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| If high school students and an engineer can make this, why not Detroit? |
| Too many pensioners? |
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| Too little imagination? |
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16% |
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| Too many gasoline fumes in their brains? |
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33% |
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| Too hooked into the fossil fuel lobby? |
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50% |
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| Total Votes : 12 |
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Revi
Fusion
Joined: Apr 25, 2005
Posts: 3276
Location: Maine
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 Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 7:11 pm Post subject: Infinity miles per gallon |
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Here's a short film we made of the solar car Art Haines built with high school students. If he can do this why can't Detroit build one? Who killed the solar car, and who brought it back to life?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0JNohHaqM4
If this link doesn't work, go to youtube and type in infinity miles per gallon, it'll come up. |
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ColossalContrarian
Intermediate Crude
Joined: Jun 20, 2006
Posts: 635
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 9:11 pm Post subject: Re: Infinity miles per gallon |
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I vote imagination. Not too much in Detroit IMO. I think the Chinese and Japanese will be getting to this long before Detroit.
You also have to consider the energy required to make a solar car versus a combustible engine car (BTW, I would hate to be driving my light weight solar car while a bunch of SUV’s are on the road with me!!!) Car companies are in business to make money, schools can afford to be ‘bleeding edge’ just to prove the point that IT CAN BE DONE.
Solar cars just can’t compete at this time evn with most fuel efficient combustible engines/hybrids. |
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pstarr
Expert
Joined: Sep 27, 2004
Posts: 7090
Location: Behind the Redwood Curtain
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 9:49 pm Post subject: Re: Infinity miles per gallon |
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So this is more or less an electric Brougham
can the vehicle run in real-time? or does the panel need to charge a battery? I would guess the panel is around 150-200 watts. Is that enough to power the car with occupants?
edit: permission granted? by Wikipedia
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The_Toecutter
Light Sweet Crude
Joined: Jun 18, 2005
Posts: 1736
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 10:33 pm Post subject: Re: Infinity miles per gallon |
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| Quote: | | You also have to consider the energy required to make a solar car versus a combustible engine car |
It may be even less.
| Quote: | | Solar cars just can’t compete at this time evn with most fuel efficient combustible engines/hybrids. |
Depends on what you mean by compete, and what you mean by solar powered car.
An electric vehicle charged by garage mounted solar panels can compete and one can make the case that it is a solar powered car in that instance.
But a solar powered car like the universities design, which carries its source of fuel with it? Not really, unless many design compromises are made. Might be suitable for a very efficient sports car or solar/HPV hybrid.
A midsize electric car with no special attention to aerodynamics will need about 15 kW from the batteries to maintain 65 mph or so. There is no way enough solar cells could be fit on such a vehicle to power it at highway speeds exclusively from the sun, even if they got 100% efficient by some miracle!
But solar energy itself can certainly be used to charge such cars when they are parked.
Even this little car in the video cannot run indefinately off of solar. If you watch the full video, the builder talks about its range limitations. The solar panel, however, can be its sole source of energy provided it is allowed to rest in the sun to charge when not in use.
Cars powered by solar energy? Perfectly possible, even midsize cars and SUVs capable of high performance. But the drag such panels would add makes them better suited to being placed on buildings, not on cars.
Cars that can run indefinately on solar energy without batteries? Only airfoils and only with the right weather conditions present...
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Last edited by The_Toecutter on Sat Mar 15, 2008 1:25 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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jaws
Light Sweet Crude
Joined: Apr 24, 2005
Posts: 1257
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 10:48 pm Post subject: Re: Infinity miles per gallon |
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| What does it cost? |
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The_Toecutter
Light Sweet Crude
Joined: Jun 18, 2005
Posts: 1736
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 10:55 pm Post subject: Re: Infinity miles per gallon |
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The builder claims $2,000 for the runabout featured in that video. Read the comments and you will see he mentions it. Sounds about right, as I know the prices of the components that are used in vehicles like this.
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The unnecessary felling of a tree, perhaps the old growth of centuries, seems to me a crime little short of murder. ~Thomas Jefferson |
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coyote
News Editor
Joined: Oct 23, 2005
Posts: 1803
Location: East of Eden
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 11:21 pm Post subject: Re: Infinity miles per gallon |
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We've found Dick Cheney's non-evil twin...
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max_power29
Intermediate Crude
Joined: Mar 23, 2005
Posts: 943
Location: Orygun
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 11:58 pm Post subject: Re: Infinity miles per gallon |
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| The_Toecutter wrote: | | The builder claims $2,000 for the runabout featured in that video. Read the comments and you will see he mentions it. Sounds about right, as I know the prices of the components that are used in vehicles like this. |
What would it cost if millions or even billions of people bid up the price of the components for these sorts of cars? Are there enough of the components to go around for at least hundreds of millions of people? |
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max_power29
Intermediate Crude
Joined: Mar 23, 2005
Posts: 943
Location: Orygun
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| Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 11:59 pm Post subject: Re: Infinity miles per gallon |
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| The_Toecutter wrote: | | The builder claims $2,000 for the runabout featured in that video. Read the comments and you will see he mentions it. Sounds about right, as I know the prices of the components that are used in vehicles like this. |
What would it cost if millions or even billions of people bid up the price of the components for these sorts of cars? Are there enough of the components to go around for at least hundreds of millions of people? |
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joewp
Light Sweet Crude
Joined: Apr 05, 2005
Posts: 1628
Location: Springsteen Country (NJ)
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| Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 12:05 am Post subject: Re: Infinity miles per gallon |
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| max_power29 wrote: | | Are there enough of the components to go around for at least hundreds of millions of people? |
I don't think so...
