Electric cars

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Much of Europe is creeping up on a demographic time bomb. We're not.

Wrong. The population of may countries in Europe is going to stop
increasing sometime fairly soon, when the baby boomers start dying off
in significant numbers. They are living longer than was expected when
retirement at 65 was the norm, and if they continue to retire at 65
some countries will have trouble funding the old age pension. Germany
is in the process of raising the statutory arge of retirement to 68,
which they seem to thing will be enough to solve that problem.

As demographic tme bombs go, this would be a damp squid.

The population of the US shows no prospect of stabilising. You burn
twice as much fossil carbon per head as Europeans, and have to import
half the oil you burn, and you can't export anything like enough to
pay for it, and haven't been able to come anywhere near it for more
than twenty years now.

This looks more like the kind of demographic time bomb that Malthus
had in mind.

Pontificating? You and Donkeybreath keep making absurd statements
about the USA, based on nothing but your dislikes.

A silly claim, which you keep on making and have never been able to
substantiate.

I visit college campuses here, fund some scholarships and EE departments,
support a girls' school in Africa, employ student interns, and work with a lot
of academic researchers all over the world.

When you and DB make up stuff about the USA, you are speaking from
prejudice and ignorance.

I don't make up stuff about the USA - I don't need to. The reality
provides all the ammunition I need.

The American kids I meet are great. US science and industry are still
the best in the world, and these kids will keep it that way for some time..
Sorry to disappoint.

The foreign graduate students that you used to import did keep US
science and industry ahead of the rest of the world for quite a while,
but Europe caught up a while ago, and now attracts bright graduate
studnets from all over, the way you used to do.

At the moment I'm designing some of the best electronics in the world,

As you keep on telling us. It is certainly good, but perhaps not quite
as brilliant as yur PR-team would like us to believe.

key parts of the biggest scientific and aerospace projects on the
planet.

Who get stuff that works and keeps on working (if you are to be relied
on as an impartial source).
It seems unlikely that it is any better or more advanced than it needs
to be. Cutting edge design takes a lot of work, and it is hard to
justify for the rather small production volumes required by big
scientific and aerospace projects.

And Jim has designed, likely, gigabucks of linear ICs, and at
the moment still is.

Jim designed some ground breaking non-linear ICs back when he was
still working for Motorola.
I used his MC4024 and MC4044 to build a phase-locked loop, which
wasn't as easy as it might have been, and I contemplated using his
MC1495 which would also have been a swine to use, but Barry Gilbert at
Analog Devices managed to produce a more practical device before I had
to design a four quadrant multiplier into anything.

Other people who were active in the area back then seemed to do better
than Jim, but he's obviously good enough to have been able to keep
working in the area.

And you're not. So who got the best schooling?

I never had any formal schooling in electronics - as you are well
aware - so this is a particularly silly question.

As I was explicitly talking about general education, it is also
totally irrelevant

Your "outside of electronics" qualifier is entirely insubstantial.

You pontificate on fuzzy, unprovable issues so you can pretend to some
sort of competence. This is sci.electronics.design, not The Climate
Doom Channel.

No. I "pontificate" on issues where there are clear provable points,
in areas that you would be ill-equipped to understand, even if you
read more than the first few words of my comment. We don't have to go
back too far in the thread for an example

You responded to the first line of my comment before you'd bothered to
read the second line; when I was at school we were taught to read the
whole question before starting to answer it.

You were presumably goofing off. designing something, when your
teachers tried to get this across to you.

Your enthusiasm for assuming that I don't know anything about the USA
does seem to lead you to neglect evidence that might persuade that I'm
less ignorant than you think, but that's right-wing thinking for you.

The fact that you don't know anything about anthropogenic global
warming, beyond knowing that you don't want to believe in it, does
make you insensitive to the arrant nonsense that gets posted here in
support of the attractive (but false) proposition that anthropogenic
global warming isn't good science.

