[Cyrus]

A Prius which emits nothing while running or charging.

This idea started when I was a bit toasted and arguing about whether ULEVs or SULEVs are better. So my idea is: Ok, so at home, you have a PV charging station loaded with mondo-capacitors to charge it to say 60% with what is in them from previous exposure to sun. Then, If you want 100%, the pannels trickle-charge into the car after the capacitors have been depleted. Then for night chargings you hook it up to one of these bad boys.

It would have around 175 C batteries in the trunk to recieve the charging.

Then on REAL shitty days, when both charging methods are not possible, it would run on home brewn biodisel....
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Most of you will probably think my idea is stupid but whatever. Also, this in no way will ever solve PO. It's just that I'm a greenie and proud to admit it, and just "do my part".

[Googolplex]

It would have around 175 C batteries in the trunk to recieve the charging.

Wait... you mean 175 'C' sized rechargable batteries like you get from radio shack???

Seriously???

You know, you can get larger batteries then that...

[jimmyz]

sounds like to me you are driving a "plug-in" hybrid! i want one

[Cyrus]

Wait... you mean 175 'C' sized rechargable batteries like you get from radio shack???

Seriously???

You know, you can get larger batteries then that...

You heard right! Sticking a load of them in acrylic tubing, and putting several of those tubes together makes quite a cool, semi-powerful battery! Several of the entire package makes for a good power source for a Prius!

[Googolplex]

You heard right! Sticking a load of them in acrylic tubing, and putting several of those tubes together makes quite a cool, semi-powerful battery! Several of the entire package makes for a good power source for a Prius!

I imagine it would be woefully inefficient and underpowered (and expensive!) compared to just picking up some more appropriate car sized batteries...

[Devil]

Are you sane? A C NiMH accu will store ~2200 mAh at optimum charge and discharge rates and give 1.2 V = 2.64 Wh. 175 of them will therefore store about 460 Wh = 0.46 kWh. The capacity is measured on a 5 h discharge down to 1.0 V = 450 mA. The available power on a 5 h cycle would therefore be 94.5 W. If you discharged at a faster rate (say 1 h), you would not obtain 460 W, but probably only ~300 W, as such accus are non-linear. Now, 1 HP =746 W, so your batteries would give you 0.13 HP over 5 h or 0.4 HP over 1 h. The latter is ~1/100th the power needed to drive a car.

I'll grant you you can obtain some VERY EXPENSIVE NiMH accus with double the capacity, but you would still be 1½ orders of magnitude away from powering a car.

Furthermore, if you discharge at a 1 h rate, not only does your capacity go down but so does also the battery lifetime (number of charge/discharge cycles) - drastically. If you were using the car daily, you would probably have to change your batteries every 1-2 months.

Please, think before posting!

[JudoCow09]

I have trouble thinking that much before posting. Geese, everyone here is so smart.

[Novus]

The best way to make an electric car viable is to dump the battery idea. Batteries are for long term chemical electrical storage as in they can hold a charge for a year. The engineers of hybrids and electric cars should change their mindsets and look not to batteries but to industrial capacitors.

Industrial ceramic capacitors can be charged to store high voltages and wattages of DC current in just 30 seconds. They will only hold the charge for a few hours. But that does not matter with cars which charge and go, charge and go, charge and go, ect.

For more info see:

http://www.avxcorp.com/docs/techinfo/caparray.pdf

[small_steps]

The best way to make an electric car viable is to dump the battery idea. Batteries are for long term chemical electrical storage as in they can hold a charge for a year. The engineers of hybrids and electric cars should change their mindsets and look not to batteries but to industrial capacitors.

Industrial ceramic capacitors can be charged to store high voltages and wattages of DC current in just 30 seconds. They will only hold the charge for a few hours. But that does not matter with cars which charge and go, charge and go, charge and go, ect.

For more info see:

http://www.avxcorp.com/docs/techinfo/caparray.pdf

Brilliant!
Yes, they have thought of that.

again, like everything about PO, it's about scale and cost.
Batteries are cheaper, smaller, and can do the job, 100V 1.0uF and smaller caps cannot.

Try these:
http://www.avxcorp.com/docs/catalogs/bl.pdf
(last page)
Specifically BL276K0185 and BL276I0305

These are closer to being able to do the job, but would appear to be insufficent (even if you use the entire reel)

[Novus]

Maybe it would just be easier to electrify the streets like we electrify train lines with overhead power cables. It would be too expensive to do nation wide but it could work in the cities. So that all the vehicles in the city run along an electric grid like bumper cars.