Don't use your car to charge your smartphone
- Thread starter supton
- Start date
- Status
Originally Posted By: raytseng
The problem with these physics arguments is that car is far far from an ideal system. The vast majority of Joules is wasted already and that a car is only 15% or 20% efficient. A lot of it is use-it or lose it anyway and don't have an additional cost if you use it.
Take for example your cabin heater and catalytic convertor. The heat used for those systems are basically "free"
Very true.
The problem with these physics arguments is that car is far far from an ideal system. The vast majority of Joules is wasted already and that a car is only 15% or 20% efficient. A lot of it is use-it or lose it anyway and don't have an additional cost if you use it.
Take for example your cabin heater and catalytic convertor. The heat used for those systems are basically "free"
Very true.
This thread reminds me of a story I heard once. A guy was about to drag race his car. Right before he pulls up to the staging area, he motions for his friend to come over to the car. When his friend walks up to the car, he hands the cigarette lighter to him and says, "every little bit helps!"
Originally Posted By: 440Magnum
It always cracks me up when non-technical web- or magazine-article writers "discover" conservation of energy (or when they forget it and argue that charging your phone, or worse an electric car, is "free").
Of COURSE every darn little electrical load you turn on in the car requires a little bit of gasoline from the tank to run it. But if you didn't charge your phone in the car, you'd charge it on the electrical grid and *that* would take a few more lumps of coal dust per hour per phone burned at the power plant, or a few more atoms fissioned per hour per phone, or a little more water released downstream per hour per phone. Every joule of energy we use *anywehere* comes from *somewhere*, and then eventually winds up as heat released into the atmosphere and radiated away into space.
I was reading on reddit (full of young, very left swinging young people who have no understanding of how the world works) - according to many people on there, electric cars are the solution to China's smog problem.
Nevermind the fact that the problem is not from ICE buses, cars producing the smog, but the coal fired power plants. Using more electric cars means more coal burned ...
It always cracks me up when non-technical web- or magazine-article writers "discover" conservation of energy (or when they forget it and argue that charging your phone, or worse an electric car, is "free").
Of COURSE every darn little electrical load you turn on in the car requires a little bit of gasoline from the tank to run it. But if you didn't charge your phone in the car, you'd charge it on the electrical grid and *that* would take a few more lumps of coal dust per hour per phone burned at the power plant, or a few more atoms fissioned per hour per phone, or a little more water released downstream per hour per phone. Every joule of energy we use *anywehere* comes from *somewhere*, and then eventually winds up as heat released into the atmosphere and radiated away into space.
I was reading on reddit (full of young, very left swinging young people who have no understanding of how the world works) - according to many people on there, electric cars are the solution to China's smog problem.
Nevermind the fact that the problem is not from ICE buses, cars producing the smog, but the coal fired power plants. Using more electric cars means more coal burned ...
Originally Posted By: raytseng
The problem with these physics arguments is that car is far far from an ideal system. The vast majority of Joules is wasted already and that a car is only 15% or 20% efficient. A lot of it is use-it or lose it anyway and don't have an additional cost if you use it.
Take for example your cabin heater and catalytic convertor. The heat used for those systems are basically "free"
Cabin heater- yes, obviously. Catcon? It GENERATES heat, and its 100% wasted in every vehicle I can think of- can you name me a vehicle that recovers catalyst-generated heat? If the catcon was pre-turbocharger, you might get a little bit back, but it also might be offset by decreased turbo performance.
Electrical loads in the vehicle definitely don't come "free." In a non-electric vehicle, its certainly more fuel-efficient to run the coolant-warmed heater than it is to run the electric seat warmers.
The problem with these physics arguments is that car is far far from an ideal system. The vast majority of Joules is wasted already and that a car is only 15% or 20% efficient. A lot of it is use-it or lose it anyway and don't have an additional cost if you use it.
Take for example your cabin heater and catalytic convertor. The heat used for those systems are basically "free"
Cabin heater- yes, obviously. Catcon? It GENERATES heat, and its 100% wasted in every vehicle I can think of- can you name me a vehicle that recovers catalyst-generated heat? If the catcon was pre-turbocharger, you might get a little bit back, but it also might be offset by decreased turbo performance.
Electrical loads in the vehicle definitely don't come "free." In a non-electric vehicle, its certainly more fuel-efficient to run the coolant-warmed heater than it is to run the electric seat warmers.
- Status
Similar threads
- Locked
