Most of the retail infrastructure is there…service stations, They need upgrade to allow for hydrogen dispensing which is feasible. Logistics for transportation from production to retail also already exist. Production facilities will be required, but these are possibly no different to the 60x or more battery manufacturing capacity required in the coming decade to meet the forecast for battery uptake. There is also the increased investment in electrical generation and delivery networks if all private vehicles are BEVs.
Each technology isn’t fully prepared for the future and will require substantial development and investment to meet the forecast demand for each energy solution.
I suspect governments support hydrogen for the reason that it is similar to the existing transportation fuel revenue model. This is possibly why many countries at a government and political level (including Australia) see hydrogen as the long term future. Hydrogen is also limitless as when used to converts back into water…the primary ingredient to make hydrogen again.
Unfortunately lithium has very limited world reserves…which is insufficient to satisfy any demand for long term battery production. There will be non-lithium based alternatives which will need to be developed if battery technology is to be a long term solution.
Every currently planned technology has challenges in the future. Overcoming these challenges may prove to be drive the failure or success of the adoption of these technologies for the long term.
There is potential for hydrogen ICE engines which Toyota is exploring the technology at the moment. This potentially removed the known impacts of the HFCV and BEV, but may require some non-renewable inputs (e.g. lubricants) until they can be fully synthesized from renewable sources.
I agree, and the same applies to products we export for other countries to use and create waste. With radioactive wastes (such as from rare earth mining/production) and nuclear power, Australia could have a real advantage of managing the waste. Unfortunately, it is a (radioactive) hot potato locally.
It will be possibly in the short term as it will be easy enough to ramp up short to medium term supply. As lithium resources disappear, there will be constraints to its long term future.
When diesel is replaced with hydrogen, there will be the necessary investment required to support the transition. At such time, it is likely that domestic HFCV or hydrogen ICE will become more attractive. At this stage they aren’t as there is limited supporting refuelling infrastructure. The information from overseas indicates that this will change and investment is already occuring in some countries in anticipation of this transition.
It has already been posted, including by myself, that history shows the best or better product does not always prevail because of issues such as being first to market and attaining critical mass, government policies that pick winners for political reasons, and governance/taxation/regulation issues that may be more easily solved with one than another.
Lithium (or anything critical for enabling today’s world) may be a wild card, but who is to say that is the end-all of battery technology?
There is a lot of interest in sodium ion batteries. Similar to lithium ion, but at the moment cost more, are a bit heavier and a bit less energy density, and less recharge cycles. But a great advantage in not using the scarce lithium and cobolt. Sodium is abundant.
If the price of lithium soars due to demand and supply issues, then sodium ion batteries could become the next rechargable standard where weight is not absolutely critical.
Ok real life prototype family cars that are electric only and can travel up to 1200km (depends on the model) on one battery charge with sun or 900 km without sun (depends on the model) in the Netherlands. One achieved up to 1800 km in economy mode. Seats 4 or 5 people based again on the model and are very light.
Not yet being commercially produced but should get rid of range anxiety.
Although touted as ‘road legal’ where is it ‘road legal’?
I wonder how the vehicles would go when subjected to air bags, crash tests, (in some areas tests to assure the roof top panels can withstand dropping coconuts), and all the other safety mandates on ICE cars.
In the 1970s I had a car that weighted 560 kg with a full petrol tank, weather kit, and me sitting in it. The safety features were seat belts and a roll bar. Any meeting with a fixed object or another vehicle at more than a slow roll would not have gone well for me.
380kg meeting another like vehicle neither with crash zones and air bags and effectively mounted seat belts and so on might be interesting to insurers, TAC, keepers of ADRs, and their peers world-wide.
While the vehicles look promising what are the odds they could get market traction without a wholesale change of ADRs/exemptions and getting insulated from wrongful death suits from inadequate safety designs? When ‘upgraded’ accordingly the range would be inversely proportional.
It could be dependent on what a vehicle is licensed as regarding what safety features are mandated. Regardless ‘equipment’ problems can be solved or resolved at the stroke of a legislative pen.
It’s innovation that responds to the problem that batteries are very heavy for the energy they can store.
