[GRLUG] OFF TOPIC Electric Car
John-Thomas Richards
jtr at jrichards.org
Mon Dec 1 18:18:38 EST 2008
On Mon, Dec 01, 2008 at 05:33:15PM -0500, David Pembrook wrote:
> >
> > I'm with you, Bob, but that ain't gonna fly for most people. Most
> > people will not buy a car that only gets 35 miles per charge. What
> > if...what if...what if...? This is anecdotal, but my wife keeps her van
> > full. That is, she fills up when she gets to half a tank or so because,
> > well, YOU NEVER KNOW. What if one of the kids gets hurt? What if I
> > have to [insert unexpected need]? I suspect there are many, many people
> > like that in this world. I can drive 30 miles *in-town* on errands. I
> > live in the near-northeast. Gotta run to Costco. That's about ten
> > miles—one way. That's 20 miles round trip. Hey, wanna stop by
> > such-and-such store on the way home? Can't; charge is running low.
> > Such a car would need to get over 100 miles per charge for it to be
> > really practical. Having a second car is a good idea, except it would
> > quickly become the only car used. Why take the extremely-limited-range
> > car to Costco when, well, YOU NEVER KNOW. People don't want to have to
> > calculate the number of miles they anticipate driving before deciding
> > which car to take.
> >
> > [snip]
> >
>
> Thus the need to an on board generator powered by some sort of fuel cell
> that burns clean. I can exchange propane cylinders for my grill at the
> gas station, why not a fuel cell.
I agree completely! This reminds me of a manufacturer (it may be local;
don't remember who) that lost a ton of money every year due to downtime
on their forklifts/hilos. (This particular manufacturer only uses
electric-power so as to avoid the smoke from gas-powered forklifts.)
When a forklift's batteries were drained, it was useless until it was
recharged, which took several hours. They worked with the manufacturer
of the forklifts to devise a quick-replaceable battery and battery
compartment and purchased a lot of extra batteries. When a forklift was
getting low, the driver would be able to swap to a newly-recharged
battery in a couple minutes. All this to say that the car manufacturers
should come up with a standardized battery that can be replaced in less
than five minutes. A "power station" (like a gas station) could buy
dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of these to swap with customers, just
like you do with your propane cylinder. If a battery goes bad (as they
are wont to do), the cost of replacing it is built in to the cost of
swapping batteries with customers (sort of a surcharge for each battery
swapped). That would solve the problem of recharging taking way too
long to be practical.
--
john-thomas
------
The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a
thousandfold.
Aristotle, philosopher (384-322 B.C.)
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