Recharging Electric Vehicles.

[Crow Splat]

Is there any information on how this is done? Does it have to be done in a town with the e appropriate facility or is there something like a portable solar charger?

Something like that would really increase the utility of electric vehicles.

[Shark_Force]

you could theoretically do it with a solar panel. i wouldn't expect to get a huge amount of energy out of just one solar panel though. unless it's really, really big.

basically, you can take any electrical source and convert it into an appropriate voltage for another electrical device, if you have a battery to store the energy you're passing along... but you aren't going to get much current unless you're sending a lot of juice. which means, basically, you can recharge it from your solar powered calculator even, it's just going to take forever.

[Tiree]

E-Clip Plug in Ports

[Nightmask]

Given the lack of information regarding recharging them (including what their battery's storage capacity in comparison to e-clips) you have to go off of a measure of common sense. They must have a recharging port like any other vehicle to 'refuel' it, perhaps an E-clip style adapter on a cable in an easily accessed compartment to plug into a regular e-clip recharger. More than likely they're probably about the same as a heavy energy weapon e-clip or canister e-clip so take as long as one of those to recharge.

[glitterboy2098]

the typical figure i find (in a quick search) for modern electric cars is 4 megajoules per mile, which means using a typical rifts Eclip, they'd be able to do about 25 miles. that should give a good baseline for a GM to derive their own figures.. decide how much more efficent the electric motors of rifts are in terms of megajoules per mile, then apply that figure to the listed vehicle range. so for example, if a vehicle has a 200 mile range, and theGm decides the motor is twice as efficent as today, at 2 MJ per mile, you'd need 400 MJ per charge, or about 4 Eclips..

[Crow Splat]

the typical figure i find (in a quick search) for modern electric cars is 4 megajoules per mile, which means using a typical rifts Eclip, they'd be able to do about 25 miles. that should give a good baseline for a GM to derive their own figures.. decide how much more efficent the electric motors of rifts are in terms of megajoules per mile, then apply that figure to the listed vehicle range. so for example, if a vehicle has a 200 mile range, and theGm decides the motor is twice as efficent as today, at 2 MJ per mile, you'd need 400 MJ per charge, or about 4 Eclips..

That sounds reasonable enough. I think if I were the GM I would stipulate that charging with e-clips is not how they were intended to function, given e-clips are designed to immediately dump most, if not all, of their energy instantly.

Perhaps prolonged use in this manner without some kind of flow regulating adapter would have an increasing chance to overheat and damage the batteries, permanently reducing maximum range every time.

[flatline]

the typical figure i find (in a quick search) for modern electric cars is 4 megajoules per mile, which means using a typical rifts Eclip, they'd be able to do about 25 miles. that should give a good baseline for a GM to derive their own figures.. decide how much more efficent the electric motors of rifts are in terms of megajoules per mile, then apply that figure to the listed vehicle range. so for example, if a vehicle has a 200 mile range, and theGm decides the motor is twice as efficent as today, at 2 MJ per mile, you'd need 400 MJ per charge, or about 4 Eclips..

So if you use book prices for e-clip charging, that's $1500/50 miles or $30/mile.

--flatline

[dragonfett]

the typical figure i find (in a quick search) for modern electric cars is 4 megajoules per mile, which means using a typical rifts Eclip, they'd be able to do about 25 miles. that should give a good baseline for a GM to derive their own figures.. decide how much more efficent the electric motors of rifts are in terms of megajoules per mile, then apply that figure to the listed vehicle range. so for example, if a vehicle has a 200 mile range, and theGm decides the motor is twice as efficent as today, at 2 MJ per mile, you'd need 400 MJ per charge, or about 4 Eclips..

So if you use book prices for e-clip charging, that's $1500/50 miles or $30/mile.

--flatline

That's almost as cheap as gasoline is today!

And expanding on what someone else said earlier, have a vehicle powered by nothing but solar powered calculators! That would have to be one HUGE spoiler!

[glitterboy2098]

the typical figure i find (in a quick search) for modern electric cars is 4 megajoules per mile, which means using a typical rifts Eclip, they'd be able to do about 25 miles. that should give a good baseline for a GM to derive their own figures.. decide how much more efficent the electric motors of rifts are in terms of megajoules per mile, then apply that figure to the listed vehicle range. so for example, if a vehicle has a 200 mile range, and theGm decides the motor is twice as efficent as today, at 2 MJ per mile, you'd need 400 MJ per charge, or about 4 Eclips..

So if you use book prices for e-clip charging, that's $1500/50 miles or $30/mile.

--flatline

well, i just wanted an example. it is possible that the efficiency is a lot higher. (modern engines lack superconducting system for example.. which rifts would need to do what we see. that would greatly improve the efficiency.) and IMO, eclip charging has rather inflated costs in the setting, and recharging a vehicle would be at a lower cost.

That sounds reasonable enough. I think if I were the GM I would stipulate that charging with e-clips is not how they were intended to function, given e-clips are designed to immediately dump most, if not all, of their energy instantly.

