shakran

Apparently, then, Tesla makes a better car

-ducks-

Deltona Couple

-swings-

lol..nice one there. I hope you didn't think I was only saying that GM could make good electric cars. I started this thread to find out more about the other brands that I DON'T know anything about. I like the Tesla, but just saying that the size would be a big drawback for anyone needing to seat more than 2 people.

Again however, the batteries seem to be the largest issue with the electric cars. Having a battery that can not only be discharged and recharged thousands of times in its expected 10 year lifespan, but making it SAFE, cost efficient, and not rediculously expensive to replace when it's life is gone.

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"It is not that I have failed, but that I have found 10,000 ways that it DOESN'T work!" --Thomas Edison

shakran

Agreed. It would help awfully if the NiMH patent hadn't been bought up by Big Oil. That's a technology that could markedly extend the range of everything from the Volt to the homebrew cars.


That could actually start a new thread - - should there be a patent requirement that if one owns the patent, one must actually use, or demonstrate the intention to use, the technology contained within? That would prevent oil companies from locking competing technologies in a vault, but I'm sure there are drawbacks I'm not thinking of.

Deltona Couple

I am confused here. According to the current battery design, the NiMH battery design is considered antiquated next to the new design that they are working on, but the current batteries in the GM hybrids ARE NiMH....How could Big Oil be holding onto the patents then?

__________________
"It is not that I have failed, but that I have found 10,000 ways that it DOESN'T work!" --Thomas Edison

ASU2003

They are making the batteries for busses, forklifts and public transportation and other applications. But, I can't walk into Sears and buy a NiMH 156V, 300Ah battery pack for $300-$700 for instance. Li-ion and other battery tech is really expensive, and Chevron is keeping the NiMH batteries expensive, even though the components and manufacturing process aren't.

I could buy ~500 laptop battery packs and wire them all up though. I'm also wondering if there is a reason I can't get a large lead-acid battery pack as well.

In 2014 the patents expire I believe, so hopefully you will see a bunch of other companies making these batteries and competing against each other which will bring the prices down. It should be about the time that my lead-acid batteries need replacing.

Here is the history:

“In 1994, General Motors acquired a controlling interest in Ovonics’s battery development and manufacturing (because of the EV1), including patents controlling the manufacturing of large nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries. In 2001, Texaco purchased GM’s share in GM Ovonics (because GM needed money). A few months later, Chevron acquired Texaco. In 2003, Texaco Ovonics Battery Systems was restructured into Cobasys, a 50/50 joint venture between Chevron and Energy Conversion Devices (ECD) Ovonics. Chevron’s influence over Cobasys extends beyond a strict 50/50 joint venture. Chevron holds a 19.99% interest in ECD Ovonics. Chevron also maintains veto power over any sale or licensing of NiMH technology. In addition, Chevron maintains the right to seize all of Cobasys’ intellectual property rights in the event that ECD Ovonics does not fulfill its contractual obligations.”

The is more in depth, and a little biased account of things (but in a good way )
Who Killed the Electric Car: GM and Chevron

Psycho Dad

Hybrid and electric powered cars are not really the magic bullet. Changing our attitudes is what needs to happen.

We need to take steps to rid the unnecessary bells and whistles from transportation. I'm just as bad as anyone. Tow of my three vehicles have several wasteful features.

Electrically adjustable seats
Heated seats
6 disk CD changers
Electric windows

These are just the ones off the top of my head. While I enjoy many of these things on long trips, they are useless for getting my ass back and forth to work every day. Americans buy vehicles that they want to use on the weekends and then use them as daily transportation. A big reason for this is two types of transportation means more insurance, more taxes, more upkeep, more financing, etc.

A willingness to adopt basic, point a to b transportation would help more than anything.

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Don't always trust the opinions of experts.

BadNick

I don't see this happening, and hope it never does happen. To me it would be somewhat like eating just for nutrition and forget about all the other pleasureable aspects. There is a cost involved in being more than minimalist about it, but I'm also not going back to living in caves.

Psycho Dad

Changing our attitudes about transportation if far from cave dwelling. There is a guy at work who rides a scooter. He gets a good ribbing from the bikers when he parks among them. However he puts that aside to get to work on pennies a day. He also has a nice home and nice vehicles. And that's what I'm thinking we need to do. Not give up the things we enjoy, just make better distinctions between what we want and what we need.

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Don't always trust the opinions of experts.

Jam

Not to be rude, but I don't think you will save the environment by giving up power windows or a cd changer? I don't think we should look to lowering standard of living as a way to move forward.... That seems kind of bass ackwards...

I'm also a skeptic on all this environmental hoopla (flame on), and think that people tend to jump on board with ideas without really taking into consideration ALL of aspects. I don't simply believe everything Al Gore said because he put it in a fancy package. That said I also try not to be wasteful.

