Subject: Re: The EV1 by CasetheCorvetteman on 2008/6/8 1:11:12
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bogus wrote: The electric car is a great tool for inner city transport. I think it would solve a lot of localized emissions issues within large cities (think LA).
Perfect for it. That is exactly what most people i know do in their cars.
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bogus wrote: Here in LA, you could easily go from one end (the north end, the Grape Vine) to the south end (Irvine) and back on one charge. Not a problem, I suspect. It's about 72 miles.
In other words, a round trip within the LA Basin would easily be handled by an electric car.
Youd think so yes, since it uses very little power when sitting still in traffic, that shouldnt have much effect.
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bogus wrote: But it would ultimately have to be the 2nd car. A commuter, not a road trip car.
Which makes it exactly what i would want, and i never go on road trips. Most people i know would drive well within the limits of this vehicle, and would still be cheaper for them to rent a vehicle to do a road trip (infact, that is what a fair few people i know do anyway, and they reckon it works cheaper then taking their own car)
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bogus wrote: The recharging cycles are still slow... so a long trip from LA to Phoenix, at about 600 miles, would take 3 days! This is where gas is king.
Its unimportant for the majority of drivers i know. As i say, my car sits for 9-10 hours each day at work, and at least the same at home. If the car does go anywhere with me at night, its never more than a 10-15 mile round trip. The electric car would shit that in no problem, even after id driven it to work and back for 2 days.
Given battery standards of today over that of 12 years ago when these cars could do up to 75 miles on a charge, id say there is a very good chance they could do at least double that now.
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bogus wrote: The fuel cell concepts would help a bunch...
However, BMW does have a cool new prototype 7 series that runs hydrogen in an internal combustion engine. Works pretty well, as I understand it. Given time, that could be a huge advancement. We could actually tap into the huge reserves of natural gas we have at our disposal and would give us time to find a better solution.
There are loads of prototypes running hydrogen. I wouldnt want to hold my breath on it, cause its substantially more expensive to make than petrol, and you get even less range from it then you do from the electric car would get today.
All the city council owned public busses here in Australia run on natural gas and have done for years. All the taxis run on LPG and have done for well over 25 years that i can remember.
Yep, i read all that, have you got anything abit more informative though?
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bogus wrote: This is the bottom line with the EV1:
"The Gen 1 cars got 55 to 75 miles (90 to 120 km) per charge with the Delco-manufactured lead-acid batteries, 75 to 100 miles (120-to-160 km) with the Gen 2 Panasonic lead-acid batteries, and 75 to 150 miles (120 to 240 km) per charge with Gen 2 Ovonic nickel-metal hydride batteries. Recharging took as much as eight hours for a full charge (although one could get an 80% charge in two to three hours). The battery pack consisted of 26 12-volt lead-acid batteries holding 67.4 MJ (18.7 kWh) of energy or 26 13.2-volt nickel-metal hydride batteries which held 95.1 MJ (26.4 kWh) of energy."
For those days, that is more than enough for me and most people i know, and in these days, it would be more due to better battery technology, and the car would be more practical again.
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CentralCoaster wrote:
Yeah, at 3am on a Sunday when there's no traffic.
An electric car uses little or nothing sitting still in the traffic.
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CentralCoaster wrote: I think you'll find that the hydrogen technonolgy is not viable, and neither is ethanol for that matter.
I agree on both points, but a hell of alot more so on the hydrogen.
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CentralCoaster wrote: They also only tested those EV1s out in SoCal and Arizona, hotter states. They obviously weren't ready for colder environments.
Thats obvious as you state, however, what one car is suitable for every single person's needs? Not one, cause everyone has a different requirement from a car (i thought i read or saw in a video somewhere some uni kids got an EV1 going again in Wisconsin). There are a very large number of people that a car like this would suit perfectly, more than 80% of the drivers i know could quite easily use even the EV1 as it was 10 years ago, let alone what they could do with something simular today.
