Cars- cheap, tiny, runs on AA's

[Brunhidden]

This last week two cars were in the newspaper and i thought people would be intrested in them.

first of all a car company in India released the worlds cheapest car, at $2,500. it fits five if the fifth person is thin, has great fuel economy, and produces only minute emissions. the whole reason it exists is several years ago the man responsible promised a car that would cost one hundred thousand rubles, which translates to two and a half thousand dollars, and he finally did so.... however it only comes with one windshield wiper, no passenger side mirror, no radio, and no AC. Those come on the 'deluxe' model, as a way of trimming off those last few bucks to meet the promise price.

problem is nobody in India knows how to drive, same day this article was in the wall street journal there were at least two other articles about Indian businessmen who saved up to buy a shiny luxury car and totaled it the same day because they never thought to learn how to drive.... kind of a moot point anyway, as the streets they want to drive on are choked with pedestrians and nobody even cares the lines are on the road.


the other car, comes from Canada. the idea is that everyone wants an electric car- no worry about gas prices, no guilty conscience about the environment, and a general lust for technology... only problem is most batteries cannot hold a big enough charge without overheating and setting the car on fire. the solution is a 'neighborhood vehicle', which is fully electric, uses a wall plug just like your toaster, can travel at highway speeds, but can only go 35 miles on a charge. 

for some reason many communities are allowed to sell the car, but do not allow it to be driven on the road. this puzzles me to no end, but its a great concept. if you live close to work or just have to get some groceries, this car is 'the shit'. it really does just plug into the wall and will be fully charged in 8 hours, or 80% charged in only 4.

any opinions or comments?

There were no public health laws in Ankh-Morpork. It would be like installing smoke detectors in Hell.

[Valynth]

Again, one of the downsides to electric cars is the fact that they have very little range and if you live anywhere in America you know that things can often be miles apart and drain your car in just one round and waiting several hours for your car to be viable again could really screw you over if an emergency were to occur.

There is also the fact that electric cars PRODUCE EMISSIONS!  The emissions might not be from the car itself, but the power plant has to produce the power some how and usually it's by burning coal which makes gasoline look like a clean fuel.

There is also a fact that the reason the Indian car can function is the fact that it is a SCREAMING METAL DEATH TRAP!  It has none of the safety features that are a standard in the U.S. so don't think you'll see it here anytime soon.  It also lacks environment control and trust me, if you ever head to the southern states YOU WANT THAT AC!

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

The difference between emissions on a car and emissions on a power plant is that you can filter the emissions on a power plant in one place. The same number of cars is, what, 10,000 filters, all of which have to be perfectly installed and cleaned and checked and updated before it works.

It works out cleaner and cheaper in the power plant version, but you lose some on the distribution costs...


Roll on fusion power, I say.

[Darkmoon]

I'm still thinking if we could maximize potential on hamster wheels, everything would be better.

[Reese Tora]

oh, yes, all electric cars are slow and have poor range...



http://www.teslamotors.com/

Apparently, not everyone thinks the same way.

[rabid_fox]

I drive a BMW. Piss on your health-cars.

[Dannysaysnoo]

I walk. i win.

[Valynth]

The difference between emissions on a car and emissions on a power plant is that you can filter the emissions on a power plant in one place. The same number of cars is, what, 10,000 filters, all of which have to be perfectly installed and cleaned and checked and updated before it works.

It works out cleaner and cheaper in the power plant version, but you lose some on the distribution costs...


Roll on fusion power, I say.

It's called a muffler.  Most cars have 'em and they last a very long time at relatively low costs.

[Brunhidden]

Again, one of the downsides to electric cars is the fact that they have very little range and if you live anywhere in America you know that things can often be miles apart and drain your car in just one round and waiting several hours for your car to be viable again could really screw you over if an emergency were to occur.

There is also the fact that electric cars PRODUCE EMISSIONS!  The emissions might not be from the car itself, but the power plant has to produce the power some how and usually it's by burning coal which makes gasoline look like a clean fuel.

