Yeah, but when fusion power comes along, no one will be willing to commit to it, on account of you just know something better will be along to render it obsolete, and theree goes your investment.
I speak with my tongue in my cheek some, but on a smaller scale (wrt cost, anyway), whatever happened to DATs and tape backups for computers?
Silicon Valley is an anomaly from an average salary standpoint; for the vast majority of drivers, a $60k car would be completely unaffordable. Even a cursory look at the average price of cars purchased in the last five years readily demonstrates that. And the Tesla S isn’t $60k+ because it is a luxury car; it is at that price point because the energy storage system iteslf costs $30k, and there is no expectation that the cost of the batteries will drop by anything like an order of magnitude.
I don’t have a simple layman’s level cite at hand; what I have over ten years of experience in dealing with rocket launch vehicles including those using storable, cryogenic, and gelled propellants, and the difficulties and hazards in storing and handling them. Except for exotic propellants like liquid fluorine, hydrogen is one of the most difficult propellants to handle, even moreso than the caustic storables like unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine, to the point that for large volume usage it is manadatory to produce hydrogen on-site (which, by the way, is done by steam reforming from natural gas and is therefore not carbon neutral–hydrolysis is far too energy inefficient for large volume hydrogen gas production).
And to be clear, I have not said that “storage issues are insurmountable”; what I have said is that hydrogen is difficult to store, would require a completely new distribution and storage infrastructure; fuel systems storing and using hydorgen would have to use expensive alloys which are insensitive to hydrogen embrittlement; hydrogen energy density is low even in the most dense configuration (slurried cryogenic hydrogen); and that there are other synthetic fuel alternatives such as methanol and dimethyl ether which have much better storage conditions (can be stored at room temperature under moderate or ambient pressure) and energy density characteristics. As a choice to replace petrofuels, hydrogen has a lot of downsides, and not really than many advantages when you look at the entire hydrogen production cycle despite the fact that the combustion process itself does not produce greenhouse gases.
Stranger
Is it more problematic than storing and distributing propane? Not a gotcha. It’s a much smaller molecule, so it might be harder to store. (Missed the addition ablove.)
I’ve also heard of researchers hoping that a reasonable priced biogas to hydrogen converter could be developed, along with the fuel cells. My old boss used to call it “Trash to Traffic.”
No sinister conspiracy is needed or useful in explaining why electric cars are not yet anything more than a tiny niche of the automotive market.
There is a serious technological issue that is holding electric cars back. If we ever overcome this issue, then I expect the internal combustion engine to very rapidly become obsolete, with electric cars quickly becoming dominant. I expect that once they go into large-scale mass production, electric cars will be less expensive that internal-combustion-powered cars. Consider that an electric motor typically has only one moving part, compared to the hundreds of moving parts in a modern internal combustion engine. And because an electric motor is easily reversible, and operates over a wide torque range, it would not require nearly as complex a transmission as is found in a normal car. An electric car should be simpler, cheaper to build, much more reliable, and require much less maintenance and repair, and much, much more efficient.
The one issue holding them back is the portable energy source to power them.
On my former job, I drove an electric forklift. The battery in this forklift weighs about 3500 pounds (that’s heavier than most modern cars), and has a stated capacity of 850 amp-hours, at 48 volts. This comes to about 40 kilowatt-hours of energy. A gallon of gasoline has about 33.7 kilowatt-hours of energy that can be released by burning it. So the battery in my forklift can contain the equivalent of about 1.2 gallons of gasoline.
And that’s the big problem limiting electric cars. We do have better battery technology than what is used in forklifts, but we have none that comes anywhere close to matching the amount of energy that can be stored in a given weight and volume of gasoline.
Batteries for electric cars have a finite usable life, and, at this point, are prohibitively expensive to replace. Consider how often you need to replace the battery in a normal car, and that this is a battery of much, much lower capacity than what would be needed to power an electric car, and is used very briefly, just to start the internal combustion engine. An electric car would need a much,much bigger battery,and because it is in more constant use, it would have a shorter life, and need to be replaced more often.
Charging is also an issue. I have calculated that to charge a battery at a rate that is equivalent to pumping gasoline into a car, you would need a source on the order of millions of watts, and a battery that could withstand being charged at such a rate. Don’t try this at home.
Propane has problems as well, but there’s a lot of existing science involved.
some day, we may be able to handle hydrogen as easily as propane. We aren’t there yet. (Is my understanding, I’m not an expert)
Trash or compost into methane is more useful than converting to hydrogen, would be my guess.
