Re: got gas?

[Scott Fisher <sfisher71@domain.elided>]

--- Pottree@domain.elided wrote:
> 
> [...] the joy is in the driving, and if yo had a
> terrific-driving car I don't think 
> you'd care (or perhaps notice) if it was fueled by
> gasoline, hydrogen, alcohol, flux converters, 
> gerbils-in-cage, or my favorite, the 
> perpetual-motion machine.  

Back when I was playing with slot cars (at last I'd
found a level of motorsports competition where I could
afford to buy too much motor! :-), I learned a lot
about electric power.  I have to say that those of us
who like driving enthusiast cars would have a LOT of
fun with an electric car that had a decent
power-to-weight ratio.

Why?  Max torque is at 0 RPM, and power delivery is
essentially linear up to the redline (falling off
primarily due to frictional losses).  Serious
gearheads may now be excused to the restroom to apply
a cold compress to the back of the neck.

I figure that in the past couple of decades at least,
most electric cars have been designed to appeal to the
conservation-minded rather than the leadfoot, and
therefore you get vehicles optimized for economy and
range, rather than for tire-smoking launches and
four-wheel drifts.  It would be very interesting to
try some of the engine-modification techniques I
learned when racing slot cars (like align-boring the
part of the armature where the brushes run, balancing
everything to ultra-fine tolerances, and more tweaks
meant primarily to reduce imbalances and friction) on
a full-sized electric car, and to play with gearing
and suspension to make a driver's car, rather than a
rider's car.  

The problems are all economic, at this point --
there's currently no economic way of storing electric
power in sufficient quantity to give e-cars enough
range at a motorhead's rate of consumption, not
without a significant cost in mass (and safety, though
gel batteries help a lot by avoiding the dangers of
spilling sulfuric acid).  But I suspect I could be
quite happy in an open two-seat electric car with the
equivalent of a 15:1 pounds-to-horsepower ratio or
better.  Especially if they achieved the power by
mounting four small, light, and therefore responsive
electric motors, one driving each wheel, with
traction-sensing feedback controls in case the max
torque at 0 RPM gets too much for the road surface. 
Yes, I think a 2500-pound car with four 50-bhp
electric motors, one at each independently articulated
wheel, should be sufficient to let you concentrate on
the joy of driving.

Of course, this means that in forty years, we'll have
arguments about how the last REAL Alfa used a strip of
48V gel batteries in series down the central spine of
the chassis, and these badge-engineered things they're
selling today with their soulless autolytic hydrogen
fuel cells just don't have the same feel...

--Scott Fisher
  Tualatin, Oregon
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