Elec Car, BBC v Tesla

let's see..12 hours at 70mph..that's 960 miles..

at 50mpg, that would be about 19.2 gallons..

How many cars have tanks that big?

They are doomed. I do not count myself among their number.

No. recharge on site. Nee a substation to do it, but that's not beyond the wit of man.

I agree. It is not "here today, diesel/petrol :Tomorrow electric".

It's rather that electric will fill certain niches, and as it gets better, the niches will get bigger.

Horses were still drawing guns in 1916.

Steam trains went on into the 60's, although there here was a fairly abrupt transition to diesel, but electrification of the railway network

- that started in the early 1900's IIRC- is STILL not complete.

As I have said, I am likely to be an early adopter of electrics, because they fit *my* niche almost perfectly.

No hills to speak of, 95% of the trips under 50 miles. Off road parking and a 13A socket already there. Off peak metering as well.

YMMV :-)

Sadly, to a large extent, the coporate stupidity of the masses affects us all, like it or not.

It's not possible to get a 19Kg butane cylinder, the largest that I can get locally is 15Kg which would cost £32.99. However the mention of butane is an irrelevance, butane is not used to power cars, they run on Autogas which is mostly propane.

Propane is available in 19Kg cylinders, for £35 a cylinder.

It's actually cheaper to fill up at the pump where propane is £0.71 per litre at Morrisons and any petrol station selling LPG close to a Morrisons. If it's an isolated petrol station then the Autogas can be around £0.80/litre.

The density of butane is 505g/litre so a 15Kg cylinder contains 29.7 litres - £1.11/litre, the density of propane is 510g/litre so a 19Kg cylinder contains 37.25 litres - £0.94/litre. It's clearly cheaper to fill up at the pump, and using butane or propane in a road vehicle means that you haven't paid the fuel duty so in the unlikely event of being stopped by HMRC you're in the crap.

just about. That's what I have in my lawnmower..(10 bhp)

But actually its not POWER that is the problem, its energy.

Even a car starter motor and a car battery will propel a hand made go kart over 30mph..for about 2 minutes.. :-)

Current electric model aircraft have exceeded 7Kw..for about 5 minutes.

What counts is the power it takes to propel a small car at 50mph or so. Not the peak power. And my guess is that 10bhp is easily enough for that, on relatively skinny wheels and with a reasonable aero performance.

Fr a more robust saloon car, its probably nearer 20-30bhp though.

That would seem to be a possibility BUT what happens when a truck breaks it?

I am more interested in a palletised system whereby you drive to the nearest rail pickup interchange - computer controlled marshalling yard, and dump a container or something on a train..and then pick up anything that's arrived for last 25 mile delivery or whatever.

i.e. move all long distance freight to rail.

I think the dominant factor when I analysed it was the fact that the power stations being fixed plant, can offer better fuel efficiency with e.g. CCGT than a mobile vehicle engine can. Even with grid losses and battery cycle losses, you still come out ahead of the game.

The other factor is that by and large, because electrics are so wimpy, you are designing for low energy from the outset.

So you will automatically be looking at ultra lightweight structures, skinny high pressure tyres, and regenerative braking. Plus you have a implicit computer running the whole show, so selecting optimally efficient acceleration on the 'eco' button is a possibility too.

I hope the electric racing formula comes to fruition, because that will establish viable technologies really quickly.

The original OHV Morris Minor (803cc) had 28 bhp and a top speed of 64 mph.

I doubt you'd improve on those figures today while still conforming to modern regs.

The lowest powered car that I have owned was 27KW. It was acceptable to drive, but it could not reach 70mph and hence was probably a bit dangerous to consider using on the motorway. In those days I was commuting along the A1 which had no motorway sections along my route and lots of roundabouts so higher powered cars simply wasted energy in accelerating and decelerating. I could cruise at a fairly steady 50, even around the roundabouts.

I doubt that most drivers would accept the driving characteristics of the vehicle. Most people I met couldn't do a hill start with such a small engine and one kindly burnt out the clutch trying.

I'd guess, based on throttle and revs that the engine was probably putting out around 12KW at 30-40 mph and at 60 was at full output.

That car provided four decent seats and a boot that could actually hold a couple of suitcases. The latest electric offerings have two seats, 31 litres of "luggage" space and performance that is the same as the car above with an electric motor that is rated around 25KW. They also have a range of less than 60 miles and you need to rent the batteries at £45 a month (in addition to paying for the electricity). The CO2 emissions from such a vehicle are about the same as a Smart diseasel car, but the accomodation and luggage space are markedly inferior.

I'm still struggling to see the point of electric cars.

The challenge is to minimise that.

Thats the Darwinian game that is presented to you.

The first step is to break free of the socialist conditioning that makes you think its a we, not a they, and the second step is to come to the understanding that they are, like it or not, beyond redemption.

A verse from an old Roy Harper song, comes to mind

"You can take a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink You can lead a man to slaughter, but you cannot make him think".

I think we are looking at the same old spec sheets :-)

I think we could shave about 75mph today with better aero understanding.

You'll still need lots of batteries though and a warehouse and blokes with fork lift trucks.

That's only a question of having the correct gearing in first gear. My father had a 28 bhp Morris Minor and that never had problems with hill starts even when fully loaded. The previous Morris 8 we had with a 3 speed box did.

A single overhead cam driven through a vertically mounted dynamo at the front, I used to have one in the late 50s, petrol tank was behind the dashboard with the tap projecting below it; it dripped and we all smoked in those days. Another problem was the oil seal on the camshaft pan, oil used to drip into the dynamo. we lived dangerously in those days ;-) mind you the speed was limiting. I believe they used the same engine in one of the first MGs.

Don

Racing car - my first petrol driven (in a rather loose sense of the word in that considerable user input was often required) was the appallingly misnamed Raleigh Runabout with a massive 1.4HP whimpering in its bowels. It was capable of 0-10 MPH on the flat in under 30 mins.

This was replaced by the vastly more powerful (1.6HP) but equally badly named NSU Quickly which could reach 10MPH in 20 minutes. Unfortunately such overt displays of power were usually accompanied by the quiet ping of the 3mm thick Woodruff key on the drive shaft shearing under the massive load. It featured a self mixing fuel system, you poured petrol and two stroke oil into the tank and the vibration mixed it in 3 seconds. The speedometer measured not speed but vibrations per second. Probably the only vehicle where, on even a gentle hill, both engine and rider arrived at the top equally knackered and with similar amounts of smoke coming out of both.

The equations for power v speed and theoretical optimum fuel consumption for road cars are given on my website.

Sorry. I was talking about the post war one with the Austin A30 engine.

Not in this case, it was a Citroen Visa (652cc). First gear was fine for any hill start for me, and I suspect anyone used to driving a 2CV however I'd say the majority of those who tried it simply couldn't get the hang of it.

I had absolutely no problems with the Visa, but I was used to driving puny engined vehicles. As I say, most people who tried couldn't drive it at all, and one burned out the clutch. That, to me, says a lot about the skills of the average driver who seems to expect 80bhp+ and torque to match, not about the vehicle which was more than adequate for its role as a lightweight "utility" vehicle.

Ahhh!!!yes, mine was the 1930 version, OHC not OHV as you quite rightly quoted, I must pay attention :-[ . Cheers Don