Is it possible to have a manual transmission in an electric car?

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whatever_n

I know that electric cars don't need a transmission at all, but that would take a lot of the fun out of driving it. Would it be possible to have a manual transmission in an electric car?

Answer
It is possible to as you said, make an electric car without a transmission. Perhaps the best configuration for this is a 4 wheel drive electric vehicle with hub motors. But with even one motor a transmission is not required.

However most conversions from an internal combustion engine to an electric motor will keep the transmission and rear axle. Although this adds a lot of unnecessary weight is makes the conversion process a lot easier. Manual transmissions may even keep their clutch but it may not be necessary or desirable to use it.

I usually drive an automatic transmission but for the last week I was in rural Georgia driving a Mazda Miata (1) on country roads. It was a fun car to drive. I enjoyed the manual transmission and steering for this small car. But back in a big northeastern city, traffic, snow, and just needing to get where I am going easily makes me grateful for the simplicity of an automatic.

Electric cars will not initially be for everyone. They may offer the most advantages for commuters who have a garage or other place to charge them. But in an interesting development, electric vehicles are being offered to niche markets at first: You have the NEV (2), the neighborhood electric vehicle for that quiet little vehicle that can give you a short hop with little fuss and no fuel. Then there is the much publicized Tesla Roadster (3) that has a two speed transmission. And last is another unique "commuter" vehicle, the Tango, (4) this is among a new class of vehicle that has been called "Narrow track vehicles" (5: interesting viewing) This last video suggests vehicles that might be considered fun to drive with or without a transmission.

What kind of engineers design electric cars?

Joseph

I'm looking for my major in engineering for sure, I'm just not sure where I want to go into it. I'm really interested in electric cars but I'm just not sure which category of engineering it falls under.

Answer
car design will mostly fall under mechanical. it took more then a certain type of engineer to design the electric car. you can help build it if your a mechanical, electrical or probably some other type of engineer related in the field.

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What steps will Big Oil companies take to ensure that very few people buy electric cars?

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Byakuya

Now that electric cars are finally starting to become available, the Big Oil companies will undoubtedly be plotting and planning how to keep people from buying them. What strategies do you think they'll use to keep us dependent upon gas?

Answer
Same thing they did for the EV-1... petition government to keep oil standards low, wage a media war against them as being weak, unsafe, bad for business, and even un-American.

(Or say stupid stuff like Greed above - especially when the energy that it does take to charge a car is a fraction of the amount of energy that goes into an automotive gas combustion engine for the same amount of mileage... Not to mention that even with the US's "dirty" power grid, electric car's secondary emissions would still be less then half of of the total emissions by a conventional US gasoline auto.

But then again, which industry would have the most to lose if the US did upgrade our power grids??? So, who can we expect to put up obstacles to that as well?)

Why do people think that electric cars will reduce air pollution?

Phil

If we're talking about conventional electric cars that have to be plugged in, you have to consider how that electricity is being generated. The majority of power plants in this country are COAL-POWERED. If we all had electric cars, we wouldn't have any exhaust coming out of the cars, but there would be a lot more coal being burned to generate the electricity to charge the cars' batteries. So how does that reduce pollution?

Answer
Actually, I think that solar panels at home to charge the electric car would make a difference.

I suspect that the inefficiencies in electric power generation due to generation loss and transmission loss may well result in more CO2 emissions if we rely on the exisitng electric generation system than if we just used gasoline powered vehicles.

Since we have no new nuclear plants and most of our rivers have already been dammed for hydro, incremental electricity for the electric car will undoubtedly come from coal fired plants. There is better coal plant technology that reduces CO2 dramatically, but it is not manatory and is not the method of choice for power plant construction due to higher costs.

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How would the environment change if everyone drove electric cars?

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jaredbiunn

Just having fun speculating and such, how much better would the environment get if the world drove electric cars.. would we physically see a noticeable change?.... I mean, this is obviously not possible in the near future, the whole word driving and being comfortable with electric cars won't be reached at least for another 50-100 years, but just to satisfy my curiosity.. how much will this benefit our planet?

