Gas engine more efficient than electric engine

[Chargerrtforme]

Chargerrtforme:

OK - so the Volt battery weighs 375 pounds, not the 1,000 pounds quoted in the NYT article. Keep cool. I simply posted a link to an article I thought some people on a classic car forum might find interesting, and pulled a quote about the challenges electric cars face.

Didn't mean to pee in anybody's Wheaties or add to misinformation machine.

But researching the "lies" about the weight of the Volt battery and the alleged 9-pound gallon of gas would also have pointed out that a gallon of gas at room temperature only weights about 6.3 pounds, at least according to fueleconomy.gov.

Maybe that's misinformation, too? Everyone knows the NYT is a huge, afraid of Yes-We-Can change propaganda machine hell-bent on destroying the electric car and all forms of alternative energy . . .  Um - have you read a Thomas Friedman column in the past 10 years, or am I just missing something?

The whole point of the NYT article was that a gasoline engine won the energy efficiency car contest, beating electric cars, and that both energy forms - batteries and gasoline - will face significant challenges if auto manufacturers are going to try and make production passenger cars and trucks that get 60-plus miles per gallon.

So, 1000/9 equals 111
And 375/6.3 equals 59.5

So, gasoline is only 60 times more efficient at storing enough energy to travel 40 miles. Your electric car has made some progress as a result of clearing away the propaganda, but still has challenges to overcome. And keep in mind, Mr. Efficiency, that my god-given legs can walk 40 miles on a quarter-pounder with cheese. How's that for efficient?

I realize you are proud of the Volt and its battery, and see electric vehicles as the future of the world, weaning us off the evil oil - most of which we get from Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria. With a little self-restraint and conservation (ugh, what a disgusting word!), we could probably wean ourselves off oil from the last two.

Instead we will burn the last of our coal reserves, leveling Appalachia and parts of the west to generate electricity in dirty old coal-fired power plants, then figure out where to get all the lithium needed to store that electricity in inefficient car batteries, so people can drive 40 miles on a charge without having to buy gas, and feel better, somehow, about their reduced carbon footprint and newfound freedom from mostly non-Middle East oil.

As far as giving electric vehicles as long to develop as gasoline-powered vehicles, do some more research on electric cars and find out how long they've actually been around. I really think to a large extent we've already done that. Cause if I'm not mistaken, the electric streetcar used to be how a significant number of people in U.S. cities used to get around. Aside from some toll disputes, it worked great from everything I've heard.

http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aacarselectrica.htm
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/223/electric-car-timeline.html

I'm not trying to knock people for trying to find better ways of doing things - magnetic conversion engines, mag-lev trains, solar power, fuel-cell technology - and I'm not saying those things will never amount to anything in terms of practical benefits. I'm simply pointing out that a gas-powered car just proved more efficient than electric cars in an efficiency contest. My bad. More misinformation.

Hey I'm cool.  Just pointed out the the information was not correct, so why agree with the points made?

"As far as giving electric vehicles as long to develop as gasoline-powered vehicles, do some more research on electric cars and find out how long they've actually been around. I really think to a large extent we've already done that. Cause if I'm not mistaken, the electric streetcar used to be how a significant number of people in U.S. cities used to get around. Aside from some toll disputes, it worked great from everything I've heard"

Also, I don't agree with this at all.  There is no comparison to all the years of gas engine technologies.  I haven't seen one electric car on the road in my whole life, yet I came home in a gas car over 55 years ago.

[tricky lugnuts]

"I haven't seen one electric car on the road in my whole life, yet I came home in a gas car over 55 years ago"

And maybe there' a reason for that, getting back to the whole gasoline/battery-efficiency thing that you don't agree with.

For more than 100 years, they've used electric motors in subways, street cars, fork lifts, razors, blenders and a whole range of other things, many of them working very well.

The electric motor has had plenty of time to develop - it's the batteries that are the issue here, and they've also been evolving since the days of Thomas Edison - just as long if not longer than the internal combustion engine. In fact, it looks like Benjamin Franklin discussed them back in 1748.

