Electric cars are a pipe dream

...You should see my July sales figures, bro. Things are kinda slow right now for a lot of us.

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The Chevy Volt runs as a pure electric car until its battery is depleted. The gas system it is using is meant for "emergency use". It is not a typical hybrid. If the Battery depletes then a gas system will generate the electricity the car needs. It is also a nice looking and comfortable car. Didn't do a test drive but sat in one for a while yesterday at a exhibition.

Electric cars are too quiet, and some manufacturers want to add noise to the cars so pedestrians can hear them coming.

I have a co-worker who replaced his car with an electric bike. It is street legal, requires no insurance, and looks identical to a European style gas scooters. (i got more correct google images with "European scooter" than just scooter. Then search for Electric scooter, and you will see this new (only road legal here for past few years now) and cheap product.

They actually look like a lot of fun and only have a $700+ price tag. They zip along at about 20 mph (fast, fast, pedalling), and can do about 50 miles return trip. The 20mph speed is a result of governor devices to keep them compliant with laws. Some can be modified to double that speed and still maintain good range. I did mention NO insurance and NO gas... awesome!

 

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Well I wouldn't characterize the IC engine as being meant for emergency use though as the car is designed such that you never need to charge the battery if you don't want to and is perfectly fine taking cross country trips on the IC engine alone.

 

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Like bicycles electric cars are OK close to home (100 mile) in good weather. Not michigan in winter. GreenNH3 is 50 cents a liter and zero emissions. It is peered by 6 universities and now in use. Unlike batteries it will also power heavy trucks and planes. US DOE says 90% of vehicles in 2050 will still be IC. Scientific American says peak 2014. What fuel are you going to use? Why not get behind this GreenNH3

 

Sheesh, not this NH3 BS again.

http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2635628&postcount=82

http://sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2737998&postcount=1776

To quote BillyT:

Summary: This is a lying scam – don’t send them any money.

 

Well the August sales figures are in:

Nissan said it sold 1,362 Leafs in the US (total now 6,187) up from last month, but still well below it's June figures

GM sold a pitifully small 302 Volts (total now 3,498), which was well over July, but like the Leaf, still below it's June figures.

GM said it had almost no Volts in stock at the end of July, but that it built 2,395 in August.

So far this year, these two models together represent a piddly 1,200 cars per month.

And while that 1,664 cars was a piddly amount, the Feds still subsidised the buyers of these few cars to the tune of $12.5 MILLION dollars.

Arthur

 

I bet most of those ended up in Portland, I'm seeing them all over the place.

 

More techno-delusion. NASA only agreed to evaluate the device, they did not confirm that it works. Technology will not be our savior here.

 

Well that's not that surprising as Oregon has an additional $1,500 tax credit for them, and Oregon is one of the original 7 states where they were made available (Arizona, California, Hawaii, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington).

And Portland is one of the 15 cities that is benefiting from the DOEs $115 million dollar grant to Electric Transportation Engineering Corporation (eTec) that involves installation of ~11,000 charging stations (Other cities in Oregon getting the charging stations are Eugene, Salem and Corvallis)

 

Yay, we are creating jobs.

 

Not so much.
The Leaf is built in Nissan’s plant in Oppama, Japan and the total Volt sales so far this year is less than 4 days of output of the Ford F-150 truck line.

 

ETec is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona.

 

Simple solution for electric vehicles. after you've recharged, drive allong the power lines to find the REAL source of their power, which in most cases are nuclear power stations or coal fired power stations. Consider if they "Are they REALLY that good for the environment", when you see the smoke of the coal fired power station or the nuclear waste from the nuclear power stations.

