Electric and Hydrogen cars

[MNspiderman]

As much as I love technology. I understand that these cars are sorta the future but... Here in Minnesota what good does an all electric car do you? 25 below zero where are you suppose to get your heat from? Like realistic heat not some 200 watt blower aimed at your big toe.
As for Hydrogen. Thats pretty cool. If the emissions are just water. What good would that do here in Minnesota as well. Obviously it can't be driven in the winter, your tailpipe would freeze solid as well.
Same goes for all the northern states, Canada, Russia, Germany and many more places. So they are dumping billions of dollars into cars so that only a portion of the world can use.
Does an electric car use an electric ac system? sounds like a battery eater to me. I am sure the peeps in the south would like some ac in the summer as much as us up here in the north appreciate a good heater in the winter.
I've seen shows on these two cars but they are so focused on the car actually works they never seem to talk about the necessities such as where the heat comes from. if they have ac or not (which isn't a necessity like heat, but you would think it is) They never speak of night driving and battery consumption with lights on or wipers running during rain. Its kind of like one of those things that "you just don't talk about". Its always based on how fast the car is and how fast it takes off. Everything else is irrelevant it seems.

[mdrburchette]

You have questions I never thought to ask. The drawback that caused me not to look any further was the short distance between charges you are able to drive. It's not feasable to take one of these on a road trip so they don't interest me.

[engineerted]

I will try to answers a few of your questions:

1. Electric cars will have heat, yes electric heaters and some are equipped with a coolant system, the electric motor and drive produce heat during their normal operations plus when you brake, the motor generates electricity and not all of it can be stored, thus the excess is converted to heat. The battery pack itself produces heat when it discharges and recharges thus they to have a coolant system also. AC yep, just like a normal car but powered by electric motors.

2. Hydrogen, yep, it produces water vapor but it also produces heat and in cold climate areas it has to be heated up to start the fuel cell but once it is going the heat and vapor are removed by small blowers. So it is not just a stream of water dripping out the bottom of your car.

I hope this helps a little, So now my plug for the Chevy Volt, yes 40mile all eclectic, and 350 miles with the extended range power source running = no worries if you decide to drive it to grandmas in the neighboring state.

Ted

[fiasco]

Yep - I agree that the Volt approach is the way to go - at least for the near term until some new revolutionary technology becomes available.

The Volt approach would give me essentially a billion miles per gallon for about 28 days per month as I drive back and forth to work on the electric charge. But then, once a month when I drive down to the beach, or once a year when I drive to Texas, I have the advantage of a gas motor and all those existing gas stations to keep me on the road. It's a shame that the auto industry is too wrapped up in its own incompetence right now that small bright spots like this are mostly being overlooked.

-- se

[mdrburchette]

if you believe this video, an electric or hybrid car has a greater carbon footprint than a regular one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKTOyiKL ... r_embedded#

[pope]

electrics and hybrids use much more exotic and toxic metals and chemicals than the standard auto. GM a couple of years ago claimed that a Prius was 2 to 3 times dirter to produce than a Hummer. Now that they are coming out with the Volt, you will not hear that claim from them again.

Since that american public only focuses on MPG, the dirty little secrets of electrics and hybrids are hidden.

[mdrburchette]

We'll see how they fair. I have to wait until a car is around 5 to 10 years old before I can afford to buy it. We'll know more about the hybrids by then.

[pope]

One thing about electrics is that they are very very very very very susceptable to driving habits. Denise, if you drive an electric like you drive your Spider, you will be on generator power in 15 minutes. HA HA!

GM has estimated that it will cost $1 of electricity to fully charge the system. That is $1 for 40 miles max at a predetermined driving pattern, follow the glowing green ball on the dash. Most likely, that $1 will get you and I only 20 to 25 miles (lead foot). Bright orange or red on the dash.

[Ken]

I know someone out there can answer this; if you get hydrogen form water, and burn it, you get water?

[pope]

Yes, that is what is produced.

[radiopilot]

Electric power is the way to go for now till something better comes along... I mean if Telsa Motors in CA. can come up with a roadster that has the same performance as any other sports car today and do it 100% on electric power with ranges of 200-250 miles and the company did it without government aid and using nothing but startup money... WHY on earth could the Big 3 automakers not be able to duplicate or even buy the rights to Tesla's technology and build electric cars today? One reason is the oil company's huge lobby group that will resist any technology out there that will put a squeeze on their oil rights and profits.

