Electric cars...

HarveyH55 wrote:
With Biden's push for an aggressive climate change agenda, we could be all mandated to drive BidenCars. Hopefully, more affordable, than The Affordable Health Care Act. Imagining all these electric cars, charging, off a grid of solar panels and windmills, I got to remembering the gas shortages of the 70s, and how people had to buy locking fuel caps, and take their garden hoses in at night, or end up with a cur hose, and an empty tank. I imagine electricity will be in high demand, if even available as needed. I have to wonder if there won't be a way to drain off some of the stored energy, for personal use. Be pretty easy to get away with too, unless caught in the act. Hard to tell if you hook your car up wrong, blackout, some battery protection crap.

Into the Night wrote: There will be no trucks. No tractors. No trains. No ships. No aircraft. No practical cross country travel at all. No industrial equipment operating at all.

HarveyH55 wrote:
Fairly certain that basement-dwelling will be a first 100 days mandate... Be so much easier to have the National Guard go door-to-door, and vaccinate the masses, maybe 'inspect' your gun and ammo collection...

I don't think he'll ban all internal combustion engines, just personal transportation. Of course, there will be exemptions, for the the rich and influential, until their wealth gets redistributed.

Our power grid system, relies on being able to control a constant, and reliable source, for a variable demand. Solar panels and windmills are variable, unreliable sources, and many feeding the grid. The more we add to the grid, the less control we have over the supply, and the more blackouts we experience. The new normal... Figure there will be various schemes to mitigate the blackouts, for those who can afford them. But shortages, also encourage other alternatives, like stealing. Use to be pretty easy to shove a hose into your own tank, and pull out a couple gallons, for your lawnmower, or to help a stranded motorist. Got difficult, almost impossible, by the 90s, since gas theft continued to be a huge problem, even without a shortage problem at the pumps. Gas just got expensive, people continue to steal. I just figure there will be a similar movement with electric cars. They are pretty useless, if you can't keep them charged, or it's expensive, when electricity is available.

duncan61 wrote:
The Hybrids go O.K.My son hires a Camry on his week off and it takes less than $10 to top it back up after a week as it mostly runs on the electric

HarveyH55 wrote:
Something I've always wondered about hybrids. They market them as charging off the gas engine, but there is also a charging port for the battery. Do you still mainly have to plug it in to charge, or does driving it on gas, usually keep he battery charged?

HarveyH55 wrote:
Something I've always wondered about hybrids. They market them as charging off the gas engine, but there is also a charging port for the battery. Do you still mainly have to plug it in to charge, or does driving it on gas, usually keep he battery charged?

HarveyH55 wrote:There is no free lunch, where energy is concerned.

HarveyH55 wrote: You can improve your gas mileage pretty significantly, just by changing some of your driving habits.

Xadoman wrote:

HarveyH55 wrote:
Something I've always wondered about hybrids. They market them as charging off the gas engine, but there is also a charging port for the battery. Do you still mainly have to plug it in to charge, or does driving it on gas, usually keep he battery charged?

There are two type of hybrids - plug-in or not plug-in hybrids.

Xadoman wrote:
The efficiency of the not plug-in hybrids comes from the fact that ICE engine wastes fuel when it is not operating at optimal range. It is more efficient to charge the battery with gasoline engine working on optimal load and use the electric motors during city driving while the engine works unefficiently. On the road it does not matter at all. The bad thing is that the amount of fuel you save with such car is miniscule. It turns out to be a lot of trouble for almost nothing.

Xadoman wrote:
Cylinder deactivation system is also quite similarily used to save fuel. For example deactivating 2 cylinders from 4 at low load (at which the engine works unefficiently) rises the load in 2 active cylinders and the efficiency rises. The effect is of course again miniscule but some people are fooled by salesman who talks about beautiful words like " cylinder deactivation, twin-spark etc etc"

HarveyH55 wrote:
There is no free lunch, where energy is concerned. I figured very few people, in a very narrow market could actually benefit from hybrids. For the most part, there really isn't any significant improvement. You can improve your gas mileage pretty significantly, just by changing some of your driving habits. Would doubt that there are cars, which use the same engine, as the average gas-guzzler, but designed to force people to drive more economically. I never really paid that much attention, gas was never a budget-breaker, and I like to have fun driving.

duncan61 wrote:
I am going to disagree with you for the first time Harvey.I get UBER a lot and they are usually hybrids and they go like rockets and are super economical.The battery will last a long time then the engine will kick in for a while and fully recharge the battery.I went to the casino in one and I asked the driver about it and he planted his boot on the freeway and I heard the petrol engine come on and the battery meter started going up straight away.No one is forcing anyone to have one but if you are doing UBER ride sharing you will not make a lot running a conventional car.

Not really. Hybrids are no more efficient with fuel mileage than similar sized gasoline cars. They are not worse, despite carrying around a heavy battery and two power plants, but they manage to be about the same.

Shutting down two cylinders on a four cylinder engine will cause rough running. It does not save fuel, since the piston is still going up and down inside the cylinder. Opening the valves means it is still pumping air (assuming multi-point fuel injection), which is a load.

Xadoman wrote:

Not really. Hybrids are no more efficient with fuel mileage than similar sized gasoline cars. They are not worse, despite carrying around a heavy battery and two power plants, but they manage to be about the same.

They are more efficient if you use the car most of the time in the city. The effect is of course miniscule.

Xadoman wrote:

Shutting down two cylinders on a four cylinder engine will cause rough running. It does not save fuel, since the piston is still going up and down inside the cylinder. Opening the valves means it is still pumping air (assuming multi-point fuel injection), which is a load.

For example Vw 1,4TSI shuts down 2 cylinders from 4 to save fuel. They say they save 0,5-1 litre per 100 km. In my opinion it is not worth the trouble. The system is quite complicated to shut those cylinders off. There are of course other car producers who use the same principle, for example Mercedes benz, which deactivates zylinders on their engines( supposedly the technology is from formula 1).

Xadoman wrote:
Also, the valves are not opened. They stay closed. Approximately the same energy compressing the air will be released when the piston moves downward(like squeezing the airballoon).