 

[Jim Yanik]

You got it ;-)

...Jim Thompson

but not truly "safe" for you,either.
Big cars/SUVs don't handle as well,so you can't AVOID things,and are less
forgiving when control is lost.
And more prone to flip over(SUVs).

Of course,a Q45 isn't really a big car as compared to the 70's landbarges.

 

[krw]

Note that there's a big difference between diesel and petrol here.
Petrol engines take a performance hit from having to suck air past a
partially-closed throttle.

Here, diesels take big a hit at the pump. No thanks.

 

[krw]

Double-glass windows, such as in the house, and 5cm styrofoam?

More useless weight to lug around.

 

[krw]

krw, Do you electricity where you are located?

No, I don't electricity. ;-) What was the question?

 

[krw]

Kentucky is reported to be without electricity? Are you?

Oh, no. Never made it to Kentucky. I decided not to retire (none
months was enough) and couldn't find anything in KY. I moved from
VT, with a 1YR stopover in OH, to Eastern Alabama, about 100mi SW
of Atlanta. It's nice here. Sure beats living waste deep in snow
and drowning in weenies. ;-)

 

[Jim Yanik]

the Fit looks like crap. It's just a box.No sportiness at all,ZERO.

Only if you're fond of shoe horns ;-)

I doubt you've even sat in a Fit.
What small import cars HAVE you sat in,or driven?

 

[Eeyore]

Michael wrote:
Imagine a family with two electric cars. 100HP (75kW) engine each -
not too big, is it? On an average workday each driver commutes for on
hour [...]
Do we have an infrastructure to support it?
On average, a car needs nowhere near 75kW. Some 10 to 15kW
should do fine. Even so, you are right to believe that the
current infrastructure wouldn't suffice if everyone used
electric cars.
But, of course, not everyone will buy an electric car immediately when
they become available. As more and more cars come on line, then the
electric company will be doing some dancing to put in all the
additional service throughout all the towns and cities to support the
additional demand

And the total efficiency of all this extra generated electricity from power
station fuel input to vehicle drive train is ??? Compared to say 40% for new
generation diesels for example ?

I can tell you it won't look very impressive, plus think of all the
batteries you'll have to replace.

Either that, or solar chargers of some sort will become extremely
popular...

Have you seen the price of solar cells ? Plus there's not much sun at night.
Fear not, mere politically incorrect inconveniences.

Put windmills on top of the cars & they'll recharge themselves on
their way to work. And painting them green will provide more green
jobs too, saving the planet and the economy. Win-win.

The really scary thing is that some people actually believe all that stuff.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Who says we don't learn from it ? The Entire EU concept was a result.
Unfortunately that's now being rapidly turned into neo-Stalinism by politician
with big heads. Time for a review.

Jim Yanik in his right-wing cloud-cuckoo-land again.

None of the Muslim immigrant communities in Europe are all big

http://www.islamicpopulation.com/europe_islam.html

France, with 10% has pretty much the highest proportion of immigrants, while
the places with higher proportions of Muslims have been that way since they
were part of the Turkish empire.

At the moment Muslim immigrnts do have more children than the rest of the
population, but it would take many generations before they became a
majority, and long before that happens female education will have reduced
their birthrate down to the European norm.

Nobody allows them to use or enforce sharia law, and "respect for Islam"
is pretty much limited to gagging right-wing nitwits who try to attract
attention by saying silly things about Muslims and the Muslim community,
much as Jim Yanik is doing here.

Europeans remember the kind a lot of trouble this kind of right-wing nitwit
can create - Hitler, France and Mussolini come to mind - and suppress
them because they are obnoxious in their own right, rather than from any
exaggerated sensitivity to Muslim opinion.

Jim looks very like this kind of right-wing nitwit, as do his heros
Bush and Cheney, who didn't hesitate to use anti-Muslim rhetoric to
exploit rational anxieities about the Muslin fundamentlists in Al Qaeda to
justiify the invasion of Irak despie the fact that it was run by
Saddam Hussein who was a very secular Muslim, who found Al Qaeda
as unattractive as they found him.

