GM is going into the electric motor business.... goodbye smoggy engine

probe

GM plans to mass produce electric motors. In decades to come it will be interesting to see charts showing the tail off in internal combustion engine production volumes replaced by an increase in electric motor production...

A breath of fresh air. Literally and otherwise. Not unlike the move from coal fires to alternative heating systems in the 1980s.

http://gm-volt.com/2010/01/26/gm-announces-new-program-to-design-and-manufacture-electric-motors/

Cookie_Monster

GM has been making electric motors for its train for decades. Granted these are still generally run by deisel, but its still nothing new to them.

Hopefully they will be able to put decades of rail progress into these engines

probe

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

GM has been making electric motors for its train for decades. Granted these are still generally run by deisel, but its still nothing new to them.

Hopefully they will be able to put decades of rail progress into these engines

In the light of that information, and guessing that Irish Rail use this stuff, perhaps I'm a bit optimistic with my use of phrases like "A breath of fresh air"......

But perhaps it might get other car manufacturers in Europe and Asia thinking along the same lines, and we might get some reliable technology out of the trend at some point in the future....

SLUSK

In many places in the world you will still rely on fossil fuels to get electricity so how "clean" this car is depends on how you produce your electricity.

robtri

emmmm Gm have tried this before.. nothing new for them...
1996 they launched the first mass production electric car....
ladies and gentlemen i give you the EV1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1

so nothing new there.....

Cookie_Monster

robtri wrote: »

emmmm Gm have tried this before.. nothing new for them...
1996 they launched the first mass production electric car.... disaster
ladies and gentlemen i give you the EV1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1

so nothing new there.....

FYP.

In regards to power plants burning oil etc. A single power plant providing power for 100k cars is far more efficient than 100k car engines combined and will produce far less pollution. Given that it will also run pretty much constantly due to demand if could be argued that it'll be in place whether or not we are using electric and and by using them you are directly reducing emmisions by 100k cars (for example)

I imagine electric motors are cheaper, cleaner and quicker to build and maintain also and would have a longer life than oil fired motors so the lifetime benefits would be quite high

robtri

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

FYP.

In regards to power plants burning oil etc. A single power plant providing power for 100k cars is far more efficient than 100k car engines combined and will produce far less pollution. Given that it will also run pretty much constantly due to demand if could be argued that it'll be in place whether or not we are using electric and and by using them you are directly reducing emmisions by 100k cars (for example)

I imagine electric motors are cheaper, cleaner and quicker to build and maintain also and would have a longer life than oil fired motors so the lifetime benefits would be quite high

the benifits of electric motor cars at present is still massive, less pollution overall, not by much but still less... ( mind you it really gets up my goat when these cars are sold as zero emmisions cars.... as the fule to power them isnt :mad:)
they only suffer at present from laziness from your average joe soap...
as they cannot compete on range and top up times yet... joe soap will not buy them in big numbers and will continue to purchase oil burning "normal" cars till then, as they do not want to be inconvienced.....

Cunsiderthis

probe wrote: »

GM plans to mass produce electric motors. In decades to come it will be interesting to see charts showing the tail off in internal combustion engine production volumes replaced by an increase in electric motor production...

A breath of fresh air. Literally and otherwise. Not unlike the move from coal fires to alternative heating systems in the 1980s.

http://gm-volt.com/2010/01/26/gm-announces-new-program-to-design-and-manufacture-electric-motors/

It'll be interesting to learn how much oil, gas or nuclear energy it takes to travel 100km in an electric car as opopse to diesel or petrol.

robtri

you can work back the numbers easily enough...

Cheeble

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

In regards to power plants burning oil etc. A single power plant providing power for 100k cars is far more efficient than 100k car engines combined and will produce far less pollution.

Is that true? I understood that ic engines, by using primary fuels were comparatively highly efficient when compared to converting the primary fuel to electricity and then using a lossy distribution system.

by using them you are directly reducing emmisions by 100k cars

Umm, how exactly? You might be reducing the emissions at the point of use, but moving them to the power station just hides them from view, it doesn't make them go away.

