This is the heart of my friend's belief that hydrogen fuel cells will not ever be ready for mass adoption.
-
For more information on how to avoid pop-up ads and still support SkiTalk click HERE.
It's Electric, sort of
- Thread starter Bill Talbot
- Start date
I can see that ... unless somehow we get the completely unlikely breakthrough of a catalyst for direct solar photolysis.
@skibob 2 cents per mile! That's amazing. My Ford Focus gets about 40mpg and if I could burn Florida gas at $2.00 per gallon I'd pay 5 cents per mile. Since I'm burning California gas that has additives that reduce the mileage and our gas is a LOT more expensive, I'm actually paying closer to 10 cents a mile. There's your 80% difference but there's no thermodynamic cause.
Greenhouse gases are a large reason for alternative cars. Hydrogen is an extremely potent greenhouse gas. The inevitable spillage and leakage makes hydrogen a poor replacement for fossil fuels.
The turbine electric generator sounds really interesting. If the reality is close to the hype, it could change things. I'm picturing a hybrid electric airplane!
Eric
Greenhouse gases are a large reason for alternative cars. Hydrogen is an extremely potent greenhouse gas. The inevitable spillage and leakage makes hydrogen a poor replacement for fossil fuels.
The turbine electric generator sounds really interesting. If the reality is close to the hype, it could change things. I'm picturing a hybrid electric airplane!
Eric
To flip the OP on its head, I feel there is synergy between EV batteries and renewable energy (wind/solar) that has yet to be exploited. The big drawback of renewables is the variability in power supply vs. power demand. The EV battery is not fully utilized for most commutes, and is oversized to allow for the occasional long commute. How often do you drive 200+ miles in a day?
For instance, recharge the battery during the day off of solar/wind and allow the battery to discharge into the grid as needed. Set a limit on the maximum discharge allowed so you still have enough range. Change the limit as needed. Incentivize this behavior by paying the EV owners for energy that is supplied to the grid.
For instance, recharge the battery during the day off of solar/wind and allow the battery to discharge into the grid as needed. Set a limit on the maximum discharge allowed so you still have enough range. Change the limit as needed. Incentivize this behavior by paying the EV owners for energy that is supplied to the grid.
LOL. THAT was one of his major areas of research. And he concluded that, at least with current technology, ain't gonna happen. He worked for about 20 years on a joint project between Ford, the Norwegian government, and some other partners I don't recall. Started back in the mid 90s and wrapped up w/o any major breakthroughs.
There are a lot of directions one can take this. I personally think that easy-swapping batteries or onboard generators is more immediately viable than bigger batteries. But at least the focus on greater storage capacity should drive battery technology which is sorely needed. Solid state batteries look attainable and will dramatically reduce the size and weight of batteries, reduce the dependence on rare earth minerals, and should be mol inflammable. They will also last for a much longer time. I am seeing estimates of 6000 to 20,000 charge cycles. I think Li ion are currently in the 600-1,000 cycle range.
I hope that one thing is clear is that a lot of my optimism about EVs is not so much that they are vastly superior to ICE today. Its that they are so much in their infancy, and giant leaps are already within sight. So, with the slight edge they hold already in cost, efficiency, environment, etc, just makes sense to drive that development faster and faster. ICE vehicles have nowhere to go to find even the distance already separating them from EVs now. Meanwhile I don't think we can even see the upper limits of EVs from where we are right now.
ICE's may become a niche far down the road, but for driving the vast distances in the American West they will always reign supreme. Range anxiety, charging time, and avoiding consuming energy at triple-digit speeds will always make for a not so fun road trip in an EV out west.
Subsidies don't make a market or reality.
You can get the best of both hybrid worlds in the new Honda Insight I posted above:
The insight is cool. The Volt is similar and more HP, but in a smaller car. But neither of them are skimobile material.
As for range anxiety, you are just thinking in terms of today's tech. I'm looking a little farther ahead. And neither the Insight, Volt, nor i3 suffer from range anxiety. I've taken the Volt on trips where its just running in generator mode. Its still more efficient than a comparable ICE (although it is slightly behind the Prius in efficiency in generator mode but blows the Prius away in EV mode).
And Norway's subsidies are less than the US subsidies. The only reason for subsidies is to incentivize R&D. In the not very distant future, EVs will be cheaper than ICE. When an emerging technology promises to be better, but needs economies of scale, that is a good use of economic policy.
If a vehicle has an ICE in tow to generate electricity, is it really an EV? I guess you can use it as an EV for 50 miles, but they are typically called plug-in-hybrids, aren't they?
They are properly called 'series hybrids'. The term "plug-in hybrid" is a catch-all that includes parallel drivetrains.
No. A hybrid uses both gas and electric to drive the wheels. They are MORE complex than ICE.
An EV turns the wheels with one or more electric motors and nothing else. If it carries a generator, it is still an EV.
