# When ?



## atzi (Jun 26, 2008)

My journey in alternative energy transportation thinking started off like yours. The EV must do everything or more than an oil based vehicle or its not worth considering. I have changed my thinking.
As I drive to work and lunch every day how many vehicles have more than 2 people in them? very few
40 to 50 miles a day is too little? How many of these vehicles will be driven more than that today? maybe 10%, 20%?
Electric vehicles powered by something new like lithium (80 miles) hydrogen (200 MILE) will come, but it may be years: it really depends on the money, how much can be made will determine how much tech goes into it.


sparkey said:


> Reading with interest all the different builds.
> When go you think an 5 seater EV (e.g. something useful to a normal family) with a range of 100miles will be technically possible ?
> It seems batteries, in their present form, are not upto the job. Which leaves some sort of onboard generation ?
> 
> ...


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## favguy (May 2, 2008)

Now!! I'm building one, and I'm sure many others on here are also...

A comfortable 5 seat hatchback car using a straightforward 144v DC system, 9" motor, 500Amp controller and 160Ah or 200Ah Lifepo4 prismatic cells (depending on weight of vehicle used) is quite capable now of doing what you ask, ie 100 mile range, seating 4/5, & highway speeds


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## grayballs (Aug 27, 2008)

sparkey said:


> I know during world war 2 they ran the busses in the UK on woodgas, whatever that is!


Woodgas (also called Producer Gas) is basically Carbon Monoxide, plus tars and other byproducts, produced from the incomplete combustion of carbon based materials. It burns with nearly the same caloric content as Hydrogen. During WWII gas was rationed, or unavailable,,, charcoal was cheap. A few years back I was experimenting with a producer that was consuming my daily garbage. Fun project,,, just not the most practical project for the backyard.


On my way to work each morning, 30+ miles, I'm surprised by the number of single occupancy vehicles (mine having been one of them, until about 3 months ago) on the road. I was one of those that made my excuses. After having toyed with 2 or 3 previous EV's (road worthiness being a matter of opinion), I'm now building a motorcycle for the commute. IMO the day of the 'all purpose' vehicle is fading fast.


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## TX_Dj (Jul 25, 2008)

sparkey said:


> I really can't see the small point of small 40mile range 2 seater vehicles in terms of expense and the environmental impact of producing the batteries.


Sparky,

What environmental impact would that be?

You know that Batteries are the #1 most recycled item in the world, right?

My EV will have a range of about 50 miles, give or take, to a decent depth of discharge, and may be able to go a little beyond that before hitting 80% DOD.

It is a 2-seater.

I will use it for nearly 12,000 miles per year.

If I were to drive my ICE Truck instead, the EPA says 14,000 miles in a year will produce over 16,000 pounds of CO2, not counting other emissions. That's 8 tons of CO2 gas not put into the atmosphere by driving an EV.

Sure, maybe you've been lead to believe that electric is just as polluting at the generation point as a car... but it's not true. The EPA is far more strict on regulating power generation (Hundreds of smokestacks) vs. ICE vehicles (millions upon millions of tailpipes) but... my power is generated 100% by solar/wind/hydro... So, that point is moot. Every month I save 100-200 miles worth of emissions just by using clean power. I'll save even more when I start driving the EV.


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## sparkey (Dec 8, 2008)

the new bmw mini looks good in terms of range but its only a 2 seater again.

I guess we are all waiting for some sort of hydrogen generator that we can make and provide similar juice to a ICE. 

Sparkey


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## booksix (Aug 26, 2008)

LOL, did you even read the response of the others? Who's waiting? Isn't the whole point of this forum to help ppl build realistic EV's (which has been going on for what, 30+ years)?? Dang, you and many others need to stop thinking of cars as go-forever, haul everything vehicles! Too many ppl are greedily hung up on convience over anything else; especially here in the US  We can all have cheap ev's and gassers on the sideline (or rentals) when they are truely needed!

TX_Dj, thanks for the specs! Makes me even more excited and proud that I'm working to get my EV on the road!


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## sparkey (Dec 8, 2008)

Appreciate your comments. 

My commute is 44 miles each way, so a little car is out of the question. Also need enough power to safely and quickly overtake trucks who are doing 60mph.

