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Gas Powered Fuel Cell Could Help EV Range Anxiety
thecarchik writes "While electric-car advocates may avoid the issue, some buyers simply won't choose a plug-in car that can't travel unlimited distances. That's where the Chevy Volt-style range extender comes in, though the Volt adds unlimited range by burning gasoline in a conventional engine to generate electric power. Now, a new type of fuel cell offers the potential for a different kind of range extender, one that removes the enormous practical problem facing hydrogen fuel cells: the lack of a distribution infrastructure to fuel vehicles that require pure hydrogen to feed their fuel cells. Researchers at the University of Maryland have managed to shrink the size and lower the operating temperature of a solid-oxide fuel cell by a factor of 10, meaning it could conceivably produce as much power as a car engine but occupy less space. The advances come from new materials for the solid electrolyte, as well as design changes, and the researchers feel they have further avenues for improvement left to explore."
They say the most Harley owners 'detune' their new bikes just to get the right sound out of the muffler. With the way that things might be going, I wonder if some won't miss their cars making engine sounds, not to mention blind people.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
You presumably failed to notice the part where the fuel cell is likely to be powered by gasoline?
The problem is that the energy and even automotive manufacturing industry don't want the yoke taken off until the last minute. Why do you think there was such a push for ethanol and hyrdrogen fuel cells? Both of those still need you to fill up at a pump. Electric cars would be able to use a wide variety of energy sources as long as the end result was electric potential. This breaks your dependency on the industry for fuel, which they don't want.
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
At first glance, the summary fails to say how this development (which appears to make demand more likely) manages to ease the problems on the supply-side of the hydrogen fuel cell option. What it didn't include is the information that a solid oxide fuel cell can conceivably burn any hydrocarbon fuel stock. TFA mentions gasoline, diesel, natural gas and propane. The idea is that a fuel cell extracts more energy from hydrocarbon fuels than the pitiful 25% claimed for ICE technology. What isn't stated is whether this new fuel cell can handle any of the hydrocarbon fuels without any hardware changes. e.g. pipe in propane or natural gas or supply liquid diesel or gasoline for either gas or liquid based fuelling.
I need a wheelchair van for my son. Help me get the word out. https://www.gofundme.com/wheelchair-van-for-jj
Is the article saying they've developed a gasoline-based fuel cell that you can recharge at a 'fueling station', with which you can generate electricity to power your electric car?
Doesn't this just turn your EV into a less-efficient gasoline-powered vehicle?
Its just a pity humans burn carbon containing molecules, producing the anti-green CO2 so your generator on the bike is effectively powered by the creation of greenhouse gasses. I don't think humans are very efficient either, producing copious amounts of heat
I call patenting a system that lets you attach a generator to a bike, so you can ride the bike to charge a battery, and then plug the battery into your car to charge your car from the batter.
Tens of kilowatts of energy is hard to generate on a bicycle especially when most of the energy from pedaling has to propel the bike. Even on a stationary bike this would be tough. And have you seen the size/weight of the battery packs electric cars require?! Carrying that on the bike will be FUN.
Added benefit: Cyclists will now drive somewhere else to bike, bike, and drive bike. Infinitely better than them clogging up the streets and ignoring traffic laws because they insist on biking to and from the place they're going to bike at. Or worse, when they decide to make the streets the place they bike at.
While you're at it, maybe you can tell the cyclists a few essential things they don't seem to understand.
1) No man looks good in spandex. Maybe gay men think so, but I'm not a gay man and I really don't want to see this shit. If the cyclist is not a gay man, perhaps they don't want this kind of attention.
2) Riding well below the speed of traffic on highly congested roads during rush-hour is a Darwin Award waiting to happen, and as a motorist I don't want the hazard of swerving around these idiots and towards opposing traffic just to preserve the life of someone who obviously doesn't care if he dies that day, you fucking inconsiderate self-important assholes. What is it about lots of high-speed traffic that makes you want to bike there? Is it so gay men can see your spandex-covered ass hanging up in the air? Did you guys know about these cool things called secondary roads? They avoid most of these problems and are much safer for you. Of course, that might require putting a tiny bit of thought into things and well, if you see how most people are you know why that's too much to ask.
