Chevy Volt
07-10-2008, 01:28 PM
#27
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The internal combustion engine isn't going to go away any time soon. At some point all cars will be series hybrids. for most ranges batteries will be the primary power source. For longer distances you need a range extender which is where the internal combustion engine comes into play. In other uses a performance car may be one that still uses electric motors at the wheels, and power from batteries, but additional power also comes from a larger internal combustion engine. You will probably always have a need for an internal combustion engine.
The wheel motors will be the end and I truly mean the extinction of transmissions from car designs. There will be a point where no internal combustion engine ever mechanically drives the wheels anymore. I know some can't picture this and would hate to see it but it's going to happen. Think about your little 220 hp engines. They make that (if you are lucky) at peak rpm and rely on a transmission to get it towards the higher end of the powerband to be useful. Now think about an electric motor. Let's say you had one (or 4) that could be fed with 220 hp with of power. That's going to be damn near 220 hp at all wheel rpms. That would absolutely kick the current systems ***. In fact you could probably do it with near half the power.
I hate to say it but when it comes to comparing current technology to the potential of a series system, no one here drives a "performance car". The bar is going to be raised and current cars by comparison to near future cars will be as antiquated as the Model T is to current cars.
The wheel motors will be the end and I truly mean the extinction of transmissions from car designs. There will be a point where no internal combustion engine ever mechanically drives the wheels anymore. I know some can't picture this and would hate to see it but it's going to happen. Think about your little 220 hp engines. They make that (if you are lucky) at peak rpm and rely on a transmission to get it towards the higher end of the powerband to be useful. Now think about an electric motor. Let's say you had one (or 4) that could be fed with 220 hp with of power. That's going to be damn near 220 hp at all wheel rpms. That would absolutely kick the current systems ***. In fact you could probably do it with near half the power.
I hate to say it but when it comes to comparing current technology to the potential of a series system, no one here drives a "performance car". The bar is going to be raised and current cars by comparison to near future cars will be as antiquated as the Model T is to current cars.
07-10-2008, 01:48 PM
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yeah! lets suck out all of the fun from driving a performance car wohooo. First it was the auto transmissions with their Duacl Clutch thing, next no transmission with electric motor for the win!
hopefully im dead by the time motorsports die as we know them.
hopefully im dead by the time motorsports die as we know them.
07-10-2008, 02:33 PM
#29
hmm... some of the comments are stupid there. People are almost treating it like you're only getting 340 miles out of the same tank that got you 600 miles. It definitely serves it's purpose and eventually, those types of cars will probably compare to today's IC cars... we'll have the fast sporty ones, the one's that are efficient and can drive longer distances, luxury, etc...
07-10-2008, 03:32 PM
#30
I don't understand the negative attitude towards this. Why does your motor have to combust something, why do you need a transmission? I think driving a high-powered electric car can be just as fun. I wonder if horse and carriage owners had the same attitude when the automobile was invented. 
07-10-2008, 04:07 PM
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07-10-2008, 05:45 PM
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The thing about the gas tank shrinkage...argh.
People who won't work in an engineering related discipline are going to have a hard time understanding stuff like this. Somehow, someway, somewhere...there is a cascading effect to all of this. It isn't just the gas tank that's effected.
Let's say you make the tank bigger. Great. Now you have less room for the batteries. Whoops. So now let's redesign the battery pack. Cool, now it's smaller! Uh oh, what's that smell? Now it's overheating. So we need a more complicated cooling system. The radiator for that is going to take up room that we really don't have. Hmm. Let's raise the hood there a bit. Whoops, gained some wind resistance. Now the car is actually less efficient. Whatever can we do?
--Just shrink the gas tank.
People who won't work in an engineering related discipline are going to have a hard time understanding stuff like this. Somehow, someway, somewhere...there is a cascading effect to all of this. It isn't just the gas tank that's effected.
Let's say you make the tank bigger. Great. Now you have less room for the batteries. Whoops. So now let's redesign the battery pack. Cool, now it's smaller! Uh oh, what's that smell? Now it's overheating. So we need a more complicated cooling system. The radiator for that is going to take up room that we really don't have. Hmm. Let's raise the hood there a bit. Whoops, gained some wind resistance. Now the car is actually less efficient. Whatever can we do?
--Just shrink the gas tank.
