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| Joined: | Mon Nov 21st, 2005 |
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In the example above, the average car requires 20 horsepower to drive at a speed of 50 miles-per-hour on a level surface. On this basis, the average car requires 370 watt-hours of power to go one mile. At $10 per kilowatt-hour, it only costs you 3.7 cents to travel one mile. Compare this to an economy sedan that gets 30 miles per gallon. At $3.00 per gallon gasoline, it will cost nearly three times as much, $.10 per mile, to drive this car using gasoline. And at night when electric cars are being charged, electricity rates are often much lower than $.10 per kilowatt-hour. It is possible to drive an electric car for as little as $.02 per mile! This arbitrage between the cost per mile of gasoline power vs. the cost per mile of electrical power is an awesome opportunity, but only one that can be exploited by battery-powered cars, which can convert 90% of grid electricity into power going into the motor, compared to the electrolyser / fuel cell combination, which only can deliver 42% of grid electricity into power going into the motor.
If an electric car is defined as a vehicle that derives 100% of its horsepower from an electric motor, there are many ways to supplement the cars range. For example, a hybrid car typically depends on two engines to power the vehicle, an electric motor combined with a gasoline engine usually between 40-60 horsepower. But what if a gasoline engine, perhaps a highly efficient biodiesel engine, were used to power an onboard generator and was completely disconnected from the drive train?
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0852960131/ecoworld0f-20
Last edited on Sat Nov 24th, 2007 11:30 am by Joe Kelley