Electric cars should be competing against gas cars

But you look at the inefficiencies involved in that setup, and you'd be better off not even having a generator feeding into the batteries. Just have a dual-engine vehicle. One gasoline, one running electric motors off battery. Run the battery until it is dead, then run the gas. Or whichever is more readily available. Running a gas generator to then convert to battry power- uh uh.

Figure the gasoline engine runs what, 15-25% efficient? The rest is heat. The generator runs 90%? The battery>to electric motor>torque at the wheel is 85-90%?

So figure .15x.9x9= ~12% efficiency of your fuel. Stick with the straight gasoline to torque conversion.

Or even disregard the inefficiency of the gas motor, since it's common to both design (although a bigger gasoline engine is slightly more efficient). Just figure your generator conversion to electricity is probably less than 90% at charging your battery, and from the battery storage back to the wheels, it's not 100% either. Either way, you lose a great deal along the way.

 

The trouble is in the efficiency of batteries. Gasoline is incredibly energy dense while batteries are not so much. Perhaps future technologies like Nano-batacitors would do the trick.

 

I work on batteries for a living. I don't see an electric car actually competing with a gas car and everything a gas car does today.

On the other hand, an electric car would make a decent foul weather vehicle for students and inner city commuters with no money and no space for parking. So really you are competing with a bike.

But first it needs to cost about the same, take up no more space than a bike, and weigh no more than a set of golf clubs.

 

After speaking with the Owner of Zapp Works. I learned why The United States has not changed a thing regarding what we drive on. The entire infrastructure(roads, bridges etc) are paid for with Gas and diesel taxes. Without changing to a wheel tax to pay for the roads nothing is going to happen. So the best way to beat the system right now is to either build it yourself or find a small builder who will build you one. I am now going to be using Nickel IRON batteries in my home for our solar set up. Once this system is up and running Ill be looking hard at having a short range electric car built. Then we will build a solar charger just for the car. KF

 

A guy built this BAD @$$ pure electric in his garage.

Here's the web site:
www.electricevette.com/
It uses standard deep cycle golf cart batteries,does hwy speed+,has a 200mi.+range per charge,can go off road,and is registered as a motorcycle.