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Are alternative energy cars more efficient?

Discussion in 'General' started by Richard Lesher, May 11, 2004.

  1. Richard Lesher

    Richard Lesher Well-Known Member

    How many units of oil does it take to convert into a unit of gasoline?
    How many units of oil does it take to convert into a unit of electricity
    How many units of electricity are used to travel a mile?

    See where I am going with this?

    I want to know if alternative powered vehicles are truly more energy efficient.

    So long as the power plants used to produce electricity for electric cars are fueled by fossil fuels there is a high probability this is less efficient than traditional cars.

    My theory is that because technology is not perfect there will be wasted energy for each iteration of energy conversion. Thus Hydrogen powered cars are the worst.
    Oil to Electricity
    Electricity to Hydrogen
    Hydrogen to Propulsion

    Verses
    Oil to Gas
    Gas to Propulsion

    Basically, I want to know the underlying miles per fossil fuel no matter how the vehicle derives its power.

    Anyone? Anyone know where to get the information that will tell me how much oil it takes to make gas, and how much oil it takes to make electricity, and how many miles an electric car can go on its electricity?

    I think this would be neat to know. Plus it could irritate a bunch of tree hugging hippies.

    Thus the only true solution is solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear power plants to charge electric cars.

    I don’t think people realize the implications if all of society had electric/hybrid cars plugged into their garage overnight when what was traditionally the lowest demand point for power.
     
  2. HPPT

    HPPT !!!

    Don't give 2 sh!ts about fighting for the environment but...

    I think energy conservation is only one side of the coin. You would also need to deal with pollution.
     
  3. danch

    danch Well-Known Member

    The hybrid cars also capture braking energy to charge their batteries. There are also 'alternatives' other than electricity.
     
  4. RB

    RB Well-Known Member

    Ask yourself about the amount of harmful materials that are used in the batteries and how much harmful stuff is released into the atmosphere in the making of the batteries. What happens in a severe crash? What about the safety of the rescue crews? What do you do when the batts are no longer usable? Are batteries made in the USA anymore?

    Lead Acid = very bad for the environment- must be recycled - fast recharge

    Nicad = bad for the environment- must be recycled- fast recharge

    Ni-Metal-Hydride = good for the environment - throw in the trash - slow recharge

    Lithium Polymer = A BOMB = short it out and it starts a fire similar to a magnesium fire, also toxic fumes when burning. Many houses and vehicles have been burned due to negligent use. With proper technique it can be made safe to throw in the trash. SLOW recharge.


    Electric propulsion is cool for hobbies but not truly ready for mass market auto use. Some of the things we are doing in E-powered RC planes include unbelievably small Electronic Speed Controls that reduce the voltage of the motor battery to power the radio; cut off the motor when the battery reaches a certain voltage so that you have control of the radio to land; control the motor RPM by switching the motor on and off at 10,000 plus/minus times a second. Brushless motors with no sensors. The ESC senses the magnetic flux generated by the windings and automatically sends the juice to the correct set of windings and at the correct time to make it run the RPM you are calling for with the transmitter.

    You could make a neat E-pitbike with nothing more than a starter motor, two 6v golf cart batts, a couple of Ford starter solenoids and 2 push button starter switches. A one-way overrunning clutch would need to be put between the starter motor and the rear sprkt. Wire it up so you run off one batt { 6v } with one of the buttons and both batts { 12v } with the other button. You would need to arrange for some air flow through the motor to keep it cool. I doubt the motor would last if you were to insist on running it up the hill going to the Road A infield
    :Poke:
     
  5. coiz

    coiz Well-Known Member

    I would agree that electric cars are not any more efficiant due to the conversion points you mentioned. The power it takes to convert the fuel then into electricity, power lost going from the power plant to your house then from your house to the car. Thats all wasted/consumed fossil fuel to charge the vehicle.

