Do You Think That Cars Could Operate Without Gas Or Being Charged With Electricity?
In the near future? I have heard of a retired engineer that is friend’s of a friend that has experimented with this.
61-69, F
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FrozenWasteland · 61-69, M
There are a few options, but none of them scale real well. Yet.
Fuel cell vehicles that run on hydrogen are probably the closest to workable at the moment, but hydrogen is expensive to make and it's horrible stuff to store and move around. There are ways to make it on-board (using the energy in aluminum to make it from water, as one example), but aluminum isn't cheap to make either.
I still think battery power is the best option at the moment -- but current technology just doesn't quite work well enough in many applications.
Fuel cell vehicles that run on hydrogen are probably the closest to workable at the moment, but hydrogen is expensive to make and it's horrible stuff to store and move around. There are ways to make it on-board (using the energy in aluminum to make it from water, as one example), but aluminum isn't cheap to make either.
I still think battery power is the best option at the moment -- but current technology just doesn't quite work well enough in many applications.
GeniUs · 56-60, M
@FrozenWasteland When I visited York (England) they have fleets of small buses all running on battery/electricity. It's a small city so less than 10 miles between terminus where they would recharge each time. I was impressed, of course that's not a great range, the capacity of the bus was about 23 people, and I don't know any of the economics behind it (e.g. was it running at a loss) but for a city like that it worked and would've been much more effective had there been less traffic (the UK implements lots of measures to encourage ppl to use public transport).
FrozenWasteland · 61-69, M
@GeniUs Yes, it seems to work reasonably well in certain applications. Like you, I'm not sure about the cost effectiveness -- I think the jury is still out on that one. So much depends on battery life and I'm not sure we really have enough data on that yet.
I live 150 miles from pretty much anywhere and 300 miles from any large cities, so electric vehicles are just not a viable option. Could be ok for around town, but I'm not about to buy a vehicle with such limited use. Plus it gets REALLY cold here and that's hard on both range and battery life.
I think we still need another breakthrough in battery technology before electric vehicles become useful for longer distance travel. And of course we (meaning where I am) don't have either the generating capacity or the distribution infrastructure to charge the darn things (if there were lots of 'em).
I live 150 miles from pretty much anywhere and 300 miles from any large cities, so electric vehicles are just not a viable option. Could be ok for around town, but I'm not about to buy a vehicle with such limited use. Plus it gets REALLY cold here and that's hard on both range and battery life.
I think we still need another breakthrough in battery technology before electric vehicles become useful for longer distance travel. And of course we (meaning where I am) don't have either the generating capacity or the distribution infrastructure to charge the darn things (if there were lots of 'em).
ninalanyon · 61-69, T
@GeniUs The urban buses where I live are full sized and battery powered. It's not a big challenge these days. The car ferry across the fjord is also battery powered.
ninalanyon · 61-69, T
@GeniUs The route is about 15 km each way. It takes about half an hour (lots of stops). The buses are'off the shelf' from Volvo, 38 seats plus 50 standing. They started running them in 2018. They charge at each end of the route, apparently it takes about ten minutes.
See https://www.brakar.no/prosjekter/elbuss/#:~:text=I%20februar%202018%20tok%20Brakar,som%20bussen%20kan%20lades%20ved.
Google translate does a pretty fair job with Norwegian.
See https://www.brakar.no/prosjekter/elbuss/#:~:text=I%20februar%202018%20tok%20Brakar,som%20bussen%20kan%20lades%20ved.
Google translate does a pretty fair job with Norwegian.
ninalanyon · 61-69, T
@GeniUs Here's Volvo's page about the 7900 Electric bus https://www.volvobuses.com/en/city-and-intercity/buses/volvo-7900-electric.html