I understand these particular cars are crap, but i like the idea of the neighborhood vehicle and was just flabbergasted by the india one.

true, electric cars do not now have much range, but thats only because we have neglected them for so long. once uppon a time thomas eddeson made an electric car, marketed towards women due to it having no gas smell, virtually no maitenence, and being quiet- most electric cars today go just as far on a battery as the eddison electric, and i find that incredibly sad because we could have twenty times that technology today had we wanted to. all theese decades of the oil companies saying "this is an electric car, it does not go very fast or very far, and people will think you are gay if you drive it"

i myself would LOVE to have one, just because about 80% of my driving takes place within five to ten miles of my home.

and as for emissions from power plants, thats entering a whole new field itself- most of our 'green' power plants have one big problem, they have to be far away from where theyre needed. wind farms are in the middle of nowhere kansas, geothermal plants are on flyspeck islands, nuclear plants are told to keep away from everywhere, and solar plants are isolated in the middle of deserts- all of them work great, but because theyre so far away from the people who use the electrisity that you loose the majority of your power before it reaches the users just due to resistance of the power lines. if this were not a problem you would see many more 'green' power plants.  however keep in mind that coal plants are becoming cleaner every month, and we can do quite a lot for clean energy by replacing our current hydroelectric dams with more efficient ones.... most of the ones in place were built during or before the great depression, i think we've improved our technology in the last sixty some years, even in the 70's it was said that replacing them with new ones could double their output, i bet we can triple that.

the eventual idea, once hydrogen cars are more commonplace, is to put floating stations in the middle of the ocean, so as the windmills do not take up valuable farmland or irritate neighbors and the water is free, and just sail tankers out to collect the hydrogen it separates from seawater as it belches pure oxygen into the air... may be a good idea if people are afraid of rising sea levels, and your emissions are drinking water. until then hydrogen cars are a lot more doable today now that the electrolysis machine to separate hydrogen from water has been improved, they're now the size of a refrigerator and only need a wall outlet and a water source, so its perfectly doable to pop one in every gas station that wants one.

Evil Overlord Rulebook #74- When I create a multimedia presentation of my plan to take over the world so that my five year old advisor can easily understand the details, I will not label the disk 'Project Overlord' and leave it on top of my desk

[Alondro]

Well, a little thing people forget is that water vapor also holds heat, and water molecules have a very high heat capacity too.  So instead of CO2, we'll be pumping out hot water vapor which will alter cloud patterns and whatnot, and still end up raising climate temps.

The only solution is to destroy mankind.   

BTW, how did man cause global warming 12,000 years ago when sea levels were so high that Lake Champlain was connected directly to the ocean?  Or what about those copper mines and milleniums-old tree strumps being exposed under melting glaciers in areas that for living memory have been permafrost?

I think the truth is that we're only now just fully coming out of the ice age cycle and are entering the warming period, which may be sped up by CO2 emissions, but in any case is just one of countless hot periods in earth's history.

[Valynth]

There's also the fact that there are oil fields in Alaska and everyone should know that the only way to get an oil field of significant size is to have a swamp at some point in the region's far history.

[superluser]

It's called a muffler.  Most cars have 'em and they last a very long time at relatively low costs.

Funny, I just priced my car's emission system, and one of the parts costs $150 before labor.

Adding in $30 for the muffler, $30 for the EGO sensor, $70 for the fuel, oil, and air filters...

That's almost $300 for the lot, and most of the stuff has to be replaced every few thousand miles.

Plus, you increase efficiency when you generate all your power in one area, meaning that for every gallon of gas you consume in a power plant, you're pumping out more energy than a gallon in your car.  And that's before it gets to the emissions system.

In an electric 2005 RAV4, you get 4 miles/kwh, and given that the average US power plant emits 1.35 pounds of CO2 per kWh, that's .34 lbs of CO2 per mile.  A gasoline-powered one would have 22 (lowball city) to 31 (generous hwy) miles per gallon and 19.4 pounds of CO2 per gallon, or .63-.88 pounds of CO2 per mile.  Heck, even if you have a coal plant, you'd have .53 pounds per mile, which is less polluting.

