[alancalverd]

But in 2030, if there is a queue of more than 2 per station, you will have to wait at least 90 minutes to refuel, depending on the charging speed of the slowest car in front of you. You can't get out of the car because you will lose your place in the queue. Remember your pee bottle!

What if in 2030 there would be more  supercharging stations, and the charging time improve significantly?  Do you think that those cases are unlikely?

You have 9 years from now to install 50,000,000 kerbside charging stations and 160,000 supercharging stations (I'll assume that it takes 10 minutes to recharge the next generation) , and double the UK's secure (i.e. non-renewable) electricity supply. Please present your budget, explain how you are going to fund the capital and labor, who is going to do the work, how you will do it without acquiring new land or disrupting existing traffic flows, and, if you persuade me to invest in the project, what return I can expect on my capital.   

Allow at least 2 years for every planning application, and have a 30% contingency for those plans that are rejected.

Consider the emergency services' access requirements when digging up roads.

Explain why it is a Good Thing to emit 1,000,000,000 additional tonnes of CO2 in the next 9 years in order to replace perfectly good working vehicles already on the road.

[alancalverd]

For business owners, it's easier to build an independent charging station than an independent gas station. If you use solar cells, the operational cost can be near zero.

So I can charge my car at the office, but not necessarily at the client's premises, and never at night.

[Bored chemist]

You have 9 years from now to install 50,000,000 kerbside charging stations

Roughly two per car...
Presumably that's chosen to make it look more difficult.

[charles1948]

The trouble with electric cars is that their batteries don't contain enough energy to go a long distance.

That's because the batteries rely entirely on electrons . And these are fundamental particles,  which can't really be interfered with or "engineered" to suit our purposes.

What we can engineer is secondary products - atoms. Such as atoms of hydrogen and oxygen.

We can utilise these atoms to release energy by the simple chemical process of combustion.
Therefore I think the future of cars is hydrogen-powered combustion engines.

The "electric car" interlude may be seen as a brief dalliance with an impracticable technology.  Like Zeppelins were.

[Bored chemist]

The trouble with electric cars is that their batteries don't contain enough energy to go a long distance.

That's because the batteries rely entirely on electrons . And these are fundamental particles,  which can't really be interfered with or "engineered" to suit our purposes.

What we can engineer is secondary products - atoms. Such as atoms of hydrogen and oxygen.

We can utilise these atoms to release energy by the simple chemical process of combustion.
Therefore I think the future of cars is hydrogen-powered combustion engines.

The "electric car" interlude may be seen as a brief dalliance with an impracticable technology.  Like Zeppelins were.

Burning fuel is the transfer of electrons to oxygen.
Did you think you had a point?

[wolfekeeper]

You have 9 years from now to install 50,000,000 kerbside charging stations

Roughly two per car...
Presumably that's chosen to make it look more difficult.

And because OBVIOUSLY an electric car needs to be fully charged at all times, unlike a fossil car, which only needs to be charged up every week or two, even though they have similar ranges.

Oh. Wait. No.

So you only need about a tenth or so of that number. In fact less, because a large percentage have driveway parking.

[charles1948]

The trouble with electric cars is that their batteries don't contain enough energy to go a long distance.

That's because the batteries rely entirely on electrons . And these are fundamental particles,  which can't really be interfered with or "engineered" to suit our purposes.

What we can engineer is secondary products - atoms. Such as atoms of hydrogen and oxygen.

We can utilise these atoms to release energy by the simple chemical process of combustion.
Therefore I think the future of cars is hydrogen-powered combustion engines.

The "electric car" interlude may be seen as a brief dalliance with an impracticable technology.  Like Zeppelins were.

Burning fuel is the transfer of electrons to oxygen.
Did you think you had a point?

Yes, my point was - we can't alter sub-atomic particles such as electrons.  We can however alter atomic interactions, such as are involved in chemical processes like combustion.

And combustion using hydrogen burned in in air, is much cleaner than gasoline or diesel burned in air.

That's why I assert that the best environmental solution is to develop cars fuelled by hydrogen.  Not electric batteries.

The batteries require too much complicated manufacturing.  And use of scarce mineral resources. And too many "re-charging" stations to make them realistic for a country to sustain.

This is what I predict - in 2050, we will be driving hydrogen-fuelled  cars. The "electric-car" experiment will have been consigned to the dust-bin of history.  Like "steam-cars" were, last century.

Unless of course, there's a big advance in nuclear-fusion technology.

[Bored chemist]

We can however alter atomic interactions, such as are involved in chemical processes like combustion.

Which are essentially the same as those used in batteries.

[charles1948]

We can however alter atomic interactions, such as are involved in chemical processes like combustion.

Which are essentially the same as those used in batteries.

But surely,  Combustion engines only need some fuel to burn.  The fuel can be anything.  Coal, peat, wood, bundles of old newspapers, old rags, straw, bones, plastic bottles, methane gas, petrol, diesel, fish and chip oil, etc.

All these substances can power the engine.  That's the appeal of it.  It's a simple and direct universal heat-engine.

An electric battery can offer only a weak substitute for the power of combustion, don't you think?

[hamdani yusuf]

But surely,  Combustion engines only need some fuel to burn.  The fuel can be anything.  Coal, peat, wood, bundles of old newspapers, old rags, straw, bones, plastic bottles, methane gas, petrol, diesel, fish and chip oil, etc.

All these substances can power the engine.  That's the appeal of it.  It's a simple and direct universal heat-engine.

An electric battery can offer only a weak substitute for the power of combustion, don't you think?

