When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?

[jmelson]

I've had an idea: do the water electrolysis deep down in the Mariana Trench and get the H2 compressed for free. How about that? And you get chlorine too, for free.

I worked on a project 40 years ago that was going to use a solar-heated high pressure cell for electrolysis.  The idea was that by doing the electrolysis at near the dissociation point for water, it took VERY little energy to separate the H from the O.  Then, you got the H already at high pressure, for easy storage in a cylinder.  Or, you got it already hot, for conversion into Ammonia.  The original design had been done for NASA by ThermoElectron, and it was all inch-thick quartz windows, sapphire insulators and platinum electrodes, but the PE was quire sure that all that expensive stuff could be replaced with more affordable materials.

Oh, and pumping the liquid water into the cell under pressure is no different than the feedwater pump on a boiler.  It doesn't take THAT much energy.

Jon

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Not a chance. At $0.075/kWh and at most 12 kWh to fill up a completely empty Volt battery overnight, it will not be an issue. You continue to show that you really don’t have a clue about the cost of driving an EV.

Well, you don't seem to have a clue that your electricity is extremely (unlikely) cheap. I'm paying $0.30 per kWh against the current dollar/euro exchange rate if I could charge at home and that price is similar across Europe on average. When charging at a public charging points prices easely rise up to $0.70 per kWh over here. At these prices an EV makes no sense compared to an efficient ICE car.

...and with 12 kWh (12*0.85=10.2) an EV can do 60 km at best.

[DougSpindler]

The general claim for using Hydrogen is that you can fill it just as fast as an ICE car. For some reason not all hydrogen fueling stations can supply hydrogen fast so fueling takes longer (still the time is much shorter than charging an EV for the same range). I don't know how and why some hydrogen fueling stations are slow and others are fast and how to recognise them. As more hydrogen fueling stations will be built this should become more clear over time.

Whether hydrogen is more expensive or not depends on the fuel prices. In the Netherlands the price of hydrogen is on par with normal fuel prices. My current car is more expensive to run on fuel compared to hydrogen. A more efficient car will be cheaper to run.

And sure hydrogen comes from fossil fuels just like electricity for EVs comes from fossil fuels. Hydrogen and batteries are energy carriers. It is as green as the source of the energy. But that is not a good reason to disqualify either. You have to start somewhere and EVs and hydrogen will probably emit lots of CO2 until nuclear power takes over from coal & gas.

BTW next year Electriq~Fuel will start a pilot project in the Netherlands. Again a website with lots of marketing to emphasize on safety: https://www.electriq.com/technology/ I don't quite trust the '60% water' claim but I have read about other systems which bind hydrogen to form a chemical compound. The hydrogen is released when needed. The advantage is that this system doesn't need high pressure vessels to store the hydrogen. I've come across similar systems so the idea isn't novel. It is like fueling a car with liquid (charged) electrolyte. Once the hydrogen is released the remaining chemical compound is to be recycled. Don't ask me about efficiency numbers. I have none and it seems to me this technology is too new to dig into deeply.

Another Theranos?  Sure sounds like it.  This is laughable.  You do realize that an internal combustion engine extracts hydrogen from the fuel to power the vehicle and create electricity for the car.  The CEO says no studies are needed because we say we have actual performance showing it works.  In other words "Trust Us". 

nctninco I know you say you don't drink, smoke dope, use drugs are believe in applying critical thinking skills.  So how can your mind be so distorted to believe in the claims this company is making without providing any proof except for their web site and press releases. 

Dude you have to be so high on drugs to believe this could even possibly work.  The laws of physics and chemistry all state this would be impossible.  Care to explain why you think it might work?


The startup says it's developed a safe, cheap and clean fuel. It's 60% water, and works with technology that extracts hydrogen from the fuel, then harnesses it to create electricity to power a vehicle.

To which some people may say, is this too good to be true? Are there endorsements or studies to back that up?

