i'm personally think hydrogen fuelled cars are a much better option, they run just like normal petrol cars, and you just stop and fill 'em up like a normal car, and their energy is clean, unlike electric cars, which still get the energy from coal fired plants.
Hydrogen fuel cell technology is insanely expensive and unrealistic. It isn't anywhere near viable.
that video is a bit out of date (and highly biased), hydrogen fuel cell cars no longer cost $1000000, the honda clarity is down to $140,000, and technology will keep on improving.
i'm personally think hydrogen fuelled cars are a much better option, they run just like normal petrol cars, and you just stop and fill 'em up like a normal car, and their energy is clean, unlike electric cars, which still get the energy from coal fired plants.
i'm personally think hydrogen fuelled cars are a much better option, they run just like normal petrol cars, and you just stop and fill 'em up like a normal car, and their energy is clean, unlike electric cars, which still get the energy from coal fired plants.
Currently, global hydrogen production is 48% from natural gas, 30% from oil, and 18% from coal; water electrolysis accounts for only 4%.[13] The distribution of production reflects the effects of thermodynamic constraints on economic choices: of the four methods for obtaining hydrogen, partial combustion of natural gas in a NGCC (natural gas combined cycle) power plant offers the most efficient chemical pathway and the greatest off-take of usable heat energy.
It's too bad that Agassi doesn't even get support from his own government.
No one is willing to take the risk that is funding this project, we don't know yet if this is even a viable solution, let alone how expensive it'd be.
He does a really good job of describing some of the fundamental problems we're having with transitioning off of gasoline-based cars. The infrastructure has to be in place or nobody will buy the cars, but how do you get the incredible amount of investment necessary to build this infrastructure before you have a product to service? It's a big project for any one or two companies to try and take on. But it's not too big for a government.
I bet you could shave $100 billion per year from the US Defense budget for the next ten years and spend it on electric car infrastructure and have a net positive effect on our national security and end up saving ourselves tremendous amounts of money. We just need the political willpower to take the plunge.
Agreed. Just spreading the knowledge and creating the political will is all it takes. But it needs to be done in short order.
I was thinking of proposing several ways to cut $100 billion from the defense budget per year and then I realized it's pretty simple:
Leave Iraq. Bam. Free* electric car infrastructure in a decade's time.
*Not actually free
He does a really good job of describing some of the fundamental problems we're having with transitioning off of gasoline-based cars. The infrastructure has to be in place or nobody will buy the cars, but how do you get the incredible amount of investment necessary to build this infrastructure before you have a product to service? It's a big project for any one or two companies to try and take on. But it's not too big for a government.
That isn't true. Anyone can use existing infrastructure to plug in electric vehicles without issue. If electric cars started to seriously replace gasoline vehicles, upgrades would be required, but that doesn't impeded the early players. The simple problem is no alternative vehicle of any kind is going to make an impact until it can match the Camry on price and performance. Electric cars have the potential, but better batteries are needed to make it reality.
1) Electric outlets are not commonly found at parking spaces
2) A battery takes hours to charge. If we increase their capacity, it also increases charge time. (as he explained in the video, the batteries we use now would require a 2 megawatt line to charge fast enough to be as fast as a gas station fill) This leads to the necessity of the swap stations because otherwise long-distance driving becomes impossible.
3) We would still need an increase in our electric power generation. While he says that it would only be a 6% increase in total electricity consumption, I expect we'd need a bit more total capacity because the extra load will probably be concentrated at the end of the work day when everyone gets home and plugs in.
The swap stations are the biggest change, but there's issues with that too. Gasoline is pretty easy because it's a liquid. The tank's size, shape, and location aren't important. Even the gas itself can vary, your car doesn't particularly care what octane fuel goes in. Batteries do not share this versatility. A swap station, most likely, would have to use batteries that are in a standardized location, size, shape, installation method, and even energy capacity. This makes future changes to the infrastructure difficult, as now every car and every station have to be compatible with any upgrade. Tricky stuff, it would pretty much require some government-mandated standards from the start so that we don't have issues with GM cars working at company X's stations while Toyota's work with company Y's stations, etc. If the convenience is not equal to or greater than a gas-powered car, people will shy away. We need full market penetration as fast as possible.
As for vehicle performance, that's actually quite simple. You can get a crapload of torque instantly from an electric motor. Speed wont be a problem. Battery capacity is the last domino, but the swap station idea can work around that.
We can build high-capacity batteries, but for the time being it's unlikely that we'll be able to do it cheaply.
Battery swapping is not the optimal strategy. It is much easier to build a super high powered charging station than deal with the insanely complicated logistics of battery swapping. Trying to force manufacturer compliance, making it easy to remove hundreds of pounds of batteries, and trying to maintain a proper inventory of charged batteries is a nightmare. A charging station just needs a few extra power lines and rapid-discharge capacitor.
I agree with Shai Agassi that if it takes more than 5 minutes, people aren't going to be very interested. You can't charge a 100-mile battery in 5 minutes, let alone a 300-mile battery. A power station would need like 10 or 20 MWs of power output to feed several cars this much energy in that short amount of time. That's assuming the batteries don't melt in the process and nobody kills themselves by mishandling a cable with that much power running through it.
The power station can simply store the power in capacitors which can easily handle the megawatt discharge capability. Small gas stations could use normal grid power and store it, while high-use stations would need extra power lines. Safety issues are minimal, especially compared to gasoline. You can insulate the cables, and it isn't hard to design a plug that prevents morons from electrocuting themselves. While it will take some engineering work, none of the problems can't be solved with known and reliable technology. The political problems of standardizing battery swaps are infinitely more complicated than doing some electrical work. Even from an engineering perspective, the heavy lift machinery and design compromises for easily removable battery packs are probably more complicated and expensive.
I'll be the first to admit that I have very little knowledge of electrical engineering, but it seems to me as though the capacitor doesn't really solve the power draw issue, it merely provides a buffer. You still have to charge the capacitors, and if a charging station is receiving steady business, the end result is you still need incoming power enough to charge the capacitors as fast as they're being used, right? I suppose the swap-station could run into a similar issue if they just ran out of batteries.
There's still the issue of the battery, though. Can a battery take in that much electricity in that small amount of time without bursting into flames? A near-dead battery being hooked up to that strong a charger seems like it would draw too many amps. Working with jets, we were always cautioned that if the battery was too low so as to require a "jump-start," it is likely that the generators would charge the battery too fast and you'd risk a fire.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?