"David" wrote in message
...
In article ews.net,
Doctor Drivel writes

I know what you mean Bertie. The Espace came bottom of the 170 car
Top
Gear
survey.

Ahh, it doesn't surprise me that you have faith in surveys John, I had
the Espace for 2 years and the only thing that went wrong with it was a
rock through the oil cooler, it was easily the most satisfying and
versatile "car"

Bertie, I'm sure you did think that, but you are about the only one who
has
then.

So? it works for me (a bit like your electronic descaler John)

Bertie, my descaler does work, that is for sure.

I'm not a sheep, I make my own decisions, don't follow the crowd and
don't take too much notice of surveys.

You sound like a fine upstanding citizen Bertie.

"T i m" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 22:24:52 -0000, "Doctor Drivel"
wrote:


Ahh, it doesn't surprise me that you have faith in surveys John, I had
the Espace for 2 years and the only thing that went wrong with it was a
rock through the oil cooler, it was easily the most satisfying and
versatile "car"

Bertie, I'm sure you did think that, but you are about the only one who
has
then.

As did my ex Boss who ran one as a Support Manager / Engineer and as a
family utility vehicle. Did over 100k miles in a few years with little
attention.

So that's two happy Espace owners ..

About the only two then.

same as the number of members in
the Prius owners club. ;-)

Timmy baby you jest of course. I like people who have fun.

On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 09:37:53 -0000, "Doctor Drivel"
wrote:


So that's two happy Espace owners ..

About the only two then.

Well, there aren't that many about now but there are loads of MPV's
for which the were the forerunner ..

same as the number of members in
the Prius owners club. ;-)

Timmy baby you jest of course.

Do I hip daddy-o .. right on ?

I like people who have fun.

That's good .. shame you have to watch them from behind the counter or
through the widows of a Prius?

All the best ..

Timmy

"T i m" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 09:37:53 -0000, "Doctor Drivel"
wrote:


So that's two happy Espace owners ..

About the only two then.

Well, there aren't that many about now but there are loads of MPV's
for which the were the forerunner ..

same as the number of members in
the Prius owners club. ;-)

Timmy baby you jest of course.

Do I hip daddy-o .. right on ?

I like people who have fun.

That's good .. shame you have to watch them from behind the counter or
through the widows of a Prius?

All the best ..

Timmy

"T i m" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 09:37:53 -0000, "Doctor Drivel"
wrote:


So that's two happy Espace owners ..

About the only two then.

Well, there aren't that many about now

I can see why.

I like people who have fun.

That's good .. shame you have to watch them from behind the counter or
through the widows of a Prius?

Or via a CRT tube. Watching the madness is best. Richard Cranium is a
medical book all by himself.

On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 10:33:23 -0000, "Doctor Drivel"
wrote:


"T i m" wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 09:37:53 -0000, "Doctor Drivel"
wrote:


So that's two happy Espace owners ..

About the only two then.

Well, there aren't that many about now but there are loads of MPV's
for which the were the forerunner ..

same as the number of members in
the Prius owners club. ;-)

Timmy baby you jest of course.

Do I hip daddy-o .. right on ?

I like people who have fun.

That's good .. shame you have to watch them from behind the counter or
through the widows of a Prius?

All the best ..

Timmy

Ooops .. pressed the wrong button did we? Can't get to the keyboard
for Prius brochures maybe?

Timmy ..

On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 10:35:03 -0000, "Doctor Drivel"
wrote:


"T i m" wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 09:37:53 -0000, "Doctor Drivel"
wrote:


So that's two happy Espace owners ..

About the only two then.

Well, there aren't that many about now

I can see why.

I don't think you can. You see .. that type of vehicle has evolved
into the MPV .. and 'ordinary' cars are so cheap folk buy new ones.
Well some do and thank goodness as I can then buy their old ones ;-)

I like people who have fun.

That's good .. shame you have to watch them from behind the counter or
through the widows of a Prius?

Or via a CRT tube.

A 'cathode ray tube tube' ..?

Watching the madness is best.

They let you have a mirror then (probably perspex)? Like a budgie,
probably keeps you amused for hours .. pulling all those faces as you
imagine whizziing along in yer non polluting, perpetual motion powered
Prius .. especially comforted in the fact that theres not a gear in
use nor some silly (complicated to use and 1 tonne) box to store them
in. ;-)

Richard Cranium is a
medical book all by himself.

I'm not sure you are the right person to judge the medical condition
of others .. and remember, there *may* even be salvation for you ...
just try saying these words .. (go on .. you *can* do it) ..

"My name is Drivel and I'm clinically insane" ..

All the best ..

Timmy

In article ews.net,
Doctor Drivel wrote:
That's good .. shame you have to watch them from behind the counter or
through the widows of a Prius?

Or via a CRT tube.

So I take it you don't know what CRT stands for as so much else? Hint. The
'T' stands for tube. I suppose you talk about PAT testing too. Not that
you'd have clue about that either...

Watching the madness is best. Richard Cranium is a medical book all by
himself.

A fictional person is a medical book? Ask your consultant at the clinic to
help you understand what this means.

--
*I started out with nothing... and I still have most of it.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Rick wrote:
I did say that they use electricity that is currently generated by
Fossil Fuels, that can be changed if there is sufficient will ... fuel
cells, wind, hydro, agropower etc.


So OK, lets say you do use fuel cells to produce electricity for your
hydrogen plant - that's great because those fuel cells are nice clean
devices converting hydrogen (and oxygen) into water and energy. Oh,
hang on, I guess you need to get your hydrogen from somewhere... that's
OK, you have a hydrogen plant... which takes more electricity than your
fuel cell can produce!

The only way this picture can work for producing usable electricity is
if you can get a fuel cell that runs at greater than 100% efficiency!

"T i m" wrote in message
...

Or via a CRT tube.

A 'cathode ray tube tube' ..?

As I said, watching the madness is best.

Watching the madness is best.

They let you have a mirror then

As I said, watching the madness is best.

Richard Cranium is a
medical book all by himself.

