....how will road tax be calculated? Given the only emissions will be basically. ..water...I can see it now....the new Range Rover Duracell 3 litres.... ã400 a year...incase the M1 floods. ....
Electric cars 2
- Thread starter Chippy_Tea
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I have designed and built 5 cars from scratch. One was electric. The lead acid batteries were it's undoing. It could manage 25 slow miles at first but that situation did not last long.
A few years have passed and lithium ion batteries are the flavour of the month. They can manage 10 times the number of recharges, so are they the solution?
Ask an owner of a Nissan leaf or similar how many miles they can get out of a battery pack. Initially Nissan said that the battery pack life determined the life of the car. Owners have generally found that range shrinks unacceptably after 50-70,000 miles. Nissans response has been to sell replacement batteries at cost.
The governments approach is to announce a time when you can only have an electric car and pump money into battery research.
They should have looked at what has happened in the last 150 years. Batteries have improved, but not nearly enough.
Lithium is the third element after hydrogen and helium. There is no possibility of reducing battery weight by much because hydrogen ion batteries like in the Hubble telescope need a casing to contain 700 atmospheres of pressure, and helium is inert.
There's just nowhere to go with battery tech. Were already there and it isn't good enough.
6 hours to get to Glasgow instead of 3 because you need to recharge. And where is the electricity going to come from. Boris Johnson said "from the plug". Made me laugh.
A few years have passed and lithium ion batteries are the flavour of the month. They can manage 10 times the number of recharges, so are they the solution?
Ask an owner of a Nissan leaf or similar how many miles they can get out of a battery pack. Initially Nissan said that the battery pack life determined the life of the car. Owners have generally found that range shrinks unacceptably after 50-70,000 miles. Nissans response has been to sell replacement batteries at cost.
The governments approach is to announce a time when you can only have an electric car and pump money into battery research.
They should have looked at what has happened in the last 150 years. Batteries have improved, but not nearly enough.
Lithium is the third element after hydrogen and helium. There is no possibility of reducing battery weight by much because hydrogen ion batteries like in the Hubble telescope need a casing to contain 700 atmospheres of pressure, and helium is inert.
There's just nowhere to go with battery tech. Were already there and it isn't good enough.
6 hours to get to Glasgow instead of 3 because you need to recharge. And where is the electricity going to come from. Boris Johnson said "from the plug". Made me laugh.
...perhaps you should tell them! I worked for 10 years in the carbon fibre /composite industry supplying most F1 teams,super cars, luxury boats and everything military..jets,copters..top secret this can't see it that...things took years to come into development and were often outdated as soon as they were in production. Lots of the money for development comes from CIA black projects where they apply for millions from congress that goes for military projects that they don't have to say what it is. I bet there's some battery research going on there but it won't be mains rechargeable. ...
At least they'll help tackle climate change. Lol Ãâ a million.
Dutto
Landlord.
The bit about "chemicals" always gets people going. The water industry uses all kinds of chemicals and are actually the UKs biggest polluters of water.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...dents-left-Englands-beaches-rivers-areas.html
I stress in my Post that there will ALWAYS be a risk but as a general rule the risk is ALARP and the benefits are worth the risk ...
... BUT this assumes that we need fossil fuels in the first place.
Personally, I would like to see a lot more wind-farms, tidal generators, solar panels and other sustainable sources of power being developed sooner than see anyone drill a single well for the purpose of producing gas.
Which is why I reckon that the NIMBYs who complain about wind-farms should just have their electricity cut off for about a month and then ask them what they think! :whistle:
However, apparently we DO need fossil fuels and we may as well produce it ourselves rather than buy it from other countries; and the only way in which we can do this is by fracking.
BTW, another source of great irritation to me are the people who occasionally appear on TV in the middle of winter to complain about their energy bills ...
... and wear shorts and tee-shirt during their interview!
They could frack away to their heart's content in my backyard so long as I got a cut. The wonderful smell of aromatic hydrocarbons wafting from the ground would be a bonus. Wouldn't put up with a wind turbine tho'....
So how much electricity do we need to replace the fuel we currently use in our 31,700,000 cars?
Simple. An average electric car uses about 400Wh per mile of energy. So doing the sums based on our average 12,500 miles per car give us a little over 18 gigawatts. We won't be drawing that energy at an even rate so there may be times when we need more like 100 Gwatts of extra generating capacity. Try generating that from wind farms on a still day or solar power at night.
As for battery storage, batteries have a finite life so the more we store electricity, the more it costs.
Your Nissan Leaf battery will be lucky, at an average rate of usage, be lucky to see 5 years before you can no longer reach your destination. That'll cost you over �ã1000 per annum for ever. When your car is 5 years old are you really going to be happy to replace those batteries for over 5 grand? Me neither.
The biggest nuclear plant in the world generates less than 8 Gwatts of power so we need to build 13 of those before 2040, at least
At least I'll still be able to buy diesel, because trucks will use it for ever.