 

Like in the US, China's electric cars get a subsidy, but still cost much more so are only a tiny fraction of monthly car sales. While that subsidy remains 3000 yuan per car, qualifying for it just became a little more difficult:

"... Cars will qualify for a subsidy if they have an average fuel consumption of 6.3 liters of gasoline or lower per 100 kilometers, Xiang Dihai, a director at the department of Economic Construction at the Ministry of Finance, said in an interview today in Tianjin. The current threshhold is 6.9 liters per 100 kilometers. ..." From: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-...rgy-saving-cars-government-official-says.html

I.e. to qualify for $470.50 now must get better than 44.83 mpg. This seems like a more intelligent standard than the US's which is not concerned with MPG but with installed battery capacity in KWHs. I suspect GM's lobbyist had a lot to do with that. I.e. the Volt has just the required battery capacity but can get low mpg if used for long trips.

The Nissan Leaf is all electric. Does anyone know if it would meet Chinese standards for subsidy? I.e. Get about 45mpg with the energy used at a coal power plant for full charge converted to gallons of gas but increased by ~25% to represent the losses in electrical distribution system, the AC to DC conversion and the battery charge / dis charge loses. Likewise the energy in a gallon of gas must be reduced by about 60% as 40% is about all that a very efficient IC engine car can deliver as work done at the turning wheels.

I.e. doing conversion to mpg for an all electric car is complex, but surely a Google search should produce results in which this is done well.

 

OK.

Now it appears that we can make a serious dent in global climate change (in 10 - 20 years) by reducing carbon particulates. Going urban commuter - all electric and addressing the particulate problem point-source (i.e. coal - fired electricity - generating power plants) seems to make sense.

Additionally, clean up "clean diesel".

That is my $0.02 ATM.

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Why do you think that? They radiate IR 24 hours /day much more intensely than the same mass of nearby air. (They radiate the full IR spectrum of a "black body" not just a few bands in it.)

Particles absorb sunlight on annual average only half a day, and most of that sunlight was destine to be absorbed, at least when it gets to zero altitude. I don't know, have not searched, but with the physic I know, I would guess that at least 10 times more IR energy is radiated into space per gm of tiny carbon particulates than per gram of air.

Probably big particles are less effective than the same mass of very small ones as they would on average be lower in the atmosphere and most of their radiation in molecular absorption bands would be re-absorbed before escaping into space, but that part (about 2/3 I would guess) of their continuum spectrum which is not of the wavelength of molecular absorption and headed up, should escape Earth.

If I am correct, a good smoky diesel bus or truck may almost be "carbon neutral" not literally, but in its effect on global warming. If you smoke you surely are as your energy demands will terminate earlier and that smoke you exhale is all tiny particles (The big ones stay in your lungs.).

SUMMARY: Give out free cigarettes to fight global warming but keep the no-smoking indoors laws. (Like burning sugar cane alcohol, there is no net release of CO2 by burning tobacco or paper.)

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I have posted a plan for carless cities - Computer controlled "autocars" that never need to stop for traffic lights and greatly reduce urban transit times and eliminate accidents. Autocars are like 2D elevators but on wheels in their own (no access) right-of ways. At the "ATM like" terminal in the center of each city block building you punch in your destination and size autocar you want (2,4 or 6 passengers). The "order machine" prints your bar code "key", reduces your pre-paid account balance (peak and non-peak rates/KM) and tells you the color of the auto car that will be waiting for you a few feet away in less than a minute. Like an elevator, you are locked inside but can hit the red button which aborts your scheduled end point and delivers you to the nearest center of building terminal, then unlocks the door for you to leave.

Reason I mention all this now, is mainly to promote my plan for very green cities but also because smoking is only allowed on the top of the a-symmetric pyramidal building's small, square, dog-walk park. (smoke detector alarms and stiff fines everywhere else.) The buildings are "stepped pyramids" so each level's step gets sunlight at least half a day and casts a shadow only for a few hours on adjacent building's lower floors, which are used for factories, shops, restaurants, movies, etc. and essential services facilities, not as residences).

