Quote from tristancliffe :

That would mean we need 150 really tall, vulnerable power stations to power them alone. Then you need another 1000 to run the electric cars. Then you need another 1000 to run all the villages. Then you need another 10000 to run all the businesses......

What are you talking about? I understand you may not have taken statistics but really? You suppose that the current grid in your city is designed to allow every household to turn on every appliance they own, all at once? It’s called probability. Maybe if you ran the power company, it would be prepared for the unlikely circumstance when every person on the planet plugged in their car but I can assure you your local power station will never be prepared for that eventuality.

Do you also not believe in Atoms? Are you not buying that the earth revolves around the sun?

A Thermal Efficiency can be easily calculated for any Heat Engine. Internal Combustion engines are Forward Heat Engines. The Steam Turbines in most power plants are heat engines as well. It does stand to reason that the Thermal Efficiency of these devices can be calculated and compared right? This is first year engineering.

Modern, hydro-carbon burning power plants are, on average, 35% (Non-Super Critical) to 60% (Combined Cycle) efficient. By “Efficient” I of course mean that, of the available energy in the fuel being used, some fraction of this theoretical number is actually yielded as work; that fraction is the efficiency of the device.

A modern gasoline engine is approximately 25% efficient. That’s pretty good; the number was substantially lower even 20 Years ago.
Line-drop due to power distribution is not negligible but relatively low; between 5%-8%. Out of the box, even an area serviced by a decrepit coal-plant with an inefficient grid has you doing as good as or better than a Gasoline powered car in an EV, not counting the other obvious advantages that only British pseudo-science could ignore with a straight face. That’s with both an EV (Yes, don’t be a twat; it stands for Electric Vehicle; differentiation if required; do we really have to tip toe around some negative connotation you’ve acquired?) and an IC vehicle at 55MPH. In reality, most people often have to stop and remain stopped two seconds to two minutes or even longer.

Regenerative braking and simply not running an engine during this time are easily worth a 25% difference in fuel consumption when one isn’t in motion non-stop; whether that fuel is consumed the night before by a power station or this instant by the engine makes no difference. Hell, 25% is the difference between the City and Highway rating of the VW Rabbit. That difference does not even account for an EV’s regenerative braking and lack of an idling engine.

Everyone:
To sum it up; hybrids get better mileage than conventional cars right? (Shake your head yes) You like saving money? Sure you do. Imagine if you could take the 25% thermally efficient engine in your hybrid and replace it with a 50% Thermally Efficient engine! Well you can't retard! So plug your car into the wall and get an equivalent (based on current fuel prices in the US) 190MPG. Get it? Good.



Me? I wouldn't mind seeing a Tesla Roadster look-alike. I highly doubt it'd be boring.

Thank you Goblox, you've made that very easy to understand, let's just hope the diehard combustion boys get it.

Quote from GobLox :

What are you talking about? I understand you may not have taken statistics but really? You suppose that the current grid in your city is designed to allow every household to turn on every appliance they own, all at once? It’s called probability. Maybe if you ran the power company, it would be prepared for the unlikely circumstance when every person on the planet plugged in their car but I can assure you your local power station will never be prepared for that eventuality.

Do you also not believe in Atoms? Are you not buying that the earth revolves around the sun?

A Thermal Efficiency can be easily calculated for any Heat Engine. Internal Combustion engines are Forward Heat Engines. The Steam Turbines in most power plants are heat engines as well. It does stand to reason that the Thermal Efficiency of these devices can be calculated and compared right? This is first year engineering.

Modern, hydro-carbon burning power plants are, on average, 35% (Non-Super Critical) to 60% (Combined Cycle) efficient. By “Efficient” I of course mean that, of the available energy in the fuel being used, some fraction of this theoretical number is actually yielded as work; that fraction is the efficiency of the device.

A modern gasoline engine is approximately 25% efficient. That’s pretty good; the number was substantially lower even 20 Years ago.
Line-drop due to power distribution is not negligible but relatively low; between 5%-8%. Out of the box, even an area serviced by a decrepit coal-plant with an inefficient grid has you doing as good as or better than a Gasoline powered car in an EV, not counting the other obvious advantages that only British pseudo-science could ignore with a straight face. That’s with both an EV (Yes, don’t be a twat; it stands for Electric Vehicle; differentiation if required; do we really have to tip toe around some negative connotation you’ve acquired?) and an IC vehicle at 55MPH. In reality, most people often have to stop and remain stopped two seconds to two minutes or even longer.

