Electric and Alternative Vehicle Fuels

Running a cable is the least of ones worry.

As the industry hasn’t implemented a universal charging system (each manufacturer doing their own thing), even if say a car specific point was placed on the footpath to allow you to charge, what happens if someone parks in the spot you need? Will councils be approving road space for specific cars…such as rego numbers like one often sees at office buildings?

It could also result in footpaths in inner urban areas being chocked with charging points, especially if one has several cars per household) which Australian’s currently do) and there is limited space for systems to be installed (say a post with the vehicle unique charging point connected to the mains within the neighbouring household).

Knowing Counci’s, I would be very much surprised if they either started allowing permanent private street charging points (would have administrating and legal risks) and/or restricting parts of public roads for the parking of specific private vehicles.

Running cables from a residence to a car parked on a road, across the footpath, would also create potential legal liability issues…who is responsible if someone on the footpath is injured as a result of the cable placement. Covered trenches could be used for placing cables when charging, but again, what happens if someone leaved the pit open…who is responsible.

Maybe a solution would be for the road owner (Councils or State/Territory) to allow airspace above the road to be used for dangling cables which could be reached/or dropped and connected to the vehicle. This would avoid footpath issues, but possible wouldn’t look all that attractive with arms and cables extending from front walls/yards of residences.

I don’t think the long term solution for every car being EV has been well thought out as there are many issues with mass EV use, like those you have highlighted.

@mark_m Yep, like I said a Fast Charge station and 50 minutes later 80% of capacity has been achieved so a basic (eg not longish range) all electric would have about 200 or so km capacity back. So knowing where to access the Fast Charge is perhaps the most important thing rather than range angst. Top up either on way home or a little earlier on the way to work would see the vast majority not needing to use their household electricity to charge the car.

I think some of the anxiety about charging points/places, range and similar have been generated in the public by those who don’t want to see the advancement of EV potential. Is it really that dire a need to have a 100% charged up car here in Australia before someone drives it 60 or so kms per day (or even 150 kms), do we do that with petrol or diesel everytime we start the ICE vehicle up every morning. I am sure with just a little planning the charging needs can be easily met by almost everyone. For the few who can’t meet those needs yet then alternatives to remain with ICE or public transport are still out there.

As noted above most cars have more power capacity than most people use in their homes daily. They would need a lot of Solar Panels (and storage) to charge the car. Storage in particular would be important as a worker would be charging the car mostly at hours that the panels would not be providing energy eg late afternoon and night. Consider a 22 kWh capacity this means about 2 Tesla Batteries needed just to cover the car capacity if the battery in the car was nearly depleted.

Just to put some figures into the average travel vs range capacity issues in the UK is that the largest average distance travelled in the UK was for Scotland with an yearly average of 8,202 miles in 2018 (around 23 miles/37 km per day) London had the least with an average of 5,345 miles (around 15 miles/23 km per day). Compared to a range capacity of somewhere around 200 km this means an average commute would use somewhere between 1/5 to 1/9 the capacity of an EV. A fast charge (battery only to 80% of full charge) would give about 3 days travel at the largest average daily commute. Of course these are only average commutes so some will be significantly larger but others much smaller, but in general a car would get at least a couple of days before needing a recharge.

I look forward to the advancement in tech to reduce fast charging times to perhaps 5 or 10 minutes and increase the fast charge limit ie to be able to go to or close to 100% without problems.

Not really that big an issue. From the Zap site linked to below is “A key issue when choosing which EV to buy or use is the type of charging inlets on the vehicle. For full EVs, car manufacturers tend to favour one of three charging inlet options: (1) Type 2 and CCS, an option offered by most of the European car makers who include a Type 2 for slow/fast charging, and a Type 2 Combo (also known as ‘CCS’) for rapid charging; (2) Type 1 and CHAdeMO, for slow/fast and rapid charging respectively; and (3) Tesla Type 2 which can be found on all current EU Tesla models”. EVs are either supplied with the adapter for their car (so it can be plugged into a normal household point or cable or into a Type 2 power socket) or they are purchased as a separate item in the package (just itemised as another item). So all the street would need in charge points is a standard point fitting so any car could be charged with their own adapter. Councils are starting to implement these charging points in some places in the World which are embracing EVs and companies are already providing the tech.

https://e-station.com.au/street-charging/

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A different sort of vehicle. Not exactly a first.

