57 replies to this topic

[GSX-R]

Hi,

Is CVT transmission still forbidden in F1 GPs ?
If it is, is it also in almost all other motors competition ?

Regards

GS

[Pioneer]

9.3 Gear ratios :

9.3.1 The minimum number of forward gear ratios is 4 and the maximum is 7.
9.3.2 Continuously variable transmission systems are not permitted.


Can't comment on other forms of motorsport.

[GSX-R]

Does anyone remember the Williams-Renault F1 CVT. Some rumors tell that this prototyp has made better times than conventional transmission in 93.

http://www.cke-tech.com/cvpst.htm

Really a too bad choice for R&D.

[zac510]

Saw one at a hillclimb here in England a few months ago. Owner never lifted the covers and I didn't get a chance to talk to him, sorry, but it does exist! I got the impression it was his own development work.

[desmo]

This drawing from Peter Wright's F1 Technology book shows the installation of the CVT in the FW15.

Parenthetically, I think it's ridiculous that what will likely soon be a very common road car transmission is banned from "the pinnacle of motorsport".

[Stoatspeed]

Originally posted by desmo
Parenthetically, I think it's ridiculous that what will likely soon be a very common road car transmission is banned from "the pinnacle of motorsport".

... and of course more than 40 years ago, DAF themselves were supporting F3 cars with CVT's (Alexis, Brabham and Tecno chassis at various times) with some degree of success. Made sense for those high revving engines with narrow powerbands ... hmmm ... isn't that also a description of "Formula Bernie" engines ... oh, don't be silly, it's a GOOD idea, so it'll never make F1 :

[imaginesix]

Thinking... wouldn't it make for some much quieter braking zones?

Presently the cars perform high-pitched staccato downsifts under braking whereas a CVT would gear down gradually while the throttle remained closed, and the engine silent. Would we be able to hear tire squeal, maybe impending lock-up if CVTs were allowed in F1?

[Powersteer]

How much friction drag does a belt system cause and did Williams cleverly made it slip free or is it already common that a belt box can withstand such powers. If racing cars use constantly variable ratios, the tuning for torque would be so different and horsepower would be absolute target.

[Wolf]

Originally posted by Powersteer
How much friction drag does a belt system cause and did Williams cleverly made it slip free or is it already common that a belt box can withstand such powers. If racing cars use constantly variable ratios, the tuning for torque would be so different and horsepower would be absolute target.

They can use chains like Audi does with their CVT (IIRC it can stand up 240Nm torque), and go DAF way if F1 engines have more torque (split the torque with diff and then each wheel gets his CVT)... ISTR that more recently McLaren did fiddle with CVT, and I think I've seen a drawing somewhere.

EDIT- Strike that last remark, it's a brain-fade- it's the cutaway of Williams I have, so must have confused it with McLaren.

[GSX-R]

Great stuff. Maybe not for F1 but for mass production i would like to have one in my car.

I believe to remember products for SUV that can handle 500Nm.

http://www.torotrak.com/

and action :

http://www.torotrak.com/IVT/action.htm

Cheers U.K !

[Powersteer]

Looks like belt and no slip?

[jb_128]

I'd love to hear what the Williams sounded like. Must sound rather weird when the engine note doesn't change all the way down the straight.

Also, does anyone have any details on how the Williams CVT worked? From the pictures above it seems to be a very compact mechanism.

[GSX-R]

Most people would'nt like the sound of a CVT engine. That is apparently one of the CONS for this technology : habits. That is surely also one reason why it's forbiddent in F1.

[BRG]

Although it looks really attractive and sensible on paper, CVT has hardly set the road-car world alight, has it?

DAF developed this idea decades ago, but no-one else picked up on it at that time, and then even DAF themselves dropped it. Later Ford, FIAT and Nissan have all offered it in their small cars recently but it hasn't been a real sales success AFAIK. I think the new Mini uses it, and there have been horrendous stories about how uneconomical that car is with CVT - I have heard stories of 10 to 12 miles per gallon, which from a small modern 1600cc car is ridiculous.