I'm not sure you are the right person to judge the medical condition
of others ..

As I said, watching the madness is best. Madness is easy to spot.

"Dave Plowman (News)" through a haze of senile
flatulence wrote in message ...
In article ews.net,
Doctor Drivel wrote:

Or via a CRT tube.

So I take it you don't know what CRT

** snip senile drivel **

Watching the madness is best. Richard
Cranium is a medical book all by himself.

A fictional person is a medical book?

Richard, you are a full study in your own right.

Dribble dribbles:

Madness is easy to spot.

*Sometimes*

But seldom by those suffering illness themselves?

Again .. "My name is Drivel and I'm clinically insane"

All the best ..

Timmy

In article ews.net,
Doctor Drivel wrote:
"Dave Plowman (News)" through a haze of senile
flatulence wrote in message ...
In article ews.net,
Doctor Drivel wrote:

Or via a CRT tube.

So I take it you don't know what CRT stands for

** snip senile drivel **

So that's a no then?. It means cathode ray tube. There now. You've learnt
something. Write it down so you don't forget.

Watching the madness is best. Richard
Cranium is a medical book all by himself.

A fictional person is a medical book?

Richard, you are a full study in your own right.

You seem to have a sudden fascination with books. Has your nurse
confiscated your colouring pencil for drawing on the walls?

--
*I finally got my head together, now my body is falling apart.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 13:42:05 +0100, AJH wrote:

On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 12:27:15 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Err, no. The concept is totally flawed. All it does is move the pollution
about. They're certainly no more energy efficient than a small diesel of
similar performance.

They are. If your power station efficiency including tranmissions loses is
better than the diesl in a car, you gave a net gain.

Calculations show this is indeed the case.

It looks to me that an ic engined car achieving 50mpg uses about
0.64kWhr(t)/km. You suggest a battery powered car will manage on a
tenth of this, as electrical energy drawn from a battery, seems a tad
optimistic.

I would say that I am not far out. IC engines in traffic are probably only
about 15% effeicint. You can buodl a car lighter without te engine...that
reduces usage more. Regen braking can up the efficiency even more. Its a
chanllenge, but its not far out.




Ignoring embedded energy in the machines and battery, do we have an
overall figure for grid electricity conversion from a thermal plant?
What about charge/discharge efficiency?

Grid ekectricity varies from about 40% to as high as 60% or more in some
condenser equipped sets. That's generation. I think the grid is around 90%
effeicient overall.

Batteries hat I use are not bad efficiency wise.If charged slowly and
discharged slowly (and vehicle requiremenst are slow by model aircraft
standards) the I^R losses are realy wuite low, and te batterues should get
warm. I'd tentatively say 95% over a charge/discharge cycle.




So to get your 0.062kWhr(e)/km out of the battery what do we need to
put in to an average coal plant?

Is it 0.062 divided by 80% battery loss? divided by overall grid
efficiency of 33%? = 0.24kWhr(t)/km? Or are there worse losses
somewhere in between?

You are way out. - say 50% at teh power station, with 90% on the grid and
90% on te battery and 90% on the motor.

I make that about 36,5%.
Way better than an IC engine in a car operating over a wide range of speeds
and conditions - remember that a cold petrol engine is deliberately flooded
with fuel to get it to start at all, and on short journeys may never get
fully warm. Those sorts of short journeys are where an all electric car
really scores.

Sure, its possible to approach 30% on an IC engine under optimal conditions
pf steady throttlle etc - like a marine diesel for example - but not in a
car, no.


Even so I doubt the appeal will be in the overall efficiency because
the proposed new thermal electricity plants will have a very cheap
fuel. Also spreading their generating cost over as many hours as
possible will favour off peak loading by battery charging.

AJH

If you take the nuclear/wind opution out of the frame I still think there
is overall benefit in energy useage.

Its certainly no WORSE that hydrogen as intermediate storage ...

Ad we HAVE a grid already. We don't need to start from scratch with a new
fuel distribution setup.

The only real step is tehbattery technology, but that is in existence, it
needs development, but the theoretical figures justify that.

On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 13:08:55 +0000 (GMT), Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Err, no. The concept is totally flawed. All it does is move the
pollution about. They're certainly no more energy efficient than a
small diesel of similar performance.

They are. If your power station efficiency including tranmissions loses
is better than the diesl in a car, you gave a net gain.

Calculations show this is indeed the case.

And you've included the efficiency of charging a battery?

Yes.

On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 12:48:59 +0000 (GMT), Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
So you're suggesting there are batteries around that not only store
more energy than petrol but also take up less space? Is this on the
planet Zog?


Not quite. But given the appalling efficiency and weight of IC engines,
overall it comes close.

But IC engines are getting better all the time and will continue to
improve. It's not so long ago all diesels were cast iron, rough, noisy and
slow - not so today.


No. There is a theoretical limit to how efficient a heat engine CAN get.

Its related to the ratio of combustion temperatuyre to exhaust temperature.

Generating plant goes to extreme lengths to condense the output working
fluid (steam) down to extremly low levels of temperature to extract the
most.

Short of puuting cooling towers on your car, or runnig them with sewater
colling te exhaust pipes, the limit with average combyustion temperatures
is around 30% thermal efficiency. Power stations creep over 50%.

Thats why thie 'hydrogen' cars are taliking fuel cells and alectric motors:
They can be far more efficient in extracting energy from the fuel.


State of the art electric powertrains cannot yet match the power to
weight of e.g. a racing 5cc model aircraft engine and fuel tank, but
they are within 50% of it easily. They exceed 'cooking' IC engine
installations easily.

Well yes. If you take state of the art anything and compare it with
cooking then what do you expect? You're also assuming the electric power
train will improve, but not the IC one.

No, I am saying that state of the art stuff - which can be bought for under
a hundred quid for a horsepower motor BTW - is already there up in the
sorts of conversion efficiencies that are completely unobtainable from IC
engines. Cooking grade motors are up around 80-85%. Even the worst mass
produced **** with crappo ferrite magnets will do over 60%,.they are te
equivalent of a lawn mower engine in cruduity..






