When we're talking about a machine that I'm strapped into, traveling down the highway at (mumble) MPH, I'd prefer that the electronics be old-tech, thankyewverymuch. Just like the CPUs used in fire alarm systems tend to be stuff that was obsolete in the PC world a decade ago. We use 'em because they're proven, and don't adopt new technology until that too is proven. When your PC crashes, that's a figure of speech. When your car crashes...
nate
I'm doing it because I want to call attention to certain words without having to put them in all CAPS - since there is no color, no bold, nothing other than plain text, if you understood Usenet posting you would already know this - but I suspect that You already do know it and are just Trolling again.
I still think that the Pirus will croak before the Hummer and that the Pirus will be more if not the same cost to own/dispose of as the Hummer over 200K miles.
Since the Pirus does not exist, I doubt it will croak.
For the same reason your computer, even your laptop computer, requires a CMOS battery.
They do pretty much the same things.
The high voltage traction battery is disconnected from the car until and unless the 12v battery boots up the computer and the computer knows it's OK to close the relay.
Longer actually. Since 1903 in ships and the 1920's for rail locomotives.
The scaling is trivially simple.
That's because it very foolishly still uses the engine for direct mechanical propulsion with all the attendant heavy engineering (gearboxes and transmision shafts) and energy wasteful overhead that entails.
Graham
Look into it some more. There's plenty of high tech inside the Prius. Much of it is the ingenious use of existing technologies to take away gross inefficiencies of the internal combustion engine.
They cherry picked the problems they wanted to solve, but that's OK--the ones they solved were fairly large.
Now, you can stick your head in the sand and not investigate the technology, but that just makes you look like a total ass when you make proclamations like that.
Not for the quality of their engines AFAIK.
Skoda (part of VW) even makes a turbo-diesel 'GTi style' hot hatchback now ! UK motoring program Top Gear put it on test against its similar gasoline engined stable-mate and *the diesel won* !
Graham
That's simple prejudice. Old-tech electronics has the disadvantage of poorer energy efficiency. What do you think's going to happen anyway ?
technology
Actually, they're used because you're more interested in low-power and low-cost in such applicarions and don't need all the bells and whistles of a PC CPU never mind it only requires a tiny fraction of the computing speed.
Cars don't use either PC chips or PC software. The software being the real culprit because Microsoft in particular can't code reliably to save themselves.
Airbus airliners are run by computers. The computers don't crash them. The pilots do sometimes when they over-ride the computers though.
Graham
You know something that Toyota, GM, and all the other automakers don't? Why are you wasting your time posting to Usenet instead of patenting the process then?
No, the real reason is the density (or lack thereof) of the storage batteries.
nate
You don't need a 12V lead acid for that.
Graham
stable-mate and *the
Now I'd love to get my paws on one of those. I miss my old Wabbit GTI. Had an '02 1.8T as well, I loved that but in a completely different way - it had a distinct "big car feel" to it.
nate
It's absolutely not *high tech* outside the auto industry. Ergo it's not high-tech. Period.
The engineering in the Prius is relatively mundane and pedestrian.
Graham
Because there's nothing to patent.
Many of the bits aready exist on the shelves. All it needs is someone to bolt them together. Detroit most certainly doesn't seem inclined to do this however.
There may actually be a shortage of suitable compact 300-600cc ICEs with matching high power alternators though.
Any engine manufacturer with some wisdom and foresight ought to be looking to this right now.
Pretty much sorted now for a hybrid that needs maybe only 50 miles of pure EV operation.
With state of the art NiMHs you can get that capacity in about 100kg (220 lbs).
Graham
Well, I can envision my car suddenly losing all power in the hammer lane of a crowded freeway very easily...
technology
Nope, not even close to correct. They are used because it takes time and money to get through the UL (or FM, or whatever) certification process, so mfgrs. tend to stick with an already-certified design until it is actually inadequate for the purpose.
culprit because
Wrong, some cars actually are using MS OS's embedded in various electronic bits.
And how modern do you think those computer CPUs are compared to PCs?
nate
stable-mate and *the
Which year's model was your original GTi ? Was it a Mk1 or 2 ?
That Skoda 2 litre diesel produces 170 bhp btw !
What's the smallest engine any US auto maker fits ?
Graham
You really haven't a clue as to what is involved in scaling down what is basically barely-mobile power plant technology to a midsized automobile, do you? There's a VAST difference between a locomotive, where the weight of the batteries (if any) is essentially nil compared to the train as a whole, and a gasoline (or Diesel) electric hybrid, where a) starting and stopping is far more frequent and dramatic than in a train and b) the batteries make up a significant fraction of the weight of the vehicle, on the order of 20% or more.
To really make a dramatic difference in fuel economy from hybrid technology in an automotive environment, we would need to see vast improvements in energy storage density for the electrical energy used, above and beyond today's cutting edge. All this nice dense energy would still need to a) be available at high currents and b) be able to be recharged at high currents to realize the benefits of downsizing the power plant and fully utilizing regenerative braking.
Even locomotives don't fully utilize regen braking; as far as I know, a lot of the energy generated by electric braking in a locomotive is still deliberately dissipated as heat, as there's nowhere useful for it to go.
Of course, if one were to *make* this breakthrough, it's entirely possible that we could be tooling around in a couple decades in basically fully electric vehicles with a little 20HP engine in the trunk to keep the batteries (or capacitors, or whatever) charged up on long road trips where a high voltage/high current charging station may not be available, but gasoline or Diesel fuel might be. I could even see this power plant being detachable, like a small trailer or a detachable trunk like on vintage cars, so that a car could be used in fully electric mode as a city car.
nate
Huh. Funny, but I've seen people use _this_ sort of emphasis, and *this* sort of emphasis when posting. And to a much lesser degree, -this- sort. They all get the point across, with no caps involved.
But I suspect you'd noticed that before.
Cathy
them together.
Not Detroit, not the Japanese, Europeans, or Koreans either. Let me guess, it's a conspiracy by the same people who suppressed the Fish carburetor and other miracle energy-saving devices.
matching high power
this right now.
Let me repeat myself yet again: THE PROBLEM IS THE ENERGY STORAGE DENSITY (actually energy per unit weight) OF THE BATTERIES. It's not the engines, and it's not a conspiracy. It's the fact that the technological breakthrough hasn't happened yet. The technology is not "mature," it's not even leading edge yet.
For what vehicle weight? Running A/C? Lights?
Compare and contrast with gasoline, where even my wallowing pig of an Impala will run about 400 miles on a 15 gallon tank of gasoline - at a specific gravity of about 0.7 and where water weighs about 8.33 lb/gal, that's still only about 90 lbs; significantly less than your numbers which sound optimistic.
A more pertinent measure of density would be BTU/lb or the SI equivalent thereof. Gasoline contains about 125,000 BTU per US gallon. Therefore
125,000 * .7 * 8.33 = over 700,000 BTU/lb for gasoline, or in units that the rest of the world would follow, about 740mJ/lb or 1600mJ/kg. When batteries (or capacitors, or whatever) achieve that kind of energy density, then we can talk - that's the point at which you can think about coming close to the power/weight ratio of a gasoline powered car while still maintaining reasonable range.nate
Is it?
What do you mean there is no proof? C02 is a greenhouse gas. It is completely necessary to trap heat in our atmoshphere. Much like your body needs salt. However, if you were to drink saltwater you would get sick.
It is not conjecture. It is proven fact. Now you may want to wish it is, but thats nothing more than a hick turning a blind eye.
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