Electric Vehicle Cost to operate?

[nvmike]

Assuming you had an electric vehicle such as a S-10 pickup converted to run on batteries and wanted to travel 40 miles per day, what would be the kilowatt/hours needed to charge the batteries?  I can compute the cost at my local rates if I knew the approximate kilowatt/hours.

With the push to go green, if everyone converted to electric vehicles it seems to me that we would not have enough energy to run our vehicles.

Thanks NvMike

[spinningmagnets]

Grid battery charging for a short-range S-10 EV conversion is dirt cheap. The research I did for myself led me to believe that the big cost (after cost of vehicle purchase and EV conversion) is battery pack replacement.

If the battery pack costs "X" and lasts 7 years (for your monthly user profile), you can calculate the monthly amortization cost for the next pack.

Here's my favorite build, the S-10/Rangers are my most desired EV conversions (I don't have one):

http://evhelp.com/S10_Conversion.htm

[GaryGary]

Hi,

Just as a very rough guide, a Prius uses about 200 watt-hours per mile -- I suppose that an S10 conversion might be 2 or 3 times that?  So, 500 watt-hours per mile?

About a nickel a mile if you pay 10 cents per KWH for grid electricity.  

You might add 20% for the inefficiencies of charging batteries.

Gary

[nvmike]

Gary and Spinningmagnets, thanks for your replies.  They were very helpful.

[willib]

This is a site i've been reading on and off.

Its a three phase AC induction motor, for automotive applications.

http://www.mavin.com/index.php/products/ford-siemens-electric-vehicle-motors

Its very cool , you also need a controller .

.

[wooferhound]

Jerry built an Electric Vehicle (EV) a few years ago from a 1985 Ford Ranger. Here are some stories about his toy.

http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2005/5/1/32619/32286

http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2005/10/1/3711/19467

http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2005/11/23/5121/0838

http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2005/12/3/20309/7952

http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2006/4/8/162555/4107

[stop4stuff]

For the Wh per mile, there's a calculator http://www.evconvert.com/tools/evcalc/">here. I costed up the conversion of a MKII VW Polo & used the calculator to get to ~245 Wh per mile... the killer for that project was the cost of replacing the batteries, which when factored into the actual cost per mile made it more expensive than running on petrol. This was based on 10 miles per charge and the batteries taking 500 charge cycles (worst case if using the batteries hard, although 20% discharge with lead acid could easily be 2000 cycles)... the best power to weight ratio for battery packs I found was using NiMh AA cells capable of 3C disharge (15kWh available at 3C discharge weighing in at less than 44kg)

40 miles a day in a S-10 could require as much as 20kWh for the mileage, divide that by 0.8 (battery efficiency) gives 25kWh which euqates to roughly 1/3rd the energy available in petrol, about 9.67 kWh per liter.

[dastardlydan]

nvmike, I have 2000 Ford ranger

convertion , and have checked all

others that I can fine , 40 miles

is just about all you can get on battery.

  To get more your vehicle needs

to weight as little as possable ,

Like carbor fiber.

144 volt battery bank will weight

about 1200 lbs.

Only good for 45 miles round trip

and the last 5 miles are very slow.

 Just keeping up with 24 batterys

is a real pain.

  Cost about $ 12000.00 to convert .

  The batterys will be dead and gone many times before I break even.

  DanM