An Electric Very Light Car?
Saturday, August 7, 2010 at 10:59AMEdison2’s Very Light Car Scoffs at Electric Avenue said AutoBlog Green in January, highlighting the irony of our internal combustion engine powered car sitting in the midst of all the electrics at the Detroit Auto Show.
But electric vehicles are here to stay and an electric VLC makes sense. Our breakthroughs in platform efficiency make all vehicles way more efficient, regardless of power source, and in an electric help solve issues of cost and range.
Billions are being invested in electric vehicle technology for a number of reasons. EV’s provide a path to energy independence and with American jobs, whether in the creation of green energy sources or in the mining and processing of coal. As a new industry, electric cars have the potential to revitalize important sectors of our economy. Electric vehicles are particularly efficient in short-cycle applications, such as Postal Service vans or some predictable commuters, and the relocation of emissions to a distance can be an advantage. Night-time charging will utilize excess generating capacity, and as the electric grid becomes green so can the future of transportation.
Currently, however, electrics cars have real issues. Batteries are heavy, big and costly. With electric drives cars get heavier, performance suffers and costs go up. Range is especially an issue, as witnessed by the numerous EVs in the 100-mile range X Prize alternative classes that made it to the knockout stage, versus only one EV in the 200-mile range mainstream class.
The hope and plan for electric cars is that the tremendous investment in battery technology will cause the weight and expense of batteries to go down, increasing range and decreasing costs of electric cars. But another way to increase the range of electric vehicles is with VLC innovations: a car that simply takes less energy to move can go farther and faster with a smaller, lighter and less expensive battery pack.
Coming soon, perhaps: an electric Very Light Car.
Reader Comments (95)
Edison2 posted a new blog entry on the total drag of the VLC; static, mechanical, and aero.
New article on CNN.com today. Does it sound like the grid is ready for masses of eCars to plug in ?
www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/08/09/smart.grid/index.html?iref=obnetwork
Take a look at the $1.5 TRILLION est. cost of a smart grid, at a time when we don't have cash reserves to spend, and the (optimistic) 20 year estimate of deployment. The main purpose of the "smart meters" is really just to eliminate the "meter reader's" jobs via automation, and has little to nothing to do with a real "smart grid". My home already has a smart meter.
My point is that while I'm not against a smart grid, trying to deploy mass BEV's now is not the best use of financial resources for the next 20-30 years, not to mention that the battery technology is still not good enough for generic cars. We can acheive the goals of getting off of fossil fuels and eliminating (or nearly so) CO2 emissions without BEV's - it can be done via a solar-synthesized liquid fuel (like Algea oil, but there are other alternatives), using TODAY's infastructure - tanker trucks, gas stations, and vehicle technology (hopefullty enhanced with Edison2 efficiency-boosting technology)...
Now I guess I'm the one "beating people over the head" !!!
Kevin
I think this is not something we need to worry about, frankly. We can simply conserve electricity to more than offset the use by the few EV's we will have at the beginning. Also, we are already paying an enormous amount of money for petroleum. We simply must make the transition to renewable energy, and electricity is the nexus of most renewable energy sources.
Global climate change is already evident and carbon based fuels are finite. Peak oil has already happened, peak coal is about to happen in a year or so, and natural gas will last a few decades more. We have no choice; we must start to change over to use renewables, right now.
Check this article in the New Yorker about the money behind much of the GCC deniers:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer
Sincerely, Neil
Well ahead of the game here. At my house we generate positive amounts of electricity (at least in the summer). So now bring on the LEAF. The grid to my house can handle it without improvements and smartgrid.
The batteries were good to go ten years ago when the RAV-4E's were produced and are still running today.
The battery electric VLC makes the whole idea of solar energy powered electric cars much more practical.
Conventional designs are too heavy and too expensive. For example, the moderate range BYD e6 weighs almost 4500 pounds, and consumes about 21 kWh per 100km. The $40,000 BYD would require a very large array of solar panels to recharge. A VLCe with the same range might be built with less than a third of the raw materials, and would need far fewer solar panels for recharge.
USA innovation could beat China on cost as well as performance.
It will be very interesting to see the VLCe kWh per 100km numbers.
John,
My spreadsheet model (which appears to be accurate, but is not vetted by the Edison2 folks) gives the following results:
If 500 pounds of battery were used (1300 lb car weight) - at 65MPH it would take 8.1 KWh/100miles total energy rate, and at 40MPH it takes 4.9. At 80% net elect efficiency, 95% mechanical eff - this equates to 10.7 and 6.5 KWh/100miles respectively.
If 1000 pounds of battery were used (1800 lb car weight) - those final numbers at 65/40MPH would be 11.7 / 7.5 KWh/100miles. Of course, the car design might need to have other changes with this large percentage of added weight - so I think a ~500 lb battery makes the most sense.
These numbers, of course, would be at constant speed, and real-world would use more energy for accel, etc. - but I think that one can see that the range of a VLCe would be really good...about 300 miles at 65MPH with a 1000 lb / 36KWh battery. Even with a 500lb / 18KWh battery the rage could be 150 / 240 miles. (I'm just throwing battery weights out...perhaps someone else can let me know real-world battery weights vs. KWh capacity ?)
Kevin
Kevin
Hi Kevin,
The batteries used on the MotoCzysz Ep1c are ~19 pounds per 1.25kWh cell, or ~190 pounds for the 12.5 kWh pack. These are on the light side of what is common, I think, but they are real batteries.
Sincerely, Neil
Quick personal anecdotal story: I have a plug-in electric lawn mower (20" EarthWise from American Lawn Mower) and I plugged it into a Kill-A-Watt for a heavy duty 2 1/2+ hour long mowing session. The average per hour consumption was just 0.38kWh.
That's 0.38kWh per hour = approximately 12/1000 of a gallon of gasoline = ~0.9 teaspoon of gasoline PER HOUR of heavy mowing.
If you add a battery and charger (there is a 24v version of this same mower), then this consumption would about double. So, still less than a tablespoon of gasoline per hour.
Oh, and it is very quiet (just blade whirring and air whooshing and yes, you can hear the grass blades getting cut), and there are no exhaust fumes, and virtually no heat; both of which make mowing grass on a hot summer day far more pleasant.
I also have an electric Husqvarna grass trimmer and a push reel mower, so I have had gasoline-free lawn care.
Sincerely, Neil
Oh, the joys of battling Spammers...
Somebody needs to delete these!
Neil
It can be said that the same electrical engineering can be applied to cars on their lighting from interior lighting to exterior lighting consisting of <A HREF="http://www.car-stuff.com/headlightlens.htm">Headlight Lens</A> to Fog Lights. I believe electric cars will have more efficient lighting in terms of eco friendliness and less electrical generation.
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Small ultra-light cars like the Lotus 7 rightly have a strong following, Small light, and special.
I can imagine a colaboration between the likes of Motoczysz and Edison2.
http://www.motoczysz.com
Remy are currently government leveraged and with MotoCzysz they started production of the D1g1tal Dr1ve.
MotoCzysz have good hot swappable battery tech already, and are proving it by winning e-GP on two wheels. Water cooled motors and inverters would not take much engineering to replace the methanol engine in the rear. I can only dream!
Congratulations on the win!
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