Simple. An average electric car uses about 400Wh per mile of energy. So doing the sums based on our average 12,500 miles per car give us a little over 18 gigawatts. We won't be drawing that energy at an even rate so there may be times when we need more like 100 Gwatts of extra generating capacity. Try generating that from wind farms on a still day or solar power at night.
As for battery storage, batteries have a finite life so the more we store electricity, the more it costs.
Your Nissan Leaf battery will be lucky, at an average rate of usage, be lucky to see 5 years before you can no longer reach your destination. That'll cost you over �ã1000 per annum for ever. When your car is 5 years old are you really going to be happy to replace those batteries for over 5 grand? Me neither.
The biggest nuclear plant in the world generates less than 8 Gwatts of power so we need to build 13 of those before 2040, at least
At least I'll still be able to buy diesel, because trucks will use it for ever.
I think i will buy a van i have always liked vans and i cannot see them forcing vans to go electric as it just wouldn't work.
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Tau
Landlord.
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Have a look at this new tech' that's developing which could solve all electricity issues. http://news.berkeley.edu/2010/02/12/electric_nanofibers/
These could be built into the car body and parts to generate electricty.
A more recent article using then in battery development @Duxuk https://phys.org/news/2017-03-nanofiber-important-battery.html
Dutto
Landlord.
Back in 1967 I was on a collier shipping coal from the Tyne to Shoreham Power Station.
One evening, I was visiting the Power Station Control Room when the BBC was due to end their evening broadcast with a religious programme called "The Epilogue".
"Watch this." said the Control Room Supervisor. "This is the power being used at the moment." and tapped on a dial in front of him.
The needle suddenly dropped down and the Supervisor said "That's the start of The Epilogue and they've all switched off."
Before I could comment he carried on with "Now watch what happens." and about thirty seconds later the needle bounced up way past where it had started and the Supervisor said "That's because most of them have now gone and switched on their electric kettles to have a cuppa before they go to bed."
Synchronised Swimming? I've actually seen Synchronised Atheism!
I've never met anyone who presented The Epilogue but I still feel sorry for them!
I remember 'the Epilogue'. It was almost as boring as folk today muttering crapola about carbon dioxide and climate change.
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
This is fascinating, thanks Foxbat. As I type the UK power consumption is around 32 GW. As I showed above we would need, every moment of every day an additional 18GW of energy. That's a more than 50% increase but at 6pm when everyone gets home from work that would rise massively. I think I've just proved the impossibility of electric cars ever being feasible.
Not only that but we still need to invent the battery which we've sought for the last 150 years. What are the chances when we already use the third lightest element for batteries? Maybe the politicians are just waiting for the discovery of the element "unobtanium"!
This is fascinating, thanks Foxbat. As I type the UK power consumption is around 32 GW. As I showed above we would need, every moment of every day an additional 18GW of energy. That's a more than 50% increase but at 6pm when everyone gets home from work that would rise massively. I think I've just proved the impossibility of electric cars ever being feasible.
Not only that but we still need to invent the battery which we've sought for the last 150 years. What are the chances when we already use the third lightest element for batteries? Maybe the politicians are just waiting for the discovery of the element "unobtanium"!
Did you get my PM Andrew?
Looks like the Pentagon may be just about ready to roll out another snippet of extra terrestrial technology harvested from the stuff they keep in area whatever number it is...
simon12
Landlord.
Does anyone know if the cars and batteries do get good enough but all homes want 3 phase would the existing cables to homes be up to it?
Given my very basic knowledge of electrical engineering, I think the simple answer is no.
Single phase 230v mains supply cable is effectively twin core with the live and neutral insulated and, if provided the earth/ground uninsulated or at least designed for carrying earth protection only.
Three phase 415v cable does vary but even in its simplest form the three phases are carried on insulated cores, so you cant use the earth on a 230v cable.
So if you are looking for a 3ph 415v supply you would more than likely run a new 415v supply to domestic propeties, fed from an area 3.3kV transformer somewhere. And that may mean a separate transformer to the one that currently supplies the 230v single phase supplies, especially if the house is in a housing area rather than an industrial area where there may be an existing 415v 3 ph supply.
Any one know better...... ?
Dutto
Landlord.
In the bad old days, even three-phase motors had to be started on one phase because the loads pulled by the motors at start-up was too much for the pre-war wiring.
After starting the motor on one phase and waiting for it to get up to speed (about 10 seconds) the switch was then flipped over to bring the other two phases into action.
Switch over too quickly and all the lights went out ...
... switch over too slowly and all the lights went out ...
... and in either case, a lot of fellow workers were far from happy! :whistle:
After starting the motor on one phase and waiting for it to get up to speed (about 10 seconds) the switch was then flipped over to bring the other two phases into action.
Switch over too quickly and all the lights went out ...
... switch over too slowly and all the lights went out ...
... and in either case, a lot of fellow workers were far from happy! :whistle:
