It looks to me like electric cars would be good for a guy who made short trips at low speeds. It would be nice to have a little car that I could plug into a solar panel. Or even two solar panels. Get the battery charged and drive off.
The problem is, a gallon of gas produces about 125,000 British Thermal Units. That’s about 37 Kilowatts. I have a hunch that a lot of folks bought electric without knowing the conversion: 0.00029307 x BTUs = Kilowatts. That number makes understanding electric cars fairly easy – and explains why they failed to compete with internal combustion engines at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
The net tells me that my car battery has an energy equivalent between 30 and 50 kwh. Which translates to being a really good backup power source for my half horsepower water pump on days when wind and trees screw up Lincoln Electric’s operation. Still, if I started out with a gallon of gas in my car, I would probably make it to the big city of Eureka – where I would need to buy more gas to get home.
If I were a townie, taking short drives at 35 mph, a little electric car would make sense. I tested the Gem about 15 years back – but I lived a dozen miles from town. I could still see a small electric as adequate for Trego to Eureka commutes – excepting the 70 mph traffic on 93. The numbers fail utterly if my destination is Kalispell, Missoula, or Libby.
I like the idea of electric – parking and plugging in to a solar array at home just sounds good. But gasoline is such a usable, efficient fuel. It beat batteries in 1900 and it still does.
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