What happens when your electric car runs out of juice out in the country?

[blackcat]

No matter how hard some folks resist , at the current state of progress E vehicles will be the norm in 28 years . Why , because battery life doubles about every 7 years , so if we are at 100 miles now ...

 Dusty

By 2030 battery packs are estimated to be around $100/KWh and we will see more and more electric vehicles on the road. Change is going to happen based on economy. The current Tesla Model 3 gets over 300 miles to a charge. The photo of the above BMW gets around 100 miles to a charge and without further details of that photo, it is just a picture of someone who didn't read the manual,etc.etc.etc.....

[rocker59]

No matter how hard some folks resist , at the current state of progress E vehicles will be the norm in 28 years . Why , because battery life doubles about every 7 years , so if we are at 100 miles now ...

 Dusty

Only where they're mandated.  And probably in congested metros like LA, NYC, Chicago. 

It isn't just about the car and its range, but the infrastructure to recharge them.

Converting gas stations into electrical substations with enough Kw to charge dozens or hundreds of vehicles per day will be a choke point. 

Until the economics of electric vehicles surpass the economics of gasoline and diesel, they will remain an oddity, in the whole scheme of things.

[oldbike54]

Only where they're mandated.  And probably in congested metros like LA, NYC, Chicago. 

It isn't just about the car and its range, but the infrastructure to recharge them.

Converting gas stations into electrical substations with enough Kw to charge dozens or hundreds of vehicles per day will be a choke point. 

Until the economics of electric vehicles surpass the economics of gasoline and diesel, they will remain an oddity, in the whole scheme of things.

 Dunno , was in Cedar Vale late July and stopped in the cafe . Some of the locals that I'm acquainted with were discussing this very topic . You don't get much more rural than CV , and most of these guys seemed in favor of E or at least hybrid cars and even trucks . The pace of technology is accelerating , and even old Luddites like me are adapting . My next lawn mower will be battery powered , am tired of messing with small gasoline engines .

 Dusty

[ChuckH]

....Until the economics of electric vehicles surpass the economics of gasoline and diesel, they will remain an oddity, in the whole scheme of things.   

I agree.  I was very interested in the GM Volt when it was being developed.  Our son is a long-time engineer at GM, one of his friends was responsible for the drive-train development in that vehicle.  We saw and took a ride in a test vehicle during a Holiday weekend visit. 

The whole concept made sense -- drive around using the batteries-only for a 40 or so mile range and then the engine starts and drives a generator to maintain a charge level in the batteries to keep the vehicle going.

We live in a small town, we're <10 miles/15 minutes from everywhere, a traffic jam is three vehicles at a stop light.  My wife uses one vehicle for her in-town travels and errands.  We use our other vehicle for longer distance travel.  The Volt seemed perfect for us -- she could use it for her in-town travel and plug it in when she returned back home.
 
The problem is she drives her vehicle only 4K or so miles a year.  It's a Buick and has been as reliable as a stone.  Minor repairs and maintenance have not been prohibitively expensive.  The Volt price tag was $40K with some minor tax benefits for buying an E-vehicle.

I couldn't justify buying the Volt to replace a reliable vehicle for 4K miles a year.  Simple as that.

[John Ulrich]

I was crossing South Dakota on I90 and saw two Tesla's that day.  So I'm scratching my head...where are they charging?  I looked on their website and South Dakota was the first cross country route for a Tesla to travel.   

[Lannis]

Dunno , was in Cedar Vale late July and stopped in the cafe . Some of the locals that I'm acquainted with were discussing this very topic . You don't get much more rural than CV , and most of these guys seemed in favor of E or at least hybrid cars and even trucks . The pace of technology is accelerating , and even old Luddites like me are adapting . My next lawn mower will be battery powered , am tired of messing with small gasoline engines .

 Dusty

It really doesn't have a thing to do with people "resisting change" or "adapting to new technology" or being "Luddites", or "believing in the future".   

As has been said, it's totally economic.   As soon as it becomes reasonably feasible for me to drive an electric car, I'll be right there with it.    I've got no religious scruples about electric vs. petrol, nor have I got a big bet on that I'm afraid to lose.   

And saying "Technology is Accelerating!" doesn't help.   Some technologies DO accelerate - semiconductor memory capacity, computer processing speeds, holographic imaging.    And some do NOT accelerate - handgun technology, automotive steering and differentials, wheels and tires (still inflatable rubber tires on metal wheels after 120 years).   

So the "Get out of the way or get run over by the new world" doesn't sound like much of an argument.   Some things don't happen very fast, and if practical electric cars are (as has been estimated) 25-30 years away, it's really just a moot, theoretical point for most of us here, I'll wager ... 

