Zugman he leases the cars is able to use them as a legitimate business expense. However the cost of recharging the batteries was higher than his buying the gas and paying for the oil changes on the regular gas powered cars. Or as he told me when I asked him yesterday why he got rid of the EV's he had them in the winter of 2018-19 and there where days when the cars literally had ZERO range to run with fully charged batteries as cold as it got up here in Illinois that winter. So why did he get rid of the cars. They could not withstand a cold midwestern winter at all.
I mean, it's a nice anecdote. Don't think it means much in the future of EVs, though.
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
I don't know much about electric cars. About the only contact with one I have is that a daughter living in Dallas has a Tesla.
I've wondered how they would work in our area. Even though we are halfway between Canada and Mexico, last year we had days of 35° below zero.
Are the battery cars' mileage reduced just because of the cold, let alone running a heater the entire time?
York1 John
zugmann I mean, it's a nice anecdote. Don't think it means much in the future of EVs, though.
You have an electric car? How cold does it get where you live? What is your experience with the range of your car?
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
My brother has an EV and he lives in the Chicago area. I called him up and asked him what the range is like in the winter. He goes that car sits in the garage come any weather below 10 degrees as it does not have the range to freaking get him to work and home if he tries to take it. He works less than 30 miles away. He owns a Tesla model 3.
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I wonder if the people in those Anecdolts used things like pre-conditioning and Scheduled departure to minimize use of the battery when it isn't needed? Switched to chill driving mode etc etc etc.
You don't drive a truck the way you drive a compact car and you don't drive an electric the way you drive a gas car. Hopfully they took the time to understand the features designed to improve winter performance.
The way I see it, locomotives already generate electricity that is wasted. A battery-electric locomotive will capture that wasted energy (or part of it) for motive power use. The waste comes when dynamic braking is used, which turns the electric drive motors into generators. The resulting electrical energy is dissipated in dynamic braking resistors rather than using it to charge batteries, which would occur in a hybrid motive power set.
My guess is that creating diesel/battery locomotive sets will also provide another way to meet emissions standards.
- Ed Kyle
Talking to a EV owner as well as a dealer they mentioned that running the A/C was more efficent than running the heater. They said the trip computer would drop the range greater when the heat would turn on.
rdamonTalking to a EV owner as well as a dealer they mentioned that running the A/C was more efficient than running the heater. They said the trip computer would drop the range greater when the heat would turn on.
Of course much of the load would be provided in a practical hybrid vehicle via exhaust heat from the fuel cells and cooling heat for the battery and motor/inverter system. There is careful heat management on Tesla Model S and P90/100 that is dumped to heat exchange at the front at present; some percentage of this could easily be recuperated using a heat pump...
BackshopWhat if there aren't any grades or the entire run is uphill?
The sensible presumption is either that the FLXdrive is coupled between two mothers, as in the tested road configuration, or as a cabs-out pair with one mother. All 12 or 18 motors would be used for regenerative braking (the Carnegie-Mellon database alone would give necessary route anticipation) and output of the prime movers (which can be any combination of B100 biodiesel for zero-net-carbon or carrier blue hydrogen with sequestration for zero carbon) helps accelerate and handle the train as desired -- giving fast acceleration even with long loading time for low pollution.
Overmod rdamon Talking to a EV owner as well as a dealer they mentioned that running the A/C was more efficient than running the heater. They said the trip computer would drop the range greater when the heat would turn on. Strange... that's a failure of vision. Shouldn't be a problem to implement a small electric heat pump with reversing valves, or provide a split system with double compressors for 'climate control' modulating hot and cold airflow in ducts if that kind of complex 'bilevel' circulation is to be a feature. Of course much of the load would be provided in a practical hybrid vehicle via exhaust heat from the fuel cells and cooling heat for the battery and motor/inverter system. There is careful heat management on Tesla Model S and P90/100 that is dumped to heat exchange at the front at present; some percentage of this could easily be recuperated using a heat pump...
rdamon Talking to a EV owner as well as a dealer they mentioned that running the A/C was more efficient than running the heater. They said the trip computer would drop the range greater when the heat would turn on.
Strange... that's a failure of vision. Shouldn't be a problem to implement a small electric heat pump with reversing valves, or provide a split system with double compressors for 'climate control' modulating hot and cold airflow in ducts if that kind of complex 'bilevel' circulation is to be a feature.
I believe the Model Y is equipped with a heat pump.
The question I have is why not use the energy source best matched to requirements?
From an energy-efficiency standpoint, electric is advantageous in handling part-load operation of traction power well, of which there is a lot of in both automobile as well as train operation.
Electric is really an inefficient source of heat, especially without a heat pump and even with a heat pump if it gets cold enough.
An optimal arrangement may be to use batteries for traction power, a catalytic gasoline heater for warming and the occupants and perhaps even for keeping the batteries warm. Maybe this would be optimal in a plug-in hybrid car where you are already supplying part of the power from gasoline? But with an electric car, this would undercut "zero carbon" bragging rights?
