Are Electric Cars an Energy Panacea?

Wait. This isn't a simple answer and I think that the premiss is missing that point.

You need to consider the complete supply chain for gasoline and diesel to arrive at the correct amount of CO2 produced by gasoline. One gallon can (allegedly) produce 19.4 pounds of CO2.

With a coal burning power plant (the worst offender) you get 1.83 pounds CO2 for every 1 pound of coal burned. Additionally, the efficiency of electrical power stations being better than a car, you get 950 grams of CO2 evolved for every KWh of electricity produced.

Electrical cars are more efficient at producing power to the wheels than a combustion engine and electrical plants are pretty efficient at converting heat to electricity and only 52% of the grid is currently produced by coal.

Some one else can finish the math for a direct comparison, but I would bet that the end result would easily tip in favor of electric cars.

Then again, I don't think CO2 is the danger that everyone else makes it out to be, so this argument is kind of stupid.

I think there are far more compelling reasons to opt for electric vehicles than simply CO2 production.

Anonymous Hero-

I think you are apprpaching the problem from the wrong point. One shoud not think in terms of pounds of fuel, but, rather, how much work is required to accomplish a particular task. If you are going to consider the input required to get the gallon of gasoline into your car from the point of extracting it from the well, then you must also think in terms of the total cost of generating the electricity and transmitting it to the charging point. What does it cost, in dollars and CO2 (and I like to throw in how much land you have to use to relocate the energy), to get you from Point A to Point B in your private vehicle? I suspect that moving your electric automobile from Point A to Point B is going to require more work, because your batteries weigh considerably more than the gasoline in your fuel tank.

The reason I throw in land use is that it takes very little real estate to move a gallon of gasoline from the well head to the tank in your car. On the other hand, you not only need to account for the land required for the mining of coal, the land required for the generating plant, AND the land required for the distribution grid when considering what it costs to power your vehicle. There are those that attribute as much as 30% of greenhouse gas accumulation in the atmosphere to repurposing land (i.e., deforestation for agriculture, building cities and roads, etc.). Since you can't have trees growing arouund your power lines, this contributes to climate change, according to some "experts". Note that trees don't interfere much with pipelines...

The real meat of the argument is this, however: something like a century ago, electric automobiles greatly outnumbered all other types of power systems then available, including gasoline, diesel and steam (at least in the US). They were perceived to have significant practical advantages over the alternatives (this when the electrical grid was not nearly as ubiquitous as it is today). Battery technology has not significantly improved since then. If electric cars were such a wonderful solution, why were they displaced by gasoline-powered automobiles so quickly (thanks to Henry Ford and the electric starter motor, mostly).

Battery technology has not significantly improved since then.

Actually, there have been huge improvements -- in fact these improvements are the central element in making electric cars practical and (potentially) able to compete with ICE cars.

Motors have not changed dramatically (although we have, for example, brushless DC motors now, that are slightly more efficient than DC series wound motors, and in most sizes where they can be found, slightly more efficient that AC induction motors). Electric car conversions still use plenty of DC series motors, and do quite well with them. The difference between a run-of-the-mill motor and a really great one (currently also a really expensive one) is pretty small: 85% efficiency vs 95% efficiency.

Batteries, however, have changed dramatically. Although the US lags in bringing lithium batteries to market at reasonable prices, the lithium iron phosphate batteries from China are now slightly less expensive (cost per kWh x cycles) than lead acid over the useful cycle life of the batteries. But equally important, they are less than half the weight. My prototype (plug-in hybrid) has 88 lbs of lead-acid batteries (just enough to test the concept, and adequate for peak power delivery, but not range) with 1.5 kWh capacity. These will be replaced by lithium batteries of slightly less than three times the energy capacity (and about the same peak power delivery) and just slightly more than the same weight. With lead acid, only about 50% of the energy capacity is realistically available, whereas with lithium at least 80% is realistically available, so in actual usage, the lithium batteries deliver about 4.5 times the energy per charge, while delivering about 7 times the number of cycles (2100 vs 300) over the life of the batteries.

Peukert effects are a killer for lead acid, but almost non-existent in lithium.

In casual local testing I have run my lead acid batteries essentially flat (the controller keeps them from going completely flat). (I am controlling the generator manually for the time being.) If it were not for the onboard generator, I'd have to have called a tow truck several times. So I am convinced that plug-in hybrids like the Volt (and not the silly Prius plug-in conversions that are hideously expensive but also very short range) will do well in the market. All it takes is a few times getting stuck with dead batteries to sour a consumer on the idea of a pure electric.

I would never have guessed that ever in my life I would be saying that GM has it right, but I think the Volt will do well, and that the Cadillac version will do equally well (or perhaps better, after adjusting for the expected lower volume because of higher price: i.e., the Volt is expensive for a family car, but the Caddy is more reasonable as a luxury car.)

My prototype is crude, but it drives as an electric car most of the time, and illustrates that the concept works well: an electric car without the crippling range limitation. Now that I am a GM owner, I wish them well with the Volt and its spin-offs -- even when running on gas alone, the Volt is still quite efficient at 40 mpg or so. (My own prototype looks like it will deliver on my modeling at around 100 mpg on gas alone -- but it is anything but a family car -- it's about 1/4 the mass of the volt -- an looks like it should fly, one observer told me.)