Cheeble-eers

robtri

Cheeble wrote: »

Is that true? I understood that ic engines, by using primary fuels were comparatively highly efficient when compared to converting the primary fuel to electricity and then using a lossy distribution system.



Umm, how exactly? You might be reducing the emissions at the point of use, but moving them to the power station just hides them from view, it doesn't make them go away.

Cheeble-eers

if you compare the Co2 emmissions of an IC car engine over x miles and then work out the eleccy consummed by an electric car over same mileage will be in KWH.. then look at the back of your ESb bill, you will see the CO2 emmissions per KWH produced on average by the ESB....

I have done this before in a previous thread...
you will reduce emmissions but not as much as a lot of people will think

mink_man

its about time, electric is the way forward for cars!

probe

SLUSK wrote: »

In many places in the world you will still rely on fossil fuels to get electricity so how "clean" this car is depends on how you produce your electricity.

This point is repeated over and over virtually every time an electric car is mentioned herein. Yawn...

The simple answer is you charge your car with renewable electricity - eg Airtricity is 89% renewable.

http://www.cer.ie/en/consumer-information-electricity-how-to-change-supplier.aspx?article=eed3f1e7-efda-4547-bfa3-2ff79ffa63d6

Cunsiderthis

mink_man wrote: »

its about time, electric is the way forward for cars!

Electric cars have a great difficulty in going forward when they run out of electricity, and take hours to recharge assuming you are near somewhere you need to recharge.

probe

Cunsiderthis wrote: »

Electric cars have a great difficulty in going forward when they run out of electricity, and take hours to recharge assuming you are near somewhere you need to recharge.

The same applies to cars running on liquid fuels and gas (difficulty going forward). And of course you have hybrids - that use electricity until the battery runs out and then use a hydrocarbon fuelled engine to generate electricity to complete the journey, and charge up again.

There are enough people working on the "battery issue" (including H2) to ensure that it will be sorted out in the near future..... be they EEstor, IBM, Better Place, Sony, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Daimler Benz, BMW, VW/Audi, Varta, GM.............................................

Is it any wonder Ireland is in such a financial mess - virtually everybody is so negative in their thinking!

SLUSK

The first electric car was built more than 150 years ago, how come it has never reached mainstream success. Could I hazard a guess and say that it is much more expensive per kilometer than a car that runs on gasoline?

Macha

SLUSK wrote: »

The first electric car was built more than 150 years ago, how come it has never reached mainstream success. Could I hazard a guess and say that it is much more expensive per kilometer than a car that runs on gasoline?

Actually the cost/km is quite low. Don't underestimate the power of policy and investment both by the private sector and governments in deciding which technologies make it to market successfully.

Mahatma coat

The main issue wit a pure electric car is Range, at the moment its not imppressive.

owever We have maade leaps and bounds in battery technology over the last ten years, the First EV1 had lead acid batteries.

L-ion batteris have come a long way in ten years.

charging can be sorted out, it could be possible to recharge one of these cars in about 10 seconds, but OHS will be used to stop anything like that as it might be 'Dangerous' to have such a large PD handled by people or some such sh1te.


Range is everything, then a selection of useful and well thought out vehicles and bobs yer unkel.

they dont have to reinvent the wheel, Just the engine;):D

robtri

SLUSK wrote: »

The first electric car was built more than 150 years ago, how come it has never reached mainstream success. Could I hazard a guess and say that it is much more expensive per kilometer than a car that runs on gasoline?

probably then it did cost more... but today the reverse is wuite the opposite, an electric car is significantly cheaper to run than a petrol car....

robtri

probe wrote: »

This point is repeated over and over virtually every time an electric car is mentioned herein. Yawn...

