Did the EV kill the car?

af_thefragile

The recent release of the Nissan Leaf has got me thinking about electric cars.
I do see the point of these vehicles. Even when the electricity is got from burning fossil fuels, a petrol engine is barely 20% efficient at converting its fuel to useable energy while a good turbine can be upto 60% efficient at converting its fuel into electricity. Now a bit of this will be lost by the time the electricity travels from the turbine to your socket, its still a lot more efficient than the petrol engine.

Electric vehicles are great for the daily city commute. You unplug your EV in the morning, you drive it to work, get back from work, plug it overnight and its ready to use again. It seems to work great.

So why is it that we can't seem to swallow down these EVs so easily as the future of transportation? One reason could be cuz they're still ridiculously expensive and another could be the daily commute is all they can manage.

But I feel there is a bigger reason looming in the background. I think we all fear the EV will kill the car as we've gotten to know it and love it.
The reason we love supercars is because of the sense of drama and excitement that comes with them all due to the magnificient petrol engine we've come to love. Its like a living beating heart of the car with the petrol acting as the life giving blood. It makes an inanimate machine come alive.
And this doesn't just need to be said about supercar, it can be said about every good and exciting car out there. This is something an electric motor can never give us. Which is one reason why I don't like the idea of EVs as the future of motoring.

And also the car represents freedom. You could drive your car for miles and when you run out of petrol, just fill it up again and drive on.
The EV isn't something that represents freedom or something you'ld wanna make movies on or write songs about. Its just a soulless machine to transport humans from A to B.

But in this day and age all that doesn't seem to matter much. The country is broke, the planet is getting hotter, we need to sacrifise the car for an EV.

Maybe its part of the move from analogue to digital, from mechanical to electronic and as we've accepted these we'll even someday soon accept the EV as the daily norm and forget the noisy, smelly, smoking cars like the way we've forgotten the steam engine...

af_thefragile

af_thefragile wrote: »

Maybe its part of the move from analogue to digital, from mechanical to electronic and as we've accepted these we'll even someday soon accept the EV as the daily norm and forget the noisy, smelly, smoking cars like the way we've forgotten the steam engine...

I hope not
Regarding the steam engine I used to work with steam boilers a few jobs back and often thought about steam engines at the time, EV to me don't appeal.

Anan1

I'd prefer an electric motor in principle, once they iron out the practicalities.

longhalloween

I like the thoughts of a hydrogen car. Just the thoughts of an atomic reactor make me wanna buy one now.

maidhc

I would think that in principle the electric motor is superior in everyway to IC engines. Honda seem to have cracked the hydrogen fuel cell as a method of providing power and range like a petrol, and so i think it is just a matter of time before petrol and diesel die a death.

Few will mourn the passing of the IC engine, we still have the great cars of old and the new ones of the future will be different, but still great.

Zubeneschamali

af_thefragile wrote: »

But I feel there is a bigger reason looming in the background. I think we all fear the EV will kill the car as we've gotten to know it and love it.

No, as soon as an electric car can out-drag mine, cruise all day at 180 km/h, recharge in 5 minutes and cost less than 40K, I'm there.

I'm not holding my breath.

bonzodog2

I seem to remember a story from a few years ago, about some US police force getting an electric car for pursuit, that would do 160mph I think. I don't know the make,or city, or its range

Hagar

What's the environmental impact on the production of the massive batteries for these EVs? How will they be recycled? How will we generate enough electricity to power them? Nuclear power? We still have no idea how to handle the world's existing nuclear waste. Now that is an environmental disaster waiting to happen.

How are the Govts of the world going to manage without the exorbitant taxes currently harvested from fossil fuels. Will the price of electricity rise compensate?

biko

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

No, as soon as an electric car can out-drag mine, cruise all day at 180 km/h, recharge in 5 minutes and cost less than 40K, I'm there.

I'm not holding my breath.