Diesel is about 13 KWH/kg.

My Lithium batteries achieve about 150W/kg. Bigger ones achieve 350Wh/kg.

Err, rather a large gap to overcome? We're not talking about a few percent
but an order of some 37 times.


wattch an wait.

http://xtronics.com/reference/energy_density.htm

Now if you factor in the overall powertrain efficiencies, and the weight
of the IC option, things get far far closer.

Since a diesel engine is, at best, 30% efficient in road going mode
whereas a top quality electric motor is 90%, you end up with - in terms
of output power - 3.9Kw/kg of diesel and 315Wh/kg for the lithium
battery.

Better at only 12 times...
But your 30% figure is rather out of date.

Its not.


Now if you look at power train weights...A 200bhp diesel car probably
has about 60% iof a 1.5 tonne weight in terms of all the gubbins
associated with making it go...to whit.

Engine
Exhaust stystem
Gearbox
Cooling system
Transmission

and so on. ALL of which can be replaced with 4 custom motors, one on each
wheel and say a fairly lightweight bank of electronics to drive them.

Again, you're not comparing like for like. All those heavy components need
not be so heavy. They're built down to a cost. Use the extra cost of the
hybrid power train on lightweight materials and the results will be rather
different.

BUT te whole point is that te electric motors are so simple and cheap and
light - that that ot comes out by istelf. You do not have to engineer an
electric motor down in weight, its there aleready.


Thats 900kg of gubbins and about 60kg of fuel, being replaced by 600kg of
battery, and four electric motors.

I am seeing about 2Kw/lb or 4Kw per kg (roughly) in terms of motor weight
in the stuff I am aquainted with.

So to do 150KW of motors for our 200bhp car, we need about another 38kg
of motor(s).

so 900kg for the diesel, 638 kg for the electric, for similar range and
power output.

The difference is the diesel power train currently costs about 10,000
quid and refills in 5 minutes, whereas the lithium.electric currently
would cost about half a million quid and takes an hour to refill.

Various lihium manufacturers are working to get cost and recharge times
down. Irs te reverse of what we do in the model aircraft world - there
we accept an hour to recharge and 5 minutes of flight - cars need 5
minutes of recharge and 5-10 hours of travel...

So although its not there yet, the overall engineering of lithium
electric cars is possible and competive performance- and range- wise
with an average car engine.

Predicting the future is risky. And we've been promised cheap electric
cars since I was a kid. But for every development of these we get similar
improvements with IC engines.

No you do not. Electric motirs have wlayws been vastly more efficient than
IC engines for sound theoretical reasons.

IC engines have got beter by tuning te fuel air mixtures, and increasing
peak pressures, but you cannot escape the laws of phsyics. Only if you go
to extremely high temperatures with e.g. a gas turbine can you get
efficenices even approaching 40-50%. Or fit condenser to the exhaust..

You can do all that in a generating set, but its TOO HEAVY in a car.





The issues are safety, cost, and recharge times.

And, of course, how you generate the electricity to charge them. That is
the big fly in the ointment since charging any battery is an inefficient
process.


Its not. Abou 90% efficient. If you do it right

As I said before Drivel is usually wrong, but in this case randomly, he
is not.

Excuse me? He reckoned there were existing batteries that weighed the same
and had the same energy capacity as a tank of petrol. This is just plain
nonsense.


well I have him plonked, so I can't say what he said originally.

Ther are batteries in existence that will enable electroic cars to compete
in performance and range with a comparable wieght of petrol
powertrains...lets leave it at that..

However you need to do an overall analsyis of the whole vehicle power
train- looking at one or another compnonet leaves a false impression. You
are as guilty of that as Drivel.



How you convert that stored energy into useful power is neither hear nor
there.

If you want to predict that there will be batteries in the future that
will do, I could equally as well predict there will be some form of IC
engine developed that gets to 80% efficiency. But I'd be guessing, same as
you.

No, I wouldn't be. NO IC engine will ever do 80% efficiency unless its
combustion temperature is up around plasma temperatures or it has
condensors on it to bring the exhaust down to absloute zero :-)

The practical limits of a very good diesel operated at its best is about
40%.

Do a google on 'enthalpy heat engine efficiency' and see what I mean

The fact that a power station can do more, is because of thse massive
condesors.

I am not saying that an electric car would result in a huge change of
overall burning of fossil fuels..BUT if we take the fact that nuclear
electric generation is likley to be the most prctical way foward in the
next few decades, what is not relevant is to use that electricity to
generate chemical fuel, then burn that in IC engines. Its extremely
watseful. That may not matter in terms of actual overall carbon balance -
nuclear constriucted hydrogen will niot affacte the carbon one way or
another, and its probably possible to make even diesel from carbon dioxide
water and enough electriity - but the cost of so doing is likley to far
exceed teh cost of simply having vbattery cars.

"T i m" wrote in message
...
Dribble dribbles:

Madness is easy to spot.

*Sometimes*

Timmy, it is. This groups has it in abundance. Richard Cranium is clearly
an obvious case.

"Dave Plowman (News)" through a haze of senile
flatulence wrote in message ...
In article ews.net,
Doctor Drivel wrote:
"Dave Plowman (News)" through a haze of senile
flatulence wrote in message ...
In article ews.net,
Doctor Drivel wrote:

Or via a CRT tube.

So I take it you don't know what CRT stands for

** snip senile drivel **

So that's

** snip more senile drivel **

On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 18:10:40 +0000, Matt wrote:

On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 13:02:49 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 12:35:58 +0000, Matt wrote:

On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 11:34:26 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

On Fri, 25 Nov 2005 23:27:36 GMT, dennis@home wrote:

"Doctor Drivel" wrote in message
reenews.net...


Have you ever weighed a full fuel tank -£50s worth?. Per weight modern
state-of-the-art batteries pack a hell of a lot of energy. These
batteries
are not available in volume yet.