So I wonder if this technology is a bit of a dead-end? In which case, you would think F1 WOULD be using it...;)

[imaginesix]

The technology has evolved somewhat recently. Previous CVTs were only suitable for low-power engines like the models you listed. I'm not sure if it's materials or lubrication technology that has enabled CVT on almost any car these days, but it looks as thoug that along with improved electronic controls (and increasingly stringent emissions and fuel economy targets) have tipped the scales in favor of CVTs.

Another barrier to implementation is pubic acceptance. Like in F1 usage, the manner of operation of a CVT vehicle would be disconcerting to many people, which would affect sales and obviously slow it's market penetration.

Having said all that, I agree with you in the sense that I haven't seen any data that clearly shows CVT's superiority to conventional transmissions the way manual transmissions typically show improved acceleration and fuel efficiency over automatics. But I trust that the manufacturers aren't wasting their time and our money.

[desmo]

Originally posted by Powersteer
How much friction drag does a belt system cause [?]

Wright states that the Williams CVT was "...approximately 93% efficient, compared to 96% for the spur gear variant."

[McGuire]

I guess one problem with CVT in F1: it is definitely a driver aid. With no shifting, an important task (and skill differentiator) is removed from the cars. Wouldn't sound very nice for the spectators either... like a snowmobile race more or less. eeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

... haven't had my nose in it lately but the practical limit for CVT in production cars was recently somewhere around 220 hp if I recall correctly... probably has risen a bit since then. The loadings are unbelievably high... for example in the Audi system all the drive is actually taken by the ends of the pins on the metal drive belt/chain/thingie riding on the slope of the pulley. There is a paper somewhere, don't remember where.

[McGuire]

Originally posted by jb_128
I'd love to hear what the Williams sounded like. Must sound rather weird when the engine note doesn't change all the way down the straight.

I suspect this would also make the cars "look" slow to the spectators. Without the auditory cueing of a rising exhaust note it may seem like the cars are not accelerating very much. I have seen snowmobiles on dragstrips (and drag bikes with snowmobile drivetrains) and that definitely seems to be the effect.

[McGuire]

Originally posted by GSX-R
Does anyone remember the Williams-Renault F1 CVT. Some rumors tell that this prototyp has made better times than conventional transmission in 93.

http://www.cke-tech.com/cvpst.htm

Really a too bad choice for R&D.

I have no personal evidence but my spider sense tells me this deal would have required an incredible amount of development to be reliable, let alone competitive. One closed test does not mean a whole lot ... in fact in my case it arouses a ton of suspicion. But maybe I am just overly cynical.

[Greg Locock]

I drove one of the Torotrak cars once, long before it was called Torotrak. So that means it's been around for at least 25 years, has burned millions and millions of investor dollars, and they still don't have a product AFAIK.

93% efficient is damn good actually - not so much for F1, but if you could get that while pootling around town it would be a step forward.

The fuel economy benefits, at least with the Ford Fiesta system, seem to be invisible to me - a manual box is better for both performance and fuel economy. I enjoy driving them in a nerdy sort of way.

[GSX-R]

Does somebody know what's wrong with Torotrak to stay in developpment for a while ?

[Greg Locock]

a while = half a lifetime.

There are very high pressures where the wheels run on the rotors, these destroy any normal lubricant. They eventually found something that would live.

To be honest they missed a trick early on, trying to take the full power of the drivetrain through the variable ratio device. It is much smarter to use a CVT to modulate the speed ratio between two of the three shafts on a diff or epicyclic (a la Prius)

[Stian1979]

Williams starded on the CVT in 82 when they was strugeling with the DVF engine that had far less poert than the turbos if I rmember the storry corect.

I think all tecnolegy should be legal in f1 until it has raced for atleast 1 season.

The Williams CVT car sounded boring.

