not be crazily expensive to develop and deploy.

now your having a laugh....

Work out how many Kw/h's you need to equivalent a tank of petrol/diesel.

now, work out how many A supply you need to provide this int he time frame you want to charge said battery (don't forget to factor in the chargers in-efficency along with the battery's in-efficency)

now tell me how much it cost to provide said power outlet and more to the point, the infrastructure to support it - just ask your elec company for a quote to provide a 100Kva commercial supply (enough for say 5 70A outlets - approx 20Kva per 70A/240V outlet), then ask the same question with a 1,000Kva supply.

then consider where this power is going to come from, the argument only works of you can do this using off-peak power, we do not have the generating capacity to cope with this in addition to the normal daily usage...

Sorry but this is nonsense

Elec transmission and distribution is c90% efficient

Petrol ICE rarely betters 25%, diesel ICE rarely betters 35%

EDF are d@mn near giving high output charging points away to local government to go with their shiny new nukes

Did you bother to read the paper I linked to or are you just making this stuff up as you go along

[carsnapper]

kambites said:

carsnapper said:

kambites said:

carsnapper said:

ridiculous car.

150 miles range is totally useless, and I suspect that after a years worth of use that'll drop to >100 miles 'real' driving. Lithium batteries are an environmental disaster to build and recycle. It'll take hours to recharge even with a huge industrial 70 amp + output and still uses fossil fuel or nuclear generated electricity to power it.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Play toys for the rich and stupid.

Well reasoned argument there, thanks for that.

Your statement was very constructive too, although I don't think you understand- it is not an 'argument'. It was a statement.

Would you like me to provide you with lots of links to loads of sites to support my statement?
Then, if you supplied similar information contradicting mine...then it would be an argument

No malice, I feel that these battery operated electric vehicles should not be marketed as having environmental / social benefits, inferred or otherwise. And don't get me started on the 'perceived' benefits of the Prius....

Well 200 mile range (or even 100 mile range) with an overnight charging time would be fine for 100% of the driving I do in the Elise. You seem to be saying "I don't want one therefor it's useless" which is just stupid.

I don't know about the environmental impacts because there are a million different research papers coming up with completely different results depending on the political bias of the researcher and/or their funder.

Your argument strikes me as the same thing that luddites would have said comparing internal combustion engine powered cars to the horse and cart a hundred years ago.



There are a HUGE number of people for whom it would make a perfect mode of transport. The fact that you're not one of them doesn't take it "stupid".

Edited by kambites on Monday 12th January 14:15

You're a feisty so and so. And I like you attempt to paraphrase me. If, as you say, you don't know 'anything about the environmental impacts' - why don't you go away and read up then come back and try and argue from a position of informed opinion?! Just a thought, instead of getting all personally defensive from a position of ignorance.

And if you think that a £90,000 car full of Lithium batteries with a range of around 150 miles that takes 3.5 hours to charge, who's batteries would need replacing every 5 years - would be the 'perfect mode of transport for a HUGE number of people' ... then I think that you're bonkers.

Thanks to the others for the links to the reading material, I will read the papers and comment.

It does appear on the surface that a lot of studies state that electric vehicles, in a nut shell, are more energy efficient than current petrol / diesel vehicles. However a lot of these studies do not take in to account the environmental impact & energy requirements of mining the raw materials required for making the batteries in the first place, then there's the construction of the batteries and all the chemicals required and their associated factories and refineries & distribution networks.

Then there's the recycling of the batteries and all the energy required to do so and their environmental impact. More often than not these batteries will end up being 'recycled' in none to legal ways or simply disposed off. By the way 'Kambites', I hope that you'll be happy to pay another £10,000 every 5 years to get your batteries replaced in your 'perfect' mode of transport?

Also whilst the generation of electricity on an industrial level such as a power station will always be more efficient than locally produced energy through IC engines, a vast amount of energy is lost in the transportation of electricity through very inefficient cables with high a resistance. How efficient is the national grid? Semi- superconductivity would be the grail to gun for in the future.

In an ideal world we could use green energy to generate hydrogen (which requires A LOT of energy) to power fuel cells locally. Until then, IMO, lithium battery powered cars are not the answer for the quick environmental fix. They are a good R&D platform for future products, but right now they are not a viable alternative to an efficient IC diesel engine for many reasons.