Just doing some digging on the fuel cell and it appears people have successfully ran ICE engines from Hydrogen. This looks to be the ideal situation. Have some sort of hydrogen generator at home running 24x7 and top on the car each night.

The other area I cant find any information on is how filling a car with batteries effects the NCAP crash rating, I guess getting covered in battery acid in the event of a crash is not good. Is this something that has been looked into ?

Sparkey


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## piotrsko (Dec 9, 2007)

sparkey said:


> Appreciate your comments.
> 
> My commute is 44 miles each way, so a little car is out of the question. Also need enough power to safely and quickly overtake trucks who are doing 60mph.
> 
> ...


It won't pass crash because the amatuer installed batteries have not been designed/installed to survive the anticipated Decel velocities. rollover might be annoying after about 15 minutes, since most battery manifolds leak after a while inverted. It would mess up the body work, electronics and the exterior. Batteries SHOULDN'T be in the passenger compartment. Perhaps the reason there is inadequate data is because there aren't a lot of EV's out there to draw valid conclusions from YET. I don't recall a lot of problems with the EV-1 in California. I also find that people that build their own EV tend to be in the low risk for accident class



My $.02, your mileage can and will vary


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## booksix (Aug 26, 2008)

What do you consider a small car? Or maybe, what is a mid-sized car in your mind? And my biggest question, why does having a 44 miles commute put small cars out of the question? I'm assuming it's a preference thing, but some smaller cars are quite comfortable. I drive about 30 miles each way and I'm in a little Z3 (fairly small). I think you could find something that suits your needs without being a tank and easily get the mileage you need (not to mention that satisfaction that you're now part of the solution and not the problem 

As far a crash ratings, a lot of people don't think about them. But, realistically, if you design your battery boxes well and balance your weight as close as it was with the ICE setup your rating should stick. As far as battery acid, well, lead acid batteries are being left behind more and more for safe, sealed units. But if your are using lead acid batteries and acid gets anywhere near you, you probably didn't design your vehicle/battery boxes the greatest.


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## sparkey (Dec 8, 2008)

I'm ruling out a small car as it must be able to carry the family (5) as I do not want to purchase, insure, tax and maintain two vehicles. The whole idea of the exercise is to save money at the end of the day.

Without being controversial I'm really not at all convinced of the so called 'global' environmental impact or indeed there is one from using oil. I do know most governments use this as a stick to tax people hence looking for a way around the problem. There is a lot of conflicting evidence on both sides of the argument and I'm really not sure at this point who is right. I don't think anyone knows to be honest.

My ideal conversion is going to be a 4x4 that can sit 7 people and pull a trailer. I know this is technically out of the question for batteries, which is probably why no car manufacturer has adopted it. There is no easy way round this problem other that replacing the dino engine with some other 'chemical' engine who's 'chemical' can be produced safely and cheaply at home or on the move.

There is a company in the UK (smiths) that sells commercial EV vans, trucks and such based on ford models. They unfortunately only have 100 mile range as well.

So I guess its sit back and wait with fingers crossed for a boffin somewhere to come up with a solution.

Sparkey


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## sparkey (Dec 8, 2008)

favguy said:


> Now!! I'm building one, and I'm sure many others on here are also...
> 
> A comfortable 5 seat hatchback car using a straightforward 144v DC system, 9" motor, 500Amp controller and 160Ah or 200Ah Lifepo4 prismatic cells (depending on weight of vehicle used) is quite capable now of doing what you ask, ie 100 mile range, seating 4/5, & highway speeds


I just noticed your in england!

Can I ask what car model your building ?

will you be able to safely overtake a truck doing 50-60 reasonably swiftly ?

How are you achieving the 100 mile range ? Most here seem to be half that ?

thanks!

Sparkey


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## tj4fa (May 25, 2008)

sparkey said:


> I'm ruling out a small car as it must be able to carry the family (5)
> 
> Sparkey


Only 5??

You may have to do a little re-positioning first but I think 5 is do-able once you get rid of the non-essentials like clothes and shoes (shoes take up a lot of room). 