Psycho Dad

Not rude. You just didn't get my point. The extras are what car companies are concerned with, not improving economy. And that is due to giving us what we want. I'm not saying give up the Hummers with GPS, satellite radios, wifi, bluetooth. Just opt for a better mode of transportation to get us to work and the grocery store.

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Don't always trust the opinions of experts.

Jam

I do agree about the attitudes... I ride a motorcycle (when there isn't snow on the ground), I've got a bigger (800cc) cruiser for longer distance highway travel and trips, or in town even... I also have smaller dual sport which I am going to be using for commuting just as soon as this snow clears up and temperatures rise a bit. I don't own, and likely won't own a scooter for practicability reasons, where I need to travel requires higher speeds then they are capable of (unless you opt for a bigger say 250cc scooter, but my dual sport fills that void)... However I have often suggested renting them (I think they look like fun) while on holidays, but everyone else is apparently too manly to ride a scooter (and these are people who don't ride motorcycles).

Tech

just a couple things to throw in for thought. i work for an environmental non-profit and something one of my directors said years ago that always stuck with me is "there is no magic bullet, if anything it's going to be more like magic birdshot." i think this is true of the automotive movement towards getting off petroleum as well as the environmental movement in general.

i also think that while i, personally, feel that this movement is long overdue, it's not going to be an overnight process. all innovation involves risk and failure. i refuse to believe that the things that are being done with ethanol, batteries, hydrogen, etc are any sort of bullshit. we don't have the solution and we don't know where it's going to come from, so i encourage the support of any and all attempts to move us forward. i mean, Benz is considered to be the father of the modern automobile, but would he have even thought of attempting such a thing without having heard about the works (and ultimate failures) of Brown, Morey, Lenoir, Trouvé, Marcus, etc. i mean we talk about the issues with tesla's batteries and hydrogen fuel cells, but really, what do you think people had to say about Rivaz when he built the first internal combustion engine and was like "it's simple, i take hydrogen and oxygen and mix it in this container and make it explode, now why don't you hop on this wooden seat i put on top of it."

I also really like what Jay Leno had to say on Top Gear (in reference to the Honda Clarity):
"Car enthusiasts who think 'aw, this'll be awful,' no it won't. this will save the petrol ... Much like the automobile was the savior of the horse, you know in the cities, at least in America, the horses would be whipped and they'd drop dead. And then when the car came along it freed up the horse to be used for recreational purposes, the beauty of the animal, whatever you want to call it. And i think that these types of cars will be the savior of our sports cars; our MG's, our Porsche's, things like that."

I have cars that i dream of owning one day, all classic gas guzzlers, and i still want there to be some gas left to enjoy them.

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-Tim-

~I swear sometimes i feel like i'm married to a child.
~You better watch who you're calling a child, Lois, cause if i'm a child than you know what that makes you? a pedophile. and i'll be damned if i'm going to stand here and be lectured by a pervert.

souzafone

Interesting discussion here. I have to agree a lot with what Shakran has been saying about technology being misapplied in relation to fuel economy. In the '70's I had a neighbor with an electric car that was interviewed by the local rag with a lean towards eying it as viable alternative. While it had obvious shortcomings, basically it was a knee-jerk response to the times, which is what I regard a hybrid as today. It's very discouraging that the country that used to lead the world in the automotive industry won't even try to produce an efficient car that isn't either a gimmick or a shitbox. Don't even get me started on a bailout.

Jam

Actually speaking of Penn and Teller, I just watched their episode on Hybrids.... Not much real information on that one though... But it does lead to the conclusion that hyrids aren't as big of an improvement as people tend to think...

shakran

Damn. Totally forgot about this thread. To give a (very late) answer to DC's question, Large format NiMH batteries would work very well in electric cars if we could build them, but we can only build them at certain (small) sizes and power outputs. So yes, the batteries we are allowed to build are antiquated.

Toyota made an electric car (if I recall it was the RAV 4) that used these illegal batteries before the inventor sold the patent to GM, which then immediately turned around and sold it to Texaco/Chevron. They got sued and don't make them any more, but 11 years later and the batteries in the few remaining survivors are still running fine.

Deltona Couple

Technology in batteries are changing daily. The biggest problems that I have seen in batteries and their application, is weight v/s output. This is where we are having issues. The Tahoe hybrid for example had a large amount of weight removed from different areas to off-set the increase in weight from the transmission, battery, and controller modules. I am not saying that these vehicles are the saviors of the world, but I think that they are making a good step in the right direction. You have to realize that yes, an intelligent person who knew their way around electricity could build an electric car. The CHALLENGE is to build one that passes state and federal regulations on safety, and has been PROVEN so. Think about how many HUNDREDS of production cares are crashed for testing. Not exactly a viable thing for the small production guy who built one in his garage.

__________________
"It is not that I have failed, but that I have found 10,000 ways that it DOESN'T work!" --Thomas Edison