http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f2f081e-2...077b07658.html

In message , at 09:17:30 on
Tue, 27 May 2008, The Natural Philosopher remarked:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f2f081e-2...077b07658.html

A very small step (for man or mankind....)

"The S-Class car, a 'mild' hybrid that will still draw most of
its power from petrol..."
--
Roland Perry

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 09:17:30 on
Tue, 27 May 2008, The Natural Philosopher remarked:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f2f081e-2...077b07658.html

A very small step (for man or mankind....)

"The S-Class car, a 'mild' hybrid that will still draw most of
its power from petrol..."

You clearly did not read it all.

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f2f081e-2...077b07658.html

It says:

"Electric cars have other environmental benefits: they do not produce the
particulates associated with burning fossil fuels. The American Lung
Association found in a study that switching to electric cars in California
alone would save at least $2.2bn (£1.1bn, ?1.4bn) a year in health costs
related to people's exposure to fine particulate matter from conventional
cars and that 300 cases of premature death, 260 cases of chronic bronchitis
and more than 7,000 asthma attacks could be avoided each year as a result.
They are also less noisy."

http://www.calcars.org/vehicles.html
They install a main charging system and larger batteries for the Prius
giving an extended range. As batteries get better, merely by changing the
batteries, to a different type and a larger bank, the car can be
transformed.

These people are going the right way. Look at:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006...ybrid_mini.php
http://www.pmlflightlink.com/archive/news_mini.html

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f2f081e-2...077b07658.html

It says:

"Electric cars have other environmental benefits: they do not produce the
particulates associated with burning fossil fuels. The American Lung
Association found in a study that switching to electric cars in California
alone would save at least $2.2bn (£1.1bn, ?1.4bn) a year in health costs
related to people's exposure to fine particulate matter from conventional
cars and that 300 cases of premature death, 260 cases of chronic bronchitis
and more than 7,000 asthma attacks could be avoided each year as a result.
They are also less noisy."

http://www.calcars.org/vehicles.html
They install a main charging system and larger batteries for the Prius
giving an extended range. As batteries get better, merely by changing the
batteries, to a different type and a larger bank, the car can be
transformed.

These people are going the right way. Look at:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006...ybrid_mini.php
http://www.pmlflightlink.com/archive/news_mini.html

Roland Perry gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f2f081e-2...077b07658.html

A very small step (for man or mankind....)

"The S-Class car, a 'mild' hybrid that will still draw most of
its power from petrol..."

Indeed.

But do Lithium Ion batteries provide the step forward that's being
alleged?

Not really. One litre of petrol provides 35MJ of energy, about 10kWh.
Even a small car will have a c.50 litre fuel tank, something the size of
an S-class nearer double that.

So that's 0.5-1MWh of energy on board. Wonder how big the battery pack
would have to be to replace that...? Wonder how long it'll take to
recharge...?

Unless and until that's addressed, pure-electric cars can only replace
internal combustion for short-to-medium journey use.

"Adrian" wrote in message
...
Roland Perry gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f2f081e-2...077b07658.html

A very small step (for man or mankind....)

"The S-Class car, a 'mild' hybrid that will still draw most of
its power from petrol..."

Indeed.

But do Lithium Ion batteries provide the step forward that's being
alleged?

Not really. One litre of petrol provides 35MJ of energy, about 10kWh.
Even a small car will have a c.50 litre fuel tank, something the size of
an S-class nearer double that.

So that's 0.5-1MWh of energy on board. Wonder how big the battery pack
would have to be to replace that...? Wonder how long it'll take to
recharge...?

Unless and until that's addressed, pure-electric cars can only replace
internal combustion for short-to-medium journey use.

Which is the vast amount of car journeys. That is why hybrids answer the
current problem. Battery for town, petrol for longer.

The electrci Mini answers much of the problems. I gave the link.

"Doctor Drivel" gurgled happily, sounding much
like they were saying:

Unless and until that's addressed, pure-electric cars can only replace
internal combustion for short-to-medium journey use.

Which is the vast amount of car journeys.

....and the easiest ones to replace. It's also NOT the vast majority of
total vehicle mileage. It's probably a minority of total mileage and
therefore fuel use, especially when you include the fact that the
"average vehicle" is probably larger for long journeys than for short
urban journeys.

That is why hybrids answer the current problem.

No, it's why hybrids answer the wrong question.

