Electric vs. Gasoline Re: <VV> Re: Electronic Vairs

[FrankCB at aol.com]

Tim,
       OK, let's take a look at the relative economics of what you've done.  
You say $1.30 for electricity to travel 30 miles which means 4+ cents per mile 
for electric charging.  Since this is a limited trip vehicle you'll probably 
put only about 5000 miles a year on these batteries.  At 5 years that would 
give you 25,000 miles on one set of batteries which costs you 8 cents per mile 
for the batteries.  In addition, your cost for the conversion was $6000.  Even 
if your vehicle lasts 200,000 miles (exclusive of batteries) the conversion 
cost is 3 cents a mile.  Add up these three costs and you get 4 + 8 + 3 = 15 
cents per mile.
       At $2.80 per gallon for gas and averaging 25 miles per gallon gives 
you only 11 cents per mile.  I agree tune-ups, oil changes et al. will add a 
couple of cents to that but it still looks like your electric 
conversion/operation would still not be competitive until gasoline prices go up a lot further.
       This type of electric vehicle is limited to driving short trips 
perhaps to fairly close by work or to a train station to catch the train to work.  
But, for example, I drove 84 miles roundtrip to work and there was NO place in 
the parking lot at work where I could "recharge".  When I drive to visit son 
Jim (327 miles away), it takes about 12 gallons of gas and requires NO 
stopping.  In your electric vehicle, I'd have to stop at least 4 times for a recharge 
and what gas station will let me "plug in" for hours at a time?  Even at 
"only" 2 hours per charge it would add 8 extra hours of waiting (plus driving time) 
to what now takes me only 5-1/2 hours total.
       Seems to me that a hybrid car makes more sense for most of us than an 
electric conversion unless you can come up with lower cost electricity (solar 
cells?) and/or much better batteries (nickel metal hydride or lithium ion?)  
       Thanks for supplying us with your REAL world experience,
       Frank Burkhard      

In a message dated 8/21/05 2:47:52 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
mr_tim34 at yahoo.com writes:

> Sorry for the belated reply to this post. I'm a bit
> behind in my e-mail, I've been working on the truck…
> 
>    I have a 1961 Rampside pickup that has been
> converted to run on electric power. The cost for the
> conversion was about $6000.00. That's a little over
> the $5000.00 dollar number someone else came up with,
> but not much. What does that $6k get you? You get a
> totally silent vehicle that doesn't pollute locally.
> Yes, there is still pollution generated at the power
> plant, a point source of pollution that is tightly
> monitored and generally has up to date pollution
> controls on it. It's not a small variable pollution
> source that's wandering around residential
> neighborhoods spreading it's pollution everywhere,
> that possibly has it's pollution controls checked once
> a year, depending on where you live.
>    When people start slamming electric cars they go
> right to the "Power plants pollute to generate
> electricity". Yes they do, and refineries pollute to
> make gas, and tanker trucks pollute transporting gas,
> my electricity comes in by wires. I can charge at
> night when the power companies generally have an
> excess of power and would like to see an increased
> load. There are all kinds of variables that need to be
> taken into consideration when looking at the amount of
> pollution generated to get power, when talking about
> cars most people ignore anything that happens before
> the gas pump. Is it unfair to view an electric vehicle
> in the same way?
> I can "fill my tank" anywhere there is an outlet. Sure
> it takes quite a bit longer to fill, 4 to 8 hours on
> 120V, or 2 to 4 hours on 220V. But the 8-hour estimate
> is for an empty tank, if I can top off anywhere, I can
> keep my charge time to a minimum. The cost for a
> typical 8-hour charge? Electricity is a little pricey
> out here, 13 cents a KWH, I put in 10 last night,
> that's $1.30 and that was for a 30 mile trip. Gas runs
> $2.80 for regular, 2.80/1.30 times 30 = an equivalent
> electrical mileage of 64mpg. Not bad for a 44 year old
> pick up truck. It gets even better if I use mid grade
> or premium gas pricing, what do you typically run in
> your Corvair?
>    The downside? I only get around 50 to 60 miles
> per charge. I can't tell you exactly yet, I've just
> upgraded the truck and put in a new battery pack. The
> batteries need to be broken in, I did my longest trip
> to date only yesterday, that's where the 30 mile
> number came from. I've only had it back on the road
> for a week.
>    The battery pack by itself cost $2k, it should be
> good for 3 to 5 years, your mileage may vary. Is $2k
> for 3 or more years worth of gas reasonable? How about
> the fact that the major maintenance on my truck now
> consists of adding water to the batteries one a month?
> No oil to change (except in the differential) no wires
> to go bad (low voltage 2/0 welding cable will last the
> life of the car) no points, no plugs, no timing or
> valves to adjust. Now if you're into working on cars I
> can see where you might miss this activity, but would
> you really miss the cost of buying all the parts?
>    This is the main reason the auto manufacturers
> are anti electric vehicles, no maintenance. The
> dealers and the major car companies make a substantial
> amount of money from their maintenance operations. The
> electric motor has essentially one moving part, the
> armature and two bearings to support it. It moves in
> one direction only. How simple it that? It's taken
> over a hundred years for them to get so efficient at
> making internal combustion engines (ICE) that they can
> say electric cars are too complicated and expensive to
> make. The levels of complexity between an ICE and an
> electric motor are mind-boggling. Just link of how
> many parts there are and how they move in how many
> different directions, and what mechanisms are needed
> to accomplish this. 
>    I'm not expecting to convert anybody over to
> drive electric, it just bothers me to see the same old
> myths being put out as fact against what I obviously
> feel is a viable alternative to burning dino juice, a
> somewhat limited commodity in today's market place.
> 
> Tim McCann
> '61 electric Rampside back on the road again!
>