The Mechanical Engineer

pratheesh · Boss Joined: 24 Jan 2006 Posts: 154 Location: India

The Hybrid/Electric vehicles are revolutionizing the automobile industry now a day claiming clean operation and better fuel economy. Are they trying to cheat you? What are the real facts? What are the ill effects of hybrid/Electric vehicles? What are the alternatives?

Claims of Hybrid/Electric vehicle manufacturers

1)Less pollution because of fewer emissions and in cases of electric vehicles no emissions at all.
2)Better mileage or fuel economy because of better fuel efficiency, and in cases of electric cars, low running cost.

FACTS

First I will talk about the second point. Well, it is said that electrical machines have higher efficiency (greater than 75%), and hence they provide lesser running costs than an IC engine based vehicle. The same thing is said for a hybrid too. But, let me ask one thing, WHERE DOES THE ELECTRICITY COMES FROM? , the answer is quite simple, power plants. Power plants produce electricity; well there are different types of power plants, like the Diesel power plant, Coal power plant, Nuclear power plant, etc. And let us take the case of power plants based on fossil fuels as they are greater in number when compared to Nuclear power plants. They burn FOSSIL FUELS to produce electricity, and there are different types of losses here too. If it is an IC engine used to generate power, the efficiency is 60 %, and if it is a gas turbine used to generate power, still the efficiency is about 65% maximum. Let us consider that fuel of heat content 1000 units of energy is used to produce electricity, now what we get out of the power plant is just 650 units of energy (maximum). Now, let us consider the transmission losses, let us say it is about 30%, and the energy we get at home is just 455 units of energy. And considering the charging and discharging efficiencies of the battery, this value will be further lowered (drastically in current scenario).
So, instead of 40-45% efficiency when using IC engines directly, we get much lesser efficiency (much less than 25%) while using hybrid/electric vehicles. That means we are using more fossil fuels than a conventional IC engine to run a hybrid/electric vehicle. Hence, how come they are saying the fuel economy is improved?
The same reason justifies my first point; when using hybrid/electric vehicles, actually the pollution gets transferred from roads to power plants. And we have more pollution in the latter case as we have to burn more fuels for the same energy requirement.

How does hybrid/electric vehicle affect my country’s development?
Electricity is the main raw material for an Industry, and Industries are the backbones of one country’s economy. So, when every person starts using hybrid/electric vehicles, naturally the demand for electricity increases and naturally the industries will suffer. The government will be forced to build more thermal power plants, where the fuel will be of fossil origin. This leads to more pollution, more investment to cope with the increased demand in fossil fuels etc. which naturally divert the government funds.

And what are the solutions?
The one and only one solution, BIO FUELS….but how? You can produce it in your locality; hence get rid of the transportation costs. Burning bio-fuels won’t cause green house warming, as they form a closed loop CO2 cycle. Bio fuels are cost effective and bio-fuel plants always create employment both in the agricultural sector as well as in the Industrial sector. The by product of bio-fuel manufacturing, in most cases is an excellent manure; hence the cost of production in agricultural sector as well as in the bio-fuel manufacturing is reduced.

So, start supporting bio fuels, search and learn more about bio fuels, spread the message about bio fuels. Stop promoting hybrid/electric vehicles…!!!

SOURCE:- http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-aQBM6Pohaafw6pdJOW5AAExpsIWBwx5XrQ--?cq=1&p=10
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fogla · Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 3:49 am Post subject:

i totally agree with prats...
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rizky · Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 2:01 pm Post subject:

What u say may be right... But there is another problem... It is the cost efficiency. There is a difference between using biofuel and electricity as sources of energy. Using biofuel costs very high as compared to electricity. So for a hybrid vehicle, running cost is less.
This is a major factor that we need to think of. What are your views??
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pratheesh · Boss Joined: 24 Jan 2006 Posts: 154 Location: India

@rizky

And who told that bio fuels are costlier than electricity....??? There is nothing like that...a vehicle running on bio-fuel may have lesser mileage compared to that of a vehicle using fossil fuels, and that does not mean that bio fuels are costly. And above all the conventional engine design does not require much changes to adapt with bio fuels.

