Be Excellent To Each Other

What on earth makes you think that?
Oh, Jeremy Clarkson. Right. As you were.

Not just that, but some that takes hours to charge in return for only a few miles - ain't going to work

Sorry for derailing a thread... but it was raised that was a discusstion to be had..

A looser what? You're seriously telling me you drive 150 miles to work every day, and then immediately come back again? Yeah, you're right, it won't work *for you*.



Not really, according to you it "ain't going to work" so we'll just leave it there.

What's your problem? You say it won't work for you, therefore it can't possibly work for anyone else. I genuinely can't argue with logic like that, so I bid you good night

I don't have a problem.. just trying to point out that electric cars have flaws and that is the distance and the time it takes to charge.

The one on top grear, looked great was fast was supposed to have distance but needed 16 hours to charge.

I beive the mass populace won't engage battery cars untill they can be charged quickly and go further.

to the mod

I like the idea of fuel cells, as it sounds cool.

Thanks mod....

I just think that it is interesting that two new technologies are trying to compete against petrol cars. But a big but, they both have big flaws..

Electric - charge time, distance and weight.
Fuel Cell - the cost of getting hydrogen into a state it can be used as a fuel

If only they could find a way of powering a car from anger and hate. You, me and would never pay for fuel again.

OF COURSE THE BLOODY GOVERNMENT WOULD TAKE OUR ANGER! GRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!

An anger tax... now where could you store such a thing...

Efficacy of the technology is the problem. Electric cars that are essentially batteries with wheels do not allow for great speed or sustained use (3 hours is good, but not if I'm driving to Scotland).

Fuel cells would be better, as they would afford more power and duration, but as you say there's an energy cost in creating the hydrogen in the first place. Possibly much greater than the cost of setting up and maintaining the electric car. It's less of a 1 vs. 1 and more of a scratchy chin as to which is the most practical.

I suppose when more are produced we can see with a balanced view what the solution is.

I think the disposing of the batteries will cause problems in later life... How would you dispose safely and cheaply that many batteries

Needed 16 hours to charge from a standard 13A plug socket.

With a dedicated charge point in your garage, dealing with 50A or more (I can't remember what the figure is) it charges in 3.5 hours. Still a lot of time compared to filling up at a petrol station, but not as "day breaking" as 16 hours.


The answer (IMO) is in cars like the Chevrolet Volt (which now may not see mass production as they're in financial trouble) that recharges the batteries as it's going along by use of a very small internal combustion engine that kicks in once the batteries are dead and uses the kinetic energy from that to recharge them back up.

Hydrogen is better.

But the electric car is a commercial reality. Hydrogen for commonplace cars has been "15 years away" as long as I've been alive.

Just like those Fusion reactors that are 50 years away.

Correct.



That's one answer, and a reasonable one, if one car has to do a variety of different things.
Another option is that since most people (or couples, or families) own more than one car anyway, make one electric. Electrics are good at covering short distances regularly, cheaply, and without maintenance (and you never have to visit a petrol station).
For example, I've done about 12,000 miles since last Christmas on electricity, and about 1000 on LPG. It's really nice not to have to fill the damn thing up every week, standing out in the weather and being subjected to the BP shop experience. I think I've been to a petrol station twice this year on my commute, and that was to use the free air compressor.

And in there is why it fails.

For the last 8 years, I have not had a garage. Not even a guaranteed parking space outside my house. So charging at home isn't practical - same would go for many city dwellers - and I can't see it as practical to go and drop off my car for 3 and a half hours at a garage if I have no means of getting to home/work - and that's ignoring the huge demand there would be. You already get lare enough queues for a 3 minute fill.

The idea is just a non starter.

For anyone who hasn't already made their mind up, there's a solution for long distances too.

It requires more infrastructure (similar to petrol stations) and has the requirement of a standardised fleet and leased batteries, but the basic concept is to swap them out at filling stations.

Sounds crazy and somewhat expensive, but they are actually *doing* this in Israel, and also I think, San Francisco.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=9Bfz_x9e2Fo

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=SPEwJfSaYmY

I was actuall thinking about teh possiblilty of swapping out batteries. But that would mean all the batteries would be the same? Is that practical for difference in car sizes?

AA for saloons and AAA for hatchbacks.

Surely a combination oh fuel cell and battery would win. Like some giant transformer come to battle on your behalf. Or something. The idea of swapping out was of course quite common with horses for long journeys. Of course. the feasibility of all having the same connectors is a big issue. What haooens when a new and beter technology appears that can not use this configuration,it would fail and we would be in the same situaton we are now. Also, I rather prefer the concept of carrying about a load hydrogen, than half a ton of lithium, and that is saying something!

And that's actually quite a major issue because of course, the people it should benefit most are the city drivers.

Who can't really use it.

All the arguments in favour of fuel cells seem to assume that batteries are as good as they can get, which is bollocks. Surely better batteries will be the answer. Something like this applied to an electric car:

http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2007_12/pr1101.htm

would make most of the arguments in favour of fuel cells redundant wouldn't it?

The artical I posted basically say batteries have not changed dramatically.

So it is hard to beleive that they would change more so in the future. Yes a little smaller etc. But the way they work is the chemical reaction they always have been.


Plus we can only really look at tech that is currently availabe or availabe soon... else we could be discussing cold fussion car engines for our flying cars

I did read that article but it was fundamentally wrong in a few ways. They have changed dramatically.
Still terribly limited compared to petrol, energy density-wise, but are certainly into very useful territory now.

I will look forward to see what happens..

