Reading this post reminded me of the hydrogen issue. What do you guys think
about this issue. I ask because our Premier(think Governor) just went all
gaga with Arnold(California) about a hydrogen highway up and down the west
coast.
By coincidence, my neighbor works at Ballard fuel cells, and I got to drive
one of there Ford prototype cars recently.
As to the car? I was pleasantly surprised by the performance and I got a
glimpse of what it must be like to drive one of your electric cars. Smooth
power, no noise.
As to the fuel cell? $750,000 is what the car is estimated to cost at the
moment. Range? About a 100 miles. Fuel cell loses about 20% of its capacity
per year.
I did some checking and found that using electricity to create hydrogen and
then using a fuel cell to create electricity, yields about 50% of the
original electricity.
Does anybody have an approx energy efficiency for charging batteries. For
every WATT-HOUR(happy?) that your put in when charging, what is ultimately
available for running the car?
Since the range is not all that much greater than an all electric car,
wouldn't it make more sense to just go all electric?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Christopher Robison" <[email protected]>
To: "Electric Vehicle Discussion List" <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, October 13, 2007 7:34 AM
Subject: Re: [EVDL] What connector is this?
>
>
about this issue. I ask because our Premier(think Governor) just went all
gaga with Arnold(California) about a hydrogen highway up and down the west
coast.
By coincidence, my neighbor works at Ballard fuel cells, and I got to drive
one of there Ford prototype cars recently.
As to the car? I was pleasantly surprised by the performance and I got a
glimpse of what it must be like to drive one of your electric cars. Smooth
power, no noise.
As to the fuel cell? $750,000 is what the car is estimated to cost at the
moment. Range? About a 100 miles. Fuel cell loses about 20% of its capacity
per year.
I did some checking and found that using electricity to create hydrogen and
then using a fuel cell to create electricity, yields about 50% of the
original electricity.
Does anybody have an approx energy efficiency for charging batteries. For
every WATT-HOUR(happy?) that your put in when charging, what is ultimately
available for running the car?
Since the range is not all that much greater than an all electric car,
wouldn't it make more sense to just go all electric?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Christopher Robison" <[email protected]>
To: "Electric Vehicle Discussion List" <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, October 13, 2007 7:34 AM
Subject: Re: [EVDL] What connector is this?
>
>
Ian Hooper wrote:
> > Yeah I was just going to say it's an Anderson, you beat me to it. (I
> > hadn't realised they come that large though!)
> >
> > The 350A Andersons I use require a heap of force to plug/unplug - I
> > can't imagine those enormous ones are easy! I guess it is pretty
> > tricky to have a contactor that can carry 100kW without huge contact
> > forces though.
>
> I can't imagine actually using a connector like that without some kind of
> handle, and having one end bolted down to something immovable. I'm going
> to guess that holding one in each hand is just not part of the intended
> use.)
>
>
> > I like the idea suggested in the clip about setting up a charging
> > station co-located with food stop. I have this mental image of people
> > taking 10 minutes to relax over a coffee on their way in to work at a
> > nice alfresco cafe, with their EVs recharging in the carpark. How
> > much nicer is that than visiting a petrol station!?
>
> As I imagine that scenario, I'm late for work and cursing through those 10
> minutes, wondering why it has to take so long, instead of the 2 minutes or
> less that I'm used to with a gas pump. 10 minutes may not seem like a long
> time, but the assumption that the wait will be "relaxing" and "you can get
> a bite to eat" is one I hear way too often. It simply does not reflect
> reality in the vast majority of cases (we're talking mainstream,
> non-EV-zealots here), unless it's a Sunday and you're out for a pleasant
> recreational drive. Most people who are driving their cars are doing so
> because they have some place they need to be. Telling them to "slow down
> and smell the roses" is inappropriate in that context.
>
> Of course, there are no good answers to this problem now or on the visible
> horizon, except better planning (e.g. I would be sure not to have to stop
> for recharging on my way to work). The pie-in-the-sky ideas like vanadium
> redox (replacing electrolyte recharges the battery), inductive powered
> roadways, or a standardized swappable battery pack infrastructure are nice
> to dream about, but are unlikely to happen in my lifetime. So in a
> dwindling-petroleum world the only realistic fast-refuel scenario that
> would satisfy the demand to quickly get back on the road, seems to be ...
> (gulp) hydrogen-electric plug-in hybrids. As someone who thinks hydrogen
> fuel cell development is a huge farce, that's pretty hard for me to admit.
>
>
> --
> Christopher Robison
> [email protected]
> http://ohmbre.org <-- 1999 Isuzu Hombre + Z2K + Warp13!
>
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