They shoved DC driving it on discovery once.

[GSX-R]

Originally posted by Greg Locock
There are very high pressures where the wheels run on the rotors, these destroy any normal lubricant. They eventually found something that would live.

I think there's should be good "traction" oils by now, no ? Without this ideal lubricant, how many hours can we expect a classical libricant can last ?

To be honest they missed a trick early on, trying to take the full power of the drivetrain through the variable ratio device. It is much smarter to use a CVT to modulate the speed ratio between two of the three shafts on a diff or epicyclic (a la Prius) [/B]

How much the power could be reduced in the torotrak system in a such configuration for the same output power ?

About the Prius (HSDrive), is it because the "epicyclic torque distribution" that the car should, in some situations, be in a kind of paradoxal situation where at the same time :


1-Engine to wheels
2-Some electricity exclusively from the engine toward the electrical motor (!)
3-Excess of electricity toward batteries

It could be better to have just 1) and 3).

Does this kind of configuration is just due to the epicyclic configuration torque distribution of the 3 shafts ?

[Greg Locock]

Yes, as I said, they do now have a satisfactory lubricant.

Yes, the Prius does some odd things, in order to give better speed matching for the engine and road wheels. The basic strategy is that for a given demand power from the engine there is one ideal operating speed, which gives the best fuel consumption for that power output. The output of the engine feeds into a diff (in effect). A motor generator is attached to each of the other shafts of the diff, and the road wheels are connected to one of those two. By varying the power into and out of each of the MGs any desired mix of gear ratio, and electrical assistance or charging, can be obtained, up to various system limits.

I believe the torotrak now uses a simpler version of the same thing to give speed matching.

[flannel]

There is an article on CVT's in one of the latest issues of Race Engine Technology magazine.

I haven't read it yet but it has a picture of the Bosch belt:

http://www.bosch.co...._031023_11.html

also, Wiki' lists quite a few cars that are using it:

http://en.wikipedia....le_transmission

[rhm]

I think we'll see electric cars become mainstream before we see CVT become common on road cards with internal combustion engines. One electric motor (that can develop full torque from stall) per wheel with it's own single-speed gearbox sure simplifies powertrain issues. Not that I think it's particularly close because even if fuel cells didn't still cost hundreds of thousands to make, there isn't yet a viable source of hydrogen to stick in them. But they're still going to make an appearance before CVT simply because modern auto transmissions work just fine. Using modern control systems means they can have 6 or even 7 ratios and that's enough even for a turbo-diesel, so why pursue the pipe-dream of CVT? And lets face it, it has been something of a pipe-dream. Sounds like a brilliant idea, but there's no really elegant way to implement it mechanically and by the time they make progress, the rest of the world has moved on.

[Fat Boy]

Back in the stone ages, Virginia tech had a CVT in their Formula SAE car. It didn't 'sound' slow to me. It was loud as hell and very fast. They had it tuned to 'stall' on the power peak (maybe 10,000 rpm) and so even at relatively low speeds it was screaming.

I think some manufacturers play around with the idea that they will lose some efficiency by running a CVT, but because they are keeping the engine in a more efficient rev range it will be a net gain. At best, I think they break even, but for most people I think it's a net loss. A CVT is a great idea, the trick is implementing it.

[McGuire]

Meanwhile, GM has a six-speed automatic in wide application, Mercedes-Benz has a seven-speed and Lexus/Toyota is coming with eight.

[desmo]

I'd like to see 7 or 8 speed manual boxes. I find even 5 or 6 too few occaisionally.

[imaginesix]

Originally posted by rhm
I think we'll see electric cars become mainstream before we see CVT become common on road cards with internal combustion engines.

I disagree.

Taking into consideration electricity generation, electric cars are less efficient and more polluting than IC cars and unless electric powertrain technology bounds ahead of IC technology in the future they will remain so. Electric cars are better than IC only in regards to tailpipe emissions (electric being rated as zero emissions) so they will survive in areas where ZEV are required (or where public perception favours electric).

