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Electric Car Future

Migrated topic.
I used to be a fan of the idea of the electric car..
the problem with them is waste in the form of spent batteries
(because, obviously, batteries can only accept a finite number of charges)
the idea of the mass-produced electric car has been around for over 100 years, got tossed aside, and resurfaced in the 1970's.
the compressed air car seems like a cool idea, although it's not as efficient
 
Yea have to agree, they even say that the electric car battery can only have about 2,000 charges for its life-time. Ideally they would be recycled and regenerated but we're not there yet unfortunately. I know a lot of people are doing work on batteries even one of my fellows at school is making a novel cell. Still though there's no indication of a 'quick-fix' yet.

Guess it's a trade-off, recycle batteries or burn fuel? One can argue that batteries are charged by burning fuel but the idea in the TED talk I linked is to only charge them using 'green' electricity. IE Norway would use all wind energy, Isreal all solar, etc.

I know many scrap metal yards pay $5 USD per car battery that is recycled, though I think this might be government subsidized(not sustainable but at least it's cleaner).

Never heard of a compressed air car but it sounds interesting.
 
Peugeot also releases a compressed air car. I read somewhere that braking energy is stored and later used to compress nitrous oxygen which then can be used for boosts. Also mentioned was that the technology isn't very efficient.

Electric cars with batteries are imo the 'eco' biggest scam. They are far from green for the reason benzyme notes.
A funny thing to note is that here in the Netherlands people with hybrids like the Prius driving like idiots and therefor totally downplay their 'eco' advantages. Mostly they are the kind that drive those cars to showing the outside they 'care' :) . Same reason that those L.A. celebs drive the Prius. Driving a diesel powered engine at 90-100 km/h instead of 140 with your hybrid is far more 'eco'.

Imo the future is either electrical powered cars in which the electricity is generated by hydrogen powered fuel cells in-house or either running directly on hydrogen engines generated from wind, streaming water (and tidal energy) and solar energy (also the panels are not that ' green' ).

The biggest problem is the tanking and road safety. Also the hydrogen should be made from 'green' sources because using conventional resources will make the production very inefficient. It is still inefficient with current electrolysis technology but when the source is 'green' at least it's 'green'. Imo efficiency should not always be the motivator.

Also I read somewhere a certain algae could generate hydrogen, which maybe could be more efficient.

Imagine only water and oxygen as waste. Direct the and oxygen to tubes and you'll have your pure water and oxygen bar right at your dashboard. Sounds to good to be true.

But hey I'm no expert so probably i'm missing out on a lot of things here ..... :)
 
whatever happened to the hydrogen-cell car?

i was working in a warehouse where they were testing these out (three motor companies), and they seemed to drive fine..

they had signs all over the warehouse talking about how you could expect to see these in the public by 2015 (this was probably around 2009).

never heard anything about them as soon as i left that warehouse.
 
@ Parshvik Chintan

I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist but I think the political lobby has a lot to do with the slow progress of hydrogen technology (which is decades old). Also there probably are some technical challenges with respect to safety and that dirty word efficiency.
 
Poekus said:
I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist but I think the political lobby has a lot to do with the slow progress of hydrogen technology (which is decades old). Also there probably are some technical challenges with respect to safety and that dirty word efficiency.
Click to expand...
i don't want to sound like a conspiracy factist, but i don't think corrupt lobbyists looking out for personal monetary gain is a theory
 
A non-SWIM household I know of has three electric vehicles...they are the comparatively less expensive "EV Lite" technology, in that they cannot drive on electric power alone, like a Prius can, but they find a number of other ways to use electricity to reduce gasoline consumption.
So, they have been a good investment for this non-SWIM, savings on gas easily exceeding the higher (though possibly government-subsidized) cost of the vehicle. However, these cars do use metallic nickel in the batteries, and when one measures the entire pollution footprint, including the impact of the filthy nickel mining and disposal processes, I'm pretty sure it tanks the equation. I cannot speak for the newer lithium-ion battery technology.

I could lease right now a Mercedes fuel cell car for $850 a month, but one of the few service stations in Southern Calif, which was nearby, recently closed ... and who wants to drive 30-40 miles to fill up? Sure, that cost included fuel and insurance ... but even so .... Yikes!! You get much better mileage getting behind your VG, per cup of hydrocarbons used ... plus, you can recycle!

Next year, both Mercedes and Hyundai will have new-generation fuel cell vehicles available for lease here. Better efficiency, hopefully better pricing...

new Mercedes fuel cell vehicle

Hyundai hydrogen fuel cell car on way
 
Indeed the batteries have longer life spans nowadays but still the waste from the leftover battery combined with the production of energy needed to charge the battery is worser that the waste (fumes and fuel production) produced by traditional fuel at the same milage.

That's what I meant with 'eco' scam., because they promote those cars as cleaner than conventional fuels.
They even discriminate in taxes by this principle.

Indeed for the direct surroundings they are more eco friendly e.g. less smog in cities. So I can understand why city policies want more electrical cars to get better air quality.

So I'm definitely not against electric cars but batteries will stay the bottleneck unless they come with a groundbreaking battery technology soon and most probably a lot of smart techie people at this moment are trying to figure that out.

