Alberta looking at ways to expand natural gas use, including in vehicles

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

And even those you'll need less often, as you use brakes less in electric cars.

Go on......

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by Barnes

Go on......

On a normal car, lift off the accelerator pedal, and you coast. On an electric car, if you release the accelerator pedal, engine braking starts immediately. There is no "coasting to a stop." The engine will do most of the braking - recharging the batteries, taking a good portion of the braking duties from the friction brakes.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

On a normal car, lift off the accelerator pedal, and you coast. On an electric car, if you release the accelerator pedal, engine braking starts immediately. There is no "coasting to a stop." The engine will do most of the braking - recharging the batteries, taking a good portion of the braking duties from the friction brakes.

I always thought the regenerative brake was something you had to activate. That makes more sense to me from a control point of view - to have neutral/coasting as off the gas and off the brake, rather than part way down the accelerator.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by TheGrimm

Battery performance in cold weather is bad, Alberta has a lot of cold weather, therefore Batteries in Alberta = Bad.

I am all for electric vehicles, but I really don't see widespread adoption until we can get rapid charging (5-15 min) and 500k per charge.

Tesla Model S has an option al battery pack capable of 500 km, and can charge in 45 minutes, or do a 5 minute battery swap.

To actually charge a battery capable of driving 500 km in 5-15 minutes takes an absurd amount of power - the cable for the charger would be quite a bit too heavy for one person to handle. It's never going to happen, but that's why cars will be designed for quick battery swaps.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by SebC

I always thought the regenerative brake was something you had to activate. That makes more sense to me from a control point of view - to have neutral/coasting as off the gas and off the brake, rather than part way down the accelerator.

Looking at it briefly on the web, it seems like different manufacturers are approaching this differently, everywhere from trying to make the car feel like a regular car, all the way to a car that would essentially be one pedal operation (friction brakes for emergencies only). It would take some getting used to, but I don't think the learning period would be very long. Either way, regenerative braking is essential for an electric car - it lengthens the range - significantly in stop and go traffic. All electric cars use it, and by definition, the more regeneration a car uses, the less they use friction brakes.

[TheGrimm]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

Tesla Model S has an option al battery pack capable of 500 km, and can charge in 45 minutes, or do a 5 minute battery swap.

To actually charge a battery capable of driving 500 km in 5-15 minutes takes an absurd amount of power - the cable for the charger would be quite a bit too heavy for one person to handle. It's never going to happen, but that's why cars will be designed for quick battery swaps.

Hahaha.. You make it sound as if I'd simply take an extra one along for the ride and swap it out when I get low on power. You think the charging cable would be a bit too heavy for one person??? Think about how heavy that 85 kWh battery is! The bottom line is that extended trips aren't practical in the current form, and until batteries become lighter, more powerful and faster charging they will be nothing more then commuters or hybrid types.

Now.. A NGV Hybrid might be a cool vehicle

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by TheGrimm

Hahaha.. You make it sound as if I'd simply take an extra one along for the ride and swap it out when I get low on power. You think the charging cable would be a bit too heavy for one person??? Think about how heavy that 85 kWh battery is! The bottom line is that extended trips aren't practical in the current form, and until batteries become lighter, more powerful and faster charging they will be nothing more then commuters or hybrid types.

Now.. A NGV Hybrid might be a cool vehicle

Standardized, swappable battery packs. Lots of options.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

Standardized, swappable battery packs. Lots of options.

Yup, the idea would be that you don't really own the battery packs, but instead just pay for one charge worth of electricity, and one charge worth of the batteries life. You would drive to a service station, who would have the standardized battery packs sitting on a shelf fully charged, and you would drive in, and they would switch batteries. It would take five minutes, obviously not "self serve."

Originally Posted by TheGrimm

and until batteries become lighter, more powerful and faster charging they will be nothing more then commuters or hybrid types.

Batteries that can last for 5 hours of driving and take only 45 minutes to charge, is good enough for 95% of people for all the driving they ever do. The rest would only have to adapt slightly. When I'm on the highway driving, I usually stop at least that often, and quite often it ends up being that long. Sure, there might be a lack of charging stations right now, but that will change as electric cars get more and more common.

[zamler]

Brake pads in a Prius last 3 times longer or more than a conventional car because of regenerative braking.

I find the lack of electric car development frustrating, no I don't expect engineering miracles where a battery powered car can completely replace a gas burner currently. But the conspiracy theorist in me wonders how much "big oil" influence is stagnating the development. If every car was electric powered, an entire industry would essentially become obsolete, think of the amount of replacement parts that would no longer be needed, it's staggering.

We do have the Volt, but it's too expensive for what it offers which is why the Pruis outsells it probably 100:1. Speaking of the Prius, Toyota is taking their sweet time on a plugin version, apparently for safety reasons, lithium-ion batteries can be extremely dangerous.