Re: EV/Hybrid Survey

["Peter VanDerWal" <peter_v@primenet.com>]

>>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.
>


I have a couple cordless drills, the first one only lasted about 3 years
befor the batteries quit.  I guess you could call it mainenance free since
there is now way to replace the defective batteries (not without spending
more than it cost me for a new drill).

His statement was that EV don't need maintenance, which is bull.  Even a
commercially built EV requires maintenance, just not a lot of it.


>>  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.
>


Sorry late night, I ment 100,000 miles before it's first scheduled tune-up.
I'm still waiting to see if any commerciall built EV that can go 100,000
miles before it needs a batttery replacement (which incidently will cost a
lot more than a tune up).

>>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.
>


I'm quite anxious to see how well this works out for David. I've always
thought that NiCads are the best battery technology currently available, of
course it will likely be 10 years or so before we find out how well they
worked out for him :-)
I'm also waiting to see how well these NiMH batteries they are putting in
the new EV1s will work out.


>>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?
>


True but in most parts of the country it's hard to drive on EV on any of
those sources of power.  I can't remember what the current figure is, but
isn't something like 75% of our electricity produced by burning fossile
fuels?  And that's just for todays demands, if EVs become more popular they
are going to have to build more power plants, do you really think they are
going to damn up more rivers?

>>>> 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.


As I read the question it was asking only about the vehicles exhaust.

>>
>>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.


What is complete incorrect?  While I'm aware that EVs powered by fossil
fuels are about 10% more efficient than a standard ICE, I haven't seen any
PROOF that Hybrids can't be more efficient than EVs when both run on fossil
fuels.

Think about it, the power company's generators are about 40% efficient at
converting fuel to electricity.  There is no real reason why the generator
in an hybrid can't run close to that figure.  A standard ICE doesn't
because it almost never runs at it's maximum efficiency, a good hybrid can
be designed to always run at max efficiency.

With a Hybrid you eliminate the transmission losses (7%?), charger losses
(10-30%), battery storage losses (10-30%), and the complete loss of all
energy used for battery equalization. You also reduce the mass of the
vehicle since it needs a much smaller battery pack (less weight = less
energy to move).
I haven't seen any study that shows how far an EV goes on 1 gallon of fuel
burned at the power plant (soembody have this handy?) but hybrids are
already getting over 65 mpg (in a rather large car) and they are talking 80
to 100 miles soon.


>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.
>


But EVs ARE currently dependant on fossile fuels; if you don't happen to
live on the east or west coast.  The only river near where I live is the
San Pedro and that's barely a creek (you can jump acrost it in places).
I'm not aware of any geothermal power generators around here, the wind
isn't constant enought to be any value and solar power costs two much.
When I plug in my EV here it IS running on fossil fuels.
Granted it doesn't have to run on fossil fuels, I could quit the military
and move, but around here it does run on fossil fuels.

Hybrids are not completely dependant on fossil fuels, they can run on
renewable fuels: methane, alcohol and used vegitable oil to name just a
few.

I'll stick to my statement: hybrids will soon be more efficient and less
polutting EVs that run on fossil fuel power plants.

Granted some people in the US are lucky enough to get electricity from
clean renewable energy sources, however; most of the country doesn't.  So
that fact that their EV COULD run on renewable power is (for them) moot.