Would battery operated cars be the best alternative for fuel burning cars??
Question:
Answer:
The key to alternative fuels is size, heat generation, dissapation, regeneration and the manufacturing process.
I have considered batteries more because that is my field.
The big problem with batteries is weight, heat and how you recharge them.
Current technology is SLA (sealed lead acid) just like the single battery in your car now and you know how heavy they are. Discharge rate is a function of energy used and consider a whole trunk full of batteries and the weight. Now to recharge them you plug a charger into the wall, draw electricty and a power plant somewhere starts to whirr and burn some fossil fuel.
Recently there has been significant improvements in battery technology. Picture a "C" battery that puts out 1.2 volts and 10 AMPS! Traditional "C" batteries give 1.5V and 0.0012 amps for One Hour. In short this new battery is about 4,000 times more efficient.
have a customer that used 10 of these batteries wired together in a pack. He las a large block Vet and disconnected the coil so the engine would not start and connected the pack (3"x5"x7") in place of the normal battery. He turned the key, cranked the motor 8 times and repeated 26 times before the pack went dead. That is power!
Now here is the fun part. He is building motyorcycles that totally run on batteries. They go for about $50,000 and RIP!
He took a bike to the strip and claims to have gone 0-60 in less than 4 SECONDS; I don't know how the guy stayed on.
Electric motors go from stopped to fast very quickly because they are connected to the drive train directly without all the combustion delay and all the pistons etc.
If you have interest send an email and I will give you the link to his site; cool site that will make you drool if you are into speed.
Teh problem with electricity is the recharge as I mentioned before. The complete solution is to use solar cells to recharge but solar cells are just too inefficient.
I think that some people at U Conn. have come up with a nanotechnology thesis that bears investigation.
They are going to have a HUGE FIGHT to proceed because it is a LARGE THREAT to the automobile industry and money talks; same with the oil people.
The change to electricity would require a complere redesign of the traditional motor and the automotive industry is taking token baby steps to "seem Green", but certainly do not want to kill the goose that layed the golden egg in the process.
Sorry that this was so long, but it is a complicated quuestion that can not be answered properly with a flip answer.
GOOD thoughts!
J
Why not Bio-deisel? It burns in the same engines used for regular deisel fuel, and produces 0 CFC's, and no dinosaurs hafta die to make the fuel.
Batterys are the best and cheapest answer.
your forgetting Hydrogen fuel cells, Hydrogen is more combustible than gasoline and the only by-product is good old 100% pure H2O
It takes fuel to run the power plants that recharge the batteries, so really it's the same.
If you want more intelligent answers, post this on sciencs. Since I'm an engineer by education, I'll answer it here. It takes energy to charge batteries. That energy usually comes from burning fuel. Remember TANSTAFL- There aint no such thing as free lunch.
How are you going to charge the batteries? Plug them in? Hmmm, you have to generate the electricity for that...need power plants for that...need fuel for that...All you would be doing is transferring the fuel use to another purpose.
Yes and not. I love the Zap cars, and would eventually like to get one. But they only go about 80 miles before they need to be recharged. That is the reason that Hybrids are such a good option.
The economy would come to a standstill if we were all poking around at 35 MPH.
with current technology it would be a problem
batteries add over 1000 pounds to the weight of the car and only last a few years before a costly replacement battery or more scrap cars to have to strip and recycle
also onhilly terrain the batteries have some problems keeping up with the extra work
In the cold the battery will not last as long
it would work decently in warm flatland but that would be about it
also battery disposal and recycling.. thats a lot of lead to be laying around in a crash that could also be a lot of lead acid leaking off into storm sewers or off into waterways
Kacky is incorrect, power plants burn fuel (oil, coal etc..) much more efficiently than a automobile engine does, it's more efficient (and produces less pollutants) to make electricity at a generating station to charge a cars batteries, even when you include transmission losses.
Battery powered care are the way to go they are easy to maintain and can be recharged at home. For e.g. GM's EV1 which was a good vehicle that GM was leasing. Though GM saw that they would not get much service because it was so easy to maintain that it was slashed in 2003. People protested to keep the leases running but all cars were destroyed. It is sad.
NO .... how were these batteries made? what material are they made from? is the chemical environmentally friendly? how much "FOSSIL FUEL ENERGY" does it takes to made these battery? how long does it last? .... IS IT WORTH IT?
The conversion from energy to motion is not 100% efficient. If you are talking about rechargeable batteries, then where does that electricity come from? Power plants that use fossil fuels? Is it cheaper to use the fuel to go directly to mechanical energy? Or is it cheaper to use the fuel to generate electricity (with losses) carry the electricity over the electric lines (with losses) recharge the batter (with losses) and the convert the electrical energy to mechanical energy (with losses). More fossil fuel would be used on a battery powered car, but the emissions could be lower because the fuel is burned remotely.
I don't think it would stop fatalities at all. It carries so little weight, comparatively, that I would expect them to start making the cars out of tin foil.
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