Viability of Full Electric Cars

[spopepro]

[theflashunc]

I'm personally of the mind that hydrogen fuel cells are the real answer to the long term question.

I think the battery thing just pushes the environmental questions to the back-end of the cycle -- how to dispose of tons of useless batteries at the end of their usefulness, getting the materials out of the ground, etc etc.

And every electric car I've seen has some compromises in some form or another. If its not range its charge time. If its not charge time its equipment.

Hydrogen would give us the convenience we're used to in ICE engines, in a way more environmentally friendly form.

[Zimmermanbicycle]

Which begs the question,how clean is the process of obtaining the Hydrogen? some methods are cleaner than others,much like with electric cars that are grid powered Hydrogen cars can be running on Hydrogen "refined" with techniques that are relatively clean or not so much.
I think that Hydrogen may ultimately be the answer but I think we need to see what the sources and process are when scaled up before we can judge it's environmental impact compared to say a battery based electric car being charged by solar,is the battery manufacture and disposal worse than the method used to obtain the Hydrogen? These questions are difficult and have yet to be answered.
-Eric

I'm personally of the mind that hydrogen fuel cells are the real answer to the long term question.

I think the battery thing just pushes the environmental questions to the back-end of the cycle -- how to dispose of tons of useless batteries at the end of their usefulness, getting the materials out of the ground, etc etc.

And every electric car I've seen has some compromises in some form or another. If its not range its charge time. If its not charge time its equipment.

Hydrogen would give us the convenience we're used to in ICE engines, in a way more environmentally friendly form.

[Mark Kelly]

I'm personally of the mind that hydrogen fuel cells are the real answer to the long term question.

I think the battery thing just pushes the environmental questions to the back-end of the cycle -- how to dispose of tons of useless batteries at the end of their usefulness, getting the materials out of the ground, etc etc.

And every electric car I've seen has some compromises in some form or another. If its not range its charge time. If its not charge time its equipment.

Hydrogen would give us the convenience we're used to in ICE engines, in a way more environmentally friendly form.

If we are going to go all speculative, in my opinion we'll end up with a stratified market with short haul / commute being predominately battery electric and long haul / large vehicles running ICE on butanol.

In this scenario the containment and distribution difficulties of hydrogen and the fragility of fuel cells rules it out of small vehicles. Butanol trumps ethanol because it has better energy density and is easier to store and transport. At the moment it's harder to produce by the bucket chemistry methods used for ethanol but long term it would likely be produced by directed photosynthesis.

[XR2]

This is why we've done nothing in the past 50 years. Splitting hairs over small differences that don't matter in the real world while continuing to do the same ol' shit.

While nothing is truly zero impact (including shoe leather express) improvements have come incrementally while everyone talks a good game few step up and contribute. Most are content to stand on the sidelines and rationalize the lack of progress. Do something and do it now. There are no perfect solutions but many steps forward.

A pure electric is a problem solver for some users. Mostly city folk who don't drive much. Rural and suburban drivers could use an electric for daily use and rent an IC car for infrequent vacations and the like. Hybrids are good for those users as well. The hydrogen cars are in principle the best for anyone needing long distance they just need infratructure improvements. Which aren't really all that difficult.

Workplaces,hotels and the government need to step up and provide charging stations. How can they ignore a profit center like that? Give 'em a fookin' tax break or something to prod them into the future. Businesses don't pay taxes anyway we do it for them by purchasing product or service.

Contrary to popular belief electricity is cleaner than petroleum production. You must add the insane amount of pollution from removal,transport,refinement and distribution to the equation. Not to mention the shit they're pumping into the groundwater around here (see fracking) to extract gas cheaply. How in the hell does anyone consider pumping toxic slurry into the ground a good idea? Ooopss sorry pet peeve there.


Electric is an improvement get with it if you really care. If you're in the need for a new vehicle look at them. Spend the money so the research will go on and eventually we could clean things up.

[nahtnoj]

We'd probably own an EV if there was a place we could charge it.

The grid needs to change quite a bit for EVs to really take off, and that is getting underway:

National Grid CEO: Large Power Stations For Baseload Power Is Outdated

[davids]

This is why we've done nothing in the past 50 years. Splitting hairs over small differences that don't matter in the real world while continuing to do the same ol' shit.

