BEVs are a dead end. It’s an idea older than internal combustion and is already obsolete. The world needs to shift focus to concepts like e-fuels or hydrogen cars.
The problem with fuels made from electricity is that pesky thing called thermodynamics. If an efuel was developed that was more efficient than electricity then we’d be able to use it to produce more electricity than we put in.
Lots of fuels (like petrol) are a lot more energy dense than out best batteries. If we can synthesize fuels like that just using electricity as an energy source (that can be generated from renewables) then you have a carbon free dense store of energy that can be used to power a vehicle for a long distance without refueling.
The problem with these (fuel cells etc) is that the conversation rate is inefficient, wasting a lot of energy. As we are not using 100% renewable energy this means carbon is being released still.
If we had an entirely renewable energy grid (with oversupply when sunny/windy etc) then those energy losses would not matter.
People are obsessed with efficiency because it’s the only metric that matters. We have a finite amount of resources on this planet and efficiency is the only way we can make it last. If you aren’t a ‘save the planet’ type of person then efficiency still matters because it’s directly correlated with cost.
You are comparing different efficiencies. Solar panels are 15% to 20% efficient at converting light into energy. As far as I’m aware every Efuel being developed (and every hydrocarbon fuel for that matter) has a 0% efficiency at converting light into energy but if I am mistaken please do correct me.
In a completely technical sense the hydrocarbon fuel was at one time produced from light energy (dead plants) but that’s taking your point and being pedantic since the “efficiency” of the conversation is probably astronomically low when you account for the loses sustained by whatever lifeform died and became said hydrocarbons.
Europe is a huge continent. What do you mean, exactly?
The UK is in Europe, and in many cities here the public transport options are terrible, with driving being the only safe option, as cycling is very dangerous on our roads.
There are also huge parts of France, Italy, and Germany where public transport is poor, expensive, or infrequent.
I can charge my EV in the garage and not have to stand at a gas station in -30. Why on Earth would I want a less convenient hydrogen or other fuel car?
Because not everyone has a garage, and you still have to use the equivalent of gas stations if you’re travelling long distances.
In reality, BEVs pre-date ICE cars. They were abandoned because they were found to be less practical. The vast majority of people actually want gas stations and not the reverse.
We’re still in the early adoption stage. They were less practical because batteries were absolute trash 100 years ago. The vast majority of people want a car that will fill fast and go far. They don’t care how it happens.
We are also in the early adoption phase of other technologies. They will be far cheaper and more practical than what they are now. At some point, we have cars that are exactly as practical and cheap as conventional cars, only zero emissions. That is likely the end of the BEV.
Why do you think BEV is going away? Toyota is predicting they’ll have 1200km range and charge in 10 minutes by 2028. Even now the average city dweller can charge enough on a small service to make their trip to work and back. There is no upside to changing to something else.
They’re unsustainable, not to mention expensive and difficult for society to adopt. Toyota just say things while not actually being interested in them.
The marketing that they are “acceptable” for most people is not good enough. Eventually, there will be zero emissions cars that are just as practical as existing ICE cars and just as cheap. Basically no one will want BEVs once that happens.
They’re not unsustainable. Lithium is infinitely recyclable. Not to mention batteries are lasting way longer than expected. I’ve been in Tesla cabs with almost a million kilometers.
But it isn’t recycled, especially at the 100% level that would be required. And you still need to dig out vast amount amounts of virgin material in the first place. Meanwhile, e-fuels and hydrogen have no such problem to begin with. This is basically an excuse to ignore the real-world problems of batteries.
Batteries are unsustainable and have massive resource requirements. It’s basically an obsession with “efficiency” while actually being extremely wasteful.
You say that while promoting the idea of more inefficient energy transfer systems. Electric motors operate above 90%, traditional motors around 25-30%. Trying to mitigate that with wasting more energy by creating an artificial fuel is even more wasteful.
Burning stuff is unsustainable, using batteries, that are recyclable is not.
Solar panels are only 15-20% efficient. No one is going around saying we need to ban solar panels.
Fuels made from solar power are the opposite of unsustainable. They are the most sustainable ideas possible. It is basically artificial photosynthesis.
