Thread: If it was an EV world: .. Switching to Petrol Cars

Yes, all hypothetical. The article is nonsense.

I think lithium would have taken on much earlier in your hypothetical scenario.

There are over a billion ICE vehicles already. We are now hoping to add another billion EVs. From an enviromental perspective, its stupidity!

I would love to see more re-use and repurpose. But it's not going to happen, not while the masses are happy to buy a new version of the same thing year after year.

China had the one child policy, maybe we should have the one life one car policy. If it breaks, fix it. If it needs new tech, retrofit. If you get tired of it, walk.

I am not against electric vehicles and owned a road going one in NSW (1980s) before they become the new fad and been playing with them for a living ever since.
I find the video interesting..........I wonder how the short circult and damage tests go , not using a single 4 volt cell, but many cells jointed together to make 400 volts......................not very well.
Life cycle costs .........copper and other metals used not in the battery, but the vehicle.
Electric vehicles have been and still are more expensive to manufacture because of the need for more expensive materials.
The battery is the most expensive part of the vehicle and when that is due for replacing the vehicle becomes near worthless..........ie resale is poor.
I expect in time this will improve slightly.
Australias current electricty grid is not geared the handle a large number of electric vehicles and the cost of copper in smelting, mining electric for high cap recharging points never seems to be facted into the electric vehicle cycles for cost over,manufacture, full life, recycle, dispose, ect.
Not beening negative with electric vehicles...........just fairly pointing out it is not as green and sweet as it seems............but electric vehicles will have a good place in our future if it is not forced on to the transport system by taxing other methods and finds its way on a level playing field.
I know this a simple overal............just pointing out somethings which get glossed over and many more things good and bad can be added.

I would like like to point out that a litre of petrol is a storage system of energy which dense compared to many other ways of energy storage.
The problem is we currently cannot use all of the energy stored in petrol with current methods.......internal combustion motors etc.
Off the top of my head a litre of petrol has enought energy to get a small load to the moon.
A litre of petrol burns readily or can explode if the correct chemical conditions are present.
A battery is a energy storage system with less density than petrol, but electric motor can extract that energy more efficently than a internal combustion engine.
If a battery is made with energy density the same is petrol, that would be fantastic .................but because of that energy density the battery becomes like petrol to handle, but in a different way. ..............the battery wants to restore its self to its natural state which is discharged, if aged or damaged it becomes unstable.
It know this is simplistic..........but I hope you can see what I am getting at.
Now if we start talking about atomic energy and how the the pencil you write with has enough energy to blow of your hand if we could change its atomic density.

If you chase these old Photo bucket pictures from the links below you should be able to see my old Enfield Electric.
I think it was a 1974 model and the pic were then about 1985.
Like the electric vehicles today with Lith ion batteries it was possible to get the rear wheels to chirp or spin accelerating just off the mark with lead acid tech batteries.
It used a Compound wound DC motor.
48 volt system.
voltage switching for speed control with a combination of switching the motor from series to parallel windings.
rack and pinion steering, alloy body work on a steel tube space frame.
It had a house hold 240 volt power meter near the rear seat so you could workout overall 240volt Kw used.
I sold it on and the last I heard of it was that Giltraps museum purchased it.
It died something bad going up a hill due to the weight of the batteries of the time.

A modern take on a another Enfield electric.
YouTube

PS the Li Ion batteries doesn't make the modern take on the Enfield electric work so well.....the batteries are rubbish....its the flux capacitor which transforms it.
Ron

Ron, never realised you had an Enfield,
I see you spilled the beans on the Flux Capacitor , its also what makes my Landy work well.

Thankyou for posting those pictures, Ron. I saw an Enfied Electric car on Friday. I wondered what it was. Now I know.

As far as I know there were only two Enfeild electrics sold into this country.
They were both purchased new by the Victorian electricity comission of the time.
I would love to know where my old one is today.
When I had it in was in mint condition with about 200 miles on the clock with the original un worn Avon tyres ect.
Ron