Going electric

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Going electric

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The most interesting development at the moment is the Nikola One Truck. It runs on a Hydrogen Fuel cell which can be refilled in 15 minutes,

I thought I'd seen somewhere that producing hydrogen needs a lot of electricity. Might work, I suppose if we produce it overnight when demand is lower. If we have the spare capacity after everyone plugs their car in.

Lots of areas in Norwich like this, they are stating to knock down a lot of them and redevelop them, many where built before cars existed so you can barely park on the road and get another car past.

That said there is the potential for a kinda American style parking meter at the kerbside that people could plug into in these areas and pay on the meter for charging (which is how most current public chargers work)

Most of these streets do not have enough space for each house to have one car, so might be a fight for the spaces with meters. Still has cables that might get unplugged by passers-by. Especially if you've 'stolen' 'their' space.
 
I thought I'd seen somewhere that producing hydrogen needs a lot of electricity. Might work, I suppose if we produce it overnight when demand is lower. If we have the spare capacity after everyone plugs their car in.
These Hydrogen fuel cells use an electrolytic solution (mostly comprised of water) then though a reaction in the cell produce electricity, they don't actually burn the hydrogen and don't need hydrogen in gas form.

This explains it in a fairly simple way http://www.real-world-physics-problems.com/salt-water-fuel-cell-car.html


Most of these streets do not have enough space for each house to have one car, so might be a fight for the spaces with meters. Still has cables that might get unplugged by passers-by. Especially if you've 'stolen' 'their' space.

Yep, I had thought you'd suggest something like this, I suppose a current equivalent would be someone siphoning your tank, I'm sure that systems that could be locked in place and armoured charging cables would become common place (stop someone cutting it) My concern would be someone unplugging your car to charge their own, on your meter.
 
every now and again our local TV news reports on a BP scheme with hydrogen pumps in Swindon.. cannot remember the details ( Swindon..)

of course Elderly Americans will recall Model T's running on the stuff in the 20's..

as usual very little is actually NEW it's just revisited with modern materials and knowledge

if you find something that worked acceptably in the 1930's, use modern aerodynamics, lighter monocoque contruction and a 10-speed auto box it'd transform the thing.. ;)
 
Hydrogen as vehicle fuel is an interesting subject. Has advantages, high mass energy density, only emission when fully combusted is water. But there are disadvantages, it''s hard to store having a low volume energy density. Compession requires energy and special material or treatments for the tanks to prevent hydrogen embritlement. The liquid phase is cryogenic at -252 deg C and liquifaction takes more energy. That leaves storge as hydride but this has it's own issues. Then there is the energy to make the Hydrogen. Ths is commonly electricty but can be natual gas or biofuel. This website http://heshydrogen.com/hydrogen-fuel-cost-vs-gasoline/ claims that hydrogen gives 81 miles per kg, has no carbon footprint or other environmental impact and costs $1.50 per kg. It then hs a foot note that says it takes 32.9 kWh of electricty per kg of H2. This goes up to 60kWh when compressed, thats the approximate battery capacity of standard Tesla S, good for a couple of hundred miles. This document: https://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/htac_oct13_10_bonner.pdf
indicates a price of $7 per kg. As with all things, this will improve, but research has been going on for a long time with no real breakthroughs.
 
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My concern would be someone unplugging your car to charge their own, on your meter.
Hopefully, disconnection stops the payment charging, so whilst it doesn't charge your car, it cannot charge another without their payment. Could lead to a few street fights.

every now and again our local TV news reports on a BP scheme with hydrogen pumps in Swindon.. cannot remember the details ( Swindon..)

I think, like a lot of things that have been trialled in Swindon, it fizzled out.
 
Hopefully, disconnection stops the payment charging, so whilst it doesn't charge your car, it cannot charge another without their payment. Could lead to a few street fights.

I think, like a lot of things that have been trialled in Swindon, it fizzled out.

The connector is locked in when the car is charging and the car is locked. likewise you can't drive off with the car plugged in. Basic safety precautions.
If you invented the petrol fuelled car today the filling method would doubtless have to use self sealing couplings and vapour returns to meet modern safety standards, and rightly so.

