Electric cars

On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:10:35 -0400 daestrom wrote: | Gerald Newton wrote: |> On Jun 16, 9:14 pm, James Sweet wrote: |>>> Fairbanks, Alaska it gets 50 below in the winter and has freezing |>>> temperatures for six months out of the year. We use electric battery |>>> blankets, head bolt and transmission heaters in the winter. It used |>>> to cost about $100 a month to plug in a car from October to March, |>>> but that cost has risen by about 50 percent. Battery powered cars |>>> are out of the question here. The same applies to solar power and |>>> wind |>>> power. There are about 100,000 people living noth of the 63 meridian |>>> that have this problem in Alaska. |>>

|>>> ---------------- |>>

|>> That's a pretty tiny minority of the population really, and a special |>> case for sure. With a population of over 300 million, 100k is but a |>> drop in the bucket, and I'll stand by my assertion that for the vast |>> majority of the population, the temperature is not an issue. |>> Obviously not everyone everywhere could get by with an electric |>> vehicle, but the same can be said of any type of vehicle. |>

|> I think there are other northern states where batteries would be a |> problem including Montana, Minnesota, North Dakota, Michigan and |> Wisconsin. |> For these new hybrid cars to be accepted they will have to operate in |> freezing temperaures of at least 20 degrees F below zero. | | Growing up in Michigan, I can attest that it gets colder here in NY. | Michigan has the Great Lakes to help moderate the temperatures of any artic | air coming down from Canada. International Falls, Minnesota is often in the | news as a cold place. And here in New York we see -10F to -20F a few times | each winter.

I understand that they are doing a lot of alternative electric cars in Iceland these days, due to the cheaper hydrothermal energy sources.

Reply to
phil-news-nospam
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I'm sure someone has better numbers, but chemical activity is temperature dependent. IIRC it doesn't matter much what the reaction is.

Reply to
krw

In my normal driving I don't make many fast stops. Prius has smaller than normal brakes because of regenerative braking. And the city mpg (stop and go)is better than highway. Regeneration must be quite effective.

I read Prius wants to keep battery charge between 40 and 60% of capacity because it gives longer battery life (NiMH). I suspect on a long descent they would run it up to 100%.

Reply to
bud--

There is no benefit to a hybrid at highway speeds because the engine has to run anyway. .,..and you're lugging the weight of the batteries along for no benefit.

I would seem to be a *LONG* descent charge .4C or the batteries are too small to be of much use.

Reply to
krw

. You can use a smaller engine, with battery/electric motor added for when you need more power - acceleration, ascent. (For a very long fast ascent where battery assistance is required you can run out of battery.) The smaller engine operates at a more efficient point. The benefit - around

44 mpg highway for a Prius.

And with a conventional car you are lugging the weight of the higher horsepower of the engine that is not being used most of the time.

In a Prius, at higher speeds the engine - through the transmission - does not turn the wheels fast enough. One of the 2 electric motors is used as a generator feeding the 2nd motor. That operates through a planetary drive to increase the wheel speed. [See Hybrid Synergy Drive in Wikipedia.]

The engine, by the way, is a variation that uses an Atkinson cycle (which I had never heard of). .

. Design of anything is a series of trade-offs.

Reply to
bud--

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