Quote:
Originally Posted by nak
With the Tesla roadster, the cost of the car is out of whack (2.5 times more cdostly than an Elise), but the cost of the fuel is not. Anyone who can afford a Tesla roadster can afford enough solar array to fuel it. What's more, using solar to power a Tesla for twenty years is cheaper right now than paying $4.00 a gallon to fuel a 25 MPG Elise. I used 20 years because that is the waranty period for solar panels. Their actual usable life is far longer.
Using solar to replace cheap grid power is not cost effective, but it has other social benefits like cleaner air and fewer mountains destroyed by coal mining.
Using solar to replace gasoline for mobility purposes is a win today, even without any tax breaks, on a fuel to fuel comparison. You don't need unrealistic assumptions about solar to make this work; the usual 4-5 hours effective peak sun per day numbers are real-world.
You don't have to charge the Tesla using the exact electrons that come off the solar array. Sell the solar power to the grid (at the time of day when power costs the most) and buy it back in the evening after you get home from work (when it is cheaper).
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hate to think how many replacement battery packs would be needed in the space of 20 years.
Most of the inefficiencies of an IC engine is the way it's used with fixed gear ratios. You can improve the efficiency alot by running the engine at it's optimum throttle and rpm.
My view is that a 100% electric car is going to struggle as there isn't a really effective portable way of reliably storing electricity with reasonable running costs (replacement cell for example). This may change as technology advances however right now I can't see anything thats going to take the place of liquid fuel.
Given that we already have a reliable distribution and refueling infrastrcuture in place for petrol and diesel the obvious transition to electric cars would be a sequential hybrid - a small conventional IC engine burning liquid fuel (doesn't have to be petrol so can be more environmentally friendly) operating at it's optimum efficiency point driving an all electric drivetrain. Add in a Kinetic Energy Recovery System (say flywheel or small battery/capacitor) then you can incorporate regenerative braking.
It's not perfect but you get the range and refuelling speed of a current car, no massive change to the infrastructure and can be used with existing technology.