Robert G8RPI.
 
If you invented the petrol fuelled car today the filling method would doubtless have to use self sealing couplings and vapour returns to meet modern safety standards, and rightly so.

Robert G8RPI.

People make enough fuss about the occasional electric car that has caught fire, jumping on it as an excuse to ban all things electric and claim they're dangerous.
"if the battery is punctured it will burst into flames"

Can you imagine if someone invented the petrol car now and said

"its great all you have to do is fill this tank with highly volatile explosive liquid, pump it to the front of the car in little plastic pipes exposed to the road and debris past a hot exhaust system and into the engine, where thousands of explosions a second push a crank and make the car move, oh and if you're in an accident the plastic tank might get punctured and spill gallons of the highly flammable liquid all over the crash scene"

People would literally be screaming its a death trap, and wouldn't even consider going anywhere near the thing.
 
People make enough fuss about the occasional electric car that has caught fire, jumping on it as an excuse to ban all things electric and claim they're dangerous.
"if the battery is punctured it will burst into flames"

Can you imagine if someone invented the petrol car now and said

"its great all you have to do is fill this tank with highly volatile explosive liquid, pump it to the front of the car in little plastic pipes exposed to the road and debris past a hot exhaust system and into the engine, where thousands of explosions a second push a crank and make the car move, oh and if you're in an accident the plastic tank might get punctured and spill gallons of the highly flammable liquid all over the crash scene"

People would literally be screaming its a death trap, and wouldn't even consider going anywhere near the thing.


Never mind that...

"So are there any environmental implications? Not really, it just releases a bit of exhaust gas, Exhaust gas? does it have any harmful side effects? A few, how long do you have? Don't worry I get the picture, so it'll only release these away from human habitation like a power station yeah? No I plan for them to be so numerous that even though each one is point source of emissions the cumulative effect will be diffused across everywhere they are used..I see..have you been huffing that petrol stuff?"
 
Not entirely sure if this belongs here as it is still old tech effectively not the electric dream but there will be stepping stones on the way to the future..

But this is happening in 2018-9

So why should we care about next years Mazda 3 unless you happen to own one..well HERE'S a bit more information on HCCI from Wikipedia. So every petrol engine has effectively worked the same way since they were first built, yes they have more valves..the induction can be forced..they have many or fewer or cylinders but all production cars use spark plugs. The idea is no spark plugs..or at least to have spark plugs that only operate at cold start similar to glow plugs and at high rpm where HCCI doesn't work.

They are planning to combine it with hybrid tech (they bought some off Toyota a few years ago) so it could be a technically interesting thing indeed. Don't know if I'd go as far as interesting in general..
 
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When I started in the motor trade,average efficiency for a petrol engine was around 25%, rising to 30% over a few years. I don't think it is much better now. This means that for the fuel you put in, only 30% of it is driving you along, the rest is lost as heat and frictional losses, etc. HCCI aims to improve the efficiency, so with more of the fuel driving the car along, less fuel is used for any journey.

Honda had something like this ready to go in the early nineties, but it was scuppered by the legal requirements around catalysts. Honda's lean burn engines did not need a catalyst to give a clean exhaust, but the legislation for catalysts insisted they be fitted. Honda tried using an empty catalyst, but Europe and USA would not accept it. So despite them being able to produce more efficient and cleaner engines, they were not allowed to be sold. Genius. So Honda either scrapped the technology, or placed it on hold. HCCI is, I think a development of that idea, so it is interesting to see that the catalyst hurdle appears to have been overcome.
 
When I started in the motor trade,average efficiency for a petrol engine was around 25%, rising to 30% over a few years. I don't think it is much better now. This means that for the fuel you put in, only 30% of it is driving you along, the rest is lost as heat and frictional losses, etc. HCCI aims to improve the efficiency, so with more of the fuel driving the car along, less fuel is used for any journey.

Honda had something like this ready to go in the early nineties, but it was scuppered by the legal requirements around catalysts. Honda's lean burn engines did not need a catalyst to give a clean exhaust.