Paul Milenkovic An optimal arrangement may be to use batteries for traction power, a catalytic gasoline heater for warming and the occupants and perhaps even for keeping the batteries warm. Maybe this would be optimal in a plug-in hybrid car where you are already supplying part of the power from gasoline? But with an electric car, this would undercut "zero carbon" bragging rights?
Maybe even put some thermocouples between the gas heater and the interioor of the car to get a little extra range? Saying this in only half in jest.
An RTG would be another heat source/range extender, but wouldn't want anything to do with a safety analysis. May reprocess some fuel and segregate the beta emitting and low energy gamma emitting nuclides from the rest.
The biggest issue with all battery power is this. They have a fixed amount of power in the cell that can be drawn from then your forced to recharge it. That power has to be used to do everything in the device it's put into. Now with an internal combustion engine while the fuel we can carry on board is limited by weight overall it carries more useful energy than any battery has currently. A kw of batteries has 3412 BTU of power. A gallon of diesel is 139000 BTU. Also we have developed technology that allows us to heat the interior of a vehicle with the waste heat from the engines. So instead of using the same power needed to move the machine in the winter we take the heat created from burning the fuel to heat the cab.
For those that think I don't have my numbers right here's the breakdown for what the numbers are and my source.
https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/energy-content-d_868.html
Keeping in mind that a car/truck size diesel engine will convert about a third of the chemical energy in the fuel to mechanical energy. Figure maybe 15kW-hrs per gallon of diesel fuel. A high efficiency electric motor can convert 95% or more of the electrical energy into mechanical energy.
The bad news is that the more efficient an electric drivetrain is, the less waste heat available for heating the interior of the vehicle. Bottom line is that battery EV's will have problems with very cold weather.
For some reason this brings up Pullman's and EMD's attempts at using waste heat from the prime mover on the M1000 for train heating, ended up going to a Vapor Clarkson steam generator. Along those lines, one potential advantage of a gast turbine passenger locomotive would have been using the exhaust heat from the engine to generate steam for heating and cooling.
The newest generation of OTR diesels are getting over 45% of their energy conversion into mechanical thanks to the variable vane turbos that are coming out plus improvements in the head and piston designs. Also batteries are not that steady 95% efficent over their lifetime. If they were we would never need to replace car and truck batteries that get recharged by the alternator in a car or truck now would we. Most batteries wear out over time and it can be a sharp fall off. I know I see it in my own cordless power tools at home. My hubbies 20V drill will run down the older battery in an hour if he is doing a major project but the newest one last him 3 hours or longer. They are seperated in age by about 3 years. So just how much range is a EV going to lose over time is the big question. Sorry but in our fleet the older trucks have lost maybe 20 miles over the 750K miles we have them in our fleet on their 200 gallons of fuel. We can live with that. But if a EV loses say 100 miles of range out of it's battery base charge in the service life and it costs 2K for the part and the labor to replace that is not going to be worth the expense to replace.
Shadow the Cats owner NY Post good freaking enough for YOU Charlie or are they to far to the CENTER for you. Biden might close Michigan pipeline, White House admits (nypost.com) This should tell you just how out of TOUCH this administration is with the American people. Anyone remember what Obama said to Trump when he said he was going to Lower Gas Prices what was the Magic Wand he was going to wave. Simple Trump knew if he released the American worker to drill oil prices would drop. These idiots think they have ZERO power to control what OPEC does. Hello all OPEC has seen from them is stopping America in less than 1 year from being an energy exporter to needing OPEC again. This is the current Energy Secrertary LAUGHING when asked bascially if drilling for our own oil in the USA would lower gas prices. Biden's Energy Secretary Laughs When Asked About Increasing Oil Production (msn.com)
NY Post good freaking enough for YOU Charlie or are they to far to the CENTER for you. Biden might close Michigan pipeline, White House admits (nypost.com)
This should tell you just how out of TOUCH this administration is with the American people. Anyone remember what Obama said to Trump when he said he was going to Lower Gas Prices what was the Magic Wand he was going to wave. Simple Trump knew if he released the American worker to drill oil prices would drop. These idiots think they have ZERO power to control what OPEC does. Hello all OPEC has seen from them is stopping America in less than 1 year from being an energy exporter to needing OPEC again. This is the current Energy Secrertary LAUGHING when asked bascially if drilling for our own oil in the USA would lower gas prices. Biden's Energy Secretary Laughs When Asked About Increasing Oil Production (msn.com)
Donald? Is that you?
Didn't the PRR GG1's use an oil fired boiler for train heat even though they had unlimited electric power available?
mvlandsw Didn't the PRR GG1's use an oil fired boiler for train heat even though they had unlimited electric power available?
Yes, the GG1 design dates from olden times when sensible engineering decisions were made.
Besides, if it didn't have an oil-burning train-heat boiler, how could model train maker MTH get away with putting a smoke unit in their version?
