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Old 01-17-2016, 10:44 AM   #235 (permalink)
werefree
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Join Date: Jan 2016
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well the tech is here already, just buy an electric car

At the company I used to work for we had a total of 244 ultra capacitors from maxwell 3000F each to drive diesel electric hybrid buses. I already mentioned this. But to elaborate, the ucaps would basically move the bus all on its own by maybe a block or so and then the diesel engine would take over power completely. Well we had diesels from cummins, gasoline V10s from ford, some fuel cells and also a few battery buses using zebras (liquid sodium right above the people riding the bus...) and we even got to prismatic lifepo with cells as large as the crossection of a truck battery ~10" square X .5". Kokam makes those. We also had mixtures of ucaps and batteries as storage systems, but that was only on a few tests. On the ucap transit buses we actually derated the power so that the bus would not spin the wheels in place or be too strong. There are passengers who have to ride while standing up you know. Anyway, we fitting an FMTV with ucaps once without this limit. During testing curious people on the road not only tried to go around the vehicle, but quickly would drop their jaw as even fast sports cars could not keep up for the first block. Maxwell caps are really awesome like that. it is a perfect use...1-5 blocks to the next stop, a few seconds to recharge during loading, unloading, light stop, etc, huge mass to store kinetic energy for regen breaking, steady power supply generator.. blah blah. The technology is already working. The price point was already there/er is already there. The only reason why you don't see them right now is because gas has dropped. But I went to school and to engineers they teach you interesting things like where oil comes from and how much there is left... there is a big push to get away from oil for a big reason. Yep its running out. Once the Saudi's run out of money or kill off the american ethanol industry, they will raise the price to a level that even George Bush wont giggle at. I give it another year or so. We passed peak oil in 2005. Our only saving grace is that there was a down turn so people didn't have jobs to get money to pay for oil. But now we are back baby! continuing about the ride, the buses were so well tuned that the ride was smooth and quiet. only the gas ones were a bit loud, but many decibels below diesels. on the battery and fuel cell buses all you heard was a little bit of whining from the gearbox and some cool sounds from the inverters. The push felt like the "hand of god" was pushing the bus, it was a really smooth ride indeed. So I think the tech is just waiting for the right moment to take over.
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