[LINK] Re: Electric vehicles and generation

Tom Worthington Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au
Thu Jul 27 10:46:38 AEST 2006


At 02:42 PM 7/25/2006, Glen Turner wrote:
>Tom Worthington wrote:
>
>>... solar panels to recharge such cars in a computer scheduled car 
>>rental pool <http://www.tomw.net.au/2001/sa/epod.shtml#pooling>.
>
>That might not work as well as you hope.  You'd need two cars to 
>avoid yet another set of batteries, assuming the car is driven when 
>the sun is shining.

Yes, the car pool would have several cars. While one is charging 
another could be driven. If they are all out, excess solar power 
could be fed into the grid.

>Solar cells are about $2 per watt in capital cost.  I think Tony 
>calculated the car requires 15kW to charge. So a handwaving
>$30,000. ...

Yes, the cost needs to come down a bit. But $30,000 may not be 
unreasonable if you have several cars in a pool. The ANU has made 
some solar breakthroughs. I have suggested that these might be used 
in India, where the power supply is unreliable. You could use the car 
batteries as a backup power supply for a building 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2006/03/australian-solar-cells-to-power-indian.html>.

>Personally, I think we're seeing the start of the end of the age of
>everyday individual transportation.  ...

If the fuel supply tapers off over a decade or so (or the price gets 
progressively higher), everyone can gradually adjust by first buying 
a more efficient petrol car and then an electric one (or use a bus).

At 04:55 PM 7/25/2006, David Lochrin wrote:
>...  more to this technology than just fitting an electric motor. ...

Yes, but it is still within the capabilities of a backyard mechanic 
to convert a petrol car to batter electric operation. Granted, Shaun 
Williams is smarter than the average backyard mechanic, but he did 
literally take the engine out of a car and put in an electric motor 
and batteries, then had it registered 
<http://www.electric-echo.com/journal.htm>.

Just to make this relevant to Link, the interesting part I think is 
how to use the Internet to provide an infrastructure for such vehicles.



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                http://www.tomw.net.au/
Director, ACS Communications Tech Board   http://www.acs.org.au/ctb/
Visiting Fellow, ANU      Blog: http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/atom.xml  




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