The simple answer is you charge your car with renewable electricity - eg Airtricity is 89% renewable.

http://www.cer.ie/en/consumer-information-electricity-how-to-change-supplier.aspx?article=eed3f1e7-efda-4547-bfa3-2ff79ffa63d6

bad news for you, just cause you switch your bill to airtricity... has absolutely no effect on the elleccy coming into your house...
you are still using the same power as joe soap up the road that has been produced in some coal burning power plant.
your electricity that you use is drawn from a central grid.. not from airtricity themselves...

Macha

robtri wrote: »

bad news for you, just cause you switch your bill to airtricity... has absolutely no effect on the elleccy coming into your house...
you are still using the same power as joe soap up the road that has been produced in some coal burning power plant.
your electricity that you use is drawn from a central grid.. not from airtricity themselves...

Perhaps but the market signal of switching over to Airtricity can be a significant one if done by enough people.

probe

robtri wrote: »

bad news for you, just cause you switch your bill to airtricity... has absolutely no effect on the elleccy coming into your house...
you are still using the same power as joe soap up the road that has been produced in some coal burning power plant.
your electricity that you use is drawn from a central grid.. not from airtricity themselves...

If you buy 10,000 kWh of power from company XYZ, that company has to put 10,000 kWh of electricity into the grid. If 50% of the population moved to green electricity, it would drive investment in green electricity production. The fact that it gets "mixed" with black electricity is irrelevant.

The key issue is for people to use their purchasing power to move the country away from the black stuff.

It would be less environmentally friendly, and totally bonkers from an economic point of view, to install a separate power grid for green power running all the way from the source to your home or business.

Alternatively if you have land with space for wind turbines and maybe even a suitable river running through it, you could provide yourself with puritanically clean energy, untainted by the grid.

Electric traction opens up options, makes more efficient use of energy, makes less noise, generates no air emissions at point of use, and is scalable to be faster and more powerful compared with diesel or gasoline.

robtri

taconnol wrote: »

Perhaps but the market signal of switching over to Airtricity can be a significant one if done by enough people.

i doubt that... as airtricity have limtied capacity for pumping renewable electricity into the grid.
Even if everyone in ireland moved to airtricity, the volume of renewable energy production would change very little.....

A. Airtricity could not provide that much renewable..

B. the ESb who own the infrastructure, have there own power plants, coal , gas ect... and they need to keep them going...

robtri

probe wrote: »

If you buy 10,000 kWh of power from company XYZ, that company has to put 10,000 kWh of electricity into the grid.

nope they don't... they don't have to put one single KWH if they don't want to.... no requirements for them to....

probe wrote: »

If 50% of the population moved to green electricity, it would drive investment in green electricity production. The fact that it gets "mixed" with black electricity is irrelevant.

It would drive investment, yes and would put more renewables out there, but at the end of the day ESB own the network.... they aren't going to shut down their power plants at all... or if they do it will be a very very long term project... it really is not that simple..

probe wrote: »

The key issue is for people to use their purchasing power to move the country away from the black stuff.

It would be less environmentally friendly, and totally bonkers from an economic point of view, to install a separate power grid for green power running all the way from the source to your home or business.

If teh EB where allowed to compete on a level playing field there would be a big difference...
Most people move to airtricity to save money.... not for the renewables piece....
The ESB are limited by the regulator on price reductions... otherwise they would match airtricity and no one would swap over...

Macha

robtri wrote: »

A. Airtricity could not provide that much renewable..

Market signals do not just apply to one company.

robtri wrote: »

B. the ESb who own the infrastructure, have there own power plants, coal , gas ect... and they need to keep them going...

The grid has almost completely been transferred to Eirgrid and the renewable electricity installations currently being processed under Gate 3 are enough to help us bring our renewable energy in electricity up to 40%

We also have international and national RES-E obligations to comply with.

Now maybe Im being really silly here but wouldnt it be great if they sold electric motors to replace actual engines. You know so you wouldnt have to scrap your existing car.

robtri

taconnol wrote: »

Market signals do not just apply to one company.