Guy Michrowski, CEO of the Australian-Israeli startup responds: "The claims are based on experimental results and prototype testing that are shared with customers on a confidential basis. Those back the claims by actual performance rather than studies."

[Marco]

https://www.electriq.com/technology/ I don't quite trust the '60% water' claim but I have read about other systems which bind hydrogen to form a chemical compound.

No energy efficient Sodium Metaborate -> Sodium Borohydride conversion has ever been shown. It's perfectly possible they have the technology and developed it without publishing scientific papers, just highly fucking unlikely. Any public money betting on it without them actually having peer review on the recycling component is throwing away public money at what are most certainly scammers. Who will never be caught or prosecuted for it.

So business as usual.

[nctnico]

The general claim for using Hydrogen is that you can fill it just as fast as an ICE car. For some reason not all hydrogen fueling stations can supply hydrogen fast so fueling takes longer (still the time is much shorter than charging an EV for the same range). I don't know how and why some hydrogen fueling stations are slow and others are fast and how to recognise them. As more hydrogen fueling stations will be built this should become more clear over time.

Whether hydrogen is more expensive or not depends on the fuel prices. In the Netherlands the price of hydrogen is on par with normal fuel prices. My current car is more expensive to run on fuel compared to hydrogen. A more efficient car will be cheaper to run.

And sure hydrogen comes from fossil fuels just like electricity for EVs comes from fossil fuels. Hydrogen and batteries are energy carriers. It is as green as the source of the energy. But that is not a good reason to disqualify either. You have to start somewhere and EVs and hydrogen will probably emit lots of CO2 until nuclear power takes over from coal & gas.

BTW next year Electriq~Fuel will start a pilot project in the Netherlands. Again a website with lots of marketing to emphasize on safety: https://www.electriq.com/technology/ I don't quite trust the '60% water' claim but I have read about other systems which bind hydrogen to form a chemical compound. The hydrogen is released when needed. The advantage is that this system doesn't need high pressure vessels to store the hydrogen. I've come across similar systems so the idea isn't novel. It is like fueling a car with liquid (charged) electrolyte. Once the hydrogen is released the remaining chemical compound is to be recycled. Don't ask me about efficiency numbers. I have none and it seems to me this technology is too new to dig into deeply.

Another Theranos?  Sure sounds like it.  This is laughable.  You do realize that an internal combustion engine extracts hydrogen from the fuel to power the vehicle and create electricity for the car.  The CEO says no studies are needed because we say we have actual performance showing it works.  In other words "Trust Us". 

nctninco I know you say you don't drink, smoke dope, use drugs are believe in applying critical thinking skills.  So how can your mind be so distorted to believe in the claims this company is making without providing any proof except for their web site and press releases. 

I explicitely wrote that I have no opinion on whether this is feasable or not. I don't have the information. I just know that they are not the only ones doing research in this direction and the idea isn't new. You on the other hand seem to dismiss it based on no facts and poor understanding of the concept (as usual). Please share you back-of-the-envelope calculations. However as expected you judged without fully understanding the concept. There isn't a combustion engine in the 'liquid hydrogen carrier' concept:



In step 2 the hydrogen is seperated from the liquid, step 3 is a regular fuel cell to convert hydrogen into electricity and part 4 is an electric motor.

Again, I have no opinion on feasability or efficiency. I just wanted to share what was in the local news today because it is an interesting development to follow since it seems they are going to do a real test outside a laboratory. Doing a field test at least shows they are willing to put their money where their mouth is.

[Marco]

The hydrogen generation isn't the big problem, it's recycling the sodium metaborate without wasting a metric fuckton of energy.

A similar problem to Zinc/Aluminium/Iron Air batteries, energetically the processes could be reversible without wasting a lot of energy ... chemically we have no idea how to do it.

[nctnico]

The hydrogen generation isn't the big problem, it's recycling the sodium metaborate without wasting a metric fuckton of energy.