Regenerative braking and simply not running an engine during this time are easily worth a 25% difference in fuel consumption when one isn’t in motion non-stop; whether that fuel is consumed the night before by a power station or this instant by the engine makes no difference. Hell, 25% is the difference between the City and Highway rating of the VW Rabbit. That difference does not even account for an EV’s regenerative braking and lack of an idling engine.

Everyone:
To sum it up; hybrids get better mileage than conventional cars right? (Shake your head yes) You like saving money? Sure you do. Imagine if you could take the 25% thermally efficient engine in your hybrid and replace it with a 50% Thermally Efficient engine! Well you can't retard! So plug your car into the wall and get an equivalent (based on current fuel prices in the US) 190MPG. Get it? Good.



Me? I wouldn't mind seeing a Tesla Roadster look-alike. I highly doubt it'd be boring.

Although I'm not doubting anything you've said, you seem to miss the point.

That the point of electric cars is pointless because you get the power for them from a big fossil fuel burning powerstation - The amount of pollution created by those for power for houses and buisness far exceeds the amount of pollution created by cars - that's without the added strain of an extra 5 million cars being charged up every night..

Mhhm, okay. Wind turbines, hydro powered, nuclear... I'm going through a list of just how many sort of power stations there are. Not all of them are ran off fossil fuels.

Then again, your theory explains gas prices.

Quote from S14 DRIFT :

Although I'm not doubting anything you've said, you seem to miss the point.

That the point of electric cars is pointless because you get the power for them from a big fossil fuel burning powerstation - The amount of pollution created by those for power for houses and buisness far exceeds the amount of pollution created by cars - that's without the added strain of an extra 5 million cars being charged up every night..

Yes, by and large they both run off fossil fuels. The point is that a centralized Power Plant such as a Gas turbine combined-cycle plant is a lot more efficient (No really, way way way more efficient) than your car's engine. You're still burning fuel, but your burning less. Why is it more efficient? For one, they are designed to be and they don't have to make compromises for weight, complexity, or cost. Two, the idea is really to far reaching to discuss here but suffice it to say - reductions in complexity usually mean energy savings. So let's say your using 65HP driving your car at 60MPH. The engine has hundreds of moving parts and is producing 45KW. A 1000MW power plant has hundreds maybe thousands of moving parts but can produce as much power as 23,000 Cars. To have all those car's running to make their own 45KW requires Millions of moving parts all burning off energy while the power plant has just a hand full by comparison.

The massive freighters that haul incredible amounts of stuff over the ocean have the largest diesel engines in the world. They are comical; crankshaft journals the diameter of a grown man's height. Turbo-chargers you could walk though - Literally 1.5Million Cubic inches (25,000L) 100,000 Horsepower. They use over a gallon of diesel per second. They literally have million gallon fuel tanks. Get the picture? (The numbers are hard to imagine because they are so large we don't deal with them on a daily basis.) It's also the single most efficient way to haul stuff on the face of the planet. To have thousands of trucks haul the same amount of stuff would, literally, require an exponential increase in fuel spent. Way way more fuel. Take all the stuff and break it down into tiny boxes you can put in fuel sipping cars and it would take even more fuel!

The point is, less is more. By the way; the most powerful diesel engine in the world? 4,600,000 Pounds, 100,000HP, 5 Millions Lb/ft of torque? Also, hands down, one of the most efficient engines on the planet! 50% Energy efficiency!
Check it out here: http://people.bath.ac.uk/ccsshb/12cyl/

This does not mean everyone needs to drive a 4.6 Million Pound engine with wheels attached to it. It uses 63 gallons of fuel per minute for christ sake! It's only efficient if it's utilized - much like the power grid in a city? See where I'm going with this? It's not a conspiracy theory, people. EV = Less Fuel used, take my word for it.

What about a hybrid engine? Just like the Lexus and Toyota.. You get the power from two engines at the same time..

On top of everything, a big heavy power-station also has no weight-concerns to cope with, and even harder restrictions on environmental impact, and so most power-stations not only burn cleaner, but also run their air through more filters than a car does - and not just '70s diesel filters, but filters superior to all those FAP and other names for particle-filters.

Quote from BAMBO :

and a car that doesn't pollutes in any way.

Erm, where does this magical pollution free power come from then?

You're just picking on an older post.

