High MPG

Roger Heflin rah at horizon.hit.net
Tue May 5 22:37:24 GMT 1998


> 
> Gary Derian wrote:
> 
> > Electric is not very efficient if you consider the total scheme.  The
> > electric generators are no more efficient than the good old ICE (40%).  Then
> > you add the power loss in transmission, converting to chemical energy for
> > the battery, then reconverting to electric, then finally getting mechanical
> > energy from the motor.  Add this up and the electric car is only 5%
> > efficient.  A GM EV1 with a gasoline engine would get 80+ mpg.
> 
> Electric cars have transmission loss, but so do gas cars.  You have to
> burn diesel fuel to ship all that fuel around.
> 
> Here's my question:  The GM EV web page (www.gmev.com) claims a full
> charge in 3 hours using a 220V (6.6kW) charger.  That's 19.8 kilowatt
> hours of energy.  They claim a maximum capacity of 16.2 KWh for the
> battery pack, so 19.8 includes charger inefficiencies.  If electricity
> costs 10 cents per KWh, it costs just under $2 to charge the EV-1.  They
> claim the range to be 50-90 miles, which puts the cost per mile between
> 2 and 4 cents.  Just the gas for a gas car costs more than that, plus
> all the maintenance like tuneups, fluid changes, etc.  The electric car
> is simplicity by comparison.
> 
> --steve

Gas only costs about $.70 before taxes.  In the US at least if you drive
on the roads with anything you have to pay taxes to use the road.  So at 
.70 / gallon, and using a normal car with 30mpg, that is $2.10 of fuel
for the same distance.  The "recharge" takes 10 minutes.   And that
is ignoring that fact that the EV1's range decreases alot in hills, or
in cold (heater) or hot (AC), more so than the gas engined vehicle.  And
with the performance the ev1, you have to compare the EV1 with somethi8ng
that gets better than 30mpg.   Also remember batteries have to be replaced
fairly often (3-5 years tops) and they are not cheap, if they are using
lead acid type the battery is going to be over 1k, and there is no way
to really avoid it.  If they aren't lead-acid they are going to be 
significatly more.

					Roger



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