A new type of Electric car.

[BFloFoxRider.]

Since gas is expensive, Chevy decides to Prototype a Plug in electric car that can plug into a house plug. Check it out, its even cool looking
http://www.dancewithshadows.com/blog...ar-concept.htm

[drclark]

If EVERYONE traded their gas burner for a plugin-car tomorrow, where would all the extra electricity come from?

I would also be concerned about LI-ion batteries in car applications. If they are overchaged or shorted they can catch fire or explode with spectacular results. (Anyone remember the dell laptop battery recall). They would have to go to great lengths to ensure the integrity of the battery pack is maintained in a crash. The article states that the battery pack is designed to operate over a temp range of 30-80 deg. Thats a very narrow temp range when the ambient air temp plus the heat generated by the current through the battery is considered. Guess the plugin option would be out of the question for most of the summer in the IE and high deserts, and most of the rest of the country that gets below 30 deg for about 3-4 months out of the year. Guess its only a spring/fall hybrid.

Still, at least its an attempt by GM and it looks alot better than a Prius.

drc

[Rockinthecasbah]

is it like th "IT"

[dssgaffler]

Originally Posted by drclark

If EVERYONE traded their gas burner for a plugin-car tomorrow, where would all the extra electricity come from?

Good point. No matter what form of energy we switch to, it's going to have a HUGE impact on the supply. Perhaps Hydrogen would be the exception since it can be created without depleting any major resource. It's good that Detroit is trying alternative fuels, they have been so resistent to change over the years, it's good to see them experimenting.

[drclark]

To create "green" hydrogen fuel on a mass scale you would probably have to create it from water via electrolosis. Fresh water is a scarce resouce so you would have to desalinize and purify ocean water. Desalinization and electrolosis both require huge amounts of electrical power which comes from where? The only practical solution would be nuke (which comes with a whole host of issues).

Desalinization creates about 50% freshwater and 50% brine (higher concentrated salt water). The environmentalists are already opposed to de-sal plants for drinking water because the brine discharged back into the ocean could affect the salinity of the local waters having an adverse effect on marine life.

A byproduct of creating H2 via electrolosis is O2. If changing the atmospheric CO2 by a couple of tenths of a percent can have negative consequences on the climate, what would dumping tons of O2 into the atmosphere do? Granted, its later re-combined when the Hydrogen is used....

What would be the effect of all the cars in LA buring H2 instead of gas? The common perception is that burning H2 with O2 produces water which is clean! So how would the local climate fare if all the current tailpipe emmisions were replaced with water vapor? Also, if you burn H2 in an internal combustion engine, is the only result Water (H2O)? Since air is also about 70% nitrogen wouldn't you still get some nitrogen-oxygen and/or hydrogen-nitrogen byproducts? It would seem like an "air-breathing" hydrogen fuel cell would be the best option and that the water should not be expelled out the tail pipe, but rather collected in a tank and emptied at home into drinking water tanks.

In the end, everyone should just ride bikes instead....

drc

[dssgaffler]

Originally Posted by drclark

Desalinization and electrolosis both require huge amounts of electrical power which comes from where?

Is it possible a decrease in gasoline production by the oil companies would help offset the need for electricity by the hydrogen companies?

Originally Posted by drclark

Desalinization creates about 50% freshwater and 50% brine (higher concentrated salt water). The environmentalists are already opposed to de-sal plants for drinking water because the brine discharged back into the ocean could affect the salinity of the local waters having an adverse effect on marine life.

Seems like an issue. Does the brine have to go back into the ocean? Would the evaporation of brine cause issues?

[Devoid169]

Cool looking car, for short trips things like this might be worth it. But we, as humans, gobble more resources than we can ever create, period. 6 1/2 billion people now on this globe, all wanting to drive something. I heard an interesting fact the other day, not to derail the thread, but there are more people alive today than have EVER died on the planet combined. Our exponential growth is going to have a major impact soon - I just hope we stumble upon some new technology to offset our massive need for fossil fuels.

[Zippy]

Originally Posted by drclark

To create "green" hydrogen fuel on a mass scale you would probably have to create it from water via electrolosis. Fresh water is a scarce resouce so you would have to desalinize and purify ocean water. Desalinization and electrolosis both require huge amounts of electrical power which comes from where? The only practical solution would be nuke (which comes with a whole host of issues).

Desalinization creates about 50% freshwater and 50% brine (higher concentrated salt water). The environmentalists are already opposed to de-sal plants for drinking water because the brine discharged back into the ocean could affect the salinity of the local waters having an adverse effect on marine life.

A byproduct of creating H2 via electrolosis is O2. If changing the atmospheric CO2 by a couple of tenths of a percent can have negative consequences on the climate, what would dumping tons of O2 into the atmosphere do? Granted, its later re-combined when the Hydrogen is used....