Perhaps prolonged use in this manner without some kind of flow regulating adapter would have an increasing chance to overheat and damage the batteries, permanently reducing maximum range every time.

actually, i hadn't thought of using Eclips directly.. i'd just figured that eclips are a good comparison point, and it would allow for GM's to decide how long something like an eclip recharger would take to recharge an electric vehicle.

[kaid]

They do talk about recharging of the electric battery powered robot vehicles in NG1 and they talk about being able to do it by hooking up to another robot vehicle. Any operator garage with electricity should be able to charge batteries and for small enough vehicles a simple gas generator should be sufficient given enough time. Heck one of the NG1 robot vehicles comes with a solar array that is capable of recharging its battery bank for 96 hours of use in 24 hours of sunlight.

[Crow Splat]

They do talk about recharging of the electric battery powered robot vehicles in NG1 and they talk about being able to do it by hooking up to another robot vehicle. Any operator garage with electricity should be able to charge batteries and for small enough vehicles a simple gas generator should be sufficient given enough time. Heck one of the NG1 robot vehicles comes with a solar array that is capable of recharging its battery bank for 96 hours of use in 24 hours of sunlight.

I was thinking something similar, like a big boss atv with a 300 mile range would take 2 hours of direct sunlight to recharge on a charging unit that folds and stows in the trunk. Double time in partly cloudy conditions and forget about it when overcast. I based the time on a cruising speed of 50 mph giving a 6 hour run time. I figure 50 mph is still pretty fast going cross country and you won't be going 70 and staying under control unless you are on a good road.

[Nightmask]

the typical figure i find (in a quick search) for modern electric cars is 4 megajoules per mile, which means using a typical rifts Eclip, they'd be able to do about 25 miles. that should give a good baseline for a GM to derive their own figures.. decide how much more efficent the electric motors of rifts are in terms of megajoules per mile, then apply that figure to the listed vehicle range. so for example, if a vehicle has a 200 mile range, and theGm decides the motor is twice as efficent as today, at 2 MJ per mile, you'd need 400 MJ per charge, or about 4 Eclips..

That sounds reasonable enough. I think if I were the GM I would stipulate that charging with e-clips is not how they were intended to function, given e-clips are designed to immediately dump most, if not all, of their energy instantly.

Perhaps prolonged use in this manner without some kind of flow regulating adapter would have an increasing chance to overheat and damage the batteries, permanently reducing maximum range every time.

E-clips are designed to handle such massive dumps without damage, that doesn't mean that they have to discharge that way. From the examples given of jury-rigging things that run on batteries to get by on E-clips instead (like some low-grade power armors and other equipment) e-clips can handle running things like a standard battery just fine, their ability to handle being drained in a few melees as a power source for an energy weapon is just an added perk instead of the only way they can be discharged.

[Crow Splat]

I didn't mean the e-clip being damaged. I mean the vehicle battery.

Kind of like a cell phone, if your phone dies, you can use your friends charger, but if they don't have the same phone, their charger may charge slower, or faster. If you go too fast then you can damage the battery and it's storage capacity will be permanently diminished.

So to safely charge a vehicle from e-clips, one would need an adapter of some kind to ensure a safe rate of charge and not damage the vehicle.

[flatline]

I didn't mean the e-clip being damaged. I mean the vehicle battery.

Kind of like a cell phone, if your phone dies, you can use your friends charger, but if they don't have the same phone, their charger may charge slower, or faster. If you go too fast then you can damage the battery and it's storage capacity will be permanently diminished.

So to safely charge a vehicle from e-clips, one would need an adapter of some kind to ensure a safe rate of charge and not damage the vehicle.

The vehicle is designed to be charged. I would totally expect it to have voltage regulation circuitry built into it for stepping up/down from whatever input is available.

--flatline

[Chronicle]

plug it into the resident Borg as a trade for transportation

[Nightmask]

plug it into the resident Borg as a trade for transportation

That should slow the Borg down too. Unless it's a Naruni Repo Bot...

Borgs don't generally have external power ports to power anything (weapons or not) anyway. Not like we've much idea what kind of power core they run on anyway, some borgs power an impressive array of internal weapons other seem to just have power for their basic systems and no internal weapons (other than say Wolverine claws). You'd think they'd have the same kind you seen in power armor and be able to power something like a vehicle or recharge e-clips though all things considered.

[flatline]

plug it into the resident Borg as a trade for transportation

That should slow the Borg down too. Unless it's a Naruni Repo Bot...

In my version of the setting, borgs don't have nuclear power supplies, so this would only be done out of desperation.

But I would allow it.

--flatline

[Nightmask]

plug it into the resident Borg as a trade for transportation

That should slow the Borg down too. Unless it's a Naruni Repo Bot...

In my version of the setting, borgs don't have nuclear power supplies, so this would only be done out of desperation.

But I would allow it.

--flatline

So just how desperate would one have to be in your setting then to become a borg in any fashion if they run on batteries? Even Steve Austin, probably one of the most iconic cyborgs around, had a nuclear power pack.

