I've been thinking again, and that is always dangerous...

I love the thought of electric hotrods. But they need charging. I love the electric Tesla, but it needs charging. But I hate the thought of the Pious.

But, if you were to take a car the size of a Chrysler 300C, Convert it to electric. Fit a huge solar panel to the roof to trickle charge, fit a small turbine (like a squirrel cage fan) across the front of the airdam to use wind caused by movement to trickle charge, with regenerative braking to trickle charge, and a small (bio) diesel generator that kicks in when batteries are below a certain level to boost charge (like a night when the solar can't work).

Could that actually work to sustain an electric car of a decent family/executive size between charges that doesn't rely on fossil fuel for main high speed but doesn't require charging several times a day?

Not even suggesting a fantasy project, just mind wandering while trying to avoid the mind numbing TV, and thinking about the stupid cost of fuels.

Regenerative braking works. Wind turbines work. Solar panels work. A diesel generator works.

So why not combine them all them together. Mains charging would always be there as a backup, but why not make it just that, and reduce the fossil fuel elecric generation to a minimum.

Reply to
Elder
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That isn't going to work; it'll ruin the aerodynamics. Far better to reduce the Cd and use regenerative braking for energy recovery.

Not economically - else it would have already been done.

Fitting a solar panel sunroof to the Prius isn't worth it from an economic point of view. By the time you have sufficient solar panels to provide sufficient energy, the car weighs a damn sight more and you need more energy to overcome it.

Ideally, you want a long, narrow car for the combination of a low Cd and frontal area. Think Classic 900.

Rather than your current sprint and stop, try a more moderate pace and stop - just to see the difference?

Sticking the AAC into ECON mode when in stop / go traffic reduces the idle fuel consumption by around 20%. Sure, 20% of not much, isn't much, but if you idle a lot during your commute you may notice this...

Reply to
DervMan

How do you plan on storing the energy? I think they've used this in buses storing it in a big flywheel some years ago. How do you chuck away what you energy you don't need? If you slam the brakes on at 60 I wouldn't be surprised if it generates 200Kw, just a guess but it takes

9 seconds for my car to get to 62 and it produces something like 160Kw so to stop in five seconds is going to generate the same in half the time.

How big a turbine?. Maybe a couple of watts but you are still going to need to put that in to overcome the increased resistance of turning the turbine so overall a loss of energy.

I believe the sun puts 3Kw per square meter onto the earth at maximum so you will need quite a big solar panel.

Again you get less energy generated than you put into it so why not use just it and connect it to the wheels somehow?

The regenerative braking sounds the most interesting but you have to be able to store all of the energy no matter how hard you stand on the brakes and I don't think battery technology is up to being charged at

200Kw in a size that you would want in the car.

Usually just a lurker but was found these ideas interesting :-)

Reply to
rp

Yes, in recovering some of the energy you've already used.

No, you can't get out more energy than you put in. You'll need more energy to move the car due to increased wind resistance than you'll gain from it.

Yes, will give a small contribution.

Would be more efficient to fit a diesel engine to power the car rather than using it to generate electricity to drive motors.

If you don't want to rely on mains electricity you're going to need a large turbine or a small hydro plant. Use the power you need and sell the rest to pay for it over a long time.

Reply to
Homer

Not to drive it, but to trickle/boost the battery when there is no sun to do it.

Reply to
Elder

But the air is going to be passing over/through it anyway on the way to the radiator (or where it would be in a IC engined car). I was thinking in the airdam/grille slot where air normally passes anyway. I wasn't thinking about something sticking out above the normal line of the body, just within one of the normal airflow inlets of the cars.

Reply to
Elder

Forget the above it doesent work in any practical way.

So if you are bored... Get a windmill/generator (fence panels scrap yard car alternators mad max style will impress your neibours and its very cheap) at 12v DC and or a field of expensive solar panels (the expensive way) and use the electrical energy to split water in a U shaped plastic tank with stainless steel cathode and anodes. You get oxygen from one pole, which we dont need. But we get hydrogen from the other one. Collect and compress (old fridge motors work up to 800 psi) it into old CO2 bottles. Fit a regulator and set to a sensible 30 psi and use this in any LPG conversion directly. Engines run cleanly on hydrogen as well. Only by product is water. No acids and other crap - SHOULD PLEASE THE MENTALISTS (DOWNLOAD that movie!). Then you are independent of the fuel supplies. If theres no wind use the household mains - its still cheaper than tax mad petrol. Of course this is another reason never to buy a deseasel.