You’re confusing the efficency of solar panels with the efficiency of burning hydrocarbon based fuel (perhaps intentionally?). Yes, solar panels convert about 20-30% (they’re getting better with time) of the energy provided by mankind’s closest and most beloved fission reactor into energy we can use, the rest being reflected or turned into heat, but the source (that giant ball of fission) is infinite and non-detremental to the environment to keep running. Hydrocarbon production not only requires this original source but once calculated would provided you end delivery efficency levels that are dramatically lower (likely less than 1%), Natural hydrocarbons are limited in supply, and the whole chain is significantly more toxic for the planet when you calculate in byproducts produced during production or consumption. It’s legitimately not even close and if you truly believe hydrocarbons are even remotely viable you’ve misinterpreted one of the data points somewhere in your calculation.
Except you’ve just proved my point: Solar is basically infinite energy. So why obsess over efficiency? If you have something made from solar power, it is not a big deal.
Because it is solar power ultimately powering it all. If you don’t care about the efficiency of that step, you don’t really care about all of the later steps. It is still green energy and still cheap.
The problem with BEVs is that while it is efficient in one respect, it is insanely wasteful in others. As a result, it is an unsustainable idea and functionally just greenwashing.
Now we’re in the “pro-BEV bullshit” zone. Batteries won’t magically solve all transportation needs, nor solve the energy storage requirements of the grid. Alternatives still have to exist anyways, and the total lifecycle efficiency of BEVs isn’t that special. In a lot of cases, avoiding excessive use of batteries will save you energy. So pursuing alternatives will not need radically more solar panels.
BEVs are a dead end. It’s an idea older than internal combustion and is already obsolete. The world needs to shift focus to concepts like e-fuels or hydrogen cars.
E-fuel? So like what? Electricity…
It’s fuel made using electricity as the energy source.
The problem with fuels made from electricity is that pesky thing called thermodynamics. If an efuel was developed that was more efficient than electricity then we’d be able to use it to produce more electricity than we put in.
Lots of fuels (like petrol) are a lot more energy dense than out best batteries. If we can synthesize fuels like that just using electricity as an energy source (that can be generated from renewables) then you have a carbon free dense store of energy that can be used to power a vehicle for a long distance without refueling.
The problem with these (fuel cells etc) is that the conversation rate is inefficient, wasting a lot of energy. As we are not using 100% renewable energy this means carbon is being released still.
If we had an entirely renewable energy grid (with oversupply when sunny/windy etc) then those energy losses would not matter.
You avoid the giant, expensive battery though. People are obsessed with efficiency in a self-defeating way.
People are obsessed with efficiency because it’s the only metric that matters. We have a finite amount of resources on this planet and efficiency is the only way we can make it last. If you aren’t a ‘save the planet’ type of person then efficiency still matters because it’s directly correlated with cost.
Better ban solar panels cause they’re only 15-20% efficient. /s
You are comparing different efficiencies. Solar panels are 15% to 20% efficient at converting light into energy. As far as I’m aware every Efuel being developed (and every hydrocarbon fuel for that matter) has a 0% efficiency at converting light into energy but if I am mistaken please do correct me.
In a completely technical sense the hydrocarbon fuel was at one time produced from light energy (dead plants) but that’s taking your point and being pedantic since the “efficiency” of the conversation is probably astronomically low when you account for the loses sustained by whatever lifeform died and became said hydrocarbons.
E-fuels are made from solar power. It is not anywhere near 0%. Also, clearly efficiency is not “the only metric that matters.”
Or just move to building proper public transport like Europe did.
Europe is a huge continent. What do you mean, exactly?
The UK is in Europe, and in many cities here the public transport options are terrible, with driving being the only safe option, as cycling is very dangerous on our roads.
There are also huge parts of France, Italy, and Germany where public transport is poor, expensive, or infrequent.
I can charge my EV in the garage and not have to stand at a gas station in -30. Why on Earth would I want a less convenient hydrogen or other fuel car?
Because not everyone has a garage, and you still have to use the equivalent of gas stations if you’re travelling long distances.
In reality, BEVs pre-date ICE cars. They were abandoned because they were found to be less practical. The vast majority of people actually want gas stations and not the reverse.
We’re still in the early adoption stage. They were less practical because batteries were absolute trash 100 years ago. The vast majority of people want a car that will fill fast and go far. They don’t care how it happens.
We are also in the early adoption phase of other technologies. They will be far cheaper and more practical than what they are now. At some point, we have cars that are exactly as practical and cheap as conventional cars, only zero emissions. That is likely the end of the BEV.
