150 mpg SUV

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by scorpius, Dec 18, 2008.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. scorpius a realist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,350
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,690
    They could. But no one can put together a car with this technology and sell it at a profit. In fact they'd have to sell it at a heavy loss. The battery alone costs something like $8,000. In order for the vehicle to have adequate performance it must be made out of very lightweight materials, which adds more to the cost.

    Despite the materials technology, the vehicle must be relatively small, in order to minimize both mass and air resistance so it can attain a safe and practical highway speed. A comparable last-generation-technology fossil-fuel burning vehicle of equivalent size and utility would cost about half as much to build, perhaps even less.

    The only rational motivation for anyone to buy this vehicle is that in the long run the total cost of ownership would be roughly equivalent to a current production model with 25mpg fuel economy (9L/100km). This can only happen if the cost of gasoline rises far beyond where it was this year, perhaps as high as $10 a gallon.

    It's not likely to go quite that high in the near future. The government would have to legislate a "negative subsidy" by adding an arbitrary tax to the price of fuel, as they do in Europe. Even if that were to happen, it would take many years before the fleet could be replaced with electric vehicles, and in the meantime drivers of traditional vehicles would be, in effect, taxed off the road. Americans would not tolerate that. If Congress approved that tax they would ALL be voted out of office in the very next election.

    Americans love our cars and anyone who stands between us and our cars will be knocked down. Probably by a whole platoon of SUVs.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    54,036
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    18,523
    I think we will get shortages before it hits $10 a gallon, I wonder what not even having the fuel to drive your car counts in the economical equation. Gas is cheap because of a world wide dep/eeer "recession", OPEC has just now cut production dramatically to match up supply with lack-luster demand, some OPEC states need oil at $100 a barrel and above for their civil expenses, so don't expect prices to stay low in the near future. Once the world economy gets back going again its going to have a very short celling with Oil production not expected to be able to match the demand of a thriving economy.
     
  8. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,053
    Wow, Fraggle, that sounds just exactly like the comments I've been making on that other "Energy" thread. And in that thread, you simply wished away all of the arguments by using "future logic".

    Why haven't you done the same with this thread? Isn't it exactly right up your alley of wishing away any problems in favor of technology? Why can't you see that technology will conquer this issue in the same way you think technology will conquer the work force? I'm confused, Fraggle. :shrug:

    Baron Max
     
  9. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,690
    Technology will solve this problem, but not in the next few years, on a time scale that will make this a feasible corporate project. Batteries will become lighter and cheaper, but batteries are a fairly mature technology and breathtaking advances are not likely to pop up like Buck Rogers.

    The bottom line is that batteries are really not an efficient energy conversion technology because they require too many conversions. Whatever your original source of energy is, step one may be to convert it to heat energy (e.g. by burning fossil fuels or slamming subatomic particles into each other). The next step is to convert the heat energy into kinetic energy via a turbine--or in the case of hydro, you start out with kinetic energy and just have to harness it. The next step is to convert the kinetic energy into electrical energy, and there's a significant loss in that step. (Just as there was with the conversion of heat to kinetic.) Then you have to transmit the electrical energy down wires, with another tremendous loss, and run it through a couple of step-down transformers to make it safe enough to put it near a house, with still more loss.

    Then you pump it into a battery, which transforms the electrical energy into chemical energy, yet another loss. Then you drive the car, and what do you do but transform the chemical energy right back into electrical energy--and then finally back into kinetic energy!! Rube Goldberg could not have invented a more inefficient way to run a vehicle! Max you seem to be an engineer of some type so I'm sure you know this stuff, but many of our younger members don't, so it's worth spelling out.

    If you really want electric cars, it might work better to bury induction circuits in the pavement and skip the electrical-to chemical-to electrical double conversion.

    Of course, an increasing number of engineers are saying that the only long-term solution to humanity's energy needs is orbiting solar collectors, which will beam the energy to earth in tight microwaves. As I've noted in other threads, the supply of solar energy is inexhaustible from our perspective, because we'd boil in our own infrared waste heat before we'd make a dent in the sun's output. Once we've got that "too cheap to meter" source of electrical power, then of course we can do whatever the hell we want with it. But that's a project that will require more continuous cooperation and ultra-long-range planning than any government or consortium has ever been able to muster, so it's at least 200 years off if we start today. In the meantime in order to avoid dystopia when we run out of fossil fuel, we'll have to bite the bullet and build more nuclear generating plants. 200 years won't accumulate an oppressive quantity of waste so this is all--barely--feasible.

