Electric cars are a pipe dream

Scientists have actually come up with a concept car that runs completely on water! Unfortunately it can't be any kind of water, like from the tap, it has to be from the Gulf.


:roflmao:
 
Finally we got to know the real reason for invading Afghanistan:

"Afghanistan is sitting on mineral resources worth $1 trillion and could become one of the world’s most important mining centres, the Pentagon announced yesterday, as it tried to drum up foreign investment and wean the country off the opium trade.

A Pentagon memo predicted that the country could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium” — a metal that is a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and mobile phones."

Although they could be lying:

"The Pentagon estimate was questioned by geologists and mining experts, who said that it was based on old and incomplete data and did not take into account security and infrastructure problems.

Two senior geologists working in Afghanistan also said that they were unaware of any proven deposits of lithium."
 
"Reinventing the Automobile" is a pertinent recently-published book about personal urban mobility for the 21st century, by William J Mitchell, Chris Borroni-Bird and Lawrence D Burns. It sets out four main ideas:


- "Base the underlying design principles on electric-drive and wireless communications rather than the internal combustion engine and stand-alone operation

- Develop the Mobility Internet for sharing traffic and travel data

- Integrate electric-drive vehicles with smart electric grids that use clean, renewable energy sources

- Establish dynamically priced markets for electricity, road space, parking space, and shared-use vehicles."


The pictures are of vehicles that look like pods. They make the Smart car look large and would seem unlikely to persuade fat bankers to abandon their Mercs, but that's doubtless not the target market.
 
Ideas,good intentions are worthless without being able to answer: HOW???
 
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...again, I am not terribly interested in general ideas, unless there is a practical description (that actually works!) how to achieve them...

I can make up good ideas like: let's get ride of poverty, or annihilate HIV, but they are worthless without a workable and economic plan...
 
We need to downsize everything, increase efficiency, lighten cars until they weigh less than 500 lbs and separate them from truck and heavy vehicle traffic. The cars of the future will be more like this:

 
Syzygys said:
...again, I am not terribly interested in general ideas, unless there is a practical description (that actually works!) how to achieve them...

I can make up good ideas like: let's get ride of poverty, or annihilate HIV, but they are worthless without a workable and economic plan...
Click to expand...

It is a frustrating business but presumably the Research Vice-President of General Motors (to 2009), and GM's present Director of Advanced Technology Vehicle Concepts, who wrote this book, addressed the "how". They're not numptyheads. They are in active collaboration with the Chinese, a race not noted for timewasting. This is what people commercially are doing on the ground. Say 'Talk to the hand' by all means. I'm not parti pris. Pack a thermos for your long wait for retail perfection. What will you read in the meantime?
 
stratos said:
What will you read in the meantime?
Click to expand...

General McCrystal's memoirs...

Getting back to topic, yesterday I was reading a Car magazine. The new Volt is going to be able to carry 5 people, thus giving up a little range, but on pure battery it can still go 32 miles and 300 miles with ICE....
 
As syzygys has been told many times (so any times, he has threatened to mutiny) we already have an excellent electric car in the form of the Tesla. It is not perfect. Its main fault is high cost, but that will be addressed in the next few years with new models. It also has the problem of a battery pack that will need replacing rather too soon. However, that too will be addressed with newer models.

So what about the internal combustion driven car after more than 100 years intensive development? Does it have faults?

You bet. Foul and polluting exhaust with greenhouse gases. The exhaust is so toxic that it is used as a means of suicide! Requirement to use fossil fuels which is running out. High cost per kilometre for those fuels. High weight. Real problem getting good four wheel control. And so on.

If electric cars and internal combustion vehicles were just starting out in development together today, there would be no doubt that ev woud win - having far fewer serious technical problems. As it is, the evs will need a decade or two to catch up, and then ic cars will be very much on the way out!
 
The Tesla is $100,000!

Electric cars did start their development at the same time as internal combustion engines (in fact before). Take a look:


1921 or 1922. "Detroit Electric car at the State, War and Navy building in Washington
 
Spider

That is true. But those electric cars are less in development than the Model T Ford. There has been the best part of a century with almost no development in electric vehicles, while multiple billions have been spent on developing the internal combustion driven car.