Although there have been a few series hybrids built with lead acid batteries, the thing that makes these cars viable now (especially in plug-in incarnations) is the batteries.

Even A123 is apparently releasing some moderately priced batteries -- although they are, I read, not of the same uniformity as their standard batteries. They seem to be "seconds" which might not be a great marketing idea... but we will see.

Where I live, I can be in the mountains in about an hour, and if I were still a sports car enthusiast, I'd have a Lotus for blasting around on the mountain roads (which can be clogged with racy bikes and cars on a sunny day). A Tesla, however would be useless for such fun: in spirited driving, the range plummets, so a trip to the mountains would have to be a two-day affair. In a sports car version of the Volt, you'd run the generator to keep the batteries full on the way up, and do much of your blasting around on electric power alone. Go back home, and spend the week commuting on nothing but electricity... produced in the US with 75% carbon based fuels, 50% coal alone.

But even on a well-to-wheels basis (in which, for the US, oil-to-gasoline-to-pump is remarkably efficient [82%], and in which the grid-average-fuel-mix-to-plug is remarkably inefficient [38%]) electric cars are still somewhat ahead on overall efficiency -- although if your comparison car is a Prius, it's a coin toss. But there are loads of other reasons for going to electric cars, such as national security, the potential for helping level grid load, the potential for using cleaner sources for transportation (if we ever crank up solar etc to meaningful levels), flexibility in the energy sources used to power cars, etc. The Volt will show that an electric car need not be difficult to live with.

(The Volt's engine is not likely to be as efficient as a Prius engine, but if we assume 32% peak efficiency -- which is about the only level at which it will run -- and 90 percent generator efficiency, then the 29% overall from gasoline to electricity is not too bad... although significantly worse, on a well-to-wheels basis than charging from the grid.)

My own experience with electric vehicles has been limited to lead acid batteries, and I do not believe replacement lithium batteries will be available any time soon in this market. Where we use electric vehicles (golf carts, actually) is in remote locations, where gasoline and diesel have to be shipped in by sea- pretty much doubling the cost one would pay at the pump locally. Even though we are looking at limited range and relatively light duty (low speeds, minimal slopes), solar charging can not compete with charging off the local power system, where the power is generated with a diesel gen set (yes, even with the added cost of shipping the diesel by boat to the islands, diesel-generated power is still cheaper than solar, in the volume we are talking about)- especially since one must generate electricity with diesel for other applications as well (refrigeration and air conditioning consume about 60% of the power generated). The main issue is with battery life- we get about two years reliable service from a set of batteries (yes, this could be doubled with a proper maintenance program, but one must work with the labor skill level one has available). I see some potential for using similar vehicles in urban settings, but NOT on the same roads traveled by more conventional vehicles.

I do not see lithium as a viable commercial solution any time soon, because of the availability of lithium. China has significant resources in this regard. The next most extensive deposit known in the world is in Bolivia, and Evo Morales is not about to allow northern Imperialists in to his domain to exploit this resource- nor is he willing to just sell the lithium. He wants to make the batteries as well. Americans want battery production on American soil- not likely to happen in the current political environment...

So, it looks like, for the mass market, we are stuck with lead acid for the near term, which takes me back to my original claim that battery technology has not improved much since the 1920's, when the internal combustion engine finally displaced electric as the power plant of choice. When I can walk in to the local battery store and buy a replacement 500 AH lithium battery for something on the order of $250 off the shelf, then I will agree that battery technology is improving...Until then, most of us are stuck with old technology.

Things in Panama must be much different than they are here. The Volt will have lithium batteries, and of course the Tesla already does. For my prototype, the lithium batteries I am using to replace the lead acid batteries will cost less per mile than the lead-acid batteries do. I think we have already reached the point here where about half of new conversion (hobbyist) vehicles are getting lithium batteries, and the price continues to drop. If the trend continues I would expect that in 2 years lead acid would be rare in new conversions.

In markets in which weight, range, and performance are not issues (fork lifts, golf cars to a lesser extent) lead acid may endure, but there are no real road vehicles slated for production with lead-acid.

Just out of curiosity- where do you purchase your lithium batteries? Are they common in battery stores, or, at least, available without special order, or do you have to go to a special outlet to find them? What are you paying for these, and how does this compare to similarly-sized lead acid? Is the recent news about China limiting export of rare earth metals having any noticeable effect on pricing yet?

There will be a side benefit of cleaner air in city centres. Also if cars are charged at off peak times it will even up the load and improve the power station efficiency.

Cleaner air gets my vote, even if electric cars are not very practical from other standpoints. Maybe we should close city centers to combustion engines and only permit electric-powered transportation in the densest parts of our cities. If you live out in the country, you drive your petrol-powered vehicle to a parking lot, then finish your trip in an electric-powered vehicle...Whoops. Gotta cut down trees to make a parking lot. Back to the drawing board...

Cities benefit from

• Tram systems
• Bus systems
• Underground/Metro/Rapid Transit systems
• Bicycle systems

so where is the advantage of electric cars in cities?