Battery for town, petrol for longer.

Woo. Two mile range at a pace an out-of-tune 2cv could beat, then the
petrol engine's needed to charge your Pious up again.

The electrci Mini answers much of the problems.

....an even wronger question...

* Doctor Drivel wrote:
Which is the vast amount of car journeys. That is why hybrids answer the
current problem. Battery for town, petrol for longer.

The current problem is people use their cars for town.

The message
from The Natural Philosopher contains these words:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f2f081e-2...077b07658.html

"Cleaner diesel cars have dramatically brought down average emissions in
Europe but diesel now accounts for about half of the market and
carmakers are looking elsewhere to cut their emissions."

Now what emissions would they be then?

I thought the article was all about reducing carbon consumption but ...

--
Roger Chapman

Adrian wrote:
Roland Perry gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f2f081e-2...077b07658.html

A very small step (for man or mankind....)

"The S-Class car, a 'mild' hybrid that will still draw most of
its power from petrol..."

Indeed.

But do Lithium Ion batteries provide the step forward that's being
alleged?

In my opinion, yes.

Not really. One litre of petrol provides 35MJ of energy, about 10kWh.
Even a small car will have a c.50 litre fuel tank, something the size of
an S-class nearer double that.

So that's 0.5-1MWh of energy on board. Wonder how big the battery pack
would have to be to replace that...? Wonder how long it'll take to
recharge...?


You forget that that energy is converted at less than 27% peak
efficiency, propably less than 20% average.: its nearer 95% with battery
electric, and with regenerative braking you get a little free recharge.

In reality 50Kwh will do a couple of hundred miles on a commuter car,
and probably abut 200Kwh is enough for a big saloon

And the answer to how big that is, is well under half a tonne for the
smaller one.


Unless and until that's addressed, pure-electric cars can only replace
internal combustion for short-to-medium journey use.

Which is in fact what the majority of car journeys are.
And indeed on longer trips an hour recharge time for driver AND car
every 200 miles is not actually a bad thing!



My opinion is that the technology is JUST good enough to use for large
scale replacement of IC across the board in the next ten years.
Especially if attention is paid to the rest of the vehicle weight- and
aeodymamic-wise.

Adrian wrote:
"Doctor Drivel" gurgled happily, sounding much
like they were saying:

Unless and until that's addressed, pure-electric cars can only replace
internal combustion for short-to-medium journey use.

Which is the vast amount of car journeys.

...and the easiest ones to replace. It's also NOT the vast majority of
total vehicle mileage.

I disagree,. Sub 200 mile trips account for probably 95% of al domestic
motoring and about 50% of commercial motoring.


It's probably a minority of total mileage and
therefore fuel use, especially when you include the fact that the
"average vehicle" is probably larger for long journeys than for short
urban journeys.


Since your basic assumption is wrong, I cant really say more than 'you
are wrong with your conclusions'

In message , at 10:41:35
on Tue, 27 May 2008, Roger remarked:
"Cleaner diesel cars have dramatically brought down average emissions in
Europe but diesel now accounts for about half of the market and
carmakers are looking elsewhere to cut their emissions."

Now what emissions would they be then?

I thought the article was all about reducing carbon consumption but ...

What they probably mean is that by introducing cleaner diesels (in the
particulate/smog sense) they have persuaded new buyers to pick a diesel
50% of the time, but that market is now saturated and if they want to
further reduce their *carbon* emissions they must look elsewhere than
sell people the better-mpg diesels which have been achieving that goal
so far.
--
Roland Perry

Roger wrote:
The message
from The Natural Philosopher contains these words:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f2f081e-2...077b07658.html

"Cleaner diesel cars have dramatically brought down average emissions in
Europe but diesel now accounts for about half of the market and
carmakers are looking elsewhere to cut their emissions."

Now what emissions would they be then?

I thought the article was all about reducing carbon consumption but ...


But what?


Electric cars from non fossil generated electricity will cut both carbon
and other emissions?

In message , at 10:50:09 on
Tue, 27 May 2008, The Natural Philosopher remarked:
Sub 200 mile trips account for probably 95% of al domestic motoring and
about 50% of commercial motoring.

200 miles is a very large threshold. I'd use 50 miles as where "long
distance" starts.
--
Roland Perry

"Adrian" wrote in message
...
"Doctor Drivel" gurgled happily, sounding much
like they were saying:

Unless and until that's addressed, pure-electric cars can only replace
internal combustion for short-to-medium journey use.

