This is my point exactly. Every car in LFS is electric, because that's all you're physically putting into the computer to make the cars move

Al you need to do to simulate an electric motor is turn the engine volume right down - job done.

Quote from Ca18Slider :

Of course the transfer over to EV's will be slow, and it will have problems. But the whole point of them is to try and cut back on fossil fuel use. Of course, it was just like the original four-wheeler for farmers, I'll quote a Brit that it took the young generation of the world to think what if they had really big engines? The original EV motors were slow, and wasteful, I'll admit to that.

Ok, now! What would be the disadvantage of it, at least a test in LFS? Instant power, no lag when it comes to power. I'd say that would make some very interesting races between guys like you that are used to driving close and fast.

How do electric cars (I'm not going to call them EVs because it's a poncy initialism) stop the use of fossil fuels? Instead of burning them in your engine you burn them in a power station. The overall efficiency is going to be about the same really...

The only difference is the electric cars have nasty batteries that are (I read) harder to dispose of than nuclear waste...

Quote from tristancliffe :

How do electric cars (I'm not going to call them EVs because it's a poncy initialism) stop the use of fossil fuels? Instead of burning them in your engine you burn them in a power station. The overall efficiency is going to be about the same really...

The only difference is the electric cars have nasty batteries that are (I read) harder to dispose of than nuclear waste...

The big difference is, Tristan, that the batteries are rechargable and don't need to be disposed of unless you ruin a cell, even then there are some batteries out there that automatically contain that cell and keep the juices flowing. No harm, no foul. I don't see why you're being so feisty about an electric RAC.. to be honest, I'd find that much torque in such a light car, actually, a -LIGHTER- car considering the electric engine is quite light in comparison, to be very entertaining!

IC Engines are rechargeable, in the same way - burning fossil fuel. Batteries are lifed at about 2 - 5 years at the moment, and costs many thousands to replace.

It's quite obvious you don't really know what you're talking about, but have been told electric cars are good.

Quote from Dajmin :

Al you need to do to simulate an electric motor is turn the engine volume right down - job done.

I doubt that would change the torque output

Electric engines have the torque controled through computer, so no spinning tyres at start...

Isn't one of the 'to do' bugs of LFS the fact that the torque curves are pretty much flat for all the cars? You'd have to fix that befoire bringing in a car who's whole point is that it has a flat torque curve.

Quote from Nadeo4441 :

Electric engines have the torque controled through computer, so no spinning tyres at start...

Since when do all electric engines have computers? Gav's EV used a cheap motor and still got wheelspin in first gear. Don't forget, they usually mount to a transmission, automatic or manual.\

Quote from tristancliffe :

IC Engines are rechargeable, in the same way - burning fossil fuel. Batteries are lifed at about 2 - 5 years at the moment, and costs many thousands to replace.



It's quite obvious you don't really know what you're talking about, but have been told electric cars are good.

Respect for you and all Tristan, but... it sounds to me like you're talking about solar panels. EV's can run off regular car batteries. Or you're just being plain, outright stubborn! An electric motor can run off DC, and or AC depending.. so stop being so stubborn, they're not thousands of dollars. Christ sake, my push lawnmower was converted to electric, using an old alternator and a car battery.


PS: It's the extremely high grade batteries you'll spend money on, like that Hydra blah, whatever it is and Lithium-Ion.. come on, get real. That's maybe 300 apiece.

Yeah i like the elektric cars! I'm all about elektrics and it's the thing of the future anyway, silent cars are nice. Lately they really proved what they are up to. But elektric cars are not totally silent, you still hear the higher pitched elektric sound which i find absolutely stunning. Better start to get used to them as soon as you can. Futoristic stuff like that reminds me a bit of Back to the future II, i'm waiting for stuff like that to happen all the time

I also read something about the batteries being completely recycable without doing harm to the environment. I know lot's of ppl complaining about every aspect being worse then having petrol engined cars, but the recent stuff I read taught me the whole thing being not that bad at all, it's just simply brilliant.

The aspect of racing is not everything about hearing your engine scream, having a lightweight monster with lineair torque seems awesome to drive to me.