Mines about 45kg but it only holds £40 worth.
How much charge can you get in 45kg of battery?

well lemme see..the best battery I have as 22 watt hours roughly and
weighs...rushing to scales...150g..and costs about 50 quid so thats 6.6Kwh.
for 45kg.

I reckon 30KWh is about what you need for a 300 mile range lighweight
electric 'shopping trolley' with a 300 mile range. About £50,000 quid. :-)

Say 250kg. About the same as a conventional car engine and transmission and
cooling system.

Batteries on their own will not make a car move, the motor and control
system has to be factored in. In any case 250kg is considerably above
the weight of even some 15 year old engine gearbox combinations
(around the 1.6 litre mark)

I have factored that in elsewhere. Electrivc motirs are considerably
lighter than IC engines and even more os when you strip way te unwanbted
cooling and transmission.


. I was talking about a 200bhp system and a diesel to boot. 1.6 petrol
engines at best might produce 100bhp.

100bhp from a petrol 1.6? get real.

The 100bhp mark in a 1.6 was passed many moons ago, the 100bhp per
LITRE mark in production spec engines (both bike and car) was also
passed quite a while ago, hell you can even get a "washing machine"
Smart fortwo - 698cc that turns out 61 bhp (87bhp/litre)

But forget 200bhp, come up with a weedy "140bhp" power system using
battery storage, with a range even remotely comparable to say the
Passat 2 litre TDi and with similar performance (48.7 mpg combined
cycle, 749 mile range, 0-62 9.8 seconds, 130mph are the figures to aim
for)


Its been done already. Sadly I lost the link. I'll look for it an d post it
if I get time.

300 miles range, 160mph top speed and 0-60 in sub 6 seconds.

Although I grant you the range on the passat is likley to be greater.




Regardless of price you'd better arrange cryogenic storage for me
though as it will probably take you 500 years to get anywhere near -
unless on board nuclear reactors become the norm :-)

Rubbish. 3 years for some decent concept car, and ten for production.

I've done the sums. Unlike Drivel I AM an enginneer..fully qualified.

On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 22:50:15 +0000, Matt wrote:

On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 18:36:52 -0000, "Doctor Drivel"
wittered as usual:


"Matt" wrote in message
. ..

100bhp from a petrol 1.6? get real.

The 100bhp mark in a 1.6 was passed many moons ago,

Lord Hall, waht is the average BHP for 1600s on the market?

No idea, do your own research I can't be arsed. As you drive around in
your glorified washing machine ponder the fact that with forced
induction and toxic jungle juice they were getting around 1500bhp out
of a 1.5 litre back in the 1980's.


Oh sure. Very few prodution cars exceed 100bhp/liter. Certainly not
diesels.

My supercharged V8 4 liter jag dpes not crack 400bhp.

Racing engines can crack it to be sure...and especally 2-strokes.

Current F1 enfgines are cranking out 850bhp on 3.5 liters.

At 18,000 RPM using titanuium conrids and pneumatic valves....and about 3
miles a gallon


But forget 200bhp, come up with a weedy "140bhp" power system using
battery storage, with a range even remotely comparable to say the
Passat 2 litre TDi and with similar performance (48.7 mpg combined
cycle, 749 mile range, 0-62 9.8 seconds, 130mph are the figures to aim
for)

Regardless of price you'd better arrange cryogenic storage for me
though as it will probably take you 500 years to get anywhere near -
unless on board nuclear reactors become the norm :-)

Lord Hall, you are clearly mad. The Prius averages 60mpg, and doesn't
pollute like hell in towns.

The Passat, like all mass market vehicles on sale today meets the
latest EU4 emission regulations: 749 mile range, 0-62 in 9.8 seconds,
130mph and a combined cycle mpg of 48.7. On finding out these facts
the devastated Toyota Prius designer has just picked up his sword as
the words "game over" flashed in front of his eyes.

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 12:48:59 +0000 (GMT), Dave Plowman (News) through a
haze of senile flatulence wrote:

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

So you're suggesting there are batteries around that not only store
more energy than petrol but also take up less space? Is this on the
planet Zog?

Not quite. But given the appalling efficiency and weight of IC engines,
overall it comes close.

But IC engines are getting better all the time and will continue to
improve. It's not so long ago all diesels were cast iron, rough, noisy
and
slow - not so today.

Richard Cranium here is in cloud cuckoo land. he obviously has never driven
of heard a diesel car.

No. There is a theoretical limit to how efficient a heat engine CAN get.

Its related to the ratio of combustion temperatuyre to exhaust
temperature.

Generating plant goes to extreme lengths to condense the output working
fluid (steam) down to extremly low levels of temperature to extract the
most.

Short of puuting cooling towers on your car, or runnig them with sewater
colling te exhaust pipes, the limit with average combyustion temperatures
is around 30% thermal efficiency. Power stations creep over 50%.

Thats why thie 'hydrogen' cars are taliking fuel cells and alectric
motors:
They can be far more efficient in extracting energy from the fuel.


State of the art electric powertrains cannot yet match the power to
weight of e.g. a racing 5cc model aircraft engine and fuel tank, but
they are within 50% of it easily. They exceed 'cooking' IC engine
installations easily.

Well yes. If you take state of the art anything and compare it with
cooking then what do you expect? You're also assuming the electric power
train will improve, but not the IC one.

No, I am saying that state of the art stuff - which can be bought for
under
a hundred quid for a horsepower motor BTW - is already there up in the
sorts of conversion efficiencies that are completely unobtainable from IC
engines. Cooking grade motors are up around 80-85%. Even the worst mass
produced **** with crappo ferrite magnets will do over 60%,.they are te
equivalent of a lawn mower engine in cruduity..

Diesel is about 13 KWH/kg.

My Lithium batteries achieve about 150W/kg. Bigger ones achieve
350Wh/kg.

Err, rather a large gap to overcome? We're not talking about a few
percent
but an order of some 37 times.

wattch an wait.

http://xtronics.com/reference/energy_density.htm

Now if you factor in the overall powertrain efficiencies, and the
weight
of the IC option, things get far far closer.