Which is the vast amount of car journeys.

...and the easiest ones to replace. It's also NOT the vast majority of
total vehicle mileage.

I said: "Which is the vast amount of car journeys.", andmost of the mileage
too.

That is why hybrids answer the current problem.

No, it's why hybrids answer the wrong question.

You are confused or just plain dumb.

Battery for town, petrol for longer.

Woo. Two mile range

Did you read the article? No. Did you read the links I gave? No.

Some mothers......

"Longshanks" wrote in message
...
* Doctor Drivel wrote:

Which is the vast amount of car journeys. That is why hybrids answer the
current problem. Battery for town, petrol for longer.

The current problem is people use their cars for town.

Wrong problem we are looking at. That is a social problem, which does not
address the vast inefficiencies of the internal combustion engine - 75% of
the energy in the tank is wasted, with life killing emissions.

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f2f081e-2...077b07658.html

But how do you heat an electric car? Not much fun using a totally
unheated behicle in the winter. Even keeping the screens clear becomes a
bit of a problem.

Some earlier electric cars had petrol burners to warm the interior. Is
that included in the fuel efficiency claimed?

--
Rod

Hypothyroidism is a seriously debilitating condition with an insidious
onset.
Although common it frequently goes undiagnosed.
www.thyromind.info www.thyroiduk.org www.altsupportthyroid.org

Longshanks wrote:
* Doctor Drivel wrote:
Which is the vast amount of car journeys. That is why hybrids answer
the current problem. Battery for town, petrol for longer.

The current problem is people use their cars for town.

No, thats a congestion and a carbon problem.

The *current* problem won't happen till the cars are electric BOOM BOOM!

The Natural Philosopher gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying:

Not really. One litre of petrol provides 35MJ of energy, about 10kWh.
Even a small car will have a c.50 litre fuel tank, something the size
of an S-class nearer double that.

So that's 0.5-1MWh of energy on board. Wonder how big the battery pack
would have to be to replace that...? Wonder how long it'll take to
recharge...?

You forget that that energy is converted at less than 27% peak
efficiency, propably less than 20% average.: its nearer 95% with battery
electric, and with regenerative braking you get a little free recharge.

In reality 50Kwh will do a couple of hundred miles on a commuter car,
and probably abut 200Kwh is enough for a big saloon

So how come 1.5kWh only gets the Pious two miles at slug-pace? Yes,
that's equivalent to about 60mpg, so it's certainly more efficient than
the internal combustion process, but it's not as big a difference as
you're claiming.

And the answer to how big that is, is well under half a tonne for the
smaller one.

....or about half the weight of the rest of the car...

And indeed on longer trips an hour recharge time for driver AND car
every 200 miles is not actually a bad thing!

An hour to recharge 200kWh?

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Adrian wrote:
Roland Perry gurgled happily, sounding much like
they
were saying:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f2f081e-2...077b07658.html

A very small step (for man or mankind....)

"The S-Class car, a 'mild' hybrid that will still draw most of
its power from petrol..."

Indeed.

But do Lithium Ion batteries provide the step forward that's being
alleged?

In my opinion, yes.

Not really. One litre of petrol provides 35MJ of energy, about 10kWh.
Even a small car will have a c.50 litre fuel tank, something the size of
an S-class nearer double that.

So that's 0.5-1MWh of energy on board. Wonder how big the battery pack
would have to be to replace that...? Wonder how long it'll take to
recharge...?


You forget that that energy is converted at less than 27% peak efficiency,
propably less than 20% average.: its nearer 95% with battery electric, and
with regenerative braking you get a little free recharge.

Using super capacitors, 99% of all kinetic braking energy is recovered.

My opinion is that the technology is JUST good enough to use for large
scale replacement of IC across the board in the next ten years. Especially
if attention is paid to the rest of the vehicle weight- and
aeodymamic-wise.

You got that right.

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 10:41:35
on Tue, 27 May 2008, Roger remarked:
"Cleaner diesel cars have dramatically brought down average emissions in
Europe but diesel now accounts for about half of the market and
carmakers are looking elsewhere to cut their emissions."

Now what emissions would they be then?

I thought the article was all about reducing carbon consumption but ...

