Great video
Engineering Explained video: Why Gas Engines Are Far From Dead - Biggest EV Prob
- Thread starter wemay
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Can someone explain his first argument to me?
I see he is saying that the energy contained in a gallon of gas, is equivalent to the energy contained in 13 times that gallon jug's volume, in li-ion batteries. But is this apples to apples? these batteries are going to be recharged. Over the lifetime of the car, I'm sure that these batteries will expend a massive amount of energy, equivalent to many many many gallons of gasoline. It makes no sense to talk of a rechargeable battery's energy production, for one cycle of charge/discharge.
His argument about weight impresses me even less. I am aware that my highlander is heavier, because of its battery (not sure what kind it is). But it is helping me convert breaking power into energy that will improve my MPG, so I'm still ahead of the game, compared to the same vehicle w/o the hybrid tech. So he can crunch all the numbers he wants, but I'm not sure his case is proven.
Or have I missed his points?
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What about swapping the battery at a gas, I mean battery station like large warehouses do in forklifts?
Originally Posted by skyactiv
What about swapping the battery at a gas, I mean battery station like large warehouses do in forklifts?
His argument is really hosed up because he is arguing energy density on a heat basis. If all you are doing is heating the car interior - fine. But on a mechanical work output basis the gasoline can only be converted to mechanical energy at 35-40% efficiency by the absolute best gasoline engines, whereas electric motor efficiency is easily twice that. Then we get into the possibility of electric energy recover from braking during city driving and the "usable" energy from gasoline takes another ding. I'm NOT an EV evangelist, but this guy is comparing apples to bowling balls.
As of late he seems to be beating dead and decomposing horses
Sort of like the EV pickup going up a mountain pulling a 40' trailer 85mph
60 minutes of verbal diarrhea he spouted.
Maybe he gets more subs by creating drama where there is none?
In any event His content as Of late seems to be following an agenda as opposed to things of actual interest. Quality has gone downward here.
Maybe next he will explore how much energy is released if we burn the lithium in the battery?
Or he could explore this concept
https://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/thoughts-using-electric-unicycles-35348.html
It's about as valid
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You need to think of your battery pack as a tank just like a gas tank. But full or empty it weights the same. So your full tank would be the same as having a 2 gallon tank in a car even with the inefficiencies. When you plug in you fill the tank when you go to the gas station you fill the tank the difference is one take 30 sec the other take multiples of hours. But the car with the gas still weights less. The other thing that I did not see pointed out and that no one seems to mention is the real gorilla in the room. Imagine for a min that everyone went out tomorrow and traded their gas car for an electric. Also imagine there are enough charging stations to accommodate them, how many brown out and black out do you think you would suffer through in the first week, how many new nuclear power plants do you want in your city or coal fired power plants. Considering there are already large areas of the country that suffer brown outs when everyone turns on their AC and rolling blackout to conserve power and avoid crashing the grid and no one has built a new nuclear plant in years. For now electric cars are a boutique item with unimagined consequences.
The battery pack is pretty much two sub-average weight people travelling with you.
Everywhere.
And the brake regen, most people drive a loop. to destination(s) & home, so every hill you regen on is another load you just put on the pack.
Barring breakthrough battery tech that's always three years away, it's a wash at the end of the day.
Not sure where some of you are getting that he's wrong. Energy density and volume are legitimate engineering concerns when it comes to packaging the batteries inside the vehicle. It has nothing do to with recharging. Same as the gas tank, whether empty or full, it takes up the same amount of space, but batteries need to take up a lot more volume. Batteries also weight the same full or empty. Weight is a very big problem to overcome for batteries.
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He's also comparing that to 1 gallon of gas where as the average car holds 12-20 gallons of gas. If you are low on gas, you can just pull up to a pump, fill up, and go. You can't do that so easily with electric. Like he mentioned at the end, people are lazy.
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Originally Posted by RDY4WAR
He's also comparing that to 1 gallon of gas where as the average car holds 12-20 gallons of gas. If you are low on gas, you can just pull up to a pump, fill up, and go. You can't do that so easily with electric. Like he mentioned at the end, people are lazy.
Originally Posted by KrisZ
Not sure where some of you are getting that he's wrong. Energy density and volume are legitimate engineering concerns when it comes to packaging the batteries inside the vehicle. It has nothing do to with recharging.
Weight is a very big problem to overcome for batteries.
I always like the electric car discussions. Firstly, people will charge at home. If they will are away from home and they need to use a charger they will learn to charge only to 80% cutting the time necessary. We now have a sea to sea charging system on the Trans Canada highway in Canada. That's a lot of coffee and donuts at Timmies. 
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Originally Posted by RDY4WAR
He's also comparing that to 1 gallon of gas where as the average car holds 12-20 gallons of gas. If you are low on gas, you can just pull up to a pump, fill up, and go. You can't do that so easily with electric. Like he mentioned at the end, people are lazy.
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Those of us ho travel in cold hilly mountanous areas will most likely wait until the electrics are better sorted out.
Something weird about a 30 something guy that looks like he's 16 but has graying hair.
Originally Posted by JeffKeryk
Originally Posted by RDY4WAR
He's also comparing that to 1 gallon of gas where as the average car holds 12-20 gallons of gas. If you are low on gas, you can just pull up to a pump, fill up, and go. You can't do that so easily with electric. Like he mentioned at the end, people are lazy.
EVs make perfect sense for a small # of applications and users, and senseless toys for everyone else. They should never be more than that, and they won't be for decades.
Fossil fuels are renewable energy. Batteries are not. Finding novel ways to generate electricity, which is only a % of the total power, misses the bigger picture that there is no more effective long term method of keeping a green cycle than using plants to capture solar energy and harvesting the energy from them - with more efficient means than we presently do.
The old farm model is a throwback to centuries old practices that made more sense when it was uneducated humans and animals doing most of the work. It can be industrialized with tech like anything else, and 'sink CO2 in the process, using organic matter and water, two things we have a (close enough to) infinite supply of and no mining needed.
The only way EVs will ever make sense for the masses is if we make the necessarily expanded power grid to handle them, distributed via an electric rail in the roadways that they get their primary power from instead of a battery.
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Originally Posted by RDY4WAR
Originally Posted by JeffKeryk
Originally Posted by RDY4WAR
He's also comparing that to 1 gallon of gas where as the average car holds 12-20 gallons of gas. If you are low on gas, you can just pull up to a pump, fill up, and go. You can't do that so easily with electric. Like he mentioned at the end, people are lazy.
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