The average OTR engine over its million mile life before it gets an overhaul might lose a tenth of a MPG over that time. However I have yet to see a battery pack in even a hybrid maintain their original range for that long. I am hearing of some of the first Tesla's sold that have lost 25-35% of their range due to degradation of the battery packs. That and getting parts for say a Cummins engine is a lot easier than Teslas as Tesla refuses to allow anyone but them to supply parts for their cars at all inculding the freaking windshields.
This Wabtec battery locomotive might be something nice to have in say helper service why there. Well inbetween shoves they can recharge the battery for fuel savings instead of 2 locomotives running at 4400HP pushing up a hill they can only use 1 doing the job and the other is basically a road slug that can shove at speed. But with modern DPU setup's helpers are about gone. CN might love these for their land barges that they love to run and here is why. 1 engine one battery locomotive same TE as 2 powered units and even at notch 8 still burns less fuel than 2 engines cut back.
Paul
Didn't the GG-1 have a steam generator because almost every car it pulled used steam? Electric heat and HEP were many years in the future when they were desgined.
Mike,
Your comment pretty much jibes with what I've read about train heating. In the mid to late 1930's, the UP found out that using electric resistance heaters powered by head end diesel generators was more efficient than steam heating using Vapor-Clarkson steam generators. The problem was that the vast majority of the RR passenger cars were set up for steam heat.
The BA&P was probably the first railroad to use electric heat with locomotive powered passenger trains, with the heating elements running off of the 2400VDC traction power. Th fans were run off of a 600VDC bus used for lighting. Ironically, when the BA&P used mixed trains in lieu of passnger trains, the coaches were heated by a coal stove.
Batteries are a real weak link. Just try to replace one in a Telsa. The following link will give you an idea.
Tesla owner blows up Model S instead of footing $22,600 repair bill (msn.com)
All this discussion is very interesting. It seems there might be a place for electric assistance for railroad traction, but full battery electric transportation of any sort is very limited, as previous posters have said. One area that has not been mentioned is the ag economy. Our trucking needs are mostly short hauls with high weights and often poor road conditions, and no way to charge except at night. Field equipment that needs to run 16 hours per day at full or mostly full load is another area where battery power is totally unsuited. Some utility equipment that stays close to home and runs intermittently (utility tractors, skid loaders etc) might be adapted, in fact I have seen ads for a battery skid loader for sale. I will not be driving a battery powered vehicle any time soon, probably not ever in my remaining lifetime. Why? Because it will not be able to do what I need. City people in warmer areas may do well with battery powered cars, and if this actually puts less carbon into the atmosphere thats great-adding carbon DOES increase retention of solar heat. Any of you who don't believe that can run the experiment yourself. Argue about what retaining that heat will do, not whether it is happening, too late for that.
PR
John Deere disagrees with your assessment...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMaQq_vRaa8
Or at least, they hope you are wrong.
not so fast. Came across an item that Li Ion batteries last much longer if charge is kept between 20 and 80%. Suspect that may not be true.?
BTW got a 403 code until posted "not so fast" and pasted the other by an edit.
Right now the last Ag equipment maker that needs to stir the crap up with their customers is John Deere. Why they are fighting every single piece of Right to Repair legislation there is in the nation. Why is that important to farmers. When you are paying almost 500K or more for a tractor and you are not allowed when the warrenty peroid is over to change as much as a sensor on that engine without paying the dealership for the privilage of doing so plus the downtime of the tractor there is a problem. They literally have disabled tractors and other equipment that farmers have modified with no JD approved vendor equipment and turned that equipment into lawn ornaments for those farmers around here. One farmer my hubby is friends with bought a NEW S780 combine a couple years ago. He decided to use a non JD draper head for his beans as he had got a great deal at an auction on a different maker one. Well JD deactivated 70% of all the features on his 780 combine that made it super efficent for him. He is suing them right now in court for breach of contract.
John Deere's LI tractor is just one more way for them to control everything about their equipment and will be no well accepted plus no farmer is going to want a piece of equipment that can not make it thru a standard service day in either planting or harvest without needing almost a day to recharge.
blue streak 1 Came across an item that Li Ion batteries last much longer if charge is kept between 20 and 80%.
Came across an item that Li Ion batteries last much longer if charge is kept between 20 and 80%.
That's pretty much my understanding. More specifically, Li-ion batteries don't like being discharged too heavily, get too close to 0% charge and you can goodbye to the battery. The issue with >80% charge is that the batteries age rapidly when charged above 80% and with temps above 85F or so. It would be a very bad idea to fully charge a Li-ion equipped EV in places like Phoenix or Las Vegas in the summertime.
Another killer is fast charging the batteries.
Of course all that is 'revealed wisdom' for lead-acid battery chemistry for many years.
What is going to be interesting is how the charging algorithms developed for hybrid cars come to be adjusted for heavy trains with slack and high inertia that may have considerable gravitational potential for relatively small grade changes along a route. I was unable to develop a good 'default' solution that did not incorporate Carnegie-Mellon-like careful GIS-based predictive tracking.
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