Why the electric car failed

[Lord_Mofop]

Re: Why the electric car failed

You know this whole electric car scandal reminds me of another scandal.

How car+oil industries covered up the water powered car.

http://www.rateitall.com/i-51202-car...wered-car.aspx

[Manyak]

Re: Why the electric car failed

You mean hydrogen right?

[The Toecutter]

Re: Why the electric car failed

Actually, the 'water powered' car, in which you can supposedly pur a tank of water into a gas tank and run an internal combustion engine using water, violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Electrolysis is about 50% efficient. Splitting that into hydrogen and oxygen and then igniting the mixture results in a net energy loss. If you were to use a bank of batteries to provide the energy to perform electrolysis, you'd basically have a very innefficient electric car which you could do a much better job with a DC motor instead.

[Magus]

Re: Why the electric car failed

Then how did the Lone Gunmen do it?!

[The Toecutter]

Re: Why the electric car failed

Ahh, that was a great show. There was even an episode in which terrorists tried to use a computer to control an airplane and smash it into the World Trade Center...

Too bad that water powered car is fiction. However, even if it were reality, it still doesn't get around the fact that much of the cost and environmental damage associated with the automobile is from the internal combustion engine itself due to all the parts used and all the required maintenance. Many of those parts are simply thrown in a junkyard when they fail due to difficulty to recycle the parts. An internal combustion engine water car does not solve this problem.

An electric car, which is thankfully not fiction, *does* solve this problem. Even lead acid, nickel metal hydride, and lithium ion batteries are near fully recyclable.

[The Toecutter]

Re: Why the electric car failed

Interesting article by Doug Korthof, who I mentioned in my little rant on the first page:

http://baltimorechronicle.com/2005/083005Korthof.shtml

VIEWPOINT:
Why Not Switch to Electric Cars?

by Doug Korthof

We hear a lot of empty talk about attaining energy independence and about reducing our need for overseas imported oil. But absolutely nothing is being done by our oily political leaders.

Yet there is something that people have found they can do, and which bears out the axiom "when the people lead, the leaders follow." There is a small but surprisingly unyielding number of people who adopt the "PV-EV" way of living, using solar Photo-Voltaic ("PV") panels to generate more electricity than they can use and driving a plug-in electric vehicle ("EV") to soak up some of that power. The only impediments to expansion of this small number are the loss of our solar panel industry to foreign companies and the failure of our leaders to make plug-in electric cars available for sale on the open market.

There is more than enough off-peak electricity available to easily allow the transfer of all of our driving miles from gasoline- to electric-powered vehicles. That's an exciting prospect, but for now let's just see how we can eliminate overseas oil imports.

Here's the math in California, which has the figures readily available, and which consumes 12% of the country's gasoline: California uses 280 million gallons of gasoline per week. At the fleet average of 20 miles per gallon ("mpg"), that's 5,600 million miles per week. On an average day, Californians drive 800 million miles burning fuel derived from petroleum.

The RAV4-EV-not even the most efficient EV-gets four miles for each kilowatt-hour ("kWh") of energy it holds. Dividing 800 million daily miles by four miles per kWh means we would need 200 million kWh to convert all miles driven in gasoline-fueled cars to miles powered by electric RAV4-EVs or other, even more efficient electric vehicles.

In California, our installed capacity is 60,000 megawatts and off-peak unused capacity is about 30,000 megawatts for 18 hours (integrating under the curve on the state website, caiso.com), or about 540,000 megawatt-hours. That's 540 million kWh of unused electric capacity per day.

That's more than the 200 million kWh per day it would take to convert ALL oil-fueled miles to electric-powered miles, by a substantial margin, and without building one new power plant.

Even replacing just a fraction, merely 40%, of our oil with off-peak electric power would eliminate the need for all overseas oil imports. Using only Canadian, Mexican, and Alaskan oil, we would be self-sufficient, no longer dependent on the Middle East, Nigeria, Indonesia nor even Columbia and Venezuela. We'd only need 80 million kWh per day to convert 40% of our oil used to electric power, enough to attain energy independence.