Lannis

[oldbike54]

 Actually humans are very resistant to change . It took a whole bunch of convincing to get folks to wear seat belts , and then shoulder belts . A quick review of history shows the very concerted efforts and change in laws to enable cars to replace horses . Heck , most of us remember how much nonsense surrounded the change from points to electronic ignition , or carbs to injection , shucks , how many of our members here still haven't made the change .

 Dusty

[rocker59]

I was crossing South Dakota on I90 and saw two Tesla's that day.  So I'm scratching my head...where are they charging?  I looked on their website and South Dakota was the first cross country route for a Tesla to travel.

Now imagine 200 or 2,000 electrics on I-90 in South Dakota.  Where would they fuel?  How long would the lines be at the charging stations?  How long would that charging take?

[oldbike54]

Now imagine 200 or 2,000 electrics on I-90 in South Dakota.  Where would they fuel?  How long would the lines be at the charging stations?  How long would that charging take?

 The only time there are 2,000 IC powered vehicles on I 90 in S.D. is during the rally 

 Dusty

[rocker59]

Actually humans are very resistant to change . It took a whole bunch of convincing to get folks to wear seat belts , and then shoulder belts . A quick review of history shows the very concerted efforts and change in laws to enable cars to replace horses . Heck , most of us remember how much nonsense surrounded the change from points to electronic ignition , or carbs to injection , shucks , how many of our members here still haven't made the change .

 Dusty

I still don't understand why gasoline-electric or diesel-electric hasn't happened in autos.  It's been in railroads since the 1930s.

Instead of a transmission, hook a generator to the engine.  Instead of differentials and drive shafts, mount an electric motor at each wheel.  Add a huge battery pack and you'd have the ultimate hybrid.

Lots of torque on demand "off idle", the ability to go shorter distances on full electric, the ability to economically cover large distances.

[oldbike54]

I still don't understand why gasoline-electric or diesel-electric hasn't happened in autos.  It's been in railroads since the 1930s.

Instead of a transmission, hook a generator to the engine.  Instead of differentials and drive shafts, mount an electric motor at each wheel.  Add a huge battery pack and you'd have the ultimate hybrid.

Lots of torque on demand "off idle", the ability to go shorter distances on full electric, the ability to economically cover large distances.

 I think it might be a packaging and maintenance issue Mike , seem to remember the two of us had this discussion before . Modern f1 cars are using some very different power systems now , will be interesting to see how rapidly production cars employ this tech .

 Dusty

[LowRyter]

No matter how hard some folks resist , at the current state of progress E vehicles will be the norm in 28 years . Why , because battery life doubles about every 7 years , so if we are at 100 miles now ...

 Dusty

.........1600 mile range in 28 years. 

[not-fishing]

Only where they're mandated.  And probably in congested metros like LA, NYC, Chicago. 

It isn't just about the car and its range, but the infrastructure to recharge them.

Converting gas stations into electrical substations with enough Kw to charge dozens or hundreds of vehicles per day will be a choke point. 

Actually.......put a diesel genset at the gas stations that have diesel or a gas genset at the gas stations that do not; a little "E" storage system and voila' an E fueling station without added powerlines.

Now in Nebraska, Wyoming, Texas, Oklahoma and everywhere else the wind blows like stink a windmill with "E" storage bank and you're in business.

Mark

[PeteS]

I agree.  I was very interested in the GM Volt when it was being developed.  Our son is a long-time engineer at GM, one of his friends was responsible for the drive-train development in that vehicle.  We saw and took a ride in a test vehicle during a Holiday weekend visit. 

The whole concept made sense -- drive around using the batteries-only for a 40 or so mile range and then the engine starts and drives a generator to maintain a charge level in the batteries to keep the vehicle going.

We live in a small town, we're <10 miles/15 minutes from everywhere, a traffic jam is three vehicles at a stop light.  My wife uses one vehicle for her in-town travels and errands.  We use our other vehicle for longer distance travel.  The Volt seemed perfect for us -- she could use it for her in-town travel and plug it in when she returned back home.
 
The problem is she drives her vehicle only 4K or so miles a year.  It's a Buick and has been as reliable as a stone.  Minor repairs and maintenance have not been prohibitively expensive.  The Volt price tag was $40K with some minor tax benefits for buying an E-vehicle.

I couldn't justify buying the Volt to replace a reliable vehicle for 4K miles a year.  Simple as that.

I agree the Volt is the answer now. Commute both ways for me on electric but still be able to use the vehicle for long trips. A few months ago before Harvey gas was cheap and the dealers were blowing out Volts for under 30K before the rebates and tax credits. That would have made the price about 26K before state sales tax. Very tempting but our vehicles are still running great and the Camry Hybrid is getting over 40-43 MPG.

Pete

[Antietam Classic Cycle]

Instead of a transmission, hook a generator to the engine.  Instead of differentials and drive shafts, mount an electric motor at each wheel.  Add a huge battery pack and you'd have the ultimate hybrid.

It's kind of been done... in 1901! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lohner-Porsche

[ohiorider]

It's kind of been done... in 1901! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lohner-Porsche

Beat me to it, Charlie, but just by a few seconds!

http://press.porsche.com/news/release.php?id=642

[Lannis]

I still don't understand why gasoline-electric or diesel-electric hasn't happened in autos.  It's been in railroads since the 1930s.

Instead of a transmission, hook a generator to the engine.  Instead of differentials and drive shafts, mount an electric motor at each wheel.  Add a huge battery pack and you'd have the ultimate hybrid.

Lots of torque on demand "off idle", the ability to go shorter distances on full electric, the ability to economically cover large distances.

I'm guessing efficiency losses?    Just like the Convert had to go from 850cc to 1000cc to make up for losses in the torque converter, or like naval reactors had to be made more powerful in going from steam to electric drive in order to keep performance up ...

.... the losses in the generator being turned by the diesel MIGHT not make up for the efficiencies gained by having a constant speed diesel charging it.   Might be OK in a locomotive or ship, not so much in a car where a few MPG will make or break the sale.

Just my guess, because it's not the first place it's happened ....

Lannis

[rocker59]

Actually.......put a diesel genset at the gas stations that have diesel or a gas genset at the gas stations that do not; a little "E" storage system and voila' an E fueling station without added powerlines.

Mark

Kinda defeats that idea of an electric car, no?   

[PeteS]

I still don't understand why gasoline-electric or diesel-electric hasn't happened in autos.  It's been in railroads since the 1930s.

Instead of a transmission, hook a generator to the engine.  Instead of differentials and drive shafts, mount an electric motor at each wheel.  Add a huge battery pack and you'd have the ultimate hybrid.

Lots of torque on demand "off idle", the ability to go shorter distances on full electric, the ability to economically cover large distances.

 A diesel driving a generator to charge a battery might work. Diesel engines in locomotives don't run at a constant speed. Rather they have either steps with correspond to the throttle position. Increase the speed and not only is more voltage applied to the electric motor but the RPM of the diesel also increases.
Everytime you change the form of energy you have losses. A car changes speed all the time, a railroad locomotive, not so much.

Pete

[rocker59]

A diesel driving a generator to charge a battery might work. Diesel engines in locomotives don't run at a constant speed. Rather they have either steps with correspond to the throttle position. Increase the speed and not only is more voltage applied to the electric motor but the RPM of the diesel also increases.
Everytime you change the form of energy you have losses. A car changes speed all the time, a railroad locomotive, not so much.

Pete

Yeah.  In an auto application, my thought would be to add a battery pack like a hybrid car already has.

The locomotives don't have that.  the generator is hooked straight to the traction motors.

If you had it set up as - diesel engine > generator > battery pack > traction motors - , then the throttle the driver was using would be as in a current electric car, placing demand on the battery pack.  The diesel engine's throttle would be automatic, and fluctuate with demand placed on the generator, as in a stationary gen-set.

Seems logical to me.  Seems like it could be lighter than a current hybrid.  If only I was Elon Musk...  LOL.

[charlie b]

Yep, that's where I think the current hybrids are lacking.  Get rid of the IC engine power train and put the motors in the wheels.  Easy to use them for braking that way as well as having traction control over each wheel independently.

[Lannis]

....  Easy ......

Bet it's not.  If it were, someone would be a billionaire by now and no one could stop them .... !

Lannis

[Antietam Classic Cycle]

Bet it's not.  If it were, someone would be a billionaire by now and no one could stop them .... !

Lannis

How hard can it be? Porsche did it in 1901! 

[nick949]

What happens when you run out of juice? The generator kicks in. 

A friend of mine recently bought a Chevy Volt (with great difficulty - they seem reluctant to sell them) which I drove for a couple of hundred kilometres.  Nice car. 

I drove for 100 kilometres on one charge before the engine kicked in to charge the batteries - you couldn't tell.  Over the first 7000 kilometres, he has averaged approximately 108 miles to the real (Imperial) gallon, through all kinds of driving. Until battery technology improves, this is the way to go.

