<VV> RE: electric vehicles no corvair

[Steven R. Marti]

One of the problems I see with full electric vehicles is range.  Hybrids can
fix this.  Frankly I don't think their performance is quite good enough.
Seems like a similar size cars with an efficient diesel can still beat the
hybrid on the highway.  Once you do the math it looks like  more of an
environmental argument than economics.

An interesting electric was the single seat sparrow by Corbin motors.  I
thought about it until I took a good look at the numbers.  If everything
worked just right I might have been able to commute to work and back with
little margin.  Forget about side trip on the way home or battery
performance loss in colder climates.

There used to be a web site with a diary of someone using one of these cars.
There were things that didn't work quite right that one wouldn't normally
tolerate in a new car.  Trips sounded like adventures and the driver was
constantly looking for outlets where he could plug it while parked.  Home
depot, Wal-Mart and such.  How likely will it be that various places will
let you charge up for free if electric become common?

Doesn't make environmental sense to me unless there's a clean electricity
source. Then a lot of ideas can make more sense.  Hydrogen and fuel cells
for example.  Instruments on the west coast are detecting pollutants from
coal consumption in China so having the pollution coming from the power
plants and not the cars isn't really fixing anything.  Everyone is downwind
of someone else.

If you want a hobby and like to experiment go for it.  The supplemental plug
in option for the hybrids is interesting too, but story I just heard is
companies offering the add on equipment are quoting $6-10k.

Steve
Message: 4
Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2005 11:47:08 -0700 (PDT)
From: TiM M <mr_tim34 at yahoo.com>
Subject: <VV> Re: Electronic Vairs
To: virtualvairs at corvair.org
Message-ID: <20050821184708.44495.qmail at web30702.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

Sorry for the belated reply to this post. I'm a bit
behind in my e-mail, I've been working on the truck

     I have a 1961 Rampside pickup that has been
converted to run on electric power. The cost for the
conversion was about $6000.00. That's a little over
the $5000.00 dollar number someone else came up with,
but not much. What does that $6k get you? You get a
totally silent vehicle that doesn't pollute locally.
Yes, there is still pollution generated at the power
plant, a point source of pollution that is tightly
monitored and generally has up to date pollution
controls on it. It's not a small variable pollution
source that's wandering around residential
neighborhoods spreading it's pollution everywhere,
that possibly has it's pollution controls checked once
a year, depending on where you live.
     When people start slamming electric cars they go
right to the "Power plants pollute to generate
electricity". Yes they do, and refineries pollute to
make gas, and tanker trucks pollute transporting gas,
my electricity comes in by wires. I can charge at
night when the power companies generally have an
excess of power and would like to see an increased
load. There are all kinds of variables that need to be
taken into consideration when looking at the amount of
pollution generated to get power, when talking about
cars most people ignore anything that happens before
the gas pump. Is it unfair to view an electric vehicle
in the same way?
I can "fill my tank" anywhere there is an outlet. Sure
it takes quite a bit longer to fill, 4 to 8 hours on
120V, or 2 to 4 hours on 220V. But the 8-hour estimate
is for an empty tank, if I can top off anywhere, I can
keep my charge time to a minimum. The cost for a
typical 8-hour charge? Electricity is a little pricey
out here, 13 cents a KWH, I put in 10 last night,
that's $1.30 and that was for a 30 mile trip. Gas runs
$2.80 for regular, 2.80/1.30 times 30 = an equivalent
electrical mileage of 64mpg. Not bad for a 44 year old
pick up truck. It gets even better if I use mid grade
or premium gas pricing, what do you typically run in
your Corvair?
     The downside? I only get around 50 to 60 miles
per charge. I can't tell you exactly yet, I've just
upgraded the truck and put in a new battery pack. The
batteries need to be broken in, I did my longest trip
to date only yesterday, that's where the 30 mile
number came from. I've only had it back on the road
for a week.
     The battery pack by itself cost $2k, it should be
good for 3 to 5 years, your mileage may vary. Is $2k
for 3 or more years worth of gas reasonable? How about
the fact that the major maintenance on my truck now
consists of adding water to the batteries one a month?
No oil to change (except in the differential) no wires
to go bad (low voltage 2/0 welding cable will last the
life of the car) no points, no plugs, no timing or
valves to adjust. Now if you're into working on cars I
can see where you might miss this activity, but would
you really miss the cost of buying all the parts?
     This is the main reason the auto manufacturers
are anti electric vehicles, no maintenance. The
dealers and the major car companies make a substantial
amount of money from their maintenance operations. The
electric motor has essentially one moving part, the
armature and two bearings to support it. It moves in
one direction only. How simple it that? It's taken
over a hundred years for them to get so efficient at
making internal combustion engines (ICE) that they can
say electric cars are too complicated and expensive to
make. The levels of complexity between an ICE and an
electric motor are mind-boggling. Just link of how
many parts there are and how they move in how many
different directions, and what mechanisms are needed
to accomplish this. 
     I'm not expecting to convert anybody over to
drive electric, it just bothers me to see the same old
myths being put out as fact against what I obviously
feel is a viable alternative to burning dino juice, a
somewhat limited commodity in today's market place.

Tim McCann
'61 electric Rampside back on the road again!

PS 
Myth 1. Solar cells can put out more power that was
used to make them in as little as a year, and most
come with 20-year warranties.
http://www.ecotopia.com/apollo2/pvpayback.htm

Myth 2. Hybrid car battery packs cost $$ and my buddy
had to replace his
The battery packs are guaranteed for 10 years, 100,000
miles, they haven't gotten there yet, with the
computer controlled charging and cycling, and their
advanced chemistries, it's hard to predict how long
they really will last. If they started building enough
of them the cost would drop dramatically as well. How
much would your engine cost you if you hired a
machinist to machine it for you?  Economies of scale
is a powerful concept isn't it?



		

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