The road motor, with its infernal combustion engine, scores an advantage for journeys that are:

• Too awkward
• Too time consuming
• Too difficult
• Too uncomfortable
• Too expensive

to be done by the other means. Therefore the electric car needs to be focussed there.

Ok, I take the point and it's a good 'un. Ban cars from inner city.
But look at London, how far out do you need to ban 'em. Muswell Hill, still chocker, fumy etc...and there are still delivery vehicles, service vehicles etc.
(Disabled people in wheelchairs find the underground unuseable..)
Hmm, I dunno, nuffin to do wiv me guv, you'll never guess who I had in the back of the sherbet the uver day...
Del

Your smoking what now?

So how do you come to the conclusion that the land becomes unusable when the wind farm is put in place? Same with coal mining and most other mining? I have first hand experience with both. I take it you have not actually been around either ever?

We have many wind farms around here and they don't take up any land. They are putting up one only a few miles from my house and the land is still 100% usable afterwards. Wind farms use the same land that the farmers and ranchers use at the same time. The towers are above the crops and grass lands and a single wind tower foot print takes up less area than a small house. The actual base structure area is only about 20 feet across or less.

Coal mining is done with 100% reclamation of the land also. The top soils is removed and stock piled until the coal is removed and then replaced back to its original topography and is often times functionally better afterwards! We have coal mines throughout our state and I worked at a coal mine years ago and had first hand experience with seeing how its done. The land is only temporarily unusable for a year or two then its returned back to being good usable farm and ranch land again.

If you don't believe me please come and take a real look at how its actually done! It will prove to be very educational and in a positive way I promise!

And what makes you think a fuel or diesel plant (refinery) is the extent of real estate used to make gasoline or diesel fuel. You evidently have no comprehension of the real estate displaced and infrastructure required for drilling, exploration roads,upstream processing & collection.

Actually, I am well aware of the real estate required to extract and refine petroleum- and, due to the energy density of the fuel, it appears to be considerably less per MW than you might imagine standing on the bay in Houston or where ever (my studies on land requirements are incomplete with regards to this, because it is rather difficult to extract real production numbers from oil industry published information). The primary reason liquid petroleum fuels are so popular is that the energy density available from them is really phenomenal when compared to other sources, and they are easy (i.e., cheap) to transport from the point of production to the point of use.

If you are going to be serious about displacing fossil fuels, you are going to have to address the issue of why they are so popular in the first place, then tailor your solution to provide greater benefit for lower cost (and yes, one must consider environmental cost as well as dollars spent). My point about the excessive real estate demands for some of the more popular schemes is exactly that- you aren't going to extract energy from the environment without incurring some cost. All I ask is that we be honest about that cost when comparing alternatives- and I don't see honesty from most promoters of solar and wind energy schemes...

Its okay if the AE promoters are a bit dishonest. That just balances out the dishonesty and misinformation being produced by the detractors!

The only truth I believe in all of this energy usage and sourcing mess is what I have seen first hand. And first hand also says to me anything built by a human can be taken apart and removed from site by a human.

Oil refineries, oil wells, power plants, coal mines, wind and solar stations, roads, highways, and any thing else all can be taken down and scrapped if need be. They are not put in place and then can never change or be moved. There just has to be enough justification for someone to do so and just like that they are gone again!

Or maybe not

If you travel short distances every day and install solar panels into your car roof you can travel forever without buying fuel.

If you travel longer distances you can fix solar panels to the roof of your house or into your driveway which charge fixed batteries in the house. When you return home you can use the fixed house batteries to recharge the car batteries.

What's the problem?

Have you calculated how much energy is available from the area on the roof of your car that can be dedicated to solar panels, vs. how much energy you will consume driving your car? My experience with solar panels on cruising yachts suggests that your range is going to be severely limited.

With regards to solar panels on the roof of your house, there are a lot of variables here, like how much of the roof provides the most effective solar exposure, your location, whether or not you like trees in your yard. Were this a truely viable option, one would not need government subsidies to offset the cost of installation- EVERYONE would install them just to avoid sending that monthly check to the power company.

It is possible to live completely off the grid and avoid the use of fossil fuels for personal applications (like transportation), but this generally will require significant lifestyle changes for most people- changes that are not likely to be anxious to adopt...

The cars that we drive at present are optimised for using fossil fuels at current prices. Cars optimised for electric solar use will be very different. The upper surface area will be maximised to collect solar radiation so that the cars look like cockroaches (see the electric cars that do the cross Australia race), the weight and wind resistance will be reduced and the drive train will be more efficient.

If the collector area for the upper surfaces of a solar car is about 12 m2 (130 ft2), it is used near the equator and with continuing improvements in solar cell efficiency, that should be ok for my auntie who only uses her car for a trip to the local shops every day.

For solar panels on the house roof, of course, the amount of power you receive depends on how big your house is, how close you live to the equator, local shading effects and weather patterns but a main criterion is the cost and efficiency of solar panels. The cost per kW collected needs to be low enough, the panels need to be built into new houses and new road surfaces, car parking areas etc and then locally produced electrical power will become available.