07-10-2008, 06:15 PM
#33
Well I am sorry but I hate the car, and I hate any other hybrid or electric or anything that does not run on gasoline or diesel. Why? Well because I am a petrolhead. Yes I might be outdated or whatever but a true car enthusiast would never want an electric or hybrid car. Why? Because they suck performance wise, they are not drivers cars. They dont sound like a gasoline engine does they dont feel like one either. I just wish all this speculation that oil is not going to las would go to hell.
One scientist has already proven that oil is a renewable source. It does not come from fossils like the used to think. The earth keeps producing it all the time. I just wish we took our conservative crap off and started drilling in some new places so we could get more oil and get the price down.
just my opinion
One scientist has already proven that oil is a renewable source. It does not come from fossils like the used to think. The earth keeps producing it all the time. I just wish we took our conservative crap off and started drilling in some new places so we could get more oil and get the price down.
just my opinion
you've got to be just stupid to think that the world has an infinite supply of anything (except human stupidity.) the longest renewable power source is the sun and even thats not infinite if you wait long enough. the earth is only so big, it only contains so much, the terrestrial energy sources are finite.
please prove me wrong.
i guess you never heard of the tesla roadster either.
07-10-2008, 06:46 PM
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And the skateboard concept with hub wheels--8 years ago, it sounded like goofy crap they spout off with at car shows all the time. But with the lithium battery advances we've seen just since 2003, it doesn't seem so far fetched.
Some random thoughts:
1) When batteries were crap, hybrids made no sense. Now that they are better, hybrids make more and more sense. As they get really really good (Stanford university has some new tech that may multiply lithium battery range by 10x), then pure electrics make sense.
In other words, I think the hybrid is simply a transitional thing. The same way an amphibian is halfway between fish and lizard.
2) Keeping that in mind, cars in the future will not be 4 cylinder base vs. 6 cylinder sports model. They will be full electric vs. hybrid. The latter will be more expensive and need more maintenance.
But charging a battery is way, way cheaper than buying gas. It's like 70 cents a gallon gas equivalent. Most likely, charging stations will spring up, just because people like a bargain. Once chargers are all over the place, people will start wondering why they are paying $4k more for a generator they never use. At this point, gas engines fade away.
3) There will be a lot more niche car companies.
Today there are niche car companies. They sell kit cars. But they can't really sell assembled cars for two reasons: safety regulations and emissions regulations. They only apply to fully assembled cars of course.
So in the future, the emissions part won't matter--full electrics, right? Startup car companies will only have to worry about safety issues. We're already seeing this with startups like Tesla and Aptera. But with a readily available skateboard concept, just imagine the possibilities. Niche carmakers can start with the appropriate platform, drop a slick looking body on it, tighten up the suspension, and call it a new car. "Body kits" in the future will quite possibly be true entire body kits--not just bumpers and a wing!
4) Low Maintenance.
Electric motors are, broadly speaking, way more reliable than gas engines. You know what's more reliable than an electric motor though? Four electric motors! And easy to service too. Image that a motor goes bad--you still have three others. And since the motor is easily accessed by unbolting a wheel, you can get the bad motor swapped out on your lunch break.
Transmissions? They sure are reliable when you don't use them to begin with. Ditto for transfer cases, brake rotors/calipers, differentials, driveshafts, etc. Just a solid state speed control and batteries, plus the four motors.
5) Would theft be a problem? If someone steals all four wheels, they've effectively stolen your drivetrain.
6) I wonder if unsprung weight would be a problem? Once you use hub motors, I would think that you almost have to get rid of mechanical brakes just to keep the rotating/unsprung weight down.
7) Getting an auto fleet that is largely or entirely electric may be a case of "be careful what you wish for, you may just get it" for governments. With an electric, you can charge up at home. Which means...no gas taxes. Which means that the method of paying for roads has to change.
Prediction: road tolls, and RFID chipping. Gas taxes never made much sense anyway. It's like taxing matches to penalize smokers. As a side effect, tolls can be customized for various areas. Peak useage rates for example would mimic what a privately owned company would do to tame traffic jams.
Speaking of which, I suspect that the feds or at least some states may start auctioning off their roads to private companies, due to insolvency and also to duck the controversy that comes with fitting cars with RFID tracking tags. Surprisingly, environmentalists may end up supporting this, as a means of putting the brakes on suburban sprawl.
8) Design flexibility.
