Are electronic cars a new innovation, or just another way to use up earth's resources?
24 replies, posted
Well, I shouldn't be theorising, but hey, WHY THE FUCK NOT? Now, the point is , are electronic cars a good thing or a bad one? I mean, look at all these cities, they use up thousands of giggawats per second. But hey, it's your opinion.
[IMG]http://imgur.com/QM76n.jpg[/IMG]
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Electronic cars are only good for the environment if the electricity production of that country is.
Most countries around the world use oil power plants. Driving an electric car in these countries is completely pointless.
However, if your country has a large percentage of green energy (solar, nuclear, wind, water), then it helps the environment to drive electric. In theory at least. I don't know exactly what goes into producing and maintaining electric cars. But it's definitely a hot topic and will probably become standard in the future. A diesel engine typically has thermal efficiency of less than 30 %. An electric generator can reach efficiencies up to 90 %!
Electronic cars are not even a new innovation, they were far ahead of internal combustion cars for a while. That was back when they were being called horseless carriages.
The technology has only recently gotten to where it's viable again. The reason internal combustion eventually won out in the early 20th century was, due to developments in the technology, it was much more powerful. You could just do more with it.
Environmentally speaking, there are too many variables to factor in. Emissions from internal combustion engines have gotten tremendously better recently, and there's no power source of any great significance that doesn't harm the environment in some way, so it's kind of neutral. Really the reason you'd want an electric car is that it should be relatively cheaper to fuel.
Electric cars suck because you have to buy a new battery every 5 years
For the nissan leaf that costs $9000
Electric cars are currently worthless. You're buying a car that has [I]huge[/I] amounts of non-recyclable materials, and it can barely go more than 50 miles in [I]real world[/I] driving without needing 8 hours to recharge. Every couple years you need to replace the battery, which is about the same cost as buying a whole new engine and transmission in a regular car.
Once battery technology (capacity, lifetime, cost) improves they may have a purpose and can compete properly with diesel cars, but as it is the electric car (and some hybrids) is a way to cash in on hippies that don't do the research when it comes to the total pollution produced in a car's manufacturing process and during the total lifetime of the car. Or, they are for people that never drive more than 70 miles, ever.
[QUOTE=J Paul;34495432]There's no power source of any great significance that doesn't harm the environment in some way[/QUOTE]
Maybe not globally, but on a local level, sure there is! Here in Sweden we get half our power from water power plants. Iceland is even better, they get [I]all[/I] their electricity from dams and geothermal plants.
[QUOTE=Rad McCool;34495648]Maybe not globally, but on a local level, sure there is! Here in Sweden we get half our power from water power plants. Iceland is even better, they get [I]all[/I] their electricity from dams and geothermal plants.[/QUOTE]
Dams fuck up the local water system and ecosystem, AFAIK.
[QUOTE=Rad McCool;34495648]Maybe not globally, but on a local level, sure there is! Here in Sweden we get half our power from water power plants. Iceland is even better, they get [I]all[/I] their electricity from dams and geothermal plants.[/QUOTE]
Dams aren't so good, though. And for something to be so localized and so specialized, it's not such a significant source of power. It's great for the people who live there, but most people don't live there. Some places don't have such good options.
I'm just saying, if you live in Sweden or Iceland or any other similar country, then electric cars are great from an environmental view!
Hydrogen, We would be using it if oil companies weren't dicks.
Just go check out the patents of major oil companies and see how many hydrogen related inventions are on them
Electric cars are just a waste of time. There's nothing wrong with ICE power, just find another fuel. Current gas engines run happily on H2 gas, and diesels will run on...well, pretty much anything.
[QUOTE=TestECull;34495814]Electric cars are just a waste of time. There's nothing wrong with ICE power, just find another fuel. Current gas engines run happily on H2 gas, and diesels will run on...well, pretty much anything.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, there's been hydrogen powered concept / prototype cars since the 1970s.
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/EfbMB.jpg[/IMG]
[QUOTE=Satane;34497690]it also takes a lot of energy to make hydrogen.
so make more dams ? place water turbines on waterfalls ? i don't see a problem with that, why wouldnt se harness the power of water ?[/QUOTE]
Dams are an enormous problem.