As they are the only marketing the renewables as a reason to move to them.. i would say it does at present..

taconnol wrote: »

The grid has almost completely been transferred to Eirgrid and the renewable electricity installations currently being processed under Gate 3 are enough to help us bring our renewable energy in electricity up to 40%

We also have international and national RES-E obligations to comply with.

True the gri is mainly with Eirgrid... and i agree with we can make it to 40% but the older plants non renewable plants will be with us for a long long time.... our electricity for the foreseable future will be over 50% non renewable energy..

robtri

Deleted User wrote: »

Now maybe Im being really silly here but wouldnt it be great if they sold electric motors to replace actual engines. You know so you wouldnt have to scrap your existing car.

it is possible, but the cost would be prohibitive.... as it would not be a direct repalcement, engine for engine...
they are a lot of other items and parts that would need to be changed..
different motors, would require differnt gear boxs, clutch assemblies, new wiring harness, new ECu's, replacemnt of petrol tanks, instalaltion of batteries, potential re-design of cabin interior for battery fitting,
new brake system for regenative charging... and so on..

Macha

robtri wrote: »

As they are the only marketing the renewables as a reason to move to them.. i would say it does at present..

Last year ESB announced that it would be spending €22bn on renewable energy and Bord Gais announced €750m in electricity and renewable energy spending, with €10m on renewable energy r&d.

robtri wrote: »

True the grid is mainly with Eirgrid... and i agree with we can make it to 40% but the older plants non renewable plants will be with us for a long long time.... our electricity for the foreseable future will be over 50% non renewable energy..

There are other factors at play including interconnection with Europe and the development of the Supergrid concept. Advances in energy efficiency, electricity storage and grid management will also help increase our possible % of renewable electricity.

You'r probably right about the older plants - what sort of life span do they have and what stage are they at?

Cunsiderthis

SLUSK wrote: »

The first electric car was built more than 150 years ago, how come it has never reached mainstream success. Could I hazard a guess and say that it is much more expensive per kilometer than a car that runs on gasoline?

I'm guessing that convenience is a factor. To refill with petrol or diesel is easy and quick. To "refill" with electricity seems to take much longer.

Macha

Cunsiderthis wrote: »

I'm guessing that convenience is a factor. To refill with petrol or diesel is easy and quick. To "refill" with electricity seems to take much longer.

Definitely. The new Nissan Leaf is the first mass-produced electric car to be sold in the US (afaik) and it needs either overnight charging at home or you can stop into a charging station (like a petrol station) and fill it up in less than 30 minutes. Max range is 100 miles.

Cookie_Monster

taconnol wrote: »

and fill it up in less than 30 minutes. Max range is 100 miles.

30 min for 100 miles :eek:

What a waste of time, I think it'll need to do factors better than that to be worth it.

If it takes more than 5 mins to charge people won' t use it.
If it does less than 400-500 miles on a charge people won't use it.

Macha

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

What a waste of time, I think it'll need to do factors better than that to be worth it.

Well...this is why a lot of people think that PHEVs are the best interim solution. You have your fuel tank and electric engine but you can also plug it in to recharge.

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

If it takes more than 5 mins to charge people won' t use it.
If it does less than 400-500 miles on a charge people won't use it.

There is the possibility of battery-swap technology being touted by companies like Better Place but it presents its own range of problems. The designs of charging stations I have seen include a cafe where customers can avail of free wifi, coffee, food, television screens etc. I can imagine a scenario where you leave your car in a car park, it charges while you do your shopping and you collect it a few hours later.

400-500 miles? I'm not so sure because:
a) they are already selling
b) EVs are not most efficient over long distances but are best suited to the stop/start short distances of urban driving.

blackbox

robtri wrote: »

probably then it did cost more... but today the reverse is wuite the opposite, an electric car is significantly cheaper to run than a petrol car....

