spoon059 wrote:
minnow wrote:
Interesting that GM is reportedly killing off the Volt, the only EV that runs on electricity generated from its internal combustion engine(after the initial battery charge is depleted).
I wonder why car companies haven't capitalized on this idea. Most trains are diesel electric... why aren't there more diesel electric cars that can generate electric power and store it to be used upon demand. Between a diesel engine running and regenerative braking it seems that a lot of power could be made and stored. I'm sure there is a reason, just curious...
In a word: losses.
Gen-sets on trains have a lot of losses. They don't do it for efficiency. The only reason they do it is because it very easy to hook several engines together with one control panel.
Electric motors and batteries have to reject a lot of heat. That's why the Tesla uses a big cooling system to cool all of this heat off.
When you do it with a small car you can get away with it. They only use a hand full of HP to drive down the road. Try that with a truck and trailer that takes around 100 to 125 HP just to drive down the road at 60 MPH. Not going to happen. At least with the batteries they have now. They don't have enough energy density.
Here is a fact for you:
•Generating electricity, we lost 22 quadrillion Btu from coal, natural gas, nuclear and petroleum power plants in 2013 in the U.S. – that’s more than the energy in all the gasoline we use in a given year.
•Moving electricity from plants to homes and businesses on the transmission and distribution grid, we lost 69 trillion Btu in 2013 – that’s about how much energy Americans use drying our clothes every year.
LinkAnd yet people think electric tow vehicles are going to happen even though there is tons of losses with the electrical system. :R