That can easily be done without building a single new power plant, even in the high-demand peak summertime period. Running at constant capacity is also more efficient, since big generators wear more quickly when ramped up and down every day. Using off-peak electric would actually improve production efficiencies. And as for pollution, our power plants are 97% cleaner than gasoline. It's a lot easier to control environmental impact of one power plant than one million tailpipes.

If we install rooftop solar power, it gets even easier to attain energy independence. Solar power, distributed throughout the city, provides a backup in case of grid failure, and becomes a helpful adjunct to the grid in meeting peak daytime demand.

Solar power decreases daytime peak usage, making the surplus even bigger. Even a small rooftop solar system can produce 25 kWh of electric per day, at the most critical time-peak summer daytime demand period.

Governor Schwarzenegger is planning to spend $20 billion on new out-of-state power plants and transmission lines. If that were spent instead here in California, it would provide incentives for homeowners to install rooftop solar power. At $10,000 per house, that money would enable 2 million houses to install solar panels, which would be an additional 50 million kWh per day. And the value would belong to the California homeowner instead of being spent on a coal plant.

This minimal use of solar alone would almost be enough to replace 40% of our oil usage. This is made possible by the fact that the EV is up to 10 times as efficient as a gasoline car, which enables so little electricity to replace so much gasoline and other oil-based fuels.

At 4 miles per kWh, the all-electric plug-in Toyota RAV4-EV travels about 140 miles on the energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline (at 35 kWh per gallon). More aerodynamic EVs, such as the General Motors EV1, get 6 miles out of each kWh, or about 200 miles per gallon gas equivalent ("mpgge").

Compare the efficiency of an EV to a gas car over 100 miles. A Hummer, Suburban or Navigator, at 10 mpg, takes 10 gallons to go 100 miles. Our fleet average car gets 20 mpg, and requires 5 gallons to go 100 miles. Even a Prius, at 50 mpg, takes 2 gallons of gas to go 100 miles. The aerodynamic Honda Insight takes 1.6 gallons of gas to go 100 miles. But an EV goes 100 miles with no gasoline and no oil, on the energy equivalent of less than one gallon of gasoline. No smog checks, no exhaust, no tune-ups, no oil changes.

An EV is anywhere from twice to ten times more energy efficient than a gasoline car. But energy efficiency is only part of the advantage of EVs: the EV uses no gas at all, and can be sourced from a rooftop distributed solar photo-voltaic array.

This combination of "PV-EV"--a solar array providing seemingly unlimited power credits and an electric vehicle to use them--allows living essentially "oil- free." PV-EV practitioners sail past gas stations, and never worry about the cost of gasoline. When you drive free of cost and free of gasoline, buying gas seems like the rip-off that it really is, and paying the oil company seems like throwing money into the sewer.

We are proving this possible right now, and have been doing so for the past seven years. Our solar PV system produces more than enough kWh credits (we get a time-of-use benefit for charging off-peak), and we drive a lot--up to 40,000 miles per year on two cars, 20,000 miles for each RAV4-EV. Those miles are driven in kWh, meaning no oil was used for them (although some was used making the car), so instead of using 2,000 gallons of gasoline (producing 25 lbs. of carbon dioxide per gallon of gasoline) we used up 10,000 kWh to drive that distance, which was paid for by our peak production (and sometimes directly charged off the solar system). But even without the solar system, it only costs one cent a mile to charge up off-peak.

The real point here is that we need to move in this direction. We can't continue to rely on oil supplies from overseas dictators. The ancillary expenses are much too high--not to mention the human suffering and misery.

When will our leaders figure out that we don't need their oil and thus have no real reason to dominate the oil producing regions, no reason to subsidize protection of overseas oil supply lines, no reason to bomb Iraq. All it takes is the will to produce plug-in cars capable of driving 100 all-electric miles per day. Most of our driving is local: 80% of our miles are driven on round-trips less than 80 miles from home.