It isn't all that surprising that he doesn't like the European approach, but
his opinion is neither impartial nor all that rational.

For once, Bill is pretty much spot on.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

There is an ongoing problem with girls being sent from UK to Pakistan
for forced marriages to cousins.

And there is AIUI a law being drafted to stop this.

All it needs is an amendement to Islam for a woman to divorce her husband by repeating thrice "I divorce thee". I'm sure that
could be covered by the Equal Opportunities Act.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Also the muslims make repeated attempts to have girls go to school in
veils.

No, "the muslims" don't. I suspect I know rather more of them than you do.

I do however despise those that use the veil. They don't belong here if they don't like our culture and should be resettled in a
place more suitable. Darfur perhaps.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Parallel hybrids in conventional bodies don't really do
much better than my Acura--Mom's Civic Hybrid gets about
44mpg, I get about 41mpg. The hybrids /are/ more efficient,
but her car's heavier and more powerful. It needn't be
either.

The 2009 Nissan Altima Hybrid rates 35mpg and has a 158hp
2.5L gas engine.

Sheesh. That should be 40hp electric, plus a 20hp ICE for
recharging. Much more efficient, lighter, AND faster. A
lighter car doesn't need as big an engine to be fast. Easier
to make. Lighter=less materials used, cheaper, less waste, etc.

Check out Opel's Flextreme.

Graham

 

[Greegor]

CE > And electric cabin heat would really drain a
CE > pack fast, you would probably find some sort
CE > of heat pump arrangement for heating and cooling.

krw > How is the heat pump going to work at -20F?

CE > It would also become common for employers
CE > and cities to have charging stations in the
CE > parking lots. Some of that charge could be
CE > used for 'battery warmers' just like you have
CE > engine warmers today for cold climes.

Opportunities to plug in engine block heaters
are not exactly plentiful in Minnesota.

In the 1980's Northern States Power, the largest
electric utility provider was actually ordered
to disconnect heaters built into sidewalks and
bus shelters to save electricity. This included
the sidewalk around their own building.

Personally I thought the heated sidewalk thing
was a great public safety move.

Ironically, within the last year they redid the
sidewalk and steps outside our courthouse here
in Iowa and they INSTALLED piping for water/steam
heating them. I can easily imagine that this
feature could save a LOT of taxpayers money
when it comes to snow/ice removal AND
you can bet that the decreased LIABILITY
would also be well worth the cost.

For an employer or parking ramp to place an
outlet near a parking space could get to be a
considerable legal liability, not to mention a
problem allocating the considerable energy cost.

[...]

CE > Actually, I expect cities to get into providing
CE > charging stations that double as parking meters!

Going for some MAJOR popularity there!


Jim Yanik

Once you start driving,the heat generated by the electric motor may be used
to provide interior heat.
That doesn't provide for defrosting current for the back window or initial
defrosting of the front.
That's where a hybrid electric auto is more practical.A small gas or diesel
motor will heat up quickly.

You think an electric motor runs hot in a -20 F climate?

You think the heat would be enough to be worth collecting?



[...]

Jim Yanik

A company providing charging outlets essentially is paying for your power
usage.They may not be interested in doing that. I suspect most companies
will not do it for free,or not at all.Just the initial cost of the wiring
and outlets is something I doubt most companies will provide,particularly
in today's business climate.(economics,tight profit margins)

Covered parking may just be the result of city regs requiring employers or
commercial buildings to have enough parking spaces for the employees.Like
making them build a parking garage.

As opposed to a free market, good business model, etc.?

CE > Actually, I expect cities to get into providing charging stations
that
CE > double as parking meters!

JY > They may not be able to afford the installation costs,
JY > and desire to move you into public transpo anyways.

Good point about installation costs.
The wiring of such outlets for that many
cars and for that level of power usage
would not be trivial.