    But with a true hybrid, it does not have to be plugged in. The battery is charged by re-generative braking and by the charging system while the gasoline engine is running. Overall, I think its about a 12% increase in fuel economy. The Ford Escape Hybrid got almost 600 miles to a 15 gallon tank driving 28 hours straight in Manhatten. Sure you are still consuming fossil fuels but at least its a step in the right direction.

    Ultimately it all comes down to BTU's per gallon of fuel.
    Gasoline averages 115,000 btu/gal
    Ethanol is around 76,000 btu/gal
    Ect.,.

    Not sure about the oil/gas/electricity conversions.
     
    Last edited: May 11, 2004
  6. Robert

    Robert Flies all green 'n buzzin

    If it's hydro electric power, I didn't think oil was involved.

    And you would have to look at the end result to take into account the generators that some hybrid cars use to store energy from braking.

    But considering the R&D costs vs. the few number of cars sold, my guess is they not are saving much at this point.
     
  7. Duc748SPS

    Duc748SPS Banned

    Sorry completely wrong.....why?

    Hydrogen is the most abundant thing on the planet....you can make it simply buy forcing electricity through water. This separates the H2 from the O...hence two atoms of Hydrogen and one oxygen atom. Nothing could burn any cleaner. Then during the combustion process.....it merges back together to form water once again....

    This of course takes a lot of electrical current to produce a lot of H, but we can get that free via photo cells or wind. But we still have not made very good photo cells that are efficient enough to keep the cell small for cars.....but they are getting better all the time.

    That is were fuel cells come into play.....they make hydrogen via chemical reaction

    Here is the problem. I plan on building a new house and planned on making it TOTALLY self-sustaining from an electrical stand point. It can be done for the amount of electric I use on an avg basis for around $30,000. That seems like a lot, but it would not need any electric coming in from the power company.

    Here is the problem. Our federal government refuses to support this program. California and New Jersey along with a few other states have their own state program that REALLY support this through rebates and tax incentives. In either of those states it would only cost me around $10,000 after the state rebates and I would get close to a $2000 tax break every year. So I could have it pay for itself in like 10-15 years....after that I would NEVER have an electric bill and continue to get the tax break.


    Until the federal government gets off its special interest influenced ass and supports this.....we will never be fossil fuel efficient.
    :mad:
     
  8. MarkB

    MarkB All's well that ends well

    Just ask yourselves if you are committed to a sustainable environment or not.

    What you are doing here is simply picking holes in current alternative fuel approaches, instead of encouraging research into solving those problems.

    If you buy a fuel efficient car it sends a message to manufacturers that there may be some money to made here. Therefore they spend more reserach money.

    In other words, it doesnt matter if todays fuel efficient cars are kinda crap, it just matters that you buy them to make tommorows versions better.
     
  9. Duc748SPS

    Duc748SPS Banned

    changingworldtech

    I doubt anyone has ever heard of this....thanks to the government it too has no support.

    They can take trash basically and make oil. It is efficient enough to sustained it's self and produce extra oil for gas and other stuff.
     
  10. danch

    danch Well-Known Member

    I'm a firm believer that petroleum is too useful to use to run people movers. It needs to be reserved for things like race fuel.
     
  11. SBK

    SBK Misanthropic Anthropoid

    **DING!** A prize for the man with the funny accent. :D That's the bottom line - Making cars (or anything else for that matter - is about making money. You can rest assured that if there was a real market (beyond satisfying govt. officials and the lobbying organizations that power them) for hybrid technology, they would be available in droves.

    The battery issue pointed out earlier is not an insignificant one. Neither is the fact that 99%+ of today's customer base could give a damn about conserving fossil fuel when it comes right down to the tradeoff between comfort/performance/status and fuel consumption. Sales of SUV's and trucks are proof of that fact.

    Hybrid powertrains today are simply part of a political game between business and government. If the market were truly there, the major manufacturers would be all over it, rather than quietly packing up their stuff and looking for other solutions.
     
  12. YSRkid70NC

    YSRkid70NC Banned

    The manufacturers just increased their production numbers on the cars but isn't there still a long waiting list??? They need hybrid SUVs most people don't drive cars today.
     
