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Ford Airstream Electric Concept Car
Journal written by Kalgash (158314) and posted by
kdawson
on Sat Jan 13, 2007 09:23 PM
from the fill-it-up-with-H2 dept.
from the fill-it-up-with-H2 dept.
Not to be upstaged by GM's plug-in electric concept vehicle, Ford has unveiled its own concept. The twists are design by Airstream and a hydrogen-powered fuel cell to charge the battery. From the AutoblogGreen article: "The fuel cell, made by Ballard, turns on automatically when the battery charge dips below 40 percent. With the on-board charger (110/220 VAC), the battery pack can be refilled at home. Ford says the HySeries Drive is 50 percent smaller and less complex than conventional fuel cell system and should have more than double the lifetime."
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Technology: GM Working on Feasible Electric Car 673 comments
WindBourne writes "While Ford wants to simply offer cosmetic changes to automobiles interiors and exteriors, General Motors has finally gotten the message about electric autos. They are about to introduce the Chevy Volt, a plug-in hybrid which gets 40 Miles on a charge, but has a generator that can keep the auto going up to 640 miles range. From a styling POV, it is not a tesla, but it is also not a focus or a pinto. From the Rocky article: 'GM did not release cost estimates but said they recognize the Volt's price will have to be competitive. Company Vice Chairman Robert Lutz said in a statement that more than half of Americans live less than 20 miles from their workplace and could go to work and back on a single charge.'"
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Good idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good idea (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
* All measurements in degrees Celsius.
No, BAD idea - depends on Unobtanium (Score:5, Interesting)
Without either of those, this is just a short-range electric car. <yawn>
PEM fuel cells have been one of the two stumbling blocks for hydrogen vehicles for years. It wasn't long ago that a stack for a car cost a half a million to a million dollars (due to hand-assembly and platinum content) and had a fairly short lifespan. Li-ion batteries to get the same range would cost a fraction as much, and they are coming down in price/kWh at a steady rate. Lifespan is going way up with the new chemistries and nanoparticle materials.
Hydrogen is the other form of Unobtanium. It would take something like a trillion dollars to build out a new hydrogen-fuelling infrastructure to replace petroleum motor fuels. (Got a spare trillion handy, or did it go for Bush's War?) Further, the production of hydrogen from non-fossil energy sources is very inefficient [blogspot.com]; a PEM electrolyzer is maybe 75% and a PEM fuel cell is about 60%, for a best-case throughput of 45% (before compression energy is considered). In contrast, a lithium-ion battery is about 95% efficient.
There are no ways around this; production of hydrogen from e.g. aluminum is much lossier than electrolysis [blogspot.com]. Making a renewable hydrogen economy requires not one but two kinds of Unobtanium.
So why's the US government pushing hydrogen? It's my suspicion that the oil interests want all the alt-energy money spent on things which cannot work, thus guaranteeing that taxpayer-funded research will never threaten their gravy train. A few million dollars in campaign funding thus buys them many $billions in increased revenue; probably the best investment they could ever make.
Parent
Re:No, BAD idea - depends on Unobtanium (Score:5, Interesting)
Currently fossil fuel (includes diesel and petrol) is mainly used for transport and looks like being this way for some time to come. Alternative fuels in the form of bio-diesel and ethanol are being touted as a viable alternative to fossil fuel however even these fuels have their drawbacks since you still need to actually grow, harvest, produce and deliver the fuel to the consumer. Bio-diesel is currently seen as the most viable alternative fuel (cheaper and less polluting) since most diesel vehicles can run on it with little or no modification while petrol engines do need to be modified (some more than others) to run on ethanol which is not that environmentally friendly and has a lower energy equation than bio-diesel. On average diesel is approx 30% more efficient and diesel engines usually have allot more torque at much lower RPM than their equivalent petrol counterparts.
You are right so say "So why's the US government pushing hydrogen? It's my suspicion that the oil interests want all the alt-energy money spent on things which cannot work, thus guaranteeing that taxpayer-funded research will never threaten their gravy train.". I would add many governments are touting this around the world and so far nothing has come of it although hybrid (ie. petrol/electric and diesel/electric) are viable. Again you really have to look at the energy equation (time does play a part here) to see if current hybrids are truly viable and cost effective.
Before everyone runs out and buys a diesel (equally applies to a hybrid) I would suggest you do some homework since diesel cars are normally more expensive than their petrol counterparts and you may have to travel a fair distance before you start to save. If the costs are the other-way around (mine was) then it becomes easier to make the decision. Of course buying a motor vehicle is a matter of personal choice and prestige as well and fuel efficiency may not even enter the equation.
The following is an interesting read on the potential ways of manufacturing alternative fuels. The heading reads "'Flashy' New Process Turns Soy Oil, Glucose Into Hydrogen" so read into that what you may.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/0611
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
A big enough electric-vehicle fleet would let you take advantage of surplus energy at any time of the day, not just at night. This would be great for Texas, because Texas wind could supply 1190 billion KWh/year [sustainableenergy.org], about 30% of US electric demand by itself. Take 20% of that (238 billion kWh), use it to charge vehicles consuming ~400 Wh/mile (much more than current EV's) for a sta
But why is it so ugly? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
That kind of reaction was also typical in the time the first automobiles started making their way. "Horses are for real men, automobiles are for sissies!".