Of course, CVTs or electric cars may never become commonplace, but CVT applications haven't shown all their cards yet as all of the currently available CVT-equipped models have a stepped-gear transmission option (that I can tell), so their engines cannot have been optimised to run in the narrow powerband that CVTs allow. An optimised engine/transmission package is really where the great benefit of CVTs is supposed to come from.

So as manufacturers tweak the technology a bit further and as the public comes to accept the manner of operation of CVTs they will be in a position to play that ace up their sleeve by designing a model with a dedicated CVT powertrain, improved efficiency and all.

[Greg Locock]

Yes, but EVs burn atoms or coal, so if your aim is reduced oil consumption then they make sense, if your electrical baseload generation doesn't burn oil. Sadly some ridiculous proportion of electricity is generated from oil, graphic proof that oil is still cheap.

[BRG]

Originally posted by imaginesix
Taking into consideration electricity generation, electric cars are less efficient and more polluting than IC cars

That's rubbish. If you own an electric car in a country like Norway where electricity is almost entirely from renewable sources (hydro), the car will be responsible for almost zero emissions overall.

And even if your country's power comes from hydrocarbons, the economies of scale of a large generation plant compared to an inefficiently operated small IC engine will mean less overall emissions from an electric car. Cars are hopelessly inefficient over short journeys - and what do most of us use them for them? Short journeys.

[imaginesix]

Indeed, I may have to retract that statement.

Following the discussion on the 'treehugger' thread it appears there is some evidence to show that EVs are less polluting than comparable IC cars, even considering how the US generates it's electricity (50% coal, 3% fossil fuels).

[phantom II]

Describe how the batteries are manufactured and discarded and what the complete cost.

Originally posted by BRG
That's rubbish. If you own an electric car in a country like Norway where electricity is almost entirely from renewable sources (hydro), the car will be responsible for almost zero emissions overall.

And even if your country's power comes from hydrocarbons, the economies of scale of a large generation plant compared to an inefficiently operated small IC engine will mean less overall emissions from an electric car. Cars are hopelessly inefficient over short journeys - and what do most of us use them for them? Short journeys.

[Stian1979]

Originally posted by BRG
That's rubbish. If you own an electric car in a country like Norway where electricity is almost entirely from renewable sources (hydro), the car will be responsible for almost zero emissions overall.

And even if your country's power comes from hydrocarbons, the economies of scale of a large generation plant compared to an inefficiently operated small IC engine will mean less overall emissions from an electric car. Cars are hopelessly inefficient over short journeys - and what do most of us use them for them? Short journeys.

That for shure is rubish.

Norway imports coal power from damark and nuclear power from sweeden to furfill it's nead for electrisety.

You actualy recomend people to use electrisety to recherge a car so the control rods in swedish reactors have to be rised and the steamboilers in danmark has to be feeded more coal?

A car nead 50hp to have a ok performance for daily use.

If 1milion people was to charge there electric cars for 1 hour use every day it would consume alot off energy.

a house nead 1kw and a car nead far more than that.

Electric car's can only be a realety if all countrys bould a bunch off nyclear reactors and sahara is covered with solar panels + that we have wind mills everywhere and amazoas has to be used for hydroelectric powerplants.

[BRG]

Originally posted by Stian1979
Electric car's can only be a realety if all countrys bould a bunch off nyclear reactors and sahara is covered with solar panels + that we have wind mills everywhere and amazoas has to be used for hydroelectric powerplants.

So electric cars are a dreadful form of pollution, emissions and general climate change and global devastation? As opposed to those nice clean internal combustion engined cars? Presumably, I can e-mail you about all this at CEO-office@mobil-exxon.com? Or are you recommending that we discontinue all personal transportation?

