Out of the Box Ideas

[moi621 (imported)]

How about an area where, ideas can be dropped like pearls.

Ideas that should make someone rich or do it better.

Okay, here is my first.

The government should establish a standard battery dimension and connectors for electric automobiles.

Why?

So I can drive up the 5 freeway in my electric car for 500 miles.

When I run out of charge, I drive into a service station and conveniently exchange my battery for a charged one like changing a propane tank on a BBQ. Then I drive off with my fully charged battery until I may either recharge it in a 110v outlet or exchange it for another charged battery. It must be one common sized box and connectors for Ford, Toyota, Honda, Chevy, etc. This would be similar to the government setting up standards for 110v outlets as electricity came into use. Or we might have a variety of competing plug and outlet designs today besides just the annoying grounding piece.

Establishing a dimension and coupling standard in no way influences what competitive companies do with the stuffing of these charged "boxes". It creates a broader market for use of electric automobiles.

Moi

please drop pearls on this thread

[The Lurker (imported)]

As soon as we regulate the size or shape of the battery we lose the potential for new more effective designs.

[Arab Nights (imported)]

That is one side of the coin. But there is another side.

Back in the 80s I worked for one company that for a time used big plastic bags to take samples. They would staple those closed. Before leaving the city, we stacked up on staples. But in the course of work we either used up all the staples or the stapler screwed up. So we bought a stapler/staples in the small town. It was always a different brand and the stapler nor the staples worked with the first brand. Repeat that a couple of times and you have staplers and staples laying around that are not interchangeable and the cause of general confusion.

Contrast that with what happened in the last day or two. I could not print out my boarding pass in the small town with no internet where I was. We got into the big city. I got onto my email, downloaded my boarding pass, stuck in on a flash drive, went down to reception and they stuck it in their office computer and printed it up for me. And that was in another country.

There is something to be said for standards. Moi has a point.

[clysmaniac (imported)]

You're crazy if you think that you will be able to quickly and conveiently charge up your depleted battery from a 110 volt outlet. Or if you think that battery packs can be easily exchanged like a cell phone battery.

The energy requirements are such that 110 volt recharging is overnight at best. It isn't a fluke that 220 and 440 volt chargers are being considered. And if you think that battery packs will be common shaped and accessible and light enough to be quickly exchanged, you don't have an engineering background to understand how every cubic inch os space is utilized in most electric cars to increase battery capacity and keep weight minimized.

I suggest you read the book about GM's attempt to bring its electric car out 10 years ago. I can't remember the title off hand but it was very good at describing the engineering problems they had both with battery type, configuration and number plus the issues of recharging, voltage and connectors for 440 volt consumer applications. There's more there than you probably considered.

[Riverwind (imported)]

Then again NASCAR dictates exactly how high, wide, size, configuration of all the cars even though they are different makes of hand build cars. The engines are all standard as well, the fuel cells are all the same, the electronics are the same, the shocks, the tires, etc. But then again there are only 43 cars not millions.

or put another way,

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give order, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.

Specialization is for insects."

From the notebooks of Lazarus Long.

Time Enough for Love

R A Heinlein

River

[coinflipper_21 (imported)]

Actually, this is one of those things where standards are absolutely necessary if only for safety. Most of the promising all electric car designs are using Li-Poly batteries. They have a very high power to weight ratio (They are used in electric powered model airplanes, for example.) and very good deep discharge and recharge characteristics. They have one BIG problem. If not charged properly they explode and burn spectacularly. (On the other hand, half a teacup of vaporized gasoline, in the wrong place, will blow a car all over the neighborhood.) I think proper standards need to be worked out. I seriously doubt that mandating the design of an electrical connector for safety and ease of use will , at this point, inhibit the design of batteries or the cars that run on them.

[moi621 (imported)]

Okay.

For those in the box thinkers.

The government established what a D cell battery looks like.

Then companies are free to stuff those dimensions and contacts with whatever stuffing they like as to profitably out sell their competators.

Would you rather have a world where no standard battery sizes exist for the sake of freedom?

Yes, it will take forever to recharge a battery.

No instant charge.

That is why we need a standard battery pack that can be changed out at service station thereby allowing electric cars to travel cross country.

Choice, recharge your battery or change it out for a charged one.

Maybe my electric Ford Expedition would carry two, three or four of these standard battery packs.

No reason they could not be stacked like D Cell batteries.

Why hasn't someone done this yet?



Exxon strikes again.

Death to the electric car.

[IbPervert (imported)]

all this talk about thinking out of the box makes me hungry for Tacos!

[gareth19 (imported)]

Okay.

For those in the box thinkers.

The government established what a D cell battery looks like.

Then companies are free to stuff those dimensions and contacts with whatever stuffing they like as to profitably out sell their competators.

Would you rather have a world where no standard battery sizes exist for the sake of freedom?

Yes, it will take forever to recharge a battery.

No instant charge.

That is why we need a standard battery pack that can be changed out at service station thereby allowing electric cars to travel cross country.

Choice, recharge your battery or change it out for a charged one.

Maybe my electric Ford Expedition would carry two, three or four of these standard battery packs.

No reason they could not be stacked like D Cell batteries.

Why hasn't someone done this yet?



Exxon strikes again.

Death to the electric car.

As pointed out, the batteries for electric cars are quite different from dry cells or even the lead-acid batteries in current cars, but please note, there is some standardization of battery terminals in the current lead-acid batteries, and long ago, we standardized the width of rails in railroads so that one freight company's cars could easily be switched to another's. Neither lead-acid batteries nor railroad cars are as easily changed as flashlight batteries, but without some standardization of rail widths and car couplings commerce would grind to a halt. The practical need to have uniformity should impress itself on every thinking person.

No one thought to standardize printer ink cartridges and now every printer has its own non-interchangeable ink cartridge which wastes the consumer's time finding the right model numbers (we have 3 canon printers right now and each one uses a different type canon ink cartridge) and effectively prevents competition for lower-priced ink cartridges and so also wastes consumers' money.

[nullorchis (imported)]

Or, a car that runs on hydrogen, which is extracted from desalinated ocean water, via a mechanism in the car which divides water into hydrogen and oxygen, which then results in more oxygen going into the atmosphere and less CO2 going into the atmosphere.

http://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/hydrogen ... d-cars.htm