What they probably mean is that by introducing cleaner diesels (in the
particulate/smog sense) they have persuaded new buyers to pick a diesel
50% of the time, but that market is now saturated and if they want to
further reduce their *carbon* emissions they must look elsewhere than
sell people the better-mpg diesels which have been achieving that goal
so far.

Actually what the article is about is a heads up to those interested in
the economics of the world to a potential sea change in one of its
biggest industries.

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 10:50:09 on
Tue, 27 May 2008, The Natural Philosopher remarked:
Sub 200 mile trips account for probably 95% of al domestic motoring
and about 50% of commercial motoring.

200 miles is a very large threshold. I'd use 50 miles as where "long
distance" starts.

Well I used 200miles because that is what is currently achievable at
decent performance with LI-Ion batteries.

"Doctor Drivel" gurgled happily, sounding much
like they were saying:

Unless and until that's addressed, pure-electric cars can only
replace internal combustion for short-to-medium journey use.

Which is the vast amount of car journeys.

...and the easiest ones to replace. It's also NOT the vast majority of
total vehicle mileage.

I said: "Which is the vast amount of car journeys.", andmost of the
mileage too.

You're forgetting that just one 200 mile journey is the same mileage as
200 2 mile journeys.

That is why hybrids answer the current problem.

No, it's why hybrids answer the wrong question.

You are confused or just plain dumb.

The _right_ question for short urban journeys is "Why are people using
private cars instead of public transport?"

Battery for town, petrol for longer.

Woo. Two mile range

Did you read the article? No.

Wrong.

Are you denying the Pious has a two-mile range in battery-only mode?

"Rod" wrote in message
...
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f2f081e-2...077b07658.html

But how do you heat an electric car? Not much fun using a totally unheated
behicle in the winter. Even keeping the screens clear becomes a bit of a
problem.

Some earlier electric cars had petrol burners to warm the interior. Is
that included in the fuel efficiency claimed?

There is zero insulation in a car. Insulation can be bonded onto the car
panels. Herat can be reclaimed from the electric motor too.

In sunnier climes PV cells can be the whole roof of the car.

Rod gurgled happily, sounding much like they were
saying:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f2f081e-2...077b07658.html

But how do you heat an electric car? Not much fun using a totally
unheated behicle in the winter. Even keeping the screens clear becomes a
bit of a problem.

shrug Easy. Instead of a water-to-air matrix, use an electric element.
The actual air distribution and circulation is electric anyway. For
aircon, the compressor is electrically driven, as many power steering
pumps currently are.

Some earlier electric cars had petrol burners to warm the interior. Is
that included in the fuel efficiency claimed?

Just as it isn't in modern common-rail diesels which are so heat
efficient that many of those have an additional diesel-fuelled heater.

"Doctor Drivel" gurgled happily, sounding much
like they were saying:

My opinion is that the technology is JUST good enough to use for large
scale replacement of IC across the board in the next ten years.
Especially if attention is paid to the rest of the vehicle weight- and
aeodymamic-wise.

You got that right.

The aerodynamics barely come into play at town speeds. And why can't both
aerodynamic and weight efficiencies come into play for internal-
combustion vehicles as well? Simple. Because people WANT bigger cars and
they WANT cars which have high passive-safety scores. Both of which give
weight.

"Adrian" wrote in message
...
"Doctor Drivel" gurgled happily, sounding much
like they were saying:

Unless and until that's addressed, pure-electric cars can only
replace internal combustion for short-to-medium journey use.

Which is the vast amount of car journeys.

...and the easiest ones to replace. It's also NOT the vast majority of
total vehicle mileage.

I said: "Which is the vast amount of car journeys.", andmost of the
mileage too.

You're forgetting that just one 200 mile
journey is the same mileage as
200 2 mile journeys.

Most mileage is in short bursts in urban areas.

That is why hybrids answer the current problem.

No, it's why hybrids answer the wrong question.

You are confused or just plain dumb.

The _right_ question for short urban journeys
is "Why are people using
private cars instead of public transport?"

The question here is not a social question it is addressing the vast
inefficiencies of the IC engines and the dirt it emits. Please focus.

Battery for town, petrol for longer.

Woo. Two mile range

Did you read the article? No.

Wrong.

You did get it wrong.

Are you denying the Pious has a two-mile range in battery-only mode?

The articles are about the future. The electric Mini gets 200 miles range
and outperforms a Porche.

