Posted on 08/14/2008 8:32:27 AM PDT by wyowolf
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Larry Horsley loves that he doesn't buy much gas, even though he drives his '95 Chevy S-10 back and forth to work each day. Larry Horsley's pickup has a set of neatly arranged electronics where his engine once was. 1 of 2 Horsley, a self-described do-it-yourselfer, simply plugs his truck into an electric wall outlet in his Douglasville, Georgia, garage and charges it overnight, instead of buying gasoline refined from mostly imported oil.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
He will shortly get a visit from the Feds requesting the road taxes he is not paying. and possibly face a fine for not doing so.
DIY Advanced High Performance Electric Vehicle Conversion Project
wouldnt it just be easier to buy a small car that gets good mileage??
My hat's off to him.
A. How much is his monthly electric bill now?
B. How much more pollution is he causing by burning coal (to produce the electricity that powers his car)?
If both of these, and the cost of the conversion, add up then it may be worth while, otherwise....
~~~”I’m a raging greenie,” he said.~~~
Can be replaced with I’m a raging idiot who worships in the temple of the Great goreical!
funny i live here , never heard about it...
Somethings I've often thought about:
Suppose we are comparing gasoline to diesel cars.Lets say you use a regular gasoline engine in a car, but used a considerably smaller one, one that only put out the same horsepower as the diesel engined car you are comparing it too (Diesel engine generally put out less HP than an equivalently sized Gasoline engine). The gas mileage would go up for the gasoline engined car. Now lets factor in the price difference... would the two cars get about the same miles/dollar? Something to ponder..
Now with electric conversions. What if you went and replaced the large, powerful gasoline motor, with a small one. Perhaps a tiny one, of equivalent HP to the electric. How would that work out?
I mean, in both these cases, you are looking at making compromises. What if you matched those compromises using regular old gasoline engines? Would those things, then, perhaps balance out? Just something to think about.
Stories that do not include answers to your very sound , very basic questions , are just retelling failed experiments .
Being as you live there - do you, by chance, happen to know how the electricity in your area is generated? Coal, hydro, etc.?
The cost of piety - like the Prius.
Thanks for the link. Great site. Fascinating.
Battery tech is really the key. Lots of new chemistry in the works.
our is Greystone, part of a large co op... with Georgia power... i know they have a lot of Hydro but i am not sure where it comes from for us...
Which is cheaper and more environmentally friendly - electricity from the grid or gasoline from the station?
What was his electric bill before and what is it now, that he has to charge these batteries every night for a few hours?
Thanks!
How does he think they produce the electricity?
I think a 427 Hemi in a Prius would be more fun.
Electricity from the grid, obviously; it’s easier to control pollution from a few big sources than a lot of little sources (or, better yet, avoid generating the pollution in the first place by using nuclear generators).
Personally, I really want a motorcycle (can't afford one right now, but I really, really want one! :^D ).
(I noticed that it's written by the 'Electric Vehicle Association,' which makes me wary of bias.)
And Hydro, Solar, Geo-thermal...
For a comparison of E and G to be meaningful the cost of conversion (in this case - in other’s the cost and production of batteries, etc.) ought be taken into account.
I suppose there might be some bias, just like there’s bias on the other side of the coin. Still, he lists 22 different sources for his info.
But on thing is true, the E motor is more efficient than it's gas counter part in converting its energy into work.
Thanks - it’s something we’ll just have to keep our eye on, and to make sure irrational ideology doesn’t get in the way (on both sides).
Whichever — the point is that electricity generation offers more options and more ways to prevent or avoid pollution problems.
True.
However, the entire system for gas engines is something like this: pump oil, transport, refine, transport to station, fill tank, burn fuel, work.
For the electrical car it's something like: pump or dig fuel, transport, burn fuel to produce electricity, transmit electricity, charge battery, run electrical motor, work.
The electrical system has more stages, each with its efficiency loss. The electrical system is still probably more efficient, but not nearly as much so as most people think. The relevant issue is how much of the fuel winds up producing work, not the efficiency of an electric motor, which uses electricity that has nalready been produced with its efficiency losses in the process.
all of which is why nuclear is thesolution. The wackos piled on artifical work to decrease overall efficiency andrun up costs.
No, a willingness to lose your freedom of mobility, and being gullible enough to spend a ton of money and end up with less than you started with are bigger keys.
Also the snooty ignorance of using electricty, the generation and transmission of which are grossly inefficient, and dirty, and overloading the power grid even further to boot, is an important key.
I’m a big fan of nuclear. In fact, I think that if I were appointed dictator I could have America importing zero oil in 5 years, largely by switching most electricity production to nuclear, allowing domestically produced liquid fuels to be used for transportation.
However, the demand for “Sherman for dictator!” has not exactly been overwhelming.
That mostly what they are used for today. Less than 2% of our electricity is generated by petroleum. Much of what is used is petroleum coke and residual oil. Those are left over products from Crude Oil after products like diesel and gasoline are removed.
U.S. Electric Power Industry Net Generation, 2006 
My plan was not completely laid out. It would include expanded conversion to electric cars, run on the new nuclear power plants, as well as vastly expanded drilling for new oil.
Since I’m conquering Canada and Mexico, their production will in future be classified as “domestic.” Chavez better watch out, or he’s next.
As dictator, I don’t have to deal with financial, political or environmental considerations.
and all in 5 years...
cheers
However, the entire system for gas engines is something like this: pump oil (defend regions where oil is pumped), transport, refine(burn fuel to refine), transport to station (burn fuel), fill tank, burn fuel, work.
For the electrical car it's something like: pump or dig fuel (and/or: capture photons, harness water, harness geo-thermal, wind, nuclear), transport (not always), burn fuel to produce electricity (not always), transmit electricity (to any electrical outlet), charge battery, run electrical motor, work.
Personally, I don't think the efficiency losses areas bad for E as you think. But regardless, there's only one real source for gas, many different sources for E with production efficiencies getting better all the time.
Don't get me wrong, I like the deep throaty roar of a RAT motor as much as any gearhead, and I would absolutely love to have a 1920's/30's era barrelback woody with a Liberty 12 sucking down high test avgas.
But I like E; clean efficient, quiet. Way cheaper in the long run, and I'm not sending $$$ to unstable sand castles in the ME. And I absolutely love to see the American can do spirit alive in guys that do things like this on their own.
Oh, I agree.
My point is that the entire fuel cycle should be examined for its efficiency, with all inputs and outputs included.
When comparing efficiency between electric and IC cars, too many people act as if the electricity coming out of the wall socket was the start of the energy process, rather than a long ways down the line.
To get a true comparison, you could figure how much of the energy from two barrels of oil produces useful work. One barrel is burned to produce electricity and used to drive an electric car, the other is refined to gasoline and used to drive an otherwise identical IC car.
My estimate is that the electric car is about 25% more efficient when compared this way.
A big issue nobody wants to talk about is that construction and maintenance of roads is paid for by fuel taxes. When some critical mass of electric cars is reached, they’ll need to be taxed separately, putting a big dent into their cost advantage. Or the money will have to be provided through taxing somebody else so electric car owners can be subsidized. We’re talking very large sums of money here.
But you're right, the congresscritters will find a way to tax the new propulsion paradigm.
I suspect the GPS tracking they're experimenting with out in the lib lands of the Pacific northwest will be the method of choice and not just for miles driven tax revenue. Either that, or "charging stations" where ever they may reside (home, work, etc.) will have special tax meters on them.
I invented a wind powered car, but we’re gonna have to raise all the traffic lights.
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