As someone who is not an inventor or a scientist, and as someone who could not care less if the masses of men and women on Earth walk or drive or ski or ride a burro, I can't help it that it hasn't been economically feasible to retrofit the U.S. transportation fleet with electric engines over the last century.

The fact of the matter is, it's hard enough to produce cost-effective energy - I can only assume it becomes more and more difficult to store and/or transport that energy through things like batteries. That's not to say it's impossible or undesirable. I'm not arguing that.

Go back to the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s when the gas-powered automobile was taking off and G.M. was going around the country and buying up streetcar track to yank it out, the U.S. could have easily kept those streetcar rails in place and electrified the streets so people could drive little slot cars around on existing infrastructure. Voila, electric passenger car for the masses.

But people wanted to be able to drive wherever, whenever they wanted - hence the gas-powered car as opposed to the electric street car.

It's not like many cars can travel for long distances off-road anyway, (i.e. cars are limited to the roads) but a slot track up to everyone's driveway seems sort of Orwellian. And hence the ongoing effort to make the electric car nothing but an alternative fuel version of the gas-powered car, with a battery and eight hours of overnight charging instead of regular stops at the gas pump.

Like I said, my god-given legs can walk 40 miles on a quarter pounder with cheese. (Take the cheese off and I'm screwed, though.)

That makes gas-powered vehicles (6.3 pound gallon of fuel) and electric-powered vehicles (375-pound battery) both seem like energy hogs.

I walk to work five days a week, so I'd like to see any car maker make a car, gas or electric or hydrogen or Flintstone-powered, that proves economical at that point. Oh, that's right, it's called a bicycle.

[tricky lugnuts]

Well I beg to differ that there "is no comparison" between the engineering done with gas and electric powered vehicles.

From earlyelectriccar.com:

1881   Charles Jeantaud, with help from Camille Faure (inventor of the pasted plate battery), builds an electric vehicle in France. The car is made from a Tilbury style buggy with a Gramme motor and the (Faure's patent) Fulmen battery. Over the next twelve years he continued to modify this same platform installing a British motor in 1887, and used a Swiss motor with a tubular plate battery built by Tonate Thommasi in 1893.

1886   N. S. Possons builds an electric tricycle for the Brush Electric Co. of Cleveland, OH. It has an electric headlight and features the Brush Co.'s rechargeable battery.

1893   The "World's Colombian Exposition" opened in Chicago introducing the age of electricity to millions. Morrison's car was there and impressed Albert Pope, and most of the other people who made early cars, leading to the proliferation of electric cars in the late 1890's and early 1900's.

1894   Henry B. Morris and Pedro Salom Built the Electrobat, it ran at 15 mph. Later they redesign the Electrobat (with some help from Walter Baker's axles and bearings) first as a racecar then as an electric hansom cab. They built about a dozen cabs before being purchased by Isaac L. Rice of Electric Storage Battery. Combined with Pope (Columbia) and Riker, these companies were the foundation for the Electric Vehicle Company and the "lead cab" syndicate (1899).

Louis Antoine Krieger started making electric horseless carriages in Paris.

1899   Camille Jenatzy, in a modified Jeantaud car breaks 65 MPH (April 29) in his torpedo-bodied car "Jamais Contente". in 1901 he made some gas electric hybrids.

Ferdinand Porsche designs his first car, an electric, with a hub-motor at each driving wheel; the racing version was capable of 35 MPH.     

Charles "Mile-A-Minute" Murphy rides his bicycle over 60 MPH, with a little help from the Long Island Railroad's draft.

1901   The Pan-American Exposition was held from May 1st to November 1st. The fair was lit by the power of Niagra Falls and was centered on a tower of lights. President McKinley was shot, then driven to the hospital in a Riker electric ambulance. Neither survived the year.

Edison patented a nickel-iron battery, it needed improvement.

Peter Cooper Hewitt patented the mercury vapor rectifier, making the conversion of alternating current, to the direct current required to charge batteries, cheaper and more efficient.

