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gavine
Petrol Head turned EV Enthusiast
You're not adding electrons when you charge. You're just using electricity to move ions from one side of the battery to the other. Almost like winding up a toy wind-up car. No weight is added.
I once knew someone who would fill their ICE car half full because he didn't want to add the extra weight of the gasoline. I should ask him to get a Tesla to avoid that problem now, lol
ahkahn
Active Member
gavine
Petrol Head turned EV Enthusiast
Or he should get in the car on an empty stomach or naked to save another .000001MPG.
Haxster
Member
I always suspected that that huge slab under the car was really just a giant wind-up spring. That explains the electric motor sounds that I hear sometimes when I'm charging the car...they're actually just winding up the spring. Right?
This has been discussed elsewhere, ah: weight of 85kwh of electrons, a somewhat non-sensical question. There is a mass equivalent to the energy stored in the battery, by e=mc^2. About 1.6 micrograms for an 85kWh battery.
gavine
Petrol Head turned EV Enthusiast
I always suspected that that huge slab under the car was really just a giant wind-up spring. That explains the electric motor sounds that I hear sometimes when I'm charging the car...they're actually just winding up the spring. Right?
I'm not convinced that a commercially viable wind up car is not feasible. Instead of charging a battery with electricity, why not use an external electric motor to wind it up? You can also have regen, winding it while slowing down. It would probably be dangerous having all of that potential energy sitting there wound-up though. If that mechanism were to fail, it could be catastrophic.
RYCO
Member
So can it make the car lopsided?
f-stop
Active Member
Leonardo da Vinci designed a wind up car
- first self-propelled vehicle in history, and.... programmable auto-steering!
- downside: only 40m range
Haxster
Member
A spinning inertial wheel is another approach. Not so good: the gyroscopic effect on handling.
However, I understand that an inertial wheel is used somewhere in Europe for a cable car that goes up and down a steep hill. Makes sense for that application. Maybe they also considered a wind-up spring too....especially if it was in Switzerland.
Sir Guacamolaf
The good kind of fat
Would it be more efficient to replace the big battery underneath with a bunch of wind up springs instead?
BluestarE3
Active Member
Maybe mount the flywheel so it spins vertically? You can hide it within a dorsal fin of some sort that could be marketed as a retro design element.A spinning inertial wheel is another approach. Not so good: the gyroscopic effect on handling.
cpa
Active Member
A spinning inertial wheel is another approach. Not so good: the gyroscopic effect on handling.
While I do not know the precise mechanism for the cars to go up and down the mountain, if they are somehow counterbalanced, this would be a funicular. One of those words one learns in junior high school that one never forgets, even 50 years later.
BluestarE3
Active Member
f-stop
Active Member
This evokes an image in my mind of a Rube Goldberg-esque Tesla spring-pack, comprised of 7104 small cylindrical wind-up springs, each powering a corresponding tiny electric generator...