In addition, power plants typically do not use gasoline (too inefficient).  Most use coal, which you certainly can't burn in a car, and we're trying to phase out, anyways.  #2 is nuclear, #3 is natural gas, #4 is hydroelectric, and #5, at 3%, is oil.  Changing where we generate our electricity would allow us to use some of the less polluting methods.

We cannot use natural gas (cleaner than petrol or coal) in our cars without compressing it, and that would not be very efficient for passenger cars.


(references in no particular order, because I need to fetch dinner)
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/co2_report/co2report.html
http://baltimorechronicle.com/2005/083005Korthof.shtml
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:N_9lpf-seBEJ:www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Usa/Electricity.html
http://carguide123.com/articles/2005_Toyota_Rav4.html
http://www.epa.gov/OMS/climate/420f05004.htm

[Valynth]

Plus, you increase efficiency when you generate all your power in one area, meaning that for every gallon of gas you consume in a power plant, you're pumping out more energy than a gallon in your car.  And that's before it gets to the emissions system.

Oh for the love of...  Just because you have all the production in one place DOES NOT INCREASE EFFICIENCY!  There must be a process somewhere in the plant that results in the increased power that can not be installed on a car and while it may be comforting to the imbeciles out there to believe that just because you move something some sort of magic occurs that makes whatever you moved larger.

It's called a muffler.  Most cars have 'em and they last a very long time at relatively low costs.

Funny, I just priced my car's emission system, and one of the parts costs $150 before labor.

Adding in $30 for the muffler, $30 for the EGO sensor, $70 for the fuel, oil, and air filters...

That's almost $300 for the lot, and most of the stuff has to be replaced every few thousand miles.

And remind me how much money do you make each month?  Also, how far do you drive each month?  Just because you assert one little bitty number does not add weight to your claim.

In an electric 2005 RAV4, you get 4 miles/kwh, and given that the average US power plant emits 1.35 pounds of CO2 per kWh, that's .34 lbs of CO2 per mile.  A gasoline-powered one would have 22 (lowball city) to 31 (generous hwy) miles per gallon and 19.4 pounds of CO2 per gallon, or .63-.88 pounds of CO2 per mile.  Heck, even if you have a coal plant, you'd have .53 pounds per mile, which is less polluting.

I've heard of Hybrids getting 50-60 Miles/per gallon.  And they are simply highly efficient gasoline engines (since the power that is normally wasted on a full battery is pumped into an electric engine instead).  so lets see about that little calculation of yours there.  hmm, in fact lets say that the hybrid gets only 44 mi/gal city and 52 mi/gal hwy.  that'd be about 0.44 pounds per mile and 0.37 pounds per mile and you don't even have to wait three hours for the battery to charge!

In addition, power plants typically do not use gasoline (too inefficient).  Most use coal, which you certainly can't burn in a car, and we're trying to phase out, anyways.  #2 is nuclear, #3 is natural gas, #4 is hydroelectric, and #5, at 3%, is oil.  Changing where we generate our electricity would allow us to use some of the less polluting methods.

There are emissions form Nuclear plants as well, but these emissions are contained and less in quantity, but they'll be around and directly lethal till most of us are dead and buried right next to the barrels.

Hydroelectric is only feasible if you have a grand canyon or twenty to act as a reservoir without impacting the local environment far worse than CO2 would (look up the Nile's dam project, it was nothing but fail and led to new diseases the Egyptians never had problems with before).

[Alondro]

Meh, nuclear waste is easy to get rid of.  Ship it to Canada.   

[superluser]

Oh for the love of...  Just because you have all the production in one place DOES NOT INCREASE EFFICIENCY!

Er, what?

This is wrong.  Staggeringly wrong.

I just provided you with explicit evidence that a gasoline powered power plant is more efficient...oh, wait.  I didn't.

A gasoline powered power plant produces 1.915 lbs of CO2 per gallon, making it .47 lbs per mile for that RAV4.

NOW I just provided you with explicit evidence that a gasoline powered power plant is more efficient than a gasoline powered car.