What would be the effect of all the cars in LA buring H2 instead of gas? The common perception is that burning H2 with O2 produces water which is clean! So how would the local climate fare if all the current tailpipe emmisions were replaced with water vapor? Also, if you burn H2 in an internal combustion engine, is the only result Water (H2O)? Since air is also about 70% nitrogen wouldn't you still get some nitrogen-oxygen and/or hydrogen-nitrogen byproducts? It would seem like an "air-breathing" hydrogen fuel cell would be the best option and that the water should not be expelled out the tail pipe, but rather collected in a tank and emptied at home into drinking water tanks.

In the end, everyone should just ride bikes instead....

drc

You're right, and there aren't enough nuclear plants to make enough energy to power all the cars in America right now. Wind and solar are woefully inadequate at this point and cover huge amounts of land relative to how little energy they produce. That will change as technology improves the amount of energy captured from those sources.

Capturing tidal energy and converting it into electricty is totally fascinating and gets my vote for creating the least amount of environmental impact, however.

Hydrogen fuel cells do seem to be the "greenest" way to power vehicles in the future. Current hydrogen production, however, is coal-based and operates at an energy deficit to begin with and you still produce CO2 when you make hyrogen from coal.

The best hydrogen fuel I've seen is sodium borohydride that stores hydrogen as a slurry and uses a heavy metal catalyst to liberate the hydrogen used to power a fuel cell. There's still an energy deficit to create the fuel, however.

Humans will think of something.

[DirtymikeTDB]

Originally Posted by drclark

If EVERYONE traded their gas burner for a plugin-car tomorrow, where would all the extra electricity come from?

I would also be concerned about LI-ion batteries in car applications. If they are overchaged or shorted they can catch fire or explode with spectacular results. (Anyone remember the dell laptop battery recall). They would have to go to great lengths to ensure the integrity of the battery pack is maintained in a crash. The article states that the battery pack is designed to operate over a temp range of 30-80 deg. Thats a very narrow temp range when the ambient air temp plus the heat generated by the current through the battery is considered. Guess the plugin option would be out of the question for most of the summer in the IE and high deserts, and most of the rest of the country that gets below 30 deg for about 3-4 months out of the year. Guess its only a spring/fall hybrid.

Still, at least its an attempt by GM and it looks alot better than a Prius.

drc

That right there is already a BIG concern with Hybrids, Prius for example, the battery cell is underneath the rear seats, of coarse they are vented to reduce heat, but sayu the unknowing person tosses there jacket up top underneath the rear window..... Ut oh, you just covered the battery vent!!!.




As far as the "Extra" power need, wire up the cells properly, and your power needs would be extremly low, IE, a Hybrid uses 174 volts of DC power to drive the elec motors/motors but it uses 1.5 volt cells stacked together< Strange how if you ever get to take one apart, they look just like a C cell battery> in a series parralel circuit so that it takes less than that to charge them, I forget off hand what the charge rate is, but the out is higher, due to a couple Diodes, transistors and some creative wiring. I can see the same setup being used for a Plug in at home car, reducing the amount of power and saturation time needed to charge the vehicle.

[Burner]

I dunno... I haven't heard of a rash of Prius fires?

[dudevf1]

Originally Posted by drclark

If EVERYONE traded their gas burner for a plugin-car tomorrow, where would all the extra electricity come from?

I would also be concerned about LI-ion batteries in car applications. If they are overchaged or shorted they can catch fire or explode with spectacular results. (Anyone remember the dell laptop battery recall). They would have to go to great lengths to ensure the integrity of the battery pack is maintained in a crash. The article states that the battery pack is designed to operate over a temp range of 30-80 deg. Thats a very narrow temp range when the ambient air temp plus the heat generated by the current through the battery is considered. Guess the plugin option would be out of the question for most of the summer in the IE and high deserts, and most of the rest of the country that gets below 30 deg for about 3-4 months out of the year. Guess its only a spring/fall hybrid.

Still, at least its an attempt by GM and it looks alot better than a Prius.

drc

The electricity is already here and doesn't need to be built if people charge their batteries over night. Seriously, the NRDC and Electric industry research group (forget their name) released a major joint study a couple of months ago indicating that you don't have to build new power plants to do this because there is so much excess generating capacity during the over night hours.

There is a pilot program going on with national renewable labs, GM, and the electric company in Socal, and in other areas as well. If the batteries can be made to provide the needed life, packaged safely and small enough then it's going to happen.

[L8 APEKS]

I wonder what the difference in your electric bill would cost if you're charging that thing from your wall socket every day?

[DeeZee]

Originally Posted by L8 APEKS

I wonder what the difference in your electric bill would cost if you're charging that thing from your wall socket every day?

it would be similar to having an extra frig.....

[Rockinthecasbah]

zero emission
http://www.rhoadescar.com/jumpshow.htm

[Chewyeti]

holy lack of ground clearance batman!