Mandate Electric Cars to save the environment.

[Midnight Marauder]

The other thing to be aware of with electric motors is the scale to which they must be built to make them comparable to an IC motor.

That's exactly what I am trying to explain to these flat-thinkers.

Electric motors are most definitely efficient users of potential power. What they aren't is efficient producers of work. ~snip~ They are a product that costs more and does less.

Exactamundo. Gee, they don't get as hot because they are not producing anywhere near comparable work!

 

[Cold Fusion38]

I have not mentioned it here, but I do agree that this "new" gas mileage is rather stupid, it has to do with a government regulation that oil companies pushed for. *hint hint*

Elaborate please.

By utilizing government regulations and laws the oil companies had managed to manipulate the manufacturing "standards" imposed by the government. The standards actually forced auto makers in the US to reduce the mileage in order to accommodate the changes which were rationalized as "safety precautions" or other such nonsense. One of the biggest decreases in efficiency was due to being forced to make them more environmentally safe, though in reality the changes did not come close (actually as we see quite the opposite). The problem people don't realize is that the government doesn't care about the people, it makes money for it's politicians much the same way organized crime does, bribes.

O.K. come on KK the REAL reason is because soccer moms didn't feel safe in anythink that couldn't run over a smaller more fuel efficient car. THEY are the biggest threat to our safty not AIR BAGS or better collision safety. It is the SELFESHESNESS that goes along with people wanting to not get the least bit hurt in a sever collision. They don't give a fuck about the four family members they just killed by smashing a smaller likely older car like a tin can.

 

[Cold Fusion38]

Well I would think you would also risk detonation which isn't very good for an IC car either.

You get detonation every time the piston comes to the top of the cylinder in the combustion cycle. Detonation of the air-fuel mixture under tremendous compression.

If by "detonation" you mean, premature detonation in the intake manifold? Yeah that can be bad but a lean mixture typically won't cause it.

Hopefully we are now past the "heat equals inefficiency" fallacy. It's the other way around.

Here's another example: Natural gas fired boilers. I'm licensed and am a certified "tuner" of boilers. I use instruments to measure the exhaust gas and make adjustments to the mixture accordingly. But visually, you can tell alot. A yellow flame is a bad flame. It's low on heat, it expels soot, and lots of CO2. Because we are not burning the gas efficiently. We are wasting a good deal of it in this situation.

The fix is always the same -- more air, less fuel. The flame then turns blue and gets five times hotter then the yellow one was, and hundreds of times "cleaner."

Again, when our burn got more efficient, we generated MORE heat.

I can then hook up my instruments and fine tune this boiler. I can tune a boiler to be putting out less than 5% more CO2 than is ambient. That's damned clean. It means, if the atmospheric CO2 right now is say, 380ppm, my exhaust gas from this fine-tuned boiler is 400ppm.

Same boiler, same tuning... But if the ambient CO2 the next day is 480ppm, then this boiler exhaust gas will contain 504ppm of CO2 concentration. What?

Few people realize that the air any engine or boiler or any other combustion device takes in already has CO2 in it. And it will be ambient, whatever ppm it is at any given time, and your combustion process adds to that by only a small percentage if it is reasonably efficient.

The hotter a combustion is, the more efficient and less polluting it is. Always. It's science.

So you kinda make my case for Coal power plants being more efficient don't you?

 

[Midnight Marauder]

Well I would think you would also risk detonation which isn't very good for an IC car either.

You get detonation every time the piston comes to the top of the cylinder in the combustion cycle. Detonation of the air-fuel mixture under tremendous compression.

If by "detonation" you mean, premature detonation in the intake manifold? Yeah that can be bad but a lean mixture typically won't cause it.

Hopefully we are now past the "heat equals inefficiency" fallacy. It's the other way around.

