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In Reply to: RE: Toyota poised to unleash another revolution, just like the Prius was. posted by tinear on November 19, 2014 at 07:05:31
I own a 2003 Prius and a Highlander hybrid, and I agree with Elon Musk. I don't want a bunch of undermaintained 10 year old hydrogen tanks driving around the country. While they'll be safe for a while, as they age the probability of their becoming bombs is all too probable.
I think that as battery technology evolves electric vehicles will be the future. I looked seriously at a Nissan Leaf and turned it down due to range, about 75 miles. It would make a great around-town-only second or third car, but you're not driving it across country. As batteries get better (charge density, longer life) electric vehicles will make sense.
Follow Ups:
1) the aforementioned energy density of the electrochemical cell.
2) practical limit of the rate of transfer of energy back into the battery when recharging.
I think 1) is getting pretty close to the practical limit.
I reckon some clever engineering may improve 2) but when it is all said and done I think that the range of a battery-powered vehicle will have to be... I dunno... 1000 miles to make up for the long 'refueling' times. The size, weight and cost of the battery required would be fundamentally prohibitive (methinks).
I guess the only possible practical alternative would be UTTERLY STANDARDIZED battery packs -- where refueling would constitute swapping battery packs. UTTERLY STANDARDIZED would pretty much guarantee that Apple or Google would own any such hypothetical e-car (iCAR?) market ;-)
...and I REALLY don't think Tesla's (the dead guy's, not the modern company's) notion of using HF AC to transmit power wirelessly everywhere (in lieu of point-of-use generators or batteries) will ever be practical :-P
... obviously all of the above are merely my own wild-eyed, hypercaffeinatd ravings. Now, where's my tinfoil beanie? I am feeling monitored...
;-)
PS - Mrs H and I were pretty early adopters of 'hybrid technology' -- she bought a 4WD hybrid Escape in December 2004. We still have it and it's still doing pretty well at 209,000 miles. It delivers about 34 mpg in the summer, which drops to about 30 mpg in the winter in the cold (COLD!) northeast on winter-formulated gasoline. It is even pretty darned good in snow. She (still) likes it a lot.
all the best,
mrh
An israeli company just showed a prototype of an organic battery (no rare earth or heavy metals involved at all thus extremely environmentally friendly) which can recharge from empty to full in under 30 minutes.
Problem is so far the battery is only big enough for a smartphone and I don't know how scaleable the technology is.
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