It's got electrolytes!
hey!
Temperature is actually more important than the energy density in this case. At 650C never mind 900C, you'll still have a lot of trouble with heat--material have an unfortunate tendency to expand and warp (or, worse, snap) at that kind of temperature. Thus, you may be able to turn your car on and off only dozens of times before the SOFC breaks down. This is the real reason why SOFC has never been seriously considered for cars--SOFC has always been relatively compact for the amount of energy they produce (except for the apparatus you'd need to get rid of the huge amounts of heat).
Now, 650C is easy, at least if you are using natural gas as feedstock. (Gasoline may be somewhat more difficult, but not impossible.) Other solid oxide fuel cells that are trying to enter the market operate at or near that temperature range. 350C, though--wow. That will be remarkable, and may indeed be able to brings in an era of fuel cell vehicles, but it'll involve whole new set of chemistry, and I won't believe it until I see it.
The other advantage of using a fuel cell is that it makes it feasible to capture the CO2. In an ICE because you burn the fuel the concentration of CO2 in the exhaust is low, making it impracticable/expensive to capture the CO2.
It may be possible then that when you are filling up to return the CO2, which can then be used to produce a synthetic hydrocarbon based fuel.
Major technology hurdles, but a possible route to solve both the range problem of electric vehicles and the emission problems associated with hydrocarbon fuels.
You don't need new batteries, just rename it duravolt and do a superbowl commercial with Madonna riding the E-street band's EV.
This is basically how they think the Bloombox fuel cells shown on 60 minutes last year works. Bloom is how start-up in Silicon Valley with prototypes powering several buildings there. Except the Science article says their technology is five times more space-efficient. A 5' by 5" plate could generate 50W to 100W for a portable computer. 10 of these plates could run a military backpack or appliance. 100 could power a car or house. 500 an office building.
Giving up its gasoline addiction by designing electric cars that need - gasoline.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
While I agree entirely on your point #1, as a cyclist, I find myself taking some offense to your point #2. It is not the high speed traffic that is desirable, it is the efficiency of the road itself. Side roads, in general, do not typically go for more than a few blocks, and in my own experience are usually unsuitable for commuter use even for bicycles for all but near the departure and destination points.
FWIW, I usually cycle quite close to the curb, so I am easily and safely passed by other vehicles. I only move fully into the lane if I am intending to turn left.
Oh... and I *never* wear spandex.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
to extract enough energy, the cyclist would be super buff, and thus roid crazy. i don't want even crazier cyclists on the road.
a simpler solution would be to require anybody who uses public roads to have a limited license (limited in the sense that it covers tested knowledge of road rules but not operation of a motor vehicle).
anything that can make use of the high energy density of hydrocarbons without actually emitting CO2 would be good.
something ~2x as efficient as current engines is also a good thing.
something that can double the life of oil/coal/gas reserves will be a good thing.
stuff like this might just buy us enough time to figure out just where we're going to get our energy from when the free stuff runs out.
And apparently you failed to notice that the gasoline cell is only an emergency backup.
I've rented a Volt twice now when traveling, and never had a problem finding a charging station. They're in mall lots, gas stations, next to Walgreens, and in lots of places you would never expect. For someone who lives in an urban or suburban setting, you could go for the life of the car without having to use a drop of gasoline. Plus, they are really nice cars. You get in and you realize how far Chevy has come. I can remember driving a piece of shit Citation back in the 90s and my dad had a Lumina, and they weren't nearly as nice as similarly priced Japanese cars. The Volt is awfully nice in a way that American cars have seldom been.