Since a diesel engine is, at best, 30% efficient in road going mode
whereas a top quality electric motor is 90%, you end up with - in terms
of output power - 3.9Kw/kg of diesel and 315Wh/kg for the lithium
battery.

Better at only 12 times...
But your 30% figure is rather out of date.

Its not.

Now if you look at power train weights...A 200bhp diesel car probably
has about 60% iof a 1.5 tonne weight in terms of all the gubbins
associated with making it go...to whit.

Engine
Exhaust stystem
Gearbox
Cooling system
Transmission

and so on. ALL of which can be replaced with 4 custom motors, one on
each
wheel and say a fairly lightweight bank of electronics to drive them.

Again, you're not comparing like for like. All those heavy components
need
not be so heavy. They're built down to a cost. Use the extra cost of the
hybrid power train on lightweight materials and the results will be
rather
different.

BUT te whole point is that te electric motors are so simple and cheap and
light - that that ot comes out by istelf. You do not have to engineer an
electric motor down in weight, its there aleready.

Thats 900kg of gubbins and about 60kg of fuel, being replaced by 600kg
of
battery, and four electric motors.

I am seeing about 2Kw/lb or 4Kw per kg (roughly) in terms of motor
weight
in the stuff I am aquainted with.

So to do 150KW of motors for our 200bhp car, we need about another 38kg
of motor(s).

so 900kg for the diesel, 638 kg for the electric, for similar range and
power output.

The difference is the diesel power train currently costs about 10,000
quid and refills in 5 minutes, whereas the lithium.electric currently
would cost about half a million quid and takes an hour to refill.

Various lihium manufacturers are working to get cost and recharge times
down. Irs te reverse of what we do in the model aircraft world - there
we accept an hour to recharge and 5 minutes of flight - cars need 5
minutes of recharge and 5-10 hours of travel...

So although its not there yet, the overall engineering of lithium
electric cars is possible and competive performance- and range- wise
with an average car engine.

Predicting the future is risky. And we've been promised cheap electric
cars since I was a kid. But for every development of these we get
similar
improvements with IC engines.

No you do not. Electric motirs have wlayws been vastly more efficient than
IC engines for sound theoretical reasons.

IC engines have got beter by tuning te fuel air mixtures, and increasing
peak pressures, but you cannot escape the laws of phsyics. Only if you go
to extremely high temperatures with e.g. a gas turbine can you get
efficenices even approaching 40-50%. Or fit condenser to the exhaust..

You can do all that in a generating set, but its TOO HEAVY in a car.

The issues are safety, cost, and recharge times.

And, of course, how you generate the electricity to charge them. That is
the big fly in the ointment since charging any battery is an inefficient
process.

Its not. Abou 90% efficient. If you do it right

As I said before Drivel is usually wrong, but in this case randomly, he
is not.

Excuse me? He reckoned there were existing batteries that weighed the
same
and had the same energy capacity as a tank of petrol. This is just plain
nonsense.

well I have him plonked,

I should think so. Keep me plonked.

so I can't say what he said originally.

Ther are batteries in existence that will enable electroic cars to compete
in performance and range with a comparable wieght of petrol
powertrains...lets leave it at that..

Mr Cranium can't understand that.

However you need to do an overall analsyis of the whole vehicle power
train- looking at one or another compnonet leaves a false impression. You
are as guilty of that as Drivel.

Nonsense. I was the one who said you compare the energy density of each
(usable energy as 70% is lost in an IC engine) vs. the weight of each. The
lunatics could not undestand something so simple.

How you convert that stored energy into useful power is neither hear nor
there.

If you want to predict that there will be batteries in the future that
will do, I could equally as well predict there will be some form of IC
engine developed that gets to 80% efficiency. But I'd be guessing, same
as
you.

No, I wouldn't be. NO IC engine will ever do 80% efficiency unless its
combustion temperature is up around plasma temperatures or it has
condensors on it to bring the exhaust down to absloute zero :-)

Richard Cranium can't figure that out. Don't confuse him.

The practical limits of a very good
diesel operated at its best is about
40%.

Do a google on 'enthalpy heat engine efficiency' and see what I mean

The fact that a power station can do more, is because of thse massive
condesors.

I am not saying that an electric car would result in a huge change of
overall burning of fossil fuels..BUT if we take the fact that nuclear
electric generation is likley to be the most prctical way foward in the
next few decades, what is not relevant is to use that electricity to
generate chemical fuel, then burn that in IC engines. Its extremely
watseful. That may not matter in terms of actual overall carbon balance -
nuclear constriucted hydrogen will niot affacte the carbon one way or
another, and its probably possible to make even diesel from carbon dioxide
water and enough electriity - but the cost of so doing is likley to far
exceed teh cost of simply having vbattery cars.

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
. ..
On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 18:10:40 +0000, Matt wrote:

On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 13:02:49 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 12:35:58 +0000, Matt wrote:

On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 11:34:26 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

On Fri, 25 Nov 2005 23:27:36 GMT, dennis@home wrote:

"Doctor Drivel" wrote in message
reenews.net...


Have you ever weighed a full fuel tank -£50s worth?. Per weight
modern
state-of-the-art batteries pack a hell of a lot of energy. These
batteries
are not available in volume yet.


Mines about 45kg but it only holds £40 worth.
How much charge can you get in 45kg of battery?

well lemme see..the best battery I have as 22 watt hours roughly and
weighs...rushing to scales...150g..and costs about 50 quid so thats
6.6Kwh.
for 45kg.

I reckon 30KWh is about what you need for a 300 mile range lighweight
electric 'shopping trolley' with a 300 mile range. About £50,000 quid.
:-)

Say 250kg. About the same as a conventional car engine and
transmission and
cooling system.

Batteries on their own will not make a car move, the motor and control
system has to be factored in. In any case 250kg is considerably above
the weight of even some 15 year old engine gearbox combinations
(around the 1.6 litre mark)

I have factored that in elsewhere. Electrivc motirs are considerably
lighter than IC engines and even more os when you strip way te unwanbted
cooling and transmission.


