Re: EV/Hybrid Survey

[Bill Dube <billdube@killacycle.com>]

At 11:19 PM 10/30/99 -0400, you wrote:
>>        An EV is nuisance free, clean, simple, silent and fun. It needs no
>>maintanence and can't leak or pollute. A hybrid is just like any other
>>gas-powered car.
>
>
>Rubish!  Quick show of hands, how many people have an EV that is truely
>nuisance free and never needs maintenance.  Nobody?  that's what I thought.

	Homebuilt EVs are starkly different from properly engineered OEM EVs. A
properly engineered EV should be as maintenance free as a cordless drill.

>
>Lower maintenance perhaps, as long as you use sealed batteries that never
>need to be watered.  Not to mention brakes, bearings, suspention, tires,
>brushes and periodically replacing 1/2 ton of batteries.   Also a lot of
>ICEs are being built that don't need maintenance for 100,000 miles,

	There are no vehicles (aside from spacecraft) that can go this distance
without maintenance. They have indeed reduced the maintenance on ICE cars
to intervals of 20,000 miles (give or take.) Most of the maintenance items
that must be performed at 20,000 miles or 50,000 miles are directly
associated with the fact that there is an ICE on board. Eliminate the ICE
and it would be quite straightforward to build a car that required
maintenance only every 100,000 miles.

>How
>many EVs can go that far without replacing the batteries a few times?

	It depends on the type of battery. I'm quite envious of David Roden's
NiCad project. If all goes as planned, David won't have to replace his
batteries for 150,000 miles. It also looks like these NiCads will be
cheaper in the long run than lead-acid batteries. 

	If he were so inclined, I'll bet he could rig an automatic watering system
that would top off the batteries when he drove the car in the rain. :^D

>
>While EVs can be pretty quite, I've heard several EVs that make more noise
>than my ICE Escort does.
>
>Also some EVs DO pollute, they just don't do it in the same neiborhood as
>they drive in (powerplant smoke stacks).

	Hard to run your ICE car on wind power or a hydro-electric power plant.
Geo-thermal power for an ICE would be a bit difficult to pull off, don't
you think?

>
>I'm not knocking EVs, I love them, I just wish folks would state the facts
>as they ARE not as they'd like them to be.

	Home-built EVs are often not as well-engineered as they could be. Also,
they are often built on a shoestring budget. At present, they mostly serve
as primordial soup from which the EVs of the future will evolve. No
individual home-built will be perfect in function and form, but each
contributes to the EV "gene pool" in its own way.

>>> 4)  Do hybrid vehicles stop all pollution eminating from exhaust?
>>
>>        If they are fuel cell based, or some other non-combustion
>>power source then yes.
>>>
>
>
>FWIW fuel cells emit water.  As I recall there are some combustion type
>fuels/engines that also only produce water.

	Ah, but you are forgetting the CO2. Investigate how hydrogen is produced
commercially and you will discover the problem. 
>
>P.S.  With the way hybrids are going it looks likely that they will produce
>LESS total pollution than an EV drawing power from a electric company
>burning fossil fuels.

	This is completely incorrect. This has been proven over and over again.
Also, EV's are not at all dependant on fossil fuels. There is a great
variety of way to make electricity.  Hybrids (of today) are completely
dependant on fossil fuels. 


Bill Dube'  billdube@killacycle.com
check my website at:
http://www.killacycle.com