But the hydrogen cell would give better range currently.

I suppose it is where you live. i live in rural shropshire (nr Ironbridge). If I was just going to the office and back then electric could work. But I do a fair bit of travelling, done over 40k in 18 months.

The odd trip I do to reading or inverness, yould make it hard to use an electric. But a hydrogen maybe, as fuel stations could stock it.

What sort of costings are you looking at for charges - how much does that 300 mile 3.5 hour charge-up cost you in electricity?

It did and it's wrong, it ignores things like nanotechnology. I just posted a link to some Toshiba batteries that have the fast recharge (90% capacity in five minutes) that would be ideal in an electric vehicle. A123 cells are already in widespread use in such things as power tools, offering much improved safety over the previous LiPos.

Right, you lot can stop your arguing. Irrefutable proof that batteries are better.

Lol......


It is not really argument.. Battery cars will need a infrastucture change... Plus teh electicity has to be created some where.

Eh? Where do you think the hydrogen comes from?

With good enough batteries I fail to see a single advantage of turning the electricity into a liquid before driving it around the country to be pumped into big tanks to be pumped back into cars only to be turned back into electricity.

It actually doesn't. It just gives you faster refill times. The best hydrogen and the best batteries have pretty similar range, today.



Maybe. It's actually not a very easy substance to deal with - it requires expensive infrastructure. But we already have the grid.
And similarly, you *could* drive to Inverness even in an electric car without a swappable pack. How long can you comfortably drive for anyway? 3 hours is about it for me, then I like to take a rest. 3 hours driving, 1 hour charging is quite feasible with today's technology. Or split the journey over a night if fast charging isn't ubiquitous yet.
And if it's only the "odd" trip, why not take the train or rent a gas car as needed?

My point is, people have become very used to petroleum fuels. Things are going to change and we'll have to get used to it - practically all of the other solutions are "less practical" than petrol if that's what you're used to. It doesn't make them unworkable though.

The only advantage is that it allows people to treat it as a portable fuel so that they can use it in the same way as petrol (ignoring all the difficulties that are in the way of that). But politically it sounds good, and can always be put off because it's so difficult.

In fact, if you start with electricity, your battery car goes about 4 times further per unit of electricity than a hydrogen ones does. The market simply wouldn't allow it to happen - especially as fuel cells are much more expensive than batteries!

So the plan by the oil giants is to use natural gas to generate the hydrogen (wasting quite a lot of it in the process).

Unfortunately at this point it's wildly more cheaper and practical to simply run the cars on compressed natural gas in the first place. With a modern engine and catalyser, the emissions with CNG are practically zero anyway.

So why bother with hydrogen at all? The only reason is hype, and the excuse to put off doing nothing now.

I supposed it is how you use the car.

I can do Telford to Inverness in about 9 hours including a few 1/2 hour breaks.

The only viable alternatice is to fly, but that is on evn friendly at all.

My wife is into the environment, so I am trying to do my bit.

I agree what every way we go for electric, hydrogen or fairy dust. We will have to look at the may we use our cars. It is too easy to jump in the car and go, re-fuel after 500 miles etc...

I think this will be the deciding factor, it is not as much of a change.

You refuel like you do now. Drive to fuel station put pipe in car, fill up, drive away........ rince and repeat.

A mate of mine drove from Telford to my house (near Edinburgh) and back this summer, in his old and broken electric van. It really doesn't go very far on a charge, only 50-60 miles. But he did it in about 24 hours each way, recharging at campsites and services off the motorway.

Clearly it's not practical or desirable to do that, but bear in mind, even this vintage model has the capability to be recharged in half an hour. If filling stations also had a fast charger, he'd have done it in only a slightly slower time than you would in a petrol car.

How much does it cost to charge the car?

That's what I mean. It sounds good. But it's so difficult and expensive to do that it will almost certainly never happen on a mass scale, outside of places like iceland where it might actually be appropriate. Car companies know this but are happy to discourage people from demanding electrics on the basis that "hydrogen is the future". Oil companies are happy to soak up millions and millions in grants to "research" the potential of the hydrogen economy, in which they would still have you over a barrel. Politicians don't understand the technical and other difficulties, but it sounds "green" and they are just happy to postpone the problems to another day or another administration.

The main problem is too many people using way too much energy for personal transport. As much as you or I may enjoy this, it's not going to continue. Why do I like electric cars? They help this situation: you use less energy per mile and you can use renewable energy. Hydrogen would actually use more energy.
In fact, until you've got free energy in the form of fusion power, I really don't see the purpose of hydrogen as an energy carrier.

About 50p - £1 per charge. I think he offered a lot more on that trip in order to encourage people to let him charge.

My back of the envelope maths says -

13Amp x 230v x 16hr =~ 48kwh

1 kwh is about 15p at the moment, I think.

So a charge is about £7.20

That's basing it on domestic pricing though.

I once drove from Shrewsbury to Glasgow in just under 3.5 hours.

That was starting out at about 5am in the morning so the M6 was dead pretty much all the way up to Carlisle, I could punch it all the way.

That's not bad at all, considering I currently pay c.£60 for a 450 mile tank.

But surely the government would find a way of whacking electicity fuel duty on top of that, no?

To be fair that is the quickest part of the journey, once north of Edinburgh.... the dreaded A9 (I think) can take the same time again

It'd be difficult. They'd have to tax on mileage instead (well, as well, petrol isn't going to disappear overnight).

Right now though, road tax for electric cars is '0', you just pay the VAT on the electricity.