Posted on 01/12/2015 6:23:09 AM PST by Olog-hai
Okay, now we’re seeing a bit of a semantic argument.
A motor or an engine have different definitions but for cars there’s no point in distinguishing the end product- motion.
Electric motors do a more efficient job of turning the source energy to motion than a gas engine. Gas engines produce a lot of waste heat. But the benefit is an engine has way more power at the ready.
It’s got a GM name plate on it. No post bail out junk for me.
Cmax energi? maybe.
But electric motors do not produce energy of themselves; they need an external power source, i.e. (or e.g.) the heat engine, whether with external or internal combustion, to produce the electric current that makes the motor operate. Not really a semantic difference. Batteries that produce electricity are a form of engine too, although they need to be charged/recharged by heat engines. All of the above have to be included in the percent-efficiency calculation.
It’s still vastly more efficient than a gas engine as even gas turbines burn fuel more efficiently than a vehicle.
Even with heat losses from rectifiers converting AC to DC? Even with infrastructure costs for transmission factored in (current losses)? Infrastructure is a big part of this, and lots of heat/power loss occurs along its length.
Infrastructure cost is a big reason why only a few railroads could convert parts of their networks from steam to electric. When diesel-electric traction became more practical, many of those railroads were even induced to de-electrify, since the locomotive was carrying its power source around with it and could run multiple locomotives with one operator as with full electrification. (Worth a few laughs/groans: One of the biggest railroads to de-electrify the lines of its predecessors was government-owned Conrail.)
BTW, gas turbines are most efficient at a single high speed, which is why they’re suitable for stationary generation as well as aviation. Railroads tried having on-board gas turbines to replace the heavier diesel engine, but they are not suited to variable-speed operation and ended up not only drinking way more fuel than their reciprocating-piston counterparts, but also producing way more heat in the form of exhaust, reputedly being so hot as to even melt bridges that they would happen to stop under. That would also make them utterly inefficient for automobiles, even for the Batmobile.
We're already there! If you compare the Chevy Volt to the similarly sized Chevy Cruze, electricity costs about 3¢ per mile on average whereas gasoline costs 7¢ per mile with the current national average gas price of $2.21/gal. At $3.00/gal it is 9¢ per mile for gas.
Get a Volt, make no compromises, and bankrupt the jihadis!
Good one.
eliminate the subsidies and we can get rid of all the battery operated toys!
I never argue with statistics, I can prove or disprove anything using statistics. We all know the unemployment rate is below 6% and improving because the statistics are always right - right?
Get a Volt, make no compromises, and bankrupt the jihadis!
It's mutually assured destruction between oil producer nations and their economies if oil prices continue to slide below the cost of production. In that case, the Jihadis (I assume you mean ISIS) have one up on the rest of the world because they have none or little cost of production and can sell at black market prices until they exhaust their ill-gotten sources.
The Jihadis are already bankrupt (or soon to be) if the laws of economics prevail. Buying an electric version of the Yugo will not drive them into bankruptcy. Besides, where is everybody going to get the $30K to purchase an electric car and who is going to provide the infrastructure to support them. After 40+ years of alternate energy development, I doubt if the electric Bolt is the best we can do to replace the ICE vehicle for the masses.
No thanks I'll keep my old clunker until the cost of ownership clearly favours an electric vehicle of similar size, range, and utility. In the meantime, I may have to get a horse and buggy as we devolve further into third world status. I can always eat the horse and burn the buggy if times get desperate and Global Warming is real.
But if everybody ditched their vehicles for bicycles (or horses), it would drive the oil business closer to bankruptcy and we could lose some weight in the process. In fact I would be nice if every electric vehicle included a bicycle in the trunk for those instances where you are stuck along the free way with a dead Bolt and no extension cord.
Finally all bets for the future of fossil fuels are off if Tesla or LENR technology is proven to exist. In that case I'll be first in line to say "gimme dat". In the meantime I'm not holding my breath.
Well, those weren't technically “statistics.” But I'll show my work, as my teacher taught me to do. In my previous calculation, I assumed 3.5 miles per kWh for the average electric car but let's see what the Volt specifically gets. I also assumed 12¢ per kWh from memory for the average rate in the U.S., but let me look up the current official average.
The Cruze is about the same size as the Volt so I'm choosing it for comparison. People who have driven the Volt fall in love with the its silent, instant acceleration, but let's set that aside. The Cruze gets 30 MPG combined city/highway (oops, I had thought it was 33 MPG) and the Volt gets 98 “MPGe” combined when in electric mode (and 37 MPG in gasoline mode)[1]. MPGe stands for “miles per gallon equivalent” and a “gallon equivalent” is defined as 33.7 kWh. This means that by dividing 98 by 33.7, you can directly convert 98 MPGe to 2.9 miles per kWh.
Now for the dollars and cents. The current national average cost of gasoline is $2.21/gal $2.14/gal as of today's update. Dividing $2.14 by 30 MPG gets us 7.1¢ per mile for the Cruze. The national average electricity rate is 12.6¢/kWh. Dividing 12.6¢ by 2.9 gives us 4.3¢ per mile for the Volt.
Though who really believes that gas will stay this low? For extra credit, at $3.00/gal the Cruze would get 10¢ per mile.
On the Volt's behalf, I should mention that it is common for electricity companies nowadays to offer a “time-of-use” rate that discounts nighttime electricity. These can range from half-price to free electricity at night. The tradeoff is you pay a couple more cents/kWh during the day. With an electric car charging every night, you could save money with a plan like this.
All told it is slightly different than my earlier, back-of-a-napkin calculation, but the point remains the same: it is much cheaper to fuel your car with electricity.