Have you tried to fill a gasoline car with coal? I know someone who inadvertently fill a diesel car with gasoline. Can you guess what happened next?
Converting one form of combustion fuel into another needs chemical process which is not cheap nor safe.
A significant portion of the energy from the combustion will be heat, which will be wasted through exhaust gas. The engine needs cooling to operate, which took extra wasted energy.
Do you still want to talk about air pollution? Or engine oil periodic changes?

[alancalverd]

You have 9 years from now to install 50,000,000 kerbside charging stations

Roughly two per car...
Presumably that's chosen to make it look more difficult.

No. The adverts all promote home charging, so that's 30,000,000 for a start. Not sure where Wolfekeeper lives, but very few residences in London or other major cities have private driveways, and nearly all seem to have cars parked outside. Then we might need a few at destinations for those who (like yourself) want to use their employer's electricity to get home, and some fast chargers to replicate the 90000 very fast charging stations known as fuel pumps.

The motor car has evolved to be a convenience and a time saver. Until the ratio of charging time to range for electric cars approaches that of ICEs, and a suitable supply grid evolves, they will not approach the level of acceptability of the IC engine.

Face it, the electric motor predates the birth of Nicolaus Otto but despite being a lot simpler and safer, has never been considered or seriously developed as a sensible alternative to internal combustion for personal transport. Possibly something to do with chemistry and physics.

[alancalverd]

Have you tried to fill a gasoline car with coal? I know someone who inadvertently fill a diesel car with gasoline. Can you guess what happened next?

No need to guess. Very embarrassing but it's a rare and easily-fixed problem. Fuel Doctors (other roadside recovery companies are available) usually turn up within the hour, syphon out the gasoline, give you a credit (it's still useable fuel) for what they extract, then bung in a gallon of diesel to get you back to the filling station, who welcome your repeat custom! 

Converting one form of combustion fuel into another needs chemical process which is not cheap nor safe.

Oil refineries and gas works have been doing it for hundreds of years in huge quantities and very cheaply. A few small explosions have caused much less panic and devastation than Chernobyl.

A significant portion of the energy from the combustion will be heat, which will be wasted through exhaust gas. The engine needs cooling to operate, which took extra wasted energy.

Carnot efficiency applies to electricity generation too. It's only insignificant with nuclear (negligible fuel cost) and renewables (unreliable).

Do you still want to talk about air pollution?

Is it really better to exhaust CO2 and other combustion products high into the stratosphere from a power station rather than at low level here the CO2 is absorbed by plants?

Or engine oil periodic changes?

one gallon per 12,000 miles, and it's recoverable for heating or even road fuel. I use a lot more oil for cooking in a year, and that's all oxidised by me and my family.

[hamdani yusuf]

The motor car has evolved to be a convenience and a time saver. Until the ratio of charging time to range for electric cars approaches that of ICEs, and a suitable supply grid evolves, they will not approach the level of acceptability of the IC engine.

Similar argumentations had been used to resist transition from horse carts to ICE cars. What can beat the convenience of grass fuel?

[hamdani yusuf]

Face it, the electric motor predates the birth of Nicolaus Otto but despite being a lot simpler and safer, has never been considered or seriously developed as a sensible alternative to internal combustion for personal transport. Possibly something to do with chemistry and physics.

You're right. That's why Tesla invested a lot on improving battery technology to reduce cost to make BEV price comparable to ICE cars in the same category.

[alancalverd]

A horse just standing still in a field emits as much CO2 in a year as a small car travelling 10,000 miles. Refuelling horses takes even longer than refuelling electric cars. Maximum speed is 30 mph (which is where the urban speed limit evolved!)  Horse sh1t filled London streets in Victorian times (a detail often overlooked in films and TV series) and some traffic jams lasted for days.

However the London Transport Executive used to compare road transit speeds across the City and Westminster, and in the 1960s the average was about 6 mph compared with 10 mph in the 1860s.

[hamdani yusuf]

Oil refineries and gas works have been doing it for hundreds of years in huge quantities and very cheaply. A few small explosions have caused much less panic and devastation than Chernobyl.

Let's hope someone will come up with an economically feasible idea to produce gasoline from coal, wood, bones, straw, or plastic bottles.
Compare that to converting different forms of electricity. It can come in different voltages and frequencies. Convertion among them can be done conveniently and efficiently.

[alancalverd]

Ah, projections.

In the words of Sam Goldwyn, prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.

Banning the sale of IC vehicles  will undoubtedly increase the sale of EVs in those countries where it is politically feasible and desirable, regardless of whether it makes sense.  The potential market for mains sockets in India is huge, though there doesn't seem to be any wire behind most of the walls.

[alancalverd]

Let's hope someone will come up with an economically feasible idea to produce gasoline from coal, wood, bones, straw, or plastic bottles.

A good friend of mine runs a profitable company that does so already. They make industrial liquid fuel and gas and there is a lot of R&D going into synthetic aviation fuels. The economics of road fuel are still in favor of getting it out of the ground.

[hamdani yusuf]

Horse sh1t filled London streets in Victorian times (a detail often overlooked in films and TV series) and some traffic jams lasted for days.

ICE version of horseshit are CO, SOx, NOx, and brake pads dust. They get worse during traffic jam.  Most drivers keep their ICE running even when the car is not moving.

[hamdani yusuf]

Let's hope someone will come up with an economically feasible idea to produce gasoline from coal, wood, bones, straw, or plastic bottles.

A good friend of mine runs a profitable company that does so already. They make industrial liquid fuel and gas and there is a lot of R&D going into synthetic aviation fuels. The economics of road fuel are still in favor of getting it out of the ground.

Good luck for them. I hope we don't have to extract fuel from the ground anymore, which would end up in the atmosphere.