Electric RUF

Battery life cycle of 3000 charges or about 8 years. wow.

Is electric the future?

It's all in the battery technology. Every couple of years we make something lighter that stores for longer. We'll get there.

a 1200 lb battery pack to go 150 miles is a long way from efficient.

I think there is more work to be done to not only reduce weight, but hold more stored energy.

Rich

The technology is there. The cost is just too high. To get @ 150 mile range you're looking at $15,000 for the lithium batteries. As battery prices drop you'll see a lot more conversions. The real key will be finding a way to quick charge them without smoking the batteries. Most folks don't like being held back by their cars limited range.

should have included this

I wonder what the cost is and carbon foot print is for an individual charge. I will be interesting to see.

The size of the carbon foot print would depend on what source of fuel you get your power from. If it was hydo it would be 0. Even if it was coal it would still be much smaller than an internal compustion engine. The cost of a charge would be a couple of bucks. To get an exact amount you'd have to calculate how many watts per charge and figure it out with your utility bill.

Hmmm, all of those batteries dying at the same time in numerous cars (if they were widely used and all lasted about 8 years) = huge waste, no? We can recycle led from lead acid batteries, can we recycle LiPo?

Compare for yourself. See if it's worth it and how much you'd save with an electric car. Found this nifty little calculator:

http://www.ccds.charlotte.nc.us/~jarrett/EV/cost.php

A little excerpt from my blog:

"Oh, and i guess doing this will help the whole environment thing, but I'm more concerned with having $400 extra bucks a month. "But," you say, "don't you know that the energy used to fuel that electric car comes, in Indiana, mainly from coal fired power plants that release dangerous carbon?" Yes, Captain Obvious I do know that. I'll be trading my carbon from my tailpipe to the smokestack. But people fail to realize the amount of energy required to create a gallon of gas. So when you burn the gas in your car, you're not just making it there, there was carbon caused by the power plant that supplied the power to create that gas in the first place. Not to mention the power needed to extract the oil, transport from as far away as the middle east...well you get the idea."

If the batteries last 8 years and cost 15000, when the battery pack dies you need a new battery pack, right? 15000 for a new battery pack for an 8 year old car with 8 year old technology or 15000 for a brand new car, which one to pick? 8 year old technology or a new car? I am down for going green and being environmentally friendly but 15000 every 8 years is kind of crazy. Knowing that the average person prolly won't save that extra 400 a month, they will probably spend it on something. so when the time comes to get that new battery pack, and you don't have any money, your kind of S.O.L. and stuck with a car that won't run until you find 15K somewhere!!

I guess a warranty would have to come with the batteries wouldn't it. So, say the car company warranties the batteries for 10 years, then all the problems go away and people will save money!

How big is the trout footprint from the hydro?
I like Nuclear power, it doesn't hurt anything, unless.......

One of my dear friends is a nuclear engineer that's involved in designing nuclear power plants. Their company is busy as anything designing these plants for the rest of the world, but almost none in the USA. Seems our government has made it so expensive and difficult that we're going to be the last ones to readopt this technology.

Yeah, that kinka sucks as we have the knowhow here already!

Whatever happened to the capacitor energy storing device that was being talked about a couple of years ago?

Let's see. $15,000 divided by 96 months is $156.25/month battery replacement cost. At $3.00/gallon gasoline thats $155.25/$3.00 or 52 gallons/month or 626 gallons/year equivalent gasoline value. At 25 mpg I can go 625 gallons X 25 mph or 15,625 miles on the gas I could buy for the money I'll spend on replacement batteries. Oh wait, I still have to pay for the electricity to charge the batteries! Doesn't quite pencil out yet. Don't get me wrong, for where I live having an electric car to drive the 2 miles to and from work would be great. I think I'll stick with my bike and hobby.

Well I could live with the 150 mile range. However the lithium ion batteries... can you say mega freakin bucks! I want an electric car badly. However, not enough to drop 25K on a battery pack that I have to replace in ~8 years.

I was really bummed when I heard Tesla was laying off employees. I have been silently hoping that they would get the msrp on their tesla roadster down to the original estimate of 50K. While still overwhelming you could pretty much justify it if you can throw away 400 in cost of gas a month.

If you only drive 2 miles to work you wouldn't need the pricey batteries. You could go LA for cheap. But you are correct that right now the lithium battery pricing just doesn't work out. It's a catch 22. You need mass production to lower prices but at the current price there isn't the demand for mass production. when gas prices go through the roof again it'll look more attractive. It's only a matter of time. Someone will then figure out how to make them cheaper. You'll see tons of conversion kits out there. Demand will go up and the bottom will drop out of the prices. I'll wait until then before I toss in my money.

There are a lot of efforts going on out there. Mercedes, GM, Tesla and a handful of other's. Not forgetting the the plug in prius either. They will get there.

A good alternative until they do is the new clean diesel jetta. Thats what I bought a couple months ago. You get the whole car for the price of a battery pack it has been getting me an overall average of 38.5 mpg and 45 mpg on long hwy trips. Goes 0-60 in 6.9 seconds. Has enough torque to light the tires if you want... did I mention 24190 gets you one fully loaded ... and has a 1300 federal tax credit for this year... Ok end plug for clean diesel.