[flatline]

plug it into the resident Borg as a trade for transportation

That should slow the Borg down too. Unless it's a Naruni Repo Bot...

In my version of the setting, borgs don't have nuclear power supplies, so this would only be done out of desperation.

But I would allow it.

--flatline

So just how desperate would one have to be in your setting then to become a borg in any fashion if they run on batteries? Even Steve Austin, probably one of the most iconic cyborgs around, had a nuclear power pack.

I don't allow nuclear reactors to be smaller than one cubic meter in my setting. As long as borgs aren't powering weaponry directly from their internal power cells, they can go longer on a single charge than a regular human can go without water. They're trading one dependency for another.

It's not uncommon for borgs to have liquid fuel generators to charge their internal cells, or to use solar power. Of course, if they're lucky enough to have access to a nuclear powered vehicle or robot, then that makes things much simpler.

--flatline

[Nightmask]

plug it into the resident Borg as a trade for transportation

That should slow the Borg down too. Unless it's a Naruni Repo Bot...

In my version of the setting, borgs don't have nuclear power supplies, so this would only be done out of desperation.

But I would allow it.

--flatline

So just how desperate would one have to be in your setting then to become a borg in any fashion if they run on batteries? Even Steve Austin, probably one of the most iconic cyborgs around, had a nuclear power pack.

I don't allow nuclear reactors to be smaller than one cubic meter in my setting. As long as borgs aren't powering weaponry directly from their internal power cells, they can go longer on a single charge than a regular human can go without water. They're trading one dependency for another.

It's not uncommon for borgs to have liquid fuel generators to charge their internal cells, or to use solar power. Of course, if they're lucky enough to have access to a nuclear powered vehicle or robot, then that makes things much simpler.

--flatline

Well as already noted that's on the unrealistic end of things, it's not like we're talking a miniature version of a nuclear power plant after all or that a cyborg requires massive amounts of power that you couldn't have a miniature nuclear power core for them to run on.

[flatline]

In my version of the setting, borgs don't have nuclear power supplies, so this would only be done out of desperation.

But I would allow it.

--flatline

So just how desperate would one have to be in your setting then to become a borg in any fashion if they run on batteries? Even Steve Austin, probably one of the most iconic cyborgs around, had a nuclear power pack.

I don't allow nuclear reactors to be smaller than one cubic meter in my setting. As long as borgs aren't powering weaponry directly from their internal power cells, they can go longer on a single charge than a regular human can go without water. They're trading one dependency for another.

It's not uncommon for borgs to have liquid fuel generators to charge their internal cells, or to use solar power. Of course, if they're lucky enough to have access to a nuclear powered vehicle or robot, then that makes things much simpler.

--flatline

Well as already noted that's on the unrealistic end of things, it's not like we're talking a miniature version of a nuclear power plant after all or that a cyborg requires massive amounts of power that you couldn't have a miniature nuclear power core for them to run on.

I consider 1 cubic meter to be miniature.

I also forgot to mention in my previous post that borgs often top their cells off by draining captured eclips.

--flatline

[Crow Splat]

I didn't mean the e-clip being damaged. I mean the vehicle battery.

Kind of like a cell phone, if your phone dies, you can use your friends charger, but if they don't have the same phone, their charger may charge slower, or faster. If you go too fast then you can damage the battery and it's storage capacity will be permanently diminished.

So to safely charge a vehicle from e-clips, one would need an adapter of some kind to ensure a safe rate of charge and not damage the vehicle.

The vehicle is designed to be charged. I would totally expect it to have voltage regulation circuitry built into it for stepping up/down from whatever input is available.

--flatline

I have seen plenty of devices that are designed to be charged suffer catastrophic failure when charged improperly. All of them had safety measures and none of them worked properly.

In an ideal world It would work like you say. In my experience it doesn't always work out that way.

[flatline]

I didn't mean the e-clip being damaged. I mean the vehicle battery.

Kind of like a cell phone, if your phone dies, you can use your friends charger, but if they don't have the same phone, their charger may charge slower, or faster. If you go too fast then you can damage the battery and it's storage capacity will be permanently diminished.

So to safely charge a vehicle from e-clips, one would need an adapter of some kind to ensure a safe rate of charge and not damage the vehicle.

The vehicle is designed to be charged. I would totally expect it to have voltage regulation circuitry built into it for stepping up/down from whatever input is available.

--flatline

I have seen plenty of devices that are designed to be charged suffer catastrophic failure when charged improperly. All of them had safety measures and none of them worked properly.

In an ideal world It would work like you say. In my experience it doesn't always work out that way.

If they had been designed to handle it, then you wouldn't have been charging them improperly. And they might not have failed.

--flatline

[kaid]

plug it into the resident Borg as a trade for transportation

That should slow the Borg down too. Unless it's a Naruni Repo Bot...

In my version of the setting, borgs don't have nuclear power supplies, so this would only be done out of desperation.

But I would allow it.

--flatline

So just how desperate would one have to be in your setting then to become a borg in any fashion if they run on batteries? Even Steve Austin, probably one of the most iconic cyborgs around, had a nuclear power pack.

