New Plug-in Electric Car Company

[Dirk Bruere at NeoPax]

What I was replying to (eeyore's comments) went far beyond the specifics of
the original post.

Re: the specific company, as with any investment, it's a case of "caveat
emptor" - a person should look carefully into *any* investment.
THat's a different matter from what I commented on.

There's also the matter of efficiency. The actual efficiency of a PV
cell doesn't really matter much once you get beyond 10-20%.
The real determinant is cost per peak Watt, and there's no reason to
believe physics will somehow magically limit it to $1/W (which works out
at $200 per sq m at 20% efficiency). Thin film tech like Nanosolar's
could eventually reduce the cost far below that price, to the extent
that no other form of generation could compete on cost.

--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.theconsensus.org/ - A UK political party
http://www.onetribe.me.uk/wordpress/?cat=5 - Our podcasts on weird stuff

 

[Eeyore]

In England they are paid to drink crappy tea and not make those
little clown cars.

Nissan's factory in the North of England is consistently one of their most
productive, beating even Japanese plants.

Honda see fit to make cars here too in Swindon. I don't suppose it's for the tea.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Even if the electricity comes from hydrocarbon sources, the efficiency
of a stationary electric power plant is greater than that of a vehicle
engine, which has made compromises in efficiency in order to be
lightweight, portable and affordable for the general public.

Simply not true anymore when considering typical power station efficiencies,
transmission losses, battery charging losses, controller losses and electric motor
efficiency. Plus if you need to heat the cabin, that uses electricity but with an
ICE it makes use of 'free' waste heat.

A diesel will easily equal it. 'Next generation' auto diesels are targeting 40%
efficiency. Very large marine diesels can already exceed 50% thermal efficiency.

You need to learn accounting.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

The cost of a hire car would be quite a bit less than the petrol I used.

For a 2 week holiday say in Cornwall ? (I'm near London).

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Again, I do not see why that should not drop in price as well, at least
to the point of an equivalent lead-acid system.

That sounds an astonishingly facile response.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Inductive charge points in Tesco car park?

And how are you going to get the required coupling ? Don't know much about
electromagnetism do you ? Air core transformer ! My giddy aunt.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Nanosolar have just had a $300m injection of capital to boost their
production capacity.

What's that got to do with the price of their panels ?

PV solar currently averages ~ $6 per peak watt. Nanosolar claim they can do it for
$1. Do you think they'll sell it for $1 when they could sell it for say $4 and still
undercut the other manufacturers and sell every sq metre of film they produce ?

It's called economics and the market. Plus I expect the investors want some money
back, not to run a charity.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

http://www.dancewithshadows.com/avi...mini-plane-makes-flying-cheaper-than-driving/

How do they do that with a 7 hp engine ? More like a motorised glider I reckon.

Imagine a 7 hp car ! 0-60 in several minutes.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

It's Europe where those tiny, death traps on wheels are made, not the
US.

So how come your auto death rate is about 3 times the UK rate ?

Saab, a death trap ? They're designed even to protect you from death or
serious injury in the event of a moose impact which American cars often
don't.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

And these are the cars some Europeans keep telling us belong on US
roads?

Have you seen the kinds of tests we subject them to ? Offset impact is one
the toughest.

European cars were the first to have side impact protection too. Courtesy of
Saab and Volvo.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

five NCAP stars is a very safe car, the point was that a car that got
five stars
ten years ago is not nearly as safe a car that gets five stars now....

In other words our standards are improving. Plus we have better headlights
(beam shape) instead of your old fashioned ideas.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Been to a Starbucks once , in the UK, to use the internet, the
keyboard was so filthy I asked for a pair of rubber gloves. Got my
money back

You are still building the Titanics of transport.
have another look at this
http://www.autoblog.com/2006/11/10/the-5th-gear-smart-crash-video/

It's astonishing just how tough that little car is. It's NOT the size that
counts so much as how it's designed. Mercedes Benz in this case.