PS I just found these figures on UK energy use....makes for interesting reading:
http://www.powerwatch.org.uk/energy/graham.asp

In 1998, the major electricity producers supplied a maximum load of 56.3 GW (Gigawatts) of electricity. Nuclear and conventional fossil fuel power stations ran at a thermal efficiency of just over 36%. The more efficient combined cycle gas turbine stations managed almost 47% efficiency, and produce about 22% of the total electricity. About 2% is produced by "renewables" (i.e. mainly hydro-electric, with negligible amounts supplied by wind and solar energy). [These figures are taken from tables 5.5 and 5.7 in Ref. 4]. This gives an overall electricity generation efficiency of approximately:

((76 x 0.36) + (22 x 0.47)) x 100 / 98 which equals 38.5 % overall efficiency

Edited by carsnapper on Monday 12th January 15:10

Edited by carsnapper on Monday 12th January 15:11

[f111lover]

Well I like it, and a range of 100 miles would do me 4 out of 5 trips. These things are the first faltering steps towards useable cars, an awfull lot of the moans written here do sound like luddites, how long did it take to develope real useable ic cars, 20 - 30 years?

[theluckyman]

carsnapper said:

kambites said:

carsnapper said:

kambites said:

carsnapper said:

ridiculous car.

150 miles range is totally useless, and I suspect that after a years worth of use that'll drop to >100 miles 'real' driving. Lithium batteries are an environmental disaster to build and recycle. It'll take hours to recharge even with a huge industrial 70 amp + output and still uses fossil fuel or nuclear generated electricity to power it.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Play toys for the rich and stupid.

Well reasoned argument there, thanks for that.

Your statement was very constructive too, although I don't think you understand- it is not an 'argument'. It was a statement.

Would you like me to provide you with lots of links to loads of sites to support my statement?
Then, if you supplied similar information contradicting mine...then it would be an argument

No malice, I feel that these battery operated electric vehicles should not be marketed as having environmental / social benefits, inferred or otherwise. And don't get me started on the 'perceived' benefits of the Prius....

Well 200 mile range (or even 100 mile range) with an overnight charging time would be fine for 100% of the driving I do in the Elise. You seem to be saying "I don't want one therefor it's useless" which is just stupid.

I don't know about the environmental impacts because there are a million different research papers coming up with completely different results depending on the political bias of the researcher and/or their funder.

Your argument strikes me as the same thing that luddites would have said comparing internal combustion engine powered cars to the horse and cart a hundred years ago.



There are a HUGE number of people for whom it would make a perfect mode of transport. The fact that you're not one of them doesn't take it "stupid".

Edited by kambites on Monday 12th January 14:15

You're a feisty so and so. And I like you attempt to paraphrase me. If, as you say, you don't know 'anything about the environmental impacts' - why don't you go away and read up then come back and try and argue from a position of informed opinion?! Just a thought, instead of getting all personally defensive from a position of ignorance.

And if you think that a £90,000 car full of Lithium batteries with a range of around 150 miles that takes 3.5 hours to charge, who's batteries would need replacing every 5 years - would be the 'perfect mode of transport for a HUGE number of people' ... then I think that you're bonkers.

Thanks to the others for the links to the reading material, I will read the papers and comment.

It does appear on the surface that a lot of studies state that electric vehicles, in a nut shell, are more energy efficient than current petrol / diesel vehicles. However a lot of these studies do not take in to account the environmental impact & energy requirements of mining the raw materials required for making the batteries in the first place, then there's the construction of the batteries and all the chemicals required and their associated factories and refineries & distribution networks.

Then there's the recycling of the batteries and all the energy required to do so and their environmental impact. More often than not these batteries will end up being 'recycled' in none to legal ways or simply disposed off. By the way 'Kambites', I hope that you'll be happy to pay another £10,000 every 5 years to get your batteries replaced in your 'perfect' mode of transport?

Also whilst the generation of electricity on an industrial level such as a power station will always be more efficient than locally produced energy through IC engines, a vast amount of energy is lost in the transportation of electricity through very inefficient cables with high a resistance. How efficient is the national grid? Semi- superconductivity would be the grail to gun for in the future.

In an ideal world we could use green energy to generate hydrogen (which requires A LOT of energy) to power fuel cells locally. Until then, IMO, lithium battery powered cars are not answer for the quick environmental fix.

Thanks

Please note my coments above re existing grid efficiency

Batteries - they're about 3% lithium by content. The impact - as you've rightly and comprehensively noted - is a serious concern; pragmatically not so much of a concern as having our economy devastated by $147/bbl WTI again.

Personally - and plenty of people disagree with me - I think that pure electric vehicles are going to be a niche product.