It also helps if you let the hot chicks go it first. 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96vkzu5Ivc0


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## Qer (May 7, 2008)

sparkey said:


> I guess we are all waiting for some sort of hydrogen generator that we can make and provide similar juice to a ICE.


You don't have to wait, they exist and has existed for decades. The problems are, however, several before you can run a car on it:



Although converting water to hydrogen is not too inefficient, pumping hydrogen to tanks with enough pressure to give you a decent range takes a lot of energy (as compressing gas always take).
Hydrogen leaks. I don't know of any technology that makes it possible to build a hydrogen tank without leakage. Hydrogen atoms "sneak by" the atoms in the material of the tank so those hydrogen cars that already exist usually lose the pressure within a few weeks (or less).
Fuel cells still aren't reliable in automotive environment (too sensitive to, for example, shocks) which means that you need to use an ordinary ICE to convert hydrogen to movement. This process is inefficient and gives a rotten range (about as much as a good EV).
It still means that your car needs regular maintenance, like your current ICE, so in the end you probably won't save any money compared to your current ICE and, what's worse, you're probably going to use the same amount of energy as your ICE, or more.
15 years ago the industry said that the hydrogen cars would be here within 15 years. Today they're still saying that we'll have hydrogen cars within 15 years. I'm not holding my breath...
 
So personally I'm definitely not waiting for hydrogen as a car fuel. I think it's a dead end and if we want cars we can fuel up I say ethanol is the ticket. The only problem is that noone has dared to build an ethanol car yet, the flexi fuel cars we see on the roads atm are gassers that has the option to run on ethanol a well, although poorly.



sparkey said:


> I'm ruling out a small car as it must be able to carry the family (5) as I do not want to purchase, insure, tax and maintain two vehicles. The whole idea of the exercise is to save money at the end of the day.


If you look at it as a cost saving exercise there will never be anything that can beat a second hand car (with emphasis on second), for example a 15 year old Volvo 740. Period. I have a friend that excels in buying cars for maximum EUR 1000 (usually around 200-400), run them down, scrap them and get a new wreck. Iterate forever. EV's won't be able to compete with that for many years, if ever. Personally I think the economical value of the battery pack means that any working EV will always cost more than what a typical ICE in rotten, but working, condition goes for.

So if you're looking for lowering your bills for your car, this is the wrong forum for you. Yes, in the long run an EV run cheaper than an ICE, but since you want to keep your Swiss army knife-car and don't want to own two cars an EV is, as you say, not an option for you. Keep your gasser, nothing will probably be able to compete with it for years, possibly decades.



sparkey said:


> Without being controversial I'm really not at all convinced of the so called 'global' environmental impact or indeed there is one from using oil. I do know most governments use this as a stick to tax people hence looking for a way around the problem. There is a lot of conflicting evidence on both sides of the argument and I'm really not sure at this point who is right. I don't think anyone knows to be honest.


Even if we ignore the green house effect etc there's statistics that say that a little more than 400 people/year in Sweden (population 9 million) dies as a direct cause of car exhaust. Not from suicide attempts but from getting lung cancer and other diseases because of particles and toxins in the fumes. In the states about 16.000 people/year die as a direct result of coal power plant exhaust. That's approximately the same amount of people that the statistics say will have died before their time as a direct result of Chernobyl. Not per year, in total. Just two examples, google can probably find more.

Apart from that, a vast majority of the scientists agree that we DO affect the environment and that the climate WILL change. A minority claims our contribution to the climate change is negligible, at least some of those gets donations from industries that gain from those conclusions...



sparkey said:


> My ideal conversion is going to be a 4x4 that can sit 7 people and pull a trailer. I know this is technically out of the question for batteries, which is probably why no car manufacturer has adopted it.


My personal belief is that the car manufacturers hasn't adopted EV's because that would kill their real cash income; maintenance. That's why the manufacturers are all talking hybrids and hydrogen, it guarantees that the need for maintance stays untouched. It would be dirt simple for them to build an EV for those that want one (not much harder than building the same car as petrol/diesel/hybrid etc) and the RAV4-EV proves quite thorougly that an EV can be at least as reliable as an ICE, but since an EV doesn't need much maintenance the profit would be a pure disaster.