Doctor Drivel wrote:

"Rod" wrote in message
...
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f2f081e-2...077b07658.html

But how do you heat an electric car? Not much fun using a totally
unheated behicle in the winter. Even keeping the screens clear becomes
a bit of a problem.

Some earlier electric cars had petrol burners to warm the interior. Is
that included in the fuel efficiency claimed?

There is zero insulation in a car. Insulation can be bonded onto the
car panels. Herat can be reclaimed from the electric motor too.

In sunnier climes PV cells can be the whole roof of the car.


But with the super efficent electric motors they use, the 'waste' heat
will be fairly low - and will not devleop until the car has been driven
for a while. So some means is still required for clearing screens and
keeping occupants tolerably comfortable.

Actually, PV cells can be the whole roof of the car in any climes. But
they don't help very much with heating on a dark winter day in the UK.

--
Rod

Hypothyroidism is a seriously debilitating condition with an insidious
onset.
Although common it frequently goes undiagnosed.
www.thyromind.info www.thyroiduk.org www.altsupportthyroid.org

wrote:
What they probably mean is that by introducing cleaner diesels (in the
particulate/smog sense) they have persuaded new buyers to pick a diesel
50% of the time, but that market is now saturated and if they want to
further reduce their *carbon* emissions they must look elsewhere than
sell people the better-mpg diesels which have been achieving that goal
so far.

Hasn't diesel caused a huge soot problem? they emit a lot more
particulate matter?

Roland Perry gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying:

Sub 200 mile trips account for probably 95% of al domestic motoring and
about 50% of commercial motoring.

200 miles is a very large threshold. I'd use 50 miles as where "long
distance" starts.

Which, going by the battery-to-mileage efficiency of the Pious would
require 75kWh of capacity.

There's also the problem of people not necessarily having access to
charging sockets at either home _or_ work currently, which would require
a LOT of infrastructure upgrades in order to be provided.

And where's all this extra electricity coming from, anyway?

London ALONE sees 33bn vehicle km per year. That's about 15bn kWh of
electrickery at Pious battery-mode usage rates. 15 terawatt-hours.

Now, remind me why I was meant to be changing from 60w incandescent light
bulbs to 11w CFL?

"Adrian" wrote in message
...
"Doctor Drivel" gurgled happily, sounding much
like they were saying:

My opinion is that the technology is JUST good enough to use for large
scale replacement of IC across the board in the next ten years.
Especially if attention is paid to the rest of the vehicle weight- and
aeodymamic-wise.

You got that right.

The aerodynamics barely come
into play at town speeds.

It does.

And why can't both
aerodynamic and weight efficiencies
come into play for internal-
combustion vehicles as well?

Because of the size and weight of the engine and transmission. The Mini
uses motor in wheel technology, a set of batteries and a very small fossil
fuel generator to recharge. If a car is designed around this technology its
shape will change lending it more adaptable to aerodynamics. Weight will be
less as well as newer batteries are lighter.

snip wayward drivel

"Doctor Drivel" gurgled happily, sounding much like
they were saying:

But how do you heat an electric car? Not much fun using a totally
unheated behicle in the winter. Even keeping the screens clear becomes
a bit of a problem.

Some earlier electric cars had petrol burners to warm the interior. Is
that included in the fuel efficiency claimed?

There is zero insulation in a car.

Rubbish. I've got the headlining out of the Saab at the moment to re-trim
it, and - trust me on this - it makes a BIG difference.

Anyway, I thought car weights needed to come down, not go up?

Adrian wrote:
The Natural Philosopher gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying:

Not really. One litre of petrol provides 35MJ of energy, about 10kWh.
Even a small car will have a c.50 litre fuel tank, something the size
of an S-class nearer double that.

So that's 0.5-1MWh of energy on board. Wonder how big the battery pack
would have to be to replace that...? Wonder how long it'll take to
recharge...?

You forget that that energy is converted at less than 27% peak
efficiency, propably less than 20% average.: its nearer 95% with battery
electric, and with regenerative braking you get a little free recharge.

In reality 50Kwh will do a couple of hundred miles on a commuter car,
and probably abut 200Kwh is enough for a big saloon

So how come 1.5kWh only gets the Pious two miles at slug-pace? Yes,
that's equivalent to about 60mpg, so it's certainly more efficient than
the internal combustion process, but it's not as big a difference as
you're claiming.