Interesting thought:

Public transport by air. Flights between suburbs. Could that work? :thinking:

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It’s still the recharge time needed once the flight is completed that would make it not so viable at the moment I think. On these type of trips which require lots of fares to keep them financial the downtime for recharges is what will “kill” them. I see a place for H2 ICE engines here or newer type batteries that don’t have the fast charge issues of current Lithium batteries ie 80% limit and dendrites forming on and around the anodes:

https://www.cell.com/trends/chemistry/fulltext/S2589-5974(19)30028-0

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Thank you for so much information. I will be sharing this with my son, & let him decide…
He might prefer to have a holiday instead of solar panels!

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It used to be thought that to only way to make steel was to use coking coal (high quality anthracite).
But making steel in a similar way to aluminum is cheaper and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

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Once upon a time not so long ago all rechargeables had to be recharged with plug in cables. Not so any more as wireless recharging is slowly being deployed on more and more products, albeit far less power hungry than a vehicle.

One prognostication is that eventually ‘wireless’ will be available for heavy duty requirements even if only in specific well controlled environments.

The presumption of huge cables to charge an EV will probably be valid for many years to come, but will it be over the long term?

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If that’s a real issue, then the obvious solution is quick-change batteries. The fact that nobody’s suggesting that indicates that the issue isn’t substantial.

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Nobody really has designed a quick change system yet for the batteries that is 1) ergonomic (ie easy to use & replace 2) Economic (ie enough energy to use effectively 3) the actual support systems to install and uninstall the batteries. Most battery systems are built in such a way they maximise battery capacity and aren’t generally designed for easy install & uninstalls as that normally compromises capacity.

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or they understand the difficulties of getting FAA/CASA approval of the electric airplane, the battery system (active and standby-replacement, and the housing-connection mechanisms and decided the economics vs technology do not yet meet the pub test to try.

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It is a shame it hasn’t occurred as it would remove one of the major achilles heal of a EV battery systems…charging times especially for long distance and frequently used vehicles.

I recall when EVs first hit the market, there were promising discussion about universal, exchangeable battery systems. The skeptic in me thinks that maybe as EV cars possibly have less spare parts which need replacing regularly from wear and tear/normal vehicle use, the manufacturers see battery replacement as a way to fill the spare parts voids EVs create (needing replacing every ~10+ years)…thus all have pursued EVs with built in batteries of different design, voltages, capacity and outputs to maintain existing spare part revenues.

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Which is my point. The issue, if there is an issue, isn’t worth addressing. Economies inherent in electric drive (energy, maintenance, etc.) more than offset costs associated with charging times.

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Or the effective capacity and weight of the battery system remains the most significant challenge, to delivering range and performance equal to a petrol engined aircraft.

Practical battery electric replacements for everyday light aircraft are still waiting for a high energy density light weight battery. Based on the DHC-2 payload and range a compact high energy density cell that delivers better than 1kWh per kg would be required. That is a big step change compared to the best Lithium Iron cells 250W per kg or typical BEV battery packs around the 150W per kg.

Some Simple Maths, assuming current best tech.
The standard DHC-2 Beaver weighs 1,361kg empty.

The maximum added payload weight is 953kg.
Power is by a 336kW radial petrol engine.

A substitute electric power plant is likely to save some weight. Specs say 296kg dry weight for the petrol radial Wasp Junior. The replacement electric motor
and controller may be as little as 100kg. I’m being lazy here on not finding the exact data.

A 500kg (125kWh est*) battery pack would leave a payload of approx 653kg. Or approx 20 mins flight time at full power zero reserve.

A 750kg (187kWh est*) battery pack would leave a payload of approx 400kg. (Pilot + 3 pass and light luggage) Or approx 30 mins flight time at full power zero reserve.

For comparison the standard DHC-2 has a range of more than 700km and endurance at cruising speed of more than 3 hours.

The engine maintenance savings, the simplicity of the battery energy system and the low fuel cost are all a plus.

What restrictions flight approval might place on an aircraft with such a short range might be a great question? Noting the electric conversion is a float plane version perhaps an all over water flight path is considered mitigation against always needing an alternate landing place within the range of the aircraft.

{* estimate assumes 250Wh per kg specific energy density for the lithium battery technology which is at the upper end of the data currently in Wikipedia)

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Factor in the reality that you are addressing VFR flight. An IFR flight must (currently) be able to fly to the destination and land with 45 minutes reserve fuel (eg airtime). That 45 minutes is in case of unexpected headwinds or an unexpected need to divert so will not just go away in the numbers.