I'm not saying we shouldn't harness available energy sources, but dams aren't a good way of doing that at all. They destroy habitat, populations, entire ecosystems, and often set up conditions for invasive species.
Put solar panels on the cars.
Self-powering cars.
[QUOTE=Zedicus Mann;34498159]Put solar panels on the cars.
Self-powering cars.[/QUOTE]
It's an okay idea, the problem is the amount of surface area you need to generate enough energy to power a vehicle that is at all useful is so much that it just doesn't work. The car would have to be a big flat thing, maybe even tens of meters in diameter.
The only idea like this that has worked so far is a solar powered airplane that can in theory stay up in the air indefinitely through charging its batteries all day using the sun, and then flying on batteries through the night, the problem is that it seats only one person in a very tiny compartment, it carries no cargo, and it isn't terribly fast, and compared to all of that uselessness, it's also relatively huge because the surface area of the solar panels on the wings needs to be incredibly large, the wings being larger also makes the craft more efficient. Carrying only one person means even though it can fly indefinitely in theory, it can really only fly as long as the pilot can stay awake and physically able, in a cold cramped cockpit in which you simply cannot move.
So basically it's a very large, very complicated, very expensive plane that has less effective usefulness than an internal combustion-powered ultralight, because those can usually carry a little bit of cargo.
Solar powered car:
[img]http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kxgk2yX27n1qamvu5o1_500.jpg[/img]
Right, but look at it, what use does it serve? It's basically a motorcycle. Even if it goes fast, it only holds one person. Maybe it can pull a little weight behind it.
People use motor vehicles primarily for the transportation of goods, large-scale stuff. Personal transportation is also good, but that's why we make things like buses and trains, things that can still go fast even when they carry a lot of people. Solar powered transportation, at the moment, cannot carry a lot of people or a lot of goods, and this is crucial.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying solar powered cars aren't something we should pursue, I'm just saying that currently, the technology does not deliver what we really need from it.
Yeah they look pretty neat, but through their looks, they also immediately give away their impracticality.
Here's the Solar Impulse plane.
[img]http://ompldr.org/vY2t1bA[/img]
If you don't mind including hybrids to "Electric Cars" in a loose sense, Ferdinand Porsche actually made one of the first hybrids back in 1900:
[IMG]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/13/Lohner_Porsche.jpg/300px-Lohner_Porsche.jpg[/IMG]
It was called the Lohner-Porsche Mixte Hybrid
As for the actual question, Cars that use electricity aren't viable for what they're made out to be as of yet, but once battery efficiency, longevity and environmentally friendliness improve it should be great. I'm just gonna miss the roar of those horses under the hood once they're gone.
[QUOTE=Canary;34495758]Hydrogen, We would be using it if oil companies weren't dicks.
Just go check out the patents of major oil companies and see how many hydrogen related inventions are on them[/QUOTE]
It has nothing to do with companies being dicks. The current most efficient and cheap way to make hydrogen (Aka the only method that would ballpark the prices in the same area as gasoline per gallon), is to derive it from Methane. And it's not a very environmentally friendly process, so it really gets us nowhere. Not to mention the enormous cost of getting everyone to buy a hydrogen car, as well as switching all gas pumps to hydrogen.
When the time comes that we unlock fusion power (so we can use hydrolysis), or we literally have nothing else but methane left, then hydrogen will by default become the standard. Electric will unlikely ever be quite good enough.
[QUOTE=HulaDancer;34494996]Well, I shouldn't be theorising, but hey, WHY THE FUCK NOT? Now, the point is , are electronic cars a good thing or a bad one? I mean, look at all these cities, they use up thousands of giggawats per second. But hey, it's your opinion.
[IMG]http://imgur.com/QM76n.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE]
They are a means to an end. Electric cars are currently beating Hydrogen cars (The most similar to gas cars currently) but electricity is limited while we rely on coal, oil, etc. If we move to solar/wind energy, then life would be fantastic.
I think oil companies will just move to hydrogen once the wells dry up. Hydrogen isn't super-easy to collect (in large quantities) so it's relatively the same price as gas. It's a whole 'nother industry that will basically overtake what the oil industry has become.
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