As far as the reluctance to accept life style changes, wait until the oil price goes up past $150 per barrel again. Cutting down some trees in your yard to increase solar power collection for your electric car may be the best way to maintain your present lifestyle.

Now a 12 m² solar collector on top of a car, I'd like to see! You would have to hog the whole road! Oh yeah, and watch out for light side-winds.

I am not thinking about fixing solar panels to the top of a car. My concept is to build cars optimised for electric and solar operation so that solar cells would be built into all of the upper facing surfaces while still maintaining the desired shapes to minimise wind resistance etc. The 12m2 would be the plan area of the car. Is that a reasonable estimate?

An electric optimised car would be different in many other ways. Instead of the present concept of a central motor and drive train I imagine that a motor would be built into each wheel so that the only moving part for each wheel would be the rotor which would be the wheel shaft driven by the stator. This would incorporate the regenerative braking system.

To reduce stresses on the structure and reduce the weight of the car it may have more than 4 wheels. This also distributes futher the power transmission to the road and reduces the motor size per wheel which will help with cooling each motor.

With a vehicle like this the centre is free from engines and drive trains and I imagine that the battery pack would be slung underneath the vehicle. For long trips where drivers do not want to wait for a recharge, a mechanical battery changer at a fuel station would remove the discharged battery and replace it with a fully charged one (hopefully in about 30 seconds) equivalent to filling a fuel tank.

Modifying liquid fuel cars to electric is ok to demonstrate proof of concept but optimising vehicles for solar/electric operation is, I am sure, what the serious automotive companies are doing at present.

Hybrid vehicles, which have the worst of all worlds, are just a means of adjusting from one fuel system to another and will quickly disappear when electrical vehicle technology starts to develop.

Modifying liquid fuel cars to electric is ok to demonstrate proof of concept but optimising vehicles for solar/electric operation is, I am sure, what the serious automotive companies are doing at present.

Terry-

Can you offer an example of a "serious automotive company" that is actually investing in research into solar/electric operation? It seems all of the solar-powered vehicle projects that make it to the mass media are university sponsored, or the efforts of some independent researcher. I have yet to encounter a "serious automotive company" pursuing this...

I guess that this R&D into solar/electric vehicles is happening but for commercial reasons auto companies would be keeping it under wraps.

Hybrid vehicles, which have the worst of all worlds, are just a means of adjusting from one fuel system to another and will quickly disappear when electrical vehicle technology starts to develop.

I'd submit that, at least in the US, 1. hybrid vehicles (plug-in hybrids) can offer the best of both worlds, and 2. that when people start driving vehicles like the Chevy Volt and the Cadillac Converj, they will see electric-only cars as far too limited and expensive to replace the cars they are used to... but will see plug-in hybrids as attractive. An engine-generator unit is less expensive that the batteries required for long enough range for an electric car to be used as an ordinary car, so the entire Volt will sell for less than just the battery pack of the Tesla. It will also be more energy-efficient than the Tesla (which is remarkably inefficient at 310 watt-hr per mile) in part because it is not hauling around so much weight in batteries (almost half a ton -- ~400 kg -- in the Tesla).

Plug-in hybrids allow electric cars to use relatively small battery packs without crippling their market appeal. GM and I (and others, of course) have independently arrived at 40 mile range as being about optimum from a marketing perspective. (My prototype commuter micro car is a plug-in hybrid.) 40 miles (65km) is plenty of range for the vast majority of round-trip commutes, but the battery pack costs a third of what it would otherwise (or a fifth of that required for the 200 mile range some think is necessary for an electric vehicle to be broadly accepted in the US.) (From a Manilla perspective, these ranges would have to seem pretty excessive, I suppose.) Such a car is an electric car virtually all the time for most drivers, but does not suffer from limited range. It only takes a few times of getting stuck at night with dead batteries just 5 miles from home to sour a person on electric cars.

Electric cars cannot come down in price until there is a mass market for the batteries. Plug-in hybrids offer the only (probable) route for mass-market electric cars in the US, because we drive such long distances routinely, and because electric-only battery packs are far too expensive. Even the Volt will be about twice the price of an inexpensive car.

Here, another possibility for mass marketing of an electric-only car is the BYD, from China. If they can introduce this here for $20,000 with 100 mile range, the market could be large enough to generate some economies of scale... maybe. The BYD could be a big seller in other countries too, unlike the Volt, and those economies of scale could drive battery prices down enough that electric-only cars become attractive in the US. Traditionally, the US has been a very tough market for introducing a new small car from an unknown manufacturer.

Elsewhere, electric-only vehicles are likely to be much better accepted than they are here, so unless the Volt becomes very successful, I doubt that the US will lead a shift to electric vehicles. I don't have the actual numbers, but my sense is that in the conversion market here, 80% of the lithium chemistries come from Chinese companies -- they are ahead of American companies in getting batteries into the market even here. Ironically, I have contacted American battery companies about supplying batteries for production, and have received no response at all -- not even an acknowledgement. But I have received unsolicited calls from China and Korea, offering batteries.

"1. hybrid vehicles (plug-in hybrids) can offer the best of both worlds, and 2. that when people start driving vehicles like the Chevy Volt and the Cadillac Converj, they will see electric-only cars as far too limited and expensive to replace the cars they are used to... but will see plug-in hybrids as attractive."

