[LINK] Electric vehicles and generation

[Geoffrey Ramadan]

The key issue for electric vehicles is "power density" of the Battery.

To give you an idea of the challenge for electric vehicles.

Petrol has a "Energy Density" of 13,200 W-hr/kg

Lead-acid  is only 22 W-hr/kg
Nickel-cadmium (Ni-Cd) 44 W-hr/kg
Silver-Zinc(Ag-Zn)  110 W-hr/kg
Magnesium hydride with Ni catalyst (Mg-H (Ni))  2300 W-hr/kg

Source: http://www.energyadvocate.com/fw64.htm

Geoffrey Ramadan B.E.(Elec)
Chairman, Automatic Data Capture Association (www.adca.com.au)
and
Managing Director, Unique Micro Design (www.adca.com.au)


Karl Auer wrote:
> On Sun, 2006-07-23 at 14:03 +1000, rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au wrote:
>   
>> So: can the car be light enough to use little enough electricity to be 
>> practical, cheap, cover long distances, and be rechargeable from an 
>> accessible source?
>>     
>
> The questions have too many assumptions in them.
>
> It does have to be practical - but just for some useful purpose, not
> necessarily as a complete replacement for current cars.
>
> It does have to be cheap - but overall, not necessarily just in direct
> saleyard price terms. I can see governments subsidising this sort of
> vehicle pretty soon, not just the purchase price, but things like
> parking, tolls etc too.
>
> It doesn't necessarily have to cover long distances at all. Most
> people's needs are well covered by a range of only 20km a day or so. It
> might make economic sense to have a small electrical or hybrid runabout
> for the 80% of trips that are close to home, and keep a "real" car in
> reserve for long distances.
>
> Regards, K.
>
>