While nothing is truly zero impact (including shoe leather express) improvements have come incrementally while everyone talks a good game few step up and contribute. Most are content to stand on the sidelines and rationalize the lack of progress. Do something and do it now. There are no perfect solutions but many steps forward.

A pure electric is a problem solver for some users. Mostly city folk who don't drive much. Rural and suburban drivers could use an electric for daily use and rent an IC car for infrequent vacations and the like. Hybrids are good for those users as well. The hydrogen cars are in principle the best for anyone needing long distance they just need infratructure improvements. Which aren't really all that difficult.

Workplaces,hotels and the government need to step up and provide charging stations. How can they ignore a profit center like that? Give 'em a fookin' tax break or something to prod them into the future. Businesses don't pay taxes anyway we do it for them by purchasing product or service.

Contrary to popular belief electricity is cleaner than petroleum production. You must add the insane amount of pollution from removal,transport,refinement and distribution to the equation. Not to mention the shit they're pumping into the groundwater around here (see fracking) to extract gas cheaply. How in the hell does anyone consider pumping toxic slurry into the ground a good idea? Ooopss sorry pet peeve there.


Electric is an improvement get with it if you really care. If you're in the need for a new vehicle look at them. Spend the money so the research will go on and eventually we could clean things up.

I'd disagree that "we've done nothing in the past 50 years". I'm having trouble recalling what the '65 Prius looked like. Or that '65 Tesla for that matter.

A tipping point will come, where battery technology is fully competitive with gasoline tech in terms of cost and range. It's getting closer all the time. When it does you won't need to rely on the high-income liberals* to subsidize the automakers, or the government to subsidize the massive nationwide infrastructure.

*no insult intended. I count myself in that club.

[XR2]

Well I tend to have a little more knowledge in this arena than many. There are many plug in and hybrids over time. Take a look here.



1969 GM XP-883......another idea that went nowhere for decades 'cause no one would buy.


And then there's the 1967 AMC (lithium+NiCad batteries) Amitron.




Google GM XP512H,AMC hybrid concept,AMC Electron or even the 1980 Briggs and Stratton concept hybrid. The manufacturers spent time and money to float the ideas but the market (us) simply poo-poo'd the ideas. How about the CitiCar from the late '70s? I've actually driven one of those. There have been many variants offered in small quantities but typically going bankrupt quickly.

[enr1co]

I would go 40-50K USD if convinced the vehicle made sense environmentally and would last at least ten years.

There are Certfied Pre Owned 60 Kwh (~200 mile charge) Model S units that come available in the $55K range on the Teslamotors CPO link.

[CamW]

I'm personally of the mind that hydrogen fuel cells are the real answer to the long term question.

I think the battery thing just pushes the environmental questions to the back-end of the cycle -- how to dispose of tons of useless batteries at the end of their usefulness, getting the materials out of the ground, etc etc.

And every electric car I've seen has some compromises in some form or another. If its not range its charge time. If its not charge time its equipment.

Hydrogen would give us the convenience we're used to in ICE engines, in a way more environmentally friendly form.

Part of me agrees but Hydrogen storage is still a nightmare. Getting a good storage density and tank lifetime is HARD.

[zachateseverything]

I'm personally of the mind that hydrogen fuel cells are the real answer to the long term question.

I think the battery thing just pushes the environmental questions to the back-end of the cycle -- how to dispose of tons of useless batteries at the end of their usefulness, getting the materials out of the ground, etc etc.

And every electric car I've seen has some compromises in some form or another. If its not range its charge time. If its not charge time its equipment.

Hydrogen would give us the convenience we're used to in ICE engines, in a way more environmentally friendly form.

I'm not sure we'll ever see PEM fuel cell cars adopted on any kind of a large scale basis. You get all the same challenges that you do with "normal" electric cars but you also get to load the thing up expensive catalyst materials (all that platinum ain't cheap), bulky subsystems to move your fuel, oxidizer, and waste water around, AND you've got a large quantity of hydrogen gas to worry about. With all the advances we've seen in battery technology over the last decade I'm not sure the additional complications are worth the increase in range.