I haven't followed recent price trends in hybrids, but the added expense of most hybrids does not offset the gasoline savings enough to pay for itself in less than 5 years.

Great idea for the second hand buyer, although.

Europe's solution is to simply make high mileage cars running on diesel. VW has a number of models that get better mileage than the Prius, but Europe runs a completely different blend of diesel than we do (much cleaner). Unfortunately, diesel fumes literally evoke an asthma attack for me.

I haven't followed recent price trends in hybrids, but the added expense of most hybrids does not offset the gasoline savings enough to pay for itself in less than 5 years.

Yes, generally true. And with the Volt, the situation is even worse than it is for the Prius, because the price differential is so much higher. (Although, in fact, I think Toyota did not position the Prius as well as they might have. I think of the Prius as a nice $22,000 car that is loaded with standard features, looks distinctive, and is very fuel efficient. The recent ones are larger than the Corolla [in interior volume] so can reasonably be compared to an Accord*** or Camry in terms of utility. You give up trailer towing with the Prius, but few Accord owners tow a trailer. So it is not unreasonable to compare the Prius with an Accord or Camry, and then the prices are extremely close, but the Prius gets far better fuel economy, and so costs less to operate from day one.)

With the Volt, this is a much more difficult argument to make, at least in terms of pragmatics. (There will be many people who will say simply that the Volt is cool enough to compete with the near-luxury segment, where $40,000 is seen as a reasonable price.) Although I have driven and appreciate Volvos, Mercedeses, BMWs etc., for my purposes, an Accord is plenty luxurious enough, at half the price. (I'll admit to having Cayman lust, however.) The large operating cost differential is seen when operating on electricity. The Volt will consume about 280 watt-hours per mile, so in a 40 mile round-trip commute, will consume almost 12 kWh of electricity, for a cost of $1.20 where I live (although the cost could be lower in many places for non-peak charging). Gasoline (at 25 mpg in an Accord) would cost $4.50 (at $2.80 per gallon). So each commuting day, you'd save $3.30 with the Volt. This, over 200 commuting days, would be $660 per year. The Volt will be about $33,000 after rebates**, and an Accord would be $20,000 for a comparably equipped model, so to save $13,000 would take 20 years or so.

The Converj will have the advantage that it's a luxury car and buyers will not be comparing it to economy cars. If you are a luxury car buyer, but concerned about appearances, and perhaps even fuel efficiency, then the Converj could seem like a good buy in all respects.

The production version of my prototype will take a different tack, and will be an economy car with an economy car price; then, any fuel savings have an immediate beneficial impact on operating economy. Of course there are other trade-offs: my car has about the utility of a Mazda Miata, rather than that of a Corolla or Civic or even a Yaris.

If the BYD comes here for $20,000 I'll have stiff competition, but even then there will be a small, but big enough market for a highly-efficient car that doesn't leave you stranded, and that can be driven back and forth to college, rather than towed there, etc. Until there is the ability to fast charge electric cars at every Starbucks, I don't think electric-only cars will make a large change in the US car market. (But how many Starbucks shops will invest in fast charging equipment, if there are only a few electric cars that can take advantage of the facility? Yet another chicken-and-egg problem.)

I agree re diesels - they make a lot of sense. Here, however, the price of diesel fuel has been a stumbling block as has the image of diesels. I considered a Jetta diesel as an alternative to my Accord (and being a cheapskate, I bought the cheapest Accord in 2004*, when you could by a DX (which had an odd std equipment level to make it undesirable -- electric windows but no electric locks, for example -- bait and switch style). The Jetta diesel was about $4,000 more expensive, and I could not come close to cost justifying the difference.

*This still drives just like a brand new car, as it comes up on 100,000 miles, so I suspect I will still be driving it at 300,000. (I've turned into my dad. Back when I was a kid, in 1959, I tried to convince my dad that he should buy a 300SL or at least a 190SL instead of the 180 he actually bought with the intention of keeping it for 30 years -- the idea being to own the world's cheapest car to drive in overall costs. He kept it for almost 20 years.)

** Personally, even though I like the idea of plug-in hybrids, I think a $7500 rebate is almost obscene, even from my generally left-of-center perspective. GM could sharpen their pencils and produce the Volt for a REAL cost of $33,000 -- but the rebate takes away a strong incentive to do that.

*** Actually, I did this comparison in 2004, when I bought an Accord. I was very seriously considering a Prius. However, the Prius came with niceties -- climate control, fun display screen, etc -- that did not make a lot of difference for me. The Accord bait-and-switch version cost me $15,300 (with dealer installed !!?? air conditioning) and the cheapest Prius would have been about $22,000. The economics did not come close to making sense, at that time.

Look a few years into the future.

Today we are emerging from a recession with low manufacturing output and high unemployment rates so that the demand for petroleum products is low and the world price of oil is around US$75 per barrel.

If the world gets back to a pre-recession level of activity the demand for oil will increase and the rate that mankind can produce it is limited to about today's level. Fuel for cars for the travelling public will be limited because the first priority for oil products will be the military, government, security services, maybe air transport, electricity generation, strategic uses etc. If there is any left for sale the price will be way above today's levels and the queues at fuel stations will go round the block.

