Nissan's future: Self-charging EVs
One of Nissan's EV conceptsImagine a range extended electric vehicle, similar to the Chevy Volt, but without the gas. Instead, of using an engine to generate extra electricity, an onboard ultracapacitor would extend the range of the EV.
It might sound a little futuristic, and it is, but that is exactly one such plan that Nissan is working on as it seeks to become the leader in the electrification of the automobile according to Nissan's Minoru Shinohara, senior vice president of technology development.
And, according to Greentechmedia, Shinohara's views are not to be taken lightly.
Labels: Chevy Volt electric vehicle concept, electric cars, Nissan, ultracapacitors
posted by Dahcredyns at
9:25 AM
7 Comments:
Hm, posting this a second time. There is no such thing as perpetual motion or free energy. All the regenerative braking in the world is not going to keep the ultracapacitor or the batteries charged. Power has to be added from some external source (ICE/generator, the grid, Stirling engine/generator, or solar).
wow who ever post that comment before me is really a dumb person. there are hundreds of ways to make a perpetual vehicle the reason we don't is because there are no big oil pockets to fund that kind of car. look into Nicoli Tesla's work
In depth analysis of zap, Check out page 190. Brought t o you by MDB http://www.mdb.com/greenreport.pdf
such a vehicle doesn't necessarily imply free energy or perpetual motion, and i should of done a better job of clarifying that in the article but i was heading out the door when i published.
Shinohara called the EV a range extended electric vehicle.
that would imply that it doesn't have unlimited range. thus, just as the Volt, this Nissan would have a battery range of say, 50 miles. however, that range would be extended by an ultracap so that maybe its range could be extended by another 50 miles for instance.
the difference between it and the volt would be that the volt range is extended by gasoline, the Nissan EV range would be extended by an ultracap.
ultimately, both eventually have to be recharged.
can an ultracap extend the range as much as gas could extend the range of the volt, as cost-effectively as gasoline? that would be the real question.
Is anyone ever going to think about putting an alternator on the dam electric motor to recharge the capacitor or batteries? Remove the little diode inside it, and it will have an AC output of 13.8 volts AC. With inline step up transformers in place, you can up the voltage OR the ampreage to what ever you need to recharge a power storage unit or you could recycle that output back into the drive motor from a dynamo to assist the power storage unit to run the drive motor systems.
I second the previous comment! Didn't someone in Japan do the alternator trick on a six-wheel sedan that could go 300+ miles? I hear MIT, Japan, etc. are working on ultracap 'arrays' that can be used to store larger amounts of charge. From what I have read they currently are not stable enough for use in transportation. But than that may just be the Big Oil folks sludging things up. They can't keep every single American from improving things from their garages, and other countries are far ahead of the US because they actually think about the future.
i haven't done the research to validate this, but i've talked to engineers in the auto industry about ultracaps and supercaps and they claim the technology is very exciting, but still expensive versus the output.
that "thinking about the future" line, however, is spot on. americans really need to change that attitude.
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