Actually it is is not unreasonable until some of the more recent world books like warlords of russia most borgs had very very limited internal energy sources. Most could not power any internal weaponry off their internal power sources and had to use eclips even for arm mounted blasters. So if those have a nuke battery it is REALLY tiny and low powered. Now it seems a bit more common in large full conversion borgs/shock troopers that some are upgraded to a strong enough internal power source presumably nuclear to fire integral weaponry without needing clips but even with this most borgs take some penalties due to the extra energy draw so even best case of the most potent borg power system still seems really underpowered even compared to light power armors.

[Nightmask]

plug it into the resident Borg as a trade for transportation

That should slow the Borg down too. Unless it's a Naruni Repo Bot...

In my version of the setting, borgs don't have nuclear power supplies, so this would only be done out of desperation.

But I would allow it.

--flatline

So just how desperate would one have to be in your setting then to become a borg in any fashion if they run on batteries? Even Steve Austin, probably one of the most iconic cyborgs around, had a nuclear power pack.

Actually it is is not unreasonable until some of the more recent world books like warlords of russia most borgs had very very limited internal energy sources. Most could not power any internal weaponry off their internal power sources and had to use eclips even for arm mounted blasters. So if those have a nuke battery it is REALLY tiny and low powered. Now it seems a bit more common in large full conversion borgs/shock troopers that some are upgraded to a strong enough internal power source presumably nuclear to fire integral weaponry without needing clips but even with this most borgs take some penalties due to the extra energy draw so even best case of the most potent borg power system still seems really underpowered even compared to light power armors.

Which doesn't make much sense when you consider the size of the power armor vs the size of the average cyborg, they should both be able to support the same size roughly of power supply with similar outputs.

[flatline]

In my version of the setting, borgs don't have nuclear power supplies, so this would only be done out of desperation.

But I would allow it.

--flatline

So just how desperate would one have to be in your setting then to become a borg in any fashion if they run on batteries? Even Steve Austin, probably one of the most iconic cyborgs around, had a nuclear power pack.

Actually it is is not unreasonable until some of the more recent world books like warlords of russia most borgs had very very limited internal energy sources. Most could not power any internal weaponry off their internal power sources and had to use eclips even for arm mounted blasters. So if those have a nuke battery it is REALLY tiny and low powered. Now it seems a bit more common in large full conversion borgs/shock troopers that some are upgraded to a strong enough internal power source presumably nuclear to fire integral weaponry without needing clips but even with this most borgs take some penalties due to the extra energy draw so even best case of the most potent borg power system still seems really underpowered even compared to light power armors.

Which doesn't make much sense when you consider the size of the power armor vs the size of the average cyborg, they should both be able to support the same size roughly of power supply with similar outputs.

In my setting, power armor don't get to have nuclear reactors either.

Suddenly robot vehicles make sense since they can provide power to groups of power armor and borgs.

--flatline

[cosmicfish]

Is there any information on how this is done? Does it have to be done in a town with the e appropriate facility or is there something like a portable solar charger?

Something like that would really increase the utility of electric vehicles.

There are no set rules, but I would set the price per mile between 50% and 100% of the price for fueling a gasoline vehicle. The game offers few real advantages over gasoline vehicles despite the higher cost of the electric motor, so if the recharge price was higher as well then no one would use the electric motors.

As a note, I would also drastically drop the recharge costs of energy weapons, but that is a separate issue.

[Crow Splat]

If they had been designed to handle it, then you wouldn't have been charging them improperly. And they might not have failed.

--flatline

Isn't that a bit like saying if everyone did what they were supposed to, then there would be no crime.. I mean it's a true statement but also a sweeping generalization and not really all that practical.

[taalismn]

Hamster dynamos, LOTS of hamster dynamos. JUICER hamster dynamos.

[keir451]

you could theoretically do it with a solar panel. i wouldn't expect to get a huge amount of energy out of just one solar panel though. unless it's really, really big.

basically, you can take any electrical source and convert it into an appropriate voltage for another electrical device, if you have a battery to store the energy you're passing along... but you aren't going to get much current unless you're sending a lot of juice. which means, basically, you can recharge it from your solar powered calculator even, it's just going to take forever.

Actually considering the increasing efficiency of solar panels you might be able to recharge an electric vehicle w/a smaller solar panel than imagined.

[taalismn]

you could theoretically do it with a solar panel. i wouldn't expect to get a huge amount of energy out of just one solar panel though. unless it's really, really big.

basically, you can take any electrical source and convert it into an appropriate voltage for another electrical device, if you have a battery to store the energy you're passing along... but you aren't going to get much current unless you're sending a lot of juice. which means, basically, you can recharge it from your solar powered calculator even, it's just going to take forever.

Actually considering the increasing efficiency of solar panels you might be able to recharge an electric vehicle w/a smaller solar panel than imagined.

IMHO, that's why super-solar power systems for robots are so freakin' expensive; because they're apex-efficiency systems using smaller and more efficient solar cells. We're talking snugged right up to the Three Galaxies' Colonial HI-Laser Rifle for efficiency, if not better.