Plus, if you bring up that subject, it doesn't pollute where it's used - you can produce the power in the middle of nowhere, and the cities stay clean.

He claimed it doesn't pollute in any way though, that's just not true. And it probably still uses oil for lubrication anyway. Hell, it might have some non environmentally friendly rustproofing.

Quote from CasseBent :

He claimed it doesn't pollute in any way though, that's just not true. And it probably still uses oil for lubrication anyway. Hell, it might have some non environmentally friendly rustproofing.

Oh, and regular cars use environmentally friendly rustproofing? Or oil? Or unfriendly metals for batteries and other components?

Quote from gingiba :

Oh, and regular cars use environmentally friendly rustproofing? Or oil? Or unfriendly metals for batteries and other components?

Nobody said regular cars were environmentally friendly, but BOMBA claimed electric cars didn't pollute at all, did you miss all this? Very good comeback sir...

Well having an engine that produces 100% torque from 0 rpm means that it has a basic 2 gear transmission , first and reverse, aparentely they've had reliability problems with the 3 gear transmission, I also checked they're web page and they don't even mention the words oil and lubrication, the brakes are Vacuum pump driven Servo assisted with 4 wheel ABS system, the battery will last longer then you and any other pollution is in such a small quantity that you can't even mentioned it so technically, it's car that trully doesn't pollutes at all.

Quote from BAMBO :

Well having an engine that produces 100% torque from 0 rpm means that it has a basic 2 gear transmission , first and reverse, aparentely they've had reliability problems with the 3 gear transmission, I also checked they're web page and they don't even mention the words oil and lubrication, the brakes are Vacuum pump driven Servo assisted with 4 wheel ABS system, the battery will last longer then you so pretty much a car that trully doesn't pollutes in any way.

Right, its got a big battery. Which means it can store more energy. Which comes from where, exactly?

From eco-friendly huge power plants that generate energy with the use of the wind, the water and the sun

Quote from BAMBO :

From eco-friendly huge power plants that generate energy with the use of the wind, the water and the sun

They make very very little energy for an awful lot of money, and even then they chemicals used in their construction are environmentally dodgy at least...

I do not 100% agree with BAMBO, but are chemicals and materials used in the construction of refineries and oil-wells any cleaner? :rolleyes:

Quote from gingiba :

I do not 100% agree with BAMBO, but are chemicals and materials used in the construction of refineries and oil-wells any cleaner? :rolleyes:

No, but unfortunately it seems a large majority of people seem to forget that there is still a lot of Pollution with Electric Cars - sure, a power-station is more efficient than a V6, but it's still polluting...

I myself never denied that, however Tristan and S14DRIFT's arguments included that it was more polluting than an Internal Combustion engine..

But an eco-friendly power plant is built once and is just simply upgraded from time to time and again a power plant will last a lot more then you so the pollution at the construction of it is gradually eliminated by all the energy it's producing.That's why I'm saying an EV doesn't pollutes at all.

What's an eco-friendly power plant? A minute ago you were talking about Solar / Wind etc which takes a loooooong while to pay for itself (and will never eliminate the pollution it causes). Lots of power stations are getting cleaner, but theres still pollution being caused...

The developing world (specifically, China) is where we really need to focus, but alas no-one really cares...

Quote from Jakg :

What's an eco-friendly power plant? A minute ago you were talking about Solar / Wind etc which takes a loooooong while to pay for itself (and will never eliminate the pollution it causes). Lots of power stations are getting cleaner, but theres still pollution being caused...

The developing world (specifically, China) is where we really need to focus, but alas no-one really cares...

An eco-friendly power plant is a solar plant or a wind farm, it's called that way because it doesn't creates pollution thus being eco-friendly and it doesn't take a long while to pay for itself, it actually takes about 5 years or lesser wich is pretty reasonable for such a huge investment.

I really doubt a "solar plant" takes 5 years to pay for itself...

It DOES create pollution as there are lots of lovely chemicals in solar panels...

I was referring to wind farms, the solar plant was just an example. On solar panels I pretty much have to agree with you.

Quote from gingiba :

I myself never denied that, however Tristan and S14DRIFT's arguments included that it was more polluting than an Internal Combustion engine..

I don't think I said they were more polluting?

And I don't like wind or solar power anyway, and I haven't made my mind up about hydro... But nuclear seems like the best way to make energy in the future, especially if fusion can be made to work well enough