    In any case the future of energy is clearly electrical, so cars like these are on the horizon, regardless of whether we decide to bail out the Big Three Dinosaurs. I just think they're on a very distant horizon and GM, Ford and Chrysler may not be in business any more when it's time to build them. It could be Honda, Tata and some as-yet unfounded Chinese company.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

    Frankly, technology will conquer this issue by vastly reducing the need for non-recreational travel, as I've said in the other thread.

    If the population density increases as people like Pronatalist hope, it will make more sense to concentrate on mass transit. People will be living so close together that the whole world will be like Tokyo, and there won't be any room for single-family vehicles. Or they might be coupled into safe, space-efficient bumper-to-bumper trains, with central computers shunting them off onto their individual routes.

    The rest of us would like to live with a little more space, and if the future is more like our vision than Pronate's, there will always be a demand for private vehicles, as well as places where the only practical way to operate them will be manually.

    The price of fossil fuels will continue to escalate because they're non-renewable resources, so the cost of transportation can't help but keep rising in the near future. This alone will put pressure on managers to work out telecommuting arrangements with the increasing percentage of the workforce who can do their jobs from home.

    The day will come when most people travel only for recreation, live companionship or scenery.
     
  10. dixonmassey Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,151
    One more point, all of you heard of peak oil, but few of you thought about peak (or rather vanishing) of rare earth metals in mere 20-30 years at the current rate of extraction. Those metals are essential for batteries, especially long lasting ones. Mass electrification of cars is just about the same insanity as hydrogen economy. Mankind just don't want to face reality of the finite energy supply here on Earth. Locust mentality I must say.
     
  11. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    18,523
    Lithium batteries are recyclable, unlike oil, there is in fact enough lithium for a electric car economy as long as batteries are recycled. Sodium sulfur and some other molten salt batteries for buses and gird energy storage use nearly unlimited resources. Sources of lithium are limited consider present extraction, massive desalination of sea water though could provide an unlimited supply assuming we need more fresh water which is not an assumption but a fact.
     
  12. dixonmassey Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,151
    Earth is essentially a closed system, every metal is "recyclable". Given unlimited supply of energy one could process billions of tonnes of dust/water to recycle dispersed metals/metal oxide over and over. The problem is lack of energy for that kind of massive recycling. Humans need a warp drive to spread the plague elsewhere, it looks like the only solution

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  13. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    18,523
    no humans need to end the plague and evovle, talking monkeys in space? Jesus!, the thought disgust me beyond reason! Recycling lithium ion batteries is not very energy intensive, not nearly as energy intensive and inefficient as say converting carbon dioxide into petroleum thermochemcally.
     
  14. weed_eater_guy It ain't broke, don't fix it! Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,516
    Ahem, if I may...

    http://www.chevrolet.com/electriccar/

    Now, compare this to the original post...

    http://www.afstrinity.com/

    We have some very similar traits...

    -40 miles electric range

    -"150 mpg", with this being defined roughly as "a vehicle that could run for 40 miles on its electric charge alone. A commuter who traveled 60 miles round trip a day would get the equivalent of 150 miles per gallon of gas."

    -All-electric drivetrain with gas generators

    The only difference I can see is that the Trinity has a bank of supercapacitors for burst energy, which seems like a kinda rag-tag solution to remedy the issues involved with lithium-based batteries and high power output. Many of these issues are being resolved (if not resolved already) to the point where a supercapacitor bank AND a battery might be a tad silly.

    But yeah, this isn't miracle technology, but it IS more expensive, so you've got a catch. So which is it, a more expensive car, or paying for more fuel?
     
  15. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,690
    Americans don't like to keep their cars very long. One of the greatest joys in American life is buying a new car every couple of years. It combines several of our national pastimes: shopping, keeping up with the Joneses, and expressing our personality through commercial artifacts. They take a bath on that early-life-cycle depreciation. So given America's buying habits, its much more economical to buy a cheaper car and spend more on fuel.
     
  16. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    54,036
    That's about to end, if it hasn't already. Nothing, or no combination of things will enable our car-based way of life to go on much further. All this technology doesn't change the fact that it's still a car, an energy intensive and wasteful method of moving individuals around a landscape that it itself created.
     
