Recent Comments:
Corvette Z06 wins MPG Marathon in the UK {Autoblog Green}
Oct 11th 2008 1:48PM Come on guys, don't pretend you're not surprised that a 500hp car managed an average of 30mpg. I think it's plenty impressive.
Was it THE Richard Hammond? Or is that a second Richard Hammond with the car in that photo?
U.S. DOE pays for half of Ford's $20m plug-in Escape hybrid program {Autoblog Green}
Oct 7th 2008 4:00PM I'm pretty sure the plug-in Escape is still a parallel-series combo like the Prius and regular Hybrid Escape.
some typos: obviously "speeds up to 40mph" instead of 40mpg, and also that should be a 10 kWh battery pack, not 10 kW, although I see that's how they wrote it in the press release. If the battery output were limited to only 10kW of power, this thing would definitely not be getting up to 40mph on electric power! They meant to say 10 kilowatt-hours referring to the total energy capacity of the pack.
MOPAR fan converts Plymouth Duster to electric {Autoblog Green}
Oct 3rd 2008 10:51AM Dude! That's a sweet project, but T-125s are 30kg each! That's 1700lbs of batteries! And he's got those all wired up in series, which means all 500 of those amps are going through each of those batteries. I hope he plans on welding those battery terminals! I've seen T-125 terminals melt under much lower current. Personally, I would wire those batteries up in two parallel strings of 13 batteries for a 78V pack. Sure that brings the top speed of your motor down, but you'll be doing the batteries a huge favour. Less risk of melting the terminals, and the batteries will have a much longer life without all that 500amp abuse. Besides he could keep a decent top speed with proper gearing.
The warp 9 is definitely a beast though, although this is gonna be a heavy car with all those batteries. Maybe two warp 9's? One for each rear wheel??
Officially Official: BMW Concept X1 {Autoblog}
Oct 1st 2008 12:16PM They should skip an X1 and just do a sporty X2 coupe. I really like the design of the X6, except that it's just such a beast, the thing is insanely huge... If they had a similar vehicle done to a 3/4 scale and with a two-door option, that would bring more to the table than this 9/10ths scale X3.
Settle down: Volt batteries can recharge while driving {Autoblog}
Sep 26th 2008 11:46PM Once again, I've built a pair of my own series hybrid vehicles, and I've spent a good chunk of my day explaining to new students about how the engine does not power the wheels directly. I know how these things work! My point was just to reinforce the fact that these batteries would in no way be useless dead weight once the SOC goes down and the engine kicks in. You could imagine a series hybrid vehicle without batteries, where the electrical output of the engine went directly to the motor without any electrical energy storage in between. In that case, you'd be totally limited by the maximum power of your engine. With batteries in the equation (even half discharged batteries) you're able to build up an energy buffer, storing excess energy when not needed (coasting, idling) that you can access when you need it (accelerating), sending more power through your electric motor than the engine can produce instantaneously.
sorry to repeat myself
Settle down: Volt batteries can recharge while driving {Autoblog}
Sep 26th 2008 2:55PM I wouldn't agree with that. Toyota has really good sales of a vehicle that gets 40-60mpg. GM is boasting about a car that, if driven from home to work and back every day, if that's less than 40 miles, the car will literally get infinity mpg since it won't burn any fuel at all. All that without the range limitation of a pure EV. This thing is a totally different ball game from the Prius, and you can bet that Toyota, GM, Chrysler, and everybody else are gonna be giving a crack at this kind of car in the very near future.
Settle down: Volt batteries can recharge while driving {Autoblog}
Sep 26th 2008 2:48PM trust me, i'm sitting right next to two series hybrid vehicles I built myself, I've spent half my day explaining to new students how the engine is not connected to the wheels. I'm just saying that without the batteries in place (say the engine generated electricity to power the motor directly without batteries) then you'd be limited by the maximum power of the engine, which would not allow for very impressive acceleration. The batteries allow the engine to store up excess power when it's not needed (coasting, idling...) and then access that excess power when it's needed for acceleration.
Settle down: Volt batteries can recharge while driving {Autoblog}
Sep 26th 2008 2:25PM You guys should also point out that, even in "charge sustaining" mode, the battery isn't at all useless. Without the battery, you'd be relying on a 1.4L engine to move the car around. With the batteries, you can build up a bit of a buffer, and during acceleration, you can access more power than the engine is able to make instantaneously.
Balqon officially launches world's most powerful electric truck {Autoblog Green}
Sep 23rd 2008 9:01PM That CAT actually uses a diesel generator to power the electric drive, just like a big ol' locomotive. I'm not sure what kind of electrical storage these types of vehicles typically have (if any), that article definitely doesn't mention anything, and I'm certain it's electric only range wouldn't be anywhere near the Balquon truck. It might not even be able to drive without the diesel generator running. The truck in this article is totally different.
Should T. Boone Pickens learn more about hydrogen cars? Greg Blencoe thinks so {Autoblog Green}
May 30th 2008 8:36AM He makes a few good points, but I really don't see how driving range relates to the efficiency of storing energy in batteries vs hydrogen. They're completely separate issues, and if you ask me, the range thing is irrelevant when you consider the distance driven in the vast majority of drives. Of much more significance is the overall efficiency of your fleet of millions of vehicles. If you need twice as much or more electricity production with a country full of fuel cell cars as compared to BEVs, that's a serious issue.
Basically he just says that the lower efficiency of hydrogen storage is justified by the low efficiency of gasoline powered vehicles, which is obviously a little odd.
I also don't understand why he's attacking BEVs on the grounds that the electricity is often not very clean, since this also applies to a hydrogen economy.
To be honest, I think hydrogen range extended BEVs are pretty interesting, and might be a good long term solution, but I don't know if the cost will outweigh the benefits as compared to a Volt like vehicle running on a cellulosic ethanol for example.
Anyways, I'm just impressed that there actually are some experts who still back the hydrogen economy. I thought we had all jumped the boat.