1902   The Studebaker Brothers build their first 20 electric cars.

Porsche made a hybrid version of the Lohner electric.

The Columbus Buggy Co. started making electric cars. Personnel included Clinton Dewitt and Harvey S. Firestone, Eddie Rickenbacker, Lee Frayer, and George M. Bacon.

May 31st the Baker Torpedo is the first car to have an aerodynamic body that enclosed both driver and platform. Under the torpedo shaped body was tandem seating for a driver steering in the front, and an electrician behind switching the battery as the car gained speed. It had a 12 H.P. Elwell-Parker motor. In a speed test the car hit 80 mph then crashed killing two spectators. Although retired from public speed contests, the car was said to have gone 120 mph.

1904   The US finally out-produced France to become the world's largest automobile maker, a record held until 1980 when the torch was passed to Japan.

1906   William C. Anderson recapitalized the Anderson Carriage Company to make cars under the Detroit Electric brand. George M. Bacon from the Columbus Buggy Company was lead design engineer. Bacon chose the Elwell-Parker motor/controller. It remains to date as the most efficient motor/control system for battery electric propulsion.

A Stanley steam car with a torpedo body set a new land speed record of 127 MPH. Electric car builders give up the speed tests.

1908   Edison finally introduced his improved nickel-Iron battery.

In October Henry Ford started production of the model T, marking the beginning of the end for many low price US car builders, however it was no world-beater at first. The same year he bought his first Detroit Electric, a model C coupe. It was for his wife Clara and had a special child seat for Edsel.

1914   John D. Rockefeller Jr. bought a Detroit Electric model 46 Roadster for his wife Abbie.         

Charles Proteus Steinmetz, the electrical genius at General Electric, bought a model 48 Detroit Electric Brougham (blue/blue).

Ford started paying "loyal" workers five dollars a day. He bought a third Detroit Electric (model 47) for Clara that they never sell.

The Milburn Wagon Co. started making a lighter and cheaper electric, giving a significant challenge to Detroit Electric's sales leadership. During the years that Milburn made electrics they produced about 3,400 cars, while Anderson/Detroit shipped 6,672.

1933   Dunk's company was liquidated. Dunk employee Alfred F. Renz got the Detroit Electric related assets and continued limited production of cars as The Detroit Electric Vehicle Manufacturing Company (registered October 16th, 1933). From remaining stock, or with a Dodge coupe body, Renz made another 15 "new" cars, the last of which was shipped 2-23-39.

1941   W.W.II puts a stop to personal vehicle manufacturing so Renz sold the metallic assets as scrap for the war effort, then retired Detroit Electric as the most successful electric car company in the twentieth century producing 12,350-13,000 pleasure cars and 535 trucks.

After the war the automobile boom was all gas, the electric vehicle was relegated to public transportation and specialty niches such as vehicles on the factory floor, and city delivery routes. From the 1960's forward many individuals and companies have made prototype cars, conversions of gas cars, and small production runs of electric cars. But so far the car of the future remains a car of the past.   


IT could go on and on, but here's some aspects of the history of electric cars built in the late 1800s and early 1900s. They had every chance to outdo steam and gasoline and diesel powered cars, but failed - something that has continued up until today.

[Mike DC]

                
Electric batteries have been in development for just as long as gasoline engines.  Batteries are used all over our lives in everything from computers to Ipods to flashlights to fast-attack military submarines.  

The reason we don't have better batteries is because of fundamental limitations of the concept, not a lack of decent research effort.  

 

[elacruze]

I walk to work five days a week, so I'd like to see any car maker make a car, gas or electric or hydrogen or Flintstone-powered, that proves economical at that point. Oh, that's right, it's called a bicycle.

In the '90's I used to ride my bicycle 10 miles each way to work and back. I also had a '93 Honda Elite 80 scooter. The Honda consistently got 70mpg on my work route. I did the math, and determined that the gas for the Honda was only about 2/3 the cost of the extra food I ate to power the bicycle!

[Chargerrtforme]

Lots of great info here.  Well, sit back and watch the show.  Gm invested millions banking on a electric car future.  We shall see.