• Tesla officially dethrones the (hydrogen) Toyota Mirai as the longest range for zero emission cars
    46 replies, posted
[QUOTE]The EPA confirmed the energy consumption of the Model S P100D to be equivalent to 98 MPGe (98 MPGe city – 105 MPGe highway). It’s a little better than Tesla’s previous top-of-the-line Model S, the P90D, which was rated at 95 MPGe. The higher energy capacity and efficiency gain allowed Tesla to push the total range to 315 miles. The new range is enough to beat the Toyota Mirai’s 312 miles of range. Toyota was previously considered to have the longest range for a zero-emission alternative fuel car. ... Tesla CEO Elon Musk says that they will probably stop at 100 kWh for now [/QUOTE] [URL="https://electrek.co/2016/09/19/tesla-model-s-p100d-epa-range-dethrones-toyota-mirai-longest-range/"]Source[/URL]
Hydrogen was never a good idea for cars, It's great for power planets but not cars.
[QUOTE=Sims_doc;51073507]Hydrogen was never a good idea for cars, It's great for power planets but not cars.[/QUOTE] I have no idea why you would use hydrogen for power plants. It's not a fuel source, it's an energy storage mechanism since you don't really find it naturally (at least on Earth).
[QUOTE=Morgen;51073520]I have no idea why you would use hydrogen for power plants. It's not a fuel source, it's an energy storage mechanism since you don't really find it naturally (at least on Earth).[/QUOTE] My guess is that hydrogen production would be a great way to store the surplus of energy during the off-peak hours.
[QUOTE=GabrielWB;51074668]My guess is that hydrogen production would be a great way to store the surplus of energy during the off-peak hours.[/QUOTE] No it wouldn't. Producing hydrogen via electrolysis is highly inefficient. [editline]19th September 2016[/editline] It's also a pain to store it.
The problem with hydrogen is that it takes up alot of volume, compared to other fuels like diesel or petrol. Having cars run on hydrogen, either by combustion or a fuel cell would be pretty awesome, but until we find better ways of storing it, it's not really the best solution.
[QUOTE=Petrussen;51074817]The problem with hydrogen is that it takes up alot of volume, compared to other fuels like diesel or petrol. Having cars run on hydrogen, either by combustion or a fuel cell would be pretty awesome, but until we find better ways of storing it, it's not really the best solution.[/QUOTE] Size wouldnt be an issue, its convincing the public that its safe to drive around a huge fucking bomb
[QUOTE=Code3Response;51074915]Size wouldnt be an issue, its convincing the public that its safe to drive around a huge fucking bomb[/QUOTE] You can store hydrogen completely safely in metal hydrides, it's just got some disadvantages in terms of weight, cost, etc.
regardless of whether or not hydrogen is decent storage, it's still a truly emissionless fuel how much coal do you think gets burned charging your teslas :smug: at least until we transition to nuclear which probably won't happen in like 80 years
[QUOTE=lNloruzenchi;51075294]regardless of whether or not hydrogen is decent storage, it's still a truly emissionless fuel how much coal do you think gets burned charging your teslas :smug: at least until we transition to nuclear which probably won't happen in like 80 years[/QUOTE] ...I'm not sure if this was sarcastic but you realize energy has to go in to producing hydrogen as well right? That could come from solar or hydro, but [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production]likely comes from coal[/url], same as a Tesla. It's likely drastically more efficient to charge the Tesla too, AFAIK most forms of hydrogen generation are pretty bad about that.
[QUOTE=lNloruzenchi;51075294]regardless of whether or not hydrogen is decent storage, it's still a truly emissionless fuel how much coal do you think gets burned charging your teslas :smug: at least until we transition to nuclear which probably won't happen in like 80 years[/QUOTE] Err, I think it costs less 75% less coal to charge a tesla than to "charge" a Hydrogen car. To make hydrogen from water you need an electrolysis device with 50% efficiency. Then you need to store the hydrogen which takes energy. And then you have to convert the Hydrogen to energy again using a combustion engine (30# efficiency) or a Fuel cell (50% efficiency). So best case scenario.50% * 50%=25% of the energy you put in, goes out again. This against a battery which has almost 99% efficiency. Hydrogen is a completely useless energy carrier if you compare it to Battery's.
