Who Killed the Electric Car?

[Tim Williams]

Do they use permanent magnet, electric field or AC (induction) motors?

An electric field DC motor might be the easiest, but the field burns up a
couple horsepower sitting there. That would cut into efficiency a bit.
[Asynchronous] AC motors are a bit harder to generate power from.

The nice thing about a DC motor is you can drive the armature with a big
fucking H bridge, open circuit coasts, forward = accelerate, reverse =
regenerate / reverse. It's a built in buck-boost.

Tim

 

[Tim Williams]

You need to consider that not everyone lives in the USA where you have many
acres per person of land space. The same problem also occurs in some US
cities too.

Dense central urban populations take the train or subway. Suburbanites
have no choice, so most of this conversation is geared toward them. And
guess what, a whole lot of the U.S. is suburban. . . .

Tim

 

[MooseFET]

Most of the stuff sold for residential use is so incredibly crude. I
mean, what would it take to design an automatic mixer between hot and
cold? It ain't rocket science and has been done before.

There is no design needed. You can buy just such a valve already.

http://www.plumbersurplus.com/Prod/...ure-Control-Valve-3-4-(0206013)/26805/Cat/254

There's a used one.

[...]

 

[MooseFET]

An electric field DC motor might be the easiest, but the field burns up a
couple horsepower sitting there. That would cut into efficiency a bit.
[Asynchronous] AC motors are a bit harder to generate power from.

AC motors are not all that hard to generate power with, if you already
have AC power systems to run them. If the slip frequency goes
negative, the terminal impedance of an AC motor has a negative real
component.

 

[kevin93]

Do they use permanent magnet, electric field or AC (induction) motors?

<...>

They are permanent magnet AC synchronous 3-phase motors - so they
don't need excitation.

They use a DC rail of up to 500V (650V in other Toyota models) feeding
three half bridges to drive the motor pretty much as you describe.

They are not set into reverse to regenerate though, the PWM duty-cycle
is controlled to give boost so that current flows into the battery
rather than out. They can regenerate with a road-speed as low as
7mph, while allowing over 100mph before they run out of control
because the BEMF exceeds the rail voltage.

kevin

 

[Joerg]

There is no design needed. You can buy just such a valve already.

http://www.plumbersurplus.com/Prod/...ure-Control-Valve-3-4-(0206013)/26805/Cat/254

There's a used one.

I know those, they also come within single-lever shower/bathtub control
valves where you just set a temperture instead of a percentage. I think
Grohe makes them. But most aren't fast and when you have the situation
that Jeff saw in Israel the water coming through the pipes can turn from
barely warm to scalding in milliseconds. Unless you have a point-of-use
recirc but most houses are not that modern.

 

[Joerg]

So what. The EULA states the jurisdiction and it is not CA.

But isn't that jurisdiction similar, at least from a political perspective?

 

[Joerg]

Jim Yanik wrote:


In which respect US cars are quite simply inferior. Especially the lighting.

Huh? In Europe many cars do not even have position lights to the sides.
Meaning when someone backs into a street without looking you may see
them too late.

 

[Joerg]

I don't recall the exact total cost but I think it was about $150,000.
That did not include legal fees and time wasted dealing with PG&E
nonsense.


No financing that I know of on this system.

Typical production is about 15kw-hr/day. See graphs and visually
guess the average delivered power:
<http://www.solarwarrior.com/historical-data.html>

Non-tracking vverage hours equivalent to full sunlight is about 4.5
hrs in Santa Cruz County. That yields:
15kw * 4.5 hrs/day = 68kw-hr/day

PG&E rates vary with usage and season. The cost to charge the fleet
of electric vehicles would have placed them in nearly the highest
rates. See:
<http://www.pge.com/tariffs/ResElecCurrent.xls>
That's the current residential rates. My guess is that electricity
would cost about $0.30/kw-hr at the highest rate.

Can't see the spreadsheet but IIRC it does cost that much. As people who
moved into this area have painfully found out. Real estate is less
expensive than the Bay Area but the rude awakening comes when the A/C is
used. Then PG&E begins to charge them through the nose. Same for people
with heat pumps in winter. Which is why we had a heat pump in Europe but
do not have one here.

68Kw-hr/day * $0.30/kw-hr = $20/day


The owner indicates that the calculated break even point is 18 years
out of a 30 year lifetime. The higher prices of electricity will make
the break even point somewhat sooner. I don't have all the numbers
necessary to verify that. I certainly won't buy into anything that
takes 18 years to break even as I don't expect to live that long. I
agree that it's not very practical (unless you include government
subsidies and rebates), but it's a start.

The reason why PV is popular in Europe is that goverments there provide
HUGE subsidies. They often get well north of 50c/kWh and the other
ratepayers foot the bill. There is no free lunch.

 

[Joerg]

They already exist and have been deployed in California for many
years.

Then why did PG&E deploy an old-style meter (the ones with seven hands
or so) when our digital one with time-control features and all that
croaked? This old style meter looks brand new.

 

[krw]

My wife works in a hospital where one inspection agency requires
plastic-bag liners in trash cans, and another agency forbids them.
They adjust according to which inspection is scheduled.