And dude bio fuels are much much cheaper than fossil fuels, when produced in a large scale...and how can you tell that electric/hybrid vehicles are cost efficient????
I have clearly explained there the entire process through which electricity comes to your vehicle and it is quite clear from that, electric/hybrid vehicles kills your economy!!!!
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fogla · Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2006 6:50 am Post subject:

to support pratz's claim i would like to say that even a prof at my college had the same views about electric vehicles. he too said that the pollution caused for producing the electricity needed to charge the vehicle was far more than that caused by a conventional IC engine vehicle ..
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rizky · Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 11:15 am Post subject:

ok ok... i had a mistake with fossil fuels and biofuels. Could you please explain the difference?
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pratheesh · Boss Joined: 24 Jan 2006 Posts: 154 Location: India

well fossil fuels are the fuels you dig out of earth like the petroleum, coal, natural gas etc

where as bio fuels are those fuels which are derived from biological materials (yeah the fossil fuels are also biologically derived, but those are not considered as bio fuels), like biologically derived ethanol (not the industrially made one), bio gas etc can be considered as bio fuels.

For more info on bio-fuels goto:- http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-aQBM6Pohaafw6pdJOW5AAExpsIWBwx5XrQ--?cq=1&p=5
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rizky · Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 5:01 pm Post subject:

OK.. But pratheesh, we, in our project had proved that, the use of an electric motor and making the vehicle improve the economy as compared to the use of a single power plant which uses fossil fuel for its driving energy...
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pratheesh · Boss Joined: 24 Jan 2006 Posts: 154 Location: India

Of course rizky you found that your hybrid car was economical, but did you considered the facts I mentioned in my first post....did you calculate the actual cost of production of electricity in a thermal powerplant???

And this is the part where the hybrid/electric car amnufacturerd tricks you...in fact you are thinking only your part....and your world deos not extend after the powerpoint in your house....just think of the huge invetments required by the gvernment to start and operate the powerplants...and think of the over laoding on power plants as result of increased number of hybrid/electric cars!!!
and over loading means, to work at higher outputs,.....which sometimes lead to a decrease in efficiency than at part loads???

rizky · Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 5:17 pm Post subject:

Pratheesh, be practical in your points, the cost per unit of power consumption includes all these... Isn't it??
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pratheesh · Boss Joined: 24 Jan 2006 Posts: 154 Location: India

no buddie, the money you pay for electricity comes after a lot of subsidies!!!...you might have heard a few years back that electricity produced from NTPC plant at Kayamkulam was sold at a much lower rate than it is actually produced???
And Naphtha used there is a crude oil derivative...operating costs for all thermal powerplants are more than in case of hydro-electric powerplants...but the feasibility of the latter is less than the former!!!
So use elecrticity judiciously....actually when using it for domestic purposes, it is non productive!!!
Electricity is productive only when it is used for purposes like agriculture, Industries etc.
And I am not saying that you should NOT USE elecrtcity at your house...but to use it sensiblly.
Increasing the domestic consumption, as I said in my previous posts will only help you to deteriorate your country's economy.
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prajesh · Moderators Joined: 27 Jan 2006 Posts: 14 Location: North

I also agree with pratheesh....
Electric cars wont work here in India for sure...
Bio fuels are the future....
I've driven an Indica running on bio diesel...Its pretty efficient n not much of performance drop...

OpFor · Posted: Mon May 15, 2006 6:02 pm Post subject:

how is the performance compared to regular diesel? does it pack the same power? i know it's emmits less pollution
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pratheesh · Boss Joined: 24 Jan 2006 Posts: 154 Location: India

the calorific value of bio diesel derived from Jatropha is slightly less than that of Petroleum counterpart....hence there is small drop in mileage...
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GuhaPrasanna · Moderators Joined: 20 Feb 2006 Posts: 14 Location: Chennai

I have a qn...what actually hinders a much pre-dominant growth of such vehicles even if they have good performance....i meant the technical points..?
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pratheesh · Boss Joined: 24 Jan 2006 Posts: 154 Location: India

rikdatek · Apprentice Joined: 24 Jul 2006 Posts: 1