. I was talking about a 200bhp system and a diesel to boot. 1.6 petrol
engines at best might produce 100bhp.

100bhp from a petrol 1.6? get real.

The 100bhp mark in a 1.6 was passed many moons ago, the 100bhp per
LITRE mark in production spec engines (both bike and car) was also
passed quite a while ago, hell you can even get a "washing machine"
Smart fortwo - 698cc that turns out 61 bhp (87bhp/litre)

But forget 200bhp, come up with a weedy "140bhp" power system using
battery storage, with a range even remotely comparable to say the
Passat 2 litre TDi and with similar performance (48.7 mpg combined
cycle, 749 mile range, 0-62 9.8 seconds, 130mph are the figures to aim
for)


Its been done already. Sadly I lost the link. I'll look for it an d post
it
if I get time.

300 miles range, 160mph top speed and 0-60 in sub 6 seconds.

Although I grant you the range on the passat is likley to be greater.

Regardless of price you'd better arrange cryogenic storage for me
though as it will probably take you 500 years to get anywhere near -
unless on board nuclear reactors become the norm :-)

Rubbish. 3 years for some decent concept car, and ten for production.

I've done the sums. Unlike Drivel I AM an enginneer..fully qualified.

You are not. You are from a snot.

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 22:50:15 +0000, Matt wrote:

On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 18:36:52 -0000, "Doctor Drivel"
wittered as usual:


"Matt" aka Lord Hall wrote in message
. ..

100bhp from a petrol 1.6? get real.

The 100bhp mark in a 1.6 was passed many moons ago,

Lord Hall, waht is the average BHP for 1600s on the market?

No idea, do your own research I can't be arsed. As you drive around in
your glorified washing machine ponder the fact that with forced
induction and toxic jungle juice they were getting around 1500bhp out
of a 1.5 litre back in the 1980's.

Oh sure. Very few prodution cars exceed 100bhp/liter. Certainly not
diesels.

Don't tell Lord Hall that. Leave him in ignorance.

My supercharged V8 4 liter jag dpes not crack 400bhp.

Racing engines can crack it to be sure...and especally 2-strokes.

Current F1 enfgines are cranking out 850bhp on 3.5 liters.

At 18,000 RPM using titanuium conrids and pneumatic valves....and about 3
miles a gallon

Here is one car you can actually buy.

200bhp, sadly limited to 100mph but fast...to get there,.

and 100 mile range. Albeit at 60 mph :-(
http://www.acpropulsion.com/tzero_pages/tzero_home.htm

Note that this is with LEAD ACID batteries.

You should get three to five times the range at least on lithium polymer,
for the same weight.

But of course it will not be $3000 a set - more like $300,0000 currently

It uses 28 x 50Ah x 12v batteries..I make that about 18KWh...which is close
to what I predicted - 30KWh for 300 mile range. They are using 18Kwh for
100 miles..

And the Tzero equipped with Lithium Ion (not the most up to date yet)
scored very well in a green car competition...260 mile range at least

Also an effective 153mpg, though the way this is calculated seems weird.
And does not take into acount charge, transmisson or generating
inefficiemnces I think.

http://www.acpropulsion.com/ACP_Bib_results.pdf

Now you can say what you like, but evcen allowing for exagerration by te
makers, this is impressive.

Ypu can say again, all you like that this vehickle won;t do as much range
as an airbus, carry as much load as the queen mary, or cost as little as a
bicycle, but the fact remains that the vast majoriry of domestic car
journeys would be utterly seved by a car that you charge overnight, and
drive around by day up to 200 miles.

Not a sports car like this - more of a sort of small to medium people
carrier type shape. A town car in fact.

Oh sure. Very few prodution cars exceed 100bhp/liter. Certainly not
diesels.

My supercharged V8 4 liter jag dpes not crack 400bhp.

Racing engines can crack it to be sure...and especally 2-strokes.

Current F1 enfgines are cranking out 850bhp on 3.5 liters.

At 18,000 RPM using titanuium conrids and pneumatic valves....and about 3
miles a gallon


Like this you mean?

http://www.cosworth.com/downloads/co...ie5_medium.mpg

Excellent!

David

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Very few prodution cars exceed 100bhp/liter.

Litre.

Anyway, there's absolutely no reason that they should not exceed
100BHP/litre, is there?

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Predicting the future is risky. And we've been promised cheap electric
cars since I was a kid. But for every development of these we get
similar improvements with IC engines.

No you do not. Electric motirs have wlayws been vastly more efficient
than IC engines for sound theoretical reasons.

I'm not disagreeing with that, but you've got to look at the whole picture.
The efficiency of the actual motor makes little difference if the
generation/storage of the power needed is wasteful.

IC engines have got beter by tuning te fuel air mixtures, and increasing
peak pressures, but you cannot escape the laws of phsyics. Only if you
go to extremely high temperatures with e.g. a gas turbine can you get
efficenices even approaching 40-50%. Or fit condenser to the exhaust..

You can do all that in a generating set, but its TOO HEAVY in a car.

Trouble is that with 50% generator efficiency and then storing that
electricity to drive a 90% efficient motor you're getting dangerously
close to even the 30% of an IC engine using the same fuel. Add in the
heating required for much of the year for the inside of the car and it can
become worse in practice.


The issues are safety, cost, and recharge times.

And, of course, how you generate the electricity to charge them. That
is the big fly in the ointment since charging any battery is an
inefficient process.

Its not. Abou 90% efficient. If you do it right

Again, the most efficient way of charging a battery may not be the best
way for long life. And these type of batteries will always be expensive -
perhaps half the total cost of the car.

As I said before Drivel is usually wrong, but in this case randomly,
he is not.

Excuse me? He reckoned there were existing batteries that weighed the
same and had the same energy capacity as a tank of petrol. This is
just plain nonsense.


well I have him plonked, so I can't say what he said originally.