A serial plug-in hybrid that runs just like an EV at up to 80 miles per hour for up to 120 miles could be manufactured as easily and as reliably as the RAV4-EV. The serial hybrid has a small (40 hp) generator/engine that runs at constant speed to charge the battery on occasional long trips or if you forget to plug it in. We can do this: all it takes is the decision to allow people to join the "PV-EV" crowd, who vow to live essentially "oil-free."

Allowing more folks to drive all-electric cars lowers demand for gasoline, and should lower the price of gas for everyone else. So who, except the profit-bloated oil companies and their captive politicians, would oppose PV-EV?

We've got to do something; is there a better idea? Perhaps converting ALL cars to hybrids, increasing our fleet mileage to 40 mpg (let's say), would do the trick. But there are no hybrid mini-vans, and many hybrids from Ford and General Motors only get 25 mpg.

The attractive thing about driving all-electric vehicles is that we can eliminate the use of gasoline in our normal, car-oriented lifestyle without giving anything up. No one is going to abolish gas entirely; there will still be common tasks such as bringing supplies to the market which require gasoline-powered vehicles. PV-EV users are not judgmental about it; those who need to continue driving gas cars can do so.

Only a few were allowed to buy plug-in electric cars; but those lucky drivers who experienced the PV-EV lifestyle loved it, and fought hard to retain the EVs that made it possible. Yet powerful oil and auto companies, their trade associations, PR firms and captive politicians largely won and destroyed almost all plug-in electric cars. General Motors alone confiscated and crushed over 1200 gas-free cars. Oil and auto companies paid for campaigns to stop electric cars, and finally sued California to force an end to electric cars and destroy almost all of them.

Only Toyota allowed us to keep our EVs, honorably selling a plug-in electric vehicle. If there were more plug-in EVs on the market, more folks would be able to contemplate a move to the PV-EV way of living.

Only political leadership can force the oil and auto companies to allow plug-in electric cars, such as a serial plug-in hybrid, on the open market. We know the technology is viable because volunteer PV-EV engineers modified a Prius to enable it to plug in (struggling against the on-board computer, which seems designed to sabotage a bigger battery pack). But like all electric cars, the plug-in Prius runs better than a gasoline-powered car, and it gets up to 180 mpg. The true serial hybrid would get up to 500 mpg, and could allow drivers to generally avoid gasoline during the daily grind.

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Doug Korthof, of Seal Beach, California (email doug@seal-beach.org or call 562-430-2495), says he "first learned of oil industry hatred of electric cars at a meeting of the California Air Resources Board in 1994." He has since attended many public meetings on clean air. He and his family leased the Honda EV plus, then two GM EV1s, a Ford Ranger EV, then finally were allowed by Toyota to purchase the RAV4-EV. Retired, he holds degrees in math and philosophy and is an advocate for local habitat values and clean oceans.

[The Toecutter]

Re: Why the electric car failed

Check out this evworld.com blog entry on the NiMH battery. Bill Moore (evworld.com webmaster) hypothesizes that Toyota is not selling its electric RAV4s because Chevron Texaco holds the patent on the NiMH battery. I earlier mentioned in this topic's main post how Chevron-Texaco bought the patent and is basically sitting on it. The patent will hold until 2015.

He does mention that Toyota claims the battery pack costs $30,000. If that's a quote for the mass production price, that is bunk, as ECD chairman Robert Stemple has quoted the price at $150/kWh for 20,000 cars per year. The RAV4's battery pack is about 27 kWh, or about $4,000 at that price.

Anyway, here's the blog entry and article.

http://www.evworld.com/view.cfm?sect...d=12&blogid=83

DATE: Wednesday, 02 November 2005

THE WRIGHT EFFECT, WRONG RESULT?

Shortly after the Wright Brothers demonstrated powered flight, they applied for a patent to protect their discovery, which wasn't on the airplane itself, but on how to control roll using wing warping. In doing so, they may have set back aviation for years.

