EVcast #76: Interview with Professor Andy Frank

Bo,
    Thanks so much for bringing Andy Frank on the show.  What an excellent guest.
John C. Briggs

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Some comments regarding Andy Frank interview.

1) He claimed power plants to be 1 MW in size, and that 250 KW EV feed would be 1/4 of a power plant.  Most power plants are 1000 MW.  Generally you need 1000 MW plant  for 1 million people.

2) Furthermore, a shopping center or an EV gas station could easily add a flywheel or ultracap system to provide a short burst of energy to fill any EV car quickly 1 second if need be.  A shopping mall could easily supply energy to fill an EV very quickly without flywheels or ultracap.  Furthermore the electric kiosk guest you had on earlier claimed he could supply rather high amperage and volts.

3) Intel and many other companies have developed ways to transmit power wirelessly.  Although present systems can only supply 100 watts.  Potentially these could be installed on freeways to charge your car at high speeds.

4) He claimed the Tesla would lose 50 miles in range going from 0 to 70.

1/2mv^2 equals kinetic energy

tesla weight 1220 kg

speed 31.5 m/s (70 mph)

3600000 J = 1 kw-hr

engine operates 90% efficient at normal acceleration, 80% max.

210 W-hr to get up to speed

= 168 W-hr stored in kinetic energy

The battery pack of tesla is 53 kw-hr.  To get Tesla up to speed would take up 0.40% of the battery pack and most of the energy would be recovered while coasting, slowing down, or regenerative braking.

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   I don't really understand the physics of rapid charge claims.  My home has 200 Amp ×240 Voltage service.  That should be 48 KW.  So if the Telsa battery is 53 KWH, it would take

    53 KWH/48KW = 1.1 hours

Unless I misunderstand, this is the SHORTEST time possible without blowing out the mains in the house.  It assumes that I don't use electricity for anything else in the house and that the batteries don't have a meltdown.

    Perhaps a more reasonable house circuit would be 30 Amp × 240 Volts = 7.2 KW, so the charging time would be

      53KWH/7.2KW = 7.4 hours

So I am a little mystified when people talk about 10 minute "rapid charge" or "pulse charge". 

  If anyone has any information please let me know.

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I think Dr. Frank is partially right- fast charging is not a viable option now- but it will be- this is an engineering issue more than it is imposible to do. Or, if the promise of EESTROR comes to fruition, another posibility is to have a second EESU at home that you slowly charge, and then quick-charge your car from that.  From here you can envision service stations with a similar setup, but on a larger scale.  This may make quick-charging a vehicle a more viable option in the near term.  But I do admire the way Dr. Frank is trying to practically address the issue now.  I liked his explanation on why the gas engine will kick in above 60mph, since at that point electricity consumption get much higher- so you save the electicity for more efficient use, and therefore extend the overall range of the all-electric use.

Efficient drivetrains inc at   http://www.efficientdrivetrains.com/
and his other mentioned link is:   http://profplugin.com/

And, just as a side note- for a home that uses neither wood or coal 2x4's, at least externally, and can withstand tornado force winds and is more energy efficient:   http://static.monolithic.com/

Okay- technically, motorcycles are vehicles, but socially, vehicles usually refer to cars, to the exclusion of motorcycles.  And I find motorcycles easier to drive than scooters- they have better ballance and handling.

And lastly, CFL's wont' have the mercury replaced- eventually CFL's will be replaced by LED's;-)

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I think when they talk about quick charge, they mean on the road and not at home.  You are driving across country and want to fill up.  You want to pull into a quick charge station and charge the car in the quickest time possible.

At home generally you don't care so a 7 hour charge is fine while you sleep.

Early adopters of EVs will charge mainly at home.

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OK, sound the conspiracy alert on me!  I’m not buying what he is selling.  If Andy’s goal truly is to displace gas with electric, then why was he discounting proven EV technology while at the same time incorporating it into his hybrid cars?  The Volt is truly superior to a parallel hybrid (plug-in or not) in displacing gas usage.  I felt he was more interested in protecting the patents and the business he’s pushing than getting the best vehicles to the market.