The price of gas is more of a psychological concern than a practical one for new car buyers. At the same time we were reveling in our 1990’s $1/gallon gas, they were thrilling at only paying $3/gallon (or whatever it was) in Europe. This is part of the problem with selling alternative fuel and high-mileage cars: the costs of fuel is, in reality, an exceedingly minor component of the total costs of owning a new car. There seems to be an assumption that the EV-1 would have basically sold itself, but that is far from the case-- even if it cut your fuel costs to ZERO, there’s no guarantee new car buyers would have wanted it.
I’ve often told people to take an honest look at the story of the Prius with regards to what would have happened had GM gone ahead with the EV-1. Except for maybe cab fleets, hardly anyone does enough city driving for the Prius to actually pay for itself in a timely manner, even with today’s relatively high gas prices. The only thing that stopped the Prius from being a total flop is that somehow Toyota managed to make them trendy, or maybe more likely they lucked out with introducing the car right as the whole “green chic” thing was starting. With that in mind, consider GM’s reputation during the 90’s. Between the lingering effects of Ralph Nader and “Rodger & Me” they were a well established member of America’s pantheon of corporate bogey-men. It’s sort of odd to look at now, since their reputation has largely recovered and now some people buy GM cars to make statements about unions and globalization, but in the late 90’s GM loathing on the left was still strong. I doubt they were in any position to sell anything to the sorts of affluent liberal types who were the Prius’ early adopters, no matter how well (or not) the thing actually worked.
Now, in the long term, it turns out that investing in EV technology would have been a much better business decision as became abundantly clear when GM’s SUV-heavy lineup got clobbered when gas prices went up again in the 2000’s. But you can see how at the time continuing the EV-1 might have looked like a bad business decision without shadowy conspiracies being necessary.
What are the temperature considerations for battery powered EVs? Would the current crop of electrics be useful vehicles to have in Ashland Wisconsin in February?
There’s an easy solution for that. Just line the tanks with goldbeaters skin, just like they did for those old hydrogen filled airships! Read all about it here.
Power is generated in electrochemical batteries via chemical reactions, albeit much slower and less energetic ones than occur in combustion engines. As everyone who has taken basic chemistry is aware, the reaction rate of any particular reaction is dependent upon the temperature of the reactants. (A general rule of thumb for reactions happening at around room temperature is that the rate of reaction doubles for every 10 °C rise in temperature.) In combustion engines the amount of excess energy production (beyond what is used to drive the piston or rotor) is substantial, which creates causes incoming fuel to also be heated once the engine block has warmed up, and the overall temperature difference between the reactants and the resulting products improves the conversion from chemical to mechanical energy. (In thermodynamic terms, the greater the temperature difference allows more energy to be theoretically developed up to the maximum Carnot cycle efficiency; in reality, the efficiency of real heat engines rarely exceeds 40%.)
Rechargeable batteries don’t generate much waste heat (they can’t, as you don’t want to cause thermal breakdown of the reactants, electrodes, or casing) and so their performance is strongly dependent upon ambient conditions, hence why the car battery that kicks your engine over effortlessly at 27 °C struggles to even turn the crank at, say -10 °C. Note that the amount of stored electrochemical energy within the battery doesn’t change and is (in theory) still available, but the rate at which it can be generated and thus, the peak power output and voltage potential are reduced, so effectively it gives you much lower output and reduced efficiencies.
There are batteries that are designed to operate with high performance at low temperatures, called thermal batteries. However, these are one use devices which are squibbed and that run very hot to the point of often catching fire if there is not sufficient load across them. They are used for one shot applications such as rocket launch vehicles and discardable weapon systems, and are obviously not suited to automotive applications.
It isn’t that simple. Hydrogen embrittlement and leakage doesn’t just affect tanks; it impacts the entire fuel system, including lines, valves, seals, et cetera, all of which have to be specified and designed for hydrogen service. This requires expensive aerospace-grade alloys, tight tolerances, special lubricants, and regular servicing. This is much more expensive and difficult than systems certified for propane, natural gas, or even liquid oxygen. There is really nothing “easy” or “simple” about handling significant volumes of hydrogen in any form.
Stranger
That’s all very well and good but from XT’s cite it looks like they’ve figured out these problems, at least enough to make it feasible. Maybe they’re bilking tax-payers but I’d like to see a cite that says what they are doing doesn’t really work.
Maybe, but the average mileage of American cars significantly lags European cars. Price seems to be the major cause.
I disagree here. The Prius is actually a good car–I reluctantly bought one and have been pleasantly surprised. My previous car was a VW Jetta diesel and the Prius is roomier, has more power, and gets better mileage (with cheaper gas) for a comparable price.
