What would convince you to buy an electric car?

[decay]

the amount of the monthly payment.

i'm strapped and can't afford much of one.

[macphanatic]

Until they have a 400 to 500 mile range, a quick means of recharging and widely available recharging stations, an all electric car won't be practical for me unless someone gives it to me to supplement what we have. I drive for business and I do enough 250-300 mile trips that I couldn't wait 8 hrs or more for the car to recharge.

I'm surprised that more effort hasn't been focused on getting rid of parasitic loads on engines that impact fuel economy. Replacing power steering and air conditioning pumps with electric ones that only use power when needed are just some of the opportunities for efficiency.

mattkime wrote:
I think one of the biggest selling points of an electric car is not needing to stop for gas.

Problem is that an electric car doesn't have the range of the typical gas powered car. Refueling takes 5 minutes, while recharging takes hours.

[BernDog]

A system of universal batteries that allow them to be swapped out instead of being charged in-vehicle. Pull up to a battery station, drive over a swap bay, and the batteries are replaced from underneath. This would eliminate charging times (the station does it for you) as well as the costs/headaches of battery wear/replacement (as these costs would be built in to the swap fees). Think propane tank exchange. The stations could charge the batteries any number of ways, depending on the most efficient method in any given geographical area. In some locations, this could even be a way to encourage alternative fuel adoption where feasible; it'd have a better economy of scale than individual systems for homes, but still be more easily deployed than a full-scale power plant operation. Plus the issues of peak usage would be lessened because the power needs for charging batteries would be more consistent. Put up solar panels in the desert, put up windmills where it's windy, probably use traditional power grid systems in urban areas, etc...

Sorry to go on, but as you can see, I've given this some thought. What it comes down to though, is that most of the technical roadblocks to the adoption of battery powered electric vehicles could be eliminated. The manufacturers just need to get together now to develop some standards. The longer they wait, the harder it will be.

[space-time]

lazydays wrote:
...
Second, it gets freaking cold here in the winter so I'd need a heater. I don't understand why the electric cars use electric heaters and drain the batteries so fast. I think back to the horse and buggy days when they had little gas heaters built in. I think that's a better way to go.
...

so you envision a car with batteries and electric motor, but still carry so gas around to heat up the car?

[freeradical]

BernDog wrote:
A system of universal batteries that allow them to be swapped out instead of being charged in-vehicle. Pull up to a battery station, drive over a swap bay, and the batteries are replaced from underneath. This would eliminate charging times (the station does it for you) as well as the costs/headaches of battery wear/replacement (as these costs would be built in to the swap fees). Think propane tank exchange. The stations could charge the batteries any number of ways, depending on the most efficient method in any given geographical area. In some locations, this could even be a way to encourage alternative fuel adoption where feasible; it'd have a better economy of scale than individual systems for homes, but still be more easily deployed than a full-scale power plant operation. Plus the issues of peak usage would be lessened because the power needs for charging batteries would be more consistent. Put up solar panels in the desert, put up windmills where it's windy, probably use traditional power grid systems in urban areas, etc...

Sorry to go on, but as you can see, I've given this some thought. What it comes down to though, is that most of the technical roadblocks to the adoption of battery powered electric vehicles could be eliminated. The manufacturers just need to get together now to develop some standards. The longer they wait, the harder it will be.

Electric cars using a swap out the battery technique would be even more difficult to implement than natural gas. In my location, Sacramento, there are only 10 places to refuel cars with natural gas.

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=natural+gas+stations+sacramento&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8#q=natural+gas+stations+sacramento&hl=en&safe=off&client=safari&rls=en&prmd=ivnscm&source=univ&tbm=plcs&tbo=u&ei=h_ZsTq2TG83XiALAxMnJDg&sa=X&oi=local_group&ct=more-results&resnum=1&ved=0CF4QtQMwAA&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=71a9d625d5ffaa11&biw=1253&bih=1304

Natural gas is fine for business use since they can have their own distribution system. Our bus system is natural gas.

If batteries were being swapped out at swap stations, there would have to be room on site for both fresh and discharged batteries, and it would take a lot of work to get old batteries sent to some location to get recharged, and to receive fresh batteries. The trucks that did this distribution would of course br diesel powered.

Another option would be to recharge the batteries at the swap stations, but that again would take enormous amounts of space, and be hugely labor intensive.

[mattkime]

>>Another option would be to recharge the batteries at the swap stations, but that again would take enormous amounts of space, and be hugely labor intensive.

Why would charging batteries be labor intensive?

[Black]

freeradical wrote:

If batteries were being swapped out at swap stations, there would have to be room on site for both fresh and discharged batteries, and it would take a lot of work to get old batteries sent to some location to get recharged, and to receive fresh batteries. The trucks that did this distribution would of course br diesel powered.

Another option would be to recharge the batteries at the swap stations, but that again would take enormous amounts of space, and be hugely labor intensive.

And we'd have piles of spent batteries dumped everywhere in addition to the piles of tires and such we already have. This is a solution for a more environmentally responsible populous.

[Mac1337]

mattkime wrote:


I think one of the biggest selling points of an electric car is not needing to stop for gas.

How is stopping to recharge any different? Remember that a 40 mile charge is really a 20 mile range because you have to spend the other 20 just to get back home.

[mattkime]

Dakota wrote:
[quote=mattkime]


I think one of the biggest selling points of an electric car is not needing to stop for gas.

How is stopping to recharge any different? Remember that a 40 mile charge is really a 20 mile range because you have to spend the other 20 just to get back home.
the vast majority of trips are within that limit.

i don't know the limit of current electric vehicles but they'd clearly need to be able to go 90-95%+ of the majority of trip distances. macphanatic excluded since he's on the road far more than joe average american.

[BernDog]

Black wrote:
[quote=freeradical]

If batteries were being swapped out at swap stations, there would have to be room on site for both fresh and discharged batteries, and it would take a lot of work to get old batteries sent to some location to get recharged, and to receive fresh batteries. The trucks that did this distribution would of course br diesel powered.

Another option would be to recharge the batteries at the swap stations, but that again would take enormous amounts of space, and be hugely labor intensive.

And we'd have piles of spent batteries dumped everywhere in addition to the piles of tires and such we already have. This is a solution for a more environmentally responsible populous.
Transporting to recharging stations? That's just silly. All gas stations already have electrical service (yes it'd probably have to be beefed up). Gas stations also all already have plenty of space underground. That's where the gas tanks are now. Labor intensive? Yeah. We'd go back to stations being full service, like they used to be. Prices on that end would go up because you'd have to pay the staff (or build the robots to do it all automatically). Huge amounts of dumped batteries? Not talking about swapping out evereadys in a flashlight. The batteries would have the same lifespan/mileage potential whether they're being cycled from one car to another or if they're sitting in the same vehicle the whole time. This idea doesn't solve this problem of expended batteries, but it doesn't make it any worse either.