Anyone who attempted to emulate the Wright Brothers invention in America -- the Europeans refused to recognize the patent -- found themselves facing a potential lawsuit if they didn't pay the Wrights their due. Having risked their fortune, their reputations and their lives to achieve one of mankind's oldest ambitions, they were certainly entitled to reasonable compensation for their vision, persistence and courage.

But eventually, technology would pass them by; the Wright name would not be among the aerospace giants that build the world's aircraft and space vehicles.

Patents are an invaluable way to incentivize individuals and companies to innovate with the hope being that they will be rewarded, perhaps richly, for their industry and investment. To quote the Bible, "The laborer is worthy of his hire".

But what happens if patents become a stumbling block to innovation?

Consider the problem Ford Motor Company encountered when developing the Escape Hybrid. While they engineered their drive within the company, Toyota's pioneering efforts on the Prius had generated so many patents, that Ford didn't want to risk future patent lawsuits. So, they reached an agreement with their Japanese rival, swapping patents as insurance against costly future legal action.

It's been suggested that the reason GM and DaimlerChrysler, along with VW and BMW, decided to develop their "dual hybrid" drive system was to find a way around Toyota and Honda's patent lock on the technology.

But what goes around, comes around. It is very possible that the reason carmakers like Toyota and Honda aren't developing advanced plug-in hybrids isn't because they don't believe in it.

It may be because, legally, they can't.

How's that?

All production hybrids today use nickel metal hydride batteries, a technology developed and patented by Energy Conversion Devices (ECD), whose Cobasys spin-off joint-venture with ChevronTexaco owns the worldwide patent rights. To its credit and its stockholders benefit, the company has been aggressive in protecting those rights suing the likes of Panasonic, Sanyo, Toshiba, and Yuasa, forcing them to become licensees who must pay a 3% royalty to the company for each battery they build.

From research done by Charles Whalen and others, it appears that those licenses are very restrictive. They apparently limit the power of the batteries and their applications, with Cobasys reserving the right to be the sole manufacturer of batteries for electric-drive vehicles in North America.

In a limited circulation, private email, Whalen -- who is an occasional EV World contributor -- speculated that "although the specific terms are confidential, this stipulation in Panasonic's license restricting it to producing only 'certain types' of NiMH batteries for 'certain transportation applications' is widely interpreted and understood to mean that Panasonic can only produce HEV (hybrid-electric vehicle) batteries (<10Ah) but not BEV (battery electric vehicles) batteries (>80Ah) for vehicles sold in North America until 2015. Where this line is specifically drawn in Panasonic's license, whether it's closer to 10Ah or closer to 80Ah, is an interesting question, which of course we don't know the answer to. But the answer to that question is indeed very important because it is in that middle ground that we find the capacity range for PHEVs".

Panasonic is the exclusive manufacturer of the batteries used in the Prius, Highlander Hybrid and Lexus RX400h hybrids. Whalen is suggesting that the reason Toyota isn't interested in building plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) isn't because they don't want to. It's because they can't under Panasonic's license agreement with Cobasys. A plug-in hybrid that has a 20 to 60 miles of electric-only range would require a battery pack much larger than the 10 amp hour restriction of the license.

Whalen asserts that Panasonic does, in fact, have a 95Ah battery that could be used in plug-in hybrids, but that it has mysteriously disappeared from Panasonic's online catalog. He believes the reason has to do with the $30 million judgment against Panasonic and Toyota for patent infringement.

This is also why Toyota stopped making the RAV4 EV. It too required a battery pack much larger than the 10Ah limitation of the Cobasys license.

While all this certainly seems plausible, only the parties involved know the real facts of the case. Toyota claims that the Panasonic NiMH battery pack used in the RAV4 EV costs $30,000, which would certainly limit its marketability in the real world, not to mention the economic viability of integrating it into a plug-in Prius or the future Lexus GS 450h.

