901–910 of 919 posts
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Whoa so… 100kwh is 40mg! 3grains of sand to run a Tesla https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=100kwh%2F%282.5+gwh%2Fk...
Except a lot more is released at once so it will accelerate like a jet engine on every stop sign
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How is that the same thing? Every ounce of oil coming out of the groud and getting burned ends up as CO2 in the atmosphere. Banning that has nothing to do with ICEs. You can run an ICE on synthetic fuels. It's not as energy-efficient but only half the efficiency from a renewable source is still better than "full" efficiency from a fossil source. If you _really_ must use an ICE, there will be a way. It won't be cheap,…
"Half the efficiency" is highly optimistic. Afaik making synfuels loses about 70% of the energy and then you burn the stuff in an engine that is at best 40% efficient. Meanwhile EVs have >70% wind turbine to wheel motion efficiency.
Imagine saving all of that for a much smaller battery (say, 100 miles range) which is enough for 45+ weeks of the year, and then for the rare case of driving further than that you bring gasoline with you, with its vastly superior energy density and thus range. Only for those few trips. It can well be super expensive, but who cares, it's only for that rare trip to the grandparents or the skiing resort. And then you don't need to care much about the bad end-to-end efficiency. After all, you don't care about that when taking a plane to Hawaii either, do you?
Currently, plug-in hybrids tend to just be used as gasoline cars because people are lazy and don't charge every night. There are gas stations everywhere, fuel is cheap, and you are used to filling up gas anyway. But once gasoline prices spike to 3x-5x because it's synthetic fuels, the dynamic will change, fewer gas stations around, the reduced economies of scale lead to further price hikes and boom, everybody will use their plug-ins mainly as EVs. Which is what I'm describing above. Which could outperform pure EVs because you don't need a 500 miles EV range anymore, you can make do with 100 miles.
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"Half the efficiency" is highly optimistic. Afaik making synfuels loses about 70% of the energy and then you burn the stuff in an engine that is at best 40% efficient. Meanwhile EVs have >70% wind turbine to wheel motion efficiency.
I'm not disputing any of that. It's just that in an EV you currently drive around over half a ton of battery with you on your 20 miles a day commutes. That's highly inefficient as well. You need energy to drive it around, you need a bigger car to house it, better safety systems to prevent that solid fuel bomb from going off, you need to source its raw materials, manufacture it, recycle it. Imagine saving all of that…
Or build public transit for the commute and don't use a car at all.
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> which is ~27% of the energy required to run a normal car! This is because you're not comparing the same things: going from thermal energy to mechanical energy has a much lower efficiency than going from electricity to mechanical energy. But that electricity has to come from somewhere, and most of the losses happen at the electricity generation place instead of in the car. > It just wouldn't have been possible to ru…
Sorry, but this is BS. Modern electric engines in Tesla Model 3 use high-speed power transistors to precisely modulate the magnetic field. Back in 1920 all you could do was a collector plate with brushes. The difference is like the difference between carburetor engines and direct fuel injection.
And these are still more efficient than most combustion engines *today*, that's exactly my point.
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I'm not disputing any of that. It's just that in an EV you currently drive around over half a ton of battery with you on your 20 miles a day commutes. That's highly inefficient as well. You need energy to drive it around, you need a bigger car to house it, better safety systems to prevent that solid fuel bomb from going off, you need to source its raw materials, manufacture it, recycle it. Imagine saving all of that…
If you want the same car to run 100 miles on battery and have the option to fuel it with synfuels you need to lug around useless drivetrain most days. The better option is to just rent a car with sufficient range for the long trip you want to make. Or build public transit for the commute and don't use a car at all.
I understand the drivetrain argument. What about a simple generator to recharge the battery on the go? Like the original BMW i3 had. That one didn't take off, but likely in part because it was ugly, too small to be practical, and the gas prices still being very low.
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How is this related to IP? We are talking about legislature being written to force us to be more Eco friendly. No politician ever wrote or proposed legislation for IP versions.
> How is this related to IP? It’s an analogous situation demonstrating how hard it is to unseat an incumbent, ubiquitous technology with another, and how long it takes, even if that alternative is superior.
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Engineering first? From the company with 1 inch gaps between panels? From the company that had no mechanical handles in the back, so if the electrical stuff stopped working (say, because the battery was on fire), passengers in the back had to finish a puzzle to find out how to get out of the car?
My panels look great. i also never look at the outside, because I am inside enjoying it. I guess if you care about panels gap and not performance, go ahead and get a Brokeswagon?
I will, and "Brokeswagon" marks you as a Tesla-Musk tech-bro from a mile away...
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Have they? Other than lithium based batteries getting cheaper per kilogram so that year by year, more battery use cases have switched over from inherently worse chemistries? Even just ten years ago, eneloop were still the hot thing for many applications outside of laptops, mobile phones and the odd Tesla (ten years ago was when Model S was still the fresh new successor to the converted Lotus)
Is eneloop not still very much a thing? Maybe not the brand, but the technology. The vast, vast majority of consumer devices using standardized battery sizes are AA or AAA, and that means NiMH. To go lithium means 18650, and I don't really see much of that happening outside flashlights and other niche products.
I hope we eventually get a consumer friendly standard for lithium though. It could be so much better than cylindrical cells, we could have all our cheap gadgets using micro versions of the power tool slide on shoe concept or something. Kinda unbelievable the ISO isn't trying to standardize prismatic type cells.
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Is eneloop not still very much a thing? Maybe not the brand, but the technology. The vast, vast majority of consumer devices using standardized battery sizes are AA or AAA, and that means NiMH. To go lithium means 18650, and I don't really see much of that happening outside flashlights and other niche products.
Why does going lithium mean 18650? 14500s have always existed. I think there’s even smaller than that but I haven’t personally checked in a bit.
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If you want the same car to run 100 miles on battery and have the option to fuel it with synfuels you need to lug around useless drivetrain most days. The better option is to just rent a car with sufficient range for the long trip you want to make. Or build public transit for the commute and don't use a car at all.
I'm personally on board with rentals for the occasional long trip or using and building out public transit. But most people are not. Especially not in NA. I understand the drivetrain argument. What about a simple generator to recharge the battery on the go? Like the original BMW i3 had. That one didn't take off, but likely in part because it was ugly, too small to be practical, and the gas prices still being very low…