Re: Nothing like oil?

On Tue, 19 Feb 2008 05:32:57 -0600, "Ken from Chicago"
<kwicker1b_nospam@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>Aside from the OP asking about oil alternatives for 2 to 3 centuries in
the 
>future, in which a 300-400 mile battery seems plausible, switching over
to 
>battery powered cars would be plausible--even if the batteries take
several 
>hours or even an hour or half an hour to recharge--but require some 
>significant changes.

>--The battery itself would have to be much lighter from 30-50 pounds to 

That sounds more like a current starter battery than a power battery.

>maybe about 5-15 pounds, preferably no more than 10 pounds. The range
would 
>have to be 300-500 miles and cost $30-$60 (or lower) adjusted for
inflation.

Do you know how much a current-tech 300-500 mile battery weighs? It's not
30-50 pounds, but more like 600-1000, if not double that. *Fundamentally*
a battery that carries enough energy for a car to move several hundreds of
miles is just not going to become man-****table.

>--Gas stations would have to also become power stations. You'd have 
>basically battery "pumps", vending machines to sell car batteries. Even 
>better, you turn in your old battery and get a major discount (just like 
>when we could turn in glass pop bottles for a discount or deposit). The
old 
>batteries would be recharged and resold. Imagine battery "pumps" where
you 
>put get a new battery, but also have a slot to put in your old battery
for a 
>discount. The old battery would be automatically lowered underground and 
>automatically plugged into a recharge slot out of sight and then sent
back 
>out on some kind of conveyor system back to the pump when someone wants
to 
>buy a new fully-charged battery (like bowling balls at a bowling alley).

Gas cylinders (propane/butane) for cooking already work like that, at
least in some parts of the world. The problem is that a gas cylinder
doesn't really wear out as such -- it has a 20 year service life or so,
mandated by safety rules, and the service stations exchange them when they
get close to the end of life. It also costs virtually nothing, compared to
the value of the energy stored within.

Batteries, by contrast, not only hold less of a charge when they get
older, they're *extremely* expensive, and they last for only a few years.
Which means that there is a *really* high cost to taking your brand-new
car with a brandnew battery and exchanging the very expensive new battery
for a knackered old one.

You might be able to get it to work for a) fleets, maintaining their own
larger fleet of batteries, or b) leased/rented batteries. It's not going
to work on a buy-then-exchange basis.

>--Cars would have to be significantly altered also. No more of the open
the 
>hood, disconnect the terminals, power first then ground, lug out the
battery 
>and the reverse to put in a new battery. You'd have to have battery side 
>doors akin to gas tank side doors where the batteries would have to as
easy 
>to swap out as video tapes or dvds.

That's not a significant alteration at all. Not compared to exchanging the
engine for an electrically powered one and finding the room for about 5
gas-tanks worth of batteries, at least.

>--Oh and if you want to go on a trip but your battery say half-charged, 
>that's okay because you get a bonus discount depending on the level of 
>charge left in a battery on top of the discount for turning in a battery
in 
>the first place. It would be akin to "topping off" a partially full gas 
>tank.

Of course, the energy contained in a fully charged battery pack even for a
car is not worth all that much. On the leased/rented basis, you could
simply post-charge the customer on the power it took to recharge the
battery they turned in.

>--The battery stations would have to have a large inventory of batteries
in 
>various states of recharge for people coming in for batteries. Over time 

Wouldn't they want to have their entire inventory fully charged, as much
as possible?


Jasper