See more at UC Berkley
Posted on 09/14/2011 6:37:40 PM PDT by Olog-hai
The Frankfurt Motor Show is devoting an entire exhibition hall to electric mobility this year — but truly marketable electric vehicles are conspicuous by their absence. The technology is being developed more slowly than expected. It will be a long time before the world can bid farewell to the combustion engine. …
"To me, this electric hype is inexplicable," Fritz Indra, a doyen in vehicle development, recently told the trade magazine Automobil Industrie. The honorary professor at Vienna University of Technology and former head engine developer at Opel and General Motors still sees a good deal of "open questions" — and no satisfying answers.
The first electric cars that aren't DIY projects and offer acceptable crash protection have arrived in the dealerships. Most of them are no-frills mini-vehicles that cost as much as a mid-sized sedans and can only take you a short distance and back on a single battery charge if you're lucky enough to avoid heavy traffic. Of course, that's not the case in the winter, when energy-sapping interior heating significantly diminishes its range. And if it runs out of juice on the road, no jerry can will help. Your only option is to call a tow truck.
With all the drawbacks of this type of car, you have to be a true believer in electric mobility to imagine that there really are one million people out there who want to have one. …
(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...
GREEN SCAM!
Looks like nat gas is going to become a huge player in US transportation fuels. Sasol of S. Africa is going to spend $10 bil on a nat gas to diesel conversion plant in Louisana.
http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/10-billion-sasol-plant-to-be-built-in-us/1768
So the electric scenario built on massively increasing prices for gasoline and diesel may not work out.
See more at UC Berkley
I think electric will be a player, but I honestly don’t know when.
Right now there is a lot of hype around advancing battery technology & fuel cells. But most of it is just that: hype.
The ability to take a full charge in 5 minutes is crucial, and to absorb a notable charge in 1 or 2 minutes from small portable generators.
Right now, the Leaf, the USA’s first affordable electric (if you call 40K affordable), takes 30 minutes to recharge on a “quick” charger. And Nissan does NOT want you doing this often, as it will destroy the battery.
Fuel cells can replace gasoline, if and only if, we get rid of the platinum requirement of a fuel cell. Or at least greatly reduce it. AND we develop very cheap ways to generate power, to crack hydrogen, or solve hydrogen production problems using microbes bred for the job.
Now I can cover this in two paragraphs, but it will take YEARS to get any of this stuff fixed.
I suspect my next pickup will still be V8, Japanese, 32V, and burn good gasoline.
Diesel will be the fail in the USA (as pertains to the majority of pickups & cars), because our EPA is too strict on diesels. People aren’t going to want to deal with urea injection and filter replacement.
If we had enough republican support of the right types of republicans, the EPA limitations could be lifted, but I am not holding my breath.
Au contraire. Diesel will be there so long as there is ethanol tainted gas.
Great, a cinder block with 1.4 horsepower.
Berkeley
Ethanol is nothing that can’t be overcome with enough forced induction :)
Personally though... I really don’t like the idea of filling urea tanks or changing out exhaust filters. A gas vehicle has enough consumables already!
Otherwise, the Duramax is a really nice motor. Hot Rod last year ran an article about a guy who was running a Duramax in a Mustang (what a weird pairing). He got upper 20’s lower 30’s mpg on the drive there, and was running 10 second or so quarters if memory serves.
Now a old diesel retrofited to be modern, minus exhaust treatment devices — that could be fun.
It’s, “why reinvent the wheel”. We already have a solid technology in Diesel, so much so that the government has to put a deterrent on it to ensure that demand is less.
As for electric cars, switch to nuclear and use it solely for power generation. Gas is amazing for packing an enormous amount of energy in a small space. I didn’t realize how special that was until I took chemistry. Again, why reinvent the wheel, use the technologies that you have to their fullest.
What I’d like to see for diesel regulations is that the industry come together every decade and decide what level of soot & NOx the current state of the art, minus consumable exhaust scrubbers, is capable of, and that be the standard for the following decade, with the new standards taking effect 3 years after they are set.
This does invite fox/henhouse abuses, but I don’t think it’s fair for the epa to keep ramping requirements without regard for real world limitations, either. Soot and NOx are nasty diesel byproducts, but modern diesels, without exhaust scrubbers, are really no longer big emitters.
What I’d like to see for diesel regulations is that the industry come together every decade and decide what level of soot & NOx the current state of the art, minus consumable exhaust scrubbers, is capable of, and that be the standard for the following decade, with the new standards taking effect 3 years after they are set.
This does invite fox/henhouse abuses, but I don’t think it’s fair for the epa to keep ramping requirements without regard for real world limitations, either. Soot and NOx are nasty diesel byproducts, but modern diesels, without exhaust scrubbers, are really no longer big emitters.
Just let the market decide.
I don’t see where it says ‘regulation emissions’ is in the constitution.
I’m not sure how you could get the free market to regulate NOx emissions via market dynamics. Soot, maybe, as soot generation is a sign of incomplete fuel consumption. But NOx is the nitrogen fixation that occurs at the combustion temperatures in the cylinder, and it is nasty stuff that can build up in local air masses, and it also causes acidic rain (the planet produces its own NOx via lightning, but diesels could easily top that).
NOx is also not very pleasant to breathe in traffic.
If there is a market force that can control it, I’m all game for it, but I honestly don’t know it.
I would see cars coming with ventilation filters that filter out pollutants that otherwise would entire the cabin to handle traffic emissions, before the industry self-regulated NOx output without government intervention.
Maybe I just don’t see the solution, and someone else does though.
simple, people buy what there is demand. If there is demand for NOx less diesel, then there will be a market for it.
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