Re: Electric cars

Michael Lorrey (retroman@together.net)
Thu, 11 Dec 1997 06:27:39 -0500


Eugene Leitl wrote:
>
> On Tue, 9 Dec 1997, Laws, David wrote:
>
> > [ a remarkedly biased bit of a TV factoid ]
>
> Statistics do not lie -- liers do statistics. I would be very interested
> indeed to learn which exhausts a PV array emits during operation. It would
> be also interesting to learn where fuel cells with their ah so atrociously
> low efficiences do fit in. And synergistic effects of an electrical
> propulsion system (no transmission, smaller engine due to spike cache,
> &c&c)

PV pollution is a matter of the waste products of production. It takes
quite a bit of pretty nasty stuff to make a solar cell.

Electric vehicles are, in total, around 45% efficient on average, while
Internal Combustion vehicles are 18% efficient, on average. This is a
comparison of only the engine, power source, power train, and rolling
and aerodynamic friction. When Power plant efficiencies are figured in,
it comes out that EVs are on average 3 times more energy efficient, and,
including power plant emissions, 33% cleaner than current IC technology.
(of course, this fails to measure emissions of oil refineries, hint
hint)

Once this is determined, one then evaluates the economic value of these
benefits, and weighs them against the drawbacks, like decreased range,
speed, safety, and user time wasted waiting for charging, and the higher
cost to purchase a vehicle.

Personally, I think that if all a driver needs a car for is to commute
50 miles or less each day (as is the case with 80% of American workers),
then an EV makes sense. If one hopes to use a car for any recreational
purposes, however, an EV is not a good idea. An EV may be a good choice
for one vehicle in a two vehicle household for weekday carpooling.

>
> It is a popular trick to discredit an emerging technology by publishing a
> biased study. The pattern is always the same, but the trick apparently
> grows never stale.
>
> ciao,
> 'gene

-- 
TANSTAAFL!!!
			Michael Lorrey
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mailto:retroman@together.net	Inventor of the Lorrey Drive
MikeySoft: Graphic Design/Animation/Publishing/Engineering
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