At least it can out-drag yours. The rest will come later
http://www.neatorama.com/2009/01/27/electric-car-drag-racing/

JHMEG

Mass production and economies of scale should bring down the price. Notice how the very noisy Ferrari gets quietly trashed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXqYbNEiW0Y

Gurgle

I got as far as here:

af_thefragile wrote: »

a petrol engine is barely 20% efficient at converting its fuel to useable energy.

huh?

aidanodr

http://www.pluginamerica.org/vehicles/

Loads of EV goodness on the way

Aidan

BigEejit

69 wrote: »

What's the environmental impact on the production of the massive batteries for these EVs? How will they be recycled? How will we generate enough electricity to power them? Nuclear power? We still have no idea how to handle the world's existing nuclear waste. Now that is an environmental disaster waiting to happen.

How are the Govts of the world going to manage without the exorbitant taxes currently harvested from fossil fuels. Will the price of electricity rise compensate?

I'm not so much worried about nuclear reactors as the batteries.... If they can make higher capacity ones from abundant non-explosive materials then there is no problem at all in my mind.

People always point to Chernobyl as being the reason for having no nuclear reactors but most people dont know that the RBMK reactor was a 1970's design and the russians used this design specifically because it produces a lot of plutonium .... http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf31.html most reactors in the world today are far safer.

There was a program on the telly last week where a professor was saying that 99% of nuclear waste is inert within 20 years, the remainder seperated into very small pieces and is encased in ceramic (glass basically). This is then put in a deep hole in the ground .... where it does not leach into the ground water because its in glass.

Where our power comes from is a non issue really, the cleaner and less resource using the better.

Hagar

BigEejit wrote: »

There was a program on the telly last week where a professor was saying that 99% of nuclear waste is inert within 20 years, the remainder seperated into very small pieces and is encased in ceramic (glass basically). This is then put in a deep hole in the ground .... where it does not leach into the ground water because its in glass.

You can't really believe that? 20 years? According to Wiki it's much longer and they don't really have much idea how they are going to handle the stuff long term. Digging holes for our waste is not the cleverest idea in the world, it doesn't work well for normal waste, why should it suddenly become effective for nuclear waste?

BigEejit

69 wrote: »

You can't really believe that? 20 years? According to Wiki it's much longer and they don't really have much idea how they are going to handle the stuff long term. Digging holes for our waste is not the cleverest idea in the world, it doesn't work well for normal waste, why should it suddenly become effective for nuclear waste?

As I mentioned, the person on the TV programme was a Professor. I doubt if he consults wikipedia to see if what he knows tallies up with information that can be modified by anyone. Also he specifically mentioned that 99% of all radioactive waste was low level waste and this by definition always has a low half life.

Also I did mention that any of the more radioactive stuff gets encased in ceramic and put in abondoned mines among other places.

Hagar

BigEejit wrote: »

As I mentioned, the person on the TV programme was a Professor.

Is this the guy?

i71jskz5xu42pb

Gurgle wrote: »

I got as far as here:

huh?

See here for a discussion on the topic of energy efficiency in internal combustion engines and the 18%-20% figure.

Even when aided with turbochargers and stock efficiency aids, most engines retain an average efficiency of about 18%-20%.

BigEejit

69 wrote: »

Is this the guy?

I believe that family pictures are not allowed in this forum, please remove the picture of your dad cleaning your ear.

the_syco

af_thefragile wrote: »

But in this day and age all that doesn't seem to matter much. The country is broke, the planet is getting hotter, we need to sacrifise the car for an EV.

When it gets hot, you can build more solar panels, and more juice stations for your car.

IMO, people like being held to ransom by a few Saudis who will rise the price of petrol if demand drops.

A few tidal power amchines, wind power machines, and solar power machines, and you're grand. Heck, if you put a solar panel on the top of your car, it could recharge itself when it's parked up.

i71jskz5xu42pb

the_syco wrote: »

Heck, if you put a solar panel on the top of your car, it could recharge itself when it's parked up.

In Ireland? You'd have better luck with a small hydroelectric plant ...