Awl--

Even tho "gasoline mpg's" may be obsolete with the advent of electric cars,
I thought it would be interesting to see at least what the upper limit of
gasoline mpg's are.
The calcs reveal an additionally compelling feature about electric cars,
namely that in addition to a myriad of other electric car advantages, they
operate under a *fundamentally higher thermodynamic efficiency*, because the
efficiency of a charging cycle of a battery is double-triple that of a
Carnot-limited heat engine.

My calcs and values follow--would be interesting to see what others might
get.

The drag equation ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_equation) is
Force = .5 p v^2 Cd A
p = density of air, v = velocity, Cd = drag coeff, A = net frontal area of
object.

F x 1 mile is the energy needed to overcome aerodynamic drag for one mile.

A gallon of gas has about 131 megajoules.
Net engine efficiency is about 32% (about 60% thermodynamic/Carnot eff, and
we realize about half of that).

Aerodynamic drag supposedly accounts for 60% of the energy needed to propel
a car, at highway speeds.

Using a CdA of about 5.5 for my Honda Fit (auto), at 65 mph, and the 60/40
energy apportionment, I get a "theoretical" mpg of about 54.

On an upstate drive, I was thrilled to achieve 46.4 of those 54 mpg's, much
better than Consumer Reports results.
City driving, however, esp. with Yonkers hills, is not much better than
25-30.
Hummers have a CdA of about 25, which means they consume 5 times the
aerodynamic energy of my Fit.

As stated above, perhaps the biggest energy hit occurs from middling gas
engine efficiency, where 67% of the energy in a gallon of gas goes right out
the radiator/tailpipe--up the proverbial chimney.  wow....

And, another 40% of the paltry energy extracted from said gallon goes to
sundry mechanical inefficiencies, likely consistent with the large
difference between crankshaft hp and rear-wheel hp:    Transmission losses,
driveline losses, sundry power-assists, etc.

So from a pure energy pov, the comparison between gas and electric looks
like this:

Gas:  131 Megajoules x 32% (thermo) x 60% available for aero drag =  25
megajoules applied to aero drag.
Electric:  131 x 80% (batt/elec motor eff) x 85% (assuming only 15% loss for
car internals) = 89 megajoules applied to aero drag.
Of course, the electric is not using a gallon of gas, this is just supplying
a 131 megajoule "initial equivalent".

Thus, an electric car can be 350% the energy efficiency of an IC engine
driven car. Mebbe more.

One can fudge the numbers quite a bit either way, but it is unlikely that an
electric will fall below 200% the total energy efficiency of gas.

In addition, the energy/resources consumed in the mfr of an electric car are
likely a small fraction of that of a gas car, esp. if we dispense with the
300 hp bullshit.
VWs did fine with 42 hp.

If we factor in the overall lower-power of an electric, say, 40 vs 200 hp,
we have *another* factor of 500%.

Overall, the energy savings of automotive transportation could drop to 1/5
to 1/10 of current usage, which is pretty astounding.

Also, the automotive service industry will be revolutionized--or destroyed,
depending on your perspective.   "Check the brushes on your permanently
lubed DC motors, sir?"
Might not even have brushes!

Yeah, batteries are still a problem, but proly not for long.
With a small good hub motor on each wheel, even lead-acid batts are viable,
at least in-town.

If all this indeed happens, I guess guys will have to go back to wearing
decorated/bejweled codpieces, instead of their Vettes, Vipers, and Carreras.

Info for the above calcs:

p = rho = 1.293 (metric units); v = 65 mph; CdA = 5.5 sq ft
Conversions:
.447 mph to m/s
10.76 sq ft to sq m
1610 meters/ mi
.6 = fraction of energy applied to aero drag
131,000,000 joules/gal
.32 gas engine eff.

All data from the below peer-reviewed sources:    :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_equation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_coefficient   60%

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_drag_coefficients
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_aerodynamics      CdA's

http://ecen.com/content/eee7/motoref.htm   enginen eff

http://photovoltaics.sandia.gov/docs/PDF/batpapsteve.pdf     95% batt eff.