Re: Yet more Uk Eco madness...
"Regardless of the merits of this car, you really still think that the most energy efficient way to move a car around is the 120-year old internal combustion engine?"
Aha, another Robert Llewellyn reader?
"Even now it's 25% efficient at best."
Somewhat disagree with your figure but, even if it were true, efficiency isn't entirely important here. Crude oil has no use in the ground. When it comes out, it is used for many things such a plastic that is even used in electric cars. From those fractions, the fuel fractions have one use...as a fuel. So you claim it's 25% efficient? It's 25% efficient at converting oil that is not much use for anything else into motion. On the other hand, electricity has many uses...like powering this computer.
" You're exploding hydrocarbons but using only the expansion energy, wasting the generated heat."
The heat is used to warm the car, something electric cars are very inefficient at doing on a cold day. It's used to heat the catalytic converter, to reduce emissions and used to heat the oil to improve efficiency.
"The engines are small and relatively heavy, they are slow to power up which means you've got to leave them idling even when stationary."
Most modern cars have stop/start functions. They don't need to idle when stationary at all.
"They can only power acceleration, which means an equal amount of energy required to stop the car is wasted."
Most modern cars have kinetic energy recovery systems on board. In this model, it is used to charge the batteries. Enough energy is harvested to turn the engine off for 40% of a typical 40 miles journey.
"Finally, they're widely distributed and there are loads of them, which means improvement, or replacement with a better technology, is expensive and time-consuming"
Agreed, but the same can be said for battery improvements on EVs.
"None of this applies to electric"
It does.
"even if it's generated at a central station burning gas or oil - large plants are 60% efficient, and you can swap them out for renewables or nuclear as they come on line without modifying the car.
Efficiency in pure energy terms maybe but, as I said above, "wasting" energy stored in petrol isn't a waste. It's simply releasing energy from nature and putting it back into the world in another form. It will also be a long time before renewables/nuclear meet electricity demand and remove our dependence on fossil fuels.
"The only advantage internal combustion has is power-density, ease of storage and the existing distribution network for hydrocarbons, but that's a tick for convenience, not for efficiency."
Pretty much an advantage in every area then? There isn't much efficiency in not using oil supplies, considering their energy content.
" It's like claiming copper is better than fibre optic simply because it's already run to your house."
It's better if you don't have cable in your street ;O)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