Reply to
Burgerman

If the turbine was placed within the normal airdam/grille shell where air would flow into what would be the engine bay on a normal car anyway and was ducted back out into the proper airflow over the car would it still add to the resistance?

I was thinking all this as a way of extending the range of an electric car rather than totally powering it. It would still need battery packs and occasional recharges, but surely every little you put back would assist charge time.

Reply to
Elder

It doesent matter. If its doing work its also increasing drag beyond what gains you get.

Reply to
Burgerman

It doesent matter wether you trickle charge it or use a big motor to charge it all the time properly its still less efficient than driving on deseasel.

Reply to
Burgerman

Yep physics insists! It would go further without it.

Reply to
Burgerman

The mental plan was for a conventional battery pack, topped up by all the "alternative" energy sources, rather than powered by them to extend the charge, rather than totally power it.

Reply to
Elder

It will still increase wind resistance more than if it wasn't there. Unfortunately any wind turbine needs energy to drive it, in your case this energy is coming from the batteries you are using to drive the car. As the turbine isn't 100% efficient you will need more energy to drive it than you will get back from it.

Reply to
Homer

In brief, no. It wouldn't achieve what you are hoping for.

The Chysler is a big heavy lump so it's a poor choice to start with. All that mass will need moving around and the lighter you can make your EV the less energy you need to store. Secondly the area available for solar panels isn't sufficient to generate enough electricity for daily use.

As a guide, it used to be said that an animal the size of a horse would need a tree the size of a mature oak growing from its back if it were to be solar powered. Thats for just one horsepower, and trees are much more efficient solar collectors than even the best silicon panels.

The idea with the fan won't work at all. To do work a fan must extract energy from the air, that energy can only come from the moving vehicle and will be represented as drag. There's no way that you can remove energy from the airflow without creating drag, and when you want drag (braking) regenerative braking is a better way to go than a fan.

There are several more holes that can be picked, but for a practical explanation of what it takes to create a solar electric vehicle, there's an excellent web site. It's also an interesting site for modders since it features a restoration of a vehicle from the shell up and he does (IMO) a damn through job including dashboard PC instrumentation.

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It's worth noting that he reckons that the solar panel provides 1/10th of the electricity needed for a day's commute. So the vehicle, which cost £10,000 in components and several years labour over the purchase price, is good for one solar powered short journey every 10 days if the weather is favourable.

Like most good ideas, yours falls down in the area of quantity. You wouldn't expect to fill a petrol tank in 5 minutes using a 1/8" hose, would you? Yet a 1/8th hose is capable of delivering petrol. Similarly you would (I hope) laugh at someone who wanted to design a turbo-charged

6 litre engine using the turbo from a Smart car. Yet the turbo is a turbo.

Same thing with your solar panel idea, yes it's a solar panel, but it's like trying to fill a swimming pool using a 5 gallon bucket. You could fit about 200-400W of solar panels to the roof of a car, you can fit in about 20kWH of battery storage. So it's going to take 50-100 hours of full sunlight to charge the battery.

Even then, a 20kW/27bhp car is only going to run for an hour to a charge.

Reply to
Steve Firth

Dunno about you but I sure find it useful.

Reply to
Tim S Kemp

Fuck that, that way lies sweatyness and being sticky. Buy the extra fuel, BigOil? isn't going to just disappear when the oil runs out, they'll have something else sorted by then.

Think optimist, not pessimist. As good engineers say "The glass isn't half full or half empty, it's simply the wrong size."

Reply to
Pete M

Yea but theres 21 percent in the atmosphere already...

Reply to
Burgerman

Umm not quite. Running an IC engine on hydrogen generates a significant amount of oxides of nitrogen. Those form acids and of themselves are "other crap". Fortunately the quantity produced is lower than the amount chucked out from petrol engines.

There are other problems with hydrogen fuelled IC engines, premature ignition is a major headache and the sheer volume of the fuel is a pain.

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Reply to
Steve Firth

Significant?

Those form acids and of themselves are

Yes...

Volume will be because you cannot "squash" hydrogen into a liquid like lpg, propane, nitrous, etc.

But that aside its clean as it gets. Preignition isnt a big probem and can be controlled with cooler engine temperatures (thermostat) or lower compression/cooler plugs. less advance etc. The third world even run petrol engines on parafin! Its not a serious issue in the scheme of things.

Reply to
Burgerman

"Some see the vessel as half full; others see it as half-empty; We pour it out on the floor and laugh."

The Paver Creed (TM)

Reply to
Steve Firth

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