

Nissan Leaf gets 99 MPG with no gas tank







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RE: And...
By CharonPDX on 11/23/2010 2:00:20 PM , Rating: 2

What we really need is a "miles per KWh" or similar. Show the ENERGY used, not a goofy comparison to gasoline. That would also be a 100% accurate assessment for electric, plug-in hybrid, conventional hybrid, or any other alternative fuel, as well as gasoline.

Here's a good PDF showing costs per efficiencies:

RE: And...
By MrTeal on 11/23/2010 2:36:54 PM , Rating: 4
That's basically what this is trying to do. Since 1 gallon of gasoline contains 115,400BTU (121MJ, 33.7kWh), they're saying that 1 gallon of gas can be used interchangeably with 33.7kWh of electricity. You can convert to get the miles per kWh if you'd like.

I agree with you though, it's a silly way to do it. They should just say it gets 3 mi/kWh. I was unable to find if the number they use for electricity consumed is the energy from the batteries, or the energy entering the charger and taking into account charging losses.

RE: And...
They should just say it gets 3 mi/kWh


RE: And...
By wavetrex on 11/24/2010 2:13:17 AM , Rating: 1
They should just say it gets 3 mi/kWh

My electric scooter gets about 45 mi/kWh. Cars are horribly inefficient.
If I stuff it with good-enough quality LiFePO4 batteries it could easily go 200 miles/charge. There is a downside however, it doesn't go very fast...

And it's air conditioning is free! :)

RE: And...
By Rasterman on 11/24/2010 12:17:16 PM , Rating: 3
I'm surprised they used this conversion as it doesn't really tell you the true MPG. ICE are only 30-40% efficient, where power plant to wheels in an all electric are 80-90% efficient, meaning even though 1 gallon of gas has 121MJ, an ICE car will only be able to use 40-60MJ of it, where an electric car will be able to use 100MJ of it. So the 99MPG number should be multiplied by 2 at least making it 180MPG.

Another metric is cost, use the average national price per KWH, calculate how much it costs to drive 1 mile in energy, use the 5 year average cost of gas to determine your MPG, this actually make the most sense to me since that is what consumers should care about. How much they are giving to Saudi Arabia every year in fuel dollars.

24kWh battery * $0.10/kWh = $2.40 to fill up the car to drive 100 miles, works out to 2.4 cents per mile

a 20MPG car would take $9 in gas to go 100 miles, or 9/cents per mile, 3.75X the cost

so the yearly cost in fuel at 12,000 miles
20MPG car $1080
leaf $288

over 10 years

That is $8,000 that is going directly into your pocket instead of sending it to OPEC and mainly Saudi Arabia, multiply that by a million people or so and suddenly it is easy to see why the government helping us to drive more fuel efficient cards is such a good idea for not only the environment, but the also economy.

RE: And...
By Mint on 11/27/2010 9:37:35 AM , Rating: 2
Efficiency of energy use is not very useful for the consumer. Actual cost is.

Assuming that Mr Teal is right about how they calculated the 33.7 kWh = 1 gal gas figure, we have ourselves a nice coincidence: 33.7 kWh @ $0.10/kWh = $3.37, or roughly the cost of one gallon of gasoline.

So the EPA rating makes sense for the consumer.

If 3 miles per kWh was equated to 180 MPG, then that would mean you could get 60 kWh of electricity for the cost of 1 gallon of gas. That is not the case for the vast majority of Americans.

RE: And...
By mindless1 on 11/23/2010 10:56:20 PM , Rating: 2
That's not entirely accurate.

I propose that we do not need mi/KWh but rather cost/mile that includes the additional selling price of the EV over an equivalent ICE vehicle (in size) and the cost of a 2nd battery pack since ICE vehicles tend to last longer than one battery pack would.

There's no such thing as a 100% accurate assessment though, especially when you consider that repair costs for the first few generations of hybrids will tend to be highest of any type, then the first generation of an EV till all design quirks are worked out, then ICE vehicles.

What I am really wondering is if it costs less to drive the EV once you make the investment to buy it, might it simply result in people driving more miles since they aren't paying per mile but rather the initial expense of the car itself is wasted if they don't?

Right now I schedule and combine trips when I go out in my ICE to not waste as much gas, but if the cost per mile goes down a lot then I'd make more trips out.

RE: And...



RE: And...
Hello goku,





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