That is my understanding too from what I have read so far. I'm just wondering if people from Electriq~Fuel have found a different method but I'm not a chemist and have no idea what is possible or not. But lets not forget the financial side of things. Storing 1kWh in a battery of a battery-EV costs several tens of cents due to the cost of manufacturing the battery. That financial inefficiency leaves a lot of room for a less energy efficient system to have a lower operating cost after all.

[Marco]

I doubt it will be able to compete with even Zinc air batteries ... the Sodium Metaborate recycling will almost certainly require hydrogen, so you will compound the losses from hydrogen generation and the metaborate to borohydride conversion. Suddenly the 50% round trip losses of a Zinc Air battery start looking less troublesome, and a Zinc air battery could be both mechanically and electrically recharged.

[nctnico]

The problem with zinc-air is that the energy content seems to be around 100W per kg. Currently Li-ion sits somewhere around 300Wh per kg and even Li-ion batteries are considered heavy. The Electriq~Fuel system seems to offer a much higher power density. Currently they are at 40gram hydrogen per liter (with future improvements yadda yadda yadda). To take a car 100km you'll need 1kg of hydrogen. That translates to 25 liters of liquid per 100km. 500km of range would translate to 125 liters. Say that is 150kg to round it up. An EV would need 125kWh to cover 500km which translates to a battery with a mass of over 400kg.

[Marco]

Zinc air is being designed for grid storage, the energy density for a portable optimized design wouldn't really be comparable. Theoretical energy density leaves plenty of room for improvement.

[drussell]

To take a car 100km you'll need 1kg of hydrogen. That translates to 25 liters of liquid per 100km. 500km of range would translate to 125 liters. Say that is 150kg to round it up. An EV would need 125kWh to cover 500km which translates to a battery with a mass of over 400kg.

Ahhh, except you neglected to factor in the containment vessel required to actually hold said hydrogen in the vehicle...

This is where it becomes increasingly impractical.

[Marco]

The liquid in question is probably sodium borohydride in very pure water, which will release hydrogen when flowing across a suitable catalyst.

[ahbushnell]

When my oldest turns 16 in a little over 3 years, I plan to give him my Volt and get an EV pick up. Then I can sell my Toyota Tundra, the last pure ICE vehicle I’ll likely ever own.

Just be prepared that your kid's usage scenarios and willingness to put up the limitations of an EV may not match yours... You might end up selling the  Volt and keeping the Tundra.

Volt is a discontinued car.

I recently bought my son a used one and it works great. 

[ahbushnell]

Here in BC the fuel costs of a BEV are 1/7th that of the compatible ICE (given today's electricity/gasoline price), so the incentive is pretty high. 

I'd like to see real world verifyable figures to support that.

Seen so many claims of this when it does not add up. A favourite is to quote the cost of Filling an ICE and an EV and claiming one is cheaper than the other but not taking into account the ICE goes 4-6x further than the EV.

Tesla had a page on it's site here showing it's car was cheaper to run over 1500KM. Typically with their endless bullshit and lies, the calculation took into account the 400KWH of free supercharging that came with every new Vehicle.  The first 1500Km may have been cheaper but the next and every subsequent 1500km was far from cheap at all.

I don't trust any claims made by the greenwashed because they have proven to exaggerate and lie either by omission or otherwise on so many things in their desperation to push their cult and turn everyone to converts.

In any case, I see any EV price advantage to be short lived.
As more EV's put more pressure on grids around the world that will need to be upgraded and have billions spent on infrastructure the price of power WILL  go up as it continues to do here at an economic crippling rate.
At the same time as fuel sales go down, the cartels will start leveling the playing field and reducing the now artificially inflated cost of fuel.
Anyone that thinks the oil industry is just going to sit on it's arse and seen their profits go down the gurgler without fighting it is a moron.