Throw a steel body on your chassis, and you have a cheap car. Throw on a carbon fiber body, and you've got a lightweight but more expensive sports car.
There would be no real need for hoods. Imagine having a car with a hood that's as short as today's midengine cars. Why not put the driver squarely in the middle of the car? Now you've got a car you can sell anywhere in the world without mirroring the interior.
Trucks? Aside from better weight distribution, you could put the cab way up front. Now a 4-door truck with a real bed isn't such a long, unwieldy monster to park. Contractors and welders would have a great source of power. (Then again, battery powered tools are already pretty good. DeWalt's latest 36V lithium batteries are more powerful than their corded brethren, and that's just with today's technology. Corded tools may disappear altogether.)
9) Climate control: Instantly hot heating. A/C with it's own separate motor, so it works even if you're sitting dead still in traffic.
10) Today's high performance cars will seem kind of mundane.
People think of 60's era musclecars are fire breathing monsters, but the sobering fact is, with a few rare exceptions, a lot of them would struggle to keep up with a modern V6 Altima. And that's just a drag race. The gap grows larger for handling and braking of course.
Now imagine a future electric car. It has AWD, but without the mechanical nightmare of complexity. In the future, even your mom's car has AWD. And it's super precise, with each motor talking to the car's computer and being throttled a thousand times a second or whatever. Traction control and antilock braking will be ultraprecise.
Motors can be oversized, with no efficiency penalty. A 400 HP gas engine will get crappy mileage at part throttle, so car companies don't use them in Altimas and Camrys. But electric motors are super efficient across a broad RPM range and a broad throttle range. So, there is no reason to not equip even mundane mom-mobiles with 400 HP motors (aside from the initial cost), even if they are rarely used to their fullest potential. There may be a painful era of adjustment, like we had from 1975~1995, as carmakers adjust to the new technology. But eventually, the new tech overtakes the old.
Now pair this with the next quantum leap in tire technology: tweels. The jump from radials to tweels is kinda like the jump from bias ply to radials. Your mom-mobile can have a smooth quiet ride but still stick like crazy.
Combine that with the incredible potential of electric motors, and even dull mundane cars will put up numbers that are well into sports car territory today--and they'll do it silently, and reliably, with a minimum of fuss, day in/day out.
11) Cars will be too quiet. Carmakers will have to attach noisemakers, probably by law. This will be to protect deer and so forth. Prediction: aftermarket companies will sell electronic modules to change the sound of the noisemaker. You'll be able to choose the sound of a Hemi, or a 3-rotor, or a jet engine, or an Indy car.
Some random thoughts:
1) When batteries were crap, hybrids made no sense. Now that they are better, hybrids make more and more sense. As they get really really good (Stanford university has some new tech that may multiply lithium battery range by 10x), then pure electrics make sense.
In other words, I think the hybrid is simply a transitional thing. The same way an amphibian is halfway between fish and lizard.
2) Keeping that in mind, cars in the future will not be 4 cylinder base vs. 6 cylinder sports model. They will be full electric vs. hybrid. The latter will be more expensive and need more maintenance.
But charging a battery is way, way cheaper than buying gas. It's like 70 cents a gallon gas equivalent. Most likely, charging stations will spring up, just because people like a bargain. Once chargers are all over the place, people will start wondering why they are paying $4k more for a generator they never use. At this point, gas engines fade away.
3) There will be a lot more niche car companies.
Today there are niche car companies. They sell kit cars. But they can't really sell assembled cars for two reasons: safety regulations and emissions regulations. They only apply to fully assembled cars of course.
So in the future, the emissions part won't matter--full electrics, right? Startup car companies will only have to worry about safety issues. We're already seeing this with startups like Tesla and Aptera. But with a readily available skateboard concept, just imagine the possibilities. Niche carmakers can start with the appropriate platform, drop a slick looking body on it, tighten up the suspension, and call it a new car. "Body kits" in the future will quite possibly be true entire body kits--not just bumpers and a wing!
4) Low Maintenance.
Electric motors are, broadly speaking, way more reliable than gas engines. You know what's more reliable than an electric motor though? Four electric motors! And easy to service too. Image that a motor goes bad--you still have three others. And since the motor is easily accessed by unbolting a wheel, you can get the bad motor swapped out on your lunch break.
Transmissions? They sure are reliable when you don't use them to begin with. Ditto for transfer cases, brake rotors/calipers, differentials, driveshafts, etc. Just a solid state speed control and batteries, plus the four motors.