I wont say anything about the Priapus, because its a complete piece of
****, frankly.


And the answer to how big that is, is well under half a tonne for the
smaller one.

...or about half the weight of the rest of the car...


Similar to the power train on an IC car. Remember the motors will not be
large, and there is no need for much in the way of transmission, or
engine or battery cooling. Or exhaust systems, or oil coolers, or the
strong mounting frame needed to tie that lot together.. or the
insulation to keep all that noise and vibration out..or indeed most of
what makes up the weight of a current IC car.



And indeed on longer trips an hour recharge time for driver AND car
every 200 miles is not actually a bad thing!

An hour to recharge 200kWh?

Yup.
Its not dependent on the size of the battery, though you need some
pretty serious charging equipment to do that. But we are talking
multi-million pound motorway service stations here. I don't see any real
problems in running a small substation in to them, and having the odd
440v 120A 3 phase connector littered around the parking lots..or
whatever combination of volts and amps seems most appropriate.

In message , at 11:13:07 on
Tue, 27 May 2008, The Natural Philosopher remarked:
200 miles is a very large threshold. I'd use 50 miles as where "long
distance" starts.

Well I used 200miles because that is what is currently achievable at
decent performance with LI-Ion batteries.

Which car is that, then?
--
Roland Perry

"Doctor Drivel" gurgled happily, sounding much
like they were saying:

Unless and until that's addressed, pure-electric cars can only
replace internal combustion for short-to-medium journey use.

Which is the vast amount of car journeys.

...and the easiest ones to replace. It's also NOT the vast majority
of total vehicle mileage.

I said: "Which is the vast amount of car journeys.", andmost of the
mileage too.

You're forgetting that just one 200 mile journey is the same mileage as
200 2 mile journeys.

Most mileage is in short bursts in urban areas.

I doubt it.

That is why hybrids answer the current problem.

No, it's why hybrids answer the wrong question.

You are confused or just plain dumb.

The _right_ question for short urban journeys is "Why are people using
private cars instead of public transport?"

The question here is not a social question it is addressing the vast
inefficiencies of the IC engines and the dirt it emits. Please focus.

Why restrict yourself to such a narrow range of solutions? Ah, of course.
Because that's the particular range that you see your preferred solution
fitting into.

First, decide the answer. Then re-write the question to fit it.

Are you denying the Pious has a two-mile range in battery-only mode?

The articles are about the future. The electric Mini gets 200 miles
range and outperforms a Porche.

Yeh, right...

Rod wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f2f081e-2...077b07658.html

But how do you heat an electric car? Not much fun using a totally
unheated behicle in the winter. Even keeping the screens clear becomes a
bit of a problem.


Electric heaters, plus recirculating the odd few hundred watts that does
come off the battery pack. And maybe the motors. You don't need much
more than a couple of hundred watts to heat a decently insulated car.


Some earlier electric cars had petrol burners to warm the interior. Is
that included in the fuel efficiency claimed?

These are not some earlier cars.

Toby Douglass gurgled
happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Hasn't diesel caused a huge soot problem? they emit a lot more
particulate matter?

Not these days. Perticulate emissions have been VERY tightly controlled
in the last couple of rounds of Euro emission standards.

Of course, particulate filters in diesel exhausts bring a whole new range
of problems, but...

In message , at
11:22:37 on Tue, 27 May 2008, Toby Douglass
remarked:
What they probably mean is that by introducing cleaner diesels (in the
particulate/smog sense) they have persuaded new buyers to pick a diesel
50% of the time, but that market is now saturated and if they want to
further reduce their *carbon* emissions they must look elsewhere than
sell people the better-mpg diesels which have been achieving that goal
so far.

Hasn't diesel caused a huge soot problem? they emit a lot more
particulate matter?

Isn't that what "cleaner diesels" largely avoid?

I rarely see diesel cars emitting clouds of smoke, that seems to be
reserved for buses and trains.
--
Roland Perry

"Toby Douglass" wrote in
message om...
wrote:
What they probably mean is that by introducing cleaner diesels (in the
particulate/smog sense) they have persuaded new buyers to pick a diesel
50% of the time, but that market is now saturated and if they want to
further reduce their *carbon* emissions they must look elsewhere than
sell people the better-mpg diesels which have been achieving that goal
so far.

Hasn't diesel caused a huge soot problem? they emit a lot more
particulate matter?

They do and it is cacogenic.