Ion car plausible?

[Lando]

If it can be done it is plausible. It is just inefficient and the existence of rover wheels make it unpractical.

I was talking about Real cars, not ingame.

I think any car with Ion engines would have a TWR to low to drive on normal streets

[Spartwo]

Awww,Can we continue talking about ingame?

I still use them on minmus kind of a hybrid.

[M5000]

whats the point of ion cars now anyway

since 0.19, ion engines are pointless because the rover wheels are faster plus infinite fuel (with enough RTGs)

Because on a vacuum world where the atmosphere does not limit their speed, they're ludicrously fast given a moment or two of acceleration, and thus can climb hills with momentum if you happen to get them that fast.

Heck, I was testing a runner designed for the Mun on Kerbin and, albeit I was using mod-parts-yet-balanced engines, it got up to about 40m/s on a flat which is faster than pretty much any rover you can build with conventional rover wheels/propulsion will go.

So I maintain, they're ludicrously fast when used properly, and they're fun. Very fun.

[numerobis]

I was talking about Real cars, not ingame.

I think any car with Ion engines would have a TWR to low to drive on normal streets

I'm going to bet that directly powering wheels is a lot more efficient than spitting ions out the back. Unfortunately I don't know enough about non-rocket science to be able to calculate it.

[Lando]

I'm going to bet that directly powering wheels is a lot more efficient than spitting ions out the back. Unfortunately I don't know enough about non-rocket science to be able to calculate it.

Well, that's what I said... And I am pretty sure about this

[Kerbocracy]

One idea that I've heard that struck me as having potential was to use ion engines to provide additional downforce, to help on low-g bodies like Gilly.

I've tried this and it worked (I had four engines pointing down on a Mun rover). It increased the traction a bit, but not enough to make it worthwhile overall... The ground doesn't seem to impose a lot of friction in KSP; Kerbals slide forever along the munar surface...

[lazarus1024]

Honestly on anything lower G than the Mun, I pretty much just go with "jump rovers". Instead of wheels I slap on a few RCS jets, tankage and landing legs and hop around the place.

Dres and Ike it doesn't work so great as the gravity is a bit too high to make an efficient "hopper". You can do it, but you can't get far before running out of RCS. Their gravity is also a bit too low to be great for rovers (but its managable if you are careful and go slow). Moho and the Mun are too high gravity for hoppers, but rovers will work okay if you are being careful.

I do wish that the ground worked a bit better for friction and that it was a bit harder to high side a rover.

Mostly I need to make bigger rovers, but they just seem unrealistically large compared to my landers then if I am not using the smallest wheels and rover body with a seat on it (I know, personal problem). That generally limits me to about 5m/sec safe speed on the Mun with 7-8 okay on flat stretchs and 9-10m/sec pretty much just asking for disaster.

Dres and Ike its more like 3-4m/sec to be safe and maybe brief spurts up to around 5 or 6. Any lower gravity bodies I find roving impossible. Duna is pretty good for roving though. Its gravity is high enough to make ~10m/sec roving resonably safe so long as you are being a little careful with the type of rovers I usually make, which is fast enough for me, I typically want to be able to rove within about 15km of a landing site, which at 10m/sec is about an hour round trip, depending on anything I might have to drive around.

It would be nice if ion engines worked a little better to power rovers as a fun project, but oh well. Especially for pointing down on low grav bodies.

[thiosk]

Before the forum borked, I had a really cool RTG powered car. It was SUPER long with the solid state generators, but still had enough rigidity for the ion drive to push it around. It had a central xenon core, each encircled by the heavy generators. I put wheels on the corners so its tube-like construction could roll.

Its success was mediocre at best.