| Silicon shortage strikes industry wrote: | But demand for solar cells has soared thanks in part to government stimuli such as California’s “million solar roofs” initiative and the state’s new greenhouse gas bill. Solar’s growing appetite for polysilicon has pushed up prices and constricted supplies of a substance that can only be made in complex and costly plants.
“In 2003, polysilicon was going for $32 a kilogram (about 2.2 pounds). Now it’s more like $75 to $80,” said Richard Winegarner, whose Healdsburg, Calif., consulting firm, Sage Concepts, tracks this rare product. Yet even at those prices, polysilicon is getting tough to find.
“You have solar procurement people traveling around the world with suitcases full of cash,” Winegarner said.
The shortage has already cooled the growth of solar cell production from 67 percent in 2004 to roughly 30 percent in 2005, to a projected 10 percent in 2006, according to Piper Jaffray analyst Jesse Pichel, one of the first market watchers to sound the alarm.
“Solar industry growth is choked,” Pichel wrote in July. |
I'm soooo glad I got my solar panels last year!
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"Only when the last tree is cut; only when the last river is polluted; only when the last fish is caught; only then will they realize that you cannot eat money." - Cree Indian Proverb |
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jaws
Light Sweet Crude
Joined: Apr 24, 2005
Posts: 1257
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| Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 12:41 am Post subject: Re: Infinity miles per gallon |
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| The_Toecutter wrote: | | The builder claims $2,000 for the runabout featured in that video. Read the comments and you will see he mentions it. Sounds about right, as I know the prices of the components that are used in vehicles like this. |
For how long? |
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The_Toecutter
Light Sweet Crude
Joined: Jun 18, 2005
Posts: 1736
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| Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 1:41 am Post subject: Re: Infinity miles per gallon |
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| Quote: | | What would it cost if millions or even billions of people bid up the price of the components for these sorts of cars? Are there enough of the components to go around for at least hundreds of millions of people? |
I don't have the figures off hand right now and I'm not going to pull them up tonight(about ready for bed), but I recall researching this and finding there are plenty of materials for pure battery electric vehicles and solar panels. I recall finding the bottleneck is in currently available production capacity for the solar panels and extraction capacity of the raw materials, and not in the sheer amount of raw materials that can be extracted from the Earth by conventional means without committing ecocide.
Don't know.
If anything, higher production volume of the parts is likely to have such a large enough reduction in labor costs to more than make up for the increased price of raw materials to make them. When battery cost projections are made, for instance, this is often factored in(eg. in volume for 20,000+ electric cars a year, Ovonic NiMH would go down to ~$225/kWh according to UC Davis, and Li Ion down to ~$250/kWh according to AC Propulsion).
When the internal combustion vehicle was first becoming mainstream, the prices of its raw materials did not skyrocket to a level that made the vehicles themselves unaffordable and there were plenty of materials to go around.
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The unnecessary felling of a tree, perhaps the old growth of centuries, seems to me a crime little short of murder. ~Thomas Jefferson |
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Revi
Fusion
Joined: Apr 25, 2005
Posts: 3276
Location: Maine
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| Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 5:23 am Post subject: Re: Infinity miles per gallon |
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It shows that something can be done. I agree, that there could be a garage covered with panels to park the electric car in. Why not have a few panels on the vehicle for recharging?
The price of silicon is worrisome. I am glad we got some panels before the shortage, but I wonder how people are going to do the solar thing with no solar panels? |
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Bleep
Intermediate Crude
Joined: Feb 08, 2006
Posts: 622
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| Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 5:27 am Post subject: Re: Infinity miles per gallon |
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| joewp wrote: | | Silicon shortage strikes industry wrote: | ...
The shortage has already cooled the growth of solar cell production from 67 percent in 2004 to roughly 30 percent in 2005, to a projected 10 percent in 2006, according to Piper Jaffray analyst Jesse Pichel, one of the first market watchers to sound the alarm.
“Solar industry growth is choked,” Pichel wrote in July. |
I'm soooo glad I got my solar panels last year! |
Oh, this explains why solar powered stirling engines are such a good idea.
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Revi
Fusion
Joined: Apr 25, 2005
Posts: 3276
Location: Maine
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| Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 8:40 am Post subject: Re: Infinity miles per gallon |
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If silicon shortage is hurting the industry, then why isn't my Evergreen stock going up? They have a binding agreement with suppliers and are going to start to pump out the panels in Germany soon. What the heck! Their process uses less silicon than slicing the wafers.
We're going to need some panels to build cars soon! |
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