Idea for Electric cars

[steve wilson]

Hi guys and girls,
The main problem I see for electric cars is the fact they have a limited range and then you need to recharge them. Recharging takes a long time compared to just filling up the tank with gas.

The solution seems simple to me and is already used with portable electronics. Why not just use replaceable batteries? Instead of having a gas station, you would have a battery station. You would have to have industry standard for batteries as you do with batteries that you use in remote controls/flash lights/vibrators do. Some cars would use one small batteries...trucks would use 10 big batteries...etc...etc.

It seems like an easy / obvious solution to me.

 

[brainhulk]

how about just salvaging the energy lost in braking and acceleration to recharge the batteries? :sneaky:

 

[steve wilson]

I think that is already done brainhulk

 

[brainhulk]

how about wireless recharging through the ground at stop signs

 

[steve wilson]

Now that is a great idea I wonder if it would work out or not.

 

[brainhulk]

what about having roofs and hoods made of highly efficient solar panels

 

[ViRGE]

1) Because removable batteries take up space at a time when space is still at a premium. Specifically, they need to be far more rugged and self-contained than a non-removable battery to account for jostling and the fact that it's not a carefully optimized charger/battery pair.

2) Do you really want to hand over your shiny, new, high capacity batteries for whatever the service station is going to swap them out with?

It's not a bad idea, but it's just not practical at today's energy densities. If you could get all the necessary energy into something not too much bigger than a 12v starter battery, then the idea would be a lot more practical.

 

[brainhulk]

how about instead of roads, all cars travel on monorails which can charge batteries through induction.

Since everything is on rails, all you have to do is tell skynet your destination and it will drive you there

 

[brainhulk]

how about small predator drones that can do mid air battery charges

 

[TwiceOver]

Not to mention these aren't small laptop batteries. I think I read that the batteries for the tesla roadster are 1000 pounds alone.

 

[LTC8K6]

The swappable battery idea is as old as the electric car itself. So far, no practical solution has emerged.

Also, we do not swap batteries in remote controls, flash lights, etc., until the battery itself is unusable. And we don't swap the batteries in cell phones and ipods, etc., until they no longer can be recharged.

If a camera or phone has a removable rechargeable battery, we might buy a spare and swap them out as needed, but we bought the spare, we recharge it ourselves, and the battery weighs only a few ounces.

People are already paranoid about EMF to the point of sometimes banning wifi. I can't imagine the paranoia of wireless charging coils buried everywhere a vehicle might stop, and emitting a strong EMF.

 

[Doppel]

Already done on a limited scale. It is a niche solution at best.

There are some taxi services that do it. For the average joe the infrastructure isn't there, won't be there ever, it also massively limits design on a vehicle.

 

[Fritzo]

Ain't so easy. Here's the battery from a prius. It weighs 100's of pounds:

 

[Red Squirrel]

I thought of this concept as a little kid. It would be quite possible but it takes too much collaboration from various companies (the car industry, gas stations etc) to come up with, and follow, and keep open, a standard for batteries. Much like AA AAA D C etc but for cars and obviously much bigger. We really should be at this stage now, but sadly there's just too much red tape in getting there, and the oil industry wont let it happen. Guess who the government cares for more: the environment, or the oil industry. Yeah, it's not going to happen.

The batteries would be changed by some mechanical means given their weight. These charging stations could also have wind turbines and solar panels to charge the batteries. In fact they'd always have a large bank of batteries ready to go, so they could operate using this power. Think, on the highway, in middle of nowhere where there's no hydro. These stations could still operate. In fact this battery standard would not have to be limited to cars, in an emergency situation you could go to this station and grab one for your house. They could be modular, where a battery has maybe 8 modules or so in it and they can be individually removed if needed. Perhaps 6 volt cells for a total of 48. Some bigger vehicles would maybe need two or more packs to either get a higher voltage or simply more capacity. Think, buses and stuff. They could also have a terminal that is sorta like a serial port, where depending on the type of battery (lead acid, lithium ion etc) certain pins are mapped. That way the chargers would be universal and send the appropriate charge/communication on the proper pins.

Now there's the question of, who actually owns the battery, but to me, that's minor details. How do those propane exchange systems work? Could pretty much work the same way.

 

[LTC8K6]

A propane tank is easily handled by one person and easily exchanged.