A friend had the same sort of problem with trash can lids in his
restaurant. The county health inspectors insisted on them and the
state inspectors gave him a major ding for having them.

 

[krw]

Non-competitive paradises like Cuba and North Korea? They certainly
aren't suffering from glutted super-highways or packed shopping-center
parking lots. And they have excellent energy conservation techniques:
the power is only on a few hours a day.

Wait a year; that's Obama's energy plan too.

 

[Tim Williams]

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

They are permanent magnet AC synchronous 3-phase motors - so they
don't need excitation.

Ok, then that's included in my list (maybe not explicitly). Permanent
magnet you just strap on a rectifier and boost converter, but you have the
weight of the magnets to contend with, which I've got to imagine is quite
substantial in the many-HP range. Or are these magnetized cage rotors, so,
er, semi-synchronous I suppose might be a way to put it. (Full magnetized
rotor is synchronous, nonmagnetized "squirrel cage" rotor (which I was
thinking of with "AC (induction) motor") is the regular deal.)

They are not set into reverse to regenerate though, the PWM duty-cycle
is controlled to give boost so that current flows into the battery
rather than out.

Alright, which is like what I went on to say, but AC?

God, that must be awful, you need to run a VFD in reverse. So to suck
power from it, you need to synchronize the rate with the shaft? Minus the
difference which is power drawn of course.

I suppose it's no BFD if you have a bidirectional (power in/out) self
contained VFD controller inside a feedback loop that's controlled by the
gas/brake pedals to make it feed power out of or into the battery, but
that's an awful lot of trouble. I'd just as soon go for a frickin DC
motor, but maybe it's not as efficient.

Tim

 

[Eeyore]

Dense central urban populations take the train or subway

Only if they're going to the right place. Not everywhere has a subway either.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Huh? In Europe many cars do not even have position lights to the sides.

What for ?

We DO have side indicator repeaters as standard.

Meaning when someone backs into a street without looking you may see
them too late.

Backing into a street without looking or otherwise is bad driving.

Our headlights are also vastly superior.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

The reason why PV is popular in Europe

But it ISN'T ! It's wind power that's generally popular here.

is that goverments there provide HUGE subsidies.

The Germans do and that's totally crazy given their latitude and consequent low
insolation. It's a huge waste of resources.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

The motive power is more related to vehicle speed (aerodynamic drag) and
acceleration.

Yes, so a heavy battery will reduce thne car's acceleration making its overal
performance less acceptable.

And DO NOT forget rolling resistance which is affected by weight too.

The energy you spend hauling a weight uphill can be largely
recouped when going back down.

The large battery will also mean you take longer to climb those hills.

Having a second car is an excellent alternative.

Only for those who can afford it and indeed for those who have suitable parking
space. This effectively rules out 'pure' EVs as a practical option for a large
percentage of the population.

Also, you can get a motor-generator set on a small trailer that can be used for
longer trips.

That's utterly ridiculous. Trailers have to be speed-limited for safety reasons and
that's the last thing you want on a long trip. Never mind that most people haven't a
clue how to drive properly with a trailer !

This is classic 'grabbing at straws'.

See above. Also this will become more convenient when demand is there.

How do you propose to deal with the common situation where there is no off-road
parking ?

The poor diddums will probably turn out to be GM, Ford, et al.

GM currently has the best looking offerings (Volt and Flextreme). Due to be
available in full-scale production in about 2 years. I think you mean poor Ford and
Chrysler.

There are plenty of competitors poised to enter the EV market,

None of whom have any car manufacturing experience. Futhermore, there's alimited
demand for 2 seaters.

and GM has simply
followed the lure of quick temporary profits with the promise of an
infinite source of fossil fuel and a power-hungry horde of motorists with
plenty of money to spend on overpowered bloated vehicles that were cheaper
to make. The inevitable economic downturn has erased that scenario, and the
Detroit guys are themselves too big to make changes quickly enough to
respond.

GM's AHEAD ! You're clearly not aware of what they're doing.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Joerg wrote

but didn't Germany(and Europe) have rather loose emissions specs

A long time ago.

compared to the US,particularly California?(which oftens ends up setting
the US
standard)
ISTR that Euro cars were often blocked from importation because of
emissions.

Then there's bumper height,safety equipment,lighting.

In which respect US cars are quite simply inferior. Especially the lighting.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Not if you live in an area where electricity cost versus monthly usage
has the I/V characteristic of a silicon diode. Out here when you reach
130% of baseline that would be the 600mV point. Go beyond that and
you'll hear a huge slurping sound. That sound would be coming from your
bank account. And that happens in a lot of other places, too.

Sounds like you guys need to form your own co-operatives to supply your own power.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

The only relevant thing is how much range you get and whether or not that
suits your requirements.

Since when is that range a fixed requirement ?

I've 'commuted' as little as 20-25 miles daily and as far as 100 miles. I don't
really want to have to buy a new car every time I find a new client!

Just WTF do you have against (P)HEVs ? It's clear that they fix ALL the
arguments against EVs in a trice (except for not being able to hear them) and
provide just as much benefit.

Graham