It may offer the performance, but not for very long. That's the problem with electric cars of all types - you either get a reasonable range or performance, but not the two together.
You suspect right. ;-)
yes, but the 2 are far from comparable in other respects. Nuke needs empty land around it for safety/security/political reasons, and build costs, run costs, political problems and so on are vastly different.
Whats the nation's square mileage of rooftops?
Solar thermal today is pretty much at the horse & buggy level technologically. Its not the solution to Britain's energy needs. But as it matures, it hopefully will become cheaper and more widely deployable, until it is both competitive and productive. There's a whole lot of rooftop space doing nothing of any use.
NT
I fear I failed to make myself clear; the Tesla doesn't do what it says on the tin. I simply don't believe the range and performance figures. Maybe range
*or* performance.
In one. What did TG get round the track? 40 miles? That's over 1000 quids worth of battery per mile...
The energy density of existing (and any near future) batteries simply isn't up to the job. That's why chemical fuels manufactured by nuclear stations are better - and the infrastructure to distribute them is already in place.
Yes. I did the sums on it, and pretty much the range available indicates =
50-60mph cruising, not racing it round a track.But then I am sure an F1 car can do 15mpg cruised at 60mph..you wouldn't =
expect the two to be the same.
No one quotes mpg figures under 'thrashing the pants off it' mode either.=
The Tesla aint the end of the matter though. The fact remains that using =
lithium you can get a *good enough* energy density to make a feasible=20 decent range reasonably fast charging car that will suit 'everyday use'
But it has to be designed up from the floor pan that way: Weight is the=20 enemy, and you must throw out everything that a traditional car has that =
is not needed. Simply hybridising it is possibly the worst of all=20 possible worlds.
Er, they are rechargeable..
So why base it on an Elise? It's a bloody *sports* car. I can't even get in and out of one with the roof on.
So you end up with hydrogen..a very less than ideal fuel..
...at 85% whereas from alternator to wheel you can get better than 90%..
Remember, something like kerosene represent the best energy density and volumetric density compromise for fuel. Not hydrogen, Its extremely bulky stuff.
What is needed is a way to produce synthetic hydrocarbons really, out of surplus CO2 and water..
I think that will become a viable way to produce e.g. aircraft fuel, but it will always be more expensive than the electric option.
Who is? Its just the best of a bad lot really, right now.
WE really don't have a choice. That's why I keep bashing on about it. Nothing else actually adds up.
Odd. When I divide about a 1000 by about 25, I get about 40.
I suspect you have fallen foul of their bullshit.
That's 1172 KWh per day. Notice the 'H' Divide by the hours in a day to get the watts..
Well you are plain wrong overall. That might be the total peak, but it doesn't represent the average over a 24x7x365 period.
No it doens't actually. Not much anyway. And windfarms also need empty land.
Build costs and maintenance costs are lower for nuke than windmills..imagine servicing 100,00 windmills versus 100 turbines in a big plant. You almost certainly have to do the same routine maintenance on every windmill as you do on a big alternator, only this time you have to do it by boat..
Work it out. Probably about 100 sq meters per person. Absolute max
Direct solar is probably the very best way of using it IF its can be made cost competitive and efficient.
That plus ground source heatpumps for space heating plus heat exchanging ventilation, could reduce space heating to almost nil.
Sadly, that isn't where the bulk of the energy is used. Although its a significant fraction.
When you look at e.g. the USA's per capita consumption, you have to wonder where it all goes, because they surely don't take 3 times as much power to stay warm, or three times as much power to travel. The answer is they simply buy more STUFF. and that all involves energy at every step of the supply chain.
And as we can see, buying less STUFF collapses the world economy ;-)
Electric cars don't quote MPG - as petrol ones have to. They quote 'range'. Which is always the absolute maximum possible and nothing like representative.
If the costs ever come down to reasonable. And I certainly wouldn't be too sure they ever will. And by reasonable I'm including replacement costs.
Indeed. You only have to look at some weights of modern cars to see how gross they've grown.
The original Golf weighed approx 2/3rds of the current one. The latest one hasn't that much more interior space.
They are indeed. But only quickly if you have a very expensive outboard power supply. And this is the 'ultimate' in battery cars. As it should be for the price.
Motor cars.
Television.
Colour telly.
Personal computers.
They all started out as horrifically expensive, unreliable and often underperforming playthings for the rich, who effectively financed the development of the technology which has now become mass-market affordable. At least Tesla have had the sense to go for the loadsamoney market rather than trying to jump straight to the electric volks-wagen (Sir Clive Sinclair please take note!). And Tesla have also had the good sense or fortune to be targetting not just any old rich fornicators but rich Californicators, for many of whom it has the advantage that they're allowed to drive it and park it where they couldn't do a petrol-engined motor.
No, but they take many times more power to cool, since many parts of the USA are not habitable without air-conditioning.
Hmmm. You do realise how big the USA *is*, don't you?
True - but much of the technology in an electric car isn't new - it's just developments of what already exists.
I'm afraid it's still waiting for the correct battery technology to be invented - and that is likely to come from other things.
Indeed. So of little relevance to the real world. If the object is to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels, it's going to have to be technology which can be applied to vehicles in places like India.
Because Lotus are light years ahead of other vehicle manufacturers when it comes to undertanding why weight is the key to energy efficient vehicles. Not that the Tesla is light but if you started with a Hummer you'd not get to the end of your driveway.
Haven't got the original post, so will reply here:
I'm not sure how true it is either, but of tyres can damage roads ( as they obviously do ) then a harder tyre surely has to be more wearing on the surface.
Indeed, while there's no premium on tyres this remains a viable choice ( if you don't mind trading the cost of replacing tyres more frequently with having good grip ) - but as soon as you slap a hefty tax on them the vast majority of people will jump to harder compounds given that most of them will have no idea what sort of spec their current tyres are.
Regards,
That is a reasonable assumption for the UK but in practice you can only fit around 100W of panels (using standard ratings) per m2.
In the UK, or at least in England and Wales a reasonable rule of thumb is around 4.5 hours x panel rating in standard conditions per day in mid summer falling to 3.7 in spring and autumn and as low as 0.9 in mid winter.
Taking say a 10W panel (Polycrystalline with typical 16% efficiency) that occupies 0.1m2 you can expect around 45Wh per day in mid summer,
37Wh per day in spring and autumn , and 9Wh per day in mid winter. Similar figures are confirmed in long term use in a real world installation.Assume an average of '2.25 x panel rating (in W) Wh per day' over the year and you won't be too far away taking account of rain and overcast conditions, so a 10W panel produces 8.2kWh of electricity a year, about a quids worth, for a capital cost of 80 times that and with a module life of 25 years. You then begin to appreciate why solar PV makes next to no sense for properties already connected to the grid in the UK.
Hmmm. Electronically driven induction motor. Massive array of Li-Ion batteries. Electronics & software to manage above plus chargers for standard and high-current mains supplies. Not rocket-science, perhaps but hardly off-the-shelf.
Like from laptop batteries? :-)
It could always do with better battery technology but Li-Ion may just be the good-enough technology that allows electric cars to get into the mass marketplace.
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