These flat step surfaces of the block building's "roof" have resident determined plants, gardens, small trees etc. From high overhead, the entire city looks like a forest with some small crop land plots - 100% green and the urban air is "forest fresh." Because of the low surface to volume ratio, no energy is needed for heating, not even in Canada's winters. The clean outside air does most of the cooling need in summer. The per capital energy use should be less than 10% of a typical dirty-air, traffic-congested, city.

Below are links to more about my high efficiency cities. Most who commute do so my elevators or bike in the rain roof protected bike only grid which is over the autocar network. The covered walk ways are over the bike grid and its roof is limited growth (never cut) grass. Of course there are pre-"wired" optical data links in each residence so many work from home, but go to the lower level's bars, night clubs, exercise gyms, pool /sana etc. at the end of their work day to relax or for social life ("she ing" or "he ing").


First (late 2008) post about efficient cities is at: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2084856&postcount=24 with this ending:

SUMMARY: Once transportation (including bike paths and separate walkways that are both car free and rain free), is safer, cheaper, faster, and maintaince free to the user with only monthly bills, automatically deducted from your bank if so authorized;And every one’s daily needs, including parks, recreation, exercise facilities, food and other stores and most jobs are only an elevator ride and/or less than a block's walk away, living in a quite, fume-free, green city can be very safe, pleasant, and economical - both in monetary terms and environmental costs.

Later about autocars: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2228529&postcount=74
Later about buildings etc.: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2228211&postcount=71

 

adaucette's gone nothing on this. :m:

 

"... Hitachi Metals, which accounts for 45% of the global market for such {rare Earth} magnets, appears determined to move production out of Japan.

Hitachi, if it goes ahead, will be following Showa Denko, which announced in June that it would increase by 50% its output in China of alloys used in magnets for hybrids. “Japanese production is moving to China faster than I’ve ever seen in the past,” said Constantine Karayannopoulos, the chief executive of a company in the industry. “We may be witnessing a fundamental restructuring of the global rare earth supply chain.” ..." From: http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonc...-off-stunning-caper/?partner=daily_newsletter

Billy T comment: Sometimes China simply buys Western companies for their technology. Sometimes China only allows access to their vast and growing markets if western companies form joint ventures with production (and job creation) in China. In this case, China is gaining jobs and new global products by it fortunate position as owner of 97% of the world's production of Rare Earths.

Note that Hitachi, etc. can move production plant to China faster than for example MolyCorp can reopen and old mine which was closed because of radioactive release contamination and cheaper Rare Earths from China. With much lower labor cost than the US to make Rare Earth magnets, etc. in China, there will be little demand for US produced Rare Earths. I.e. this time around, China will export Rare Earth magnets, etc., cheaper than they can be made in the US.

China knows how to play "economic hard ball", create jobs in China, and does it well. Don't buy stock in MolyCorp - it is already much too over priced, with new* production from the mine years away (if ever) and will have no buyers for it more expensive production as the main producers of Rare Earth magnets, etc. will be in China.

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* They have some old ore above ground which they plan to start refining, but may find there are no buyers for it except the DoD which will be willing to over pay with the tax payer's money. Even if DoD does, who is going to make it into magnets, etc.? China has the US over a barrel and not just because they hold 1.47 Trillion in Treasury promises.

 

I saw the waste from the San Onofre reactor being loaded onto a truck the other day. It was a load of waste equivalent to full power reactor operation for two years - and it fit in one cask on one truck. That's a lot of charged cars for one truckload of waste.

 

I explained, with even mathematical proof, in post here: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2811909&postcount=176

Why /how GWB’s tax reductions on the very rich are destroying the middle class in the US, but at least we can watch the super rich enjoy their latest toys:

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At just under $400,000 this Lamborghini is a steal!.

The mid-engine, 6.5- liter, V-12 powerplant puts out 691 horsepower and 509 pound- feet of torque and rockets to 60 mph in 2.8 seconds.

PS – When the car looks that good, a gorgeous girl standing next to it in sales room is not needed. (I think that's how they kept the price just under $400K.

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