5) Would theft be a problem? If someone steals all four wheels, they've effectively stolen your drivetrain.
6) I wonder if unsprung weight would be a problem? Once you use hub motors, I would think that you almost have to get rid of mechanical brakes just to keep the rotating/unsprung weight down.
7) Getting an auto fleet that is largely or entirely electric may be a case of "be careful what you wish for, you may just get it" for governments. With an electric, you can charge up at home. Which means...no gas taxes. Which means that the method of paying for roads has to change.
Prediction: road tolls, and RFID chipping. Gas taxes never made much sense anyway. It's like taxing matches to penalize smokers. As a side effect, tolls can be customized for various areas. Peak useage rates for example would mimic what a privately owned company would do to tame traffic jams.
Speaking of which, I suspect that the feds or at least some states may start auctioning off their roads to private companies, due to insolvency and also to duck the controversy that comes with fitting cars with RFID tracking tags. Surprisingly, environmentalists may end up supporting this, as a means of putting the brakes on suburban sprawl.
8) Design flexibility.
Throw a steel body on your chassis, and you have a cheap car. Throw on a carbon fiber body, and you've got a lightweight but more expensive sports car.
There would be no real need for hoods. Imagine having a car with a hood that's as short as today's midengine cars. Why not put the driver squarely in the middle of the car? Now you've got a car you can sell anywhere in the world without mirroring the interior.
Trucks? Aside from better weight distribution, you could put the cab way up front. Now a 4-door truck with a real bed isn't such a long, unwieldy monster to park. Contractors and welders would have a great source of power. (Then again, battery powered tools are already pretty good. DeWalt's latest 36V lithium batteries are more powerful than their corded brethren, and that's just with today's technology. Corded tools may disappear altogether.)
9) Climate control: Instantly hot heating. A/C with it's own separate motor, so it works even if you're sitting dead still in traffic.
10) Today's high performance cars will seem kind of mundane.
People think of 60's era musclecars are fire breathing monsters, but the sobering fact is, with a few rare exceptions, a lot of them would struggle to keep up with a modern V6 Altima. And that's just a drag race. The gap grows larger for handling and braking of course.
Now imagine a future electric car. It has AWD, but without the mechanical nightmare of complexity. In the future, even your mom's car has AWD. And it's super precise, with each motor talking to the car's computer and being throttled a thousand times a second or whatever. Traction control and antilock braking will be ultraprecise.
Motors can be oversized, with no efficiency penalty. A 400 HP gas engine will get crappy mileage at part throttle, so car companies don't use them in Altimas and Camrys. But electric motors are super efficient across a broad RPM range and a broad throttle range. So, there is no reason to not equip even mundane mom-mobiles with 400 HP motors (aside from the initial cost), even if they are rarely used to their fullest potential. There may be a painful era of adjustment, like we had from 1975~1995, as carmakers adjust to the new technology. But eventually, the new tech overtakes the old.
Now pair this with the next quantum leap in tire technology: tweels. The jump from radials to tweels is kinda like the jump from bias ply to radials. Your mom-mobile can have a smooth quiet ride but still stick like crazy.
Combine that with the incredible potential of electric motors, and even dull mundane cars will put up numbers that are well into sports car territory today--and they'll do it silently, and reliably, with a minimum of fuss, day in/day out.
11) Cars will be too quiet. Carmakers will have to attach noisemakers, probably by law. This will be to protect deer and so forth. Prediction: aftermarket companies will sell electronic modules to change the sound of the noisemaker. You'll be able to choose the sound of a Hemi, or a 3-rotor, or a jet engine, or an Indy car.
07-10-2008, 06:53 PM
#35
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and a very uninformed and ignorant opinion. please show me where you read that fossil fuels are not made of fossils and that they renew at a rate that is sustainable.
you've got to be just stupid to think that the world has an infinite supply of anything (except human stupidity.) the longest renewable power source is the sun and even thats not infinite if you wait long enough. the earth is only so big, it only contains so much, the terrestrial energy sources are finite.
please prove me wrong.
i guess you never heard of the tesla roadster either.
you've got to be just stupid to think that the world has an infinite supply of anything (except human stupidity.) the longest renewable power source is the sun and even thats not infinite if you wait long enough. the earth is only so big, it only contains so much, the terrestrial energy sources are finite.
please prove me wrong.
i guess you never heard of the tesla roadster either.