Phantom II makes a more reasonable point. Battery technology can indeed be messy, but at least it is all nicely contained in a box and could be readily recycled. Compared to the total environmental damage casued by building IC cars and then supporting them through a massive network of gas stations that have to be kept fuelled up by fleets of huge tankers, I am not sure that there is so much difference in the long run.

[imaginesix]

Originally posted by phantom II
Describe how the batteries are manufactured and discarded and what the complete cost.

Cradle-to-grave manufacturing and environmental costs were not mentionned so far, we have only been talking about emissions resulting from the generation of energy used to drive the cars. But you can go ahead and break it down for us if you like

[crono33]

that perhaps apply to small cuntries like norway, which would probably not be able to buy enought cars to make them cheap enough

large scale electricity generation is surely more efficient, but it must be also distributed, and this has costs and inefficiencies. electricity is at the moment a very expensive for of energy. how much is a KWh in your country, at the socket in your wall? compare that to the cost of a KWh generated by a diesel engine in a car.

Originally posted by BRG
That's rubbish. If you own an electric car in a country like Norway where electricity is almost entirely from renewable sources (hydro), the car will be responsible for almost zero emissions overall.

And even if your country's power comes from hydrocarbons, the economies of scale of a large generation plant compared to an inefficiently operated small IC engine will mean less overall emissions from an electric car. Cars are hopelessly inefficient over short journeys - and what do most of us use them for them? Short journeys.

[Stian1979]

Originally posted by BRG


So electric cars are a dreadful form of pollution, emissions and general climate change and global devastation? As opposed to those nice clean internal combustion engined cars? Presumably, I can e-mail you about all this at CEO-office@mobil-exxon.com? Or are you recommending that we discontinue all personal transportation?

Phantom II makes a more reasonable point. Battery technology can indeed be messy, but at least it is all nicely contained in a box and could be readily recycled. Compared to the total environmental damage casued by building IC cars and then supporting them through a massive network of gas stations that have to be kept fuelled up by fleets of huge tankers, I am not sure that there is so much difference in the long run.

Come on and tell me how you would like to generate enough electrisety to recharge all the cars in the world over the curent electrick network withc in the US is allready overloaded at times and with it's losses because off resistance.

I buy you a beer the day electric car's sell more than combustion engines.

I guess I will be dead by then.

[GSX-R]

Electricity is the way to go unless we could product an almost loss free process to produce liquid fuel from electricy.

The electricity will be produced by the future of this machine : the Z machine :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_machine

[BRG]

Originally posted by Stian1979
Come on and tell me how you would like to generate enough electrisety to recharge all the cars in the world over the curent electrick network withc in the US is allready overloaded at times and with it's losses because off resistance.

Well, I can't help it if the US has an inadequate power grid. Perhaps they should invest a bit more money into it?

But as electric cars would mostly be recharged at night, when most domestic and business power consumption is at its lowest, I doubt if there would be a problem even in the US. Fixed power generation is often idle at night. It would be more efficent to use all the fuel that is currently used in road vehicles in large power stations to generate electricity. You would get more power out of each barrel of oil that way. Plus power from renewable sources can be added. Or even from nuclear sources - that seems to work for the French although I am a bit chary of it myself.

However, I agree that the time of the electirc car may not have arrived yet, and may never arrive. But not because it is less fuel efficient, it is because of other factors.

[GSX-R]

200 km electricy range is coming. That's the start point. At least in big city it's sure you'll see electric cars if you live in a developped country.


Here we have :

diesel fuel : 1 liter = 1.1 € = 35,700 J -> 3.8 10-8 €/J gross
Night electricity : 1 kW.h = 0,065 € -> 1.8 10-8 €/J gross

-> Efficiency ->

diesel car : general efficiency (25% in common way) : 0.25
electric car : general efficiency (.90 x .95 ) without any electricity recovery on braking : 0.9

diesel car : 1.5 10-7 €/J
elect car : 2.1 10-8 €/J

That's just the beginning of the crisis.

