How often do electric cars need charged?
January 31st, 2010
valorandmadness asked:
I have a debate on the subject of electric cars and i would like to know how often they need charged.
I have a debate on the subject of electric cars and i would like to know how often they need charged.
February 3rd, 2010 at 9:22 am
At present I think all U can get is about 200 miles.
February 6th, 2010 at 3:14 pm
The simplest habit is to plug in whenever you park at home, work or shopping mall.
Then the car can top-up off-peak and sell electric back to the grid when there is peak demand
A car that has a range of 200 miles but only does a typical 20 mile journey has a lot of spare capacity.
if you have to do more than 200 miles there will be service stations where you can recharge in 10minutes while you take a necessary break
Pluggin in is a lot easier, cleaner and convenient than having to queue at a smelly petrol station every week.
February 9th, 2010 at 4:37 pm
Depends on the car.
Most ones that’re out on the market aren’t great. The newest G-Wiz goes about 75 miles before needing a charge:
The upcoming Tesla Roadster gets about 230 miles.
The upcoming plug in Prius and Chevrolet Volt can get between 40 and 60 miles on battery. They have an on board petrol engine to recharge batteries.
We’re still years, probably a decade or so away from commercial family cars that get a good distance on batteries I reckon.
February 9th, 2010 at 7:58 pm
I bought a “conversion”; that is, someone converted a mazda pickup truck from internal combustion to electric. It doesn’t use the pricey lithium batteries so it doesn’t have the phenomenal range of the Tesla etc. (Then again, the truck was much cheaper than a Tesla…)
It’s barely able to keep up with freeway traffic so I mostly use it around town. And I look to charge it every 30 or so miles. It consumes about 10 or 11 kWh per charging cycle.
I just learned that charging it after 20 miles takes 10 kWh and charging it after 30 miles takes 10 kWh. That really surprised me. Something weird about the computer algorithm used to run the charger.
Because of the electric, I get a special rate for off peak electricity and each 10 kWh costs me about a dollar. ‘Off-peak’ is 9pm to 5am - so I don’t just charge it when I get home.
February 10th, 2010 at 3:37 pm
If you’ve ever had a laptop computer, you know that Lithium Ion batteries soon deliver far less than promised. Heat is the enemy of Lithium Ion batteries so high current discharge and recharge though possible is not desirable. Lithium Ion battery also has the distinction of permanently loosing maximum capacity over time, this loss can be kept to a minimum by only charging them to 50% and keeping the batteries refrigerated. This is why Lithium Ion batteries are shipped with a 50% charge. Lithium Ion batteries have a leakage rate of about 12% per month.
In general, with electric cars, it’s necessary to revise our expectations of the car, instead of expecting a week worth of usage from one “tank”, it would be better to expect to charge at every opportunity even trickle charging by solar when parked in a sunny parking lot. Considering that most urban usage are short trips, this is relatively feasible with the exception that there are few electric outlets conveniently placed for such charging hence you can only rely on there being one at home. The outlets provided at parking lots in the North are for block heaters and the expectation is that only 50 watts would be needed for each vehicle (typical block heaters only draw 50 watts) hence numerous parking spaces share the same circuit, however with the right control circuits, it may be possible have a 110V trickle charge cable that is current limited to draw only 50W and hence make marginal use of the existing outlets. However electric cars do not do well in cold climates as cold temperatures reduces the amount of power available till the batteries warm up.
Basically, you want to be charging the car whenever it is parked and given typical urban use, this may actually become practical someday, till then expect to charge every evening. Given that typical urban commutes are relatively short, it may be that a plugin hybrid would be a good compromise, however as the goal of a plugin hybrid is to not use the internal combustion engine except when the added range is needed, I would like to see diesel plug in hybrids as gasoline has a limited shelf life before separating out and gumming everything up. This may be where some form of fuel cell may work well, there has been some rather promising ethanol and methanol fuel cells lately and microbial fuel cells are also showing a lot of promise but since I don’t have a green thumb, I shudder at the thought of trying to keep a biologically powered car alive.
February 12th, 2010 at 9:10 am
Hi.
Well I can tell you that my Electric Car travels 250 miles. I’ve converted an old Toyota Tacoma to an electric truck. I used a Tacoma because the truck is small and not too heavy but has enough space for many batteries. I’ve got 22 batteries in my Tacoma so the 250 miles are no problem.
I’ve also set up a website about electric cars. If you’re interested then visit: