OT: 1 gear no cluth electric car

[Bill Campbell]

On Wed, Sep 20, 2006, Enrique Arredondo wrote:
>Check this car out : http://www.wrightspeed.com/
>
>0-60mph in 3 secs totally electric engine.
>
>He built it in his garage like Jobs did the mac. :-)

If he used a JATO rig it would take less time to refuel, and probably have
less environmental impact.

The problems with electric cars are that they simply move the pollution
source to the other end of the wire, and will use more net energy than an
internal combustion engine.

It's been over forty years since I took Thermodynamics as a Physics and
Math major at Johns Hopkins, but I do remember that there are significant
losses every time energy is converted from one form to another (e.g. heat
to mechanical).  Using electricity to power vehicles incurs losses at the
generating station, in the transmission lines, charging the batteries, and
finally from the batteries to mechanical energy.

Another factor to consider is the energy used to haul around massive
batteries in the vehicle.

TANSTAFFL!

Bill
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