Answer
How would you describe the change? It would be hard to fix an actual percentage. You might listen to the inspirational beginning of an EV world podcast: http://www.evworld.com/evworld_audio/gpastor_shanghai-to-paris1.mp3 You could read a nonfiction book on the subject: http://www.amazon.com/Future-Drive-Electric-Sustainable-Transportation/dp/155963328X or you might see a movie that featured electric cars or watch a youtube video interview:

Minority Report
http://www.youtube.com/siemens

But if you wanted to fix a percentage it would have to start with the pollution given out by the vehicles of today. How much does auto pollution presently damage our planet? You would have to look at each element of pollution separately. Also, are we counting all harmful substances or only those that will be metabolized in a fixed or variable amount of time? How do we determine how much time.

We can say with some certainty that approximately 60 to 70% of crude oil's refined products are used in transportation. The pollution will be found in the air, our water and our soils. Oil pollutes during its production1, exploration (the BP well was an exploratory well), transportation (tanker spills), refining (energy usage and byproducts, transportation and storage again (road and pipeline spills ) pumping (ground and water contamination at gas stations, and use (air pollution, water and soil pollution from "lost" oil 2) Of this we can probably attributed 50% to ground transportation that would be replaced by electric cars and trucks. (I would assume you may include trucks in you overall assessment.) This source determines the tonage per vehicle of greenhouse gas emissions: There are over 200 million vehicles on the roads in the US alone producing 1 billion tons of CO2. Refineries would add to this amount.

Are there any available electric cars that can go highway speed?

the mental

I watched "Who Killed the Electric Car?" and heard a presentation about electric cars. They seem like really great cars but the only ones that are available are low speed cars (max speed of 35 mph), right?

Answer
Sure. In fact, you can build one yourself for under $10,000. I plan to turn this into a summer project for me. You may want to check out diyelectriccar.com. There is lots of great info there to get you started. Another place I'd like to recommend is evalbum.com. This is a showcase for anyone who's built/owns an electric car. If you don't want to build an electric car yourself, you ought to check out evtradingpost.com, where people sell fully-completed conversion vehicles, production electric vehicles, and parts to make your own electric vehicle (sort of like classified ads). Whichever route you choose to go, good luck!

EDIT: You may also wish to look into the Solectria Force. It is a professionally converted car that is capable of going highway speeds, with a reasonable range to boot. These can be seen on the evalbum and the evtradingpost, amongst other places.

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What steps will Big Oil companies take to ensure that very few people buy electric cars?

best electric cars image

Byakuya

Now that electric cars are finally starting to become available, the Big Oil companies will undoubtedly be plotting and planning how to keep people from buying them. What strategies do you think they'll use to keep us dependent upon gas?

Answer
Same thing they did for the EV-1... petition government to keep oil standards low, wage a media war against them as being weak, unsafe, bad for business, and even un-American.

(Or say stupid stuff like Greed above - especially when the energy that it does take to charge a car is a fraction of the amount of energy that goes into an automotive gas combustion engine for the same amount of mileage... Not to mention that even with the US's "dirty" power grid, electric car's secondary emissions would still be less then half of of the total emissions by a conventional US gasoline auto.

But then again, which industry would have the most to lose if the US did upgrade our power grids??? So, who can we expect to put up obstacles to that as well?)

Why do people think that electric cars will reduce air pollution?

Phil

If we're talking about conventional electric cars that have to be plugged in, you have to consider how that electricity is being generated. The majority of power plants in this country are COAL-POWERED. If we all had electric cars, we wouldn't have any exhaust coming out of the cars, but there would be a lot more coal being burned to generate the electricity to charge the cars' batteries. So how does that reduce pollution?

Answer
Actually, I think that solar panels at home to charge the electric car would make a difference.

I suspect that the inefficiencies in electric power generation due to generation loss and transmission loss may well result in more CO2 emissions if we rely on the exisitng electric generation system than if we just used gasoline powered vehicles.

Since we have no new nuclear plants and most of our rivers have already been dammed for hydro, incremental electricity for the electric car will undoubtedly come from coal fired plants. There is better coal plant technology that reduces CO2 dramatically, but it is not manatory and is not the method of choice for power plant construction due to higher costs.

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