I've had the opportunity to drive a couple Teslas. They're fun, they've got a reasonable solution to a long trip in their supercharger network, and when the Model3 hits I think it'll tick the boxes for 90% of the population.

[XR2]

I anxiously await the 2016 Honda FCX. While I can't have one 'cause I'd have to ship the car for a fill up I find it exciting technology. Not to mention the current model hasn't shown any real issues in 6 years of use. If I want performance I've got 700 HP worth of motorcycles in the garage.

[davids]

Well I tend to have a little more knowledge in this arena than many. There are many plug in and hybrids over time. Take a look here.



1969 GM XP-883......another idea that went nowhere for decades 'cause no one would buy.

And then there's the 1967 AMC (lithium+NiCad batteries) Amitron.

Google GM XP512H,AMC hybrid concept,AMC Electron or even the 1980 Briggs and Stratton concept hybrid. The manufacturers spent time and money to float the ideas but the market (us) simply poo-poo'd the ideas. How about the CitiCar from the late '70s? I've actually driven one of those. There have been many variants offered in small quantities but typically going bankrupt quickly.

I really don't think the story is that "the market" rejected these vehicles. They were, in many cases, admirable experimental cars. But these early attempts were just that - experiments, tests of concepts and (I am guessing) quite outrageously expensive to produce.

Automobiles are mass-produced commodities. In order to compete with ICE, electric vehicles need to be competitive on performance (range, power, speed, etc. etc...) and on cost and reliability. The vehicles you list weren't competitive.

I believe the vehicles available today are nearly there. Some people would say that they have arrived. It's an exciting time.

[XR2]

My point from the start of our exchange is if development would have been addressed instead of shoved into a corner and taken out to play with once every few years we'd "be there" now. I posted examples of what some were working on 50 years ago to illustrate. And the content of the above post confirms that.

Do you remember what cars were like 50 years ago? Do you realize we don't frequently see them on the side of the road with the hood up like days past? A 100K mile car has much life left in it nowdays. That is due to development and maturation of the manufacturing process. If that process were brought to bear on the EV cars the '77 Prius would be a reality.

[devlin]

I think if the public can get their head around not having to do 0-100 in 3 nano seconds we'd have much better range capability. A lot of the electric cars coming out the first data point is the acceleration. Who cares? Make it as efficient as hell and refined for everyday use. Electric sportcars are for the future, get the basics right first.

[Mark Kelly]

The acceleration is a natural consequence of using permanent magnet motors, which are the most efficient motors available since they're not dumping current to create rotor magnetisation like an induction motor does*.

Torque from such a motor is a linear function of current draw.

The current across the windings is the forward voltage divided by the winding resistance and forward voltage is the supply voltage minus the back EMF of the motor. Back EMF is a linear function of motor speed so it is zero at standstill

Putting these together, the torque at zero speed is the maximal torque the motor will produce so the thing will take off like a scalded cat.

If you want to play fun with algebra, you can use the fact that torque decreases linearly with speed to estimate the power available at any given speed. It's a negative quadratic function but air resistance increases as the square so the power available to accelerate the car is maximised at lower speeds.

BTW I design and build specialist electronic motor drives, they are for a different application but the principles are the same.

*assuming you haven't built the motor with superconducting windings.

[devlin]

of course that makes sense. I thought they were trying to mimic ICE with power to weight. etc.

[GrantM]

I don't think there are technological solutions to mobility issues for a society that drives so much.
The main issue is that we are over-consuming transportation because it's too cheap. As long as people
are prepared to commute 70-100 or more miles to work, we're going to struggle with the consequences
of congestion, cost, time, and resources.

It's not supposed to be this way, a fantasy about freedom has enslaved generations of auto-centric
thinking and has got us where we are - in sprawling, racially and income segregated enclaves of obesity.
Sorry, I thought it was grump Thursday.

-g

[devlin]

One way to solve the daily commute is to decentralise business districts. There is no need for everyone to work in the same place anymore.

[XR2]

It's all driven by the pursuit of the Almighty Dollar. Everything. Without exception.