phil@brahms.amd.com (Phil Ngai) (09/21/90)
In article <38772@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> cameron@janus.Berkeley.EDU writes: |Personally, I'm attempting to work the other end of the problem: I'm getting |involved in U.C. Berkeley's project to design and construct a winning solar |race car (not a practical thing, but it pushes the technology along) and I'm |also investigating any info I can find on electric vehicles. | |If you can't get rid of traffic congestion, you could at least cut down on |the number of gas cars. The solar angle of this seems pretty bogus since the cost of making electricity via solar cells on my vehicle is so much higher than just getting it from PG&E. Before you say that SE is Politically Correct, note that PG&E could make electricity via solar energy probably much easier and more efficiently than I could. And carrying the weight of all those solar cells around on my car is rather unproductive with regards to energy efficiency. The electric vehicle aspect of it is a little more legitimate, but have you ever investigated the efficiency of storage cells? According to the manufacturer's literature I have seen, both lead acid and ni-cd cells have an efficiency of around 40%! PG&E is probably no better than 50% if you consider their power plant and transmission losses. So the total system efficiency of electric vehicles is likely to be around 15% or less. Is this really such a big improvement over the internal combustion engine? What about pollution? What about it? My 1986 Honda Civic has had two smog tests and both times was well below the legal limits and for several measurements was recorded as producing 0 pollution. Of course we know it wasn't really 0 but it was better than the measuring equipment. Certainly there are I.C. vehicles out there producing lots of pollution but you need to compare your proposals with the new cars on the market today since that is what you might be replacing. And I have yet to see a good argument for electric. -- Phil Ngai, phil@amd.com {uunet,decwrl,ucbvax}!amdcad!phil Freedom is dead, long live privacy!