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January 2009 Posts
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Nobody likes parodies.
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We have a Milage Tax in New Zealand called Road User Charges which applies to electric vehicles as there's no way the government can tax them. Our new government however has pledged to remove this tax for electric vehicles by June (luckily one of the MPs has a Mitsubishi EV on order). Good news for EVers in NZ that's for sure.
The US Army has dropped the GEM? I'm curious why they trialled them in the first place. I mean where in combat could you use one? Hang, on a minute. I get it, I can see the army's plan: Imagine 30 camoflaged GEMs crossing the border into Iraq - Al Qaeda would have laughed themselves to death; ending the war right there.
Crikey. Did that caller really get offended by a comedic parody? I thought it was halarious. I guess there's always someone somewhere who will take everything seriously.
Argh! I missed the live podcast by about 20 seconds!
My Eestor conspiracy theory - they come out with the unit in 2009 but it's super expensive and only Lockheed can afford to use it, for military applications.
While nowhere as advanced as the Eestor claims - ultracapacitors are taking steps forward- from Green Car Congress
FDK announced its EneCapTen lithium-ion capacitor in 2007. The EneCapTen performs well under high temperatures (up to 80 °C); offers a maximum cell voltage of 4.0V; maximum capacitance of 2,000F; and an energy density of up to 25 Wh/L (14 Wh/kg)—3-4 times that of FDK’s older electric double-layer capacitor (EDLC).
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009/01/fdk-to-begin-ma.html#more
that's little better than half the energy density as a Lead Acid battery and there is a link to another company which claims a capacitor with the same energy density as a Lead acid battery- you combine these high energy density/power density capacitors with a high energy density battery like, thin film lithium-and you could create a very Eestor like performance abet in a more complicated system
BillBerggren JEOL Supercaps 30 wH/kg http://www.jeol.com/NEWSEVENTS/PressReleases/tabid/521/newsid901/122/Premlisreg-Supercapacitors/Default.aspx
Interesting article in American Spectator
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/01/06/electric-cars-and-economics-10
Even the crtics of EVs are admitting that the work. The cost... well that is another matter.
Some things that article failed to mention- many of the early autos, gas and electric, went for more than double the average mans yearly salary or around $100,000 in today’s money- and they had lots of issues, catching fire, breaking your arm when cranking them to start and so on- but they did solve a pollution problem which back then was horse poop everywhere and the flies that went with it- The only intrinsically expensive thing on a electric car is the battery pack the other costs come because of low production numbers but that isn’t just a characteristic of electric cars, if these small companies built ICEs cars from scratch they would likely cost 2-3 times what large automotive companies could produce them for. If the cost per Kwh can be lowered and the economics of mass production be brought to bear then I see no reason why there would have to be large price differenced between electric and ICE cars. The article also failed to mention that an electric car should have less maintenance cost than an ICE car, no oil changes, no radiator flushes, no tune ups, an electric motor is pretty simple.
William, I was going to jump on the article too for the issues of low-volume versus high-volume production. However, I think his point about the cost is valid now and will be for the foreseable future.
Currently, I think GM has the right answer with the Volt by using a relatively small battery (16KWH) rather than a large battery (53KWH). The economics of large batteries maybe bad for a very long time to come.
On the maintenance issues with EVs, I think this point is often overstressed. I have a Toyota Corolla (ICE) with 80,000 miles on it and aside from changing the oil and rotating the tires, there has been no maintainance.
I think reliability has more to do with good design and manufacturing rather than whether the vehicle is ICE or EV. In principle, EVs should be more reliable, in practice, the auto industry has done an amazing job with the reliability of the ICE.
For me, people will likely purchase EV's for other reasons than economics. The economic argument for EVs (often made by EV enthusists) is very weak. If you are into the technology, or interested in environment, or national security, then EVs make sense. But a pure economic argument seems unreasonable.
LaterJohn C. Briggs
I agree that for each individual the economic incentive for an EV is weak now- but if each individual had the choice of building the road and sidewalk in front of their house we still be driving or walking on packed dirt. How economical is the war in Iraq or Homeland security or sending a man on the Moon I’d say not very - and I say if you did a cost/ benefit analysis of green energy production/energy independence It’d be many fold better than the operations I mentioned. I always laugh when they can spend 50 mil on each fighter Jet but act like the 10million they put up for green energy is a big investment. We can do anything we want we just have to have the will to do it and don’t forget the hidden costs like having a foreign policy that has as one of its tenets the tacit control of the middle east and central Asia that’s a big expense.I do agree with you that the series Hybrid is the why to go for now- but I like the external burning engines Like the Stirling and Cyclone engines better than an ICE as they can burn a wide range of fuels including strait vegetable oil- imagine getting your electrical energy cheap and your range extender fuel for maybe free. Also I like to see some of the concepts of the Aptera or the Buckminister Fuller Dymaxion car be incorporated in new designs while the strains of Aerodynamics often reduce usable interior space - the small size of the range extender, versatility of the electric motor, and module nature of the energy storage system should allow more floor space.
I like the toyota concept on building their electric powered vehicles. They had done a good job on modifying and improving toyota parts to be able to fit the requirements of an electric vehicle.