Here's another example: Natural gas fired boilers. I'm licensed and am a certified "tuner" of boilers. I use instruments to measure the exhaust gas and make adjustments to the mixture accordingly. But visually, you can tell alot. A yellow flame is a bad flame. It's low on heat, it expels soot, and lots of CO2. Because we are not burning the gas efficiently. We are wasting a good deal of it in this situation.

The fix is always the same -- more air, less fuel. The flame then turns blue and gets five times hotter then the yellow one was, and hundreds of times "cleaner."

Again, when our burn got more efficient, we generated MORE heat.

I can then hook up my instruments and fine tune this boiler. I can tune a boiler to be putting out less than 5% more CO2 than is ambient. That's damned clean. It means, if the atmospheric CO2 right now is say, 380ppm, my exhaust gas from this fine-tuned boiler is 400ppm.

Same boiler, same tuning... But if the ambient CO2 the next day is 480ppm, then this boiler exhaust gas will contain 504ppm of CO2 concentration. What?

Few people realize that the air any engine or boiler or any other combustion device takes in already has CO2 in it. And it will be ambient, whatever ppm it is at any given time, and your combustion process adds to that by only a small percentage if it is reasonably efficient.

The hotter a combustion is, the more efficient and less polluting it is. Always. It's science.

So you kinda make my case for Coal power plants being more efficient don't you?

I never saw you try to make such a case. You haven't the knowledge or data to even try to do so. You don't know how hot a gas-fired boiler flame is, and you haven't the vaguest clue even how a boiler works.

Again, I am sailing the specific ocean, and you're going off, floundering in the speculantic. At least you're no longer trying to defend your position that heat alone indicates inefficiency, however so there's progress.

 

[BaronVonBigmeat]

The efficiency specs by ASME and others do not take into account such factors as inrush current under load, and lifetime insulation loss. Off the shelf, you have this efficiency. In real life, you never see it. If that's a thermal efficiency rating, again it's not comparable.

Inrush current only matters for a split second. I dunno what you're talking about with insulation loss.

The bottom line is, the best IC engines cannot touch even a worn out motor for efficiency. Apples to apples. 100 hp versus 100 hp. If you can provide a source that says otherwise, go ahead and post it. Good luck.

Of course electric motors are used in elevators, lathes, and stationary rotating devices. That's part of the infrastructure. Again, you are unable to make apples to apples comparisons. Take for example the 200hp motor vs. engine: You realize of course that the 200hp electric motor there weighs three times as much as the engine, making the power to weight ratio horribly skewed? This is the point I am making -- when the workload is comparable, the EV loses out hands down, in vehicles. Not in lighting, not in stationary rotating machine applications, in vehicles.

In some applications, engineers choose a big heavy electric motor because they are cheap and sturdy, and the weight does not matter. Kind of like engines--200 hp can come from some tiny little crotch rocket motorcycle engine, or it can come from a truck-size diesel. The truck simply doesn't need the lighter engine, so they don't bother using it.

Likewise, electric motors can be small and lightweight too. For instance, the motor in the Tesla Roadster:

The motor and transmission together are almost small enough to wrap your arms around and, according to Tesla, weigh in well under 150 lb. Despite its size, this tidy combo puts out a healthy 248 bhp at 8000 rpm and 211 lb.-ft. of torque.

RoadandTrack.com --- First Drives - First Drive: 2008 Tesla Roadster (3/2008)

So...perhaps an 80 lb. powerplant, small enough to wrap your arms around. With horsepower equivalent to a V6, only with a far broader torque curve. You could easily use this in a fullsize pickup or SUV. And IF you had a better battery--the real achilles heel of EV's--it would do everything that the V6 is doing, but better.

As I showed you earlier. If a electric motor had to idle in order to keep the various components such as power steering, alternator, hydraulic pressure in the tranny, water pump, AIR system, vacuum pressure and etc. going, it really begins to lose all of its advantages very quickly. No one takes this into account when making these comparisons because they're locked into group-think.