 

[Greegor]

I see this thread generated quite an interest.
To see what DIYers are doing, check these forums.
This one has the most traffic,
http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums/

They may appreciate input on designing a motor speed control,
something simple, 160v, 1000amps, current limited.
These two have less traffic,
http://www.evforum.net/forums/index.php?s=14c8f1be72295282d527a3bc7b4592b4

http://visforvoltage.org/

And here is a photo album of hundreds of DIY EVs with specifications.
http://www.evalbum.com/

Mike

Thanks for posting the links!
I'd like to see if they've solved any of these cold weather issues.

Greg

 

[Nobody]

I do however despise those that use the veil. They don't belong here if
they don't like our culture and should be resettled in a place more
suitable. Darfur perhaps.

Do you propose mandating "western" dress by law?

Would you impose the same requirements on (christian) nuns? Or are you
just singling out muslims?

 

[James Arthur]

4WD adds a lot of weight to a vehicle. So take a regular fwd car, add
some modest amount of batteries, and hang high-peak-power electric
motors on the rear wheels. Now you have improved acceleration in
spurts, intelligent 4wd when you need it, and regenerative braking.

I suppose you could even use the motors as generators to help charge
the battery, in normal cruise mode, but that would be weird.

John

The Honda hybrid uses its electrical generator as starter
and brakes too. That whole thing drives a single
shaft, which mechanically drives tranny and wheels.

Driving the rear wheels as generators via the tires
sure simplifies the drivetrain. Road/rubber power
coupler. The weight reductions partly offset the added
losses. Might be pretty useful.

James Arthur

 

[Jim Yanik]

The Honda hybrid uses its electrical generator as starter
and brakes too. That whole thing drives a single
shaft, which mechanically drives tranny and wheels.

Driving the rear wheels as generators via the tires
sure simplifies the drivetrain. Road/rubber power
coupler.

going to wear your rear tires much quicker,then there's slippage on wet/icy
surfaces.

The weight reductions partly offset the added
losses. Might be pretty useful.

James Arthur

adding a "modest amount of betteries" is going to add a lot of weight to a
car;the batteries have to be enough to run those "high peak power" rear
electric motors.that's a lot of KWh.
Then there's unsprung weight;you would have to have the TWO motors mounted
to the body(no frame,just a unibody) and use CV joints to allow the
suspension to work.Using one motor means another differential.

 

[Charlie E.]

going to wear your rear tires much quicker,then there's slippage on wet/icy
surfaces.


adding a "modest amount of betteries" is going to add a lot of weight to a
car;the batteries have to be enough to run those "high peak power" rear
electric motors.that's a lot of KWh.
Then there's unsprung weight;you would have to have the TWO motors mounted
to the body(no frame,just a unibody) and use CV joints to allow the
suspension to work.Using one motor means another differential.

Or, still use two motors, but go into a modified differential that
allows either to drive both axles. Smaller motors, and redundancy...

Charlie

 

[James Arthur]

going to wear your rear tires much quicker,then there's slippage on wet/icy
surfaces.

True, like a dog dragging its hind legs, which can't be good
for cornering. But if you were already braking into a corner
anyhow...hmmmm. I'm not sure. Could be okay.

They don't have to act as generators, that was lagniappe.

adding a "modest amount of betteries" is going to add a lot of weight to a
car;the batteries have to be enough to run those "high peak power" rear
electric motors.that's a lot of KWh.
Then there's unsprung weight;you would have to have the TWO motors mounted
to the body(no frame,just a unibody) and use CV joints to allow the
suspension to work.Using one motor means another differential.

The battery can be quite small. You only need peak power for a
few minutes at a time, max. Just long enough to get up to speed,
pass someone, or zip up an on-ramp.

Electric racecars use flexible shaft couplings to drive their
wheels, I'm told.

Cheers,
James Arthur

 

[James Arthur]

It is easy to accomplish "differential" behavior with two motors...
maybe even better than mechanical... think how easy it would be to
implement power to the wheel with traction.

...Jim Thompson

Yep. Nice.

James Arthur