EDIT: @cantunamunch response is good too. The key is making that distinction about what drives the wheels. There are those purists who look down on somebody carrying a generator around, but I could care less about snobs--environmental or otherwise. IMHO, carrying a generator around, or carrying a big battery are just two different answers to the lack of charging infrastructure.
https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/electric-vehicles/series-vs-parallel-drivetrains
Series drivetrains are the simplest hybrid configuration. In a series hybrid, the electric motor is the only means of providing power to the wheels. The motor receives electric power from either the battery pack or from a generator run by a gasoline engine. A computer determines how much of the power comes from the battery or the engine/generator. Both the engine/generator and the use of regenerative braking recharge the battery pack.
Series drivetrains are the simplest hybrid configuration. In a series hybrid, the electric motor is the only means of providing power to the wheels. The motor receives electric power from either the battery pack or from a generator run by a gasoline engine. A computer determines how much of the power comes from the battery or the engine/generator. Both the engine/generator and the use of regenerative braking recharge the battery pack.
Chevy calls the Volt a plug-in hybrid:
https://www.chevrolet.com/electric/volt-plug-in-hybrid
Speculation as to what killed the Volt:
https://autoweek.com/article/green-cars/what-killed-chevrolet-volt
https://www.chevrolet.com/electric/volt-plug-in-hybrid
Speculation as to what killed the Volt:
https://autoweek.com/article/green-cars/what-killed-chevrolet-volt
Yes! An island I happen to follow is doing just this. The little Portuguese Island of Porto Santo way out in the Atlantic is adding EV's as battery storage for renewable sources.
That's in spite of EV's otherwise making no sense on the island because diesel generates the vast majority of the electric power.
As discussed above, it's crazy to use diesel to generate grid electricity to run an EV rather than just burning the diesel in an ICE vehicle. The generation and transmission losses make it far less efficient. But, adding the value of the battery storage to the grid changes the economics of the EV. Interesting stuff.
Porto Santo is a beautiful island, but it's tiny. I was fortunate to spend a couple of months working there long ago. There's unlimited sun and wind, but I wouldn't want to see the island covered with solar panels and wind turbines to achieve the 100% renewable goal. Not that I have any say other than as a future tourist who can't wait to go back without spoiled views. Espetada de carne e vinho verde, por favor!
Last edited:
That would be an extremely inefficient way to handle power generation.
Lots of reasons, most of which can be summarized as "real materials don't behave in the same way as ideal materials".
At triple-digit speeds, range anxiety is a real thing even with gasoline. According to the dash, my F-150 gets in the neighborhood of 7 MPG at 95 MPH. (no, I haven't managed to run through a full tank at that speed to verify.) It has a 36-gallon tank, and 36 * 7 = 252 miles. With the 26-gallon tank, it would only be 182 miles. That doesn't seem bad until you consider how far apart some of the towns in Montana (or Wyoming etc) are and how many stops you need to make if you want to keep a 25-mile reserve. Bonus points if you've ever pulled in on fumes and the one station in town was out of gas, closed to go fishing, or otherwise unavailable.
If you can solve the recharge time or portability issues (i.e. swappable batteries so you can carry the equivalent of a 5-gallon fuel can), most of that goes away.
If that happens, we may see a time come when range anxiety is more of an issue with ICE vehicles, although motorcyclists will probably feel it before most car and truck operators. It doesn't take a whole lot of small-town gas stations going away to put a lot of places in the "better fill up every time you can" category.
Thread Starter
TS
300 mile range on my main sport touring bikes, but no trouble to have a 2.5 gal Rotopax (another 75 miles) on the back rack if needed. As long as money can be made on gasoline the stations aren't going anywhere.
I can get 200 miles reliably on my GS, but it has the aerodynamics of a brick and I have a heavy right hand. I've gone 241 miles and not quite been on fumes after filling up, but that gets nerve-wracking in the mountains—if you forget to factor in a big climb, your mileage expectations can change quick.
The second part of your post is why I'd worry about small-town gas merchants: gasoline sales are usually a low-margin activity at best, and if volumes drop and delivery costs go up, some of those small-town general stores with gas pumps may decide to stop selling fuel. I can think of a few in Vermont where that's already happened, albeit without the impact on distance-between-stations that the same thing could cause out west.
I think if Tesla was not owned/controlled by the megalomaniac that is Elon Musk the best play for the company would be to license their technology/superchargers to one of the major automakers. The downside to a pure EV from anyone but Tesla is the lack of quick charging. I would gladly buy a Toyota/Lexus vehicle with a 300-350 mile range IF I had access to a supercharger network. Those make it possible to do long rode trips with minimal inconvenience.
I think this is part of the idea for the 'gigafactory.' If they fail at making their EV's appealing, they can sell packs and the way to charge them to the other manufacturers. I don't think you can fast charge any battery the way a Tesla battery is charged. I think there is software in the car that balances the charging to the cells.