Well that was what I was replying to. It's as well to read that first. ;-)

Ther are batteries in existence that will enable electroic cars to
compete in performance and range with a comparable wieght of petrol
powertrains...lets leave it at that..

I'd be willing to bet there aren't. They'll fiddle all sorts of things to
get this result. Extra low friction tyres and bearings etc. Low vehicle CD
and weight. Then compare it to a bog standard car - the worst they can
find, probably too.

However you need to do an overall analsyis of the whole vehicle power
train- looking at one or another compnonet leaves a false impression.
You are as guilty of that as Drivel.

I'm trying to analyse the whole use of energy for a vehicle, likely
running costs and life. You should try that too. ;-)

--
*Does fuzzy logic tickle? *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Oh sure. Very few prodution cars exceed 100bhp/liter. Certainly not
diesels.

My supercharged V8 4 liter jag dpes not crack 400bhp.

Most of the BMW 'M' series engines manage it - without forced induction.

--
*It's not hard to meet expenses... they're everywhere.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ws.net,
Doctor Drivel wrote:
But IC engines are getting better all the time and will continue to
improve. It's not so long ago all diesels were cast iron, rough,
noisy and slow - not so today.

Richard Cranium here is in cloud cuckoo land. he obviously has never
driven of heard a diesel car.

You seem to be having problems with your keyboard again. Or perhaps it's
just your brain cell giving up? No matter.

The Peugeot 206 1.4HDi beats the Prius in the combined cycle and costs
less than half the price. Perhaps if Wicks sold it you'd be interested? Or
if it were badged PPPro?

I have a neighbour with a new BMW 535 auto. One of the nicest cars I've
ever driven. Pity about the looks, though.

--
*There are 3 kinds of people: those who can count & those who can't.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 16:43:39 +0000, Chris Bacon wrote:

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Very few prodution cars exceed 100bhp/liter.

Litre.

Anyway, there's absolutely no reason that they should not exceed
100BHP/litre, is there?

Cost
Fuel efficiency.
Tractability.
Noise
Pollution
Fuel.

Racing engines are optimised towards peak power to weight and peak power.

Car engines are optimised towards low production cost, fuel efficiency and
tractability. Theyhave to meet noise and pollution standards. They have to
run off pump fuel. F1 engines may all run on the same 'lowish octane fuel',
but its not what you buy at Tescos..


You may fancy driving round town with a cosworh F1 engine up your arse, but
I don't.

On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 17:11:15 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 16:43:39 +0000, Chris Bacon wrote:

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Very few prodution cars exceed 100bhp/liter.

Litre.

Anyway, there's absolutely no reason that they should not exceed
100BHP/litre, is there?

Cost
Fuel efficiency.
Tractability.
Noise
Pollution
Fuel.

Racing engines are optimised towards peak power to weight and peak power.

Car engines are optimised towards low production cost, fuel efficiency and
tractability. Theyhave to meet noise and pollution standards. They have to
run off pump fuel. F1 engines may all run on the same 'lowish octane fuel',
but its not what you buy at Tescos..


You may fancy driving round town with a cosworh F1 engine up your arse, but
I don't.

FFS it's nothing like a "Cosworth F1 engine up your arse" ! a 90 year
old could easily drive an off the shelf production engined vehicle
with a perfectly tractable 120bhp per litre engine down to Tesco's, do
the weekly shop and fill it up with petrol at the same time (95 octane
unleaded) . As far as emissions are concerned they kick out much less
than your 4 litre Jag.


--

On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 15:27:27 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 22:50:15 +0000, Matt wrote:

On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 18:36:52 -0000, "Doctor Drivel"
wittered as usual:


"Matt" wrote in message
...

100bhp from a petrol 1.6? get real.

The 100bhp mark in a 1.6 was passed many moons ago,

Lord Hall, waht is the average BHP for 1600s on the market?

No idea, do your own research I can't be arsed. As you drive around in
your glorified washing machine ponder the fact that with forced
induction and toxic jungle juice they were getting around 1500bhp out
of a 1.5 litre back in the 1980's.


Oh sure. Very few prodution cars exceed 100bhp/liter. Certainly not
diesels.

My supercharged V8 4 liter jag dpes not crack 400bhp.

Racing engines can crack it to be sure...and especally 2-strokes.

Current F1 enfgines are cranking out 850bhp on 3.5 liters.

At 18,000 RPM using titanuium conrids and pneumatic valves....and about 3
miles a gallon

and your point being?


--

On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 15:24:54 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 18:10:40 +0000, Matt wrote:

The 100bhp mark in a 1.6 was passed many moons ago, the 100bhp per
LITRE mark in production spec engines (both bike and car) was also
passed quite a while ago, hell you can even get a "washing machine"
Smart fortwo - 698cc that turns out 61 bhp (87bhp/litre)

But forget 200bhp, come up with a weedy "140bhp" power system using
battery storage, with a range even remotely comparable to say the
Passat 2 litre TDi and with similar performance (48.7 mpg combined
cycle, 749 mile range, 0-62 9.8 seconds, 130mph are the figures to aim
for)


Its been done already. Sadly I lost the link. I'll look for it an d post it
if I get time.

Oooh I can hardly wait :-) It's just like Christmas, you wait 10
million years for a decent battery system and all of a sudden one
appears from nowhere.

300 miles range, 160mph top speed and 0-60 in sub 6 seconds.

Although I grant you the range on the passat is likley to be greater.

and the fact it has space for 4 or 5 adult size humans and a boot you
can fill with something more than a collapsible toothbrush.

Regardless of price you'd better arrange cryogenic storage for me
though as it will probably take you 500 years to get anywhere near -
unless on board nuclear reactors become the norm :-)

Rubbish. 3 years for some decent concept car, and ten for production.


I've done the sums. Unlike Drivel I AM an enginneer..fully qualified.