Ignoring power settings you have an airplane capable of negative 15 minutes air time in instrument conditions using current regulations and safety norms. IFR commercial flights (eg charter or air transport) in prop planes must also be multi-engine although there are some single turboprops certified for IFR. Most IFR must also have a pilot+co-pilot,unless certified for single pilot IFR.

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Thanks for that reassurance. With more than enough passenger or brown paper bag time in Twin Otters and smaller I’ve often wondered about the plan B’s. Just how long will the pilot spend wondering where the F… are we? That cloud looks familiar, but that mountain poking up from the Owen Stanley’s looks different!:flushed:

More Directly on Topic. (Battery vs Hydrogen vs Burning Stuff). :thinking:
Wikipedia has a graph that compares energy density of various fuels and materials. By volume and weight. It reveals the size of the technology gap science and engineering are trying to close in moving us to a low carbon transport future.

The further to the top right on the chart the more effective the energy source by volume and weight.
Or the closer to the bottom left, the greater the weight and volume for the same stored energy.

The Lithium Ion battery wins the fat and heavy prize.

Why do we use them? They can be recharged readily and direct conversion to mechanical or thermal energy is efficient (50-90% depending on application). The other common fuel options such as diesel, LNG etc are in comparison inefficiently converged to mechanical or electrical energy (15-40%).

Still for weight and size critical applications, the gap between battery electric power and combustion of hydrocarbon fuels is very large. There are various published assessments. To compete in critical applications on weight and volume current rechargeable batteries need to decrease in weight by up to 20 times for the same energy capacity.

It’s worth noting as an energy source, liquified hydrogen or when contained as anhydrous ammonia is by weight and volume many times more effective than current battery technology. Although both require 2-4 time’s the storage volume compared with hydrocarbon based fuels.

Hydrogen based fuel is still lacking a high efficiency (80-90%) practical conversion technology that would put it on a level playing field with hydrocarbon fuels by volume.

What do those regulations say about extreme short-range (say suburban) commuting?

As I said:

Follow that link and you’ll find other examples.

[edit]
Then, there’s this:

[end edit]

Meanwhile, on ABC News Radio this morning, there was a piece on airships. The interviewee pointed out that airships operated for about four decades. Failures, when they happened, were spectacular but the overall safety record was pretty good. Perhaps better than heavier-than-air aviation at the time.

For anything but niche applications, helium is not a realistic option. Hydrogen wasn’t terribly unsafe in the first half of last century and we could probably improve on that record now. One great advantage is that the lifting gas can also be the fuel for (for example) fuel cells.

I presume you meant this as your premise?

It does not address weather issues and current regulations differentiates between visual (VFR) and instrument (IFR) flight rules, and ‘private’, commercial (charter), and airline transport (commercial aviation) operations.

Ignoring the latter, VFR is akin to jumping in your car and going. Not so with IFR where you are flying through clouds with zero visibility, with other airplanes.

Given road ragers I can imagine air rage being pretty special if airplanes replaced ground vehicles, and do you fly on the left or right, or over or under? The complexities of avoidance in flight, especially in high density areas, is not a :laughing: matter; plus one cannot just pull over to the side to get one’s bearings in flight, especially in instrument conditions.

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No, that was an edit (ie. added later). I was referring to this:

You might find it less confusing if you follow the links in the order presented.

Perhaps if I followed links in order rather than just thinking about it and noticing the first related one I saw? But

The Sydney ferries would be an analogous reason. It works most of the time, except in severe weather. Then how does it go?

Air traffic (volume)? The practicalities of ‘traffic control’ and parking (ramp space, arrival and departure slots, et al)?

Disclaimer: As a certificated pilot I may be overly sensitive to current practicalities as well as safe distances between flying machines, how few aircraft are as stable as a Segway or similar especially when they bump, or drone technology. Re the latter distribute the noise cancelling headsets - a flock of cockies would be almost innocuous compared to a few hundred drones. And ‘our flying machines’ would never impact a cocky for one or the others demise, right? Suburb to suburb would be low level with its attendant issues, even if managed like a bus service.

What technology enables is not always practical in practice.

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There have been occasions when extreme weather has forced me to pull to the side of the road and stop driving. By your logic, that makes driving impractical. Obviously, when conditions are unfavourable, the activity is best halted.

This is not a new concept, even in this thread:

and elsewhere on this site:

I’m surprised that you’re surprised.

Anyway, I reckon the airship thing is far more interesting.

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