The scenarios are always painted as nice and straight forward but reality is anything but.

george80 you are absolutely correct.  I live in California and our power company by the end of this year will have everyone on a Time of Use Billing which will greatly complicate EV.  Depending on the rate plan a kWhr ranges from $0.12 to $0.87.  Will people have to "fill-up" when the power company is charging  $0.87 kWhr?  They sure would if they don't want to walk home.  For a Tesla this would be over twice if not close to three times what it would cost to fuel and ICE car with gasoline.

Now if one has solar panels and can sell electricity to the power company this changes everything as you can sell kHrs to the power company at $0.87kWhr and then buy back those kWhrs for only $0.12.  But then one has to factor in the $35,000 Tesla/Solar City charges for the solar panels.

As someone who owns an electric car in California the annual cost difference between "fueling" an EV and an ICE is a difference of a few hundred dollars.  And as electricity rates increase it's going to be even less.

The big advantage with EVs other than BSing people into thinking they are doing something "good" for the planet is they cause the pollution in someone else's backyard.  There is no cost "real" cost savings.

The reason we have TOD billing is solar.  The low rates happen during the day and after 9 pm at night.  The high rates are from 6 to 9 pm. 

The solution is to have batteries with you solar system. 

[ahbushnell]

When my oldest turns 16 in a little over 3 years, I plan to give him my Volt and get an EV pick up. Then I can sell my Toyota Tundra, the last pure ICE vehicle I’ll likely ever own.

Just be prepared that your kid's usage scenarios and willingness to put up the limitations of an EV may not match yours... You might end up selling the  Volt and keeping the Tundra.

Ha. When I was 16 I would have LOVED to have a car that I could refill for 'free" by just plugging it in at my parents house.  My main limitation driving at that age was not having money to buy gasoline.

I'm quite sure you'll put a lock on the outlet if your kid starts to run the electricity bill up to hundreds of dollars extra per month.

Not a chance. At $0.075/kWh and at most 12 kWh to fill up a completely empty Volt battery overnight, it will not be an issue. You continue to show that you really don’t have a clue about the cost of driving an EV.

I think you made an error with the decimal place.  It's 0.75 $/kWh. 

[george80]

The solution is to have batteries with you solar system.

The soloution to what exactly?
Please make the answer a realistic one and not some green washed flawed rubbish theory.

[DougSpindler]

Here in BC the fuel costs of a BEV are 1/7th that of the compatible ICE (given today's electricity/gasoline price), so the incentive is pretty high. 

I'd like to see real world verifyable figures to support that.

Seen so many claims of this when it does not add up. A favourite is to quote the cost of Filling an ICE and an EV and claiming one is cheaper than the other but not taking into account the ICE goes 4-6x further than the EV.

Tesla had a page on it's site here showing it's car was cheaper to run over 1500KM. Typically with their endless bullshit and lies, the calculation took into account the 400KWH of free supercharging that came with every new Vehicle.  The first 1500Km may have been cheaper but the next and every subsequent 1500km was far from cheap at all.

I don't trust any claims made by the greenwashed because they have proven to exaggerate and lie either by omission or otherwise on so many things in their desperation to push their cult and turn everyone to converts.

In any case, I see any EV price advantage to be short lived.
As more EV's put more pressure on grids around the world that will need to be upgraded and have billions spent on infrastructure the price of power WILL  go up as it continues to do here at an economic crippling rate.
At the same time as fuel sales go down, the cartels will start leveling the playing field and reducing the now artificially inflated cost of fuel.
Anyone that thinks the oil industry is just going to sit on it's arse and seen their profits go down the gurgler without fighting it is a moron.

The scenarios are always painted as nice and straight forward but reality is anything but.

george80 you are absolutely correct.  I live in California and our power company by the end of this year will have everyone on a Time of Use Billing which will greatly complicate EV.  Depending on the rate plan a kWhr ranges from $0.12 to $0.87.  Will people have to "fill-up" when the power company is charging  $0.87 kWhr?  They sure would if they don't want to walk home.  For a Tesla this would be over twice if not close to three times what it would cost to fuel and ICE car with gasoline.