This is why you don't have any successful EVs. But you do have successful and highly efficient diesel-electric vehicles.

The ability to sit at rest is an advantage in favor of motors, yes.

But when I say that an electric motor is more efficient than a gasoline engine, I mean exactly and precisely this: put two powerplants of EQUAL POWER on a test stand. Have them produce the full power rating. Now, see which one consumed more energy. Hint: it's the gasoline engine, by a large margin.

Note: The motor's great efficiency numbers are not due to the idling advantage btw. I'm talking about just a motor on a test stand. The idling ability is just icing on the cake.

If I'm wrong, post something that proves it, an article or paper showing a real actual combustion engine beating the most mundane electric motor's efficiency of 80%.

 

[BaronVonBigmeat]

Electric motors are most definately efficient users of potential power. What they aren't is efficient producers of work.

If something efficiently converts the potential energy stored in a battery (or a fuel tank) to mechanical power, then it is--by definition--working efficiently!

 

[Midnight Marauder]

The efficiency specs by ASME and others do not take into account such factors as inrush current under load, and lifetime insulation loss. Off the shelf, you have this efficiency. In real life, you never see it. If that's a thermal efficiency rating, again it's not comparable.

Inrush current only matters for a split second. I dunno what you're talking about with insulation loss.

Inrush current without load is for a short time. Under load it's for a long time. In AC motors, it's until rated RPM is reached. Of course, none of that matters with soft start technology on both AC and DC motors.

And if you don't understand insulation losses in motors and its effect on efficiency, you might want to bone up on it.

Likewise, electric motors can be small and lightweight too. For instance, the motor in the Tesla Roadster:

The motor and transmission together are almost small enough to wrap your arms around and, according to Tesla, weigh in well under 150 lb. Despite its size, this tidy combo puts out a healthy 248 bhp at 8000 rpm and 211 lb.-ft. of torque.

So...perhaps an 80 lb. powerplant, small enough to wrap your arms around. With horsepower equivalent to a V6, only with a far broader torque curve. You could easily use this in a fullsize pickup or SUV. And IF you had a better battery--the real achilles heel of EV's--it would do everything that the V6 is doing, but better.

Oh. We were taling about off the shelf motors. Now we're into exotic, specific purpose and highly expensive ones. Got'cha.

As I showed you earlier. If a electric motor had to idle in order to keep the various components such as power steering, alternator, hydraulic pressure in the tranny, water pump, AIR system, vacuum pressure and etc. going, it really begins to lose all of its advantages very quickly. No one takes this into account when making these comparisons because they're locked into group-think.

This is why you don't have any successful EVs. But you do have successful and highly efficient diesel-electric vehicles.

The ability to sit at rest is an advantage in favor of motors, yes.

But when I say that an electric motor is more efficient than a gasoline engine, I mean exactly and precisely this: put two powerplants of EQUAL POWER on a test stand. Have them produce the full power rating. Now, see which one consumed more energy. Hint: it's the gasoline engine, by a large margin.

Under full LOAD on a dyno instead of just spinning on a test stand?

If I'm wrong, post something that proves it, an article or paper showing a real actual combustion engine beating the most mundane electric motor's efficiency of 80%.

You are still arguing thermal efficiency, which is how electric motors are rated. Have you any practical experience with electric motors? I do have.

Example: a 5hp AC motor that makes its 5hp at 1750 RPM. This is an off the shelf, squirrel-cage motor. It's highly efficient thermally and in energy usage, spinning with no load. However, load this baby down and you see a geometric increase in heat and power usage. In no load spin, you're using about 2 amps. Load it up, and you get to 20-30 amps very quickly and a hell of alot of heat. Because it's doing work now. And when you calculate out the wattage under the exact workload, and what you pay for that wattage, the electric isn't much better at all than a comparably sized IC engine! It's just a myth!