I'm not ready to buy a Volt because they're still way too expensive. Sort of like the first nice tablets or the first generations of SSD drives or a certain big-name desktop computer with dual Xeon processors. But now you can build dual-Xeon box with a pair of good size SSD drives for less than half the price of those first aluminum-boxed shiny "Pro" desktop computers. And there are capacitive-touch tablets coming out of China with the HD video out and SD slots and Ice Cream Sandwich and all that stuff for about 1/4 the price of those first fancy-pants tablets without SD slots.
It's just a matter of time. The end of fossil fuel dominance is coming, whether or not you like it and whether or not the guy who talks on AM radio says it will never happen. Those oil fields are not refilling themselves and there are more and more smart people thinking in terms of technologies for transportation that do not involve the 200 year-old internal combustion engine. Your squeezing your butt cheeks together is not going to stop progress.
You are welcome on my lawn.
No, they'll just be cruising through stop signs and red lights, or going down the lane against traffic further from home.
You have an interesting idea, assuming it can generate enough juice to drive a car even a few miles, but it doesn't deal with the moronically suicidal asshats that make up far too large of a percentage of the bicyclists. (Hope you have a lower percentage than we do, I'd say ours is about 80%.)
the article is entirely missing the point. range extension doesn't help if the vehicle into which the range extension is placed is massively inefficient. that means that you need to fix the problems associated with standard vehicle designs (box and wedge shapes) in order to get the aerodynamics losses cut by at least 50%, and you need to cut the weight by over 70% (1.5 to 2.0 tonnes down to 350kg) in order to be able to take advantage of hard compound "ECO" tyres, which would otherwise rapidly wear out on a "standard" car. once the aerodynamics are efficient and the weight is low, "range extension" actually provides enough power to run the vehicle pretty much directly. see http://lkcl.net/ev for details.
to extract enough energy, the cyclist would be super buff, and thus roid crazy. i don't want even crazier cyclists on the road.
a simpler solution would be to require anybody who uses public roads to have a limited license (limited in the sense that it covers tested knowledge of road rules but not operation of a motor vehicle).
Sounds like a regular driver's license in the States to me.
Knowledge of signs and traffic laws is just about all they test for. That's why so many idiots brake uphill, on banked curves, don't understand that you steer better when you're not also braking, don't know what "end speed limit" does and doesn't mean, tailgate, can't stay off the median in their SUVs, never heard of engine braking, think four-wheel-drive means they'll never oversteer on ice/snow, and don't understand what the left lane is for... just to name a few off the top of my head.
If they actually required you to know how to effectively handle the vehicle and (maybe using a simulator) to keep calm during emergency maneuvers, to correct without overcorrecting, to read traffic patterns and use foresight... maybe 30% of the people driving today would retain their license. The rest would have a lot of learning to do before being issued one.
They talk a great game about safety but it's a secondary priority. The primary priority is ticket revenue. Getting shitty drivers off the road means fewer people racking up fines. They have no real incentive to do it no matter how many injuries and deaths it would prevent.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Last I checked, gasoline-powered vehicles don't have an "unlimited" range either. It may be an order of magnitude farther before you have to fill up a gas car than you have to recharge an electric, or somesuch, but that's still far from "unlimited."
Liberty in your lifetime
I just want to point out that you put these two sentences end-to-end: "The Volt is awfully nice in a way that American cars have seldom been. I'm not ready to buy a Volt because they're still way too expensive."
Funny that.
That's not to say that I'm anti-Volt or anything. I think it's exactly the right next step in the evolution of the automobile.
TFA mentions the fuel cells work off natural gas as well, not just oil. I wouldn't be surprised if they also worked with alcohols. As a bonus, natual gas is produced more in parts of the world where there is little war going on (USA, Canada, Russia) and is easier to produce from organic waste than the more complex hydrocarbons
.. then why bother with the weight and complexity of an ICE at all?