But if such a car should be in LFS i don't know. An elektric RAC does not seem like a very good idea to me, although i like the shape of that car very much. The Elektric Ariel Atom could be more fun i guess (Wrightspeed X1 i guess it's called). That would be just something totally different for a change.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVV9azx4OBA

or what about the Tesla Roadster

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... 10jTk&feature=related

Quote from Ca18Slider :

Respect for you and all Tristan, but... it sounds to me like you're talking about solar panels. EV's can run off regular car batteries. Or you're just being plain, outright stubborn! An electric motor can run off DC, and or AC depending.. so stop being so stubborn, they're not thousands of dollars. Christ sake, my push lawnmower was converted to electric, using an old alternator and a car battery.


PS: It's the extremely high grade batteries you'll spend money on, like that Hydra blah, whatever it is and Lithium-Ion.. come on, get real. That's maybe 300 apiece.

Do you really think electric cars have lead-acid batteries in them? The Lead Acid batteries that barely last 10 minutes without an alternator charge? The lead acid batteries that are a struggle to carry?

Electric cars won't be using lead acid batteries.

Batteries store DC. The motors won't run on AC.

I believe the cost of replacing the battery pack in a Tesla is £ five figures

Quote from tristancliffe :

You burn fossil fuels to make electricity, which you send down cables to charge a battery filled with really nasty chemicals and heavy metals, to power a car that's excessively heavy so it can go about a third as far as a normal car, but is harder to top-up with energy. Must be a great technology...

complete rubbish from 10 or 20 years ago and some of it was already rubbish back then

1) not all power plants burn fossile fuels and by and large the efficiency grows with the size of the plant so a power plant burns fossile fuels way more efficiently than an engine
2) even with the the overall efficiency of the power line and the electirc motor dc/ac conversion etc factored in an electric powered vehicle will still be significantly more efficient than any ic engine other than a gigantic ship diesel maybe
3) modern batteries are completely unnasty contain primarily the lightest of metals and are thus lightweight

Quote from tristancliffe :

Batteries store DC. The motors won't run on AC.

and rubbish again... technically all electric motors are running on ac... even dc ones

1) No, but still the majority. And whilst the burning itself is more efficient, there is no way to store the electricty, so they'd have to burn enough to charge cars that aren't even being charged.
2) But barely, and because of the problem in 1) you don't save any fossil fuels
3) I'm not so sure about that, but I'll trust your opinion for now.
4) Of course, but the motor is fed with DC, and it's converted to AC internally... so the motors [considered as a whole] run on DC and won't run on AC. Just like a motor designed to be plugged into the mains won't work on 240DCV

Quote from tristancliffe :

1) No, but still the majority. And whilst the burning itself is more efficient, there is no way to store the electricty, so they'd have to burn enough to charge cars that aren't even being charged.
2) But barely, and because of the problem in 1) you don't save any fossil fuels
3) I'm not so sure about that, but I'll trust your opinion for now.
4) Of course, but the motor is fed with DC, and it's converted to AC internally... so the motors [considered as a whole] run on DC and won't run on AC. Just like a motor designed to be plugged into the mains won't work on 240DCV

Tristan, you do realize that there are motors designed to run off one or the others, right? Since you are the battery expert and all.

Quote from tristancliffe :

1) No, but still the majority. And whilst the burning itself is more efficient, there is no way to store the electricty, so they'd have to burn enough to charge cars that aren't even being charged.

actually there is and the requirements for storage plants is growing now that additional to load balancing theres also a growing requirement for balancing out varing weather conditions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity

Quote :

2) But barely, and because of the problem in 1) you don't save any fossil fuels

i doubt any of us has actually bothered to run the numbers in order to arrive at anything conclusive so lets just keep it at a disagreement until either of us is bored enough to calculate it

Quote :

4) Of course, but the motor is fed with DC, and it's converted to AC internally... so the motors [considered as a whole] run on DC and won't run on AC. Just like a motor designed to be plugged into the mains won't work on 240DCV

you seem to be a little confused about the components that make up an electric drive... the motor itself doesnt do any conversions and thus usually requires 3 phase ac