That being said, Toyota recently bought out General Motors' 20 percent stake in Fuji Heavy Industries, makers of the Subaru line of compact cars. Why? Maybe it has something to do with Fuji's partnership with NEC to develop a practical, affordable, electric car using NEC's newly developed lithium-ion battery.

Sanyo, suppliers of the NiMH batteries used in the Ford Escape Hybrid, recently predicted that lithium-ion would be the preferred chemistry for future hybrids, not nickel metal hydride.

Could it be that the advantage of lithium over NiMH isn't just because of its improved energy and power density on a volumetric basis, but that it also frees carmakers from the restrictions placed on them by Cobasys' license?

Lithium is still a relatively unproven technology in automotive applications compared to NiMH, which has demonstrated excellent durability and reliability. But it would appear that the handwriting is on the wall for this one-time breakthrough chemistry.

Auto Week recently wrote, "Sanyo Electric Co. predicts that by 2010, the majority of hybrid vehicles will use lithium-ion batteries. Currently, all hybrids use nickel-metal hydride batteries.

"Toyota Motor Corp., General Motors and Ford Motor Co. executives endorsed his prediction".

[Wavelength]

Re: Why the electric car failed

The facts presented in that (the first) article were ridiculously selective, enough so that it unfortunately dampers the article's quality. Why does he keep jumping between cars to find the good aspects? Is it that no single electric car has been able to achieve decent range, reliability, performance, speed, and price at once?

[The Toecutter]

Re: Why the electric car failed

The facts presented in that (the first) article were ridiculously selective,

Not really, considering the article's premise was to explain how this technology was suppressed. It is kind of difficult to get selective with facts in instances where there was a clear and undeniable effort to stall this technology, whether through negative ad campaigns, false accounting, understatement of demand, refusal to market or even sell the product, shelving of battery technology, preventing the development of charging infrastructure, funding groups that openly stated that their purpose was to make sure an electric car never became mainstream, among other issues. It would be dishonest to deny these instances, as they are fact which are documented and can be verified, and regardless of what information is outside of them, they speak for themselves very well and whatever information that is outside of them does not negate them one iota.

Is it that no single electric car has been able to achieve decent range, reliability, performance, speed, and price at once?

Actually, if an electric car were to be mass produced, all of these parameters would be met. Without mass production, price is the one and only constraint that cannot be met.

Many electric cars have comparable or better range, reliability, performance, and speed to gasoline powered cars, but not price. Why? Production volume.

The AC Propulsion TZero, for instance, does 300 miles per charge(range), has an AC induction motor and inverter are both rated for over 1 million maintenance free miles and a battery pack rated for at least 150,000 miles(reliability), 0-60 mph in 3.6 seconds(speed/performance), but in hand built quantities, costs over $200,000. In hand-built quantities, its 50 kWh battery pack is about $60,000 and AC induction motor/inverter combination about $50,000. Then you must consider it is using a hand-layed fiberglass body from the Piontech Sportech kitcar chasis, which is over $50,000 from all the labor involved with hand-laying the fiberglass. In mass production for automotive volume, Li Ion batteries could be $250/kWh(bringing pack cost to $12,500), and AC Propulsion quotes the drive system at $10,000 in volume. So this could basically be a $30,000 car, if the car and all the parts were produced in enough volume. Now the market for a small sports car such as this may not be large enough for this type of volume to be obtained, but a family car having a much large potential market could certainly be built with similar specifications and parts, to achieve that cost level.

The Tesla Roadster, using Li ion batteries has a 250 mile range, 0-60 mph in 3.9 seconds, governor limited top speed to 135 mph, and its battery pack is warranteed to 100,000 miles(expected to last around 150,000-200,000). It is $100,000, because it is hand-built. Tesla admits that if it had the economies of scale for mass production, a sub $30,000 electric car with similar specifications and able to seat a family is perfectly possible.

The Eliica has a ~200 mile range, 0-60 mph in 4 seconds, 240 mph top speed, and in hand built quanities, would be around $300,000. Mass production could dramatically reduce that.