I agree. The cargo area of the Prius isn’t as tall as my Jeep Cherokee’s, but it’s about the same floor space. It’s a comfortable car to drive, and rear-seat passengers have much more room than in the Jeep. I bought it when it was three years old for just over half of what my friend paid for it with all the options. Since I bought it, I’m averaging about 47 mpg – and this is a 2005 model, which gets poorer mileage than the new ones do. I would buy another one.
Do you rent? Then you are helping kill the electric car.
If you are in an apartment, how are you going to charge your car without a charging station? If you rent a house like me, first of all would the landlord allow you to put a charging station in their garage and if so, why would you pay for it considering once you move it’s theirs?
From the US Department of Energy Fuel Cell Technologies Office:
On-board hydrogen storage for transportation applications continues to be one of the most technically challenging barriers to the widespread commercialization of hydrogen-fueled vehicles. The EERE hydrogen storage activity focuses primarily on the applied research and development (R&D) of low-pressure, materials-based technologies to allow for a driving range of more than 300 miles (500 km) while meeting packaging, cost, safety, and performance requirements to be competitive with current vehicles. While automakers have recently demonstrated progress with some prototype vehicles traveling more than 300 miles on a single fill, this driving range must be achievable across different vehicle models and without compromising space, performance, or cost.
From the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, “Analysis of the Trnasition to Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles & the Potential Hydrogen Energy Infrastructure Requirements”:
The transition to hydrogen-powered transportation faces imposing economic barriers. The challenges include developing and refining a new and different power-train technoloyg, building a supporting fuel infrastructure, creating a market for a new and unfamiliar vehicles, and achieving economies of scale in vehicle production while providing an attractive selection of vehicle makes and models for car-buyers. The upfront costs will be high and could persist for a decade or more, delyaing profitability until an adequate number of vehicles can be produced and moved into consumer markets.
And this is from organizations which are mandated to advocate for hydrogen fueled vehicles, and implicitly assumes that the technical and logistical issues with the supporting infrastructure will be made concamitant with the vehicle technology. The technical issues with handling diatomic hydrogen in either gaseous or cryogenic liquid form remain, and cannot just be handwaved away by citing some non-technical blurb and assuming that if a car company is working on the vehicle it must all be worked out somehow.
In comparison, the technologies and processes for handling fuels that are liquid at ambient or low pressure, such as propane, methanol, or DME are readily adaptable from the existing infrastructure; the vehicles themselves operate using variations of the very mature and well-characterized internal combustion technology without requiring any exotic materials for fuel systems, valves, or seals; and the fuels themselves are produceable from a number of extant natural energy sources, or can be efficiently synthesized from renewable sources with modest developments of existing fuel processing technology.
Stranger
Ahem. From today’s Mercury News.
Palo Alto company being Tesla.
Yes of course they are unaffordable to most people. So were PCs in the 1980s, especially because there was not much to do with them. People used to joke about how the only use was storing recipes. Then prices dropped to under $1K and the Web happened. I suspect today most people who use PCs use them for things the PCs of 25 years ago couldn’t even do.
Sales of Tesla (which are outstripping manufacturing capability) are high enough to get down the learning curve and support the infrastructure improvements necessary. It will also encourage the big guys to do the necessary research, for fear of being left out.
When it was introduced, the Prius was considered not economically justifiable and people bought it for car pool lane stickers and bragging rights. I believe it is now the best selling car in California. There are plenty of people who have $60K to spend on a car who will get a Tesla Model S to be cool. Not a majority by any means, but plenty. Tesla is in the old NUMMI plant which I drive past every day. They’ve got plenty of room to expand capacity, though I can do without the additional traffic.
It’s really about people-and-job density. Manhattan, Silicon Valley, Tokyo are great choices for electric cars.
Los Angeles or the Dallas-Ft Worth strip city are less viable places.
As to the excellent point by Saint Cad: cool apartments will install chargers for tenants.
And house renters who are staying a while might install a charger and leave it after some years; I did the same thing with a storage shed once.
Silicon Valley is nothing like those other two places. Housing prices have caused many people to live far away from work, not to mention job changing. I’m 17 miles away, and hardly have the longest trip. The Sunol Grade is a mess every day and not because a lot of people live there - they go through it.
But yeah, Tesla probably won’t sell well in Montana or West Texas.
This completely misses the point. The base Tesla S isn’t US$60k because it is a luxury car (although it is quite nice); it is US$60k because the energy storage system costs US$30k. (That is the cost of the battery pack, plus there is about a US$3k labor cost to replace it–so much for “swappable” battery packs.) Lithium ion batteries are close to their maximum economy of scale based upon the current price trend (almost flat since Q3 of 2012) and until some better and cheaper technology for storing electrical energy comes along, the Tesla S probably represents the pinnacle of electric car technology for the near term state of the art. It is a very comfortable vehicle which offers phenomenal acceleration, excellent handling (due to the low center of gravity and well-designed suspension) but in many practical respects it cannot match the capabilities of even an inexpensive compact car, and the technology is not affordable by the standards of the vast majority of car owners, which makes hash of the argument that Tesla is somehow introducing a “game changing” technology, not withstanding of the costly improvements which would have to be made to the power grid in order to support a large scale transition to electric vehicles for all transportation needs.
