vulnox

I am excited for the Frunk, like, ridiculously. As I have gotten older and have two young kids and that, storage space can never be plentiful enough. The bed is great, but having a smaller, water tight area is super valuable. Best of both worlds.

pawprint

I'm glad you realized I never meant to say, ever, or infer, ever, that tech grew on its own, that in fact, tech was an invention of, by and usually for humans! I'm sorry you were confused earlier, and I'm glad you now realize what was being said. Regarding Batteries, lithium is an environmental disaster, from the mining to the "recycling", and everything between those two. The advent of newer, and far less environmentally detrimental batteries have been developed, such as the Aluminum based batteries. This tech, working with the science from over the past 100 years or more, could be the answer, fast recharge, low-very low environmental impact, and of course lower cost. there are many other, currently in development. We shall see. I hope the Hydrogen cell electrics gain ground, and fast, with water as their exhaust (pure water), and very fast refueling a few more "break out" are all that is needed, BTW, Toyota has and is spending billions of dollars on the science and research. this is just one more example of real science (real scientists ) working on mitigating the lithium disaster. I have real confidence they will solve the problem. Now, in so far as there is not now, and will not be enough electricity to power the US fleet of cars for many, many years to come, the Natural Gas Powered ICE could make a very strong showing. As the politicos see to it gasoline prices rise, and as we have at least 98 year proven supply of NG, many of the changes will be market driven.

blkZ28spt

Hydrogen isn't going anywhere. Multi million dollar refueling stations for small cars that go 0-60 in 9 seconds and are expensive to refuel isn't bringing anybody on board

And yes we can produce enough electricity to power the US fleet of EVs. Absolutely we do, it's already been shown a d proven in this thread

Even without expansion and improvement we could right now support dozens of millions of additional EVs

Yoire just going to have to get used to seeing them

Rosie Snowball

You just need to sleep in your seat for 40 minutes while it fast charges. is a simple life style change. Important thing might be comfort while sleeping, get a great seat that reclines has shades and a bottle of water !

vulnox

Yeah, Hydrogen is unfortunately the worst of both worlds in some ways. You still have to stop and have them refueled and at least at the current state of tech, there isn’t a safe way to do it at home. Then you have the energy conversion losses which makes hydrogen vehicles more energy inefficient than just filling up your car with gas. It’s why so many other automakers have stayed away from it. Don’t get me wrong, I fully realize that I can’t say EVs will catch up to gas vehicles in “refuel” times, it just needs more R&D, but also knock another tech for poor energy inefficiency as it may improve, but unlike with EVs, parts of the energy transfer issues with hydrogen are just laws of nature. If we do overcome them, we definitely can’t wait for it. Here is an excerpt from an article on the EV vs Hydrogen energy usage.

”Let's take 100 watts of electricity produced by a renewable source such as a wind turbine. To power an FCEV, that energy has to be converted into hydrogen, possibly by passing it through water (the electrolysisprocess). This is around 75% energy-efficient, so around one-quarter of the electricity is automatically lost. The hydrogen produced has to be compressed, chilled and transported to the hydrogen station, a process that is around 90% efficient. Once inside the vehicle, the hydrogen needs converted into electricity, which is 60% efficient. Finally the electricity used in the motor to move the vehicle is is around 95% efficient. Put together, only 38% of the original electricity—38 watts out of 100 – are used.

With electric vehicles, the energy runs on wires all the way from the source to the car. The same 100 watts of power from the same turbine loses about 5% of efficiency in this journey through the grid (in the case of hydrogen, I'm assuming the conversion takes place onsite at the wind farm).

You lose a further 10% of energy from charging and discharging the lithium-ion battery, plus another 5% from using the electricity to make the vehicle move. So you are down to 80 watts..

In other words, the hydrogen fuel cell requires double the amount of energy. To quote BMW: "The overall efficiency in the power-to-vehicle-drive energy chain is therefore only half the level of [an electric vehicle]."

The article discusses that this doesn’t make Hydrogen a bad energy source, they say it is a critical piece of the puzzle to reaching net zero emissions, just not in cars. They talk about the ideal usage of hydrogen in commercial and residential heating, as a cleaner replacement for natural gas. I guess this is not a new concept in all, the article discusses how there was a transition from “Town Gas” to natural gas in the 60s and 70s, and this would follow a similar line of thinking.

Article on hydrogen in heating is below. Anyway, Hydrogen is an answer to some issues, but personally, and it seems most of the industry and scientists agree, it isn’t the best near term answer for our emissions issues.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/...o-home-heating

pawprint

Just think where this technology is going- in the next ten years-as you have pointed out, nobody, but nobody cares about the past tech, they only care about where something is going!!!! But, as you seem to know more than just about anybody when it comes to new technologies, I must point out-now I know this happend in the past, but ford was able to put out a fuel cell fusion, it was pretty fast. the Ford Fusion Hydrogen 999, the world's fastest fuel cell car. The vehicle achieved 207.297 mph on 8-15-07 at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. I hope you don't think ALL fuel cell powered vehicles are slow, it always pays to research the past, you'd be surprised at what you can learn. Regarding the addition of millions of EVs, today, yea sure we could. But even adding 10 million, won't be 5% of the fleet. The grid allows states with poor judgement to get fuel of other states that produce an excess, the demand numbers would have to be looked at very carefully. I noticed that CA has fired up a number of (NEW TEMPORARY) NG turbines at their generating stations. reason: The elections are coming up, and the politicos realize people are sick of "brown outs" etc. Even with the reduction of Kw/person CONSUMED in CA (mostly due to the fact so many mfg plants have moved out of the state, Toyota for one), they still don't make enough power, all the time-- 24-7. Nonetheless, Ford's 200+ MPH fuel cell Fusion, shows some real promise, the Environmental damage being done now, by the Lithium mining, and battery "recycling" etc. is not sustainable, this type of Environmental damage is not well known, I blame idiots for not looking into it, prior to spouting how great the Kool-aid tastes.

blkZ28spt

Nowhere, relative to EV's

That's the point

(maybe nowhere at all)

pawprint

I'm glad that power necessary to produce the wind turbines, the power lines, etc. were 100% efficient. They must be, otherwise they'd be part of this "comparison". You learn something every day.
Regarding, "Our emissions issues", I am guessing you're talking about the planet, not just one state or county etc. The fix to massive pollution, in the real world, Today, is to look at china/india. If they are not part of the emission discussion, when discussing our planet, I'd find another discussion....

blkZ28spt

@SPOAT

Is it possible to not have this thread be anti-electric vehicle whining? Have it be about the F150 Lightning?

I'm sure this "EV's suck because unfounded nonsense" conversation could be had in a thread directed towards the topic instead of wasting this one and only thread for the Lightning

pawprint

I am shocked, yes shocked! You seem to know more about tech than just about anybody, that's for sure; however, are you saying that fuel cell vehicles are not electric vehicles???? If they are not electric (final drive) what are they?