On electric cars....sort of!

[Mickk]

I reckon just about every boy (person?) in the world has 'played' with a 'slot car' at one time in their life.

With the amount of electric car 'bashing' I see on this Forum, I thought I would go and try to find a web site that shows the sort of speed an electric car can do, but I couldn't. :(

However, that does not mean that an electric car is a slow car!

Check out this link, it goes to a web site for Drag cars. Yes I know they are slot cars, but have a look at how fast they are going and the sort of work that is put into them and maybe you'll have second thoughts......

http://techno-35.tripod.com/slotcar/

From my knowledge of these little beasties (yes, I used to race slot cars), the Drag cars run on a 1/24th scale drag strip, complete with lights and timers.

A 1/4 mile strip is 440 yards (402.336 metres) long, so a 1/24 scale strip is 18.334 yards (16.764 metres) long.
From what I know, the best time for a slot car over this distance is less than HALF A SECOND, whitch is bloody quick for something that size.

I have personally seen slotcars which are so fast that they seem to 'disappear' at the start of a straight and 're-appear' at the end of it.

One of the sites I looked at in my search for a fast electric car, did say something about one doing over 100 MPH, but it turned out to be a pay site and I'm just not *that* interested! lol

[Justin Martin]

If I recall correctly, the GM EV1 would hit 60mph in about 7 seconds, though 1/4 mile was compromised by the fact that the car would hit it's 85mph speed limiter long before the finish line. It is quite a little sports car in a straight line, though handling is compromised by the low-resistence tires. I think it's a cool little car really, if GM sold them in Texas (they are only sold in Arizona and California) and I could afford one, i'd buy one.

I do have to wonder about the environmental impact of electric cars though. Sure, they aren't polluting any, but the electricity they use most likely came from a polution source, so is it really that much better, than say, a hybrid or a very efficient gas car?

[way124]

It's true that to to generate electricity you cause pollution too, but at least the pollution generated by electricity is centralized and condensed in places usually far away from the main population, thus reducing a lot of fuss than say a gasoline/petrol vehicle. In fact, with "centralized pollution", it makes pollution management seems more plausible and meets the economy of scale.

I'm a very big supporter of the Toyota Prius. Governments must offer incentives for people to buy cars like the Prius. And besides, it's not like the Prius is not practical.. It's quite roomy, and has a usefully large boot/trunk compartment.

I don't however support things like the hopeless Honda Insight.. Fixated on matching the fuel efficiency of the remarkable Toyota Prius, Honda had to do an ultra-small, ultra-aero, ultra-skiddy, ultra stupid 3 door, 2 seater hatchback.. It's truly not a practical car, and, in Australia it is outrageously priced (AUD$48,000), compared to the Toyota Prius (AUD$39,000).

The Honda has many quirks, too.. Say for instance, you are running in 65km/hr traffic, and, the traffic ahead slows down a bit.. You go to lift off the throttle, to slow down, but, the Insight doesn't slow down, it keeps rolling on, so you have to use the brakes (which in turn supplies charge to the batteries). The Insight rolls along very easily, thanks to a low drag co-efficient, and low friction tyres (which have very little grip for cornering, meaning that you must be very precise with steering inputs).

The future however lies in cars like Mercedes Benz NECAR 5 (for technology, anyhow). The only emmisions produced by these sorts of cars is water vapour.

[Sepecat]

I saw few months ago that the state of NY is giving out the hybirds for a test drive for a year.

You have to put down $5000 but it still worth it. LOL :D ^_^ :beer: :jump: =)^

[docbong]

Originally posted by way124
It's true that to to generate electricity you cause pollution too, but at least the pollution generated by electricity is centralized and condensed in places usually far away from the main population, thus reducing a lot of fuss than say a gasoline/petrol vehicle. In fact, with "centralized pollution", it makes pollution management seems more plausible and meets the economy of scale.

I hope you're not suggesting that pollution is ok if it's not near people! &(
Anyway, in my province, we burn coal so cheap and nasty that it's use has been outlawed in the rest of the country to generate our electricity, so electric cars really are of no advantage, especially with the added waste of lead and crap from the batteries.
The hydrogen fuel cell is the Way of the future, dude!!!!

[way124]

Originally posted by docbong

The hydrogen fuel cell is the Way of the future, dude!!!!Ha. It's the same problem with electricity. Think about it - to power a hydrogen fuel cell you need hydrogen - lots of it. And you can't just get hydrogen from the atmosphere; hydrogen itself is not a balanced atom and when it gets in contact with fire (imagine the Earth's atmosphere exploding ^_^... erm yeah it's not that funny.) While hydrogen is really abundant, you need to extract hydrogen through electrolysis of water by seperating hydrogen molecules from oxygen atoms (I think i'm throwing all my chemistry back to Mrs. Anderson). To do so, you need lots of electricity. And where do you get electricity? Coal, hyropower, nuclear, etcetc. It's almost impossible to seperate electricity from anything these days :D

Anyway, I did not mean pollution is OK if the pollution isn't close to the population. It's just that it's easier to control pollution through a "centralized pollution generator" than a group of "isolated pollution generators". Cars emit pollution to air, and none of the cars that I know of have treatment to the exhaust. A huge power plant, on the other hand, could control pollution by treating all its exhaust and waste more economically than say cars because it has the scale. That's what I mean. Of course I also mean that while we solve pollution problems let's move the pollution away from the population first.... :D