Nick

[Rough Edge racing]

I still don't understand why gasoline-electric or diesel-electric hasn't happened in autos.  It's been in railroads since the 1930s.

Instead of a transmission, hook a generator to the engine.  Instead of differentials and drive shafts, mount an electric motor at each wheel.  Add a huge battery pack and you'd have the ultimate hybrid.

Lots of torque on demand "off idle", the ability to go shorter distances on full electric, the ability to economically cover large distances.

 My first thought is a lot of unsprung weight makes a car handle and ride crappy...

[Chuck in Indiana]

China is doing some serious research. .they *Have* to cut emissions.
I'm betting that in the Kids lifetime, electric will be the standard..either through battery technology or some as yet undiscovered technology. (Shrug )

[rocker59]

My first thought is a lot of unsprung weight makes a car handle and ride crappy...

If that is an issue, then mount them inboard and run stub axles out to the wheel hubs.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

[rodekyll]

If we could get more energy out v the energy to make that energy come out, then we've invented perpetual motion.  Perpetual motion devices are actually unpatentable due to our current knowledge of physics.

And 120 years ago the IC engine was an "also ran" to steam and electric because the exact same infrastructure arguments were made about them that I'm reading here now re: modern electric.  Historical electric didn't die because of the rise of IC, IC rose because we didn't have the technology back then to fuel electric over distance.  We have the technology now.  It's time to get it done.

I'm in the camp with the plug-n-drive battery swaps.  Vehicles have a few common classes of power cells.  These slide out easily (maybe a lifting device at the station) and a replacement slides in.  Takes less time than fueling a 22-gal tank (in my fantasy).  The station reads the meter on the spent battery for remaining charge and condition and bills (was going to say "charges") accordingly for the swap.

In the meantime, out back, the spent cell is plugged in to a charging bank for refill.  The station operator gets his power where he can -- wind and solar come to mind, as well as tidal and surf along the coast, thermal where available, etc.  The really smart guy will hook up a shallow teeter totter and generator to the roadbed out front and get a few turns of an armature every time a car passes over.  If he's real smart he'll tap into sidewalks and ramps.  Dairy farms could become huge energy generators by making the cows walk over these things.  Stadiums could provide some charging in the parking lots by having attendees walk the ramp . . . the imagination staggers when it comes to where to get the power without loading the government grid.  That's why it's frowned on -- it's so completely doable.

Until the station can stockpile enough cells to keep up with demand, he'll have to use the grid, at least off-peak.  When you think about it, it's a good use of the grid, since the power carried by the wires can't otherwise be stored.  Off-peak surplus is wasted.  With enough cells in reserve,he hits his break-even point on the alternative energy sources and then makes a killing.

On the cell supply side, you can get standard dimension cells in regular, mid-grade, or premium distance exchanges, probably based on cell technology.  companies like Tesla sell, lease, or franchise the units.  Charging arrays are all standard, so anyone's cell fits at anyone's charging station. 

Standardizing cell sizes and connections takes the refueling essentially off the grid and out of the city.  The economic incentive is there because in the right areas, and with combinations of alternative energy generators, after the generators have been paid for, the power is free to the station.  A dispersal of these stations gets you across the country.  Some future administration less interested in preserving coal (we gonna go back to steam, right?)  plans x-continental routes like selected interstates and state highways and offers incentives to develop the fueling stations along those routes.

[rodekyll]

My other brain-fart on the subject goes along with these autonomous cars.  Your electric, self-driving car has sucked the soul out of the driving experience anyway, so in effect you've already become a mini-train car.  Why not complete the reality? 

You lay an electric rail in one lane of the highway.  (Voodoo happens to make it safe).  You drive your little people-mover into the lane, press "engage" and it starts sucking power from the rail, either with a brush or wirelessly.  It scoots up into the slipstream of the like-minded auto-auto ahead, and you watch a movie until your exit.  Then you press "disengage" and return to your onboard battery and quickly atrophying driving instincts by moving into the other lane.  Since everyone else has the same standard equipment, your pressing either "engage" or "disengage" automagically alters the traffic flow around you to allow you a safe and seamless lane change.

[Hymes Inc.]

I drive a Nissan Leaf to work. It's not mine, it's my cousins. We work at the same place same shift and he doesn't like to drive. Was interesting to find that a few months after he bought the car he determined his electric bill has gone up around $40. I drove a Geo Metro 1.0 to my previous job, drove more days and more miles and I spent around $40 a month in gas. Hard to be impressed with this considering the Leaf retails for $30k new. That Leaf is really boring to drive. It does have a bit of pep but won't let you do a burnout, I mean what is the point of having all the torques right now if you can't do awesome burnouts?