[flatline]

If they had been designed to handle it, then you wouldn't have been charging them improperly. And they might not have failed.

--flatline

Isn't that a bit like saying if everyone did what they were supposed to, then there would be no crime.. I mean it's a true statement but also a sweeping generalization and not really all that practical.

No, not at all.

You said that you saw things break when they were charged improperly. I said that if they had been designed to be charged that way, then that wouldn't have been an improper way to charge them and they probably wouldn't have broken.

I've got switching power supplies that can take input voltages from 5v up through 250v. The power supply regulates the amount of current that it accepts so that it's never in danger of damaging itself [b]as long as the input voltage is within the proper range[\b].

If you're designing an electric vehicle, the only thing preventing you from including a voltage regulator that can accept a wide range of inputs is the cost of the components and the opportunity cost of the space required. As a potential customer, I'm going to be very interested in knowing that I can charge off of common sources (e-clips, solar chargers, grid connections, nuclear reactors, etc).

--flatline

[kaid]

you could theoretically do it with a solar panel. i wouldn't expect to get a huge amount of energy out of just one solar panel though. unless it's really, really big.

basically, you can take any electrical source and convert it into an appropriate voltage for another electrical device, if you have a battery to store the energy you're passing along... but you aren't going to get much current unless you're sending a lot of juice. which means, basically, you can recharge it from your solar powered calculator even, it's just going to take forever.

Actually considering the increasing efficiency of solar panels you might be able to recharge an electric vehicle w/a smaller solar panel than imagined.

Any electric car could be charged via solar the big question is how long it would take. We have text evidence that even large robot vehicle sized battery systems can be recharged by solar panels small enough to be carted around by that vehicle. So something like a mountaineer could in theory pretty easily cart around a solar pannel system in its cargo bay that could be deployed to recharge its batteries in a reasonable amount of time.

[Crow Splat]

@Flatline: You hit the main reason why electric vehicles wouldn't be able to charge on e-clips in your last paragraph. Money.

From a retailer's standpoint, why would I sell a vehicle that you can charge on anything for 50k when I can sell you the same vehicle that is not rated to charge on e-clips for 47k and then turn around and sell you an adapter that would let you use e-clips for another 5k and potentially make more profit? All those numbers are arbitrary and you may not be able to have more profit but I would think you would.

And then from a government standpoint, would the CS really want a bunch of vehicles driving around major cities with e-clips in them? Most major cities in Rifts Earth ban MD weapons in city limits, so having a vehicle that runs on the same thing that powers illegal weapons is a huge potential breach of security. I would bet the CS would put significant pressure on manufacturers to not make vehicles capable of running like that off the sales floor.

And if the manufacturer were to make an adapter for e-clips, I bet those would be illegal in cities too. That way if a stranger pulls up in his electric Big Boss, they have no excuse for having spare e-clips in town. Then you wouldn't have illegal arms dealers getting stopped and then turned loose by telling Sergeant Dead Boy that those 100 e-clips aren't going to the local street gang but are just extra fuel in case you run out of juice.

I'm not saying that is how it is or how you should run it in your games, but that's how I think I will run it in my next game and see how it works out.

[flatline]

@Flatline: You hit the main reason why electric vehicles wouldn't be able to charge on e-clips in your last paragraph. Money.

From a retailer's standpoint, why would I sell a vehicle that you can charge on anything for 50k when I can sell you the same vehicle that is not rated to charge on e-clips for 47k and then turn around and sell you an adapter that would let you use e-clips for another 5k and potentially make more profit? All those numbers are arbitrary and you may not be able to have more profit but I would think you would.

And then from a government standpoint, would the CS really want a bunch of vehicles driving around major cities with e-clips in them? Most major cities in Rifts Earth ban MD weapons in city limits, so having a vehicle that runs on the same thing that powers illegal weapons is a huge potential breach of security. I would bet the CS would put significant pressure on manufacturers to not make vehicles capable of running like that off the sales floor.

And if the manufacturer were to make an adapter for e-clips, I bet those would be illegal in cities too. That way if a stranger pulls up in his electric Big Boss, they have no excuse for having spare e-clips in town. Then you wouldn't have illegal arms dealers getting stopped and then turned loose by telling Sergeant Dead Boy that those 100 e-clips aren't going to the local street gang but are just extra fuel in case you run out of juice.

I'm not saying that is how it is or how you should run it in your games, but that's how I think I will run it in my next game and see how it works out.

If the manufacturers won't make their electric vehicles compatible with the power sources that buyers want, then you can bet that some enterprising third parties will provide after market accessories to cover the demand.

--flatline

[eliakon]

@Flatline: You hit the main reason why electric vehicles wouldn't be able to charge on e-clips in your last paragraph. Money.

From a retailer's standpoint, why would I sell a vehicle that you can charge on anything for 50k when I can sell you the same vehicle that is not rated to charge on e-clips for 47k and then turn around and sell you an adapter that would let you use e-clips for another 5k and potentially make more profit? All those numbers are arbitrary and you may not be able to have more profit but I would think you would.