And propane is relatively cheap, and offers quick refills. Why we don't have more propane/nat gas powered vehicles, I don't know.

The idea would be that you'd own the car, but not the battery pack.

You'd have stations with charged packs on hand with an automatic method of swapping packs.

Industry would need to adopt a single, or compatible, standards.

The battery stations would need to be everywhere, and they'd need a lot of available power if the batteries are to be recharged at the station and turned around for other customers.

Otherwise you'd need a regular running service to move batteries around.

Overall, it seems simpler to have charging stations.

The problem is that with current battery tech, if you consistently fast charge and fast discharge the battery pack, you shorten it's life.

 

[steve wilson]

The batteries would need to be owned by the state or by the companies providing the batteries. Like Red Squirrel said there would need to either be an automated system for changing or lots of smaller batteries that can easily be man handled. There is no need for electricity to be generated on site, they would need connecting to the national grid and the power generation could happen anywhere nearby. It would make the initial cost of buying a car a hell of a lot cheaper because the battery is the main cost component atm.

 

[LTC8K6]

The batteries would need to be owned by the state or by the companies providing the batteries. Like Red Squirrel said there would need to either be an automated system for changing or lots of smaller batteries that can easily be man handled. There is no need for electricity to be generated on site, they would need connecting to the national grid and the power generation could happen anywhere nearby. It would make the initial cost of buying a car a hell of a lot cheaper because the battery is the main cost component atm.

The national grid is barely able to handle the loads it has to deal with now, so you are talking about a lot of upgrading to handle a lot of battery charging stations.

Generating on-site is not an idea I've ever heard suggested.

 

[steve wilson]

The national grid is barely able to handle the loads it has to deal with now, so you are talking about a lot of upgrading to handle a lot of battery charging stations.

Generating on-site is not an idea I've ever heard suggested.

Well eventually it's going to have to happen because quite simply oil is going to run out one day. Or it's just going to become too expensive to run cars with. Generating on site is not a plausible because of the massive amount of electricity you are going to need. Although you could do some I suppose.

 

[exdeath]

No matter how good batteries are, liquid energy will always be better as a portable energy source.

We should be focused on synthetic liquid fuels, not batteries.

Simple physics.

Greenies just like batteries/electric because the energy production is put out of sight out of mind eg the "zero emmisions" lie.

It still takes the same amount of energy to move x weight y distance regardless, and the energy still comes from a fuel burning heat engine somewhere.

 

[LTC8K6]

Well eventually it's going to have to happen because quite simply oil is going to run out one day. Or it's just going to become too expensive to run cars with. Generating on site is not a plausible because of the massive amount of electricity you are going to need. Although you could do some I suppose.

By the time natural oil runs out or even comes close, we will have transitioned to other "fuels".

This will happen gradually over a long time as the situation and the markets demand.

There's no reason, at present, to push for wide adoption of BEV's. We are not even close to ready in the US for wide use of BEV's, if we ever will be.

 

[RU482]

Ain't so easy. Here's the battery from a prius. It weighs 100's of pounds:

oh man, that pic brings back some memories

 

[nerp]

Why don't they use magnets and copper with the axle, wheels and driveshaft? There's a lot of spinning going on that could be turned into small generators.

 

[exdeath]

Many here can do well learning about conservation of energy...

A lot of ideas are similar to connecting a motor to a generator that powers the motor and getting free energy...

 

[exdeath]

Why don't they use magnets and copper with the axle, wheels and driveshaft? There's a lot of spinning going on that could be turned into small generators.

Rolling resistance. Generating and spinning things in magnetic fields causes proportional kinematic forces, Eg resistance; you'd use more energy pushing though that field with the primary power source than you would reclaim from the generator, completely defeating the purpose.

The only time it could recover any energy at all without getting in the way or using more than it produces is during periods of deceleration, which is what regenerative braking already does.

 

[nerp]

Rolling resistance. Generating and spinning things in magnetic fields causes proportional kinematic forces, Eg resistance; you'd use more energy pushing though that field with the primary power source than you would reclaim from the generator, completely defeating the purpose.

The only time it could recover any energy at all without getting in the way or using more than it produces is during periods of deceleration, which is what regenerative braking already does.

Thanks for the great answer.