There are lot of people that would gladly buy an EV even if it "only" had 100 miles range, I am one of those. I already have two cars (we're living out in nowhere, we don't dare to only have one car in case it breaks down) so one of them could definitely be an EV.

One question though; if you've already ruled out an EV as an option, why are you here and why are you trolling?


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## Voltswagen (Nov 13, 2008)

Qer
I agree with most of what you have said but I think the jury is still out one the Honda FCX Water Car. It is too new to draw any conclusions about it's efficency or leakage.
I disagree with your conclusions about Ethanol. Not all commercially produced Ethanol is a viable replacement for gasoline. Here in the US
our Ethanol Production is Corn Based ( a mistake from the beginning)
as the energy gain after deducting the energy input to produce it is barely
measurable. I will admit that it does somewhat reduce our dependency on foreign oil as nearly all US based Ethanol Production is powered by Natural Gas. As for the economics of Ethanol, the price at the pump is now running higher than that of gasoline and being Corn Based, it puts a tremendous strain on our food supply and cattle feed stock prices.
Also it is now clear that without continued massive government subsidys
no US based Ethanol Producer will be profitable on it's own.
If you doubt this look up companies like VeraSun, Poet, Pacific Ethanol or BioFuel Energy Corp. they are running red ink like theres no tomorrow and many will have to merge just to stay alive. I know this for a fact, investing is my business.


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## Qer (May 7, 2008)

Voltswagen said:


> It is too new to draw any conclusions about it's efficency or leakage.


The problem is that even if the car proves itself to be a miracle, it's still a very inefficient way to produce mobile energy. But time will tell, I guess.



Voltswagen said:


> I disagree with your conclusions about Ethanol. Not all commercially produced Ethanol is a viable replacement for gasoline. Here in the US our Ethanol Production is Corn Based ( a mistake from the beginning) as the energy gain after deducting the energy input to produce it is barely
> measurable.


Fully agree. No debate. 

Here in Sweden there's a big project with machines that rip up the stubs from cut down trees (they get up approximately 60% of the tree ordinary left in the ground) and produce ethanol from that. Very interesting since it doesn't interfere with food production and, as I've heard, has a pretty good energy gain compared to, for example, corn. Corn is, as far as I know, the absolute worst way to produce ethanol. Totally worthless.

However, there's no way it'll ever be possible to produce ethanol in such large quantizes that it can replace gas right over, no matter method. The all purpose vehicle, the ICE car, will be history but this might be a good solution for the situations where battery power isn't enough.


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## order99 (Sep 8, 2008)

Well, i'm here researching a DIY EV because I think that it's the best and simplest design i've ever seen. Being rural, range will be a problem for me also, so i'll probably keep my Festiva for the long journeys and my future EV for everything else.

Personally, i'd like to see the rebirth of a good Stirling steam hybrid-I think there's one in development in Denmark right now, i'll have to try my Search-Fu to chase it down again later...the Stirling is a very low pressure, low heat closed-system design, and you could fuel it on just about anything. A steam-hybrid would just about be the perfect long-range vehicle IMHO, at least until the Battery Tech catches to similar performance and the Pure EVs win with fewer moving parts.


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## order99 (Sep 8, 2008)

http://www.hybridcarblog.com/2008/11/dean-kamen-shows-off-stirling-hybrid.html

Ah, there it is. And it was Norway, my mistake.Still testing at the moment, but sounds promising-and if it works, I think these manufacturers might be slightly more amenable to common sense than our Big Three and actually SELL THEM!

Maybe.

http://www.impactlab.com/2008/11/12/dean-kamen-develops-worlds-first-stirling-hybrid-electric-car/

Here's a little more detail.


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## TX_Dj (Jul 25, 2008)

sparkey said:


> I guess we are all waiting for some sort of hydrogen generator that we can make and provide similar juice to a ICE.


Who all? Why would anyone on an EV site be concerned with using more power to generate hydrogen than it takes to move a vehicle the same distance with that hydrogen?

Iceland was one of the first countries onboard with the hydrogen concept, because they have tons of geothermal resources available that they could use that power to break the hydrogen bond. However, they wised up (something other countries seem to do better than the US) and realized they can make better use of that geo energy by using it directly to power their cars, and are working towards that.