Stranger
Given that the battery packs are expensive, suppose it was used in a ‘detuned’ coupé or sedan. Acceleration comes at a price. Would an acceleration-limted vehicle that has good acceleration but not ‘phenomenal’, have a greater (more usable) range?
My Prius has nickel metal hydride batteries. The car is closing in on a quarter-million miles. Toyota (claims to have) designed the charging system such that the batteries will have long life; something about never letting them take the maximum charge, or something. The plug-in Prius uses lithium ion batteries. What is the life expectancy of lithium ion compared to nickel metal hydride?
Not really. The acceleration largely comes from the basic fact that with an electric motor peak torque occurs at zero rotational speed, so in order to give good response at speed it will of course have exceptional torque compared to any kind of reciprocating heat engine. Of course, the harder you accelerate, the more juice you use up, so if you spend your day tearing up pavement (and the Tesla S does have that kind of takeoff power) you aren’t going to get anywhere near the maximum advertised range, but if you drive more moderately in warm temperatures you may well exceed the advertised range, at least with a fresh battery pack.
It depends both on the particular configuration and load cycle. Lithium ion batteries are really pretty good at maintaining performance throughout their lifespan and delivery a useful power load for their weight. Lithium sulfer (Li-S) may improve energy density by up to a factor of 3 (although I think it will be closer to 2) and reduce materials cost somewhat, but even if it turns out to be viable it still isn’t going to approach the energy density and refueling speed of liquid hydrocarbon fuels. So, the applicaitons are somewhat limited; it may work fine as a commuter car and a fleet vehicle with limited range, but isn’t an acceptable substitute for a long range driver or for over-the-road haulage.
And that is the crux of the issue; a future transportation energy solution needs to provide a comprehensive, sustainable, and hopefullly carbon neutral (or at least substantially reduced) replacement for petrochemical fuels. Electric vehicles can be one component of that but without some unforeseen revolutionary advances in energy storage technology they aren’t going to serve for the majority of transportation needs. There are other potential fuels which can be a more complete replacement but they are getting relatively low levels of funding because they are not sexy or promoted by an Internet tycoon, and that retardation will force us to continue to extract petroleum from various sources using increasingly invasive and desperate means instead of comfortably transitioning to a sustainable transportation energy solution.
Stranger
Price is undoubtedly the ultimate cause (although there are tax and cultural issues too), but my point is that the degree to which fuel prices cause people to buy efficient cars is psychological, not mathematical. Whether prices feel high or low is entirely dependent on what you’re used to paying. As I mentioned, the price of fuel is a very minor part of the overall costs of running a car, even at high European fuel prices. As a result, new car buyers only get an interest in fuel economy when prices “feel” high, not when they are high by any objective measure.
So, for example, when fuel prices started going nuts in the 2000’s, they peaked at around $4/gallon. This was comparable to the price of fuel in Europe during the 1990’s. In the 2000’s US, $4/gallon felt high and caused people to start ditching their SUV’s and looking at hybrids. In 1990’s Europe, $4/gallon felt low and caused people to start buying more turbocharged sports cars.
So, basically, the price of gas has never “felt” high enough for European new car buyers to consider electrics in large numbers any more than prices have ever felt high enough for Americans to want the sorts of slow gas-sipping small cars popular in Europe.
The current Prius is a great car that completely stands up to its mid-sized competition on its own merits, but it only is because it’s had a decade and a half of refinements thanks to early adopters who were willing to buy the earlier versions. The first generation Prius was also a good car, but it was a compact economy car that cost twice as much as a comparable non-hybrid (and the fact that the very similar Echo DID cost half as much underscored this). Toyota was essentially asking people to pay quite a lot extra for the hybrid system (which would never pay for itself in y2k fuel prices) as well as taking the risk on the unproven technology in exchange for ecological bragging rights. The 1st gen Prius never sold great, but it eventually sold well enough and generated enough interest to make research in subsequent hybrids worthwhile.
GM would have been asking much the same thing of people buying a production EV-1, but I doubt as many people would have taken them up on it given GM’s reputation and corporate image in the late 90’s. I find it very hard to imagine a production EV-1 being anything but another in the long line of ostensibly innovative GM projects that flopped with consumers.