well, i cant really fully express/explain myself with the chatbox... but i feel that i should tell everyone why i believe that electric cars and more specifically, battery electric cars will take off... firstly, you should know that at the beginning of automobile history, both electrics and gas cars were on the road... both were very inefficient and very expensive vehicles for the rich... in fact... for a time, there were more electric cars than there were gas cars... then henry ford revolutionised car production with the "factory line" and mass production, and all of a sudden, gas cars became much cheaper than electric cars. technological advancement in the internal combustion engine also improved much faster than battery and motor technology. oil was also very abundant then. and the rest is history.
however, as oil prices increases and that the internal combustion has shown no signs of change/improvement other than getting bigger, gas cars will get more and more expensive. global warming is also an issue and i foresee more tax incentives for zero-emission cars like electrics than there already are. I also see more taxes on carbon-footprint in the future.
on the other hand, with technological improvements like the CPU, out-running brushless DC motors, super-capacitors and the lithium-ion polymer batteries etc.. electrics now make a lot of sense... economically and environmentally as well...
some cool features of electrics are that other than washing the car and changing tires, there is really no oil to change, no filter to clean, no servicing needed... when the car breaks down... just call a mechanic or electrician or whatever... if anyone owns cars... you should know how irritating and costly it is to send a car for 100/500/1000 hour servicing... doesnt it sux to have to send your car to the mechanic when it is still working fine? that stops when you drive electric...
also with regenerative braking, your range on the electric car extends by up to 30% with no extra charge... instead of braking to produce heat... you brake to produce electricity... your motor is also generator... which means better for the flora and fauna too.. also, there is no idling on an electric... when your car stops... the motor stops... no waste of energy... which is great for start stop driving in the city... like singapore... or london... or any city...
that said... everyone knows that the car industry is very very slow when it comes to electrics... and you cant blame them... its a total shift of paradigm for them... of all the electric supercars that i showed you... none were made by car giants... although one was made in collaboration with lotus... in fact one of them, the wrightspeed X1 was built in silicon valley!! this is the stuff of high tech electronics... dun think of cars as mechanical things anymore... think of it as mechatronics... mechanical-electronic devices... thats how big a paradigm shift electrics are... so if you want to buy a cheap mass produced electric... it might take a while... although car makers are looking into it... i have given examples... also expect new players in the car market when electrics kick in... actually, there already are new players in the market... but they are kind of the high-end side of the market... so if you planned to buy a ferrari... why not consider a tesla roadster instead... afterall, it goes from 0-60 faster than a ferrari 360... looks cool too... the poser-value/smug-factor of an electric super car is higher too... haha... buying an electric super car just reads 'i am rich and i care for the environment too'... how smug is that!!... haha... ok... thats not exactly a plus point... but it just illustrates the poser-value...
other than buying an electric car, there are many (in the US) who are building their own electric cars or converting petrols into electrics... because electrics are really simple (if you are not looking for high performance or breaking speed records)... connect batteries to motor and connect motor to wheel... thats about it... its basically just a larger version of the common remote control car you got on your 9th birthday... the development of the in-wheel motor is also interesting and i think thats what the future should be... check out the hy-wire by GM or the mini QED's in-wheel motor by PML... with the motors in each wheel themselves... there is no longer a need to house an engine... and this will revolutionise car design... also more space for passangers...
anyway... i could go on... but its getting too long for a follow-up post...
cheers
Friday, June 1, 2007
the rebirth of the electric car
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2 comments:
Good post! But I must point out a few issues though.
1) Maintenance for electric cars is probably higher than you state. Batteries can leak, wires can be chewed through by mice, computers can crash etc. Imagine being late for work because your CAR had a BSOD! Although I'll admit that that would be highly unlikely because I think the OS for cars would be linux based :P
2) The Hy-wire was out 5 years ago. Apparently GM shelved the project after that, or so I've read. You got any updates on that? I think the hywire is a pretty cool concept!
hmm... well, electric cars are really not so complicated to need to use linux or OS X or vista. but some circuit boards will be needed. anyway, modern gas cars also have and depend on circuit boards to run their fuel efficiency programmes and stuff, without any problems from mice and the blue screen of death... haha... most electronic components of electrics is basically to control the voltage and regenerative braking. and they should be a lot less complicated than say hybrids. which, on top of that, need to measure and control both electric and internal combustion engines.
well, hy-wire stands for hydrogen fuel cells and a drive-by-wire system. cool stuff... but as you know, the hydrogen economy is yet to come so you cant really drive a fuel cell car around town yet. thats why battery electrics are so cool. it fills the gap of greener cars and ease of application. i think that replacing the complicated fuel cells in the hy-wire for batteries will solve the problem. but i dun think they have plans for that.
i think the real and main down side is still the cost and performance of batteries... the Achilles heel of electrics... but i think that as our laptop batteries improve... so will that of car batteries... of course you can always go with lead-acid batteries if you are not looking for top-end cars... but i think we should be more ambitious. =)
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