"Jim Wilkins" wrote in message ...

"PrecisionmachinisT" wrote in message

While I haven't seen power budgets, if an electric car manages to
take
80% of the energy that came in on the charging plug and turns it
into
forward motion, I'd be surprised.


http://avt.inel.gov/pdf/fsev/costs.pdf

The glaring error there is ignoring the batteries as an operating
cost.
http://www.plugincars.com/replacing-...ry-122261.html


Eventual failure and the subsequent replacement of engines, axles, transmissions and so forth is an "operating cost" with fossil fuel vehicles as well.

I've tested high-end batteries at Segway and [a medical equipment
manufacturer] and seen a small percentage of Lithiums begin to degrade
in less than a year. The packs' built-in supervisory computer recorded
all charge and discharge cycles, temperature and remaining capacity.
The battery maker wouldn't promise more than three years life,
regardless of cycle count.


As an aside, if recall correctly, probably the biggest problem with batteries is that US lithium extraction is seriously underdeveloped at the moment.


What is your experience with the same battery technologies in power
tools and laptops?

For reasons completely apart from battery performance, typically I use an extension cord and I also have absolutely no desire whatsoever to own a laptop.

That said, it's pretty hard to argue that overall, battery performance hasn't improved quite a bit over the last decade or so


Mine isn't good. I have to employ lab tech tricks on the batteries to
keep my Makita drills and 5+ year old laptops running.


Pretty sure it was someplace on a wiki page where it was mentioned that a decade or so ago, there was quite a bit of fear that battery life might possibly turn out to be a HUGE problem but that what actuallly transpired is that in most cases, battery life has greatly exceeded initial engineering expectations.

Anyways, here's an article probably that lays out the situation fairly accurately :

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/...s-battery-dies