Ovonic's NiMH batteries allowed the Soelctria Sunrise a 350 mile range and a top speed of 80 mph using a single gear ratio(it would be faster with a multi-ratio transmission). UC Davis quotes them at 1,750 cycles to 100% discharge and $220/kwh in automotive volume. In a 300 mile range car, this is theoretically over 500,000 miles battery life.

Nickel based batteries have a shelf life in decades; people with Edison NiFe batteries and surplus NiCd batteries decades old have not seen any performance or capacity reduction yet. GM promised to help Ovonics develop this battery for the EV1, so GM was allowed to purchase a large stake in the company. GM later decided an electric car wasn't in it's best interest, and sold its share to Chevron, who has since had this battery technology shelved by refusing to allow large amp hour(AH) size NiMH batteries to be produced and by suing anyone and everyone that attempts to build large AH NiMH batteries(Panasonic, Matsushita, ect.). At first glance, it would appear that an easy workaround exists; simply build paralleled blocks of smaller NiMH batteries. The problem is, NiMH batteries get horribly imbalanced when charged in parallel. So you need large AH batteries so a reasonable system voltage can be used with NiMH. The oil company has effectively killed this battery, which made long range, performance-oriented, affordable electric cars possible in the 1990s.

The GM EV1 using NiMH batteries had a ~150 mile range, 0-60 mph in 7.5 seconds, 80 mph top speed(governor limited; remove the governor and it would hit 183 mph. I have a video if you're interested). In mass production, it would have been ~$30,000, but it used expensive construction techniques and a composite body. Without question, an existing gasoline car could have used this same configuration for much cheaper, with perhaps 120 miles range. This was market viable then and it is now, even if this may not be for everyone.

The Solectria Force, a converted Geo Metro sedan, got 200 miles range on NiMH batteries, 80 mph top speed(governor limited). Again, mass production would have gotten the price down.

A study in 2000 has confirmed that in mass production, a sub $20,000 electric family sedan with 300 miles range, 0-60 mph < 9 seconds, 100+ mph top speed electric car was feasible, but mass production is needed. The major automakers absolutely refuse to do it, while the small businesses willing to do it don't have the capital to get a mass production run going in today's over-regulated market. Many of these regulations were lobbied into place by the major automakers to stifle competition in the 70s!

Tesla, AC Propulsion, UEV, Commuter Cars, Myers Motors, and others are trying to get a foothold in the market. But they are selling $100,000+ sports cars due to lack of mass production capability, knowing full well that far fewer are going to pay $100,000+ for a family sedan. It will take them a good 10-15 years to raise the capital for a mass production run, and by then the oil crisis will be well underway, and it will perhaps be way too late for anything to be done.

[The Dark Jester]

Re: Why the electric car failed

And I was watching a young boy watching love boat when my binoculars went out!

That post made me laugh and I don't remember making it.

I'm pretty great.

[Wavelength]

Re: Why the electric car failed

The AC Propulsion TZero, for instance, does 300 miles per charge(range), has an AC induction motor and inverter are both rated for over 1 million maintenance free miles and a battery pack rated for at least 150,000 miles(reliability), 0-60 mph in 3.6 seconds(speed/performance), but in hand built quantities, costs over $200,000. In hand-built quantities, its 50 kWh battery pack is about $60,000 and AC induction motor/inverter combination about $50,000. Then you must consider it is using a hand-layed fiberglass body from the Piontech Sportech kitcar chasis, which is over $50,000 from all the labor involved with hand-laying the fiberglass. In mass production for automotive volume, Li Ion batteries could be $250/kWh(bringing pack cost to $12,500), and AC Propulsion quotes the drive system at $10,000 in volume. So this could basically be a $30,000 car, if the car and all the parts were produced in enough volume. Now the market for a small sports car such as this may not be large enough for this type of volume to be obtained, but a family car having a much large potential market could certainly be built with similar specifications and parts, to achieve that cost level.

