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ELECTRIC CARS

by Dr. Lawrence Wilson

All information in this article is for educational purposes only. It is not for the diagnosis, treatment, prescription or cure of any disease or health condition.

I. INTRODUCTION

A modern insanity is the use of internal combustion engines to drive the wheels of a car. Using an electric motor to drive the wheels is much wiser.

If one uses an electric motor to drive the wheels, there are two options:

- A pure electric car has batteries that power the motor.

- A hybrid electric car has a very small gas motor that turns a generator to power the car.

II. ADVANTAGES OF USING AN ELECTRIC MOTOR TO DRIVE THE WHEELS OF A CAR

1. No need for a transmission The reason is that electric motors have excellent power at all speeds. The typical gas motor only has good power in a limited speed range, so it must shift gears all the time to maintain the proper speed or RPM of the engine. Shifting gears requires a transmission.

Transmissions are heavy, complex pieces of machinery. They add a lot of cost and weight to a car. They also waste power, which reduces efficiency.

2. Electric motors are cheap, simple, clean devices with basically only one moving part. Gas motors have hundreds to thousands of parts that can break. They are among the most complex machines on the planet!

This means that electric vehicles are more reliable and much less costly to begin with and much less costly to maintain. No changing oil, no changing transmission fluid, no tune-ups and other money-saving aspects.

3. Longer-lasting. I lived for a few years in Boston, Massachusetts. They have electric trolley cars that run from the city to the suburbs. I found out the same trolley cars have been running for 100 years! Gas motors tend to fall apart much sooner.

4. Electric motors run quiet, clean and fairly cool. As a result, they require simpler cooling systems, and no anti-pollution systems or mufflers are needed. All this saves money and weight, and reduces repair costs.

5. Electric motors are much more efficient. This means they use much less fuel to operate than internal combustion engines. Internal combustion engines are about 20% efficient. The efficiency of electric motors is 90% or more.

This means that even if we have to burn oil to generate the electricity to run the cars, we would burn half as much oil because electric vehicles are at least twice as efficient as internal combustion engine cars. Of course, one could also use wind power, solar power, hydroelectric or other methods to generate the electricity for electric cars.

Sixty years ago I read about a hybrid car design in the Mother Earth News that got 100 miles per gallon of gasoline! Today's hybrids are not that good because of stupid regulations (explained more below).

6. Hybrid electric cars require only very small gas motors (about ¼ the size and power and weight of a standard gas-powered car). This saves cost, weight and fuel. You might ask why does a hybrid need only a small gas motor?

One reason is that the gas motor will always run at its optimum speed. With a gas-only car, the gas motor must run at varying speeds and this is less efficient.

A second reason is that 80-90% of the time, it takes very little horsepower to power a car. The only time you need a lot of power in a car is to climb a steep hill or for fast acceleration.

With just a gas engine, one must lug around a big powerful engine in case one needs more power . With an electric drive, one can use a much smaller gas motor and have some cheap batteries (not lithium, which is costly). If more power is needed for a short time, one just draws on the batteries to obtain extra power. After one climbs the hill or accelerates, the batteries recharge. This is called battery backup.

Battery backup has other advantages. If the gas motor fails for any reason, you can still drive a certain distance on battery power to get help.

7. Regenerative braking. With electric vehicles, when one stops accelerating or steps on the brake, the motor can be turned into a generator and you can recharge the batteries. This is called regenerative braking. It increases fuel efficiency and works well. Most electric cars offer this.

8. Solar recharge. With an electric car, one can place solar cells on the roof to recharge the batteries. If one lives in a sunny state, one might rarely have to recharge the batteries in the car. However, this simple-minded idea is illegal in America. Obviously someone does not want us to have good electric cars!

9. No idling. At any moment, millions of gas-powered cars are stopped at red lights or stop signs, wasting gasoline. With an electric vehicle, the motor turns off completely when one stop at a red light or stop sign. This saves energy.

10. No warmup needed. In cold parts of the nations, people waste time and fuel warming up their gas-powered vehicles. There is no need for this with an electric vehicle.

III. PROBLEMS OF ELECTRIC CARS

1. If batteries are used to power the car, recharging the batteries can take an hour or more. This means you will waste time or the range of the car is limited. A hybrid gas-electric car does not have this problem.

2. Lithium batteries are costly and China owns many mines. A hybrid electric car does not need these. Also, a pure electric car could run on lead-acid batters that are about 5 times cheaper. However, our wise leaders have made this safe option illegal.

3. Simple hybrid cars are illegal. A set of regulations prohibit it. The most important of these regulations that I am aware of forces car manufacturers to build hybrid cars in which both the gas and the electric motor must be able to drive the car. This makes no sense and just makes hybrid cars expensive and forces us to waste billions of gallons of oil.

HOW TO PROVIDE ELECTRICITY TO RUN A PURE ELECTRIC OR HYBRID CAR

The two options are batteries or a very small gas-powered motor. You don't need a big gas motor.

Batteries. One can use batteries to power the electric motor or a car. This is called a pure electric car. Tesla cars and some others use lithium batteries. There are other batteries that are much cheaper, but they are not allowed.

Also, government regulations at this time prohibit the use of lead-acid deep cell batteries in cars. These would be much cheaper than lithium batteries, which cost at least four times as much as lead-acid batteries. Once again, someone does not want us to have simple, inexpensive electric vehicles.

Batteries are heavy and recharging them is somewhat slow. They also wear out in a few years and must be replaced.

Hybrids. This is a combination of an electric motor to drive the wheels and some type of gasoline-powered or other device to generate electricity for the electric motor.

The simplest method is to have a small gas motor turning a generator to produce electricity. However, government regulations in America and elsewhere prohibit this excellent arrangement. The regulations say that in a hybrid car both the gas motor and the electric motor must be able to drive the wheels.

This regulation is completely ridiculous. It makes hybrid cars expensive and complex - and that is obviously the goal.

Internal combustion engines that today are used on most all cars are very inefficient. Here are other options:

An oscillating motor. Nicola Tesla invented a two cylinder oscillating motor that was extremely efficient, much better than today's reciprocating internal combustion motors.

Turbines. Nicola Tesla also invented a bladeless turbine engine that would fit in the glove compartment of a car that generated 200 horsepower! I rode in a turbine car at a world's fair years ago. The problem with the one I rode in is that it was a direct drive and had poor acceleration. A hybrid turbine/electric would solve that problem.

Steam engines. I also witnessed a steam car some years ago. It was a huge Pierce Arrow brand of car. It went fast and was completely silent. Steam engines are gas-powered engines that are external combustion engines. They are much cleaner running than internal combustion engines and more efficient, too.

Other. One could us solar cells or fuel cells to generate electricity. One could also use more high-tech methods to produce electricity such as etheric power. Nicola Tesla also had a large Pierce Arrow car at one time that ran completely on etheric power.

Etheric energy is free, safe and environmentally clean. However, this method of producing electricity is prohibited on earth today.

Clearly, someone wants the earth polluted with gasoline fumes and wants us spending our money buying gasoline and buying and repairing expensive, polluting cars.

Today's Tesla automobile is named after Nicola Tesla, a name everyone should know. For details, read Nicola Tesla.

SUMMARY

In summary, using electric motors to drive cars is a simple and excellent idea. I am saddened that some conservative people try to find fault with this idea. It would save a lot of money and oil. Cars would cost half of what they cost today and last much longer.

For more details about the faulty car regulations (all of which are technically illegal in the United States), read The Regulatory State.

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