That is without considering the possibility of wars between Middle East nations which would make it all happen faster.

What I am saying is that number crunching using todays fuel costs will not tell you what the design of vehicles will be like in the next ten years unless the world has a series of depressions similar to or worse than that of the last year.

If fuel for cars is not available or the world price of oil is at US$200 is there a mass market for electric vehicles? Yes.

Will fuel stations be converted to battery charging and battery changing stations? Yes

Will there be plug-in electric chargers at Starbucks car parks? Yes

Will the cost per kWh and the volume/weight per kWh of batteries be reducing? Yes

People with hybrids that they bought in 2009 will be retrofitting them with the latest batteries that will give them a 200 mile range and they will take out the engines because they keep breaking down and they want to save the weight.

And the new electric vehicles will be half of the weight of the 2009 hybrids, with 6 or 8 wheels using in-wheel motors, battery packs that can be changed in 30 seconds and solar cells with 40% efficiency embedded in the vehicle upper surfaces. (Unless they live in the UK where, due to the low solar energy levels and high rainfall, they will be fitted with waterwheels - according to Del).

Have you considered a three or more part, foldable, roof that can stack on the roof? It could be unfolded in the best manner to face toward the sun, and parked in the best location. We only actually drive our vehicles a small part of the day. Problem is in the winter when days are short and cloudy. Would be best for sunny areas.

install solar panels into your car roof .
You obviously don't live in the UK, maybe if you suplement it with a waterwheel?
How about some panels which work at night by converting 'dark' into electricity
Del

I live in Malaysia

On sunny days (which is most days) for every day of the year, we get about 1 kW of solar radiation per square metre from about 11.00 am to about 3.00 pm and reduced amounts in the morning and afternoon - probably about 8 kW hours per day. If my car upper surfaces measure 12 m2 I receive about 96 kWh of electricity per day. This partially explains why the paint is peeling off the roof and the inside temperature at mid-day is around 70C.

The energy received must be about the same for anyone living near the equator.

If my car was fitted with solar cells on the upper surfaces with an efficiency of 20% (are they getting near that yet?) I could collect 20kWh on a good day.

My office is 1 km from my house and the hypermarket is 1 km in the opposite direction. Would I need to top up electricity from the mains supply?

The best solar cell efficiency I have seen advertised is on the order of 16%, but the best I have been able to achieve with the best panels available mounted properly at 7º N latitude (not far from the equator) is 5%. I believe we are getting closer to 2 kW per meter squared here, but I may be wrong on that. So let us double your received energy per day from 96 kWhr to 200 kWhr, to be generous. At the 5% average efficiency that I have been able to achieve, that is only about 10 kWhr per day of battery-charging capability in your car. Based on my experience with very light weight electric vehicles (golf carts), this is not going to take you very far, very fast.

But, the paint on your roof most likely will last longer...

As I am sure you know solar cell efficiencies are increasing due to the R and D effort worldwide.

As you say around 15% is being claimed at present and we can hope that over the next few years this will increase to 20% or 25%. (Wikipedia says that 40% is claimed by some reserchers).

While this is not still not enough for a travelling salesman, for people who do not want to go very far, very fast it is worth having, knowing they can still top up from their home based charging system or a local electric fuel station (when they have been built).

I think it would be smarter to create a solar roof at the day parking space of your car, plug it in there and let it charge the car.

In case the car is not present, it feeds the grid.

This reduces the wheight of the car, thus less consumption while accerating.

Right now we see about 30 to 34% efficiency and average solar converted energy (on a sunny day) is about .3 kW/m2/8-hour day, so that makes out to about 3.6 kW/12 m^2/ day.

Estimate about 1/5 kW/mile for a typical electric car and that gives you, optimistically, 18 miles per day, which is better than I would have expected.

AH-

I am impressed with your 30-34% efficiency numbers for average solar converted energy- almost an order of magnitude greater than what I have been able to measure in actual practice with the panels available here in Panama (OK, maybe we don't have access to the "latest" technology locally, but most of the panels I have had access to for evaluation have actually been sourced in the US).

Whoops. Missed your "sunny day" caviat. However, there are not a whole lot of areas in the developed world where one can get maximum solar radiation for 8 hours per day (here in Panama, close to the equator, we get very close to that year round, but most of the developed (and developing) world is quite a ways away from the equator, and 8 hours of useable sunshine per day is a pretty good stretch...

The percentages are manufacture claims, so I don't know what you get in the wild with real panels under real conditions. Obviously, something less than ideal.

Also, this isn't going to go over well in places like Seattle, Washington. :)

I think that we are talking about 3 different aspects of solar panels.

The solar panels available locally are probably the result of 5 year old R and D and are mainly sold to local authorities to power isolated lamps and other electrical appliances where the main criterion is cost per kW sent to the battery. Who cares about the weight and area.

The second aspect is panels developed by this year's R and D which are optimised for maximum kW per square metre of panel sent to the battery. This is probably the performances presently advertised but only available to special order in quantities of thousands.