First of all thanks for taking all the time to post about this and give some good facts. You're giving these facts and figures as if they were natural speech; that's pretty impressive. What's your extent of expertise about electric cars?

0-60 might not be as important as whether a car can maintain a consistent top speed of 85+ and even up to 120+ for countries with fast highways. Can a full-electric pull that off? The one thing I forgot to mention last time was safety--is there any substantial research as to the safety of electric cars? I know the "no gas tank" is a good thing, but are there any other dangerous parts? Is it relatively feasible for any of the electric components to malfunction, even for a bit, and cause trouble for the driver?

It sounds like the 12.5K pack cost, the 30K total cost, etc., is based on cost to produce. That wouldn't be a $30,000 car to buy; I'll hazard the guess it would be somewhere around $50-60K. Let's be fair here; that's a lot more than buying an Accord (even if it pays for itself a few times over in the long run) and some families might have a hard time going for that, which makes it even harder to mass-produce. And wouldn't it also require consumers to give up that stupid habit of buying vehicles that are 150% bigger than they need to get them from point A to point B comfortably?

I guess my point is that maybe the problem isn't completely suppression. Maybe it's that making these cars feasible on a lot of different levels would take some constructive action by government and industry.

[The Toecutter]

Re: Why the electric car failed

First of all thanks for taking all the time to post about this and give some good facts. You're giving these facts and figures as if they were natural speech; that's pretty impressive. What's your extent of expertise about electric cars?

Perhaps I should tell you that I've been building one for the last 3 years or so, and am about 4 months from an engineering degree.

0-60 might not be as important as whether a car can maintain a consistent top speed of 85+ and even up to 120+ for countries with fast highways. Can a full-electric pull that off?

Easily. At 80 mph, a midsize car with a .32 drag coefficient, 23 square foot frontal area, 3,300 pound weight, .010 rolling resistance coefficient of tires, ~25% losses from transmission and accessory loads would only need about 40 horsepower at the flywheel to maintain 80 mph. This is well under the continuous rating of most AC or DC motors used for electric vehicle applications. The AC motor/inverter used in the GM EV1 sports car had a continuous rating of about 60 horsepower, peak of about 135 horsepower; the EV1 was a much more aerodynamic car than the hypoethetical example above so ~50 HP would have been enough to continuously maintain about 110 mph. Even at 120 mph for the hypoethetical midsize car, about 130 HP will be needed at the flywheel to maintain that speed of 120 mph; the AC150 motor/inverter has a maximimum rating of 200 HP has a continuous rating of about 70 HP, and 70 HP would allow that hypothetical midsize car to maintain roughly 100 mph indefinately, but to maintain 120 mph, it's battery pack would run out of charge before the motor would overheat, as it's 2 hour rating is about 130 HP. A gasoline engine of about 200 horsepower would start to overheat if more than 50-60 horsepower is demanded indefinately. This is why gasoline cars that can maintain 120+ mph indefinately tend to have well in excess of 300 peak horsepower, and why small economy cars like the VW Lup are governor limited to about 100 mph; obviously to have an electric system do this, just add more horsepower just the same. Alternatively, it is a simple matter to improve the aerodynamics. Cut the drag coefficient of that hypothetical midsize car to .20, and now only about 80 horsepower is needed to maintain that speed of 120 mph.

I did these calculations in my head, so they may be off by about 5% or so. The following equations were used:

Mass(W): 1,500 kilograms

Drag Coefficient(Cd): .32

Frontal Area(A): 2.14 square meters

Rolling Resistance Coefficient(Cr): .010

Transmission Efficiency(TE): .75 (Percentage includes stray accessory loads, brake drag, ect.)