And then from a government standpoint, would the CS really want a bunch of vehicles driving around major cities with e-clips in them? Most major cities in Rifts Earth ban MD weapons in city limits, so having a vehicle that runs on the same thing that powers illegal weapons is a huge potential breach of security. I would bet the CS would put significant pressure on manufacturers to not make vehicles capable of running like that off the sales floor.

And if the manufacturer were to make an adapter for e-clips, I bet those would be illegal in cities too. That way if a stranger pulls up in his electric Big Boss, they have no excuse for having spare e-clips in town. Then you wouldn't have illegal arms dealers getting stopped and then turned loose by telling Sergeant Dead Boy that those 100 e-clips aren't going to the local street gang but are just extra fuel in case you run out of juice.

I'm not saying that is how it is or how you should run it in your games, but that's how I think I will run it in my next game and see how it works out.

If the manufacturers won't make their electric vehicles compatible with the power sources that buyers want, then you can bet that some enterprising third parties will provide after market accessories to cover the demand.

--flatline

He didn't say that. He said that the adapter/accessory would just be illegal in megacities. There is a difference between 'not available' and 'not legal in some places'. Kind of like the scores of power armors and weapons, they are widely sold, but not legal in cities. Same thing.

[Tiree]

According to NG2 - apparently some of the Electric Vehicles have about 4 times the range as Gasoline, and takes about 2 hours to charge fully.

[Crow Splat]

You also have to consider that the majority of the population does not own MD firearms and has no use for e-clips, so they likely don't own any. Spending resources on engineering and manufacturing for every production model to meet the needs of a small client base doesn't make much business sense.

There may be a model that has integrated support for e-clip charging, sort of like how modern trucks have different models with various engines and even multiple fuel types. But it would be a waste of money to make every vehicle the top line package when a minority of the consumer base wants that much functionality. You will either have to cut your margins to keep from being too expensive or risk pricing out your lower income customers (which is the majority) and maintaining good profit.

[Shark_Force]

if the vehicle in question is being built from MDC materials, odds are good the people buying it are the sort of people who do in fact have access to e-clips. not a guarantee, by any means, but there's a pretty good chance of it.

[Crow Splat]

if the vehicle in question is being built from MDC materials, odds are good the people buying it are the sort of people who do in fact have access to e-clips. not a guarantee, by any means, but there's a pretty good chance of it.

I wouldn't be so sure. There are MDC vehicles out there that cost less than or at least the same as energy weapons.

[Shark_Force]

if the vehicle in question is being built from MDC materials, odds are good the people buying it are the sort of people who do in fact have access to e-clips. not a guarantee, by any means, but there's a pretty good chance of it.

I wouldn't be so sure. There are MDC vehicles out there that cost less than or at least the same as energy weapons.

it's not about cost. it's about need. if all you need is to get from point A to point B, you can buy an SDC vehicle for a lot less than you can buy a big boss or mountaneer. if you're buying MDC, it's probably because you need your vehicle to be able to withstand MD attacks.

and if you're the sort of person whose vehicle needs to withstand MD attacks, it's a pretty good chance you're also the sort of person who needs to be able to deal MD attacks. and if you're the sort of person who needs to be able to deal MD attacks, odds are pretty good that you're the sort of person who uses e-clips, or has access to them because you fight with and/or against people who use them.

so that basic SDC truck the farmer uses for hauling stuff around the farm, or the SDC motorcycle a courier uses, probably aren't designed to run on e-clips, because the farmer and the courier probably don't haul around half a dozen e-clips everywhere they go. in contrast, the stuff you plan on selling to mercenaries or headhunters probably should be designed to be able to charge from an e-clip, because they typically do have access to lots of e-clips.

[Giant2005]

you could theoretically do it with a solar panel. i wouldn't expect to get a huge amount of energy out of just one solar panel though. unless it's really, really big.

basically, you can take any electrical source and convert it into an appropriate voltage for another electrical device, if you have a battery to store the energy you're passing along... but you aren't going to get much current unless you're sending a lot of juice. which means, basically, you can recharge it from your solar powered calculator even, it's just going to take forever.

Actually considering the increasing efficiency of solar panels you might be able to recharge an electric vehicle w/a smaller solar panel than imagined.

Any electric car could be charged via solar the big question is how long it would take. We have text evidence that even large robot vehicle sized battery systems can be recharged by solar panels small enough to be carted around by that vehicle. So something like a mountaineer could in theory pretty easily cart around a solar pannel system in its cargo bay that could be deployed to recharge its batteries in a reasonable amount of time.

With even the smallest of NG solar panels it wouldn't take long at all.
The solar panel in the NG-UV1 Solar Powered Mini-Laser (Which is the smallest I can find) recharges 1 solar charge every 2 hours and 12/22 solar charges is the equivalent to an E-clip. That is 0.0248 of an E-clip charged in that two hours. Considering an E-clip is the equivalent to 1000 modern day car batteries, that tiny solar panel could charge 24.8 car batteries in 2 hours or 0.21 car batteries per minute.
Assuming the energy efficiency of Rifts electric vehicles is at least close to what we have today, that tiny panel would be able to run anything during daylight hours and have ample energy left over to power other devices.

