Tow cars and trailers

On May 21, 9:55 pm, Frank Whiteley wrote:
On May 21, 6:37 pm, "Bill Daniels" bildan@comcast-dot-net wrote:



"Dan G" wrote in message

oups.com...

On May 21, 7:42 pm, "Bill Daniels" bildan@comcast-dot-net wrote:
Pure electric vehicles are slowly emerging as quite possibly the final
answer. There has been rapid fire announcements of lithium ion battery
technology advancements in the key areas of energy density and charge
time.
Toshiba and others have Lithium Polymer cells that can be fully charged
in
less than 5 minutes and still last 20,000 recharge cycles. Charge time
is
just as important as driving range with electrics with one offsetting the
other. If the vehicle can be recharged in 5 minutes at convienient
locations, who cares if it only goes 150 miles between charges. For
serious
"off grid" driving, the Volt approach looks good.

The so called "hydrogen economy" is just bafflegab from the Bush
administration to delay any action. Hydrogen is not likely to be part of
the solution. An "electric economy" however is easy to imagine.
Electricity is extremely flexible. An electric vehicle can be slowly
recharged overnight at home or quickly at a charging station. The
electricity can come from almost any source.

My original thought is that even an electric could tow a glider trailer
if
the trailer itself supplied some of the power. Imagine side boxes ahead
and
behind each trailer wheel containing batteries and wheels containing
electric motors. The trailer then powers itself and the "tow" vehicle
just
guides it.

Bill Daniels

Disagree wholesale. Li battery technology development has plateaued
over the last few years. Sony's Nexelion is as good as it gets and
it's not good enough. Li-polymer didn't give the better energy density
promised and suffers equally from the one of the problem of all li
batteries - ageing. All lithium batteries die within a few years
regardless of how they are used (li-ion batteries can be cycled
countless times). Just ask any iPod owner. All the current research is
going into sustaining high discharge rates, and the first results will
be seen in the 2009 Prius which will drop nickel batteries for li with
a considerable weight and space saving.

No, there's a reason why all the R&D money is going into fuel cells -
huge potential. Fuel cell efficiency is improving rapidly and hydrogen
storage via simple compression is already practical (witness the 300
mile drive on a single tank by a couple of GM fuel cars last week)
while hydrogen adsorption has (again that magic feature) huge
potential:

http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/Journa...otPalomino.asp

It's that "low-hanging fruit" thing. Battery technology's has already
been picked while fuel cell's are still hanging.

Dan

Hmm... I'd suggest reading this article by no less than EV Weekly:

Fuel Cells - a Reality Checkhttp://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=730

It says the likely effeciency of fuel cells is 14 - 28% which doesn't take
into account the hydrogen production losses which are considerable. More
than one person has suggested that the whole "hydrogen economy" thing is a
stalking horse for the nuclear industry since the only way to produce enough
hydrogen to replace petroleum based motor vehicle fuels is with about 1500
new nuclear power plants. Even with those, building a hydrogen distribution
and storage system would be a formidable undertaking. I smell pork barrel
politics.

In the last few days, one of the national labs, Los Alamos I think, reported
doubling the energy density of lithium ion batteries while virtually
eliminating thermal runaway. The electric power industry has stated that
the existing power grid can recharge electric cars whithout problems even if
85% of the existing cars were electric. Again with an existing distribution
system and fast charge batteries giving a 300 mile range, it's going to be
hard to beat simple electrics.

Bill Daniels

http://www.physorg.com/news97255464.html

Never know where a major paradigm shift might show up.

Say by throwing cheap H2 in herehttp://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/104/12/4828

Or here, thinking outside the box, something different herehttp://www.physorg.com/news94144517.html

Cheap is a relative number, but without the platinum.....

Frank Whiteley

Now here's a hybrid tow vehicle
http://tinyurl.com/yskkk9

Frank