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We Could Have Had Electric Cars from the Beginning

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Re: We Could Have Had Electric Cars from the Beginning

#261

Post by godelski »

jessriedel wrote: post #208
hwillis wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an incredibly myopic take masquerading as "first principles". First, you're flat wrong on the differences between gas and batteries, especially for cars. Second, you need an actual reason energy density is the fundamental metric- cars aren't rockets and weight isn't the end-all. It's impossible to neglect the efficiency here. Car-scale combustion engines have a real world efficiency of around ten percent comp…

I like the detail that went into your reply, but it would be a lot better (and less downvoted) if you removed the vitrol.

It would also be nice if they responded to my actual point. Which was the state of technology over a hundred years ago. Using bad lead acid batteries vs poor efficiency petrol engines. The petrol was just way ahead at the time.

Re: We Could Have Had Electric Cars from the Beginning

#262

Post by rightbyte »

imtringued wrote: post #175
SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with ethanol is that the most efficient plants for making it also happen to be food crops.

No, that's not the problem. The problem is that driving tractors and producing fertilizer requires a lot of fossil fuels.

You can run the tractors on ethanol also, though?

Re: We Could Have Had Electric Cars from the Beginning

#263

Post by ineedasername »

magduf wrote: post #233
ineedasername wrote: post #231

We Could Have Had Electric Cars from the Beginning All true. If we ignore the massive increase in infrastructure needed to make them viable outside of cities. And also ignore, as the article does, the time it would take to charge along with the short lifetime of batteries in that era. It doesn't matter if their range equaled that of an IC, the IC could be ready for the next leg of a trip almost instantly compared to…

The range isn't really a problem: all you have to do is have "battery stations" where you swap out the batteries in a few minutes. This has its issues (related to ownership of the batteries, and also standardization), but technically it's completely doable. They've had lead-acid batteries for over a century now, so if society had wanted to make EVs the norm, this could have been done.

It's still an issue, requiring large infrastructure investments to build battery stations and the charging equipment. Compare this to gasoline and it's precursor mixtures which could be derived from coal, for which there already existed massive distribution infrastructure.

I think the author reads entirely too much into the supposed psychology of an IC powered vehicle instead of the much more simple explanation: path dependency.

Re: We Could Have Had Electric Cars from the Beginning

#264

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

smileysteve wrote: post #204
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no cooling system. How can this be true?

A closed loop steam engine, the burners get the boiler hot enough to produce the power they need, then the engine extracts that heat from the boiler to mechanical energy.

A closed loop steam engine without a cooling system is going to be terribly inefficient.

Heat engine efficiency is reliant on temperature differential.

Re: We Could Have Had Electric Cars from the Beginning

#265

Post by jessriedel »

godelski wrote: post #261
jessriedel wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the detail that went into your reply, but it would be a lot better (and less downvoted) if you removed the vitrol.

It would also be nice if they responded to my actual point. Which was the state of technology over a hundred years ago. Using bad lead acid batteries vs poor efficiency petrol engines. The petrol was just way ahead at the time.

Agreed.

Re: We Could Have Had Electric Cars from the Beginning

#266

Post by simonebrunozzi »

chadcmulligan wrote: post #121

Some of the reasons why petrol won: There was no electric grid to speak of - even now there is concern the grid can't support all EV's, once you were outside the cities (and there weren't many back then) the grid was spotty. The miracle of being able to pour some cheap liquid in an engine and drive for miles is a considerable achievement. Lead acid batteries weren't very good and were expensive (and still are) and do…

The problem has always been the battery.

Energy density (MegaJoule/Kilogram):

Lithium-ion battery: 0.36–0.875 MK/kg

Gasoline: 46 MJ/kg

for reference, Uranium: 80,620,000 MJ/kg

We might get parity between gasoline and electric by 2045 [0].

[0]: https://cleantechnica.com/2016/05/13/ev-battery-energy-densi...

Re: We Could Have Had Electric Cars from the Beginning

#267

Post by Animats »

dmitriid wrote: post #127
jdietrich wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an interesting example of technological synergy at the dawn of the steam engine industry. To build an effective steam engine, you need a precisely ground piston and a precisely bored cylinder, otherwise you can't get useful working pressures. Grinding the piston is laborious but straightforward - you just need two centers and a cutting tool to achieve a rotationally symmetrical part. Boring the cylinder is mu…

This also shows the curious paradox (if it’s a paradox) that we can’t easily re-create many of the industries from scratch. We’ve had many intermediate steps that we discarded along the way. In other words, modern industry is the product of modern industry.