The third aspect which I am thinking about is the performance of cells developed by automotive companies for use in solar/electric vehicles. These would maximise performance, minimise weight and be suitable for moulding into the upper surfaces of vehicle bodywork. Available to auto companies in maybe 3 to 5 years time, we would hope that these would have efficiencies of 30 to 40%.

We are also probably talking about different methods for determining efficiency. From what I have read, 40% is way beyond the capability of current technologies due to limits in the physics of the systems, but that is subject to change as new approaches to panel design are explored.

The efficiencies advertised are most likely rated under ideal conditions, and have very little bearing on actual performance- i.e., one may get maximum performance for only 3 or 4 hours during a really ideal day (maximum insolation, minimum smog or haze, etc.). I do not envision automotive roof.mounted panels being installed with the necessary mechanisms to keep them angled for optimum absorption, especially since, every time one goes around a corner, one must readjust the angle of the panels with respect to the sun's position (unless, of course, one is located near the equator, as we are here in Panama).

There have been some intriguing developments in flexible panels and some experiments with systems that could be applied like paints, but, again, I do not see these providing the necessary energy density, given the limited area available on a practical automobile.

I would dearly love to be proven wrong in my assessment of solar energy, and I continue experimenting with the technology with the hopes that I will someday be proven wrong. But I do not think it is going to be in the next 3 to 5 years...

Wikipedia says that the highest commercial efficiency (22%) is by Sunpower using monocrystalline cells but I cannot see what year that was reported.

Wikipedia also says that the highest efficiency has been reported by Boeing Spectrolab using 3 junction 2 terminal monolithic concentrators at 40.7% in 2007. Hopefully they have made some progress since then.

No doubt Boeing are intending to install solar cells into the skins of their planes to reduce the use of jet fuel ;)

Just recently I read of an experiment where someone was adding a layer of what looked like bubblewrap on the top of the solar cell array, designed to concentrate the radiation- much newer than the 2007 report, but their results were considerably lower than that reported by Boeing. We keep hoping...

The Sunpower reported efficiencies are, again, for ideal conditions, and reality is going to be a bit less than this, I am afraid.

So far, according to my research into larger installations, the best available in the world today in installed solar plants of all types still requires on the order of 20 hectares per MW of usable power. Of course, 1 MW is considerably more than what we are talking about here, but these large installations have advantages in that they are fixed locations, and can be optimized for the sun angle, and many use active tracking systems. This, I am afraid, is still quite a ways from the industry claims...

"Just recently I read of an experiment where someone was adding a layer of what looked like bubblewrap on the top of the solar cell array, designed to concentrate the radiation- much newer than the 2007 report, but their results were considerably lower than that reported by Boeing. We keep hoping..."

Seriously, you have to wonder how that could work. The Sun still radiates a set amount of energy per square meter (under ideal conditions). Putting a square meter of bubbles over a square meter of cells is still subject to a square meter of radiation. Perhaps it has something to do with conversion efficiency.

In the end it comes down to cost. Under ideal conditions you can get enough energy from the sun to propel a car 15 or so miles with a 12 m^2 solar cell. The cost of that high tech car and the cost of the latest high efficiency solar cell is going to be very expensive.

Right now you can buy a used Honda for a few thousand dollars and go that same 15 miles for a cost of $1.00 to $1.50 in gas.

Apparently, the "bubbles" work more like prisms rather than lenses, bending light from off axis to improve collection under less than ideal conditions. My description of "bubblepack" is rather crude. the experimenters mentioned something about "nano-technology". I should try to dig that reference out when I have some time...

Makes sense.

The further you live from the equator the more sun you have in summer, and less in winter.

I also have a problem with the calculations generated by the others: I fear that they mix power with energy.

Solar panels sold actually in Europe have efficiencies between 12 and 15%.

If 30 to 34% would really exist on the market or nearly on the market, we would not do the trick with concentrated solar.

I know that it is reported but you need to read carefully on how it is measured: in most cases those panels have extreme high efficiencies in certain wavelengths and they show this performance when irradiated with this wavelength.

Why is this off-topic? Because Del dosn't like the answer?

Because of power conservation requirement Electric cars are lighter. They are not designed for long distance travel. All of which improves payload /Dead weight ratio. Fuel burnt in the power plant is that much less. Power plants can have centralised emission control procedures not possible in individual vehicles.

Some attempts were made to use aluminum primary batteries. This leads to production of bauxite as the end product, which again requires electricity to convert to aluminum.

No easy options. However, the balance of convenience seems to be for electric cars.

Until electric vehicles can provide the same level of mobility that is provided by IC vehicles, it won't matter how efficent they are. How much mobility are you prepared to give up to reduce CO2? are you prepared to give up 2-3 hours of travel to the 'worlds greatest fishing spot' ( in my experience WGFS's are usually a long way from a power grid)? Will you give up travelling to destinations that would require you to use commercial aviation?

What needs to be changed first are our expectations and behavior before we can make a start on reducing CO2.

This is why the "Greenhouse Gases" effect is up in the air. There are a multitude of aspects to consider in global warming. To include what is happening to the poles and what is happening to the earth's orbit around the sun. Which getting a tad more eliptical.

