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cobb said:
Using an electric wheelchair I follow up on this stuff. I use 2 deep cycle group 24 batteries and get a days worth of run, an estimated 6 miles at 6mph.
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Man... we've got a couple of guys in electric wheelies around here who almost keep up with city traffic! I swear they can do almost 20mph. Doesn't look safe to me! But what do I know? I ride a bicycle in traffic too. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
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Charging is another issue. Most circuits are limited to 1500 watts and that may trip a breaker at a continious rate.
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Full-size EVs will not (normally) charge on a standard 110V household outlet. Would take too long for one thing. 220/40A minimum. With more voltage and current, fast-charging is easily accomplished.
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Then there is the question if the grid can handle cars in addition to AC, heaters, computers and other gizmos?
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Not an issue. Most EV charging is done at night, off peak when we're *wasting* power by having the generators idle. Fact of the matter is, power would be cheaper for *everybody* if we had tons of EVs being charged at night. If the EV guys pay for the power that it otherwise wasted (like I do - or DID before my solar array went up) then the overall price/kWh would be substantially reduced for everybody. This isn't theory, but reality, straight from the guys who supply the power in CA, and who have the largest fleet of EVs in the world.
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You know you can run a car on hydrogen right off the bat? BMW has a dual fuel car already out there and many have converted their cars over using the same ICE engine.
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Yup, we have H2 ICE... but the problem still remains - we have no way to fuel them. And making the H2 is turning out to be as dirty as burning gasoline directly. Yeah, we can make H2 cleaner... but why bother when it takes so much more electricity than simply charging batteries? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif