hybrids can take advantage of storing some energy while braking and while the gas engine is running but not being used for accelerating and then using that energy to with electric motors in order to increase MPG. But the losses involved with creating the electricity in Nevada (or similar distance) using it to charge a large battery pack (I see Aghast realized his mistake and is admitting 4Kwatts all night long) in a house in Sacramento CA, is neither environmentally friendly nor cost effective nor pallatable to the American marketplace.

Quadruply this is not a BIG oil conspiracy as you see it.

I’m not saying that every detail has been figured out. Its definitely risky for a car company to embrace that sort of change without a breakthrough (in fuel cells, for example) to make it a sure thing, or help from national policy makers.

There are a fair number of cars out there that get better mileage than the Prius and other hybrids, such as the VW diesels.

“Plug-in” hybrids will not be a viable solution to anything unless and until we improve our electrical generating capacity, which means either more coal plants or more nuclear, and with the enviromentalists blocking just about every new power plant or attempting to, this is a solution that just won’t be practical on anything like a large scale until that issue is solved.

No thanks. In-hub motors do away with transmission power loss and wieght, and allow for easily implemented regenerative braking. The engine itself just needs to act as a generator plugged into the electric drivetrain.

But, now that I re-read what you said, it’s clear you said:

“we are not talking about a slow charge 2 Amp charger”

I stand corrected about what you said… I missed the “not” (honest mistake, sorry). In reality we’re looking at more like a 4Kw charger, if we are to provide enough energy to go 60 miles on one 8-hour charge.

But let’s run your new numbers….first some data regarding electric vehicle efficiency:

“Older electric vehicles in commercial fleets have energy efficiencies of about 2 mi/kWh while new electric vehicles such as GM’s EV1 have energy efficiencies of over 6 miles per kWh. Heavy duty vehicles such as trucks and buses average about 1 mile per kWh.” – from http://www.atti-info.org

OK, so 1.8 kW * 8 hours = 14.4 kwH.

ok, that’s $1.08. let’s say the battery is 80% efficient (a reasonable assumption for lead-acid – li-ion can get up to 96% – wow!) so we can get 11 kwh of power out of it.

at 3 mile/kwh (what we would expect from a modern electric car with regenerative braking, etc…) that’s 33 miles on $1.08.

since we’re charging at night, we would take advantage of the cheaper electricity bringing the cost down to ~43 cents to go 33 miles.

Compared to a 30 mpg car, with regular gas at $2.03, it’s less than ONE QUARTER THE COST!

This will become even more feasible as gas prices rise, battery technology improves, manufacturing costs go down due to mass production, etc…

so when you say
“You would need something charging at 1800 Watts all night to get your Prius 10 miles.”

what you really meant was 33 miles.

Even if you were right and it was only 10 miles, it would still be cheaper! This is why I find your reponses so silly.

I don’t know why I spend the time. YOu will probably FAIL again. But suffice to say, adding that weight will NOT be a car that gets 4 cents of electric energy per mile. It will be nearer the 7 cents which is the mark set for the 22 MPG car.

I heard they have some out there with 1 horsepower (about 700 watt) motors that can cost less per mile than a VR6 Volkswagen diesel powered motorhome. I wanted to replace that motor with the one that moves my garage door because it only has a 1/2 horsepower motor and there are too many times I have to grease it up because my garage door gets stuck. But then my garage door will work and my motorhome will start dragging too huh. So then I might have to get one of those NEW Li Poly fangled batteries that Toyota doesn’t even put in their Prius for some reason. Boy Toyota is so stupid. Don’t they know how much more COST effective the new fangled technology is. I’ll put that in there and then the 1/2 horsepower motor will move my motorhome faster and better and cheaper. Energy is all relative right? My one relative said so. HE keeps talking about living off a windmill. He said with all the wind that comes through his .2 acre lot he can capture enough of it to generate 50 Watts of continuous electricity. I tole him that my lights in my house don’e use that much all put together even the one in my fridge. So he can keep his food cold with his windmill. For free!! And charge his motorhome too….

I am glad I got you all on the subject of the electric car, and away from global warming as the global warming stuff I do not understand. I am reading your posts, and listening to your reasoning.

I did state that oil will be dropping in price immediately about a week ago. I hit the nail on the head with that one. Although, it might be dropping for reasons other than I stated, I still got it right. (Even a blind squirrel finds a nut in the woods on occassion.)

Luckily, I will be hitting the lotto within the next year and won’t need to rely on my brain to earn a living, although I am a pretty good salesman. Trust me, I sold it all. Cars, homes, motorhomes, boats, etc.

That is for running the slow charger for charging normal car batteries. It is not for getting the amount of energy into larger battery packs required to get a mass weighing 3,000 pounds 10 miles at 65 mph speed on non level surface. You FAIL AGAIN and I give up even trying to explain to you why you are failing.

I’d be surprised if 15 cents of electricity can move a mass of 3,000 pounds 1 mile given normal driving circumstances (not moving to 30 MPH and then coasting). You are factually incorrect and calling me off the mark. It’s laughable.

Please tell us (I was using Prius as an example) what comparitive plug in hyrbid you would use as an example and what Wattage motors it has. It has to be a car that COULD be in the marketplace like the Prius. The Prius is an example I used because it is a working example of a car with electric motors that could be used exclusively electically and without the gas motor running. The FOrd Think is not such and example as it ways hundreds versus 3,000 pounds. Once you see that 50,000 watt motors is what you need to propel an electric car of that mass acceptably for the American marketplace your harping becomes irrelevant and you have to use the 50,000 WATT number not the 240 watt number which is a whole separate part of the discussion that you FAILED to recognize was about a SLOW charger for normal car batteries. You would need something charging at 1800 Watts all night to get your Prius 10 miles. NOW DO THE MATH AND APOLOGIZE !

Yeah, finding grad students for a work environment is frightening isn’t it? I had one, who had to draw up an interface diagram, get 3 of the 11 signals wrong. When confronted and told to fix it, she asked “Why? 8 out of 11 right is a B in any class!” Absolutely scary ain’t it? The PhD’s I’ve had to work with from academia haven’t been much better, they are remarkably similar only you have the additional fun of trying to work with their egos.

Let me be the proof, you can make money in physics. I’m not rich, but well paid and happy! But you have a lot more chance of finding a good job in s/w, you need one good physics person for about every 10,000 or more programmers, but physics is an excellent basis for other careers.

With your background, I’d have expected you to be a bit more cynical about some of this, not as enamored with “experts” as you seem to be. I guess everyone is not as much of a curmudgeon as I am though.

I agree with you about academia… I got out after getting my Bachelor’s. I had worked with graduate students that were so clueless it was scary. It seemed the longer they spent at the university, the less practical their knowledge was. Sure, the could code a linked-list class in 10 minutes, but ask them to design some software to perform an actual task and their eyes glaze over.

I do software development now. My background in physics has been invaluable (I was a physics major before deciding I wanted a decent job out of school) – knowing how to mathematically model real-world processes obviously helps a lot in software development.

So I guess we both spend a lot of time dealing with algorithms/architecture.

You have provided no compelling proof, but you have spewed a considerable amount of libel at various scientists you don’t agree with (or rather don’t support the rationale you use to justify your social positions), and made a lot of patently untrue statements. And it is still painfully obvious that you don’t fully understand the science, and want to use it as a stick to bludgeon society into the kind of changes that fit the liberal ideology.

This entire thread can be summarized by my Devil’s DP Dictionary’s definition of endless loop:

Endless loop – n., see loop, endless

Loop, endless – n. see endless loop