The energy spent to get the car to the top of the hill is spent to get the car to the top of the hill, not to charge the batteries. Now that the feat has been accomplished, if you want to get to the bottom of the hill, you have to dissipate some energy. You might dissipate it as heat, or you might put it into a battery.
Next time you go up a hill, some of the energy that you need can come from the batteries, and some from gasoline.
It's not perpetual motion, but it's not all lost either.
This is true, but it's still better than nothing at all, which is the other option.
There's enough energy generated in one braking event that the battery would be fully charged very quickly, you'd be back to regular friction brakes almost instantly.
Heating the passenger space is never a problem. The regular heater uses waste heat from the engine.
Regenerative braking is actually a darn good idea, even if it doesn't appeal to my inner Luddite.
nate
What the government should be eliminating is the tax credit for the production of ethanol. Recent studies have proved that it requires 24% to 54% more energy to produce ethanol than the energy produced by ethanol. If adding alcohol to gasoline is going to reduce pollution then the oil companies should be allowed to make if from the methanol that they now must burn off as a byproduct of oil production. Mental can be produced less expensively and will not need an tax credit to do so.
mike hunt
Been done. Several years ago in France. Works quite well, too.
The Government won't allow it to be tested - they have this Suzuki Samurai fake image in their heads despite it being tested extensively in Europe and passing much tougher standards. They just say that it's "too small" and know that it can't possibly be "safe". Idiots.
ZAP is run by a bonch of self-serving morons who only pretend to care about the environment. I know, I met them years ago when I lived in Santa Rosa. They were runnning around some of the dodgiest electric vehicle deisngs that I'd ever seen all the while touting themselves as "experts" because they refitted Escorts(mid 90's at the time) and the like with a bunch of batteries and some DIY electronics. $20K for 40 mile range? No thanks.
That's a 3-4K markup over the cost, typical of the company. Why Smart itself doesn't take over and bury them I don't know.
Joseph Oberlander wrote in part:
Many energy storage methods have been tried over the years. In the
70s, engineers thought that new ceramic materials might make flywheels capable of sufficient energy density. They were wrong.-- Jim Chinnis Warrenton, Virginia, USA
I wonder what the $$/mile numbers work out to be on costs of compressed air at the pressures and quantities needed.
Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my adddress with the letter 'x')
This is seeing use. It's cheaper to compress air with an electric motor. There's no pollution, no fuel storage problems, no chemicals(batteries) - it's just two huge air tanks and a really huge version of the air engines you see in those flying toy airplanes.
That they can go that far - it's impressive. Beats all other technologies for urban use as well, since the tanks could be refilled at a "station" in minutes instead of hours like batteries.
$1 USD per 62 miles. 200 mile range. 70mph top speed. It's basically a stretched Smart Car.
Um, plenty of motorcycles out there allowed to be on the roads - the government couldn't possibly consider a Samurai safer than a Kawasaki.
I think the real problem is that ZAP got their 10 year exclusive distributorship before fuel prices went through the roof and everybody suddenly fell out of love with the SUV. At the time Smart probably figured they would be lucky to sell a thousand vehicles a year in the US. If Smart hadn't signed that deal and was looking to come into the US market today, their expectations would be far different and they would never have agreed to that deal.
Ted
That's a little too conspiratorial for me. The manufacturer has to submit cars for testing, which is too expensive if Daimler thinks it won't sell in the US. I doubt that the testing agency would ever refuse to test a car from a major manufacturer.
I remember them un-fondly from a few years ago, when I was thinking of getting an electric motorcycle. But, they are in the news again today.
<"_The tiniest cars money can't buy_"
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