Does anyone drive an electric car?

[Marx]

@dscheidt

If you don’t put the energy from baking into a battery, you throw it away as heat.

I think this is wrong, because you still have to use additional braking force to stop the car. You still waste as much energy to heat because charging the battery doesn’t slow the vehicle…

Now that I’ve written that out, I’m not actually sure if that’s true. Because charging the battery is a net energy loss (ie: converting kinetic into potential)… hmmm. You know, I take back what I said. You’re probably right… you’re still going to lose a lot of energy to heat (from both the brakes and from whatever conversion from kinetic to potential energy), but you’re probably right.

And yes, Hybrids are very good in some circumstances. City driving in Toronto, for example, where you never go faster than 35km/hr at the best of times, for example…

[deathchop]

F1 engines are hybrids and incredibly efficient…

Our humble Prius… not quite so much, but there’s a reason almost every taxi seems to be a Prius; efficient around town, reliable, plus being a Toyota spares etc are plentiful.

Sort of wish we’d gone full electric, but the tech and high price a few years ago just didn’t make sense. Next time.

[dscheidt]

@Marx

@dscheidt

If you don’t put the energy from baking into a battery, you throw it away as heat.

Now that I’ve written that out, I’m not actually sure if that’s true. Because charging the battery is a net energy loss (ie: converting kinetic into potential)… hmmm. You know, I take back what I said. You’re probably right… you’re still going to lose a lot of energy to heat (from both the brakes and from whatever conversion from kinetic to potential energy), but you’re probably right.

In a normal vehicle, when you press the brake pedal, the car is slowed down by the friction between the brake pads and the brake disks. (Shoes and drums, for drum brakes). 100% of the kinetic energy of the car is turned into heat (or noise….). Storing that energy is an improvement in efficiency, somewhat offset by needing a motor generator, battery, etc.

As @deathchop notes, F1 cars are hybrids. If I remember right, they turn in the same lap times, but use 30% less fuel than the previous generation engines. They have super complicated systems, which not only recover brake energy, but also energy from the turbocharger. The engines are not practical for anything other than race cars (and there, they still blow up regularly), but the lessons learned will make it to the street.