Velocity(V): expressed in meters per second

Force Drag(FD): expressed in newtons

Force Rolling(FR): expressed in newtons

Force Sliding(FS): 20 newtons

Wheel Power(WP): expressed in watts

Motor Power(P): expressed in watts

Air Density(Rho): 1.25 kg/m^3

Gravitational Constant(G): 9.8 N/kg

Equations used:

FD = .5 * Rho * Cd * A * V^2

FR = Cr * W * G

WP = (FD + FR + FS) * V

P = WP / TE

There are 750 watts in one horsepower, for reference.

For the GM EV1, drag coefficient is .19, frontal area 1.81 m^2, weight 1,350 kg, Cr is .006(low rolling resistance tires), transmission efficiency ~85%(single ratio gearbox for improved efficiency, more efficient heating and air conditioning).

The one thing I forgot to mention last time was safety--is there any substantial research as to the safety of electric cars?

Yes. The basic consensus is that they have the potential to be much safer than gasoline powered cars.

I know the "no gas tank" is a good thing, but are there any other dangerous parts?

The battery is the least safe component. A typical gasoline powered car uses a 15 gallon tank or so, each gallon of gasoline having roughly 33.8 kWh of energy. A battery pack to give a midsize car a 200+ mile range would be around 50 kWh, about the same amount of energy found in 1.5 gallons of gasoline. NiMH, Li Ion, NiCd, PbA batteries tend to be very stable compared with gasoline; even if fire is applied to them.

It sounds like the 12.5K pack cost, the 30K total cost, etc., is based on cost to produce.

That also assumes a profit margin from sale around $5k or so, which is fairly typical for a midsize car.

That wouldn't be a $30,000 car to buy; I'll hazard the guess it would be somewhere around $50-60K. Let's be fair here; that's a lot more than buying an Accord (even if it pays for itself a few times over in the long run) and some families might have a hard time going for that, which makes it even harder to mass-produce.

Aftermarket services and repairs is something an electric car lacks, which is most of the later profits received from a gasoline powered car. Electric motors last in excess of 500,000 miles with no repairs, while most gasoline engines last around 150,000 miles needing maintenance the whole time. Electrics would only be $50-60k if the industry wanted to make the same overall profits as a gas car, but then people wouldn't buy them.

However, it would still be possible to make that profit at a price point people will pay, being around $30k, but that profit is just greatly reduced over a gasoline car.

This is why electrics aren't produced. Profits will be greatly reduced due to people spending less money over the car's life.

And wouldn't it also require consumers to give up that stupid habit of buying vehicles that are 150% bigger than they need to get them from point A to point B comfortably?

Not really. Electric pickups and SUVs are feasible too, believe it or not. The electric Toyota RAV4 SUV used ~26 kWh NiMH battery pack and got ~100-120 miles range. Today, a 50 kWh Li Ion battery pack would double that range, and still be within a reasonable price point. Aerodynamics could also be addressed so people could keep their big cars while still retaining high efficiency.

I guess my point is that maybe the problem isn't completely suppression. Maybe it's that making these cars feasible on a lot of different levels would take some constructive action by government and industry.

Good luck waiting for that constructive action; neither entity appears to want such a thing to become mainstream.

[Wavelength]

Re: Why the electric car failed

That also assumes a profit margin from sale around $5k or so, which is fairly typical for a midsize car.

This one number I find particularly hard to believe, especially if we're considering dealer profit as well.

Good luck waiting for that constructive action; neither entity appears to want such a thing to become mainstream.

Well, yeah. Waiting isn't going to do anything. The point is that we need to make those entities WANT to make electric cars mainstream (by making the entire American public want these things). Like you said, the infrastructure isn't there yet, and as of now oil seems to be more profitable for some interested parties (although initial high prices or taxes on electric cars / charging, as long as people realize it's still the cheaper option, could compensate for this).

Look around the political environment now and you'll see how much influence a non-issue (so-called Illegal Immigrants) has on politics. Now think about how much we could get done if Alternative Energy / Alternative "Fuel" becomes an issue. That's why I think we need to use the very channels that are trying to erect roadblocks, rather than complain about or try to destroy those channels--and also why I think the need for a real marketing effort might be immediate.