Noob Alert

reliability shouldn't be an issue. everything i've read says an electric motor will live longer than you.

as to generator powered conversion, i thought about that too (especially when i first started dreaming of a sand rail/dragster) because battery packs are so insanely expensive and because of their range limitations too.

then, like you, i saw it brought up in another forum and everyone shot it down from both sides... not green enough AND "why not just stick with motors?"

a generator powered conversion, in the short term, is a good thing even if i don't do cars & ride bikes because they're still more efficient than regular cars and have the potential to convert many sheep who don't know that cars have worse MPG than they should because of the oil lobby. even if you could only get 80mpg (300mpg is possible!) http://jalopnik.com/324491/300-mpg-electric-vehicle--plug+in-hybrid-for-under-30k you're still doing better than the most fuel efficient car in the world, the 50mpg honda. i got as good MPG out of my 3 cylinder daihatsu (last car i owned) as some of the bogus hybrids out now! 38 city/42 highway!

ANY reduction in emissions is a good thing and raising awareness to serial hybrids could win over a lot of people who refuse to convert because of range issues. you show people they can travel coast to coast on 20 gallons of gas and you WILL get some attention.

there are so many people (i call them gas holes) you just aren't going to win over with the benefits of pure electric cars, but if you can inspire a million people to use say 1/4 the gas or more than they do now, that would be a huge baby step even if the corporate slime media refuses to cover it. they CAN'T stop the power of the internet & word of mouth.

build a 150mpg+ serial hybrid on the cheap and go viral with it!

myself, i still keep wishing someone would make hydrogen conversion like the one i saw on PBS 10 years ago! mileage & charge times wouldn't be an issue if there were demand for the infrastructure to have hydro stations every 50 miles or so. then, it would be possible to have the country rolling on sunshine and water!

the battle will be won grassroots style in the trenches as corporate america is fighting to keep the old guard destroying the planet whilst getting rich. ANYTHING that erodes that system is a good thing!

The dream of a useful conversion is looking better, again based on this forum. I am a realist. Yes hydrogen would be great. Then we would have an argument over the best way to get it. You can obviously get it from water, which poses the debate over the use of this resource. Then there is extraction from coal.

This is like the debate of using food for fuel. Great lets all make gasohol, then the price of corn goes up...The land of unintended consiquences.

Right now I am eyeing doing a Ninja 500 with that neat wheel EnerTrac has out. Cost wise it makes some sense, based on ac motors and such, and if I could get 50 to 60 useable miles out of it, I will push forward. Still have hills and stuff to worry about here, as well as 50mph highway speeds. Not building something that looks pretty, or as we say in the hot rod field "no go show boat"


The hobby of EV cars is similar to ICE hot rod people. Some people only want "traditional" hotrods. Meaning no billet parts or big store bought components. You can build any car you like as long as its safe.

getting hydrogen from coal? oh no! no way! nah uh! *shudder*

all you need to make hydrogen is a giant hydrogen fuel cell running in reverse and a windmill or ANY solar tech on your roof.

water conservation is an issue, sure, but global warming & pollution are much more pressing issues than that and water can be drawn from the ocean. not only that, but when you're done burning hydrogen, it goes right back into the ecosystem. heck, you could easily design a muffler system that recaptures water after combustion and drop it back off at the station as part of your refill. then, the sun turns it back into hydrogen.

for me. hydrogen is the answer because any car can be retrofitted with it easily and stations can be powered 100% green... no more fleets of giant tankers hauling gasoline 24/7 anymore. no more eroding ice caps and certainly much less destruction to our oceans and water tables etc.

hydrogen would also create a ton of jobs. the nation would need something like 4-5x the number of fueling stations to compensate for the shorter range of hydrogen powered cars. that's a lot of jobs. truckers, well workers and BP execs wouldn't like it, but a lot of people out of work, particularly in the coast would. if only the masses would rise up against their corporate oppressors. *sigh*. if it happens, i'll gladly take point on a lobbyist hunt. LOL

now if only the plastics problem could be solved, the BP dragon could be slain.

zeroemission said:

for me. hydrogen is the answer because any car can be retrofitted with it easily and stations can be powered 100% green... no more fleets of giant tankers hauling gasoline 24/7 anymore. no more eroding ice caps and certainly much less destruction to our oceans and water tables etc.

hydrogen would also create a ton of jobs. the nation would need something like 4-5x the number of fueling stations to compensate for the shorter range of hydrogen powered cars. that's a lot of jobs. truckers, well workers and BP execs wouldn't like it, but a lot of people out of work, particularly in the coast would. if only the masses would rise up against their corporate oppressors. *sigh*. if it happens, i'll gladly take point on a lobbyist hunt. LOL

now if only the plastics problem could be solved, the BP dragon could be slain.