The Russians totally reject this theory. In their view, there is no real evidence that oil was ever primordial algae. It only seems that way because of fossil debris. According to this theory, oil is formed deep within the earth's mantle, and leaks to the surface, where it passes through existing fossils and gets contaminated. Thus, it seems like a fossil fuel but isn't.
It's also worth noting that reserves have shrunk in the western world, while the Russians have actually increased their output, and even revived oil fields that had been thought to be long dead. It's also worth noting that scientific consensus has been overturned before--geologists were laughing at the theory of plate tectonics well into the 1960's, even though strong evidence had been around for decades.
I'm not qualified to say either way, of course. Just throwing my .02 out there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiotic_oil
07-10-2008, 07:15 PM
#36
even if oil is naturally regenerating, it's still obvious that consumption is higher than its production.
As for "ruining" performance cars, I'm (partially) in the same boat. I'm one of those that likes the feel of a full manual better than power everything, and I mean brakes, steering transmission, etc. Today, automatics are better and more efficient, not just than before, better than manuals; still it feels less like driving the car. Also just like how some people strongly prefer the sound and feel of carburetors over fuel injection, even though it's just better.
An all electric Formula 1 race would be interesting, though. I could see the drama of the electric rules and the FIA finding everyone cheating using remote controls to turn up power.
As for "ruining" performance cars, I'm (partially) in the same boat. I'm one of those that likes the feel of a full manual better than power everything, and I mean brakes, steering transmission, etc. Today, automatics are better and more efficient, not just than before, better than manuals; still it feels less like driving the car. Also just like how some people strongly prefer the sound and feel of carburetors over fuel injection, even though it's just better.
An all electric Formula 1 race would be interesting, though. I could see the drama of the electric rules and the FIA finding everyone cheating using remote controls to turn up power.
07-10-2008, 07:22 PM
#37
But charging a battery is way, way cheaper than buying gas. It's like 70 cents a gallon gas equivalent. Most likely, charging stations will spring up, just because people like a bargain. Once chargers are all over the place, people will start wondering why they are paying $4k more for a generator they never use. At this point, gas engines fade away.
07-10-2008, 10:46 PM
#38
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Thread Starter
You can charge a battery in 10 minutes. However the faster you charge them the shorter their lifespan is.
As far as unsprung weight, on the link I provided earlier that shows a Mini that PML Flightlink, the maker of hub motors built, they mentioned that after the mechanical brakes of the mini were removed and the hub motors installed, each corner of the suspension only gained 4 lbs of weight!!! That says alot for those motors. That means only 16 lbs was gained total from the electric motors when you factor in the removal of the brakes. Of course you also need to remember the transmission and driveshafts were also removed so now you'll actually come out lighter!
The battery is where the weight is. They used currently expensive Lithium Ion batteries and it weighed a grand total of about 330 lbs or so. For a battery that can run a car, that's light. Definitely lighter than the lead acid batteries that people use now on electric car conversions that easily exceed 1000 lbs and often times far greater.
Their generator is a little 250 cc V-twin 20 hp motor. That's it! The car admittedly does add a little weight over stock after everything is said and done but how many cars out there do you know of that can do 0-60 in 4.5 seconds and get 80 mpg? Keep in mind that's 80 when the generator is running full time. Driving sensibly you can get almost 4 hours of drive time on battery alone. That kills the Volt! This is what the Volt will evolve to over the next 10+ years. Of course if this car wasn't such an extreme performer, I'm sure they could increase the range even further.
The reason they used a Mini to showcase this technology was because it's small. They wanted to show the potential of the technology and prove that even in a small car you can lose no usable space. That's right, they lost NO useable space over stock! The technology is currently expensive but it exists and as it evolves, prices will come down. Volvo is also working on a car right now but it uses this system. That would put them even ahead of GM in thinking which is cool but I think GM understands that you need to change gradually or no one will accept it. Going all the way at first would be a bit too drastic for most to accept.
As far as not being fun, I too love driving a standard. That's all I've ever driven and I hate automatics. However it's not because I am against not shifting. It's because typical automatics don't seem to know when to shift. They also rob too much power compared to manuals. That's no longer true with electrics. The car will be a monster off the line. It'll actually have so much potential that electronics will need to control wheel slip. I'm not speaking of the Volt but rather the series cars of the future. You'll have full power everywhere whether it's from a stop or at freeway speeds and you won't have to wait for the rpms to climb to get them. I don't know about you but that sounds like a whole lot of fun! Imagine how much better you could drive if all you had to do was stop, go, and turn!