Ditto, but don't forget the 48.7mpg "battery" :-)


--

"Matt" aka Lord Hall wrote in message
...
On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 15:24:54 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 18:10:40 +0000, Matt wrote:

The 100bhp mark in a 1.6 was passed many moons ago, the 100bhp per
LITRE mark in production spec engines (both bike and car) was also
passed quite a while ago, hell you can even get a "washing machine"
Smart fortwo - 698cc that turns out 61 bhp (87bhp/litre)

But forget 200bhp, come up with a weedy "140bhp" power system using
battery storage, with a range even remotely comparable to say the
Passat 2 litre TDi and with similar performance (48.7 mpg combined
cycle, 749 mile range, 0-62 9.8 seconds, 130mph are the figures to aim
for)

Its been done already. Sadly I lost the link. I'll look for it an d post
it
if I get time.

Oooh I can hardly wait :-) It's just like Christmas, you wait 10
million years for a decent battery system and all of a sudden one
appears from nowhere.

They have been here a while the Natuiral snot said...and it is improving:
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/002435.html
The Toshiba battey can be charged to 80% in few minutes.

You really don't know Lord Hal, You really don't know.

"Dave Plowman (News)" through a haze of senile
flatulence wrote in message ...
In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Predicting the future is risky. And we've been promised cheap electric
cars since I was a kid. But for every development of these we get
similar improvements with IC engines.

No you do not. Electric motirs have wlayws been vastly more efficient
than IC engines for sound theoretical reasons.

I'm not disagreeing with that, but you've got to look at the whole
picture.

Has Richard Cranium had a brainwave? We shall see

The efficiency of the actual motor makes little difference if the
generation/storage of the power needed is wasteful.

IC engines waste 70% of the energy stored in the tank. I wonder if he knew
that. Nah, he never.

IC engines have got beter by tuning te fuel air mixtures, and increasing
peak pressures, but you cannot escape the laws of phsyics. Only if you
go to extremely high temperatures with e.g. a gas turbine can you get
efficenices even approaching 40-50%. Or fit condenser to the exhaust..

You can do all that in a generating set, but its TOO HEAVY in a car.

Trouble is that with 50% generator efficiency and then storing that
electricity to drive a 90% efficient motor you're getting dangerously
close to even the 30% of an IC engine using the same fuel.

Nope. And no pollution at point of use.

Add in the
heating required for much of the year for the inside of the car and it can
become worse in practice.


The issues are safety, cost, and recharge times.

And, of course, how you generate the electricity to charge them. That
is the big fly in the ointment since charging any battery is an
inefficient process.

Its not. Abou 90% efficient. If you do it right

Again, the most efficient way of charging a battery may not be the best
way for long life.

Batteries have changed and the New Toshiba is different again.

And these type of batteries will always be expensive -
perhaps half the total cost of the car.

Nope, mass production brings the price down. Boy is he dumb!

Ther are batteries in existence that will enable electroic cars to
compete in performance and range with a comparable wieght of petrol
powertrains...lets leave it at that..

I'd be willing to bet there aren't.

Richard Cranium is now telling us of his extensive knowledge of this topic.
Duh!

They'll fiddle all sorts of things to
get this result.

Do they fiddle the gas meter as well?

Extra low friction tyres and bearings etc.

Yes, they way all cars should be made. And he thinks that is fiddling. Boy
is he dumb.

Low vehicle CD and weight.

Good engineering.

Then compare
it to a bog standard car - the worst they can
find, probably too.

Yes, a standard car. What else? Duh!

However you need to do an overall
analsyis of the whole vehicle power
train- looking at one or another compnonet
leaves a false impression.
You are as guilty of that as Drivel.

I'm trying to analyse the whole use of energy for a vehicle, likely
running costs and life. You should try that too. ;-)

You tried? And of course failed miserably.

"Dave Plowman (News)" through a haze of senile
flatulence wrote in message ...
In article ,

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Oh sure. Very few prodution cars exceed 100bhp/liter. Certainly not
diesels.

My supercharged V8 4 liter jag dpes not crack 400bhp.

Most of the BMW 'M' series engines manage it - without forced induction.

and the point to electric cars is? Nothing of course, just scatter brained
ramblings.

"Dave Plowman (News)" through a haze of senile
flatulence wrote in message ...
In article ws.net,
Doctor Drivel wrote:

But IC engines are getting better all the time and will continue to
improve. It's not so long ago all diesels were cast iron, rough,
noisy and slow - not so today.

Richard Cranium here is in cloud cuckoo
land. he obviously has never
driven of heard a diesel car.

You seem to be having problems with
your keyboard again. Or perhaps it's
just your brain cell giving up? No matter.

What is Richard Cranium on about? We shall see...

The Peugeot 206 1.4HDi beats the Prius in the combined cycle

Is this from the mag that said a Prius averaged 26mpg? Some reliable mage
eh? What bunkum.

** snip drivel by Richard about silly cars **

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Anyway, there's absolutely no reason that they should not exceed
100BHP/litre, is there?

Cost
Fuel efficiency.
Tractability.
Noise
Pollution
Fuel.

Racing engines are optimised towards peak power to weight and peak power.

Car engines are optimised towards low production cost, fuel efficiency
and tractability. Theyhave to meet noise and pollution standards. They
have to run off pump fuel. F1 engines may all run on the same 'lowish
octane fuel', but its not what you buy at Tescos..

Both the BMW and Honda units that are around 100 bhp/ltr happily run on 95
octane. And are perfectly happy with town use.

--
*'Progress' and 'Change' are not synonyms.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Dave Plowman (News)" through a haze of senile
flatulence wrote in message ...
In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Anyway, there's absolutely no reason that they should not exceed
100BHP/litre, is there?

Cost
Fuel efficiency.
Tractability.
Noise
Pollution
Fuel.

Racing engines are optimised towards peak power to weight and peak
power.

Car engines are optimised towards low production cost, fuel efficiency
and tractability. Theyhave to meet noise and pollution standards. They
have to run off pump fuel. F1 engines may all run on the same 'lowish
octane fuel', but its not what you buy at Tescos..

Both the BMW and Honda units that are around

** snip senil garbage totally unrelated to electric cars **