A car with 0 fuel consumption

Dear RAMESH:

These are electric cars. Energy is stored in batteries (around 40% thermal efficiency from charge losses to discharge losses), then released to move the car.

Only a perpetual motion machine works with no losses. Even electric cars run on electric energy that is provided by others.

If you put a motor to drive the front wheels, and a generator on the back wheels, no motion would occur. If you pushed the car to put energy in it, it would stop. The generator is not 100% efficient. The wires between the two devices are not 100% efficient. The motor is not 100% efficient. And they all have varying efficiency at different rotating speeds.

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The efficiency of a system is the product of the efficiencies of each linked system. So a 95% generator driving a 95% motor through 99.9% wires, yields 90% system efficiency. Energy is lost. Motion stops.

We can reduce the losses, but the system would still not be self-starting, and it still would grind to a stop.

David A. Smith

No, a car with no fuel consumption is not possible.

This general area is called, for convenience "Perpetual Motions"

The search for perpetual motions effectively ceased in the mid ninteenth century when it became apparent that energy conservation laws demanded an input, if work was to be output.

Brian Whatcott Altus OK

What kind of a person could call himself ANY kind of engineer who has no grasp of the first and second laws of thermodynamics

Dear Tom Miller:

Be a little tolerant, Tom. Computers (or at least information science) deal with a "universe" that has no entropy that cannot be avoided. With careful design and proper maintenance, there is no loss of "energy". Objects only mutate when directed to do so. Stuff like that. It is possible for someone dealing with that world to forget the world that underlys that one.

David A. Smith

A pure solar electric car would qualify as no fuel (but not "no energy")

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So stated in my post. The real world underlys the artifically created world. I'm certain that there are hosts of data tapes fading into illegibility, which is where magnetic domains go when entropy claims them. I was not trying to hide anything.

David A. Smith

I suspect Tom's point is that either you are an engineer or you aren't, and if you are then you will have been taught things like Shannon's law, the laws of Thermodynamics, and Kirchoff's laws. Leastways, any engineer of any calling at my university would have had those inflicted on them.

BTW, you misunderstand (or perhaps deliberately misstate) the concept of entropy in computers. It is possible to minimise the loss of entropy in them, but there is always an energy overhead in processing data.

Cheers

Greg Locock

Sure it is. A car the doesn't consume fuel (within itself) is not only possible, they have operated. It's called an electric car. It is also called a flywheel car. No fuel is consumed in them. Fuels are consumables like wood, oil, CNG and gasoline. I know it is a technicality, because SOMEWHERE in the energy chain a fuel is consumed, but that doesn't mean my statement isn't true.

Yep. Actually, any electric would qualify since a battery isn't 'consumed' during the operation.

I disagree-- a non-solar electric car still uses fuel--it just uses it at the power plant rather that immediately at car

Dear Dan Bollinger:

'consumed'

Silly. The battery does not have to be consumed to be a source of energy. Although with the slow disintegration of the plates over discharge/recharge cycles... maybe "consumed" is a pretty accurate description.

David A. Smith

Nah, that's just wear and tear. It's not like lead disintegration is what's powering the car. Next you'll be saying that bearing wear makes the engine go 'round.

This is sillier: If you push your Buick backwards the tanks fills with gas?

The key here is the meaning of 'fuel' as oppossed to energy source. Fuel is an 'energy source', but not all energy sources are 'fuel.'