Seriously though, I think hybrids and clean diesel are a nice intermediate step to full electric. This will give time to ramp up not only battery but charging capabilities. A whole lot of people would need to put solar panels or wind power at their houses to suppliment the demand on the grid if a large percentage of people were charging their cars every night.

BTW VW is supposed to come out with a 72 mpg TDI hybrid next year. So nice small steps to full electric. All of the hybrids could drive the mass production of batteries.

Even if you drive, say, 20 miles one way to work lead-acid batteries are more than adequate. It's hard to beat the power density / cost ratio of lead acid, and they are easy to take care of and easy to recycle. Monstrously heavy, though...

http://volt914.blogspot.com

If you're only driving 2 miles why not just ride your bike to work? Then you pay $0 on gas, your monthly electric bill won't increase, and you can take that extra $15,000 dollars every 8 years and hang out in <insert expensive exotic destination here> for a moth! Plus you get good 'ol fashion exercise.

The batteries weigh 1213lbs. That makes this 911 weigh about as much as a truck!

Look again......"I think I'll stick with my bike and hobby." I do ride my bike to work, however I'm not a fanatic as it rains alot here in Oregon and when I work its typically 12 hours shifts which results in me having to ride home uphill into the wind in the dark in the rain. (Why does that sound like my fathers going to school in a snowstorm uphill both ways?)

BTW what is the typical lifespan for lead acid batteries, replacement cost and equivalent miles you can drive per lead acid battery between charges so I can calculate cost/mile?

If you go 96v you'll need 8 batteries. If you go 144v you'll need 12. I'd go with 144 volts. Unless you have a real light vehicle you wont be able to go over 40 mph. If you look for battery sales you could pick them up for $50 a piece. That would be $600 for batteries. At 20 miles a day for 48 months ( average LA lifespan ) thats 29,200 miles. Divided that by $600 and thats about 2 cents a mile + charging cost.

Lifespan is highly dependent on depth-of-discharge. If you keep DOD to 50% then you can expect around 1000 charge / discharge cycles. In my case, charging 2-3 times a week achieves this - about 30 miles is about 50% DOD. Which means I expect my batteries to last around 6 years.

They cost roughly $2000.

You can see my electricity usage here: http://volt914.blogspot.com/2008/09/measuring-power-iii.html

In a nutshell - electricity costs are about 3.7 cents per mile.

Where is everyone coming up with this $400/month savings?

Figure 15,000 miles/year average @ 20 mpg. That's 750 gal @ $4.00/gal = $3000/yr /12 = $250/mo. How in hell do you save $400/mo when you are only spending $250/mo in the first place???

EVs are still a long way from economic sense, unless you DIY.

I believe it was mentioned that if you spent $400 a month on gas buying a Tesla might justified. Not that you could save that much.

Even the DIY EVs are spendy. Your looking at $4500 for the kit not including batteries. Plus you'll need a donor vehicle. When it's all said and done your looking at @ $8,000 going with LA. Your range with lead acid isn't that great. I need to go about 70 miles. Lithiums could do that but it adds $14,000 to the cost. Now your looking at almost 20g's. I'll have half that in a great little 914. The other 10g's will keep me in gas for the next 7 years. By the time I spend all my gas money I would need to buy another set of batteries. There's my next few years gas money. It just doesn't add up for me at this time.

But if you dont have to go over 35 mph, you have donor car already and you live 5 miles from work. An EV might be for you.

I just hope that people with much deeper pockets do it to support the advancement of the technology. I just filled up my 09 jetta tdi today... after driving an entire week I burned a whopping 7.9 gallons (yes I have a huge commute) it cost me 29 bucks. Now if I was looking at it vs my jeep that I parked 6 weeks ago it would have been pretty attractive. I was dropping 75 bucks twice a week to drive my jeep. ... However, amongst alternatives I would be saving even further if I had bought a prius. I just still wanted handling, accleration and some form of styling on my daily driver.... (this is not a bash on the prius as I am still trying to convince my wife to drive one) ....

I'll bash the prius for you anytime, just let me know.

LOL I figure if it saves more money the Mrs can drive it

If you are only going a few miles a day an EV with lead acid batteries may last forever. In the Albuquerque Electric Auto Association we had a fella named Rick? that drove an EV VW Rabbit built as part of a fleet by Sandia Labs. Rick drove for more than 10 years with the same batteries that were in the Rabbit when he bought it and they were still working great for his 5 mile a day commute. His electricity costs were 0 due to his landlord letting him plug into the outside apartment lights. I would doubt you could use those batteries to go 40 miles like when they were new but in Rick's case who cares...

A little off topic but tightly related:
http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/24/teslas-...-gets-pictured/

New Tesla 4 door that is supposed to sell for 60K (yea we will see) It is still a pretty steap price but isnt any more than say a mercedes or bmw 4 dr. I would give serious consideration to one of these ....