Tesla has been around since 2003 way before the financial/oil crisis in this past decade...

"Tesla is currently developing the Model S, an all-electric family sedan. Tesla launched the car March 26, 2009 with an anticipated base price of $57,400 or $49,900 after a US federal tax credit. It will have three battery pack options for a range of up to 300 miles per charge"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_motors

http://www.teslamotors.com

Another technology is electrolysis of water, but it takes a lot of energy to split the hydrogen/oxygen to get the efficiency required to run an engine... not to say it hasn't been done... in fact it's been done over 100's of times and nothing has been introduced by the Big 3 automakers to the showroom floor... in fact this video will demonstrate it's being done, being shown to people in Congress, and National Security and tuck it under the same vault thousands of other similar technology/inventions that will render the 'gas combustion engine' useless.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9iWaCMbw60

Finally if you want to read the scientific process to better understand the hydrogen water powered engine technology here is good reading but there are literally hundreds of other sources for using, building, implementing this technology.

http://www.water4gas.com/debunk/Hydroge ... ustion.pdf

Volvo did some aluminum-electric arc water engine using an aluminum wire scraped on a drum made of a proprietary material which produced an extreme electric arc which seperated the hydrogen from the water and used it to run the engine entirely and ran this car on the track... can't find the article and have it bookmarked on my PC in another room.

Nick

[narfire]

Perhaps I should'nt be guessing, but..

I know someone out there can answer this; if you get hydrogen form water, and burn it, you get water?

Combustion of any fuel I don't believe, is ever 100% complete. I figure there is some unburned H and O left over and these will re-combine to make the small amount of water that dribbles out of the pipe.

[mbouse]

Electric power is the way to go for now till something better comes along...
Nick

hmmm... around here, electricity is made from nuclear power (extremely dirty to dispose of the waste) or coal or petrochemicals. we dunn have the advantage of nearby falling water, or vast plains to capture the wind. all winter long, it is overcast and or snowing...so solar powered generators are not gonna be efficient six months per year.

so, once everyone gets an electric hybrid, with its nearly impossible to dispose of batteries... will i be able to afford to pay the electric bill for my wide screen TV ?? i mean, will there be enough petrochemicals and coal to go around to supply the electricity my neighbors will be consuming to commute to and from work? or, will we be building MORE nuclear powered generation plants ??

sounds like an awefully expensive (and dirty) alternative to the internal combustion engine. i cannot see the carbon footprint getting smaller for this technology that is being force fed to the public.

and... i had to chuckle at that video clip, Denise... who's the guy with the paisley shirt and the 60's haircut? har har har... i used to dress like that before i met my wife! does anyone take him seriously?

[radiopilot]

Electric power is the way to go for now till something better comes along...
Nick

hmmm... around here, electricity is made from nuclear power (extremely dirty to dispose of the waste) or coal or petrochemicals. we dunn have the advantage of nearby falling water, or vast plains to capture the wind. all winter long, it is overcast and or snowing...so solar powered generators are not gonna be efficient six months per year.

Not so Mike... if we expand on those green technologies existing to generate more electricity I think we can do it, I mean the Japanese are on an ambitious program to collect solar energy in space and beam it back to Earth, why is the US allowing this project to happen and not have American participation or at least have our own program... a lot of good skilled engineers are not working at this time, this would be a great program to show our American technological leadership and get a program like this off the ground and employ a lot of scientists, engineers, technicians, etc. that are on the unemployment rolls.

so, once everyone gets an electric hybrid, with its nearly impossible to dispose of batteries... will i be able to afford to pay the electric bill for my wide screen TV ?? i mean, will there be enough petrochemicals and coal to go around to supply the electricity my neighbors will be consuming to commute to and from work? or, will we be building MORE nuclear powered generation plants ??

Not so... existing hybrid batteries do pose a problem, but I'm working with a Seattle company that is coming up with a new battery called 'aluminum-air-battery' that will be the new technology in batteries, they are 'green' uses materials that are Earth friendly and will not cause unsafe acids to spill into water runoff (acid in battery is safe)... that is all I can say without disclosing anything I already signed with them.

sounds like an awefully expensive (and dirty) alternative to the internal combustion engine. i cannot see the carbon footprint getting smaller for this technology that is being force fed to the public.