Now if one has solar panels and can sell electricity to the power company this changes everything as you can sell kHrs to the power company at $0.87kWhr and then buy back those kWhrs for only $0.12.  But then one has to factor in the $35,000 Tesla/Solar City charges for the solar panels.

As someone who owns an electric car in California the annual cost difference between "fueling" an EV and an ICE is a difference of a few hundred dollars.  And as electricity rates increase it's going to be even less.

The big advantage with EVs other than BSing people into thinking they are doing something "good" for the planet is they cause the pollution in someone else's backyard.  There is no cost "real" cost savings.

The reason we have TOD billing is solar.  The low rates happen during the day and after 9 pm at night.  The high rates are from 6 to 9 pm. 

The solution is to have batteries with you solar system.

In California where we have Time of Use billing the WORST thing one could do is get batteries.  Why pay for batteries when the power company will buy your excess electricity during the day for $.50 kWhr and later that same day you can buy it back for only $0.12 kWhr.  One would be a fool to buy batteries.

[george80]

One would be a fool to buy batteries.

THAT is the correct/ logical/ realistic/ truthful answer.
And the only one.

We don't have such a beneficial power pricing scheme in Oz but no matter where you are in the world from what I have seen, there is NO where in the world batteries make any sense right now nor will do for the forseeable future.
The price would have to be about 1/3rd of what they are now to get in the ball park no matter what you pay for power.
 Some places have batterys than others but where the batterys are cheaper the power is too canceling out any ROI advantage.

I have seen all sorts of convoluted, complicated and green washed calculations to try and prove otherwise but the equations is very simple.
At 100% utilization 100% of the time, they simply cannot save enough power for it's value to repay it's cost in a valid time frame being the lifetime of the battery. The exception maybe a DIY system using forklift packs or the like but certainly no Powerbore  or similar plug and play type battery has any valid Financial benefit.

Oh yeah, we can spin doctor the argument as well and say I bought one for blackout power which,
1. is still not saving power and is a totaly different scenario, and,
2, You are a fool for paying far too much for an overpriced solution when there are far better and cheaper alternatives.

If you buy a battery to "save the environment",  Well I won't nominate fitting and applicable names but lets just say you are either a product or sucker of the PC greenwashed.

I bought 3 Diesel engines this week and 2 Generator heads.  All working or brand new.  $300 all up.  One needs a new belt, the other would need the head and the engine mounted and hooked up.  Lets play devils advocate and call it $200 to make a nice Figure of $500.  Where a battery lasts hours, I can run everything and lot more than a battery can till the cows come home..... in 6 months time. And I still have a spare engine.

[DougSpindler]

One would be a fool to buy batteries.

THAT is the correct/ logical/ realistic/ truthful answer.
And the only one.

We don't have such a beneficial power pricing scheme in Oz but no matter where you are in the world from what I have seen, there is NO where in the world batteries make any sense right now nor will do for the forseeable future.
The price would have to be about 1/3rd of what they are now to get in the ball park no matter what you pay for power.
 Some places have batterys than others but where the batterys are cheaper the power is too canceling out any ROI advantage.

I have seen all sorts of convoluted, complicated and green washed calculations to try and prove otherwise but the equations is very simple.
At 100% utilization 100% of the time, they simply cannot save enough power for it's value to repay it's cost in a valid time frame being the lifetime of the battery. The exception maybe a DIY system using forklift packs or the like but certainly no Powerbore  or similar plug and play type battery has any valid Financial benefit.

Oh yeah, we can spin doctor the argument as well and say I bought one for blackout power which,
1. is still not saving power and is a totaly different scenario, and,
2, You are a fool for paying far too much for an overpriced solution when there are far better and cheaper alternatives.

If you buy a battery to "save the environment",  Well I won't nominate fitting and applicable names but lets just say you are either a product or sucker of the PC greenwashed.

