electric cars for kids 24 volt image
madcityd06
In this part of the country there are not many of them. Have you owned one and how did you like it. How often did you plug in your car, everyday or after the 50 miles were used?
In this part of the country there are not many of them. Have you owned one and how did you like it. How often did you plug in your car, everyday or after the 50 miles were used? If you have owned one, would you purchase a second one or one to replace the one you already have. I am trying not to have this be a political discussion. I know the rumors. I just want someone who has owned one to tell me their experiences
Answer
You have to start by answering the question, "What do I need to get out of the vehicle?"
If your primary use is just to put around town like take the kids to school, run down to the grocery store, commute the 5 miles to work you can get way with a Neighborhood Electric Vehicle (NEV) or some times called Low speed Electric Vehicle (LEV). The cars are limited by law to 25 MPH (35 MPH in some states) but they recharge from any outlet you can plug your cell phone in.
If you need to take to the highway your options become severely limited. Currently the only highway speed EV available to the public is the Tesla Roadster at $120,000. Everybody else "is working on it and will be ready by 2010".
You don't need a 300 MPC (miles per charge) electric car. When you get home after a hard days work, you plug in the car, eat dinner go to bed. In the morning you get up, get dressed, unplug the car and leave every day with a full load of "fuel". Two minor additions to the usual routine and you've made the world a little better. A gas car doesn't self fill at night an since you don't want to visit the gas station on a daily basis 300 miles is a light range requirement.
The length of the charge time at night is irrelevant. I'm asleep so what difference does it make if it takes 1 hour or 6. Think how many hours a day is your car actually being used out of 24? The rest of the time it is just sitting, waiting for you to use it.
As for plugging it in everyday, don't you plug in your cell phone every day to charge it? An EV is the same deal, put the car in its parking place, hop out plug the cord in, go in and eat dinner. The rest is automatic and baring some kind of minor catastrophe your car is ready to go in the morning. You can also plug in wherever you stop, called opportunity charging, if your vehicle has a 110 volt charger. Since 80% of people put less than 40 miles on their car on a daily basis a 50 mile range isn't an inconvenience.
You have to start by answering the question, "What do I need to get out of the vehicle?"
If your primary use is just to put around town like take the kids to school, run down to the grocery store, commute the 5 miles to work you can get way with a Neighborhood Electric Vehicle (NEV) or some times called Low speed Electric Vehicle (LEV). The cars are limited by law to 25 MPH (35 MPH in some states) but they recharge from any outlet you can plug your cell phone in.
If you need to take to the highway your options become severely limited. Currently the only highway speed EV available to the public is the Tesla Roadster at $120,000. Everybody else "is working on it and will be ready by 2010".
You don't need a 300 MPC (miles per charge) electric car. When you get home after a hard days work, you plug in the car, eat dinner go to bed. In the morning you get up, get dressed, unplug the car and leave every day with a full load of "fuel". Two minor additions to the usual routine and you've made the world a little better. A gas car doesn't self fill at night an since you don't want to visit the gas station on a daily basis 300 miles is a light range requirement.
The length of the charge time at night is irrelevant. I'm asleep so what difference does it make if it takes 1 hour or 6. Think how many hours a day is your car actually being used out of 24? The rest of the time it is just sitting, waiting for you to use it.
As for plugging it in everyday, don't you plug in your cell phone every day to charge it? An EV is the same deal, put the car in its parking place, hop out plug the cord in, go in and eat dinner. The rest is automatic and baring some kind of minor catastrophe your car is ready to go in the morning. You can also plug in wherever you stop, called opportunity charging, if your vehicle has a 110 volt charger. Since 80% of people put less than 40 miles on their car on a daily basis a 50 mile range isn't an inconvenience.
Solar generator for $700-$800?
Hakim
I've been shopping and really don't know what to get.
I've found:
-Goal Zero Sherpa 120
-Goal Zero Escape 150
-Humless Roadrunner (has hand crank, good lithium battery)
-Instapark® Mars20S-SP30 (although only $400, this way i can get two for backup)
-Nature Power 40400 1800-Watt Power Kit with 40-Watt Solar Panel
-Grid Eraser Portable Solar Generator ($2500)
Purposes:
-extended power outage (like hurricanes)
-2 children
-heat at night
-warm water if needed (for freeze-dried food)
-boil water if needed to drink
-medical devices (ie. nebulizer for my dad)
-charge rechargables (laptop, batteries, phone)
-small fridge (nice to have, but secondary)
not too many reviews out there. i never worked with solar but i guess i should start, so i'm a total newbie.
Any maintenance tips?
regarding Humless, i see more bad reviews than good. i wonder how it's still in the market. as much as i love the features on it, is it reliable?
Answer
Vis-a-vis bad reviews, I keep giving the Eden Pure (and their similar knock-offs) line of heaters the lousiest reviews I can, but they're still around, too. There's a small, hard core of people who think the things are made of unicorn horns, and the rest of us recognize they're actually unicorn farts. But it's the horny ones that buy them, so that keeps Eden Pure in business.
Before you start shopping for solar power systems, you need to establish how much power you need. Add up the amperages of all the things that are likely to run at the same time, multiply that number by how many hours per 24-hour day they will run, and that's how many amp-hours you need. Multiply that number by how many volts each item runs on, and that's how many watt-hours you need.
Now we can start talking about system capacity.
If you have an electric water heater, drop that desire right now. You'll be bleeding money from the jugular before you get a big enough system to run a water heater.
