71–80 of 271 posts
They could've worked in cities. Lead-acid batteries, though, have never had the energy/weight ratio necessary for the type of long-range driving necessary outside of highly urbanized areas.
I think people tend to forget that before 1900-1940 if you were outside of the city; no electricity.
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Nuclear is denser than gasoline but we don't run cars on it. There's a lot more to the discussion than the best technology.
You’re right, otherwise we’d all be powering our cars with with zero point energy reactors. Clearly feasibility has a big part to play as well and everyone driving around little fission reactors would be ridiculously impractical from both an engineering standpoint, as well as a safety one too. Not to mention it becoming a terrorists wet dream because of all the waste material. (Not that I’m normally one to play the “…
I wouldn't be surprised if, had we gone down that path, automobiles had less fissile material in them than platinum. Currently fissile materials and high explosives are purchasable, we just keep an eye on purchases and follow up on suspicious buying patterns.
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not for lack of trying: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon but there are a lot of reasons why it never made it into production.
Interesting that the concept is based on steam engine. Would there be a way to recondense the steam for reuse, or did they plan to just release all of them? Then they would need to run on water, much like the steam locomotives of the past.
They could've worked in cities. Lead-acid batteries, though, have never had the energy/weight ratio necessary for the type of long-range driving necessary outside of highly urbanized areas.
I think people tend to forget that before 1900-1940 if you were outside of the city; no electricity.
I don't think you can really make any sort of meaningful conclusion from this - rural areas tend to lag in this sort of innovation.
Battery technology has been, and to a certain degree still is the limiting factor for electric cars...and the fact is that gasoline is still a denser form of energy storage than batteries by volume, weight etc.. I'm saying this as a someone who prefers electrics over ICE...
It's perhaps a more limiting factor now than then. As the article notes most EVs at the turn of the century had a range of 40-70 miles. The model T of around 1910, ten years later, had a range of about 90. Earlier ICE cars were down nearer EVs. A century ago battery and ICE technology were not that far apart. i.e. both fairly primitive. If electrics had been chosen and had 100 years of continual minor incremental imp…
Battery technology is still basically just ordinary chemistry and, thus, hasn't made much progress in 100 years. E.g., we use a lead acid battery in cars now, and they had lead acid batteries back then.
Just look at the periodic table, pick some elements, and make a battery. They did that 100 years ago also.
If we do something special with graphene, high temperature superconductivity, maybe still with a capacitor of "doped barium-calcium-zirconium-titanate", etc., technology not known 100 years ago, fine, but these are all long shots, both as in risky and how long it will take to be successful or give up.
Gas-electric hybrid involves essentially two engines instead of one but can do some amazing things, e.g.,
You can visit Thomas Edison's house with his lab near Newark NJ. There are two electric cars on display. Interestingly here it says in 1914 38% of all the cars on the road were electric; 22% gasoline, 40% steam powered. http://www.edisonmuckers.org/edisons-cars/
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We have seen a significant long-term R&D investment but all the nice rotary engines are in prop planes. Edit: since you mention a ship, some use large opposed-pistol Diesel engines (two oppositely meeting pistons around the combustion chamber per cylinder which also allows the cylinder to be much wider)... don’t see these in either planes or cars... Hydrogen power?—- Hydrogen is difficult to keep contained because it…
A rotary engine is not the same as a radial engine. Radial engines go in airplanes, rotary engines go in Mazdas.
Battery technology has been, and to a certain degree still is the limiting factor for electric cars...and the fact is that gasoline is still a denser form of energy storage than batteries by volume, weight etc.. I'm saying this as a someone who prefers electrics over ICE...
I think that if, then only in terms of cost. Every quarter or so I do a 1500km(935 mile) trip and back. Nowadays it takes me two days, because I realized that spending around 20h behind the wheel without rest is simply dangerous. My car's highway range is about 440 miles - but I rarely drive that far without refueling because the longest distance between my usual stops is 350 miles. And once stopped I don't just fill…
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It's perhaps a more limiting factor now than then. As the article notes most EVs at the turn of the century had a range of 40-70 miles. The model T of around 1910, ten years later, had a range of about 90. Earlier ICE cars were down nearer EVs. A century ago battery and ICE technology were not that far apart. i.e. both fairly primitive. If electrics had been chosen and had 100 years of continual minor incremental imp…
we're also omitting the steam car. Where the maintenance and dirtiness were their major detractors, refined fuels and new burners solve these. Steam engines can and could have been refilled at any gas station, could run on any multi fuel including biodiesel. They theoretically require less maintenance, no oil changes, no cooling system. They'd also have had greater range and greater top speed (though less acceleratio…
IIRC the main reason for diesel-electric locomotives for trains and large ships was that it was significantly more efficient than just steam, at least steam with just a boiler and pistons.
Of course, really large ships generate steam and then run it through a steam turbine -- no Diesel around.
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I think that if, then only in terms of cost. Every quarter or so I do a 1500km(935 mile) trip and back. Nowadays it takes me two days, because I realized that spending around 20h behind the wheel without rest is simply dangerous. My car's highway range is about 440 miles - but I rarely drive that far without refueling because the longest distance between my usual stops is 350 miles. And once stopped I don't just fill…
One hour per stop, maybe. It’s 75 minutes to fully charge the original version, so likely a bit more for the long range.
This is not how it works in reality. Last 5-10% is essentially trickle charge so it is better to skip it and charge more often but faster.
Just compare average charging power between 20-80% part of the curve and 80%-100%. It is ~4-6x difference depending on supercharger type:
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/03/08/supercharger-v3-shockin...