Are electric cars more energy efficient?

Two words.

Candu Won't

Tell that to anyone living downwind of the Ohio Valley. The crud from the coalfired stations, pumped out through high stacks, comes to earth in inversions - smogging out areas like central Ontario every summer.

Any that my RO filter and it's carbon pre-filter will remove are fine.

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pie-in-the-

Except, as I and others have already explained, heat loss with your = garden variety internal combustion engine varies greatly depending upon = how much power is actually being drawn from the shaft; a characteristic = not shared with electric motors which are capable of providing full = torque even at zero rpms.

A drop in the bucket, compared to the amount of waste heat that's going = out your exhaust pipe and radiator.

Actually, it's a subject which I've already researched in depth.

Now, if YOU want something to "think" about, I'd suggest think about why = it is that diesel-electric locomotives and marine vessels are able = achieve greater fuel efficiency as compared to their mechanically driven = counterparts.

If you want to compare Joules, be my guest--pretty sure everything you = would need in order to be able do that is supplied in the above paper.

standpoint, specifically, the out-of pocket cost per mile traveled.

No, from energy efficiency.

I am a big fan of nuclear energy.

i

I am fascinated by the idea of using CNG to run my vehicles. Especially the corporate trucks. If it could costs twice less, that would make a huge difference.

Say, my dump truck, rarely leaves a 50 mile area.

i

And if the Japanese power company had built the plant 20 metres higher above sea level the whole tragedy for the people would probably not have happened.

And HYDROcarbons burn less carbon that pure carbons, a.k.a. coal.

That's because hydrocarbons also burn hydrogen.

So, what emits less carbon, a coal fires power station transmitting power, used to charge batteries, or a hydrocarbon burning carm is not obvious.

i

Nope, all that is needed is there...

Wrong.

Since both electricity and fossil fuel energy dissipation can be expressed as BTU, it can easily be calculated that in the case of the 4 mile / kwh vehicle, the total energy consumed when expressed as btu works out to be about 853 btu per mile.

Now, we take a look at gasoline...which when burned produces appx 125,000 btu per gallon...and for the purpose of discussion, lets assume a car that gets 30 mpg....what we end up with here is an energy consumption rate that totals out at a whopping 4166 btu /mile.

In other words, with a gasoline powered car, most of the energy that gets consumed, ends up going directly out the tailpipe...

In your analysis, you need to cover the full lifecycle cost, which includes making the car in the first place. Cars only last on average seven years, so making them is a major component of both cost and carbon impact. Batteries in particular are expensive to make, don't have a very large capacity compared to a gas tank, and don't last all that long.

As others have pointed out, gasoline engines in cars are maybe 20% efficient, whereas coal fired power plants are more like 40%, coalpile to bussbar, but transmission and battery inefficiency eat much of that advantage up. Batteries are not all that efficient at storing energy.

The basic advantage of a hybrid is that the battery handles the pulse loads, like accelerating into traffic, so the gas engine can be sized for cruise, and so can be smaller (about one half) and operates nearer to its optimum rpm and load.

Joe Gwinn

Eventually, fusion power will be the best solution until some new energy source comes along, maybe antimatter. I wonder how the leftists will take THAT! (If leftists still exist)

OK, will you mostly be doing short drives and then recharging from the line? If so, the cost to operate it looks really good! If you will be going more than 28 miles or so on a typical day's driving before recharging, then it starts to look really bad, and many cars on the road will actually do BETTER! It appears the Volt gets about 26 MPG on gasoline.

Take a look at the Honda Civic Hybrid. I get over 50 MPG in mixed city/hwy driving. I just did an 1100 mile round trip to a conference, with 600+ Lbs of junk in the car (plus me) and going 70 MPH on the highway in beastly heat, I got 46 MPG. If I ran a bit slower with less weight, I'd get 49 or so. The HCH is a LOT cheaper than the Volt.

Jon

Any time you get involved in commercial, billion $ development projects, businesses get REAL hesitant to do ANYTHING different than what has already been done. There are a HOST of better, PROVEN designs out there, mostly gas cooled variations, than the standard US pressurized water reactor, but nobody is even talking about such in the US.

Jon

Yup, this was a train wreck that anybody even remotely familiar with the technology (and Japan, where they invented the word tsunami) had

40 YEARS to see coming! But, TEPCO wanted to finish out the life of the #1 plant without spending anything more on it.

It is totally amazing that nothing was done, even though they had meetings on the risks and what could be done to mitigate them.

Jon

I am a big believer in hybrids, as a matter of fact.

I am now seriously thinking about getting a small car, because I drive around a lot in my surplus business, and I hate to pay for the gas guzzling pickup truck when it is not necessary. A hybrid is definitely a very prominent possibility for me.

i

Plenty of shorter drives and charging at least partly from solar panels I'll install.

CR got 37 combined if I remember right. I'm reading expect 35 and sometimes get 40 on trips. Example:

Don't forget that some fuel only reports won't include recharge while driving. I saw a report of high 20s that once adjusted for recharge equaled high

30s.

The Volt outweighs the Civic by about 30% but is quicker. Apples and oranges. Anyway a large part of my theory here is that I don't want to merely do what's cheapest for me.