I get about 390-410WH/mi in my Volt, which (assuming 33KW/gallon) is about 80MPG. That's actually a bit lower "mileage" than I could get, but I have a bit of a heavy foot. Assuming an 80% efficiency in the fuel cell, that'd be 64MPG, roughly double the mileage of a comparably-sized and -equipped car.
(and yes, I'm an early adopter, it beats smoking crack.. Barely..)
If they could also shrink the cost by a factor of 10 we would have a winner.
It's called "economy of scale".
When they're being built in hundred-thousand lots by automated factories several model years into vehicle production, the design and tooling costs have been largely paid off, and some competitive product is bidding for customers which creates price pressure, they will cost a lot less than the parts in the concept-car prototype or the first model year.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Oxygen concentration cells work off anything that eats oxygen when it burns (and doesn't poison the fuel cell - which very few things do) and which is physically compatible with the fuel feed infrastructure.
For a cell designed for liquid fuels that's liquid hydrocarbons (gasoline, diesel fuel, salad oil, liquid fat, ...), alcohols, and just about any other liquid fuel. If it also handles gas you can also use propane, hydrogen (if your plumbing is up to it), etc. Use a good enough feed system and you can run it on solid fuels, too.
I want one that eats stove pellets. B-) You can make those out of any plant waste: sawdust, lawn clippings, stalks of food plants, weeds, ... Or shred and pelletize your junk mail.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The sad thing is, if you have ever spent any significant time in many parts of the world (basically anywhere outside of The US/Canada and Northern/Western Europe), you would realize that American drivers are EASILY (and sadly) among the upper echelons of the world's drivers when it comes to knowledge and safety.
Try driving for a day among the "licensed" drivers of any country in South America, for example, and you will see what I mean.
Why is it funny? In the same way I could say, the iPad 2 is nice in ways that a lot of tablets from American companies have not been. I'm not ready to buy one yet because they're still way too expensive."
There is no discrepancy between something being "nice" and "still too expensive" especially when talking about technology. 18 months ago, SSD drives were nice but way too expensive for me. Today, they are not.
You are welcome on my lawn.
And apparently you failed to notice that the gasoline cell is only an emergency backup.
I've rented a Volt twice now when traveling, and never had a problem finding a charging station.
Where do you live? Because, I have traveled extensively around the country, and I have never even seen a single charging station.
No, they'll just be cruising through stop signs and red lights,
Many street lights still use road sensors, which fail to detect smaller vehicles such as motorcycles and bicycles. As such, many municipalities (like my own) have adopted "dead on red" laws, which allow said vehicles to pass through red lights when it is safe to do so.
Stop signs are a different story, of course, but I see cars running those at least as often as I see cyclists do it.
...moronically suicidal asshats that make up far too large of a percentage of the bicyclists.
I'll admit my bias, but my experience has been quite the opposite. More often than not, it is the cars who do not know how to be courteous on the road which end up nearly hitting me, largely because they are not paying attention. Occasionally, I have come across someone intentionally trying to run me off the road (generally in trucks and SUVs).
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
It's funny because he basically pointed out WHY cars from American companies are not like that. People won't pay the price. Funny in an ironic way.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I share your belief that the end of fossil fuel dominance is coming. I also believe that hydrocarbons will be with us for a very long time. We've got military tanks, trucks, ships, jet fighters, bombers, transports, and so on that run on hydrocarbons. All of these have a useful lifespan measured in decades. Many of these military vehicles will have crew that have not even been born yet, for some of them their mothers have not even been born yet. I believe we will see a rise of synthesized fuels to replace our currently available fossil fuels. We are already halfway there with techniques like hydrocarbon cracking commonly in use. The infrastructure is already there, of course, for storage and transport. This is why fuel cells that can run off of gasoline is even being considered with all of their complications.
