Sunday, February 25, 2024

Electric car concept

2/25/24: Update to post dated 5/2/18:

The propaganda has been so effective that erroneous leftist premises are accepted even here. Nevertheless, if push came to shove, an electric car can be built that could compete economically with the ICE. Indeed, this is the surest way to get acceptance of such vehicles.

Tesla's cars may not be the ticket, but could be a pathfinder of sorts. The problem with Musk's cars is that they are too heavy. Solving that problem may not be feasible. Why not go around it and downsize the batteries as much as possible? Using hybrids may show a way.

The objection to fuel cells is cost. If not fuel cells, the Stirling engines could be mated to an optimized battery size.  It could burn nuclear ammonia, or nuclear hydrocarbons, thus eliminating carbon as an issue for those who believe in the AGW argument.  But the AGW argument isn't going to be an economic policy anyway.  Too many faulty premises here.

The one premise that isn't faulty is the economic one.  If you can produce a carbon free car, which can compete with ICE cars, you may have a winner.  Mandates arising from faulty premises are double trouble.



end update, the original post from 2018 is directly below:

It may have been written before on this blog, but if it has, I cannot locate it easily.

So, never mind that.

With the previous posts, I have combined two ideas into a proposed system that would replace the internal combustion engine.

Read the two posts to get the idea behind the use of nuclear ammonia for a fuel cell car.

Now for the car itself, which is what I wanted to post about.

The battery need not be that large.  Consider the Chevy Volt.  It has a battery with a forty mile range.  Perhaps the battery need not be even this big.  That is because the Chevy Volt relies upon the idea of recharging from the grid.  But the Volt also can recharge itself while in internal combustion mode.

Now, the internal combustion engine is good for this task, but what if you don't want to use an ICE ( internal combustion engine)?

Just replace the ICE with a fuel cell unit.  It doesn't have to be as powerful as the ICE because....????

This is my next idea.  Instead of using an ICE for that big push for acceleration, just use ultracapacitors instead.  The capacitors are good for short bursts of energy, but not for long term cruising on the highway.  For that, we use the fuel cell as a range extender.  At highway speeds, we need only about 20 kilowatts to maintain a constant velocity.  The fuel cells can keep the battery and the capacitors charged up.

Such a system can be made to optimize the size of the batteries.  They need not be as much as the Chevy Volt's system.  If you reduce the size of the batteries, you can reduce the weight of the car, as well as the price.

By the way, the above system is not unique.  Somebody has done it before.  Who??  Cannot recall.  I think a Japanese manufacturer had such a design for fuel cell car.  It is probably not the one being marketed, however.

Arguments against this???

A 20 kwh fuel cell need not be that expensive, but that topic has been covered previously.

The hydrogen fuel need not be that expensive because of the nuclear ammonia.

Ammonia can be transported using existing infrastructure.  Therefore, the infrastructure argument has been refuted.

No reason why it cannot work.


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