If you have a heat pump or electric resistance heat OF ANY SIZE, drop that desire right now. Refer back to what I said about the water heater. Converting sunlight into electricity, into chemical electrical potential (battery-stored electricity), back into heat is a Get-Poor-Fast scheme. You'd do much better to design and build a solar heat collector with storage capacity. That would also provide hot water, or at least warm water that didn't need much heating. Your energy gathering efficiency even from halfwitted homebrew will far outstrip the efficiency of even the very best, lab-results-only photovoltaic (solar electric) system. NOTE: it is super easy to do way better than "halfwitted homebrew," even a car is a very effective flat plate solar collector. Just park it in the sun.
For cooking or water purifying, you're better off to have a couple of gas burners and a 20-lb propane tank. If you never need it, no problem. But when you do need it, 20 pounds of propane gets a lot done, and you can take sponge baths with water heated on the burner. The whole time you're not using it, it just sits there, waiting until needed. That's tough to beat.
A Mr. Heater portable propane heater can do most of your heating if you don't mind everybody in the house all staying in the room with it. That would be best, it would maximize the good of the heater's output.
Considering your dad's need for a nebulizer, maybe a direct vent wall heater would be a better choice. They're out there that can run on propane and again, if you never need it, the fuel just sits there, waiting. No problem. A 20 pound tank of propane will run a 7500 btu heater (admittedly that's not a lot, but if you're in a mild climate it may be plenty, especially with all the house's tenants all in one room staying warm) for more than two days nonstop. Conserve the heater for running mostly at night when it's coldest and you can stretch that out pretty far.
I think your best setup would be this:
A small, modest solar system to provide constant power for your dad's nebulizer and a couple of dedicated, low-amperage outlets for recharging communication and entertainment devices (kids can't live without their games anymore. Suggestion: wean them off those things and onto books, which work even when the batteries die). That will be very affordable.
Then invest in a couple of burners and a couple of tanks of fuel. 20 pounds of propane cooks a LOT of meals.
Then invest in the purchase and installation of a single direct vent wall heater. Purchase another tank of fuel.
That's it. You're ready for the apocalypse. Skip water heating for the whole house, it's wasteful in this paradigm. If you have a solar heating system you won't need to worry about it.
[edit]
NOTE: if Peter W weighs in on this question, take a good look at his answer, he's good at this stuff too.
Good luck with it.
Vis-a-vis bad reviews, I keep giving the Eden Pure (and their similar knock-offs) line of heaters the lousiest reviews I can, but they're still around, too. There's a small, hard core of people who think the things are made of unicorn horns, and the rest of us recognize they're actually unicorn farts. But it's the horny ones that buy them, so that keeps Eden Pure in business.
Before you start shopping for solar power systems, you need to establish how much power you need. Add up the amperages of all the things that are likely to run at the same time, multiply that number by how many hours per 24-hour day they will run, and that's how many amp-hours you need. Multiply that number by how many volts each item runs on, and that's how many watt-hours you need.
Now we can start talking about system capacity.
If you have an electric water heater, drop that desire right now. You'll be bleeding money from the jugular before you get a big enough system to run a water heater.
If you have a heat pump or electric resistance heat OF ANY SIZE, drop that desire right now. Refer back to what I said about the water heater. Converting sunlight into electricity, into chemical electrical potential (battery-stored electricity), back into heat is a Get-Poor-Fast scheme. You'd do much better to design and build a solar heat collector with storage capacity. That would also provide hot water, or at least warm water that didn't need much heating. Your energy gathering efficiency even from halfwitted homebrew will far outstrip the efficiency of even the very best, lab-results-only photovoltaic (solar electric) system. NOTE: it is super easy to do way better than "halfwitted homebrew," even a car is a very effective flat plate solar collector. Just park it in the sun.
For cooking or water purifying, you're better off to have a couple of gas burners and a 20-lb propane tank. If you never need it, no problem. But when you do need it, 20 pounds of propane gets a lot done, and you can take sponge baths with water heated on the burner. The whole time you're not using it, it just sits there, waiting until needed. That's tough to beat.
A Mr. Heater portable propane heater can do most of your heating if you don't mind everybody in the house all staying in the room with it. That would be best, it would maximize the good of the heater's output.
Considering your dad's need for a nebulizer, maybe a direct vent wall heater would be a better choice. They're out there that can run on propane and again, if you never need it, the fuel just sits there, waiting. No problem. A 20 pound tank of propane will run a 7500 btu heater (admittedly that's not a lot, but if you're in a mild climate it may be plenty, especially with all the house's tenants all in one room staying warm) for more than two days nonstop. Conserve the heater for running mostly at night when it's coldest and you can stretch that out pretty far.
I think your best setup would be this:
A small, modest solar system to provide constant power for your dad's nebulizer and a couple of dedicated, low-amperage outlets for recharging communication and entertainment devices (kids can't live without their games anymore. Suggestion: wean them off those things and onto books, which work even when the batteries die). That will be very affordable.
Then invest in a couple of burners and a couple of tanks of fuel. 20 pounds of propane cooks a LOT of meals.
Then invest in the purchase and installation of a single direct vent wall heater. Purchase another tank of fuel.
That's it. You're ready for the apocalypse. Skip water heating for the whole house, it's wasteful in this paradigm. If you have a solar heating system you won't need to worry about it.
[edit]
NOTE: if Peter W weighs in on this question, take a good look at his answer, he's good at this stuff too.
Good luck with it.
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Title Post: My wife wants to buy an electric car.?
Rating: 92% based on 925 ratings. 4 user reviews.
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Rating: 92% based on 925 ratings. 4 user reviews.
Author: Unknown
Thanks For Coming To My Blog
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