So we don't know what will be in 20 years, 50 years or 100 years. So to shove massive restrictions and taxes on us is the height of stupid. Since we are going down the 'green' highway anyway, we will have to see what is at the other end to see if we made good choices.

I don't fish and don't drive a delivery truck, so I don't really need the extensive range a normal car has.

The whole discussion is black and white but after all it will end up somewhere grey.

In nearly every household the second car could be electric battery driven.

Yes, when you would use fossil fuels to generate the electricity the result will be worse than just using oil based fuels in the car.

But: in some time in the near future the easy fossil fuels will be exhausted, only the expensive fuels will remain.

Then we will have no option: make electricity with wind, sun, tidal, pony's and yes coal, to charge the batteries and drive trains.

The little oil left will be used to power planes and other applications where you can't feed with a power cord.

So when you don't want to change you will get locked up.

And yes, electricity will be the future as it is the only energy form which can be generated "green", at the moment electricity is seen as very non green but this is only temporary.

And don't bring in the Hydrogen solution to drive cars, it is energetic the worst nightmare.

Just imagine walking home with you're weekly groceries.

That is where cars fit in the picture.

Humans are a mobile species, thus we will always try to find a way to go where we didn't go yet.

Ah, but better, imagine growing your weekly groceries in your back yard, or walking a short distance to buy locally grown seasonal produce.
Rather than stuff which has travelled half way around the globe and we only want 'cos advertisers have brain washed us into thinking we want new potatoes and strawberries at Christmas.
Pencil me in for a few more paragraphs of such stuff...
Del

You manage to condense the steps to take:

First create the low CO2 power generation and then see how we can make use of it.

At the moment the oil power strategy is: we don't have it so we don't use it so it is useless forever.

Let's break this vicious circle: I added 5.4 KW peak of grid connected PV panels to my roof. It might be ridiculous but when everyone would do this and we add tidal and wind power where available the picture looks different.

Now I'm waiting for the electric car to become available, reducing the power needs of my home so that I'm producing more than consuming. (production is at 95% of my needs now)

Gwen-

We already HAVE low CO2 generating capability- nuclear. We don't have enough of it. We don't have enough land to dedicate to power generation by conventional wind or solar to meet our growing demand- and our growing demand for food for the expanding population.

Ultimately, we are going to be forced to reduce consumption, either through the pricing of energy beyond the means of the common man, or because Mother Nature has finally said, "Enough, Already!" and unleashes the 4 Horsemen...OK, I may be mixing my religious metaphors here, but maybe I am making my point...

Electrification of all possible appliances, application and utilities [MAJOR SHARE] and all possible substitution of fossil fuel powered engines[ restriction to minor share] is the right en route left on us.

Though wind, tidal or solar seems to be potential alternate options, the reality lies else where to which we are not used to.

not if you intend to replace gas cars with the same number of electric cars. There aren't enough resources for the batteries, look at RoHS. So we are taking all the lead out of electronics but using it in batteries and crashing them into each other? (which is a hobby of private car users) - oh, use the latest technology batteries? Look at the resources available. There isn't enough to go around. This means a change in lifestyle, fewer cars, more consideration to the necessity of each journey, more public transport but cleaner air and capped CO2.

As far as energy storage from hydroelectric, wind, and solar, does anyone think it would be feasible to store the energy mechanically? This has been done for millenia. Water powered mills were run with water from a stream. Many of these would have a mill pond, damming up the water and releasing it through a mill race when the stream flow was low. Could these fluctuating power supplies store water, or some other mass of material, and use gravity to power the generators, and do it economically? Could all the municipal water towers have turbines and generators attached to them to re-capture the energy from flowing water that is stored from the pumps? I'm sure the technology is available, but could it be done economically?

There have been a number of schemes proposed to do exactly this, pumping water back up hill using alternative power sources, but I do not know of any successful demonstrations to date (suggesting to me that it may be cost-prohibitive). Most municipal storage tanks are WAY to small to provide any significant power generation (and, they generally use the static head from the elevated tanks to maintain line pressure in the distribution system.

The problem with storing wind energy by using pumped water to turn a turbine is that you get a loss of efficiency caused by the more stages you use!

Spencer.

Pumped storage is economical for a utility to do, (because of differences in day and night rates) and can be fairly efficient if done right. Typically it requires a very large reservoir. The linked site provides a comparison chart of various storage possibilities.

Wikipedia provides a list of places where pumped storage is used.

The real panacea would be vehicles that have full hybrid electric systems. The batteries are charged by an engine fueled with the best available fuel. That fuel could be gasoline, diesel, ethanol, methanol, natural gas etc. Large battery packs are not needed for these designs. This makes the vehicle less expensive, lighter, and gives it much greater range. The Volt would be an example, but it is too expensive, due to the way Detroit approaches vehicle design. They want expensive vehicles to sell. They are not actually wanting to sell large inexpensive vehicles. It will take BYD ( Build Your Dream of China.) or Tata or the Japanese to come up with affordable electric hybrids. Warren Buffet is backing BYD.

How many ways do you think there is to get a battery charged? Buy power from the grid has to stop any way - We are getting ripped off buy the owners of the big municiples -- why not take care of out self? George