I recall reading somewhere that the hydrogen density in gasoline is higher than that of pure liquid hydrogen. The storage and transport of liquid hydrogen has its own problems. We already know we can handle gasoline safely. I believe the "hydrogen economy" will look a lot like the current economy. The hydrocarbons will still flow but instead of pumping it out of the ground we will create them in factories powered by nuclear fission and coal. The coal will run out too in time but by then we will have completed the transition to nuclear power.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
This is still significant technology. Solid-oxide fuel cells are on the order of 80%+ efficient. Combined with an electric motor they handily beat any internal combustion engine you might fit in a car. They have less moving parts, they're basically silent to operate. It's all the benefits of hydrocarbon fuel without the downsides (sans CO2, but even that uses less).
Since we're also talking a purely electrical connection, it means we can also think about modularizing the powertrain - i.e. power source and motive force can be effectively isolated, and the power source interchanged. For a move away from fossil fuels that's huge - if people can own vehicles which mean they can switch between short-haul batteries and long-haul hydrocarbon, that's almost a solved problem - since once the economics of batteries become favorable, market-forces will end up with people using them most of the time.
Not to mention, it would mean biofuels go back on the table - the power source of choice for long-haul travel, if short-haul only needs batteries.
1) No man looks good in spandex. Maybe gay men think so, but I'm not a gay man and I really don't want to see this shit. If the cyclist is not a gay man, perhaps they don't want this kind of attention.
I shall assume that you are male. Let me tell you that my last couple of girlfriends would strongly disagree with your opinion, and I'm much more interested in their opinion than yours... :)
True, but not as much heat, as an ICE engine. A human has to struggle to keep itself warm (at 36ÂC), a car has to struggle to keep the cooling water from boiling.
On a straight road you need maybe 150 Watt on a bike for 25kph if you've got a mountain bike with knobby tires, full suspension and a hub dynamo, even less than that on a road bike. You need 100 times as much power to move a car at the same speed.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
This is still significant technology.
I made no claim otherwise. I'm just recognizing that even if (or when) we run out of dead dinosaurs to burn we will still have hydrocarbons powering our economy.
"Significant" is one thing, "practical" is another. This technology is still going to have to compete with internal combustion engines for power output, longevity, cost, weight, safety, and so on. I believe we are still a long way from fuel cell powered cars.
Not to mention, it would mean biofuels go back on the table - the power source of choice for long-haul travel, if short-haul only needs batteries.
Not so fast. If these things can burn gasoline, fuel oil, propane, etc. then they can probably burn ethanol too. It will take legislation to change for the corn to end up on kitchen tables instead of fuel tanks. Ethanol has been a disaster on many levels. Burning food for fuel is how civilizations have fallen, we don't need to repeat history. The legislation will change just not because of fuel cells. It will change because people have become cold and hungry.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
In (some) European countries they do test for all that. Of course it isn't a replacement for experience, but it does help - and you can make much more efficient traffic (such as using roundabouts instead of 4-way stops everywhere...). The back side is that getting a drivers license is a long process and really expensive - I Norway you end up paying something like 2-3000 $ just for the training with a instructor - and then they assume you will practice many hours with you parents/significant other/friend etc. (you are allowed to practice on the road with an experienced driver sitting in the passenger seat (who is responsible) and some extra equipment (big red magnetic sticker identifying the car + extra rearview mirror).
A car has a roof, body, etc. A car weighs 1000 times that of a bike.. if a car only uses 100 times the energy. Then a car is 10 times more effiecent at moving mass than a bike.
So by yoour numbers everyone should use the more effiecent car than bike.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
"no discrepancy between something being "nice" and "still too expensive""
Its not a discrepancy he's talking about. Its the link!
That's whats funny.
Sure, if you're objective is to move all that metal around, but if your goal is to move the contents of the vehicle, the bike wins. We really need something in-between. A solar-electric people mover capable of hauling 1000 lbs (4 'mericans) that weighs less than 500 lbs and uses pedal power as a backup. The only problem is making it safe in the same area that the land yachts frequent.
Chicago, IL.
