I am pretty sure that this is not a new but thought I would mention it anyway. Electric cars are the way of the future for short distance driving? One thing they lack that I do not see brought up is air-condition and heating!

A "hybrid" that runs 100% electric but can make use of an engine for heating, air-conditioning and/or longer distance driving could solve this. If this engine is a stirling engine or some other type of heat engine it would be possible to re-charge while out in the middle of no-where using wood scraps on the ground! Wouldn't it be something if a wood chipper attachment was in the trunk of all "prepared" motorists? LOL

I'm thinking... how about a collapse able yet relatively large parabolic dish (relative to the size of the car) that can be setup for recharging via the sun =P. I am on a parabolic concentrator kick and think its possible to make a humongous collector using thermoformed 4x8 acrylic mirror to make sections that would piece together for a 20'+ concentrator! (of course the car model would be much smaller)

Just FYI my interest in parabolic reflectors came from the website below...
(the 2004 articles on making a parabolic dish)...
http://www.phoenixnavigation.com/ptbc/toc.htm

EDIT: Out of curiosity does anyone know how well acrylic mirror thermoforms or maybe you know a way to construct the mirrored sections.

Peltier blocks are probably the preferable method of heating and cooling such vehicles.

I am generally not a big fan of full electric vehicles as I feel that they are way overated once you take into account their true energy usage, their unfriendly chemicals and minerals used to manufacture the batteries and also dispose of them later once the batteries reach their life's end, safety problems if involved in a crash, and the list goes on. I must admit however that this one looks promising although it's only a prototype at this stage. (I realise that you were talking more about hybrids which are a different story)
http://www.unisa.edu.au/solarcar/trev/

I am generally not a big fan of full electric vehicles as I feel that they are way overated once....etc, etc..

I think all the 'etcs' are correct, electric vehicles may be a solution that is worse than the problem.

What I find funny is that no-one has taken an inverted approach to electric cars.

What I mean is that effort is being in put into upgrading the performance of electric cars so they perform in a manner similar to gasoline in terms of acceleration, speed and mileage; I think this is a lost cause because no matter how efficient batteries are they will always weigh much more than the energy equivalent in gasoline or diesel.

What should be pursued are designs that aim for absolute maximum efficiency with gasoline, or preferably diesel, powered vehicles by using much smaller engines, continuously variable transmissions with much higher efficiency than the belt systems that are used in some cars, using exhaust turbos to drive a generator for all the auxiliary functions, etc. This would definitely degrade the performance but it would still be as good as or better than an electric; and I think the overall 'cradle to grave' efficiency could be much higher.

What should be pursued are designs that aim for absolute maximum efficiency with gasoline, or preferably diesel, powered vehicles by using....



Shhh... Don't you know that every time the words gasoline or diesel are uttered on an environmental forum, someone, somewhere, sticks another pin into the BigOil effigy?

Smertrios-
What did you say about a Stirling engine hybrid?
http://www.thedailygreen.com/living-green/blogs/cars-transportation/dean-kamen-deka-revolt-electric-car-stirling-461108

Keith

Keith - thanks for that link.
It was worth it for the name alone - the "Revolt" - sheer genius.

Regards
John

1) Electric automobiles

Someone rather elegantly suggested that owning an electric vehicle was rather like training your dog to crap on your neighbours lawn, rather than on your own.

Erghh? Where exactly does the electricity come from, and what is the efficiency of the power plant that generated it compared to petrol or diesel burned in a conventional ICE??? Add in the losses from transmission, distribution etc if you want be rigourous.

2) What is the efficiency of a Peltier cooler compared to the COP of a standard gas cycle fridge? Well, the last time I used one, it was p*ss poor, big time.

Best wishes,

Martin