[QUOTE=taipan;51075337]Err, I think it costs less 75% less coal to charge a tesla than to "charge" a Hydrogen car. To make hydrogen from water you need an electrolysis device with 50% efficiency. Then you need to store the hydrogen which takes energy. And then you have to convert the Hydrogen to energy again using a combustion engine (30# efficiency) or a Fuel cell (50% efficiency). So best case scenario.50% * 50%=25% of the energy you put in, goes out again. This against a battery which has almost 99% efficiency. Hydrogen is a completely useless energy carrier if you compare it to Battery's.[/QUOTE] This is relevant to consumer production (small amounts, typically hobby stuff) but industrial production is almost never done with electrolysis, which is where it would be produced for cars. It's still less efficient, but nowhere near as bad as 25% (and electric cars are also nowhere near 99%)
[QUOTE=taipan;51075337]Err, I think it costs less 75% less coal to charge a tesla than to "charge" a Hydrogen car. To make hydrogen from water you need an electrolysis device with 50% efficiency. Then you need to store the hydrogen which takes energy. And then you have to convert the Hydrogen to energy again using a combustion engine (30# efficiency) or a Fuel cell (50% efficiency). So best case scenario.50% * 50%=25% of the energy you put in, goes out again. This against a battery which has almost 99% efficiency. Hydrogen is a completely useless energy carrier if you compare it to Battery's.[/QUOTE] hydrogen has the advantage of running in current combustion engines with very few modifications and you can refill gas tanks quickly just like with petroleum. its a possibly that in the future if humanity can solve the energy crisis using fusion/nuclear or some other renewable energy source cars will switch to using hydrogen.
[QUOTE=lNloruzenchi;51075294]regardless of whether or not hydrogen is decent storage, it's still a truly emissionless fuel how much coal do you think gets burned charging your teslas :smug: at least until we transition to nuclear which probably won't happen in like 80 years[/QUOTE] You need to consider the efficiency of a power plant vs the efficiency of a car engine. Power plants definitely do burn fuel to produce the electricity to charge the cars, but that energy is being much more efficiently generated and transported vs an internal combustion engine and shipping the gasoline to the gas stations and buying the gasoline. It's still "greener" at the end of the day.
[QUOTE=Elspin;51075604]This is relevant to consumer production (small amounts, typically hobby stuff) but industrial production is almost never done with electrolysis, which is where it would be produced for cars. It's still less efficient, but nowhere near as bad as 25% (and electric cars are also nowhere near 99%)[/QUOTE] Generally steam reforming is the main method used, which uses methane and produces greenhouse gasses. [QUOTE=yodaman888;51075660]hydrogen has the advantage of running in current combustion engines with very few modifications and you can refill gas tanks quickly just like with petroleum. its a possibly that in the future if humanity can solve the energy crisis using fusion/nuclear or some other renewable energy source cars will switch to using hydrogen.[/QUOTE] "Very few modifications" is a bit of an understatement. You would need to change out at least half of the major components of an ICE that uses gasoline to get it to work with hydrogen. Don't forget all the stuff to store it either.
How long until the energy stored in the Tesla battery out weighs the energy stored in a petrol tank? Also doesn't lithium availability affect Tesla production?
[QUOTE=Morgen;51075938]Generally steam reforming is the main method used, which uses methane and produces greenhouse gasses.[/QUOTE] As does burning coal to perform electrolysis, but my point was more that the efficiency is nowhere as bad on an industrial scale as it is on a simpler consumer device for producing hydrogen.
[QUOTE=RoboChimp;51076016]How long until the energy stored in the Tesla battery out weighs the energy stored in a petrol tank? Also doesn't lithium availability affect Tesla production?[/QUOTE] Seems that they consider 100 kWh good enough for now and are going to focus on cost / weight reduction. Lithium is a minor part of the battery and can be recovered via recycling at the end of life of the pack.