You may have passed one and not even known it. They're not much bigger than the little kiosk that you use to put air in your tires at the gas station. Maybe you're looking for something the size of a gas station.
For example, the closest one to my house is the one in the parking lot of the drug store. I never noticed it until I rented the Volt and googled "ev charging stations" and then actually looked for it. Don't expect a big sign like at the Shell Station. There are 7 within a three mile radius of where I live and 3 months ago I would have said the same thing as you, "I have never seen a single charging station" even though they've all been there all that time.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Those oil fields are not refilling themselves
Actually they are, they're just doing it really, really slowly.
The US Military is the sector of our society that is moving to renewable energy the fastest. They see the writing on the energy wall regarding fossil fuels.
Of course, like with most things, the military is doing it in the most expensive way possible ($400/gal biodiesel jet fuel!) but like with most things, those technologies are going to eventually migrate to the civilian economy.
You are welcome on my lawn.
OK, I gotta ask: could you please give me a link or citation or something?
I'll sleep better tonight knowing that after I'm thawed out from my cryogenic sleep I'll still be able to tool around in my 1961 Coupe de Ville.
You are welcome on my lawn.
> A car weighs 1000 times that of a bike
My bike is 10 kg, my car is 1000 kg. That's 100 times, you're off by an order of magnitude.
I live North West of Boston. The closest charge station to where I live is the next town over. There are none listed in Maine, none listed near where I work in Framingham, and none listed in the Nashua, NH area. Plus, there are none in Atlantic Canada (where I am originally from), maybe due to the cold winters.
For a clickable map, see here: http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/fuels/electricity_locations.html
Until electric vehicles can be recharged quickly, either through a fuel cell or a large capacitor, they will not be an option for my next purchase. I do enough long range driving for them to be impractical.
Hydrocarbon chains are an excellent way to store energy - gasoline, diesel, propane, ethanol, butanol, etc. If you look at energy density from either a volumetric or mass basis, they're hard to beat. Super capacitors are nowhere near as energy dense, and Mr. Fusion is still only a Hollywood pipe dream.
Where you get your feedstock for the hydrocarbons and how you use them is the real trick. If you're intent on using fossil crude as a basis, you're going to be releasing lots of locked-up material into the environment. If you're intent on being inefficient with the hydrocarbon fuel, well, that's just lazy/stupid/cheap-bastard.
Fossil crude is still pretty damned cheap as a feedstock, which is why it still dominates the fuel supply chain. If it were more expensive, or harder to obtain, or non-existent anymore, you can bet the oil companies would be all over the bio-whatever forms of their current product offerings. You want to be environmentally sensitive? Be efficient in how you use energy, from the fuel in your car's tank to the wood you burn in your fireplace. We'd be in a much better situation if people weren't so damned wasteful. (Note - efficient behavior is seldom the least expensive option.)
I hate to be a devil's advocate (and please prove me wrong on this), but I don't really see a changeover from fossil fuels as the primary means of energy use. In fact, I see more dependence on fossil fuels as time goes on. A couple examples:
The wholesale exodus from nuclear power generation. France is having people break into their plants, a number of countries are shuttering their reactors, and here in the US, there has not been a single new power reactor built or renovated since Three Mile Island.
The embracing of natural gas by Germany. These days, they are so beholden to Russia that if the Bear turns off the pipes, German citizens by the tens of thousands will freeze to death.
The extinguishing of a solar panel boom in the US by alleged dumping by offshore companies.
For the near future, there are not many other alternatives to coal or oil. Electricity is a positive change because at least solar/wind/geothermal can be used, but it looks like our grandsons will still be using fossil fuels for their vehicles.
The comment I was replying to was not about replacing a car with a bike. It was about using human power to charge the battery in a car. Your 150W figure is kinetic produced. you'd be looking at 1kW of heat during exercise, at 15% its not very efficient is it? Putting that back in the context of using a dynamo to charge a car battery there are also larges losses involved in that system as well. If you want to use 1kW/h of energy to charge a battery with 100W/h, be my guest. The ICE being 25% efficient would provide twice the efficiency.