There must be a process somewhere in the plant that results in the increased power that can not be installed on a car and while it may be comforting to the imbeciles out there to believe that just because you move something some sort of magic occurs that makes whatever you moved larger.

I have no clue what you just said.  Near as I can figure, you're claiming that a power plant won't necessarily produce any more energy than a car.  Which would be interesting, since I don't think that anyone would build a power plant that wasn't large enough to power the equivalent of quite a few cars.

And remind me how much money do you make each month?  Also, how far do you drive each month?  Just because you assert one little bitty number does not add weight to your claim.

Here's the argument:

It costs X dollars per mile to maintain a gasoline-powered car at peak efficiency.  It costs Y dollars per mile to maintain a power plant.  Y is less than X.

How much I earn and how much I drive do not impact it.

Duke Energy Kentucky[1] spent $94,108 for maintenance and operations last year.  For that, they produced[2] 1,207 GWh of electricity.  That is $78 per GWh.

At 4 miles/kWh, that's a cost of $0.0003/mi.

At $30 per muffler, you would have to drive 100,000 miles between muffler changes to be as cost efficient as Duke Energy, even ignoring all the other emissions parts.

I've heard of Hybrids getting 50-60 Miles/per gallon.  And they are simply highly efficient gasoline engines (since the power that is normally wasted on a full battery is pumped into an electric engine instead).  so lets see about that little calculation of yours there.  hmm, in fact lets say that the hybrid gets only 44 mi/gal city and 52 mi/gal hwy.  that'd be about 0.44 pounds per mile and 0.37 pounds per mile and you don't even have to wait three hours for the battery to charge!

Let's compare apples to apples.

The most fuel efficient hybrid[3] with a gasoline-powered version[4] on the market now is the 2008 Honda Civic.  It gets 40 City, 45 Hwy.  That compares to 25 city, 34 hwy for the gasoline-powered version.

So a hybrid passenger car is still less efficient than a centrally-powered electric SUV.

There is no hybrid RAV4, yet.

There are emissions form Nuclear plants as well, but these emissions are contained and less in quantity, but they'll be around and directly lethal till most of us are dead and buried right next to the barrels.

True, but there are more effective containment methods for radioactivity than CO2.

Hydroelectric is only feasible if

Be that as it may, it is still more feasible than oil-powered power plants.  I know this because there are more hydro plants than oil plants.


[1] http://www.duke-energy.com/investors/publications/kentucky-statements.asp
[2] http://tinyurl.com/2bnkut
[3] http://www.hybridcars.com/gas-mileage.html
[4] http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-sedan/

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

So a hybrid passenger car is still less efficient than a centrally-powered electric SUV.

Provided there are no transmission costs in delivering power to the SUV no matter where it is.

Which is, just a little bit, incorrect.

I don't know what the costs are, but I -do- know that much of the power generated in power plants gets lost pushing past the resistance in the long-distance wires. It's one of the reasons long-distance wires are run at such a high voltage - so you can lower the current, and hence the resistance, and hence the loss.

[superluser]

I don't know what the costs are, but I -do- know that much of the power generated in power plants gets lost pushing past the resistance in the long-distance wires. It's one of the reasons long-distance wires are run at such a high voltage - so you can lower the current, and hence the resistance, and hence the loss.

It was about 7% a decade ago[1].  So that 4 miles per kWh is actually only 3.74 miles per kWh at the power plant.

That hybrid Civic gets .43 lbs per mile, while the all electric RAV4 gets .36, after accounting for transmission loss.


[1] http://climatetechnology.gov/library/2003/tech-options/tech-options-1-3-2.pdf

[Brunhidden]

Apperantly my statement that this is a step towards the right dirrection hit home. just yesterday GM and Toyota both announced they wanna produce 'ultra cheap' cars too, although GM stated its shooting for $3500 instead of #2500.

I for one would prefer a world where people without money can drive an energy efficient 'ultra cheap' instead of settling for the rusted out bucket of crap made in 1982 that smokes like a steel mill and dribbles motor oil on the parking lot.

Just so you know, i just described my entire family. the classic yard full of 5 vehicles that no longer move.

When in doubt, apply fire