O.T. electric cars - do they have gearboxes?

[harry]

Wait until it breaks. Then try and find someone to fix it. The dealers lie BTW.

[Muddymike]

Or like my Peugeot ICE drives front wheels, Electric motor drives rear wheels. So I have 4WD when I need it, and silent running when in town just to scare the natives:-)

Mike

[Nightjar]

My point was that electric cars are not unique in that respect.

Mine can, which is why I chose it rather than something else, although I did have to specify the extended fuel tank to get the range. No existing electric cars could even get close.

[Nightjar]

I was answering the point about the condenser. However, recent advances in catalytic splitting of water could make it feasible to use water as fuel, if you really wanted to.

It is said to have been comparable to internal combustion engines of the time. Those have improved considerably since and there have been some serious investigations of steam powered cars in recent years, which suggest that steam cars could still be competitive, as well as being inherently less polluting.

As they were for contemporary cars of the same class.

Rich visionary.

[Tim Streater]

That's just moving the goalposts: where does the come from to split the water? And you didn't answer my followup about fuel for the steam engine.

[Nightjar]

4 The council has removed the charge points from the car park, because nobody has been using them, which is what has been happening around here.

[Huge]

I cannot deny I managed a wry smile as we followed a Tesla into "London Gateway" Services on the M1 only for him to find that the two Tesla Superchargers were already in use.

[nospam]

No, it's a M-B C350E estate.

[Nightjar]

According to the link I gave, they usually burned kerosene, but, being an external combustion engine, almost anything would do. However, my main point was that if they managed to get that range from one tank of water in 1924, we should expect better today.

[harry]

Drivel. Have you never heard of the Law of Conservation of Energy?

All steam engines and boilers are inherently inefficient. They will never come anywhere near the ICE efficiency wise.

I spent forty years running them. And getting rid of them where possible.

[harry]

Very possible.The government has mishandled the whole business. Most EV drivers charge their car at home far more cheaply. I SummerI pay nothing mostly, due to PV panels.

99% of my journeys are in range. The others, I use my other car.

[NY]

Is there enough time to charge the car, given that you will probably have it away from home during most of the daylight hours and hence there are only a few hours of light at the end of the day and the beginning of the day when the car can charge off free electricity; during hours of darkness you'll need to use electricity that you have to pay for, from the grid.

How much does gradient affect range? I imagine that a few 1:5 (or steeper) hills on a journey would reduce the range quite significantly.

Do you keep your car outside or in a garage? If it's kept outside, how do you protect against moisture (eg early morning dew) and someone maliciously disconnecting the supply (either to use your electricity or just for the hell of it)? How do car parks guard against malicious disconnections?

If you can manage to keep your journeys to within the daily range of the car, you don't need to worry about recharge time because you've got loads of "dead" time either when you are at work or else overnight. But you need a second car (maybe not used normally, but still needing to be taxed and insured) for holidays and other times when you will want to travel vastly in excess of the electric car's range. It is the need for two cars, each suited to a particular type of journey, where a single IC-engined car would suffice, which is a big problem with EVs.

I don't see a way around the recharge time, unless cars use batteries that are exchanged at fuel stops, because the rate at which energy is taken on board with petrol or diesel is tremendous: within a couple of minutes I can fill my 60-litre tank and have another 700 miles of range.

Diesel is 45 MJ/kg. Its density is 0.8 kg/l, so the energy is 45/0.8 = 56 MJ/l. So if I fill up with 60 litres in 5 minutes, that's a power transfer of

56*60/300 = 11 MW (!)

Try supplying electricity to a battery at that rate :-) Watch the lights go dim in the neighbourhood while you are charging :-)

[Vir Campestris]

That's hardly unique to electric cars...

(Just found out the reason the mechanics have taken a week and not fixed my IC car was they didn't have authorisation, and the **** paper pushers hadn't asked me)

Andy

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well diesels are at best 40% efficient and leccy motors at least 80%, so halve that to 5.5MW.

Not that big a deal. similar to a train starting up I'd say. Its about

7000 bhp. So 10 formula one cars in qualifying trim...

So very doable at a custom built motorway service station, if not in yer garage.

But thats where the car is kept and charged overnight innit?

[ARW]

Ta. And a video of it

[harry]

Consider yourself lucky It took them over three months to fix mine. Under guarantee.

[harry]

I am retired so it can be charged through the day. But even on mains electricity, the cost is negligable compared with petrol. Often you can arrange to charge up at destination. You get used to range estimations after a while.

Gradient has a big effect. But you get about half back descending the other side.

The heater has a big effect too.

My cars are indoors, I also have an ICE car. But no tax and cheap to insure as it's a heritage vehicle.

[Nightjar]

The principle has been demonstrated. A few years ago the Japanese demonstrated a fuel cell car that ran entirely on water.

Petrol cars achieve a tank to wheel thermal efficiency of about 16%. Non-condensing third generation steam locomotives achieve a drawbar thermal efficiency of about 16%.

I suspect that the boilers and engines you are familiar with are more nineteenth century technology than twenty-first century. A titanium tube flash boiler can supply steam at up to 4,000 psi and 650C. Ceramics allow engines to work at those temperatures and pressures and achieve efficiencies not even dreamed of with conventional materials.

[Tim+]

Eh? Now who's talking drivel?

A fuel cell that magically splits water or in some other way converts

*only* water into electrical energy? This greatest, most fabulous discovery was made a few years ago and nobody has heard of it?

This one perhaps?

"Fabulous" seems like an apt description, stuff of fables.

Tim

[Chris Hogg]

Sadly, the Green world is full of such nonsense. Anything is possible if you know nothing.