Plug-ins like the Volt, Karma and the Converj concept offer massive torque from a few hundred revs, commuter range on smaller battery packs, plus a proper engine for long drives or a back road. Like I said personal opinion though

[carl_w]

carsnapper said:

((76 x 0.36) + (22 x 0.47)) x 100 / 98 which equals 38.5 % overall efficiency

That's prior to transmission loss, and that just gets the power to the plug at the charging point. Then you have charging losses (i.e. for every 1A in the charger doesn't stick 1A out) and the inefficiency of the chemical storage in the batteries (don't have figures for this -- I would guess that it can't be better than 60%). Then the inefficiencies in driving the electric motor.

So I reckon overall significantly worse than an IC engine. Where it would be good is in heavily congested and polluted cities, as you're moving the problem from being concentrated in one place to being spread about a bit.

[carsnapper]

carl_w said:

carsnapper said:

((76 x 0.36) + (22 x 0.47)) x 100 / 98 which equals 38.5 % overall efficiency

That's prior to transmission loss, and that just gets the power to the plug at the charging point. Then you have charging losses (i.e. for every 1A in the charger doesn't stick 1A out) and the inefficiency of the chemical storage in the batteries (don't have figures for this -- I would guess that it can't be better than 60%). Then the inefficiencies in driving the electric motor.

So I reckon overall significantly worse than an IC engine. Where it would be good is in heavily congested and polluted cities, as you're moving the problem from being concentrated in one place to being spread about a bit.

Spot on carl_w...that was the point I was trying to make

[CMS]

XitUp said:

CMS said:

With current ranges and charging times for these things (talking generally), even if they were to sell in numbers (which they simply won't in current state) then our roads would surely be gridlocked due to so many them whirring to a halt running out of juice after a couple of hours.

Why would they? Would people not charge them up or try to drive further than they can go?
If this was the case then surely we would see far more cars running out of petrol or deisel on the road too?

Well, I was only making a fairly fecicious point but...

Firstly, if you run out of petrol/diesel you are either very unfortunate due to some wild and unforseen circumstance or, more likely, have been rather stupid/are a raging idiot. Point is, it happens and the remedy for petrol/diesel powered cars in this situation is easy. The remedy for a battery powered car is what exactly?

Until there's a proper alternative with support infastructure then these noble ideas will remain just that. I don't doubt that the cars themselves are great fun to drive etc. Personally though I want the freedom to set off somewhere and then actually, yes, change my mind and go somewhere else without first having to come home, charge it up for several hours and then set off again. The point of cars is to allow us that freedom surely.

Again, love the idea and I'm in no way 'anti electric cars'. I do wish they'd stop touting the big battery idea as 'the answer' though, because at the moment its just not.

Edited by CMS on Monday 12th January 15:20

[XitUp]

carsnapper said:

And if you think that a £90,000 car full of Lithium batteries with a range of around 150 miles that takes 3.5 hours to charge, who's batteries would need replacing every 5 years - would be the 'perfect mode of transport for a HUGE number of people' ... then I think that you're bonkers.

Link to where you've seen a price of £90k please.
Link to stats on battery only lasting five years please.

theluckyman said:

Plug-ins like the Volt, Karma and the Converj concept offer massive torque from a few hundred revs, commuter range on smaller battery packs, plus a proper engine for long drives or a back road. Like I said personal opinion though

Yup.
Plug in electric vehicles with a small range extender (ICE or gas turbine) are the future of commuting.

CMS said:

Well, I was only making a fairly fecicious point but...

OK.

[carl_w]

XitUp said:

Link to stats on battery only lasting five years please.

Table here http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm suggests 80% capacity after 1 year at 25 deg C, so around 33% after 5 years.

[XitUp]

Don't most electric cars have cooling for their cells?

[carsnapper]

XitUp said:

carsnapper said:

And if you think that a £90,000 car full of Lithium batteries with a range of around 150 miles that takes 3.5 hours to charge, who's batteries would need replacing every 5 years - would be the 'perfect mode of transport for a HUGE number of people' ... then I think that you're bonkers.

Link to where you've seen a price of £90k please.
Link to stats on battery only lasting five years please.

Lithium batteries deterioration is usually a function of cycles...usually 200-300 cycles is all that it takes for Lithium ion batteries to deteriorate rapidly to the point that it will not longer hold a significant charge. You do the search yourself, just Google "how many cycles do lithium cells last?"

Indeed, if the car was used every other day, then 5 years would be a VERY optimistic time span! And we don't live in a 25C environment. That would translate to a cold morning 3 years after buying the electric car, on a full charge having a range of around 50 miles.....WOOOOHOOOOO!

