Quote:
Originally Posted by zoltanbod
Here is my answer to your questions. 1. I feel tandem seating in a car is impractical.I also don't believe that having a canopy around you without any roll up windows is very comfortable.Most tandem cars use canopies.What is wrong with two tall guys sitting up front and two sets of golf clubs or a bunch of groceries in the back?
2. It is way too early to throw away the ICE.Once the efficiency is improved to the point where there is no more to be had then we can look at changing our entire global infrastructure to meet the needs of future technology that is still to be discovered .What i have learnt about electric motors for powering cars is, the idea of using electric motors that are 90% efficient may soud good,until the issue of generating electricity and distributing it is considered .It is estimated that by the time electricity arrives at your home it is 33% efficient.In other words,67% of the original fuel energy has been lost. So even if you assume battery charging is 90% efficient,and the electric motor is 90% efficient, the overall energy efficiency suddenly drops to 26.73%, only about 6% better than ICE.About 65% of the fuel used to make electricity in north america is fossil.Energy density of the battery is dismal compared to gasoline and fill up time is long.
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1. Why is tandem seating impractical? I'll tell you what is wrong with two tall guys sitting up front next to eachother...... FRONTAL AREA. How much of your driving will all of the seats in the vehicle be occupied? What about the times when you are simply driving yourself to work? All the unoccupied seats are WASTED SPACE (wasted frontal area). You'd cut the width of the car nearly in half by moving the passenger behind the driver, AND would have the same NEEDED frontal area whether you have 1 person in the car or 2 or 3. Catch my drift?
2. Your argument about overall efficiency of retrieving electricity from our wall outlets is somewhat valid. Sadly our country uses fossil fuels as our primary source of energy in our power plants. Fossil fuel power plants are anywhere from 30-35% efficient with coal, and up to 50% efficient with waste heat recovery systems. This is all the reason to venture into more efficient sources of energy, mainly nuclear, wind, solar, and hydroelectric.
Electric motors as a power source themselves are much more efficient than an ICE will ever ever ever be, and there is no arguing that. The problem we face is how to hold the electrical fuel... a problem we've had since the first cars were produced (which happened to be electric).