[Shark_Force]

a modern car battery doesn't exactly power a car though. it powers various electrical components of the car, but a modern car battery likely wouldn't be enough to power a modern electric car for very long. modern electric cars actually use specialized batteries, in rather large amounts.

[Giant2005]

a modern car battery doesn't exactly power a car though. it powers various electrical components of the car, but a modern car battery likely wouldn't be enough to power a modern electric car for very long. modern electric cars actually use specialized batteries, in rather large amounts.

I did some research and you are basically right - the tiny solar panel wouldn't be enough to power a car particularly well.
A google search tells me that a modern car battery stores between 1 and 2 kwh worth of energy. Considering the statement of 1,000 car batteries was made decades ago, I am going to assume it was made in reference to battieries on the low end (The 1 kwh variety).
By generating 0.21 car batteries per minutes worth of energy, it is generating 0.21 kwh per minute.
The Mini E (Some electric car that Google has much more knowledge of than I do) uses 0.22 kwh per mile which means the power provided by the solar panel would only be enough to generate a sustained speed of 57.27 miles per hour which is probably far below capacity.
That is a tiny solar panel however, one that isn't actually that much bigger than the calculator solar panels being laughed about in this thread and although it isn't powerful enough to do the job, two of them would be enough to run a car at full efficiency (and have a bit of power to spare) during daylight hours and four of them would provide enough power to keep it going day and night. You probably want to chuck a fifth on there too to ensure your sound system can stay on for those long road trips.

[drewkitty ~..~]

Sub-partial acceleration spell.

[taalismn]

if the vehicle in question is being built from MDC materials, odds are good the people buying it are the sort of people who do in fact have access to e-clips. not a guarantee, by any means, but there's a pretty good chance of it.

I wouldn't be so sure. There are MDC vehicles out there that cost less than or at least the same as energy weapons.

it's not about cost. it's about need. if all you need is to get from point A to point B, you can buy an SDC vehicle for a lot less than you can buy a big boss or mountaneer. if you're buying MDC, it's probably because you need your vehicle to be able to withstand MD attacks..

...Or entering the Five Corners intersection in Vineyard Haven..

Or just about any high-volume roadway rotary on Rifts Earth.

After all, a Juicer doesn't like to waste time(and lifespan) at a balky light.
A Crazy is going to go thru a red just because 'red means FASTER!'.
Full conversion 'borgs don't appreciate having to hang license plates and turn/brake blinkers on their backsides.

[Shark_Force]

a modern car battery doesn't exactly power a car though. it powers various electrical components of the car, but a modern car battery likely wouldn't be enough to power a modern electric car for very long. modern electric cars actually use specialized batteries, in rather large amounts.

I did some research and you are basically right - the tiny solar panel wouldn't be enough to power a car particularly well.
A google search tells me that a modern car battery stores between 1 and 2 kwh worth of energy. Considering the statement of 1,000 car batteries was made decades ago, I am going to assume it was made in reference to battieries on the low end (The 1 kwh variety).
By generating 0.21 car batteries per minutes worth of energy, it is generating 0.21 kwh per minute.
The Mini E (Some electric car that Google has much more knowledge of than I do) uses 0.22 kwh per mile which means the power provided by the solar panel would only be enough to generate a sustained speed of 57.27 miles per hour which is probably far below capacity.
That is a tiny solar panel however, one that isn't actually that much bigger than the calculator solar panels being laughed about in this thread and although it isn't powerful enough to do the job, two of them would be enough to run a car at full efficiency (and have a bit of power to spare) during daylight hours and four of them would provide enough power to keep it going day and night. You probably want to chuck a fifth on there too to ensure your sound system can stay on for those long road trips.

the power needed to travel at double the speed won't be double. to move twice as fast takes 4 times as much energy, and power is a measurement of energy over time. that figure of 0.22 kwh is for a specific speed. or. quite possibly, is an average rather than a set amount.

but yes, if there was some theoretical super-efficient solar panel that could extract that much energy, you could use multiples of it to power a vehicle for an extended duration.

having said that, i'm pretty sure science doesn't support a power output that high, no matter how good of a solar panel you have. i've heard the figure of 1 meter of sunlight being enough to power 4 blenders (though that's from bill nye the science guy, so not exactly a scientific journal or anything like that), and it seems rather unlikely that the power needed for 4 blenders is remotely enough to power a car that likely weighs at least 1500 lbs, plus passengers, traveling at any particularly high speed (let alone recharge the battery while driving).

but that's only a concern if you actually care about science in your games, which i suspect most people won't.

[Nightmask]

a modern car battery doesn't exactly power a car though. it powers various electrical components of the car, but a modern car battery likely wouldn't be enough to power a modern electric car for very long. modern electric cars actually use specialized batteries, in rather large amounts.