I'll assume your 3 megawatt estimation is correct and play around with that number for a bit.
In the electric cars I've seen the battery packs are rated at somewhere around 100 volts. To get 3,000,000 watts from 100 volts one would need a conductor capable of carrying 30,000 amps. I tried to look up how big of a conductor that would have to be but the charts I have stop at 2000 amps.
Since the charts I have in reach stop at 2000 amps I'll use that for a maximum amperes. That means the car charger would have to provide 1500 volts. I'm not sure how big of a conductor the car charger would need to have but I'll guess it'd have to be ten time the size of the service wires to my house, which are rated at 200 amperes. That is huge.
Just for giggles here I'll take it one step further and say that instead of a five minute charge, which is about the time it takes to fill my truck's fuel tank, I'll allow for ten times more time. Instead of a five minute charge I'll give you a 50 minute charge. Nearly an hour to fill up your vehicle. That still means a 100 volt battery pack would have to be charged at a 3000 amp rate to get within one tenth of the energy stored in my truck's fuel tank.
Even though we've allowed for two orders of magnitude in lowering the power required to recharge an electric car's battery, as compared to a common gasoline powered vehicle, we're still seeing impractical requirements for conducting that electricity. Even if the infrastructure could be built to hold up to these electrical requirements there is the matter of finding a capacitor, battery, or whatever capable of holding up to this abuse and still be light enough, small enough, and safe enough to place in a passenger vehicle.
Barring some leap in technology the electrically charged car will remain forever in second place to those powered by hydrocarbons. That is why we're seeing research like this into hydrocarbon fuel cells.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Is that because the age of technological advances and innovation has come to an end?
I'm curious as to why you would think that.
As always, it surprises me when a group of technophiles like /. readers, who readily accept human migration into space as an inevitability and manned mars missions and beyond without batting an eye, can't even imagine there ever being any innovation in the area of energy production and distribution. For them, when it comes to energy, all that will ever happen is what has already happened.
You are welcome on my lawn.
My bike weighs about 14 kg, which is about average. If your car weighs 14 tons then your car is probably something along the lines of an infantry fighting vehicle.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Yeah that opens massive cans of worms of it's own though such as compatibility, lift difficulty, storage space for all the batteries that are "on-charge" ownership of batteries and so on. It's been talked about loads but i'm not aware of anyone actually trying to do it.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
In japan nissan has robotics to swap Leaf batteries faster than you can refill a gas car. The car is designed for a bottom swap already. Nissan is working for standards so this can be done in Japan with other electrics.
This is the only realistic solution; you pay rental+electric fee. Fuel cells are possible since chemical storage is higher density but the tech is a ways off-- eventually I don't see why it can't beat out mechanical energy extraction from chemical fuels. Electronic losses are almost nil compared to the heavy losses of combustion engines. If they could kill transmissions that would be a big benefit as well.
With removable battery packs STANDARD you make fuel cells and newer tech possible more cheaply. "refill" with a battery or a fuel cell or a higher range more expensive battery-- so now instead of regular or premium or diesel you choose short range, long range, or fuel cell...
Going on a long trip? swap battery packs and get credit for X amount of power left on the old one and pay for the more expensive long range one...
MOST people MOST the time do not need to travel far--- but all one needs to do for the rare situations is provide a work around solution involving rental. ME, I'm upset with every Nissan person I talk with-- they have no interest in designing for range extenders. If they merely put a charge port that is active while the car is driving I would be sold! I was looking at hooking up a mini trailer and putting a propane generator on it as a range extender. Would store almost forever until I needed it and then I'd hook it on and start the generator. (propane because its better for inactive engines, plus they run longer, last longer etc.) Unless somebody would finally sell a small propane turbine engine coupled to a generator...that isn't crazy expensive data center grade...
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