On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 19:11:53 -0500, "Morgans"
wrote:


"Denny" wrote in message
...
40 miles a day is cutting it too close, people are going to wind up
stranded away from home... On weekends I average about 70 per day...

Given 40 mile batteries, a gas engine driving an onboard high
efficiency generator is what they will settle on for the commuter car,
allowing for the 70 mile days with minimal gas costs and a deep
recharge from the electric grid after arriving home...

Not sure of what you are saying, but the GM answer is a gas driven
generator, to kick in after the batteries are close to drained, so after 40

The generator would need to kick in a lot sooner than that, or you'd
see greatly reduced battery life.

miles, you run a small gas motor for the last 30, giving you gas mileage of
around 150 MPG. Of course, you still have to pay for the recharge on your
electric bill, or leave the engine running to recharge from the generator.

The Toyota Prius has the capability of running all electric in Europe.
There's a big button on the dash to put it in the all electric mode.
That makes them capable of over 100 MPG. Without it we seem to be
averaging a tad over 47. That option is not available in the states
so they could push the warranty up on the battery. In town and out in
the hills it's possible to get much better than the rated 50 MPG, BUT
to use the driving techniques required to get that kind of mileage
would make you the target of everyone else on the road:-))

As has been publicized, we don't have the grid capacity to support
much in the way of all electric cars. The same is true for Hydrogen.
It's either produced from fossil fuels with a lot of polluting
byproducts or takes a whale of a lot of electrical energy to produce
from water.

Alcohol is an interim solution with the hybrid being by far the most
economical and quickest to implement of the interim solutions.

As for grid capacity we are rapidly coming to the point of real time
usage monitoring with remote setback of heating and air conditioning.
Here with peak rates of about 10 cents per KWH we wouldn't see the
savings of those fortunate souls paying 38 cents during peak demand
out in the Republik of Kalafornia.

OTOH solar panels don't do us much good either.

Roger (K8RI)