What I meant with the political lobby is that renewably energy tech development tech is slowed down big time by the petrochemical lobby. A fine example for this was a dutch entrepeneur who made big investments in machinery to get out the oil of hemp seeds and convert it into biodiesel. Hemp seeds being one of the highest oil yielding seeds. A big advantage too is that hemp is not that soil demanding at all and the other plant matter could be used to make the one of the strongest fibers for use in construction. He got so much governmental interference that he had to move to eastern europe to proceed his research.
Then on the other hand the petro giants can go on with very polluting techs like shale gas fracking without too much interference and of course our policy makers know well enough that that shitty tech won't do us good in the long run.

But indeed new tech is developing such as the link you provided and that gives hope!
 
I think I'm just a pawn in a game being being played out energy moguls and corrupt governments, so I try not to impose too much guilt on myself in relation to the terms those moguls dictate, such as where our energy is coming from.

I just want an electric car - really really bad

Here's a street registered electric Datsun that can blow the doorhandles off almost anything else in street configuration racing on a dragstrip.

[YOUTUBE]

[YOUTUBE]
 
Hieronymous said:
I think I'm just a pawn in a game being being played out energy moguls and corrupt governments, so I try not impose too much guilt on myself in relation to the terms those moguls dictate, such as where our energy is coming from.

I just want an electric car - really really bad
Click to expand...

You're right, you can't do shit about that unfair practices. Too high level and those cars really have awesome power.

This kid will never forget this ride :)

[YOUTUBE]
 
I've always never understood why, with all the great technological advances, we are still using the same basic design of the internal combustion engine.

I've tried to look into hydrogen powered cars and I believe it is not out of reach to create a simple , efficient electrolysis system to substitute the combustion of fuel with hydrogen gas. An engine of the such, would have varying gas mileage depending the efficiency of the electrolysis system; but would be renewable and put off no emissions.

I've seen a few documentaries that showed cars sort of similar to what I described above and being the nut I am, I do believe the oil industry prevents great technologies from being mass produced.
 
I knew a clever mechanic who actually built a hydrogen engine that ran on water and produced more output energy than input...
One day some 'Suits' turned up and we never saw him again...:surprised
 
Cyb I call BS, lol. No offense but no, that didn't happen. Cool story though. Free-energy or a so called over-unity is impossible. (adds a dollar to the if I had a dollar for every time someone claimed free-energy fund)

@ realmsundiscovered - There is actually a problem with electrolysis generating hydrogen gas. In that it requires quite a lot of electrical energy to produce a useable amount of hydrogen gas. It can be done, but then you have to have a massive tank of water, a lot of electrical energy, and a hydrogen fuel cell all working in unison. If I recall correctly the proportions to get this to work are unreasonable and not going to work for any long run. Its much more reasonable with our current technology to have hydrogen fuel stations(there are solar powered hydrogen fuel stations currently open one in California even?) and produce the hydrogen using say solar, wind, geothermal, etc. I think it was Norway who powers 95% of their country from hot-springs? That would be an ideal place for hydrogen powered vehicles. As they have immediate access to essentially free($) electrical energy for the electrolysis of water. They could also export immense quantities of said gas globally, but I still don't think hydrogen is a better solution then electric.

Hydrogen and electric hybrids are realistic and several companies have looked into prototypes. I'm more in favor of straight electric however.

For an electric automobile revolution all we need is clean electricity. No point in spending a lot of clean electricity to get a bit of hydrogen(power wise). A lot of innovative means to produce clean electricity have come forwards in recent years(see the example above for a particularly important one).


@benzyme, believe it or not in the ted talk in the OP this guy has met with a fair bit of open arms for producing electric cars in many countries. Even in Isreal I think he said. The government is funding electric cars and hybrids right now believe it or not. I believe the Chevrolet Volt is about 40% subsidized. I'm not so sure if things are missing like patents or if people claim they existed but they never did so they aren't there when people look for them.
 
cyb said:
I knew a clever mechanic who actually built a hydrogen engine that ran on water and produced more output energy than input...
One day some 'Suits' turned up and we never saw him again...:surprised
Click to expand...

I have a relative living in the US who built a hydrogen powered car that ran on water. He never made any claims that it was over unity but is was starting to look like a viable prospect for a while.

The car had the electrolysis rig and was solar powered. It was a very ugly looking cumbersome beast as it was all retro fitted to a small Toyota.

He was shut down by ridicule more than anything else. A few newspapers ran articles on his car that seemed to be designed to ridicule him and make him appear like he was proposing over unity (which he never did) and few "reputable" scientists were enlisted to debunk his ideas on the false premise of his design being over unity. He was never given the opportunity for a rebuttal and he lost a lot of respect as a result.

After the character assassination he couldn't get funding and all forms assistance disappeared almost over night, so the project was mothballed and never saw the light of day again.

It ended up destroying his life, destroyed his marriage and even made him a target for ridicule in his own direct family.

I think the suits only come as a last resort when the designer of something like this doesn't get the point and persists with their project after the normal hurdles they are presented with fail
 
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