The reason they NEED all the batteries is alot more because of the approach used, for example I am using a AC motor and need very few batteries to support the DC bus for the VFD that will be controlling the motor. Everyone's approaching this with standard thinking, the defeatist mentality from the jump.

Know what my main worry is? Lifetime mileage. Durability. The Undiscovered Country of EVs is, there aren't any of them with 100,000 miles on them. Again I take my queue from the locomotive application -- but theirs are exotic, specially designed motors so I have no comparison.

In some applications, engineers choose a big heavy electric motor because they are cheap and sturdy, and the weight does not matter. Kind of like engines--200 hp can come from some tiny little crotch rocket motorcycle engine, or it can come from a truck-size diesel. The truck simply doesn't need the lighter engine, so they don't bother using it.

Now, this is just silly. Have you any clue the HP of a over the road diesel engine? The smaller ones start at around 415 HP. So sorry Charlie, big truck diesel engines are big because they have to be. They also have to be able to run under load for millions of miles. Can any run of the mill, off the shelf, and worn out electric motors do that in this application? Of course not. That's why locomotive wheelmotors are highly specialized, exotic, and very expensive.

 

[jeffrockit]

Electric cars need to be mandated. PERIOD !

And where do you think the energy will come from to recharge their batteries?

 

[Bern80]

Electric motors are most definately efficient users of potential power. What they aren't is efficient producers of work.

If something efficiently converts the potential energy stored in a battery (or a fuel tank) to mechanical power, then it is--by definition--working efficiently!

A machines capacity to do work and working efficiently are two different things Baron.

 

[Bern80]

The ability to sit at rest is an advantage in favor of motors, yes.

But when I say that an electric motor is more efficient than a gasoline engine, I mean exactly and precisely this: put two powerplants of EQUAL POWER on a test stand. Have them produce the full power rating. Now, see which one consumed more energy. Hint: it's the gasoline engine, by a large margin.

Note: The motor's great efficiency numbers are not due to the idling advantage btw. I'm talking about just a motor on a test stand. The idling ability is just icing on the cake.

If I'm wrong, post something that proves it, an article or paper showing a real actual combustion engine beating the most mundane electric motor's efficiency of 80%.

I think the issue is what is being called efficient and the fact that, that is a bit subjective. You start with wanting to compaire to equal power plants, one IC, one electric. What you don't mention is what it would take to build an electric motor with comparable power to an IC and goes back to what I mentioned before about doing work. You would need such a mass of stuff for the electric (size of the motor, batteries) to have a something that would perform comparably to the IC that it would be rendered entirely impractical.

So again, yes the electric does indeed use power efficiently, but the scale to which such a motor would need to be built to be comparable, in terms of range, speed, and horsepower is greatly inefficient in terms of the sheer volume you would need to accomplish the same thing.

 

[Cold Fusion38]

Electric cars need to be mandated. PERIOD !

And where do you think the energy will come from to recharge their batteries?

Nuclear, tidal, wind, solar, coal, natural gas, geo thermal, hydro, oil. EVERY POSSIBLE ENERGY SOURCE even if Obama has to make an EXECUTIVE ORDER paving the way for more drilling, more refining capacity, more coal plants, more wind plants, more solar(mandate,I know you guys HATE that word, solar panels on ALL new residential units in areas where it has enough Clear days) to lessen the power drain during peak hours.

 

[Single Dad]

You're aware that IC engines in cars are the least efficient use of fossil fuels right?

Why do you say that? Please justify your claim.

 

[Ringel05]

You're aware that IC engines in cars are the least efficient use of fossil fuels right?

Why do you say that? Please justify your claim.

Actually it looks like MM is blowing away that statement, from a practical application standpoint.

 

[Cold Fusion38]

You're aware that IC engines in cars are the least efficient use of fossil fuels right?

Why do you say that? Please justify your claim.

Because excess heat indicates inefficiency. I'm sure MM will dispute that but if you have to have a cooling system and radiator that indicates that you are dispursing HEAT which is POWER!