Why do you think BEV is going away? Toyota is predicting they’ll have 1200km range and charge in 10 minutes by 2028. Even now the average city dweller can charge enough on a small service to make their trip to work and back. There is no upside to changing to something else.
They’re unsustainable, not to mention expensive and difficult for society to adopt. Toyota just say things while not actually being interested in them.
The marketing that they are “acceptable” for most people is not good enough. Eventually, there will be zero emissions cars that are just as practical as existing ICE cars and just as cheap. Basically no one will want BEVs once that happens.
They’re not unsustainable. Lithium is infinitely recyclable. Not to mention batteries are lasting way longer than expected. I’ve been in Tesla cabs with almost a million kilometers.
But it isn’t recycled, especially at the 100% level that would be required. And you still need to dig out vast amount amounts of virgin material in the first place. Meanwhile, e-fuels and hydrogen have no such problem to begin with. This is basically an excuse to ignore the real-world problems of batteries.
If you don’t have a garage you don’t need a car
If only…
I’m going to say that less than 30% of houses here in the UK have a garage/carport etc (either individual or shared).
Most of the individual garages will be sized to fit an old mini, not a modern car (even a small one)
Yeah, quit using the efficient stuff, we need something similarly inefficient as gas powered cars.
Batteries are unsustainable and have massive resource requirements. It’s basically an obsession with “efficiency” while actually being extremely wasteful.
You say that while promoting the idea of more inefficient energy transfer systems. Electric motors operate above 90%, traditional motors around 25-30%. Trying to mitigate that with wasting more energy by creating an artificial fuel is even more wasteful.
Burning stuff is unsustainable, using batteries, that are recyclable is not.
Solar panels are only 15-20% efficient. No one is going around saying we need to ban solar panels.
Fuels made from solar power are the opposite of unsustainable. They are the most sustainable ideas possible. It is basically artificial photosynthesis.
We don’t make fuels from solar power.
Unless you mean hydrogen, which by itself is already 30-40% less efficient then just using the electricity directly in a battery.
And that is without counting all the hydrogen that just escapes through any form of containment we try to keep it in.
Hydrogen is a fuel. E-fuels are hydrogen plus CO₂ and converted into synthetic hydrocarbons.
You are blatantly ignoring the part where solar power is incredibly inefficient to begin with, and we don’t care. It’s still cheap energy.
You’re confusing the efficency of solar panels with the efficiency of burning hydrocarbon based fuel (perhaps intentionally?). Yes, solar panels convert about 20-30% (they’re getting better with time) of the energy provided by mankind’s closest and most beloved fission reactor into energy we can use, the rest being reflected or turned into heat, but the source (that giant ball of fission) is infinite and non-detremental to the environment to keep running. Hydrocarbon production not only requires this original source but once calculated would provided you end delivery efficency levels that are dramatically lower (likely less than 1%), Natural hydrocarbons are limited in supply, and the whole chain is significantly more toxic for the planet when you calculate in byproducts produced during production or consumption. It’s legitimately not even close and if you truly believe hydrocarbons are even remotely viable you’ve misinterpreted one of the data points somewhere in your calculation.
Except you’ve just proved my point: Solar is basically infinite energy. So why obsess over efficiency? If you have something made from solar power, it is not a big deal.
Where is the comparison to the solar panel? I’m comparing methods of propelling, you are comparing solar panels and?
If you can use the energy more efficiently and choose not to it’s not sustainable (or at least not very smart)
Because it is solar power ultimately powering it all. If you don’t care about the efficiency of that step, you don’t really care about all of the later steps. It is still green energy and still cheap.
The problem with BEVs is that while it is efficient in one respect, it is insanely wasteful in others. As a result, it is an unsustainable idea and functionally just greenwashing.
So it’s the same if you have to build 5 times as many solar panels to do the same thing? It’s just not.
Now we’re in the “pro-BEV bullshit” zone. Batteries won’t magically solve all transportation needs, nor solve the energy storage requirements of the grid. Alternatives still have to exist anyways, and the total lifecycle efficiency of BEVs isn’t that special. In a lot of cases, avoiding excessive use of batteries will save you energy. So pursuing alternatives will not need radically more solar panels.
I’m going to say that if you can charge at home, then electric cars are awesome, otherwise a HFC style car might be better.
Both are going to require significant infrastructure build out, but electric chargers are much easier to install.