Who killed the electric car?

Originally Posted by Gecko3

Certainly stuff that oil companies wouldn't want to tell you, and it also tells you why they're slowly looking into hydrogen fuel cells, which will still take a few decades before we see them (after which, they will still benefit from it, cause you can get hydrogen from oil).

If there's any fossil fuel we're going to be taking hydrogen from in order to power fuel-cell based cars it's going to be natural gas, not oil. I mean, why would you ever replace the internal combustion engine with a less efficient alternative when you're going to be using the same fuel?

We haven't seen research into these alternatives because there's been no reason to do it. Oil is just so darned convenient and cheap that nobody sees a reason to sink billions of dollars into an alternative until that alternative is in really high demand.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by gukarma

Are hydrogen fuel cells like the most efficient thing in the world, though?

Not really. There's a number of intrinsic inefficiencies to fuel cells. People just think they're tons more efficient because they're not going to be pumping out tons of hot exhaust that can be seen as obvious waste.

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I think the problem comes in plating the electrodes (needed in every engine) with platinum. That's right, a part of every hydrogen fuel cell engine has to be coated with platinum.

That's not cheap.

Every hard drive has a thin film of platinum on it. Pt-Co alloys have some great magnetic properties.

Originally Posted by Cal

Chicken and the egg. How do we create really high demand?

Make movies that make people want to drive alternative fueled cars, apparently.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by PattyNBK

Given gas prices, I honestly don't understand why more people don't buy them. Actually, I do. Only one American company (correct me if I'm wrong) has a hybrid at the moment, and a lot of people are really big on being patriotic by buying American goods. Poor reasoning, I'd say. Others actually have this misconception that hybrids are expensive, when they really aren't; a new one runs about $20K, just like most normal cars.

The amount of car you get for a hybrid is considerably less than that of a traditional one for the money, isn't it? Also, isn't there still a pretty large waiting line for getting hybrids right now? I know none of the dealers near me never have any of them sitting on the lot, as they pretty much sell as soon as they come in.

For people with a hybrid, I've actually been curious. How's the pickup on it compared to other small cars? I used to have an Escort and I really didn't like how it had a problem with accelerating from 30-60 MPH as it made merging onto highways pretty difficult.

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Here's a rather recent article that seems to address a few questions pretty well. I'll just take out a few quotes I think are worth everyone's time.

Quote:

Hybrids are the most gasoline efficient of all cars – they typically get 48 to 60 mpg (claimed). Not bad, but only about 20% to 35% better than a fuel efficient gasoline powered vehicle – like the Honda Civic, for example, that gets 36 mpg. But, when comparing prices – hybrids cost from $19,000 to $25,000 and gas saver cars cost $14,000 to $17,000 – the justification to buy becomes less clear.

Indeed, the difference in average annual fuel bills - $405 for a Honda Insight versus $635 for a Honda Civic – means you may never recoup the added initial cost of a hybrid. Over a ten year period owning a hybrid will save you only $2,300 – less than the cost difference for comparably equipped cars.

Much of the fuel efficiency comes from improvements in aero dynamics, weight reduction and, the biggest change: a smaller, less powerful gas engine. In fact, any car will get substantially better mileage just by reducing the engine size. The main reason this is not done has to do customer demand – they want the extra power and zippiness.

...



Then, there is always the environment – always worth thinking about. A hybrid cuts emissions by 25% to 35% over even the most fuel efficient gas powered models.

The tax incentive in the U.S. is another powerful motive – it can reduce your cost up to $3,400 depending on the cost of the vehicle. Better act fast, however, to get the model you want: the tax break only applies to the first 60,000 vehicles produced yearly by each manufacturer. Toyota’s Prius, for example, will quickly reach that number of sales before year-end.

http://www.physorg.com/news10031.html

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Originally Posted by Stealth

Not to mention riding in a car full of hydrogen isn't the smartest idea around.

Kinda like how riding in a car filled with extremely volatile gasoline isn't the smartest idea around?

I was speaking idiomatically.

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If the hydrogen is in the form of a gas, filling the volume of a normal sized fuel tank wouldn't take the vehicle very far. The fuel must be in a liquid form, and therefore must be extremely cold.

Actually it just has to be held under a shitload of pressure. And you need somewhat special materials to contain hydrogen because it has this bad property of making lots of materials brittle over time as well as diffusing much much faster through materials than any other gas (that's why you need those special silvery helium balloons over the latex ones you can blow up).

Tal, what you said is true, but one thing is that power plants are much more efficient users of the fuel than your car is. They can take advantage of scale and get more energy per volume out of the fuel as well as release less polution into the atmosphere by using better carbon dioxide scrubbers and such. Still not that huge of an improvement, though.

How ya doing, buddy?