 

[BaronVonBigmeat]

Oh. We were taling about off the shelf motors. Now we're into exotic, specific purpose and highly expensive ones. Got'cha.

No, we were talking about motors. You're moving the goalposts. You said that equivalent motors have to be bigger/heavier than a comparable engine, when the opposite is true.

Tesla builds their own special design because it's a high end car and their customers are willing to spend extra for a pretty modest improvement over a cheap vanilla motor from a catalog. Just like Ferrari owners pay thousands and thousands more when a Corvette will perform very nearly the same.

And besides which, the high cost of the Tesla car is--once again--related to the batteries. It's like 1/5 the cost of the car or something.

Under full LOAD on a dyno instead of just spinning on a test stand?

Yes, of course. Why would engineers throw around efficiency numbers based on a motor free spinning? What use would that be?

Or how would you even measure it without making it do work? Efficiency = mechanical power OUT divided by electrical power IN. If the motor is doing nothing, then the mechanical power is zero. Zero divided by anything is...zero.

Just to be sure though, I emailed a guy I know who is an electrical engineer. This is his response:

They've got a chart here with various full load motor efficiencies. The larger they get, the better they get. In the 100hp range, even the shitty cheap motors have 90% efficiency; high-efficiency motors are closer to 95%. Efficiency is actually lower at lower powers because hysteresis and bearing losses are the same, but there's less output at the shaft to show for it.

http://www.wbdg.org/ccb/DOE/TECH/ce0384.pdf

Batteries are pretty efficient, too, like 80-90% for li-ions. They just aren't nearly as energy dense as gasoline.

Example: a 5hp AC motor that makes its 5hp at 1750 RPM. This is an off the shelf, squirrel-cage motor. It's highly efficient thermally and in energy usage, spinning with no load. However, load this baby down and you see a geometric increase in heat and power usage. In no load spin, you're using about 2 amps. Load it up, and you get to 20-30 amps very quickly and a hell of alot of heat. Because it's doing work now. And when you calculate out the wattage under the exact workload, and what you pay for that wattage, the electric isn't much better at all than a comparably sized IC engine! It's just a myth!

Okay, so it pulls 20-30 amps, presumably @ 220V.

220V x 25A = 5500 watts of electric power

Now, how much mechanical power is it producing? Unless you had a dyno, we don't have the slightest idea.

If it measured 5,000 watts (6.7 horsepower) of mechanical power, you've got 91% efficiency. If it produced 4,000 watts, efficiency would be 72%. Which would be terrible for a motor, but higher than any petrol engine in existence by far.

Note: The 5,000 and 4,000 watt hypotheticals still leave 500 and 1,500 watts being turned into heat, respectively. Equal to "high" and "low" on a 110V space heater from WalMart, in fact. Enough to keep a small bedroom toasty warm in the winter. Enough to perhaps make you remark that it's "a hell of a lot of heat". But without numbers and measurements, you're just guesstimating.

Now, this is just silly. Have you any clue the HP of a over the road diesel engine? The smaller ones start at around 415 HP. So sorry Charlie, big truck diesel engines are big because they have to be. They also have to be able to run under load for millions of miles.

I was thinking of mid and fullsize passenger pickup trucks, not semis.

Anyways, you're agreeing with my point and you don't even seem to realize it.

If I were I bad engineer, I *could* power a semi with a really souped-up chevy V8. It wouldn't last long. And since weight is of no consequence, why not pick out a motor that is much heavier duty?

Likewise, the engineer picking out a motor to power a locomotive or rooftop A/C or a CNC mill is not going to place the slightest bit of importance on size and weight. He will choose based on price, efficiency, and reliability.

So does this mean that small/light motors do not exist? If you ask someone who only repairs locomotives, they might mistakenly think so because they never see the small ones--but they would be wrong.