A little time. A little money. A little development and the electric car will catch up and surpass the petrol driven, poison emitting behemoth.
 
Technically it can, but economically, I have doubts that a low-energy future will support an economy where people can afford to drive these cars.
 
Spider

What makes you think our future will be low energy?

Current research is looking at thermal solar power, ocean thermal power, ocean wave power, hot rock geothermal, high altitude wind power, thermal tower power, nuclear fusion power, nuclear fission/fusion hybrid power, uranium pebble nuclear fusion power, new forms of tidal power, new generation solar panels, phytoplankton hydrogen generators, algae biodiesel manufacture etc etc.

Even if just a few of these gel, there will be masses of extra power over and beyond what we have today. Ocean wave power alone can supply the world's needs many times over in theory.

Hell, just a breakthrough in nuclear fusion (timed for 2018) will yield so much electricity that energy will never again be a limiting factor.
 
Skeptical said:
As syzygys has been told many times (so any times, he has threatened to mutiny) we already have an excellent electric car in the form of the Tesla. It is not perfect. Its main fault is high cost, but that will be addressed in the next few years with new models. It also has the problem of a battery pack that will need replacing rather too soon. However, that too will be addressed with newer models.

So what about the internal combustion driven car after more than 100 years intensive development? Does it have faults?

You bet. Foul and polluting exhaust with greenhouse gases. The exhaust is so toxic that it is used as a means of suicide! Requirement to use fossil fuels which is running out. High cost per kilometre for those fuels. High weight. Real problem getting good four wheel control. And so on.

If electric cars and internal combustion vehicles were just starting out in development together today, there would be no doubt that ev woud win - having far fewer serious technical problems. As it is, the evs will need a decade or two to catch up, and then ic cars will be very much on the way out!
Click to expand...

#1 Right on the money,Thanks Skeptical.Of course the EV is in it's infancy and I agree if we had a 100 plus years of R&D with the EV no doubt we would be seeing hundreds of miles for range.(Maybe much more)What's not to understand.Also I'm sure there will be other technologies coming down the line too.
 
Skeptical said:
Spider

What makes you think our future will be low energy?

Current research is looking at thermal solar power, ocean thermal power, ocean wave power, hot rock geothermal, high altitude wind power, thermal tower power, nuclear fusion power, nuclear fission/fusion hybrid power, uranium pebble nuclear fusion power, new forms of tidal power, new generation solar panels, phytoplankton hydrogen generators, algae biodiesel manufacture etc etc.

Even if just a few of these gel, there will be masses of extra power over and beyond what we have today. Ocean wave power alone can supply the world's needs many times over in theory.

Hell, just a breakthrough in nuclear fusion (timed for 2018) will yield so much electricity that energy will never again be a limiting factor.
Click to expand...


Alternative sources will be harder to get, have a higher ratio of energy used to energy extracted, be less accessible, less reliable, and contain less energy density. Technology isn't the same thing as energy. We will use alternative energy, but it won't be the same. Fusion is still a horribly expensive proposition.
 
Spider

All new technologies are expensive. Time brings down the cost. I anticipate that nuclear fusion, if and when it is more developed, will be energy intensive and very cheap.

Hot rock geothermal is very energy intensive also. The capital cost of development will be high, but running costs per unit electricity generated will be very low.

And so on.
 
Why don't people consider why we need all this energy? Isn't it just the result of having so much cheap energy for so long in the first place?
 
One of the most consistent trends of the 20th to 21st century is the increasing demand for energy. As time goes by, we get better and better at conserving energy, with electrical gizmos that become more and more efficient. However, there are more and more gizmos. If you take into account electric cars, and the use of electricity in manufacturing, you can see that more electricity will be required, in spite of the improved efficiencies.

It is also true that the ready supply of abundant energy is one of the drivers of improvements to everyone's life style, and a way to lift poorer peoples out of poverty.

Personally, I think the mid to late 21st century will be characterised by much more abundant energy than the present. I think we have yet barely scratched the surface in developing better energy systems.
 
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