Mike you sound just like the oil companies/oilmen with the doom and gloom aspect of the carbon footprint... everything you and I have has some carbon footprint but gradually using more 'green energy' to make products which used to be made from 'fossil fuels' will allow us to continue making more green products... it takes time and commitment from everyone... and we need to show oil companies they don't have a stranglehold on us.

Nick

[baltobernie]

As much as I love technology. I understand that these cars are sorta the future but... Here in Minnesota what good does an all electric car do you? 25 below zero where are you suppose to get your heat from? Like realistic heat not some 200 watt blower aimed at your big toe.
As for Hydrogen. Thats pretty cool. If the emissions are just water. What good would that do here in Minnesota as well. Obviously it can't be driven in the winter, your tailpipe would freeze solid as well.
Same goes for all the northern states, Canada, Russia, Germany and many more places. So they are dumping billions of dollars into cars so that only a portion of the world can use.
Does an electric car use an electric ac system? sounds like a battery eater to me. I am sure the peeps in the south would like some ac in the summer as much as us up here in the north appreciate a good heater in the winter.
I've seen shows on these two cars but they are so focused on the car actually works they never seem to talk about the necessities such as where the heat comes from. if they have ac or not (which isn't a necessity like heat, but you would think it is) They never speak of night driving and battery consumption with lights on or wipers running during rain. Its kind of like one of those things that "you just don't talk about". Its always based on how fast the car is and how fast it takes off. Everything else is irrelevant it seems.

From the Nissan Leaf Press Kit:

• "The first fruit of their efforts was in 1995, when Nissan launched the "Prairie EV," the world's first electric car with Li-ion battery power. Although the Prairie EV was limited to fleet sales, around 30 units were sold to various entities.
  
  "The majority of the industry, even our colleagues, were skeptical about the Li-ion system," recalls Hideaki Horie, Expert Leader at EV Technology Development Division. "We chose the Li-ion battery because we believed in its potential and possible applications for vehicles, much higher than the nickel hydride batteries that were common at that time."
  
  One of the most unusual applications of the Prairie EV was the years it spent under extreme polar conditions as a support vehicle for the Japanese National North Pole Exploratory Team. In 2000, when the Prairie EV was undergoing cold weather testing at Nissan’s Hokkaido Proving Ground, the owner of the inn where the evaluation group was staying told them that the International Arctic Research team was looking for an EV to use at their research station in Ny-Alesund, Svalbard, Norway – which at 79°N is the world’s most Northerly settlement.
  
  Nissan engineers thought it would be a great opportunity for an extended extreme cold test – which they themselves could monitor from warmer locations. It was arranged to loan the arctic researchers a Prairie EV fitted with a cylindrical Li-Ion battery. The Prairie EV, with no Nissan support or maintenance, served as the daily transportation from the base research station to the town and airport and, most importantly, while conducting meteorological observations. Zero emissions vehicles are critical for such use in order to not contaminate the research data with CO2 emissions.
  
  “The Nissan EV became a symbol of our pledge at the International Arctic Research Village that the environment would not be damaged by the execution of research activities,” recalls Dr. Hajime Ito, Chair NySMAC. “VIPs visiting our village were welcomed at the airstrip by the Prairie EV, which transported them to town without the slightest noise or exhaust gas. It was also an excellent vehicle for scientific purposes, such as the observation of wild animals, which you could approach without sound or smell.”
  
  In 2006, after six flawless years of service, the Prairie EV stopped running. Since Ny-Alesund, with a permanent population of just 35 residents, lacked a Nissan dealership, the vehicle was returned to Nissan for investigation and evaluation. When the car was examined, Nissan engineers were delighted to find that the problem was simply a disconnected condenser. Once repaired, the Prairie EV started right up (though cell performance had degenerated slightly but within projections), proving the feasibility and durability of the Li-Ion battery under extreme conditions."

I agree that there are many obstacles to EVs, but the Leaf appears to have been well thought-out and has quite a pedigree. BTW the Leaf mileage claims are using the EPA "LA4" driving cycle, commonly known as the "city" test. The EPA city test cycles do use the vehicle's climate control system, but not wipers, lights or entertainment. The Leaf uses 100% LED lighting inside and out (including headlights).

A recommendation has been made that the EPA devise a new standard for alternate fuel vehicles that would allow consumers to compare offerings from different manufacturers.

I don't know what your electricity rates are, but we are enrolled in Baltimore Gas & Electric "time-of-use" metering, and a full-charge to the Leaf would cost me $3, the equivalent of 100+ mpg.