Click to expand...

This is one of the good bad things about hydrogen from my point of view.

The bad is that it is an extra stage of energy conversion and transport of energy that may add to losses and inefficiencies.
The good is that it would be a scheme that can be 'eased into' over time with adaptations and retrofitting of existing vehicles and fuel stations.
The bad is that it could end up still being the preserve of the same oil companies who would then be using fossil fuels to generate the energy to make the hydrogen that they distribute and thus keep the same customer base.
The good is that it it makes it easy for the average person to switch to EVs.
The bad is the mining for the catalysts that goes into the fuel cells.
Etc.

I don't think hydrogen distrubution would make more jobs but just keep the ones that would be lost if we stopped consuming oil.

I don't think hydrogen is a good idea but I can see why politicians and many people would.
I wouldn't actively petiton for or against it as overall it has to be better then the satus quo.

of course hydrogen is being stonewalled, as are electric cars or anything else that threatens oil industry's conducting business as usual.

hydrogen doesn't need to be transported at all as it sounds like you're saying. as long as you have access to water, you can generate hydrogen on site using any number of green technologies by simply running a giant hydrogen cell in reverse. there's exactly such a station somewhere in the netherlands that has to be almost 10 years old by now!

jobs WOULD be created. there would have to be MANY more gas stations made to compensate for the range limitations of hydrogen burning cars unless everyone starts driving giant tanked trucks. LOL

INTERESTING FACT: if you drive north from las vegas, there is a gas station about 300 miles away and the second one is a SINclair that is EXACTLY 666 miles from vegas! i've always wanted a place to share that bit of trivia.

besides all of the extra stations that would be needed, jobs would be created in manufacturing the hydrogen generators needed, manufacturing the solar cells, solar sterling, solar steam or wind turbines that generate the electricity to produce the hydrogen, not to mention all of the mechanics getting work retrofitting existing cars to burn hydrogen too. the only losers in the equation are the oil industry who should be eviscerated anyways.

there's a serious environmental downside to electric cars. (ignoring of course the circular logic of those who ask "where do you get your energy from?" your back yard solar panels & windmill or demands on your utilities to go green, duh!) traditional lead acid batteries can cause serious damage to water tables. the chemicals in LiOn etc. batteries aren't any better. if a car crashes in someone's water supply, that's not good at all. that does happen too. heck, it happens even when no one is driving like that boatload of heavy equipment that sunk somewhere in alaska. if that happened in a river with a few hundred battery cells, the results could rival the gulf spill as toxins move up the food chain.

cheaper lead acid cells have to be replaced every couple years adding more & more toxic landfill if everyone joins that band wagon. eventually recycling billions of batteries a year becomes a recycling nightmare fraught with negligence and other abuses.

hydrogen power is 99% non toxic. you'd still need oil to lubricate parts & make plastics as well as all the materials that go into manufacturing, but it's doable RIGHT NOW and has been for years. it only takes minor retrofitting of any modern fuel injected motor to convert so the retooling to a battery based system is minimal and then all that's needed is to build green powered stations within 50 or 100 miles of each other. that's a few dozen stations just to drive across texas alone. once the station is up & running, the ONLY operating cost besides maintenance is one's water supply. if you live in an area with adequate rainfall, you could even collect THAT on site too.

i see nothing but advantages for converting all cars to hydrogen. OK, you lose the jaw dropping acceleration of electrics, but that's not exactly the best feature for the rest of the world's safety either.

i'll get back to you on where that station that generates it's hydrogen on site is. if i'm talking in electric car forums, i really should refresh my memory and watch that scientic american fronteirs episode i taped years ago and cheered.

Hi Ken

Hydrogen is a scam - the efficiencies of producing, compressing, transporting and using it mean that you get about 10% overall

The biggest problem is the very low density that means you need very high pressure storage - and it leaks like nothing else (helium is slightly worse)

It also has the widest explosive limits of anything!

Batteries are better than hydrogen - if a lot of energy is needed some form of synthetic petrol (gas) could be made using the electrolyzed hydrogen as a feed stuff

Your commute is doable 20 miles (each way?) at 60mph in a little Ford

40 x 300whrs = 12 kwhrs - at 80% = 15 Kwhrs = 150volts at 100Ah = $7,000
half that if you can charge at work

Charge time -220v x 15Amps = 3.3Kw - 6 hours to full recharge easy

I like the 32 Ford Roadster idea!
I am making a "Locost" type machine
I am using direct drive with a forklift motor I got for $100