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Very well put. You
forgot to mention (for those not familiar with LPG) that LPG maintenance is MUCH
lower than that of gasoline or diesel. Battery electric is just better yet. But in the case of a
electric car you don't have to pay the $.40 a gallon (depending on where you
are) tax to pay for the roads... yet. That's part of your savings with
both electric and LPG.
We have a calculator here
(no, I can't give it out) that compares all the relevant
fuel/storage/totals. If you want to you could make your own in Excel from
published data. It does such things as comparing gas, diesel, lpg, cng,
various alcohols (with their source costs), powdered coal, wood chips,
palletized rubber (all those for internal and external combustion, or turbines
in some cases), electrics from grid (the best you can do btw, but the
infrastructure doesn't exist), electrics based on various batteries or on
ultra-caps (most improvement in the last decade), fuel cells, hydrogen,
anhydrous ammonia (my favorite as a farm kid-- 3 times better then pressurized
hydrogen!), solar, inertia (flywheels), mechanical (springs) and so on.
Other than ultra-caps, the numbers have changed pretty slowly. Each has
pluses (yes, even gasoline... it's called availability--witness the silliness of
Daimler's fuel cell from gasoline!), each has it's minuses. Many have a
real problem with the mass of the stored media (heavy batteries or chemical
reactor) or conversion cost (compressing CNG is expensive and heavy). It
also compares the savings for incremental, such as hybrids or changing the
efficiency of a transmission. For example, adding 5% efficiency to an
alternator that's used in 4,000,000 cars per year saves more fuel than every
hybrid that's ever been sold by every manufacturer, but it isn't nearly as
sexy. But I digress; as you look at the logistical setup (that's much
of the real cost) of fuel transport, you see why society is so slow to
change. It's not an easy sell to cost people, and since it goes across
company lines, it' real hard to plan on.
Larry
Elie
-----Original Message-----
From: elec-trak-bounces cosmos phy tufts edu [mailto:elec-trak-bounces cosmos phy tufts edu] On Behalf Of Peter Bishop Sent: Wednesday, September 07, 2005 7:50 PM To: Stephen & Carol Welch; Gordon Trump Cc: elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu Subject: Re: (ET) ET and actual fuel costs I'm in the forklift business. Going by "shifts" a heavy usage shift
will be about 6 hours on the 'run time' or 'travel' hour meter.
A typical electric truck can run one shift per charge. Comparatively an IC
truck under the same usage will use about 1 bottle of LPG. We
calculate charging an electric forklift to cost about $2.00 per day. This
compares with a bottle of LPG averaging $14.00. A class I forklift
battery can run around the $3200 range and the 'industry' says it will last 5-7
years. So, $14/day x 5 days x 52 weeks =$3600.00. Vs. electric $2.00 x 5 x
52 =$520.00. Take that over the 5yr minimum life of the battery (also a
typical forklift lease) and you have $18,00000 vs 2600.00! Furthermore
electrics are far less maintenance than IC.
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