Thread: Electric Cars

Originally Posted by superquag

What is the point of using hydrocarbons to dig up the coal, burn it to make steam to drive turbines to drive the alternators... then carry the electricity all over the place through several voltage changes, and to your house/recharge station. Then reduce the voltage(?) and rectify to DC to charge a storage battery....

Why not just make steam on board and drive your car with it.....?

Steam offers few, if any, advantages over the internal combustion engine. It shares with electric vehicles the advantage of being inherently silent and simple - but to achieve instant starting that is inherently available with the IC engine, it becomes very complex and expensive. And has to compete with a hundred years of development of the IC engine with by comparison, practically nothing spent on steam.

And steam still requires hydrocarbon fuel, and is, in practice, less efficient than a petrol engine, and far less efficient than a small diesel. Emissions would be comparable with a modern IC engine. All the historical evidence suggests that even the best steam car today would have no advantage over the current IC engines, but would be far more expensive and use more hydrocarbon fuel.

So the question has to be not "Why not?", but "Why?".

John

Did you check that link ?

Some comments from the horses' mouth...

"...WALTER C. BAKER:—Why is an efficiency twice that of a gasoline car claimed?

ABNER DOBLE:—Everything depends upon what you mean by "efficiency." We know that 18 per cent thermal efficiency is obtainable from a gasoline engine running at full load. We also know that cars do not run at full rated load much more than 1 per cent of the time. .When running at 20 or 25 m.p.h. about 5 hp. is required to drive the car. Under such light load the ordinary engine will have a thermal efficiency of about 4.5 to 5.0 per cent.

The highest thermal efficiency we know of to-day with the steam powerplant is about 21.8 per cent at its full rated load. This is obtained by using a combustion system in which the air is preheated, at the risk of burning out the grate bars. The Doble steam generator has no grate bars, but uses a refractory material that we developed. It will stand about 3400 deg. F. before it fuses. The temperature attained in our fire box is about 2600 deg. F. The air is preheated to 200 deg. before it enters the carbureter, by utilizing about one-third the heat that would otherwise go out of the stack. The boiler efficiency without the economizer is about 82 per cent. This is equivalent to standard practice in boilers.

With our boiler we can increase the efficiency about 4 per cent by the economizer and by using a regenerator, which can be placed on the end of the stack, we can raise the boiler efficiency to about 92 per cent.
The best net thermal efficiency that we have been able to secure from our powerplant is about 16 per cent under full load. With the 5 hp. load imposed when a car is driven at 25 m.p.h., we realize 14 per cent net thermal efficiency.

My car, which was built three years ago, and is crude in some ways, has been driven almost 40,000 miles. It will run 15 miles to the gallon of kerosene under favorable conditions, and will average about 11.5 miles per gallon, although I drive through traffic and mud a part of the time. The old type of steam car never ran more than 7 miles per gallon...."

Hmmm, not that far removed from a LR V8. - and with HEAPS more torque.. in a car around twice the weight.

IMHO, the builders of Yesterday's steam cars - especially Doble - did a better job with what they had... than many more recent car-makers achieve. By the way, BMW is, AFAIK, still working on a waste-heat steam turbine to provide electric power... and save 10% fuel...

Originally Posted by superquag

Did you check that link ?

Some comments from the horses' mouth...

"...WALTER C. BAKER:—Why is an efficiency twice that of a gasoline car claimed?

ABNER DOBLE:—Everything depends upon what you mean by "efficiency." We know that 18 per cent thermal efficiency is obtainable from a gasoline engine running at full load. We also know that cars do not run at full rated load much more than 1 per cent of the time. .When running at 20 or 25 m.p.h. about 5 hp. is required to drive the car. Under such light load the ordinary engine will have a thermal efficiency of about 4.5 to 5.0 per cent.

The highest thermal efficiency we know of to-day with the steam powerplant is about 21.8 per cent at its full rated load. This is obtained by using a combustion system in which the air is preheated, at the risk of burning out the grate bars. The Doble steam generator has no grate bars, but uses a refractory material that we developed. It will stand about 3400 deg. F. before it fuses. The temperature attained in our fire box is about 2600 deg. F. The air is preheated to 200 deg. before it enters the carbureter, by utilizing about one-third the heat that would otherwise go out of the stack. The boiler efficiency without the economizer is about 82 per cent. This is equivalent to standard practice in boilers.

With our boiler we can increase the efficiency about 4 per cent by the economizer and by using a regenerator, which can be placed on the end of the stack, we can raise the boiler efficiency to about 92 per cent.
The best net thermal efficiency that we have been able to secure from our powerplant is about 16 per cent under full load. With the 5 hp. load imposed when a car is driven at 25 m.p.h., we realize 14 per cent net thermal efficiency.

My car, which was built three years ago, and is crude in some ways, has been driven almost 40,000 miles. It will run 15 miles to the gallon of kerosene under favorable conditions, and will average about 11.5 miles per gallon, although I drive through traffic and mud a part of the time. The old type of steam car never ran more than 7 miles per gallon...."

Hmmm, not that far removed from a LR V8. - and with HEAPS more torque..

- so you believe anything you read on the internet???

So - your link says a steam power station can have 21.8% thermal efficiency. The best diesels are ~52%.

Put that in your boiler and smoke it...

Originally Posted by isuzurover

- so you believe anything you read on the internet???

So - your link says a steam power station can have 21.8% thermal efficiency. The best diesels are ~52%.

Put that in your boiler and smoke it...

Nope, just treat the 'net like any unseen "Source", like newspapers, magazines, Forums, Trade journals and a Mate-of-a-mate...

Depends a bit on how rubbery the 'efficiency' figures are, but I don't doubt modern diesels are producing the goods....

A well designed/maintained boiler drinking a lightweight liquid fuel won't produce any 'smoke'... - We've all read about the joys of DPF's in the latest transport diesel engines...

Wonder what BMW engineers are smoking... they're looking at utilising waste heat to generate steam... to generate electricity... Claim 10 % reduction in fuel consumption.

Us V-8 slaves would welcome that sort of reduction ...

Well you blokes EVEN the Pope is being a holier shade of green than thou & than most of us!
Pope goes green with electric car - Yahoo! News

A green benediction upon all the nay sayers!
Cheers Dennis
(Now doing his spectacles, testicles, wallet, and watch!)
zedcars

http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/blog/...ctrical+storm/

The Pope appears to be Energised by the Power from on high, () not the heat & steam from Down Below, ()

- I am suitably chastised for my heresy...

Amen...