Jim Dunmyer wrote in a message to Roy J. Tellason:
 > I know that electric cars would need more speed capability,  and 
 > that range seems to be most often the quoted "problem" with them.  
 JD> Roy,
 JD>  There's a book out that explains about electric vehicles; it 
 JD> was written as sort of a Doit Yourself guide to conversion of a 
 JD> gas vehicle to electric.
I wonder at how practical such a conversion would be...
Most of what I've seen has been a matter of losing a lot of trunk space for 
batteries,  which never really appealed to me.
 JD> The author is quite the evengelist, so you do need to take some 
 JD> of his calculations with a grain of salt, especially the cost 
 JD> of operation comparisons. He tended to exaggerate the cost of 
 JD> operation of a gas-fueled car and minimized the costs of the 
 JD> electric. 
My particular gas-hog has a 26-1/2 gallon tank,  which gives it quite a bit 
of cruising range,  though it also means it costs me much more than average 
to fill it up.  But that's not my major expenses with it,  those are more 
peripheral-type things that would need to be dealt with in any case,  like 
the brake hose I just bought.
 JD> However, he did have some facts that were based on his own 
 JD> experience and that of others who have operated EVs for some 
 JD> time: 
 JD> Batteries have a finite life, and it might be as short as 
 JD> 25,000 miles. And they require maintenance during that time; 
 JD> adding water, cleaning the tops, and charging are regular 
 JD> chores. If your battery pack costs even $500.00, a hundred 
 JD> thousand miles worth gets expensive.
I expect that it'd cost considerably more than $500.00,  especially if some 
sort of newer and nontraditional technology were involved.
 JD> There are few limits to range or speed, but it's real hard to 
 JD> have both. And simply adding larger batteries isn't the answer, 
 JD> as the vehicle now has to pull even more dead weight.
Yep.  Those warehouse-type vehicles that I'm looking at recently have no 
problem with the weight,  it gives them a bit more stability in various 
lifting and other situations.
 JD> Regarding charging of EV's, will it require an upgrade to the 
 JD> grid, or can off-peak charging or flywheel storage do the job, 
 JD> etc.:
 JD> It's really not much of a chore to figure out how many KWHR 
 JD> worth of power is in a tank of gasoline. Gasoline is a bit less 
 JD> than 100,000 BTUs per gallon, and there's 3414 BTUs per KWHR. 
 JD> Do the math for your vehicle then multiply times the numbers of 
 JD> your neighbors to see if it's feasable to do a wholesale 
 JD> conversion in your area. Hint: most electric power companies 
 JD> are approaching their total capacity on peak-usage days, so 
 JD> you'd better believe that any EV charging will HAVE to be 
 JD> off-peak.
Sure.  I don't doubt it for a minute.
 JD> To drag this closer to on-topic, it might be an interesting 
 JD> excercise to calculate how many solar panels or how large a 
 JD> wind generator it might require to provide the power for one's 
 JD> own vehicle at home.
Quite a bit more than many would expect,  I think.  Unless you're willing to 
wait quite a while for a vehicle to recharge.  I don't know what the charge 
times are on that warehouse stuff,  when a battery gets run down they just 
swap it out for another one,  but then they've got a whole room full of them, 
and it's a pretty big room.
email: roy.j.tellason%tanstaaf@frackit.com 
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