I know some doubt it. Some don't like the concept. Some don't think the timing is right. Some don't think you can have a fun car with this setup. That's OK. That's to be expected. However it will happen whether they like it or not. It's only a matter of time. I'm not a betting man but if I was, I'd win this one easily.
As far as unsprung weight, on the link I provided earlier that shows a Mini that PML Flightlink, the maker of hub motors built, they mentioned that after the mechanical brakes of the mini were removed and the hub motors installed, each corner of the suspension only gained 4 lbs of weight!!! That says alot for those motors. That means only 16 lbs was gained total from the electric motors when you factor in the removal of the brakes. Of course you also need to remember the transmission and driveshafts were also removed so now you'll actually come out lighter!
The battery is where the weight is. They used currently expensive Lithium Ion batteries and it weighed a grand total of about 330 lbs or so. For a battery that can run a car, that's light. Definitely lighter than the lead acid batteries that people use now on electric car conversions that easily exceed 1000 lbs and often times far greater.
Their generator is a little 250 cc V-twin 20 hp motor. That's it! The car admittedly does add a little weight over stock after everything is said and done but how many cars out there do you know of that can do 0-60 in 4.5 seconds and get 80 mpg? Keep in mind that's 80 when the generator is running full time. Driving sensibly you can get almost 4 hours of drive time on battery alone. That kills the Volt! This is what the Volt will evolve to over the next 10+ years. Of course if this car wasn't such an extreme performer, I'm sure they could increase the range even further.
The reason they used a Mini to showcase this technology was because it's small. They wanted to show the potential of the technology and prove that even in a small car you can lose no usable space. That's right, they lost NO useable space over stock! The technology is currently expensive but it exists and as it evolves, prices will come down. Volvo is also working on a car right now but it uses this system. That would put them even ahead of GM in thinking which is cool but I think GM understands that you need to change gradually or no one will accept it. Going all the way at first would be a bit too drastic for most to accept.
As far as not being fun, I too love driving a standard. That's all I've ever driven and I hate automatics. However it's not because I am against not shifting. It's because typical automatics don't seem to know when to shift. They also rob too much power compared to manuals. That's no longer true with electrics. The car will be a monster off the line. It'll actually have so much potential that electronics will need to control wheel slip. I'm not speaking of the Volt but rather the series cars of the future. You'll have full power everywhere whether it's from a stop or at freeway speeds and you won't have to wait for the rpms to climb to get them. I don't know about you but that sounds like a whole lot of fun! Imagine how much better you could drive if all you had to do was stop, go, and turn!
I know some doubt it. Some don't like the concept. Some don't think the timing is right. Some don't think you can have a fun car with this setup. That's OK. That's to be expected. However it will happen whether they like it or not. It's only a matter of time. I'm not a betting man but if I was, I'd win this one easily.
07-11-2008, 04:12 AM
#39
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... how many cars out there do you know of that can do 0-60 in 4.5 seconds and get 80 mpg? Keep in mind that's 80 when the generator is running full time. Driving sensibly you can get almost 4 hours of drive time on battery alone. That kills the Volt! This is what the Volt will evolve to over the next 10+ years. Of course if this car wasn't such an extreme performer, I'm sure they could increase the range even further.
... The technology is currently expensive but it exists and as it evolves, prices will come down. Volvo is also working on a car right now but it uses this system. That would put them even ahead of GM in thinking which is cool but I think GM understands that you need to change gradually or no one will accept it. Going all the way at first would be a bit too drastic for most to accept.
...
... The technology is currently expensive but it exists and as it evolves, prices will come down. Volvo is also working on a car right now but it uses this system. That would put them even ahead of GM in thinking which is cool but I think GM understands that you need to change gradually or no one will accept it. Going all the way at first would be a bit too drastic for most to accept.
...