I bought 3 Diesel engines this week and 2 Generator heads.  All working or brand new.  $300 all up.  One needs a new belt, the other would need the head and the engine mounted and hooked up.  Lets play devils advocate and call it $200 to make a nice Figure of $500.  Where a battery lasts hours, I can run everything and lot more than a battery can till the cows come home..... in 6 months time. And I still have a spare engine.

Another reason not to use batteries is the heat loss.  Dave a few years ago made a video on the heat loss with lead acid batteries.   During charging 20% of the electricity used to charge the battery is lost as heat.  When discharging there's a 20% loss to heat.  So between charging and discharging one loses 40% to heat.  That's like going to the bank and opening a savings account.  For every dollar you put in the bank, the bank gives you $0.60 back.  (The other $0.40 is used to heat the bank.) 
 

[nctnico]

To take a car 100km you'll need 1kg of hydrogen. That translates to 25 liters of liquid per 100km. 500km of range would translate to 125 liters. Say that is 150kg to round it up. An EV would need 125kWh to cover 500km which translates to a battery with a mass of over 400kg.

Ahhh, except you neglected to factor in the containment vessel required to actually hold said hydrogen in the vehicle...

This is where it becomes increasingly impractical.

No, the idea behind keeping hydrogen in a liquid is that you can keep it in a regular thin walled fuel tank. OTOH Toyota already has figured out how to build a safe high pressure hydrogen tank for their Mirai (IMHO they went a little bit overboard by making it -litterally- bullet proof) so either way storing the hydrogen is solved. It all comes down to operational costs.

[nctnico]

Zinc air is being designed for grid storage, the energy density for a portable optimized design wouldn't really be comparable. Theoretical energy density leaves plenty of room for improvement.

For grid storage it would be interesting but the batteries will need to be really really cheap and be able to endure 50k cycles or more to become cost effective. Something Lithium battery technology is unlikely to achieve.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

[...] Dave a few years ago made a video on the heat loss with lead acid batteries.   During charging 20% of the electricity used to charge the battery is lost as heat.  When discharging there's a 20% loss to heat.  So between charging and discharging one loses 40% to heat. [...]

For the third time Doug, please, where is that video? Have you got the url?

[nctnico]

[...] Dave a few years ago made a video on the heat loss with lead acid batteries.   During charging 20% of the electricity used to charge the battery is lost as heat.  When discharging there's a 20% loss to heat.  So between charging and discharging one loses 40% to heat. [...]

For the third time Doug, please, where is that video? Have you got the url?

Same here. AFAIK someone already debunked Doug's numbers earlier on in this thread.

[ahbushnell]

The solution is to have batteries with you solar system.

The soloution to what exactly?
Please make the answer a realistic one and not some green washed flawed rubbish theory.

Store solar energy in the day and then when you need it on peak demand use the batteries.  People do this all the time. 

Why are you insulting me? 
 
This stuff is commercially available. 

https://solartechonline.com/home-energy-storage/?gclid=Cj0KCQiA-8PjBRCWARIsADc18TI1WHTceCCSdr0U6Jt1fFtotZRiXxGmFRnT2b39E3_6pyret-VBwHMaAgvtEALw_wcB

[coppice]

The solution is to have batteries with you solar system.

The soloution to what exactly?
Please make the answer a realistic one and not some green washed flawed rubbish theory.

Store solar energy in the day and then when you need it on peak demand use the batteries.  People do this all the time. 

Why are you insulting me? 
 
This stuff is commercially available. 

https://solartechonline.com/home-energy-storage/?gclid=Cj0KCQiA-8PjBRCWARIsADc18TI1WHTceCCSdr0U6Jt1fFtotZRiXxGmFRnT2b39E3_6pyret-VBwHMaAgvtEALw_wcB

I think george80 was looking for a more general solution than one that only works in one of the small number of places where a high level of insolation is guaranteed every day of the entire year.