There are points in mechanical history where you have a real problem taking the next step. The classic is "who made the first tongs?" You need a handling tool that will survive fire to do blacksmithing. How was the first one made? It's ascribed to God in some Jewish text and to Thor in some Viking legend. Probably someone used chipped rocks as handling tools.

Another bootstrapping problem is making a precise screw thread without another screw, as in a lathe, to use as a reference. This was solved by Maudsley, who invented the "screw originating machine".[1]

The sequence for bootstrapping machine tools from a very low level is well known, because hobbyists sometimes build their own machine tools and need to take upward steps. Hammer, anvil, forge, lathe, better lathe, better lathe, good lathe, planer, bigger planer, drill press, better drill press, milling machine, better milling machine, good milling machine. There's a set of books on this intended for a post nuclear disaster. (It assumes you have aluminum scrap around.) Electronics is tougher to cold start.

[1] http://collection.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/co46546/tool-...

Re: We Could Have Had Electric Cars from the Beginning

#268

Post by sunstone »

avar wrote: post #259
magduf wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're comparing solely based on the weight of the energy storage medium (fuel/batteries). Two problems here: 1) ICE cars have big, heavy engines to burn that fuel and produce mechanical power, whereas BEVs have much smaller motors, so there's a big weight advantage for the BEV. (I see you addressed this, but you're also missing the volume savings with electric motors; gas engines take up a ton of space with all the…

1) Guilty as charged. It's far from an apples to apples comparison, but if you compare like-to-like models of EVs and similar ICE vehicles you get the same story everywhere. Around 1/2 to 1/3 the range of the ICE vehicle, and 20-25% heavier. E.g. the Chevy Sonic[1] & Bolt[2] are equivalent EV/ICE vehicles. They weigh 1300 & 1600 kg respectively, have the same cargo volume, but ranges of ~750 km (most pessimistic) & ~…

And then there's the cost of the fuel. Electric car fuel is currently about 1/5 of the cost of gasoline and dropping. In addition, the cost of maintaining and electric is also much less than an ICE car so in terms of dollars per mile driven electrics are way cheaper. And that's where ICE really takes the head shot.

Re: We Could Have Had Electric Cars from the Beginning

#269

Post by hwillis »

sokoloff wrote: post #205
hwillis wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems like you responded only to the gravimetric density part of the chart and not the volumetric part of the chart. Gravimetric (specific energy, Wh/kg or MJ/kg) energy is generally more relevant than volumetric (energy density, Wh/l or MJ/l), because batteries are about twice the density of gasoline. Weight is also more valuable than volume in most vehicles, and a battery system already takes up hardly any mor…

> If you want to talk about power density, an electric battery will beat a gas engine to absolute shreds. Most (all?) production electric cars struggle to do a full power complete lap of Nürburgring Nordschleife without heat-related issues. They're amazing at the Stoplight Grand Prix (and I enjoy my cheap LEAF daily), but struggle as racecars. >> I'm not aware of any performance cars that weigh twice as much as their…

> Most (all?) production electric cars struggle to do a full power complete lap of Nürburgring Nordschleife without heat-related issues. They're amazing at the Stoplight Grand Prix (and I enjoy my cheap LEAF daily), but struggle as racecars.

No, they just don't make electric race cars. There is not yet sufficient demand. Properly cooled electric batteries make as much power as f1 engines without breaking a sweat.

Sony VTC5a cells[1] are 85% efficient at their full rated power, and can sustain that continuously for their full capacity. They do 2.4 kW/kg without a gas tank, exhaust, turbos, or intake. Their ten second burst current is double that, 4.8 kW/kg. That puts it at the same level or higher than current f1 engines, which run less than 2000 km.

If you count the weight of ancillaries as you should, electric batteries come out way ahead, particularly the most powerful ones.

> I was just responding to a previous post claiming that "performance cars in a given class can weigh DOUBLE the lightest cars in the same class", nothing more. If you claim the span is much less than double, then I agree.

I was referring to the A-F market segments when I said class, not saying that performance have a weight range that large. Performance or luxury cars can weigh twice as much as a lightweight car of the same rough size.

[1]: https://voltaplex.com/media/whitepapers/specification-sheet/...

Re: We Could Have Had Electric Cars from the Beginning

#270

Post by hwillis »

godelski wrote: post #261
jessriedel wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the detail that went into your reply, but it would be a lot better (and less downvoted) if you removed the vitrol.

It would also be nice if they responded to my actual point. Which was the state of technology over a hundred years ago. Using bad lead acid batteries vs poor efficiency petrol engines. The petrol was just way ahead at the time.

That wasn't the part that I had any complaints about, although it's not the real reason electric cars didn't win: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20182159
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