Electric is Future?

[Massive]

Was having a discussion at college today and thought this would be interesting, on james mays boys toys, the wanted to know how fast scaletrix cars would be, so the got a Ford GT and a Ford GT scaletrix car, which is 32x smaller, and it was worked out that the scaletrix car could get to something like 600 mph, if it was a full size car, if you get what i mean.

This is probably because eletricity can travel that fast there is no need to pump fuel into the engine for it to be have to build up power , it would be instant power as soon as you put your foot on the accellerator when the connection is made.

The Tesla is a perfect example, 0-60 in 4 secs, the top speed isnt too great at 130, but im sure in time that could be improved on as technology gets better

 

[pgarner]

yup but i drive down to london around 3 times a year to see a mate.
360mile trip each way - basically not even the best elecrtic car can do that in one go.
then youve got the extra weight from the battery, and where do you get the raw materials for the battery in the 1st place, then theres charge them ohh and the cost of the batterys which only have a limited lifespan of circ 2-3000 charges

 

[Massive]

im sure in the future, they will have some form of battery that can power a car, and maybe incorperate a small electro magnet that as the car drives it also re charges the battery at the same time, thus an unlimted life span or something like that lol

 

[obi_waynne]

But if real roads had metal strips down them.....

 

[Massive]

lol yea that would be ace it would be like 0-60 in 2 secs! make it kinda hard to steer lol, or we could have metal conducting poles on the back of our cars like dodgems, just imagine what would happen it there was a power cut

 

[pgarner]

nah im looking more at he hydrogen ideas, maybe not as fully cold fusion ( water is turned into hydrogen and oxygen, burnt which turns it back to water, cooled then the process starts again) but its starting to crop up more on the continent. priced about the same as petrol similar power and looking towards the future hopefully cheaper to obtain

 

[Chippy657]

Am i right in saying top gear done a little segmant on this, they have built a car that has the same attributes as its engine couterpart and it runs off a hydrogen fuel cell or something like that anyway!

 

[HDi fun]

That's the big big problem with electricity, namely storing the stuff. If you could find a way to cram the same amount of energy contained in a full tank of diesel or petrol (or LPG) into a similar space at a similar weight then electric cars would be de rigeur.

Even though the stuff has to be generated somewhere it's far more efficient to burn fossil fuels in a power station than it is to do so within the confines of a car.

I suspect, however, that if fuel cell technology or another derivative was developed to the point that it was economically viable to produce en masse the individual who devised it would be a prime target of Oil Producing Countries as their last eighty years worth of black gold would become instantly worthless.

Possible even the Customs and Excise would be after 'removing' you to protect their fuel duty revenue stream

 

[pgarner]

Am i right in saying top gear done a little segmant on this, they have built a car that has the same attributes as its engine couterpart and it runs off a hydrogen fuel cell or something like that anyway!

yeah theres a couple out now.
honda do one and BMW do a hydrogen 7 series

 

[obi_waynne]

My wife is always getting static shocks off the car, now if all that energy could be harnessed!

 

[HDi fun]

My wife is always getting static shocks off the car, now if all that energy could be harnessed!

Static electricity is not much use for this purpose. I get shocks from mine, too.

The electricity can't be harnessed but the stream of blue language which emanates upon my receipt of such a shock might well prove a viable energy source.