It's best advised that you have more open mind about it, as improvements require changes.
My personal opinion of their design is: it's a concept design. Like any concept design i
To be honest, the conversion cars are more... (Score:5, Interesting)
Driving Hazard (Score:4, Interesting)
"Concept car", perfect for my "concept job" (Score:5, Funny)
Wait a minute. (Score:3, Funny)
I half expect that central column to start pumping up and down with a high pitched grinding noise as the vehicle slowly disappears.
Glitter Ford (Score:4, Funny)
"The innovator's dilemma" (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, since then, I've read Clayton M. Christensen's The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. Great, great book. Everyone should read it. And I'm stunned by how perfectly the car companies are falling into the exact trap he describes. And how perfectly the electric car fits his definition of "disruptive technology." And, yes, he does talk about them in the last chapter.
Chevy and GM need to spin off a small division, a la IBM spinning off the Boca Raton PC division, to make and market an electric car. Not a future "sustaining technology" electric car that meets the needs of existing customers of gasoline cars. (Hybrids a la the Prius are a perfect example of that). Just... EV-1's, which are known to have a small market... a market which puts different values on things than the existing car market. A small spinoff for which that market is worthwhile. A spinoff that plays by its rules and doesn't need to compare the profit margin of an EV-1 with the profit margin of a Suburban, so it won't divert all its effort to building Suburbans. A small spinoff that will sell the cars to anyone it can find who will buy one, and will thereby find the new market for them.
Then, over time, the existing business for currently feasible small EVs will result in learning curve improvements, economies of scale, better batteries, longer ranges, bigger vehicles and suddenly one day the mainstream buyer will notice that the electrics _are_ competitive for the traditional market.
Yes, I know... you can tell that I've just read Christensen's book. Which has been out for a decade. But judging from the big carmakers, I'm not the only one who hasn't read it.
Just do it, Detroit. Stop fooling around with the concept cars, the great stuff that's always been just around the corner since 1939. Don't build a prototype of tomorrow's car, build a real car, now, and sell it, today.
Just start up the EV-1 line and build some more. Just like the last. Then sell them. Then build some that are a little better. Then sell them. And s on.
Confusing Article (Score:4, Informative)
Why no "trickle" solar? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why no "trickle" solar? (Score:5, Insightful)
After efficiency losses from engine and alternator, one gallon of gas [wikipedia.org] is equal to at least 10 KWH of electricity. Realistically, about the best you could do with solar panels is to cover 2 meters of the car with ~15% efficient panels = 300 watts (max). Now assume you get 12 hours of full sun directly on the panels each day (which is impossible). That's 3.6 KWH/day, or about a third of a gallon of gas. More realistic solar panel data (PDF) [spsenergy.com] gets about 1/5 of that in real life.
That might not even be worth the extra weight of solar panels and equipment!
Parent
Plug in electric cars. (Score:5, Informative)
No, its not. There is no self contained sustainable fuel that is remotely viable at this stage.
Your non-renewable options are:
Petrol/Diesel
Natural Gas
Your renewable transport options are:
Hydrogen (*)
Biodiesel & Alcohols (+)
Electricity
Other esoteric energy stores.
The joy of electricity is simple - it piggy backs off whatever we decide to power the world with for fixed structures. That solution may be nuclear, solar, wind, geothermal or hydroelectric. It really doesn't matter, as long as we can store the energy sufficiently well in a car to get around. If you think that is going to be too hard, explain to me why its going to be easier to store hydrogen, because I see alot more things running off batteries now that hydrogen energy sources.
Just my opinions here,
Happy to see what others think,
Michael
(*) Right now all hydrogen is formed from hydrocarbon sources. Its hard to hold as it destroys the metals that hold it in compressed form. It loses most of the energy put into it in the compression cycle to get it into its container so that you only get about 30% of the energy put in.
(+) Definitely an option for some parts of the world, but not really going to work well for many countries as they don't have enough arable land to make all the biomass. And to make it replace fossil fuels for cars will require so much water to irrigate the crops we will probably have to start building massive numbers of desalination plants, etc. Personally I'd rather keep the land areas untouched and go for renewables, but some countries do manage this option ok.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
don't care, because capacitors deliver current (Score:3, Interesting)
Short-term high-current electrical storage is nice for serial-hybrid designs. (serial hybrids have fuel burning engines without mechanical connection to the wheels) High-current storage lets you get sports car acceleration despite having a fuel-burning engine only big enough for typical use. Use biodiesel if you like.
Size the e
li-ions can now handle around 9000 cycles. (Score:3, Interesting)
Dont li-ion batteries lose capacity rather quickly?
Not any more. They last the life of the vehicle. 9000 cycles at say 250 miles per charge is 2,250,000 miles. At say 20,000 miles per year the battery should last about a hundred years. My last car started falling apart after about 15 years.
e.g.
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?relea se_id=106527 [marketwire.com]
hydrogen is political distraction (Score:3, Interesting)
Pressured by the Japanese hybrid success and all the environmentalists, the US car industry had to do something. They created a distraction. Hydrogen is something they can research for decades, and probably a great excuse for federal research funding. It's something to keep us from thinking about hybrids and regulations.
Re:Yeah yeah (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent