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[What's Burning?]

I saw a Fisker Karma today. I was a few cars back and tried like crazy to get side by side to take a good look at it but they are very fast off the line! My first performance EV sighting so I figured I'd start a thread of all things EV, you know the EVs we'd be interested in. You guys have any up close or personal experiences?

[stonemonkey]

Heh, sort of. I was walking home in the pouring rain and noticed a cable coming out of a 4th floor window, several extension leads plugged together with plastic bags wrapped around the connections and was wondering what it was all about. Got a bit closer and saw it was a Nissan leaf plugged in.

I don't know about this, it's bad enough trying to keep phones/cameras etc. charged up and inconvinient when they're not so what's it going to be like with your car?

[myownalias]

Electric cars are good idea in principle and saves the planet and all that good stuff but charging times and range will always be a problem; until fast recharge sockets are available at every fuel station; it's going to be of limited appeal. If you need to own a fossil fuel based car for those longer journeys, it makes electric cars redundant. The other question is charging for 12 hours every night really much cheaper than putting fuel in a small city car (per mile)?

[darwin dali]

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2952&p=35182&hilit=Fisker#p35182

[darwin dali]

Electric cars are good idea in principle and saves the planet and all that good stuff but charging times and range will always be a problem; until fast recharge sockets are available at every fuel station; it's going to be of limited appeal. If you need to own a fossil fuel based car for those longer journeys, it makes electric cars redundant. The other question is charging for 12 hours every night really much cheaper than putting fuel in a small city car (per mile)?

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) are probably the mid-term solution - example: Chevy Volt. Plug in and drive 35 miles on electric, after that the backup combustion engine kicks in to run a generator and extend the range to 300 miles.

[myownalias]

Electric cars are good idea in principle and saves the planet and all that good stuff but charging times and range will always be a problem; until fast recharge sockets are available at every fuel station; it's going to be of limited appeal. If you need to own a fossil fuel based car for those longer journeys, it makes electric cars redundant. The other question is charging for 12 hours every night really much cheaper than putting fuel in a small city car (per mile)?

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) are probably the mid-term solution - example: Chevy Volt. Plug in and drive 35 miles on electric, after that the backup combustion engine kicks in to run a generator and extend the range to 300 miles.

What would be an interesting solution would be solar powered electric; not sure about the technicalities of it, how much of the car would have have to be covered in solar cells to power a small electric motor etc? I know that the Prius uses a solar cell on the roof to power the heat & A/C to keep the car cool or warm when your not in it!

[What's Burning?]

The Fisker does that as well with the solar panels but they're for power not just accesories.

IMO electric has its place but it's not for touring cars. Efficient small city vehicles where rapid charge stations can be located safely and in large numbers.

What we need is hidrogen fuel cells... those are the solution for long distance travel but I think we won't see that technology used in earnest until fossil fuels price themselves out of the world stage.

I know these threads will always wind up talking about the technology rather than the cars, but this and the Tesla doing sub six second zero to 60 times is pretty damned impressive and fun.

[Jabberwocky]

Why not have a diesel electric like a railway train. A combustion engine running at a constant speed is much less thirsty. use that to charge the battery bank, and then every one wins. good economy, less fossil fuels used, and electric.

no one really cares about the disposal of the uranium rods in the power station, or the hazard that the lead acid batteries cause anyway.

[myownalias]

Why not have a diesel electric like a railway train. A combustion engine running at a constant speed is much less thirsty. use that to charge the battery bank, and then every one wins. good economy, less fossil fuels used, and electric.

Interesting; but what sort or rev range would it constantly have to run at to constantly power an electric motor? If I drive conservatively, my rev counter never goes over 2500rpm, and on a highway at 70mph, it sits at about 1800rpm. If the diesel motor runs about 2000rpm to power/charge the electric motor, I don't see where the saving are, you might as well drive a small diesel car.

[stonemonkey]

Why not have a diesel electric like a railway train. A combustion engine running at a constant speed is much less thirsty. use that to charge the battery bank, and then every one wins. good economy, less fossil fuels used, and electric.

Didn't they make something like that on top gear?

In my opinion it's a much better idea than all electric that has to be charged from a socket but it could come down to how efficiently the mechanical energy is converted to electrical, stored, and turned back into mechanical. There was the Jaguar concept with turbines for the same purpose too. But there's also work on hydrocarbon fuel cells.

[1Lemon]

no one really cares about the disposal of the uranium rods in the power station, or the hazard that the lead acid batteries cause anyway.

By jove I think you've solved it! NUCLEAR POWERED CARS!

[Jabberwocky]

http://www.electric-cars-are-for-girls. ... -need.html

Reading that I sort of get the impression that as long as your generator produces slightly more power than it needs at cruising speed (which it says is very little) then it will be storing energy for the next burst of acceleration. Think how lightly you can put you foot on the throttle at motorway speeds to maintain speed. that is how much power you need to produce.

http://www.hyundai-generators.co.uk/bes ... rod_id=471

says up to 2lr of fuel an hour

[Jabberwocky]

no one really cares about the disposal of the uranium rods in the power station, or the hazard that the lead acid batteries cause anyway.

By jove I think you've solved it! NUCLEAR POWERED CARS!

it would be OK until you crashed or the vehicle was poorly serviced. also I would imagine getting rid of the heat could be an issue.

[myownalias]

Talking of Top Gear; they did some research and said that if you did use a fast charge stations, it would reduce the life of your batteries significantly and are expensive to replace, which in my view is another black mark against electric cars. I think until higher capacity batteries (without being physically larger) that can be fast charged without damage become available, electric is no use except for a sub 50 mile commute to work and back.

[stonemonkey]

http://www.electric-cars-are-for-girls.com/how-much-power-does-an-electric-car-motor-need.html

Reading that I sort of get the impression that as long as your generator produces slightly more power than it needs at cruising speed (which it says is very little) then it will be storing energy for the next burst of acceleration. Think how lightly you can put you foot on the throttle at motorway speeds to maintain speed. that is how much power you need to produce.

http://www.hyundai-generators.co.uk/bes ... rod_id=471

says up to 2lr of fuel an hour

The recomendation in the first link says 120V at 500A which is 60KW, that generator is 5KW.