Re: 42V Car Batteries

In article <a0bii39ij9afevo6c22hvhk8ma3l48me47@xxxxxxx>,
Spehro Pefhany <speffSNIP@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Wed, 31 Oct 2007 14:12:59 -0700, the renowned Winfield Hill
<hill@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Al wrote:

A well worn engine takes less juice to start. I lived in Montana and a
fellow I knew had a Kaiser-Fraiser, an old beast of a car. The engine
was very loose and it was the only one which would start after an
overnight cold soak of -30 to -40F. It would go, blub, blub, blub and
slowly speed up. Once it was cranking, it was used to jump start some
other cars in the parking lot. The car batteries put out very little
juice at those temps.

I wonder how the new wonder-hybrids would do under those conditions?

The Prius has an interesting feature: After you turn it
off, there's a little whirring noise as a pump fills an
insulated tank with hot engine coolant. When you start
the car, and are running off the big NiMH battery, it
presumably transfers the saved warm water back to the
engine, to pre-warm the block. After a going a short
way, the engine starts and finishes warming up to be
ready for efficient use. I had good experience with it
at 10 below freezing, but don't know beyond that. When
it's cold, the control electronics keeps the battery
close to full charge, and is very parsimonious with the
battery, consequently the MPG performance drops badly.

NiMH battery capacity drops very quickly below room temperature.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

At that time, the 60's, Sears sold a self start kit. The kit would
monitor the engine coolant and when it went below a certain temperature,
the car would start up and run until the engine would be warmed up and
then shut down. It was not unusual to walk down the street and have a
car start up next to you with no one in it.

I didn't have such a set up. I went to my car every 3 hours or so and
started it up. Otherwise you was screwed. -40F makes for interesting
driving. The shocks were stiff. Since the street were not plowed, you
had to get your tires into the correct groove in the ice or else you
might go around a corner you did not intend to go around; sorta like a
trolley. The slight flattening of the tires also did not go away and you
would thump, thump down the street.

Many parking spots at apt. buildings had outlets so you could plug the
tank heater into it for overnight.

So I still haven't heard any good solutions to the loss of battery power
under extreme conditions. I suppose if you have heaters you can plug in
overnight, you are OK. But what do you do when you are in the boonies or
park your car all day while at work and it's 30 below. Or is global
warming going to take care of that?

Al
.

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