Current battery technology falls well short of the energy density achieved by fuel when used in a diesel or petrol ICE vehicle.
The basic cells currently in use by Tesla deliver around 260 Wh of energy for every kilogram of cell weight.
In comparison ICE alternatives deliver 2900 Wh of energy for every kilogram of diesel consumed. There is more than a factor of ten difference in the weight required to deliver similar energy storage needs from a modern lithium battery.
Notes:
Modern diesel vehicles, including generators and railway locomotives use typically 0.4l of fuel (some more, some less) for every kW of usable power output.
For those of us looking to a battery electric future, it will take a step change in battery technology to close that gap.
In the interim, the light weight battery alternatives are coming at a faster pace. Including a wide variety of innovative but uninsured unregistered rideables. It’s possible we may need to change the way we use our roads, as there is little leadership in support of more full sized battery or hydrogen replacements.
I only needed to close the nag screen and ignore the request to link an ID to the site. ‘Drayton’ near enough, on the road out of town to, Goondiwindi 214 km away on the Qld NSW border.
Is the “gap” really a problem? If it’s a problem, then is it one of technology or expectations? Had we best try to close that gap or concentrate on planning around it?
Which way you look at the issues, it comes down to imperatives.
What is the crucial criteria?
Long range between Energy Source replenishment? Call it ES.
Minimising the weight of the ES storage?
Propulsion without giving rise to waste problematic gases or particles?
Cheapest form of ES?
Availability of the ES?
Clearly there is a lot of work to do, but it seems that if the imperative becomes avoiding emissions of carbon and nitrogen oxides, then the current issues with electric power become side issues.
Both, and considering alone or together they may not provided a sufficient longer term solution, it would be prudent to not put all our ‘eggs in one basket’. Hence energy solutions derived from hydrogen and other options should also be encouraged.
The size of the gap is reason enough to try harder, and not be complacent thinking we have the only solution we might need. As you previously highlighted there are promising battery technologies that use lithium more efficiently, and others that use none.
What need? Back in the day, internal combustion was an alternative to animal power (or external combustion, ie. steam). For thousands of years before internal combustion, civilisation progressed. So what need does internal combustion fill? Is it just convenient?
There is no intrinsic need specifically for the ICE but that is not the significant question. The ICE was part of the great energy revolution that started with the steam. The ICE and petroleum did it better than coal and steam in many ways where small heat engines were required. Large heat engines can still be external combustion even though the ‘age of steam’ is over. The huge growth in wealth, population, welfare, education etc over the last 300 years were all a result of access to energy far more powerful and convenient than muscles.
As our society is structured there is a need for independent vehicles whether controlled by humans or software. Society could change but I don’t see us giving up the car and the truck unless there is a reduction in population and concentration into small cities so that it becomes feasible for nearly all travel to be collective. That change would take centuries barring a global holocaust. That cannot be ruled out but it is a drastic way to bring on change. Even if such a change happened vehicles like farm and mining machinery will need to be independent. So we may well get rid of most small heat engines, including the ICE, but we cannot get rid of small independent vehicles in the foreseeable future.
To your question: small independent vehicles started out as convenient and optional but are now essential but powering them with the ICE or any burning fuel heat engine is not.
Which brings us back to the simple fact that we have newer technologies that give us access to thousands of times more energy than we use at present. We don’t need internal combustion engines. They’re just convenient (and profitable for the rich, powerful and influential).
Of course we don’t need the ICE once other technologies can replace it.
If you are hinting that we could have done away with the ICE before alternate engines to power small vehicles became available and did not do so because the rich and powerful wanted convenience I don’t see it. Perhaps I have misunderstood.
I’m saying that the fact that things were not always as they are is a strong indicator that they won’t always be. Doing something a certain way doesn’t preclude a different way. If a technology doesn’t support the way we do something at present, then perhaps we need to consider other ways.
I thought that @Drop_Bear was saying they are convenient to us all at the moment…the part about the rich was they are often benefiting/profiting from the ongoing use of ICE and fossil fuels.
I’m sure they will continue to do so even once renewables are the dominant energy source, profit that is.