Know what my main worry is? Lifetime mileage. Durability. The Undiscovered Country of EVs is, there aren't any of them with 100,000 miles on them. Again I take my queue from the locomotive application -- but theirs are exotic, specially designed motors so I have no comparison.

Now THIS truly is silly. Motors routinely run for decades with minimal maintenance. They don't have a goofy reciprocating motion like engines, they don't have cams and lifters and valves and all this other shit rubbing and slapping around, it's just smooth rotary power with one moving part on some bearings. They can be cheap and shitty and disposeable (like some engines) or they can be built like a brick shithouse (like some engines).

 

[BaronVonBigmeat]

Electric motors are most definately efficient users of potential power. What they aren't is efficient producers of work.

If something efficiently converts the potential energy stored in a battery (or a fuel tank) to mechanical power, then it is--by definition--working efficiently!

A machines capacity to do work and working efficiently are two different things Baron.

Yes I realize that, but he didn't mention work capacity.

Power: ft.lbs / second, or work per unit time.

Work is a subset of power. If you are producing efficient power, you are working efficiently.

I think the issue is what is being called efficient and the fact that, that is a bit subjective.

Not really, it's quite concrete. Energy in vs. energy out. Nothing converts 100%, but motors come pretty close.

If you're talking about "(oil) wells to wheels", that does get complicated. (EV's are the overall winner here too though.)

You start with wanting to compaire to equal power plants, one IC, one electric. What you don't mention is what it would take to build an electric motor with comparable power to an IC and goes back to what I mentioned before about doing work. You would need such a mass of stuff for the electric (size of the motor, batteries) to have a something that would perform comparably to the IC that it would be rendered entirely impractical.

That's (almost) what I've been saying! You would need such a mass of stuff to match a gasser's range that it's impractical.

Now let's replace the word "stuff" with the more accurate term battery. It's the battery that is big and bulky and weak. The size/weight/power of the motor and electronics compare favorably to an engine and transmission. But batteries just get their asses kicked by a gasoline tank, for now.

So again, yes the electric does indeed use power efficiently, but the scale to which such a motor [no, BATTERY!--Baron ] would need to be built to be comparable, in terms of range, speed, and horsepower is greatly inefficient in terms of the sheer volume you would need to accomplish the same thing.

Fixed.

 

[Old Rocks]

The efficiency specs by ASME and others do not take into account such factors as inrush current under load, and lifetime insulation loss. Off the shelf, you have this efficiency. In real life, you never see it. If that's a thermal efficiency rating, again it's not comparable.

Inrush current only matters for a split second. I dunno what you're talking about with insulation loss.

Inrush current without load is for a short time. Under load it's for a long time. In AC motors, it's until rated RPM is reached. Of course, none of that matters with soft start technology on both AC and DC motors.

And if you don't understand insulation losses in motors and its effect on efficiency, you might want to bone up on it.Oh. We were taling about off the shelf motors. Now we're into exotic, specific purpose and highly expensive ones. Got'cha.

Under full LOAD on a dyno instead of just spinning on a test stand?

If I'm wrong, post something that proves it, an article or paper showing a real actual combustion engine beating the most mundane electric motor's efficiency of 80%.

You are still arguing thermal efficiency, which is how electric motors are rated. Have you any practical experience with electric motors? I do have.

Example: a 5hp AC motor that makes its 5hp at 1750 RPM. This is an off the shelf, squirrel-cage motor. It's highly efficient thermally and in energy usage, spinning with no load. However, load this baby down and you see a geometric increase in heat and power usage. In no load spin, you're using about 2 amps. Load it up, and you get to 20-30 amps very quickly and a hell of alot of heat. Because it's doing work now. And when you calculate out the wattage under the exact workload, and what you pay for that wattage, the electric isn't much better at all than a comparably sized IC engine! It's just a myth!

The reason they NEED all the batteries is alot more because of the approach used, for example I am using a AC motor and need very few batteries to support the DC bus for the VFD that will be controlling the motor. Everyone's approaching this with standard thinking, the defeatist mentality from the jump.