Well folks, what we've witnessed here today was an internal combustion fanatic raving about electrics being horrible, just like alot of AMERICANS do, so how about we get back to the question of converting the Raceabout to a proper electric car?

you stupid yankee... insulting him will only make him stronger hes like a really nasty boss character from a badly made rpg

Tristan, burning fossil fuels at a powerstation is far cleaner and more efficient than inside a regular engine. So yes, there is a saving regarding fossil fuels.

asaik there are no popular leagues that race electric vehicles like tesla or ev rac. I don't see why they would be implemented into a racing game where all the cars we drive are used in some form of racing.

ot: many americans dont support electric cars not because we're stubborn about new eco technology, but our geography is very different from Europe's. We usually have to drive much farther to get places. More people live in small, widely spread towns than in cities. In the UK, electric technology may be the best bet because things are generally closer (the UK is about 2/3 the land size as the state of California) and more people live in large cities or towns. A person in the US might drive somewhere that takes a week or more to get to but in the UK you could probably drive anywhere within two days.

So throwing a couple of AA batteries in the glove compartment of the Sierra isn't going to make it an über hybrid then? So that's where I've been going wrong, lol. I think we should have diesel cars before we even think of electric ones, after all, as much as I hate them, there are diesel cars being run in quite a few different motorsport events ...

How about a windmill car ?

Quote from Mazz4200 :

How about a windmill car ?

Haha, what the hell is that ... thing ...

Quote from tristancliffe :

Instead of burning them in your engine you burn them in a power station. The overall efficiency is going to be about the same really...

The overall efficiency isn't in the same ball park. Without looking anything up It's no less than twice as efficient as an individual small engine; but that's pretty conservative. Performance is available with the usual efficiency trade-offs but obviously were still not dipping anywhere near IC-Engine numbers.


Where does a gasoline engine make the most torque approximately? Electric makes it at 0RPM. Around town it's the torque you want for fun. Power = Work/Time? We've got you covered there too.

Range? I don't know about you but my 911 rarely goes farther than 60 Miles round trip - 120 Mile range would be fine for 90% of my driving. Batteries won't replace hydrocarbons for potential to carry energy; even considering a lone IC-engine is around 25% Thermal Efficiency. But imagine a five minute stop at a recharging station every 100 Miles; Might be worth it for $.02 a mile or a 190MPG equivalency. Five Minute recharge? Considering the advancements in batteries made during the last 15 Years you'd have to be crazy to bet against it.

Maintenance? Two years? What? It just comes down to cycles. Yes the GM EV1 did use Lead Acid batteries; hell, the car effectively predated the mainstream use of Lith-Ion batteries and owners loved the cars. Why is GM scrapping them rather than letting owners buy out the lease? Purely legal.

Sound? I love to hear a flat-six scream, or a v12, or a Ford 5.0L for that matter. But it's a pretty weak argument against EV for 98% of the road going populous. Yes, the deaf and dim witted hearing-pedestrians are concerned. You can bet money EVs will be fitted with systems to produce an audible report for pedestrian safety; the "technology" (I mean really, it's not that hard.) is already developed.

Why do I care? I'm not suggesting we need to legally require people to do anything but it always bothers me to see hold-outs make absurd arguments and do their best to slow-progress. Forget what you think you know about Electric Vehicles. It doesn't much matter what I say; Unless fuel prices start going down monkey-see monkey-do will be an unstoppable force when your neighbor is paying six times less per mile than you are.

Quote from DanielC :

Haha, what the hell is that ... thing ...

I dunno to be honest. Just found it on Flickr one day.

It's a seriously cool thing though isn't it. Like a 1930'3 biplane with the wings cut off. I'd love to have a fly...err drive in it

There's just one thing... that car is so different from the current Raceabout, that its the same as making a new car from scratch (oh wait, you don't have to change the name). So, they might as well leave the current racebout as it is, and add that one.

hold on hold on......all these talk about efficiency of electric cars.......my XRT does unlimited mpg, so does my FZ5, so does my FO8.......why is this even in the equation?