  17. q0101 Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    388
    Many Americans have been talking about buying smaller fuel efficient cars, but that is not a good option for everyone. Over 60% of Americans are overweight and over 30% are obese. Larger people need larger cars. That is why I have a hard time understanding why the American auto companies are not giving people the option of buying a diesel / electric hybrid SUV. The technology is currently available for buses and some of the most fuel efficient cars on the road have diesel engines.
     
  18. q0101 Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    388
    How is it going to end? High speed maglift trains could reduce the number of cars on the road, but we are going to be a car-based society until someone events some kind of light speed transporter that is similar to the stuff that you see in Sci-Fi movies.
     
  19. weed_eater_guy It ain't broke, don't fix it! Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,516
    Hahahaha, I LOVE our American reputation! Well, on behalf of my countrymen, I would like to state that bacon grease is, and should be recognized as it's own food group. That and gravy. Oh, and deep fried twinkies. Don't diss our lifestyle till you've eaten a deep fried twinky wrapped in deep-fried funnel-cake batter! Mmmm, arterial congestion has never been tastier!

    Also, Americans drive larger cars, and in fact need a more car-centric infrastructure, because as far as developed nations go, our population density isn't as high as most. This means that public transportation doesn't make as much sense because that infrastructure would have to move fewer people farther distances, increasing the cost-per-person to where a car becomes more ideal. This kinda seems common sense so I'm going to skip looking up numbers, bash me if you will.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    I believe American cities need to invest heavily in public transit systems. There's no excuse for any metropolitan area in the world to remain as car-centric as many American cities (in my opinion anyway). However, for the rest of the population spread across the emptier parts of the nation, newer car technologies are needed, not a completely new infrastructure. Cars work, pickup trucks actually have practical roles, and SUVs are actually somewhat neccesary in more rugged parts of the country.

    Also, I think the reason we love SUVs is that, well, if anyone here has a family and wants to take them places, they could get an estate car. For more room and comfort, they can get a minivan. Totally uncool on this side of the pond, even if minivans are reasonably efficient considering their cargo capacity. A man-of-the-house wants to feel like a big man, and wants to have a beefy V8, 4-wheel drive, metal bumper, and freaking flood lights even if he doesn't need it. Enter oversized SUV. Dad can now stand in the driveway, pound his chest and shout to the neighborhood "BIG MAN! ME BIG MAN! ARRRROOOOUUUU! ... *grunt*...."

    But the above stereotype is the family that doesn't need 4-wheel drive. One up in the mountains or in the forest likely needs an SUV, as a minivan may NOT EVEN BE ABLE TO drive on some of the rougher, steeper roads as they're iced over in winter.

    I dunno, just my thoughts. As usual, bash away if I'm off on somethin.
     
  20. Slacker47 Paint it Black Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    667
    I agree with DixonMassey. We need to mine space. Start sending some rockets to the asteroid belt and get us some metals.

    Apart from this, there can be infinite energy, but humanity is not ready for socialism. We can collect an infinite supply of rays and waves on the moon and transmit it to earth with a laser or such device. Though, its not going to happen in our lifetime. First, there will be mass genocide or a superplague. Either one is fine with me. I just hope its televised

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  21. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    54,036
    Nope. You see, this is how brainwashed we are by 50 years of car culture. Maglev trains are interesting, but not even necessary, normal trains don't require any significant changes in tracks or expensive and energy intensive technology. We build suburbia around the car, and this model is currently falling apart in front of our eyes. It will be replaced by smart urban planning, denser walkable communities, and increased local organic farming where suburbia used to be.
     
  22. q0101 Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    388
    I don’t think that I would like your vision of the future. You don’t seem to be concerned about things like comfort and convenience.

    It is time for North America to catch up with Asia and Europe. High speeds can’t be achieved on normal tracks. Maglev trains are safer and more comfortable. They also have the potential to be faster than planes. Creating a better public transportation system is the only way to reduce the number of cars on the road. Trains and buses have to be faster and more comfortable.

    The population density in most North American cities is high enough as it is. I have no desire to live in cities or towns with the population density of places Tokyo or Mumbai. The idea of living close to where you work sounds nice, but there are many people that are not comfortable with the idea of living in the downtown core of a city. People choose to live in the suburbs or rural areas for comfort and economical reasons. The long drive to work maybe an inconvenience, but it is the price that many people are willing to pay for a quiet neighborhood and a larger home.
     
  23. John Connellan Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,636
    At the moment they can only acheive pretty much the same speeds as conventional trains (e.g. TGV). I think evacuated tubes are going to be needed before they can even approach the speed of aircraft. And these tubes will be very costly
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page