> My commute is 44 miles each way, so a little car is out of the question.


Why? My boss drives 50+ miles each way, and drives a Toyota Echo which gets him about 35 MPG, and he is doing 85 the whole way, passing "large trucks" left and right.



> Also need enough power to safely and quickly overtake trucks who are doing 60mph.


Why do you think this is a problem? Zemmo's Fiero has been up to twice that speed on a closed track. Is that not fast enough?



> Just doing some digging on the fuel cell and it appears people have successfully ran ICE engines from Hydrogen.


A fuel cell has nothing to do with an ICE engine. There is a hydrolysis reactor device which people are incorrectly calling a "fuel cell", but it's not. It's no different than placing a + and - wire into a cup of water and switching on the juice. This breaks the hydrogen and oxygen from each other, releasing the gas (which quickly recombines back to water vapor if not isolated from each other). Yes, ICE will run on just about any HYDROcarbon, the main piece of that chain is HYDROGEN. ICE is also about 25% efficient at best, whereas EV if 90+% efficient.



> This looks to be the ideal situation. Have some sort of hydrogen generator at home running 24x7 and top on the car each night.


No thanks, I'd rather not use 10 times the power to create enough go-juice to go the same distance as an EV could due to the inefficiencies of the hydrogen reactor and ICE engine.



> The other area I cant find any information on is how filling a car with batteries effects the NCAP crash rating, I guess getting covered in battery acid in the event of a crash is not good. Is this something that has been looked into ?


Yes. Every car has a battery. The risk is far more minimal than carrying 20 gallons of volatile flammable gasoline.

I've not yet decided if you're truly interested, yet skeptical despite EV's being around for more than 100 years, and thousands of successful and safe conversions from ICE over the last 30+ years, or if you're just here to troll for arguments. Maybe you could shed some light on that.


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## ww321q (Mar 28, 2008)

I would imagine that if you wrecked your car bad enough to squirt battery acid everywhere and get covered in it a gas powered car would be just as bad from gasoline burns . But a wreck that squirted gas everywhere would surely catch fire to . J.W.


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## ga2500ev (Apr 20, 2008)

sparkey said:


> I'm ruling out a small car as it must be able to carry the family (5) as I do not want to purchase, insure, tax and maintain two vehicles. The whole idea of the exercise is to save money at the end of the day.
> 
> ...
> 
> ...


This is the vehicle you are hoping for:

http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=656


A nuclear fission powered vehicle that gets 5000 miles per charge. Proposed in the 50's.

In all honesty to get what you want is going to require a massive infrastructure revamp of the transportation industry. You want an electric vehicle that can be continually charged along the trip. The vehicle technology exists. I've talked about it on several occasions in the past. The problem is that the infrastructure to do it doesn't.

Once you get away from using batteries, there's nothing that compares to gas in terms of energy density. It just doesn't make sense to use any other chemical energy carrier other than gas and its something like 33 KwH/kG energy capacity.

Personally I think your single car only concept is a bit shortsighted. But you're talking to a guy that has 4 vehicles and 3 drivers in the household. Each car serves a purpose. There are three daily drivers for the 3 drivers. One is an oversized V8 SUV that has less than a 10 mile daily trip. When everyone needs to go somewhere together, that's the vehicle we take. The others are smaller 4-6 cylinder cars whose primary purpose is to transport 1 or 2 people to where they need to be. 4 cars are useful for 3 drivers when one is down for repairs, like mine is now due to a leaking gas tank.

Point is few households have a single vehicle just as few households have a single TV anymore. An electric vehicle is not likely to serve the single vehicle role.

Your best bet is to purchase a reliable SUV then see if you can add electric assist with regenerative braking. For your needs you cannot ditch the ICE. Your best bet is to try to make it as fuel economical as possible.

ga2500ev


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## grayballs (Aug 27, 2008)

ga2500ev said:


> This is the vehicle you are hoping for:
> 
> http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=656
> 
> ...


I'm not positive, but I think that during Kennedy's term the there was even a design and possibly some beginning production of nuclear engines for AF1,,,, that was before anyone asked "what happens if this thing falls out of the sky?"


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