07-11-2008, 08:06 AM
#40
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and a very uninformed and ignorant opinion. please show me where you read that fossil fuels are not made of fossils and that they renew at a rate that is sustainable.
you've got to be just stupid to think that the world has an infinite supply of anything (except human stupidity.) the longest renewable power source is the sun and even thats not infinite if you wait long enough. the earth is only so big, it only contains so much, the terrestrial energy sources are finite.
please prove me wrong.
i guess you never heard of the tesla roadster either.
you've got to be just stupid to think that the world has an infinite supply of anything (except human stupidity.) the longest renewable power source is the sun and even thats not infinite if you wait long enough. the earth is only so big, it only contains so much, the terrestrial energy sources are finite.
please prove me wrong.
i guess you never heard of the tesla roadster either.
And it may be that at the current rate we use more than the earth produces. Even if you dont want to believe that. But more and more things are being done to use alternate fuels. I am in no way against solar cells for houses or using alternate fuels for other reasons. I just done like it in cars because its NOT and WILL NEVER be the same feeling.
And yes I heard of the tesla roadster. And I wouldn't buy one. What is so good about a car that when you accelerate sounds like an RC car and a car that has only 1 gear because they couldnt find a gearbox that wouldnt break. Oh yeah the never ending gear WOHOOO. Yeah dont strat allegations if you dont know. I do read up on a lot of these things and I for one will tell you that as it stands right now electric powered cars seem of no interest to me. I think they should cut fuel consumption in other ways before they touch how cars work. And combustion engines get more and more efficient with the passing of the years. Look at the direct injection porsches, more power and less fuel consumption. They are very efficient.
So I leave you with your ignorance so that you can read up and then you can come back and talk to stupid old me.
07-11-2008, 09:16 AM
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Admittedly people shouldn't have called you stupid as we are all entitled to our opinions. However I am curious why the hatred for something superior? Have you ever driven a powerful electric car? Don't judge the potential based on the current crap attempts at it. I know you think it wouldn't be the same and while true that isn't necessarily a bad thing. No shifting and having only one speed reminds me alot of going to indoor go cart tracks. One speed and fast. No shifting just driving. That's alot of fun. I'd love to have a car that could slam me back in the seat and never fall off of it's powerband which those carts still do. I'm imagining them on steroids. At some point people are going to look back at our cars and not see any fun in them because they are too complex with too little performance much in the same way we'd view a steam powered car today. There weren't many of them though.
07-11-2008, 09:31 AM
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Im not saying it wouldnt be fun. Im just saying that I believe that the feeling that we have now in cars will be totally lost. And that feeling is the thing I like. The throatiness of an exhaust that makes your hair stand up when a car flies past you. What makes one enjoy things are feelings, and cars appeal to a lot of our senses right now. Vibrations that you can feel in your spine, sounds that you can listen to and gasoline and other stuff that you can smell. When you take stuff out from that I think it will deduct from the overall feeling of what motorsports are today. And yes electric cars can be a lot of fun too, but right now as it stands I preferr a gasoline powered car for all the extras I can get.
07-11-2008, 09:43 AM
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And this is my only reservation against electric cars. Batteries have a bit of a ways to go with charging time. I don't see the point if it can't be fully charged within 10 minutes, otherwise going on a roadtrip would mean every charging station would have to be a hotel (capsule hotel?). Then they need to last more than a few years. Additionally there needs to be a standard, but I'm sure every automaker will make their own type.
1) Batteries with enormous range. 1,000 miles or better. So if you had to go cross-country, you'd simply pull in to a dealer and swap batteries. For example, Stanford's new discovery would mean batteries with 10x the range they currently have. A Tesla roadster could go 2200 miles instead of 220. Most likely they'd just put the technology towards reducing the battery size/weight though.
2) Fast charging batteries or ultracaps.
Altairnano is one. They have a pickup that is retrofitted with their batteries, and it can be charged up in 15 minutes. The pack also has been proven to last for 15,000 charge/discharge cycles (!), as opposed to 200~300 for lead-acid. It only goes 125 miles though. Still, that's in a heavy un-aerodynamic brick of a vehicle.
A123's batteries are robust enough to be charged in something like 5~10 minutes, however those are small cells but I guess with the right cooling a larger pack could do it too, most likely.
And then there's EEStor, a company working on a supercapacitor. No one's actually seen this one yet, and some say it can't work. Then again, they've signed a deal with Lockheed Martin.
Being a supercapacitor, it would charge up in minutes, and last for millions of cycles with no loss of capacity. And if it could take a car for 300 miles or so, as they say...it would be the holy grail of energy storage.
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