Only cheaper because of the taxes. If there was no excise duty on petrol or diesel they would be cheaper fuels than electricity.

If everyone changed to electric cars, tax revenue would be massively reduced, so the government would have to find a new source - such as increased road tax or a tax on charging stations (or even batteries)

WRT the OP, petrol engines no longer contribute to smog; however diesels still need a bit of work to get rid of their harmful emissions.

Macha

blackbox wrote: »

Only cheaper because of the taxes. If there was no excise duty on petrol or diesel they would be cheaper fuels than electricity.

Let's not forget the significant subsidies that the fossil fuel industries benefit from around the world and in Ireland.

blackbox wrote: »

If everyone changed to electric cars, tax revenue would be massively reduced, so the government would have to find a new source - such as increased road tax or a tax on charging stations (or even batteries)

Indeed, but there are externalised costs of petrol and fossil fuel use that aren't included in the price.

blackbox wrote: »

WRT the OP, petrol engines no longer contribute to smog; however diesels still need a bit of work to get rid of their harmful emissions.

There are other emissions to consider.

robtri

robtri wrote: »

it is possible, but the cost would be prohibitive.... as it would not be a direct repalcement, engine for engine...
they are a lot of other items and parts that would need to be changed..
different motors, would require differnt gear boxs, clutch assemblies, new wiring harness, new ECu's, replacemnt of petrol tanks, instalaltion of batteries, potential re-design of cabin interior for battery fitting,
new brake system for regenative charging... and so on..

huh, you dont need a clutch or gear box with an electric motor. They are very very simple devices. The engine bay would easily house the batteries and the motors. The benefits would be the reduction in weight through ditching the gear box and heavy engine! All you need to do is hook the existing 12v battery to the charging system of the new batteries with a small transformer to adjust the voltage. Voila - your existing electrics work with the new set up.
Petrol/diesel tanks? You ditch them no need for them unless your going hybrid and that would be far more complicated as you would be powering the car with both engine and electric and would need to interface both the ECU from the engine and the electric motor.

Electric motors are found in many many day to day devices they are simple devices. Removing an engine and refitting an electric motor would be easy enough. All you need to design is a frame to place it in the engine bay.

Im just betting the car manufacturers would want you to buy a new car. Creating waste.

Cookie_Monster

Deleted User wrote: »

huh, you dont need a clutch or gear box with an electric motor. They are very very simple devices.

Eh yes you do. The thing can spin much faster than oil fired engines but uses more power to do so. To make it economical you still need to attach a transmission to it. iirc they currently top out at about 12-15k rpm which probably isin't high enough to maintain decent cruising speed without gearing

Cookie_Monster

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Eh yes you do. The thing can spin much faster than oil fired engines but uses more power to do so. To make it economical you still need to attach a transmission to it.

http://www.hondaev.org/

No clutch, no gear shift,

You do not need a clutch for an electric motor. You do not need a gearbox.
Electric motors are everywhere you dont have a gearbox for your vacumm cleaner. Electric motors can have adjustable speed drives.

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

iirc they currently top out at about 12-15k rpm which probably isin't high enough to maintain decent cruising speed without gearing

That doesnt even make sense. A transmission doesnt move a car the motor does. If the motor doesnt have the power than gearing it differently wont make a difference.

The electric current powers the motor. In turn controlled by the pedal. This is all why electric motors have great accelleration. Its because they dont need gears. They have full power available from the get go

Mahatma coat

see this is where the Americanisim 'transmission' becomes a more cromulent word

robtri

guys if you take out a noremal car engine and gear box, and replace it with an electirc motor...
you will need to replace the gearbox clutch assembley...
a variable speed drive will be needed with a transmission power transfer box... otherwise you can get the power to the wheels.....

and the engine bay would not be big enough for all the batteries either...

full info found on the process is here
http://www.evadc.org/build_an_ev.html

it really is not a simple engine swap...