And the fact you couldn't lubricate with LEAD in the fuel IIRC..
 
Lead was not a lubricant, in the chemical compound concerned it was used to prevent pre-ignition of the mix, otherwise known as knocking. It so happens that valves and such liked it too but that was a side effect
 
I seem to recall it was PROTON who went leanburn for their mainstream UK sales.

Didnt do them any favours did it...

I recall most of the world was still on leaded fuel @10 years ago..interesting to know if leanburn tech was actually still in production somewhere

Anyway time to climb back into that Electric vehicle thread.. ;)
 
Currently manufacturers are spending billions of developing the new super clean, planet saving engine, however I think since Tesla came along they are looking in teslas tool box then back at their own and wondering why they are bothering.

Engines are now horrifically complicated just to meet emissions regulations and have not seen any significant improvement in fuel economy, where as a motor and a battery is about as basic as it gets, the technology already exists and is, from a tail pipe stand point, completely clean. So the people who hold the purse strings are now thinking, why are we paying all this money to develop engines when we already have a perfectly good alternative.

The main problem with the likes of tesla is they are fantastic at going from 0-60 in 3-something seconds and cost £70k where as most users want something sensible they can use every day costs a reasonable amount to buy and return a decent mileage to a charge.

I did read yesterday that a group of 5 Italians managed 1000km on a single charge in a tesla model S 100D so these cars are capable of a much better range than is quoted so with some R&D investments by the big companies it's likely that the range and durability of these cars could easily match that of a fuel burning car and maybe still return a greater level of performance.

I think there's a few projects at the moment such as variable capacity engines that alter the stroke depending on the driving conditions, however I suspect in the next 20 years these things will be dropped in favour of electric only propulsion.
 
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There could be more to do as the door is not closed on hybrid configurations. In that case it is likely an optimised small ic engine at peak power is used to charge batteries in an otherwise entirely electric car. some are touting a tiny gas turbine for this, low mass and quite small. Significant emissions saving in city (can turn off) with the long range energy density of a liquid fuel. Can be overall very much more efficient than today and streets ahead of a Prius configuration.
 
There could be more to do as the door is not closed on hybrid configurations. In that case it is likely an optimised small ic engine at peak power is used to charge batteries in an otherwise entirely electric car. some are touting a tiny gas turbine for this, low mass and quite small. Significant emissions saving in city (can turn off) with the long range energy density of a liquid fuel. Can be overall very much more efficient than today and streets ahead of a Prius configuration.

Jaguar did this several years ago with the C-X57
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaguar_C-X75


Robert G8RPI.
 
Currently manufacturers are spending billions of developing the new super clean, planet saving engine, however I think since Tesla came along they are looking in teslas tool box then back at their own and wondering why they are bothering.

Engines are now horrifically complicated just to meet emissions regulations and have not seen any significant improvement in fuel economy, where as a motor and a battery is about as basic as it gets, the technology already exists and is, from a tail pipe stand point, completely clean. So the people who hold the purse strings are now thinking, why are we paying all this money to develop engines when we already have a perfectly good alternative.

The main problem with the likes of tesla is they are fantastic at going from 0-60 in 3-something seconds and cost £70k where as most users want something sensible they can use every day costs a reasonable amount to buy and return a decent mileage to a charge.

I did read yesterday that a group of 5 Italians managed 1000km on a single charge in a tesla model S 100D so these cars are capable of a much better range than is quoted so with some R&D investments by the big companies it's likely that the range and durability of these cars could easily match that of a fuel burning car and maybe still return a greater level of performance.

I think there's a few projects at the moment such as variable capacity engines that alter the stroke depending on the driving conditions, however I suspect in the next 20 years these things will be dropped in favour of electric only propulsion.

I saw the tesla story however while the headline is impressive travelling that distance at speeds that rival the stage coach isn't particularly. 27 hours iirc, slightly faster than cycling. Tbf if they had travelled at normal speeds and used superchargers the same journey would have been about 16 hrs.

