Throwing in the towel...electric cars are going to be the future.

GameboyRMH wrote:

SVreX wrote: EVs will go away entirely the minute Hydrogen becomes available. In fact, they will be buried in the same rhetoric that now makes them attractive.

Hydrogen's been available for a long time, what's the hold up? Other than the fact that it escapes through solids, is more dangerous than gasoline, is difficult to transport (really almost nothing like gasoline - and it sure can't be delivered through wires), and is almost entirely fossil-sourced, I mean. The only way hydrogen will take off is if someone invents a form of fusion power that produces it as a byproduct, then we'll have to find something to do with it. Otherwise, if it was going to take off it would've happened by now. The oil companies would be all-for it!

You already defined the hold up.

But those issues are easier to solve than the electrical infrastructure issues, and offer more permanent solutions.

Dangerous gases are transported every day. Switch trucks, good to go. Most existing fueling stations could be modified.

"More dangerous than gasoline"... Depending on the circumstances, electricity could be too. Consider an emergency responder approaching a mangled mess of an EV- what's to guarantee the high voltage is not shorted to any metal component of the car? Toxic waste? Environmental issues in battery production?

Electricity can not be delivered by wires in the manner it will be needed. If service stations started wanting to provider fast recharge stations, they'd all need to be rewired, including their service entrances and distribution.

The fact that the oil companies will be all for it is the best reason to consider it. Make them an ally instead of an adversary. Sort of like how big tobacco is currently all about E-cigarettes.

Big oil could use its resources to develop industrial hydrogen generators, etc.

SVreX wrote: EVs will go away entirely the minute Hydrogen becomes available. In fact, they will be buried in the same rhetoric that now makes them attractive. "Drive a Tesla H. It's so green you could drink the waste, instead of those nasty electric vehicles which run off power generated by coal fired power plants" And hydrogen could be distributed through existing fuel delivery infrastructure, and waste water could be dumped at the same time the vehicle is fueled.

Keep in mind that hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are EVs. Every drivetrain and efficiency advance made for today's EV fleets will be applicable to future vehicles generating their own electricity instead of storing it from the grid.

Water-power electrolysis fuel cell vehicles may seem a pancia (existing infrastructure, no harmful emissions) but in many places clean drinking water is already difficult to come by or its true cost is heavily offset by tax-pool subsidies and non-sustainable sourcing. If the public is forced to choose between dirty electric plants or enough water for personal and agricultural use, guess which option will be picked.

SVreX wrote: Big oil could use its resources to develop industrial hydrogen generators, etc.

Hydrogen burns clean, but where can we get it in industrial quantities? It's far more efficient to just to burn fossil fuels than to extract hydrogen from them.

The biggest problem is that without that hypothetical fusion source the "hydrogen economy" is never going to happen. Gas stations will have to upgrade their electrical hookups, but the hydrogen infrastructure would have to be built almost from scratch. There's no hydrogen pipe in your garage right now that can top up a hydrogen car overnight. Couple that with EV technology advancing in big leaps (including on the fuel supply side with ever-cheaper solar) and I don't see where hydrogen has any advantages. And to me, the fact that it carries many of the same fuel source problems as gasoline sounds like a giant environmental negative that outweighs any short-term business positives.

I think hydrogen is going to be forgotten about entirely with the next generation of EV batteries - I don't know why the idea keeps coming up right now in fact. But maybe Toyota knows something nobody else does:

http://www.wired.com/2015/03/another-reason-toyota-make-hydrogen-fuel-cell-car/

Ok, so we have hypothetical fusion vs hypothetical battery technologies. Pick your poison.

My suggestion is less of a technical one than a mass marketing one.

Since we are talking hypotheticals, let's imagine a guy with a great understanding of hyrogen fuel cells and an interest in using them in vehicles. Perhaps he has a space exploration business. He would know what it would take to make it profitable, especially if he had already established several successful businesses.

Wouldn't it be fascinating for him to develop an electric car company as a stepping stone, knowing that the batteries could be pulled out and replaced with hydrogen fuel cells. He could offer his patents available to all, to help develop the technologies and brain trust it would take.

Then just to throw his competitors off the track, he could make public statements about how "silly" hydrogen fuel cells would be.

THAT would be a REALLY smart guy.

Oh wait....

The next battery technology isn't hypothetical, there are working prototypes in labs right now. Net-positive fusion power has only recently been made to work for the first time on a research reactor, and getting it to production will be a helluva lot more difficult. Even if all the technologies were frozen where they are right now, we'd have EVs being practical and fairly affordable daily drivers for a good chunk of the world, and hydrogen cars as more-expensive oddities with no fuel stations available in most of the world.

Ok, I won't flounder this thread any more with talk of hydrogen. Just remember I said so in a few years...:

I find this to be too broad and unrealistic a statement about EVs:

GameboyRMH wrote: Even if all the technologies were frozen where they are right now, we'd have EVs being practical and fairly affordable daily drivers for a good chunk of the world...

...for the reasons stated throughout this thread.

Privately owned vehicles have never been affordable for a good chunk of the world, and EVs aren't going to change that anytime soon.

We disagree.

Electric, Fuel Cell, Autonomous, whatever. It's 2015. Where's my flying car?

^That 1st one is a really cool design, made by an eastern European company. The 3rd one is pretty cool too but the guy could never get the money together to get them into production, and it's really piss-poor as a car.

GameboyRMH wrote: ^That 1st one is a really cool design, made by an eastern European company. The 3rd one is pretty cool too but the guy could never get the money together to get them into production, and it's really piss-poor as a car.

What do you think of the fourth one?

Take just a moment in traffic, look around you. Do you really want these idiots FLYING?

LOL. I want a flying car to get around the rest of you yahoos.

chandlerGTi wrote: What do you think of the fourth one?

George Jetson drove a Ford Fusion

http://www.caranddriver.com/features/what-would-george-jetson-drive-feature

I don't think anyone asked....Why are you against electric cars to begin with? I know most of the modern ones available today are as exciting as a beige Camry with 2 dead cylinders but there are a few standouts (Tesla Roadster) The model T wasn't a rocket ship by anyones standard back in the day either.

Yeah a flying car is only cool as long as you're the only one who has one...otherwise you need autonomous flight to keep the yahoos from collectively causing nine eleven times a hundred, and you get stuck in traffic in the form of holding patterns and taxiway lineups.

What do I think of George Jetson's car? Way too boring for a car with Star Trek-level technology Also the styling is like some kind of retro-futuristic kids' toy

Also I think the number of hybrid high-end supercars should cancel out the beige appliance EVs. Heck, the existence of Formula E should.

Flight Service wrote: I don't think anyone asked....Why are you against electric cars to begin with?

Were you asking me?

I am most certainly NOT against EV's. I am in favor of them in a major way.

In reply to SVreX:

No that was for NOHOME the OP.

Why are you against electric cars? Just curious.

Thread bump to spam the photos I took tonight. Look Ma - no tailpipes!

For NOHOME: I don't think anyone asked....Why are you against electric cars to begin with? I know most of the modern ones available today are as exciting as a beige Camry with 2 dead cylinders but there are a few standouts (Tesla Roadster).

Just curious