Teardown reveals Chevy Volt's electronic secrets

[tjts1]

Originally Posted by ecomodded

Bob Lazar

HAHAHAHA the crazy UFO nutjob. Yeah, I'll get my energy from him

LOL

[drmiller100]

http://ecomodder.com/forum/newreply....reply&p=307054

What are you talking about? I never quoted Bob Lazar.

[tjts1]

Fixed it.

[NeilBlanchard]

USA is down to 40% electricity from coal, on average. Natural gas is up and wind is up, and a bit more solar, too. Even at 100% coal, an EV beats ICE cars up to about 80MPG.

If you drive an EV, then put solar panels on your roof -- several companies will do this for $0 down; and you pay about half of what you do now for the electricity. Charge the EV at night and pay the off-peak price.

The average Volt drives over 1,000 miles on an ~8 gallon tank of gas. Sounds pretty good to me. A little over 700 miles of that are on electricity, and at worst it gets ~93MPGe in electric mode. If the Volt seated four tall adults, it would be better. If it had a purpose-made ICE and ran in true serial hybrid mode, it could rival a Prius in charging mode.

[SoobieOut]

From what I have read about "Grid Parity" Grid parity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Soon it will be as cheap or cheaper to use solar PV rather than pay for coal/nuke/natural gas electricity from Warren Buffet like power companies...

[mechman600]

Originally Posted by IamIan

They are making algae which produce H2 as a byproduct of photosynthesis instead of the natural plant hydrocarbon sugars... currently not any where near cost effective ... but it will be closer than the current gap... even if it still will not close the gap.

According to a recent episode of Fully Charged, biohydrogen reactors are still in the infant stages of development - in university labs and such. It's a pretty cool idea, but it can probably be put in the same category as "the super capacitor that will soon save the day for the EV world."

[IamIan]

Originally Posted by mechman600

According to a recent episode of Fully Charged, biohydrogen reactors are still in the infant stages of development - in university labs and such. It's a pretty cool idea, but it can probably be put in the same category as "the super capacitor that will soon save the day for the EV world."

Agreed.

Unlike the Super Capacitor to save the EV ... it isn't that they can't do it today ... it just isn't cost effective today.

I expect it will be many decades away ~30 or more.

The point I was making was that the 6:1 ratio of today you were looking at might becoming a narrower margin in the future ... and although the margin will be narrower ... Hydrogen will still be less energy efficient from source to load ... however the algae approach does have a large production benefit over the alternative due to the use of self replication ... which might in the future make it more attractive , even if it is less energy efficient from source to load... even if that will not be for a long time.

Last I read ... today producing Hydrogen costs at best about ~$14 / kg ... and the DOE says they have to get under ~$2.60 / kg to be viable for transportation ... that's a rather large gap ... just to reach viable compared to gasoline.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by IamIan

The point I was making was that the 6:1 ratio of today you were looking at might becoming a narrower margin in the future ... and although the margin will be narrower ... Hydrogen will still be less energy efficient from source to load ...

The real problem, though, is not the (in)efficiency of generating hydrogen, or the problems with fuel cells. It's that hydrogen is difficult to store and transport. You have to compress and/or liquefy it, which takes lots of energy plus heavy pressure vessels and/or vacuum-insulated containers - and even then, it leaks a lot. Then it's light, which means that hauling a useful quantity to a filling station takes IIRC something like 9 times as many truck trips...

I'm sorry (and I apologize for the unavoidable intrusion of politics), but the so-called "hydrogen economy" was never anything more than a Bush administration scam, misdirection to get people believing there'd be pie in the sky, bye and bye, instead of going to work on real energy & environmental problems.

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by Old Mechanic

I guess it will be kind of difficult to figure out what went wrong when 2 billion dollars went up in smoke.

The plane got wet ... seriously.

Moisture in the AoA sensors caused the far too steep initial pitch up.

Andersen Air Force Base B-2 accident - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[IamIan]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

The real problem, though, is not the (in)efficiency of generating hydrogen, or the problems with fuel cells. It's that hydrogen is difficult to store and transport.

I agree , that storage and transportation is a major barrier to hydrogen vehicles... a barrier that I don't see going away any time soon.

Pressurizing or liquifying it are common methods of trying to deal with the storage and transportation issues ... but they are not the only way ... there are other options for hydrogen as well ... even if ( for my 2 bits ) none of them really result in much better results in the end.

Comparatively I think the efficiency and cost effectiveness of transporting and storing electricity is very difficult to compete with ... everything has losses ... and costs ... but some things just have more losses and or cost more to do the same output of work.

Hydrogen vehicles are currently one of those less efficient and more costly things... and AFAIK look to be staying that way for many decades yet to come.