Some good links in this article!
Not only do today’s car buyers have to pick what brand, color and features they want, they must now also choose among a dizzying array of propulsion systems.
- Gas? Hybrid? Plug-in hybrid? Electric? Hydrogen? The options are confounding to the average consumer.
Why it matters: This is what car-buying will be like for the foreseeable future amid the messy, multi-decade transition from gasoline to electric vehicles (EVs).
Full article, with embedded links, HERE from Axios.com
As usual, one of the biggest issues is charging, or lack thereof…
And I personally don’t believe 20% of rural vehicles are EVs! That I know of in our little town of 6500, there are a total of TWO EVs. Two…
And as discussed before, the average subdivisions don’t have enough power coming to them to actually charge an EV in every home. And older homes by and large don’t have 200A service to them, which is a requirement.
Much less the horror stories about actual towing mileage on EV pickups… Snort…
Instead of wasting their money on producing EVs the car manufacturers should concentrate on the hydrogen engine. The EVs have too much going against them for them to ever be accepted by the public. On the other hand the hydrogen powered cars are an interesting alternative to the gasolene powered engines. Wonder if they have a moleculer seperator attached to the hydrogen engine where it can run on water.
Hydrogen is a bastard of a molecule. So small it slips through most sealing substances. Burns nigh invisible in the open in bright light. And it takes electricity to separate hydrogen from water, and you don’t get more hydrogen than you use generating the electricity to separate hydrogen from water.
Storing? Hydrogen, being the slippery bastard it is, will find a way out. Not like gas or diesel, which remains in a sealed container.
Now imagine a hydrogen powered car gets into an accident. There’s no indication of a hydrogen leak until visible flames are seen. And by that time it’s too late.
I wouldn’t want hydrogen near my house due to it’s slipperiness and volatility.
The best gaseous gasses to use are LPG or Propane, which don’t slip out through seals and the flames can be seen and stench can be put into the gasses.
The only way a car can run on water is by breaking the first unbreakable law (so far) in Nature: You Can’t Win (aka the 1st Law of Thermodynamics). The others are “You Can’t Break Even” and “You Can’t Get Out of the Game”…
The energy to break the chemical bonds in water molecules to generate the H2 has be provided to the system (an endothermic reaction), and the output of the engine can NEVER be enough to both move the car and create more H2.
NB: H2 cars have high pressure gas bottles as the ‘gas tank’, they don’t store liquid H2.
Jim; You’re surprised! The government and the press are lying to us again. (still) Pushing their agenda and making us pay for it.
You’d think that the people would tell the press and the lying liars in washington to change their tune.
Yep – hydrogen is the way to go..big stumbling block is the fuel cell to store the hydrogen, but that is slowly but steadily being resolved
Here in the Cincinnati area, Teslas are fairly common in the affluent suburbs, and a friend sees lots of electric cars of all sorts up at the university parking garage, but out and about in the city or the rest of the suburbs they seem few and far between.
You will see a lot more electric vehicles up in Dayton – electric trolley busses. They usually get power from the overhead wire as they have for the past eight decades, but newer models have batteries for driving briefly off-route if power goes down or there is an accident that requires going off-wire to get around.
Hey Old NFO,
You know the end goal is to force most of the people into the “15 Minute Cities” easier to control ya know and most of them will do it. So the only people out in the “Sticks” are the “bitter Clingers”, Remember the Hunger Games? The city organization wasn’t far off.(Agenda 21)
My end goal is liberty, which I’m starting to belief may best be accomplished by liquidating most of the federal bureaucrats and politicians here and abroad.
I grew up in Vancouver and the whole city (not including the Greater Vancouver Regional District for those of you familiar with the area) had and has electric “trolley” buses using overhead cables. They’ve been doing this since 1948 and it’s quite nice to have almost three hundred buses not spewing exhaust. The downsides? No idea. Electricity is plentiful in the Pacific NW (although the left is trying to fix that by removing hydro-electric dams and by not including hydro-electric in the definitions of renewable power). Also fun as a kid during the winter to see the trolley poles come off the wires in heavy ice. The driver would be out in the snow wrestling to get the poles back in place while traffic backed up behind them.
Generally a really cool system though and seemed to work very well and be very efficient. The newest buses seem to have a battery pack that allows them to drive about 20km off wire which lets them move if the overhead wire system has a problem or if they need to run them slightly outside the wire network.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_buses_in_Vancouver
When I was a police dispatcher, some 45 years ago, most of our patrol cars ran on hydrogen. There was no discernable difference between them and the remaining gasoline-powered cars in terms of performance.
The only complaint from the officers was that the hydrogen cars didn’t periodically require drag racing “to blow the carbon out.” 😉
Are you sure it wasn’t CNG that long ago. Either way, a fleet operating from a common base uses a single fueling source, so any uncommon fuel type can be cost-effective.
Hybrid cars make the most sense to me (and I’ve owned 4 of them now).
Using the mature gasoline delivery system as the primary energy source allows for long ranges and quick refills
Using the electric drive for low speeds and stop/start driving reduces emissions in those low-demand modes.
EVs make a certain amount of sense if you live in a suburban/urban area, commute less than 100 miles to work, never plan on making a cross-country trip, have the electrical power infrastructure to support a charging station at your domicile, and are able or willing to pay the premium for an EV and charging station.
Plug In Hybrids probably make more sense there, especially when the next generation hits with more range. Right now, if I was still rolling into an office, I could do that with all electric, conceivably charge there and go home on electric. Have a problem, or want to take a roadtrip? The Gasoline engine kicks in, and I’m good to go – and most of the year, I’m generating fewer tailpipe emissions.
Why haven’t I done it? Because of WFH dropping my monthly mileage down to less than 500 miles driven – it makes no sense for me to buy new wheels.
Most of what’s “reported” about EVs is propaganda. BS intended to fool the gullible into jumping on the bandwagon and buying an EV. Technology which in rare and limited cases can be useful but is pointless for the vast majority of Americans. But the criminal left has never allowed facts to interfere with their agenda. And make no mistake about it. Forcing America to give up gas/diesel in favor of EV technology is a major part of the lefts agenda.
All- Thanks for the comments, and I’m not a ‘fan’ of hydrogen due to the fire issues for the same reasons. I don’t think there are any ‘perfect’ answers, nor will any be forthcoming anytime soon. And no, the MSM is not believable…
Larimer County here in CO just passed some zoning regulations regarding storing things like lithium batteries in your house. It’s aimed at big batteries like in cars, but it’s going to be a headache for all involved.
I know someone who recently had a Tesla Wall system added to his house in CA. I think it is two Tesla car batteries mounted to the outside wall of the attached garage. I wonder if that impacts his home insurance availability and or cost? Lots of solar panels on the roof as part of it.
I’m thinking that it being outside the garage will not make it safer than being inside. The combustion zone would still fire up the building.
I’m fairly sure if that battery pack catches fire the house will be a total loss, that would include all the vehicles inside and outside the garage. To include a Tesla and aircooled Porsche.