  13. Steve H

    Steve H Well-Known Member

    Think of it this way....

    Your car has maybe a 220 hp engine which it uses probably less than 1 % of the time... Even fast cruising down the freeway you are probably using way less than 50 % of maximum output - but you still want all that performance available for an occasional quick passing maneouver or whatever - and so you have a big engine which burns extra fuel even at idle....

    So lets ditch the V6 and replace it with an 80 hp twin or triple or whatever, assisted by a 100 hp electric motor with a smallish battery reserve ... You still have 180 hp when you want it, (for as long as the batteries have power) but are not spinning a big engine all the time to get it.

    Things get even better when you are stuck in traffic - because the gasoline engine can just be shut down. You consume nothing while stopped, accelerate with the electric motor, regenerate electricity when braking and only burn gasoline when it eventually becomes necessary to do some battery charging.

    Also remember that cold load emission tests are really challenging - IE : pistons are not round, fuel does not burn so clean when everything is cold etc.... But a hybrid car does not need to ever cold load - it can drive for the first few minutes using stored electricity while the top end of the gasoline motor warms up...

    Etc ...Etc...

    IE : The hybrid vehicle idea really does seem to have some good stuff going for it.
     
  14. Richard Lesher

    Richard Lesher Well-Known Member

    Re: Re: Are alternative energy cars more efficient?

    But I was hopeing to quantify it. Nothing more.
     
  15. Mud Whistle

    Mud Whistle Get my icebike ON!

    alt. energy

    Toyota is leading the charge in the Hybrid market. First it was the Prius, but now they have a Highlander Hybrid (an SUV), a RX330 Hybrid (an SUV), a Camry Hybrid on the books and showed a hybrid concept truck (with a V8) at the International Autoshows. Additionally, Toyota has licensed it's Hybrid technology to Nissan (a few years ago) and Ford (just recently). Ford is now introducing an Escape Hybrid (an SUV) and Honda has their Civic Hybrid. GM has decided Fuel Cells are the way to go, but are putting an electric motor to run the accessories in some of it's vehicles (including trucks and SUV's) so they at least have a launch pad should they decide to do the hybrid thing. Oh, and Mercedes also has a hybrid system they have developed and will be selling soon (also shown at the Autoshow). So I wouldn't say the major manufacturers are "packing up their stuff". Toyota is poised to put hybrid technology in a lot of their cars as so many of the drivetrains are shared between models (Sienna/Avalon/Camry/ES300/RX330 all use the same drivetrains).
     
  16. merle4

    merle4 Menace to sobriety

    Re: Re: Re: Are alternative energy cars more efficient?


    I have a Toyota Prius in the shop right now. Trip computer says it has averaged 46.9 mpg for it's entire 17,000 mile life. It uses no outside electricity, it's batteries are recharged by regenerative braking and it's 1.3 litre (I think) three cylinder engine. I dropped off my customer at his house and drove it approx. 1.5 miles back to the shop. The fuel engine was only operational for about 5 seconds of the 3 to 4 minute trip. It's a goofy looking little thing, but has all the amenities, power windows + locks, air, cruise, etc. I'd say it's 50% more efficient than a similar sized econobox that got 30 mpg. Around here with all of the hills (Pittsburgh) that's the kind of mileage I'd expect from a gas civic. Now, as to energy costs to produce, I have no idea which is more efficient. I believe that Toyota and Honda are not breaking even on them yet. But they are reaping the "green" image in the marketplace. Toyo will be releasing a Highlander hybrid in the near future with something like 270hp. That's a hybrid that might interest me. HTH
    Merle
     
  17. SBK

    SBK Misanthropic Anthropoid

    Unfortunately, the argument for hybrids today is largely academic. While I agree that the concept is novel and seems to make sense, the reality is that the marketplace drives the product. And frankly (whether you view it as good/bad/otherwise), America at large is simply not ready for, nor willing to support hybrid vehicles in any volume.