Know what my main worry is? Lifetime mileage. Durability. The Undiscovered Country of EVs is, there aren't any of them with 100,000 miles on them. Again I take my queue from the locomotive application -- but theirs are exotic, specially designed motors so I have no comparison.

In some applications, engineers choose a big heavy electric motor because they are cheap and sturdy, and the weight does not matter. Kind of like engines--200 hp can come from some tiny little crotch rocket motorcycle engine, or it can come from a truck-size diesel. The truck simply doesn't need the lighter engine, so they don't bother using it.

Now, this is just silly. Have you any clue the HP of a over the road diesel engine? The smaller ones start at around 415 HP. So sorry Charlie, big truck diesel engines are big because they have to be. They also have to be able to run under load for millions of miles. Can any run of the mill, off the shelf, and worn out electric motors do that in this application? Of course not. That's why locomotive wheelmotors are highly specialized, exotic, and very expensive.

Wrong!
Toyota RAV4 EV - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


The RAV4 EV closely resembles the regular internal combustion engine (ICE) version - without a tailpipe - and has a governed top speed of 78 mph (~126 km/h) with a range of 100 to 120 miles (160 to 190 km). The 95 amp-hour NiMH battery pack has a capacity of 27 kWh, charges inductively and has proven to be surprisingly durable. Some RAV4 EVs have achieved over 150,000 miles (240,000 km) on the original battery pack. It was also one of the few vehicles with a single speed automatic transmission at that time.

 

[Old Rocks]

Now this was done four or five years ago. At present, Eestor has a capacitor that weighs 280 lbs and stores 52 kwh. Hub motors are not rocket science, and costs come down in mass manufacturing. A reasonably priced electric car is not only possible, it will happen shortly.



Electric Mini: 0-60 in 4 Seconds: It Has Motors In Its Wheels : TreeHugger


A British engineering firm has put together a high-performance hybrid version of BMW's Mini Cooper. The PML Mini QED has a top speed of 150 mph, a 0-60 mph time of 4.5 seconds. The car uses a small gasoline engine with four 160 horsepower electric motors — one on each wheel. The car has been designed to run for four hours of combined urban/extra urban driving, powered only by a battery and bank of ultra capacitors. The QED supports an all-electric range of 200-250 miles and has a total range of about 932 miles (1,500 km). For longer journeys at higher speeds, a small conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) is used to re-charge the battery. In this hybrid mode, fuel economies of up to 80mpg can be achieved.


Explains Martin Boughtwood, PML’s MD: “Until now, most electric vehicles have been little more than souped-up milk floats, limited by range and speed, with compromised performance. For those with a green conscience who also value an enhanced motoring experience, there is still something missing.

“Working in partnership with our customer, Synergy Innovations, we set out to demonstrate what our electric wheel technology is capable of. We simply took a standard BMW Mini One, discarded the engine, the disc brakes, the wheels, and the gearbox. These components were replaced by four of our electric wheels, a lithium polymer battery, a large ultra capacitor, a very small ICE with generator (so small it almost fits alongside the spare wheel), an energy management system and a sexy in-car display module.”

 

[BaronVonBigmeat]

Now this was done four or five years ago. At present, Eestor has a capacitor that weighs 280 lbs and stores 52 kwh.

Allegedly. No one has seen a working prototype. No one who is talking, anyhow.

If they can perform as claimed, for the price that's claimed...then yeah, you'll start seeing carmakers roll out electrics. With or without government incentives.

Electric Mini: 0-60 in 4 Seconds: It Has Motors In Its Wheels : TreeHugger

B-b-but! Don't they know? Electric motors are always bigger and heavier than their gas engine equivalents! Each wheel must weigh like...300 pounds!

 

[theHawk]

Once the Tesla Roadster gets down to about $25k I'll be happy to buy one as my daily driver.

Until then, its not worth it.