[QUOTE=RoboChimp;51076016]How long until the energy stored in the Tesla battery out weighs the energy stored in a petrol tank? Also doesn't lithium availability affect Tesla production?[/QUOTE] Batteries store faaaaaaarr less by mass and volume than gasoline. Electric motors are more efficient, so you need less power, but it's still substantially less power, or more weight. That's why the S/X, despite being nearly entirely aluminum alloys, weigh in at 2.5-3 tons.
[QUOTE=Morgen;51075938]Generally steam reforming is the main method used, which uses methane and produces greenhouse gasses. "Very few modifications" is a bit of an understatement. You would need to change out at least half of the major components of an ICE that uses gasoline to get it to work with hydrogen. Don't forget all the stuff to store it either.[/QUOTE] Strictly speaking all you need is a fuel injector designed to work with gas instead of a liquid but for safety yes you would need to for the most part replace a large amount of components with reinforced ones since hydrogen combusts with a fairly greater amount of energy than gasoline.
[QUOTE=Zephyrs;51076126]Batteries store faaaaaaarr less by mass and volume than gasoline. Electric motors are more efficient, so you need less power, but it's still substantially less power, or more weight. That's why the S/X, despite being nearly entirely aluminum alloys, weigh in at 2.5-3 tons.[/QUOTE] Pretty much this, the energy density of even lithium vs gasoline is absolutely pathetic, electric gets a helping hand from ICE engine efficiency issues but it's nowhere near enough to close the gap. It's questionable whether [b]comparable[/b] ICE and electric vehicles will break even within our life time with how hard the battery industry is struggling to improve performance, but I'd say it's pretty likely that they'll get enough range that it's not really a big issue anymore. Most people will probably be totally fine with the range of the model 3, and if a major battery chemistry upgrade finally happens then it'll be a done deal.
[QUOTE=Sims_doc;51073507]Hydrogen was never a good idea for cars, It's great for power planets but not cars.[/QUOTE] Why? It's an excellent idea. Storage is difficult but people are dumb as hell and think OMG ZEPPELIN if it's damaged. Hydrogen motors are literally no different from a regular gasoline engine except for fuel delivery.
[QUOTE=Matthew0505;51076834]Well it only needs to get to about the energy density of wood to match gasoline in terms of useful work to weight ratio.[/QUOTE] Lithium batteries are typically ~50x less energy dense than gasoline (which is already in terms of weight, it's redundant to mention) so whatever source you're citing for wood's energy density the battery industry would have to pull a fucking miracle out of its pocket to make the two comparable even considering vehicle engine efficiency. It's not like it has to bridge the entire 50x gap for consumer vehicles to catch up but considering we've been using lithium for over two decades now I think it's safe to say it's not happening anytime soon without something completely insane happening. Like I've said, it's much more likely that electric cars will just become good enough that most people aren't really concerned about reduced range.
[QUOTE=Matthew0505;51077193]The Wikipedia chart for specific energy, where wood is about a third of gasoline's. And useful work in terms of weight is different to energy in terms of weight because of thermal efficiency differences.[/QUOTE] Useful work in terms of weight when you're talking about energy density is just energy density and efficiency which I was already mentioning. The wood energy density isn't cited on that chart at all but it's still not really helpful to say "well, if it got to the energy density of y", that might make it sound easier but it doesn't change anything. The fact that people have been trying to significantly improve batteries for decades is a bit more significant. edit for your update: you might be able to get 90% efficiency out of an electric motor on a test bench but that's not a realistic efficiency value for an electric car. US Gov suggests a (quite good, relatively!) 59-62%, compared to 17%-21% for ICE vehicles.
[QUOTE=Matthew0505;51077235]It's 3 rows above the lithium nonrechargable, or just use sugar since it has no [citation needed] and is about the same.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE]it's still not really helpful to say "well, if it got to the energy density of y", that might make it sound easier but it doesn't change anything. The fact that people have been trying to significantly improve batteries for decades is a bit more significant.[/QUOTE] Again, this isn't saying anything though. <x> material is midway between gas and batteries is something you could say for a good number of fuels and doesn't make it any easier to manufacture batteries that reach that energy density. Sugar batteries have actually been attempted with advantages over lithium several times but have had various issues preventing commercial adoption so far.