    Whether it be driveability issues, real-world fuel economy, or the cost vs. performance tradeoff, there are too many down sides for the average American consumer. MarkB's point hit the mark, IMHO - it's all about the bottom line. With luxury vehicles and SUV's continuing to break sales volumes, the message from the marketplace is pretty clear.

    If I can find some actual data or a link specific to your original question, Richard. I'll post it.
     
  18. danch

    danch Well-Known Member

    There have to be numbers available showing how many kilowatts can be generated from a barrel of oil vs. how much gas is refined from a barrel of oil.

    given that, the % of electricity that comes from petro (or fossil fuels in general, if that's your interest), and the miles/kilowatt and miles/gallon of the comparison models and you should be able to figure out if an electric car (because that's the thrust of the original question) uses more or less petroleum than a gasoline powered car.

    This wouldn't allow for the fact that the barrel of oil that produced the gasoline also produced a number of other products. I'd also be surprised if oil fired powerplants burn straight crude, so you're really need a lot of petrochemical industry data to answer this question definitively. At least, from an economic efficiency standpoint. Oh, does the powerplant sell its waste heat? They often do, to other industries that need hot water.
     
  19. RDJeff

    RDJeff Well-Known Member

    So many questions!

    The electricity in the US comes from a number of sources, hydro, nuclear, coal, gas, and diesel, with a bit of wind power thrown in. Nukes are probably the best, but folks have been taught to be scared to death of them, so none have been built in 25 years. Hydro is great, but the environmentalists want to tear them all down because they say it stops the migration of fish. Gas is anothe big one, its clean and cheap. Diesel is burned in gas turbines, and that diesel is barely refined, sonething like a #4 diesel, and it is fairly clean. Coal has problems of its own, even though the newer plants have ways to reduce the emissions greatly. Wind power is nice, but is very expensive, and not very reliable, you are relying on the wind to blow when you need it.

    A central power plant is much more efficient than point of use, even with line losses (heating the wire), so charging a battery off he grid is not too bad, but would require more power plants, and building them is tough these days due to permitting issues. Fuel cells are probably a good idea, if a way is found to produce the hydrogen cheaply. I think the ultimate solution will involve using solar power to crack water into hydrogen, then either burning it directly, or feeding fuel cells. Hybrids are a cool interim solution, and keep people thinking, and the research advancing, but something will take their place before long.
     
  20. SBK

    SBK Misanthropic Anthropoid

    Re: alt. energy

    No question, everybody is giving some attention to the hybrid market. What will be very interesting is to see if the public accepts and embraces it as the attempts to grow come to fruition, or whether they largely share a niche. I suggest that today it's a niche market at best. Particularly given the sales volumes. Just as it's a business decision whether or not to build hybrids in any real sales volume, it's probably a good move for Toyota to have done this thing on their own. As you said, they have successfully licensed the technology to Nissan and Ford. And are actively continuing to shop it to other Auto majors.

    This is an area where the lines between politics and big business are seriously blurred. Failing to bring a hybrid to the market is not only a (relatively minor) faux pas in the eye of the public, it's a major issue with the government and the lobbying groups that drive it. Make no mistake.

    My point at the beginning of this is that (without question) Toyota may well be "leading the hybrid market" - but the market itself is miniscule in the big picture. Do you really think a company like Ford or Nissan would license hybrid technology from Toyota if they perceived it as a real growth market? Possibly as a "bridging strategy" to give them some time to do their own thing, but I contend it's as much a hedge (waiting to see if the market will pull a larger portfolio of hybrid products) as it is a bridge.

    Toyota has made a business decision to pursue hybrids, and in some ways it's clearly working. Positive perception from the "green" community and a licensing opportunity (with companies that either aren't convinced that hybrids are sustainable, or who can't afford the tech investment required) to help offset the massive costs of developing their own system. Are they making money on them yet? Possibly, only Toyota leadership really knows. However, based on the miniscule sales volume of the hybrid market, they're clearly after things other than simply "selling hybrid cars" as a motivator.
     

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