I did some research and you are basically right - the tiny solar panel wouldn't be enough to power a car particularly well.
A google search tells me that a modern car battery stores between 1 and 2 kwh worth of energy. Considering the statement of 1,000 car batteries was made decades ago, I am going to assume it was made in reference to battieries on the low end (The 1 kwh variety).
By generating 0.21 car batteries per minutes worth of energy, it is generating 0.21 kwh per minute.
The Mini E (Some electric car that Google has much more knowledge of than I do) uses 0.22 kwh per mile which means the power provided by the solar panel would only be enough to generate a sustained speed of 57.27 miles per hour which is probably far below capacity.
That is a tiny solar panel however, one that isn't actually that much bigger than the calculator solar panels being laughed about in this thread and although it isn't powerful enough to do the job, two of them would be enough to run a car at full efficiency (and have a bit of power to spare) during daylight hours and four of them would provide enough power to keep it going day and night. You probably want to chuck a fifth on there too to ensure your sound system can stay on for those long road trips.

the power needed to travel at double the speed won't be double. to move twice as fast takes 4 times as much energy, and power is a measurement of energy over time. that figure of 0.22 kwh is for a specific speed. or. quite possibly, is an average rather than a set amount.

but yes, if there was some theoretical super-efficient solar panel that could extract that much energy, you could use multiples of it to power a vehicle for an extended duration.

having said that, i'm pretty sure science doesn't support a power output that high, no matter how good of a solar panel you have. i've heard the figure of 1 meter of sunlight being enough to power 4 blenders (though that's from bill nye the science guy, so not exactly a scientific journal or anything like that), and it seems rather unlikely that the power needed for 4 blenders is remotely enough to power a car that likely weighs at least 1500 lbs, plus passengers, traveling at any particularly high speed (let alone recharge the battery while driving).

but that's only a concern if you actually care about science in your games, which i suspect most people won't.

Wouldn't know it from the number of people around here who require things super-scientific in nature even when it contradicts the actual given physics for the setting.

[dragonfett]

a modern car battery doesn't exactly power a car though. it powers various electrical components of the car, but a modern car battery likely wouldn't be enough to power a modern electric car for very long. modern electric cars actually use specialized batteries, in rather large amounts.

I did some research and you are basically right - the tiny solar panel wouldn't be enough to power a car particularly well.
A google search tells me that a modern car battery stores between 1 and 2 kwh worth of energy. Considering the statement of 1,000 car batteries was made decades ago, I am going to assume it was made in reference to battieries on the low end (The 1 kwh variety).
By generating 0.21 car batteries per minutes worth of energy, it is generating 0.21 kwh per minute.
The Mini E (Some electric car that Google has much more knowledge of than I do) uses 0.22 kwh per mile which means the power provided by the solar panel would only be enough to generate a sustained speed of 57.27 miles per hour which is probably far below capacity.
That is a tiny solar panel however, one that isn't actually that much bigger than the calculator solar panels being laughed about in this thread and although it isn't powerful enough to do the job, two of them would be enough to run a car at full efficiency (and have a bit of power to spare) during daylight hours and four of them would provide enough power to keep it going day and night. You probably want to chuck a fifth on there too to ensure your sound system can stay on for those long road trips.

the power needed to travel at double the speed won't be double. to move twice as fast takes 4 times as much energy, and power is a measurement of energy over time. that figure of 0.22 kwh is for a specific speed. or. quite possibly, is an average rather than a set amount.

but yes, if there was some theoretical super-efficient solar panel that could extract that much energy, you could use multiples of it to power a vehicle for an extended duration.

having said that, i'm pretty sure science doesn't support a power output that high, no matter how good of a solar panel you have. i've heard the figure of 1 meter of sunlight being enough to power 4 blenders (though that's from bill nye the science guy, so not exactly a scientific journal or anything like that), and it seems rather unlikely that the power needed for 4 blenders is remotely enough to power a car that likely weighs at least 1500 lbs, plus passengers, traveling at any particularly high speed (let alone recharge the battery while driving).

but that's only a concern if you actually care about science in your games, which i suspect most people won't.

That's of course assuming 100% energy efficiency, which I believe is three times greater than our best (which is a combustion engine if I am not mistaken).

[glitterboy2098]

the rough energy density of sunlight on the earth's surface is 1,000 W/m2 (1 kilowatt per square meter), assuming ideal conditions. (no clouds, surface perpendicular to the angle of the sun, etc)

the most efficent, comercially available, solar panels today range from 13% to 18% efficent.

even if you had an impossible 100% efficiency, running a car on solar panels would require most of the surface to be covered.

i suspect the "super solar" systems in palladium are not photoelectric, but rather thermal in nature.. you can use lenses and such to focus that solar energy down to smaller points, and create a lot of heat, which could be used for thermal generators of some kind. given that they have tiny nuclear plants, that tech would have to be well developed. (nuclear reactors and piles put off heat as their main output, and that heat is what has to be turned to electrical power. that is usually the bulkiest part of a nuclear plant today)