[QUOTE=Matthew0505;51077292]Not sure how old you are, but "within our lifetime" is quite a few decades time for R&D.[/QUOTE] Yeah, and like I said, it's been [b]over two decades[/b] since lithium became commercially available, it's important to read and understand that fact when talking about the likelihood of batteries improving [b]over 1300%[/b] within our lifetimes. It's hard to explain why this is such a hard problem to solve when many things like computers evolve so quickly but it comes down to practical limitations on harnessing energy production. Lithium batteries last forever, can be kept fairly safe with minor circuitry, and solve a lot of the problems old batteries had (remember when charging your batteries when they were only half empty reduced the life of your device? that was neat). It's not easy to find a material that has all of those fantastic properties and also has higher useful work. It might surprise you to hear that electric cars are not actually a new invention at all, they were tested as early as the 1800s. But people just couldn't get enough energy out of electrical storage methods to make them practical for the everyday person, so a new fuel source was chosen. Batteries have advanced heavily since then because they were needed in other areas, so now electric cars are making the rounds again, but it's a very reasonable position to take that it's [i]unlikely[/i] that batteries aren't going to get so good that they'll suddenly match range with equivalent quality ICE vehicles without something crazy happening given the current trend of improvement in batteries
Yeah batteries are moving pretty slow in terms of density. But there's other ways of improvung the range as well. Tesla just improved the cooling system and layouts of the battery pack and managed to gain another 10kWh (11% improvement) with only a 4% increase in weight. The Gigafactory cells will have a slightly improved chemistry and a different form factor for the cells that will lead to a 10 - 15% energy density improvement as well. As long as Tesla can make the range high enough that no normal person could stand sitting in the car for so long and it charges fast enough it's probably okay. Hydrogen vehicles are more like today's vehicles in terms of how you use them, but is that something we want? Charging at home and starting with a full charge, not having to worry about fuel shortages at the pump, and a less complex drivetrain so it should last longer. Even without mentioning costs it seems like a better way of doing things to me. Of course people will have to adapt.
[QUOTE=Sims_doc;51073507]Hydrogen was never a good idea for cars, It's great for power planets but not cars.[/QUOTE] it's a fantastic, abundant and clean fuel. The only bad part is you have to keep it in pressurized liquid form to get it to work in a car. The man who figures a way to get cheap, reliable and safe liquid hydrogen into a car is going to be a trillionaire also, what's a power planet?
[QUOTE=Trilby Harlow;51078177]it's a fantastic, [B]abundant [/B]and clean fuel. The only bad part is you have to keep it in pressurized liquid form to get it to work in a car. The man who figures a way to get cheap, reliable and safe liquid hydrogen into a car is going to be a trillionaire also, what's a power planet?[/QUOTE] Abundant? I don't know where you live but I live on the planet Earth and that is not the case. Electricity is far more abundant. We have electricity literally everywhere in developed countries, just need to add outlets.
[QUOTE=Elspin;51077379]Yeah, and like I said, it's been [b]over two decades[/b] since lithium became commercially available, it's important to read and understand that fact when talking about the likelihood of batteries improving [b]over 1300%[/b] within our lifetimes. It's hard to explain why this is such a hard problem to solve when many things like computers evolve so quickly but it comes down to practical limitations on harnessing energy production. Lithium batteries last forever, can be kept fairly safe with minor circuitry, and solve a lot of the problems old batteries had (remember when charging your batteries when they were only half empty reduced the life of your device? that was neat). It's not easy to find a material that has all of those fantastic properties and also has higher useful work. It might surprise you to hear that electric cars are not actually a new invention at all, they were tested as early as the 1800s. But people just couldn't get enough energy out of electrical storage methods to make them practical for the everyday person, so a new fuel source was chosen. Batteries have advanced heavily since then because they were needed in other areas, so now electric cars are making the rounds again, but it's a very reasonable position to take that it's [i]unlikely[/i] that batteries aren't going to get so good that they'll suddenly match range with equivalent quality ICE vehicles without something crazy happening given the current trend of improvement in batteries[/QUOTE]20 years isn't that long, are they making any progress with battery storage or is it a brick wall situation like the limits of silicon computers?
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