“It's mutually assured destruction between oil producer nations and their economies if oil prices continue to slide below the cost of production. In that case, the Jihadis (I assume you mean ISIS) have one up on the rest of the world because they have none or little cost of production and can sell at black market prices until they exhaust their ill-gotten sources.”
It doesn't just apply to ISIS, but pretty much all of our foreign opponents at this time except for North Korea. That includes Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and a smattering of Arab states. Regarding the black market, as mysterious as it sounds, it can't beat the laws of supply and demand. It will command a price that stays in line with the global price of oil.
If the United States and Europe transition to electric driving for 90% of their miles (which you can do in a Volt) it would put all of these guys in the poorhouse. That is why after spending over a trillion dollars in Iraq, I don't mind a few billion in subsidies to help us never have to fight an oil war again.
All that being said, you have to see it, or feel it in this case, to believe it. I would recommend stopping by a Chevy dealer and taking a Volt out for a spin. I think it would do more to convince you than everything else.
Are you a car sales rep by any chance?
Lol, no! But I am an EV enthusiast, and I can see how you would have interpreted it that way. I'm mostly just bothered by how we were fooled (myself included) into believing that oil was not a motivating factor in the decision to go to Iraq.
Call me an EV evangelist if you like, but I just see it as a solution to a lot of geopolitical problems that we are facing and will continue to face in the future. China may be getting ahead of us in this regard, as they consume about a quarter of the world's oil production and are trying to reduce their own dependence by encouraging electric vehicles.
The value of the dollar as the world currency reserve was a motivating factor. Sadam Hussein and other middle eastern/OPEC oil producers wanted to sell oil for other currencies like Euros and drive down the value of the dollar. It was just one of the factors, there were others.
China may be getting ahead of us in this regard, as they consume about a quarter of the world's oil production and are trying to reduce their own dependence by encouraging electric vehicles.
I believe China's main concern is how it is going to control it's population and feed it's people. They can build all the electric vehicles they want but they can't eat them. Or sell them to us unless we allow them into our market. Much of China's progress is hype and will be exposed in the near future as the world undergoes economic tribulation.
Exactly. While there were other factors, we were told repeatedly and adamantly that oil was not a factor at all. The truth was that the economic motivations that you outlined played a significant role in the decision to start a war that has cost the lives of thousands of our troops, 100,000+ Iraqi civilian lives, and over a trillion dollars of taxpayer money. Each day we witness the continuing crapstorm that has resulted.
I say, “Never again.”
“I believe China's main concern is how it is going to control it's population and feed it's people. They can build all the electric vehicles they want but they can't eat them. Or sell them to us unless we allow them into our market. Much of China's progress is hype and will be exposed in the near future as the world undergoes economic tribulation.”
Apocalypse aside, China has brought hundreds of millions of its people into the middle class, estimated to be composed of around around 430 million people now. “Today the government is no longer worried about starvation, but satisfying an affluent and growing middle class that wants to eat like Americans.” (source) We can't keep our heads in the sand.
We needed a war to stimulate our economy and bring us out of recession. But as each day passes we witness the chaos our liberal Obama administration has brought us since that conflict was won. Now we are totally out of control politically, socially, and economically. Are you any better off than you were seven years ago? Probably not, and we're still slip sliding toward third world status. Economically and politically we have lost our leadership and respect in the eyes of the world. I believe it will get much worse until we restore the conservatism and values this nation was founded upon.
China has brought hundreds of millions of its people into the middle class, estimated to be composed of around around 430 million people now. “Today the government is no longer worried about starvation, but satisfying an affluent and growing middle class that wants to eat like Americans.” (source) We can't keep our heads in the sand.
China has produced housing, infrastructures, and goods and services that their own people cannot afford. They need to keep everyone employed to maintain this growth and wages need to increase to afford them the middle class lifestyle they seek. Their main resource is plentiful cheap labor. I believe they are becoming less competitive in the world market place as their labour costs increase and robotics replace manual labour. In the mean time, we need to become more competitive and hopefully we will see a return of some of the manufacturing that has left this country over the past decades. Keep an eye on the central banks as they will influence ours as well as China's future. America is mired in debt and we need to produce more and increase our exports to pay down the debt. America should be exporting oil and more oil products in the future. This and the jobs it creates should help us. OPEC is no longer able to control world oil prices except in a negative way. This is a major shift away from the economics of the early seventies and OPEC. Let us hope we do not squander our opportunity to use these resources to our advantage. Our heads are not in the sand. Conservatives recognize where we have been going (down the tubes) and the need to change course if we are to recover.
Wow.
You must have a truly calloused heart to believe that blood should be shed in order to achieve financial gain.
I have nothing left to say.
Excuse me...We, referring to governments, do wage wars for financial gain and other political reasons.
What I believe personally about war is another matter. I'm not here to protest wars. If you want to protest war, you should take it to another forum.
I'm here to support the Republican form of government, the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution our founding fathers gave us in 1776. This country was conceived and born in revolution - a war (horrors!) with England over taxation without representation (sounds political and financial to me). The founding fathers pledged their lives (blood) and treasure (a financial investment) to the cause. If that was calloused, so be it. If there was some financial or economic gain involved, so be it. Was this war for freedom and financial gain from England justified? John Adams, other patriots, and the French Jews who financed us - they sure believed it was. Did they all have calloused hearts? Or was it necessary.
After our country was established, they warned us in order to keep the Republic, we may have to refresh it with the blood of patriots from time to time. Then I ask: are we in fear of losing our Republic to a minority of liberal socialists traitors? And will we also be accused of having calloused hearts when our time to choose comes?
As you put it: I have nothing left to say.
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