Today a diesel journey would be 7.1 times more expensive than an electric one. In winter you should add heating for electric

Give me a 45 kW second car that is able to roll 200km without any recharge at 15.000 €, i'll certainly consider to buy it. Bollore is on the way to do that.

Biologic fuel like oilseeds could have been a possibility if you don't have 6 billions of people to nourish with a limited arable land on earth and especially limited non salted water, and also natural manure to replace actual nitrogenized products.

The next revolution is fusion. The sandia experience (message above) could help humanity to control it maybe sooner than we use to expect it.

[phantom II]

Fixed costs of Evs,HEVs, BEVs and FCEVs are pretty much determined already. Production costs of Electric cars will not decrease substantially even if volumes go to those of popular cars. Its the materials that are the problem. Higher volumes could actually cause the costs to go higher. The addition of China and India to industrialized nations for example, have caused oil prices to sour. There is no simple way of producing product such as these: Lithium-ion, Magnesium, Sodium-sulphur, Nickel-Cadmium, Nickel-Zinc,Nickel-iron that batteries are made of. Any commodity is subject to speculation, that is the capitalist way. The commodity and mining markets are demand driven. Yield per ton will remain the same but revenue per ton will increase.
Batteries are expensive to make not only because of the cost of bringing raw materials above ground, but converting them to compounds that can be used in industry. EVs are heavier, so more enrgy is required to move and stop them.
Environmental concerns loom high on the list of obstacles and the cost of dispersing or recycling of these materials after their service life, often having irreversible chemical reactions, are mind boggling. There are a lot of products that can't be produced in America as it is because of laws. They are shipped to the 3rd world after bribing officials for their processing.
Even things like aluminum and magnesium products which are widely used are shipped overseas for refinement.
When these loopholes are closed when the 3rd world tends toward the 2nd and 1st worlds standards, the cost will go even higher.
There are other matters. Rescue and emergency traffic units are being killed when they come across hybrids and electric vehicles that have been involved in crashes because of high voltage systems. 500v. Even IC cars will convert to higher voltage systems to run things like brakes, steering, air, brakes, etc. The norm will be 50 volts in the near future.
The aviation industry has been using these batteries since the second WW. They have not brought the costs down in the least. On the contrary, they continue to rise in cost not only because of the cost of materials, but thermal stabilization measures that have not even been addressed in BEVs such as poor cycle life, high capacity loss, instability at the surface isolation of sulphur, etc. Thermal runaways still occur. GM does not say what the repalcement costs of its EV1 were. Lets say $4000 per battery.
There must be people here that can expound on the logistics of manufacturing these products.
The automobile will use 500 times more energy in its production than it will use in its life time. Electric and Hydrogen powered vehicles production costs will exceed even that.
There is nothing available that produces so much energy with no loss in transportation at so little cost as does a gallon of gas. Even if you use nukes, a 3rd of the power will be lost before it even gets to the main grid in the city.
I discovered that I can run my house on piped in gas which runs the stove, the hot water heater and my 8KW generator, cheaper than the electiicity from the city grid. Not only that, I get credit for the backward running meter.
Let me see, I'm going for a blast in my Vette to pick up some beer at Publix.;)

Originally posted by imaginesix

Cradle-to-grave manufacturing and environmental costs were not mentionned so far, we have only been talking about emissions resulting from the generation of energy used to drive the cars. But you can go ahead and break it down for us if you like

[GSX-R]

Originally posted by phantom II
The automobile will use 500 times more energy in its production than it will use in its life time. Electric and Hydrogen powered vehicles production costs will exceed even that.
There is nothing available that produces so much energy with no loss in transportation at so little cost as does a gallon of gas.

500 times ?

A classical modern diesel engine car can run easily more than 300,000 km
300,000 km fuel equivalent is about 7.5 10+11 J
Do you really believe you need 3.75 10+14 J to build a car - 10,500,000 liters of diesel fuel - ?

I don't think so.

Energy is today very cheap because we use to don't care about the time the earth had need to generate this fossile.

Electric railway is the best transportation system we have to developp.

Even if you use nukes, a 3rd of the power will be lost before it even gets to the main grid in the city.

You're very generous ! 2/3 "lost" would be more realistic.

[jo-briggs]

The fun thing about the DAF Variomatic CVT was that you could drive backwards as fast as forwards, but it was disconcerting when you lifted off to brake, and it went into overdrive instead of slowing down!

I remember the Chequered Flag, Brabham DAFs, being driven by Mike Beckwith and Slotemaker(?) or Gijs van Lennep, at Crystal Palace, one of them, Beckwith I think, (IIRC) running in about 4th or 5th place.

[rhm]

Damn, I didn't want to turn this into a thread about electric cars as well. My point was to compare electic cars with CVT because I don't think either will happen for a long time (but at least there is a long-term vision, developing CVT for internal combustion engined cars is like trying to develop a better stagecoach). As I mentioned in the Paddock Club thread on the subject of electric cars, I don't think we'll see widespread deployment until there is truely cheap and plentiful electricity without environmental cost. And that means nuclear fusion, which means probably not in our lifetimes.

[Stian1979]

Originally posted by BRG
Well, I can't help it if the US has an inadequate power grid. Perhaps they should invest a bit more money into it?

But as electric cars would mostly be recharged at night, when most domestic and business power consumption is at its lowest, I doubt if there would be a problem even in the US. Fixed power generation is often idle at night. It would be more efficent to use all the fuel that is currently used in road vehicles in large power stations to generate electricity. You would get more power out of each barrel of oil that way. Plus power from renewable sources can be added. Or even from nuclear sources - that seems to work for the French although I am a bit chary of it myself.

However, I agree that the time of the electirc car may not have arrived yet, and may never arrive. But not because it is less fuel efficient, it is because of other factors.

Your first exsample was norway.
Do you know how mutch electrisety norway use and for what? 6% alone go to one off the aluminium factorys and there is several off them around.

How mutch electrisety dos a house use during the day compared to what a car nead?

The power net is going to be overloaded and to recharge the cars you will nead nuclear power, coal power and gas powerplants.

Burn off tonns off fuel in a diesel engine in a powerplant and then runn it trough a generator with 98% efficensy and then trough electic cables with resistance and transformers with there loss befour rechargine batterys with there prolems off desposal and energy lost as heat during cherging. The the car go driving and heat is lost when the battery is delivering power trough the cars electric net with it's losses and converted into movement in a electric engine with 97% efficensy.


Sound like a good investment for inviroment for me.

Fuel powered powerplants and coal powerplans and nuclerar power.

Why is it soo that sweeden with no oil is not converting to electic cars?

They are leading in europe in development off bioenergy.
Norway offcourse has no interest in this since hydrogen can be exstracted out off oil cheaper then out off water and electric cars make the electisety demand higher and is a good exuse for building those gas power plants they are working on.

CVT is going to take over in the city where the speed variate and manual gearboxes will continue to dominate on long distance travel.

Sound like a real

[BRG]

Stian1979

I don't really understand the point that you are making.

[crono33]

in italy a KWh costs 10.8 euro cents during the day and 8.85 at night, for a 3KW supply and excluding the many extra fees.

for higher suppy (above 4.5 KW) price goes up to 16cents and more

what i see as a major problem for electric cars is the long time to recharge. a limited range is ok, but the problem is that after the battery is flat, the car is useless. nobody would buy a vehicle liable to get stranded just about anywhere if a recharging station is missed.

there is also another problem. the price of fuel is much lower, excluding the many taxes. in case of a widespread conversion to electric vehicles, those taxes would go on electricity, i guess. that would change things quite a lot.

Originally posted by GSX-R
2

diesel fuel : 1 liter = 1.1 € = 35,700 J -> 3.8 10-8 €/J gross
Night electricity : 1 kW.h = 0,065 € -> 1.8 10-8 €/J gross