Any clot who thinks a BIG car will save you needs to watch this ....

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

England built the Titanic.

The Americans set fire to the France and sank it in NY harbour. Great
engineers you are.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Dirk Bruere at NeoPax wrote

Rather tahn me just specualting, I did a search:

https://shop.sae.org/technical/papers/970743
QUOTED MATERIAL: "The main conclusions from this work are that: fuel type
and equivalence ratio have major influences on both total hydrocarbon and
methane emissions; spark timing affects total hydrocarbon and methane
emissions significantly; increasing engine speed decreases total
hydrocarbon emissions for both fuels; during cold start and warm-up
operations, gasoline emitted a much higher excess of total hydrocarbons at
first start compared with natural gas; and exhaust gas recirculation gave
lower oxides of nitrogen emissions for natural gas than for gasoline
fuelling."

I'm sure it's true about start up, but I bet it's improved a lot with modern
ECUs. The best being Saab's Trionic of course with a Motorola 32 bit CPU. It is
insanely clever. Doesn't even need a distributor and has no HT leads. Plus it
uses the plugs themselves to measure critical paramaters using ionisation.

GM has chosen to fit Trionic in some recent Opels too.

http://www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/vehicles/natural_gas_emissions.html
QUOTED MATERIAL: "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calculated the
potential benefits of CNG versus gasoline based on the inherently cleaner-
burning characteristics of natural gas, summarized in Clean Alternative
Fuels: Compressed Natural Gas (PDF 76 KB). Download Adobe Reader.

Reduce carbon monoxide emissions 90%-97%

Hang on a sec ! Catalysts reduce CO to virtually zero already !

This looks like it must be ancient data.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

And one might suppose that people investing $300m actually look at the
tech in some detail.

Which Nanosolar refuse to provide to anyone else.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

There's also the matter of efficiency. The actual efficiency of a PV
cell doesn't really matter much once you get beyond 10-20%.
The real determinant is cost per peak Watt, and there's no reason to
believe physics will somehow magically limit it to $1/W (which works out
at $200 per sq m at 20% efficiency). Thin film tech like Nanosolar's
could eventually reduce the cost far below that price, to the extent
that no other form of generation could compete on cost.

One can always dream. I saw a calculation once that worked out that PV solar
needs to come down to 25c / peak watt to really make a difference.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

The US has never built a luxury liner from substandard iron plates
and claimed it was unsinkable. Only people with the arrogance of the
British would do that.

The Iron plates weren't substandard. They've been tested.

Graham

 

[Dirk Bruere at NeoPax]

One can always dream. I saw a calculation once that worked out that PV solar
needs to come down to 25c / peak watt to really make a difference.

Since PV is already price competitive with grid in S Europe I'd say it
won't have to go that far to be noticed.

--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.theconsensus.org/ - A UK political party
http://www.onetribe.me.uk/wordpress/?cat=5 - Our podcasts on weird stuff

 

[Dirk Bruere at NeoPax]

Which Nanosolar refuse to provide to anyone else.

And why should they?
Suppose they actually confirmed that they could make a handsome profit
and still manufacture for under $1/W - what effect do you suppose it
would have given that PV is selling at a much higher price?

--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.theconsensus.org/ - A UK political party
http://www.onetribe.me.uk/wordpress/?cat=5 - Our podcasts on weird stuff

 

[Dirk Bruere at NeoPax]

What's that got to do with the price of their panels ?

PV solar currently averages ~ $6 per peak watt. Nanosolar claim they can do it for
$1. Do you think they'll sell it for $1 when they could sell it for say $4 and still
undercut the other manufacturers and sell every sq metre of film they produce ?

Of course not.
But in this case the price is high because demand cannot be met, not
because the tech is inherently expensive.

--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.theconsensus.org/ - A UK political party
http://www.onetribe.me.uk/wordpress/?cat=5 - Our podcasts on weird stuff