Plug-in hybrids are a nice bridge to the ultimate goal of pure EVs powered by solar energy.  Step one was the parallel hybrid like the Pruis.  Step two is the range extended EV (series hybrid) like the Volt.  Step three will be some form of EV once the battery technology and charging technology improves.  In my opinion, GM is going down the correct path and will be way ahead of everyone else regarding EV drive trains as a result.  The Volt is already the ‘plug-in Prius’ killer in my mind.

The main reason that I desire an EV is to be independent of gasoline and the supply issues.  A parallel hybrid, as he notes, reduces my consumption but still REQUIRES me to use gasoline.  If a hurricane, disaster, or political events interrupt the gasoline supply, I can still drive an EV around without worry.  His approach is useless to me.

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Fred,
   It is not really a conspiracy issue, you just don't agree with Andy Frank.

   I too had trouble with some of the things he was saying.

   One issue that I had was the idea that hybrids need to use gasoline at high speeds.  This has certainly been the case with the Prius, but I don't know if it will always be needed.

   I think the issue is that you might design a hybrid with a smaller electric motor and rely on the gasoline motor to provide additional torque when needed (acceleration, or high speed).  That might be a reasonable design tradeoff, but I don't know that it is necessary.

   We have already seen many EVs with sufficient torque to perform well without gasoline engines, so I don't see the need to turn on the gas engine at high speed.

    I have been trying to understand the PHEV versus EV debate as a design issue.  I think this is mostly economic.  Let me pull some numbers out of the air to start the discussion

   $10,000 for a car shell with electric motor (no battery, no ICE engine)
   $10,000 for a battery that gets you 50 miles
     $5,000 for a gas engine that can be used to charge the batteries to get 400 miles

The numbers are a SWAG so feel free to critize.  But I am trying to make a point 

  Now let's build some cars

   $20,000 EV     with  50 miles range
   $60,000 EV     with 250 miles range
   $25,000 PHEV with 450 mile range (50 electric, 400 gas)

With these madeup numbers, we can see the basic point.  It is really expensive to get long range from an EV.  A PHEV is much more affordable, and still has superior range.  I think this is the reason GM is building the Volt as a PHEV (E-REV).

   So how do we get to EVs in the future.  Well it all comes from cheaper batteries. Oh, did I mention that the EV1 lacked suitable batteries.  This shows why they were not suitable.

Later
John C. Briggs

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John,

I do agree with your math and I can see why GM chose the path they are taking with the Volt.  The #1 issue with EVs is the range and GM wanted that issue off of the table. 

We also agree that EVs are easiliy capable of highway speeds.  The best use of the ICE is for generating electricity rather than powering the car.  It is also strange that Honda isn't making a Volt competitor.  Honda has lots of experience with cars and generators!

I will just be glad when all of these cars make it to the market.  They will just get better and better once they start making them. 

Just as an FYI.  I do like the Prius.  I do travel and rent cars from Avis.  I found that the same 75 miles a week I was driving took 1/2 the gas when I rented a Prius vs ANY other model.  I was shocked that it really did cut my gas usage in 1/2.  Being the idealist that I am though, I do think the Volt will be one step better since I could go the whole week without gas by plugging the Volt in at night (75 miles total for the week driving to the office - assuming I plugged in at night).

-Fred

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Fred,

   I am convinced that GM has the right formula with the Volt.  I just hope they can get it to the market at a reasonable price like $30,000.

    Being a Prius owner, I am convinced that these vehicles (Prius) are valuable.  They save the owner a lot on gas which is very noticable.  But the million Priuses on the road have saved a lot of pollution as well, which is harder to notice.  

   So even though EV's have the alure of having no emissions, until they are sold in large numbers like the Prius, they are not doing much good.  For today, the Prius is the environmental champ.

Later

John C. Briggs

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