The supercharger concept only works if electric cars are the minority, the moment they are reasonably common then there is going to come a day when your car is flat and all the chargers are taken. That's not to say they couldn't ever do it but realistically there is going to be a time between full ICE and Full electric over the next 20 years. It'll take time for infrastructure to happen.

HCCI characteristics are perfect for a CVT/hybrid powertrain..and of course Mazda has signed a deal with Toyota to get the best on the market for future use.

Not only that but they've found a use for the rotary it's very small size and weight makes it perfect for use as a REX. Which they tested back in 2011 iirc, constant rpm running solves a lot of wear issues the rotary had.

Other manufacturers will be doing similar I'm sure but just because a tesla can travel a long way now doesn't mean if everyone changed over tomorrow what is there could cope. Petrol cars will still be with us for a good proportion of the time between now and 2040 if not all of it in more and more electrified forms.
 
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Other manufacturers will be doing similar I'm sure but just because a tesla can travel a long way now doesn't mean if everyone changed over tomorrow what is there could cope. Petrol cars will still be with us for a good proportion of the time between now and 2040 if not all of it in more and more electrified forms.

Oh I agree, ICEs are not going to disappear over night, but we are now almost certainly in a transition and it's not unreasonable to expect that they will disappear in the future.

There is a lot of speculation about the way we will use the technology in there future. The main theory seems to be that while at the moment we go to a fuel station and fill up, in the future cars will be charged where ever they're parked and we won't need filling stations or super charger stations for anything other than a top up midway through a long journey.

The current thinking is that cars spend about 90% of their time parked up and not being used l, so there is ample opportunity to keep the battery ready for action without causing any inconvenience to your day.

I drive an hour to work and an hour home, I might nip to Tesco in the evening to get some shopping but for the most part my car sits unused for 22hrs a day, if I had an electric car with a 300 mile range, and I plugged it in at work and at home, I'd need never worry about going to a fuel/charging station.
 
Oh I agree, ICEs are not going to disappear over night, but we are now almost certainly in a transition and it's not unreasonable to expect that they will disappear in the future.

There is a lot of speculation about the way we will use the technology in there future. The main theory seems to be that while at the moment we go to a fuel station and fill up, in the future cars will be charged where ever they're parked and we won't need filling stations or super charger stations for anything other than a top up midway through a long journey.

The current thinking is that cars spend about 90% of their time parked up and not being used l, so there is ample opportunity to keep the battery ready for action without causing any inconvenience to your day.

I drive an hour to work and an hour home, I might nip to Tesco in the evening to get some shopping but for the most part my car sits unused for 22hrs a day, if I had an electric car with a 300 mile range, and I plugged it in at work and at home, I'd need never worry about going to a fuel/charging station.

I theoretically am in a better position in that my weekly commuting mileage is 90 miles a week if I go the long way round. So if I paid for a charger at my home address job done. But there have also been occasions in the last year I've done 400-450 miles in less than 24 hours. At these times you'd need to know there's somewhere you can charge either on route or at your destination.

My point was more even if suddenly an affordable electric car with a 300 mile range is available, it would need to have somewhere to charge, either at home or publically and at this time that's not happening overnight or even soon. So while other manufacturers may be looking at tesla, ICE development is not going to stop until this happens.
 
There is a lot of speculation about the way we will use the technology in there future. The main theory seems to be that while at the moment we go to a fuel station and fill up, in the future cars will be charged where ever they're parked and we won't need filling stations or super charger stations for anything other than a top up midway through a long journey.

I'd agree; developing a robust charging infrastructue is a necessary step along the way to widespread and sustainable EV use.

Long distance cruising is the achilles heel of current EV's, since that is when power consumption is highest, and recharging takes much longer than refuelling a fossil fuelled car.

If we're being fanciful, how about powered roadways on trunk routes; something akin to today's guided busways, where all cars travel driverless at the same speed, collecting power from conductor rails for propulsion and at the same time recharging the batteries.

Another idea could be to reinstate the motorail network, with cars travelling long distances driving onto adapted wagons on electrified railways; the car recharges on the wagon, whilst driver and passengers recharge in the lounge car.
 
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