Re the £90K:

this article: "The car has a similar range of between 150 and 200 miles but could cost considerably less than the £90,000 Tesla. It is expected to go on sale in the US in 2010 and in the UK in 2011"

Whatever 'COULD cost considerably less than £90K' means - what £80K, £70K? That's a bargain then.

Edited by carsnapper on Monday 12th January 15:56

[XitUp]

carsnapper said:

Re the £90K:

this article: "The car has a similar range of between 150 and 200 miles but could cost considerably less than the £90,000 Tesla. It is expected to go on sale in the US in 2010 and in the UK in 2011"

Whatever 'COULD cost considerably less than £90K' means - what £80K, £70K? That's a bargain then.

So no, you don't have any info about the price, you were just guessing? OK.

[carsnapper]

XitUp said:

carsnapper said:

Re the £90K:

this article: "The car has a similar range of between 150 and 200 miles but could cost considerably less than the £90,000 Tesla. It is expected to go on sale in the US in 2010 and in the UK in 2011"

Whatever 'COULD cost considerably less than £90K' means - what £80K, £70K? That's a bargain then.

So no, you don't have any info about the price, you were just guessing? OK.

Idiotic comment. What's your contribution then?

Edited by carsnapper on Monday 12th January 15:59

[Mark-C]

carsnapper said:

XitUp said:

carsnapper said:

Re the £90K:

this article: "The car has a similar range of between 150 and 200 miles but could cost considerably less than the £90,000 Tesla. It is expected to go on sale in the US in 2010 and in the UK in 2011"

Whatever 'COULD cost considerably less than £90K' means - what £80K, £70K? That's a bargain then.

So no, you don't have any info about the price, you were just guessing? OK.

idiot.

[OJ]

carsnapper said:

Lithium batteries deterioration is usually a function of cycles...usually 200-300 cycles is all that it takes for Lithium ion batteries to deteriorate rapidly to the point that it will not longer hold a significant charge. You do the search yourself, just Google "how many cycles do lithium cells last?"

Depends heavily on the depth of discharge. If they're kept above 60% capacity they'll last virtually forever. Above 40-60% and they'll last long enough not to worry about them too much. Start draining them down to 20% or below consistently and they'll only last 200-300 cycles before they're completely useless

[XitUp]

carsnapper said:

Idiotic comment. What's your contribution then?

My contribution is not making stuff up.

OJ said:

Depends heavily on the depth of discharge. If they're kept above 60% capacity they'll last virtually forever. Above 40-60% and they'll last long enough not to worry about them too much. Start draining them down to 20% or below consistently and they'll only last 200-300 cycles before they're completely useless

So if they were charged every night after the average commute they would be fine?

This is another advantage of plug in hybrids, you could use the range extender anytime capacity dropped bellow a certain point.

[carsnapper]

OJ said:

carsnapper said:

Lithium batteries deterioration is usually a function of cycles...usually 200-300 cycles is all that it takes for Lithium ion batteries to deteriorate rapidly to the point that it will not longer hold a significant charge. You do the search yourself, just Google "how many cycles do lithium cells last?"

Depends heavily on the depth of discharge. If they're kept above 60% capacity they'll last virtually forever. Above 40-60% and they'll last long enough not to worry about them too much. Start draining them down to 20% or below consistently and they'll only last 200-300 cycles before they're completely useless

yep, i read that bit too Yet another caveat for the electric car driver to be aware of.

[OJ]

XitUp said:

So if they were charged every night after the average commute they would be fine?

This is another advantage of plug in hybrids, you could use the range extender anytime capacity dropped bellow a certain point.

Yep, basically. However you could also argue that it reduces the 'usable range' of the vehicle even further.

Yep, back to plug-in series hybrids again.

[carsnapper]

XitUp said:

carsnapper said:

Idiotic comment. What's your contribution then?

My contribution is not making stuff up.

OJ said:

What exactly have you contributed to this thread? You can tell that it wasn't my intention to 'make stuff up' and that you can see that my assumption for the £90K price that I stated was based on current prices of similarly built electric sport cars, and the statement that the 'could' cost less than £90K doesn't exactly encourage me to thinking that it will be significantly less that this price. Even if it was a significantly lower price than £90K, say £65K, would you think that this is good value for money?

No, instead you just make non-constructive comments. Nice one.

Edited by carsnapper on Monday 12th January 16:26

[OJ]

carsnapper said:

yep, i read that bit too Yet another caveat for the electric car driver to be aware of.

Not wanting to sound like a smart arse, but I didn't read that bit... oh alright I did want to sound like one