Cookie_Monster

Deleted User wrote: »

http://www.hondaev.org/
You do not need a clutch for an electric motor. You do not need a gearbox.
Electric motors are everywhere you dont have a gearbox for your vacumm cleaner. Electric motors can have adjustable speed drives.

If you had a petrol powered hoover you wouldn't need a gearbox either.

Cars will always need gearboxes ("transmission") because of the range of speeds and loads that will be placed on the motor, be it electric or oil or fusion. The motor alone is not flexible enough to meet these demands and some form of gearing between in and the wheels will always be needed.

Deleted User wrote: »

The electric current powers the motor. In turn controlled by the pedal. This is all why electric motors have great accelleration. Its because they dont need gears. They have full power available from the get go

So for arguments sake you have an electric motor in your car.

@ 30 kph the motor is doing 5000rpm
@ 60 is doing 12000rpm
@120 its doing 30000rpm

Do you no think by putting a gearing in and being able to do 120kph @ 5000rpm it will not be better for the motor in the long-term rather than no gears and running it to extremely high rpm which will lead to components burning out quicker? It spinnig faster will obviously generate more heat and use more power than lower speeds

probe

robtri wrote: »

nope they don't... they don't have to put one single KWH if they don't want to.... no requirements for them to....

If XYZ sells you a kWh of electricity they either have to generate it themselves and put it into the grid, or buy it on the wholesale market.

If you are in the wind generation business, you have a zero fuel cost, so it is easy for wind producers to compete on price - no fuel cost to pay. Their main cost is financing the capital cost of the plant - which is a fixed cost. As hydrocarbon reserves deplete and their price increases, companies who have wind and other renewable capacity will be laughing all the way to the bank. Their cost structure will be going in the other direction as the plant they have bought in 2009 looks very cheap in 2019.

If XYZ electric co is selling itself as "green", and they are conning the public by buying large quantities of black electricity on the wholesale market, they will soon get a bad name.

In any event there is need for public education on the matter to improve their energy choice decision making.

Disclosing estimates of the increased incidences of cancer from air pollution arising from hydrocarbon use would be a good start. We might end up with the equivalent of the anti-smoking laws - which were brought in to cap litigation risk from victims of passive smoking.

robtri

probe wrote: »

If XYZ sells you a kWh of electricity they either have to generate it themselves and put it into the grid, or buy it on the wholesale market.



If you are in the wind generation business, you have a zero fuel cost, so it is easy for wind producers to compete on price - no fuel cost to pay. Their main cost is financing the capital cost of the plant - which is a fixed cost. As hydrocarbon reserves deplete and their price increases, companies who have wind and other renewable capacity will be laughing all the way to the bank. Their cost structure will be going in the other direction as the plant they have bought in 2009 looks very cheap in 2019.

If XYZ electric co is selling itself as "green", and they are conning the public by buying large quantities of black electricity on the wholesale market, they will soon get a bad name.

In any event there is need for public education on the matter to improve their energy choice decision making.

Disclosing estimates of the increased incidences of cancer from air pollution arising from hydrocarbon use would be a good start. We might end up with the equivalent of the anti-smoking laws - which were brought in to cap litigation risk from victims of passive smoking.

in relation to the electricity supply...

you do realise that if you signed up with xyz you are only changing you billing company... the electricity you recieve is still the same and still from the same source.... that part does not change....
so if you sign up for XYZ who produce some wind electricity... you don't get a supply of that in to your house... you continue to get the same old dirty electricity you have always gotten and will continue to get...

company xyz don't have to produce as much energy as they are selling... not even close...
company xyz sells electricity to one people only... the GRID owners... they mix it with all the other electricity from coal, turf, gas, oil produced elctricity and pump it into your house...

Company Xyz are cheaper to use for the consumer becuase they buy electricity in bulk from the grid owners, sell their electricity to the grid owners, and the government appointed regulator forces the biggest palyer in the elctricity market to keep their prices above company xyz for the sole purpose of competitiveness in the market....