Electric vehicles

[Rorschach]

To me Hydrogen sounds like a very sensible fuel/storage solution. I know it has inherent dangers but it also has plenty of benefits. If produced using "green" energy there are no harmful emissions as your only "waste" is O2 (also useful in medicine and industry). Any H2 that escapes is safe to vent into the atmosphere.

As Terry says you could use it to store excess electricity. I know batteries are much more efficient in that area but they also require their own production costs and dirty metals etc, the hydrogen produced would be about as clean as we could ever possibly wish.

 

[MusicMan]

Hi all


I cannot ever see Hydrogen being pumped through the gas network or become a common fuel because of it's safety implications, although in some ways it is safer than petroleum because as a gas it should disperse faster than a liquid and as a result be less likely to produce an explosive situation. Unfortunately sods law will become involved.

Well it was when I was a kid. Town gas / coal gas was roughly 50% hydrogen. So it seems pretty likely that the pipe network is up to snuff, or could be with relatively little work. To use in central heating the burners would no doubt have to be changed, but we did that before, remember, when all the burners in the country were changed over about a weekend to change from town gas to natural gas.

 

[RogerS]

Really rather sad to unblock me just to write a nasty comment.

There you go again. Making assumptions to suit your agenda. I've been watching your posts for a while but refrained from replying. Just reported the offensive ones. But when you start making false accusations about one of my mates then I feel duty bound to take you to task.

 

[Rorschach]

There you go again. Making assumptions to suit your agenda. I've been watching your posts for a while but refrained from replying. Just reported the offensive ones. But when you start making false accusations about one of my mates then I feel duty bound to take you to task.

Take me to task, you do make me laugh, you must think your opinion matters to me or something?.

Droogs is a big boy, he can handle himself and if he was offended he is perfectly capable of taking me to task himself.

Now lets not have any trouble, you go back to ignoring me and we'll all be happier

 

[RogerS]

Take me to task, you do make me laugh, you must think your opinion matters to me or something?.

Droogs is a big boy, he can handle himself and if he was offended he is perfectly capable of taking me to task himself.

Now lets not have any trouble, you go back to ignoring me and we'll all be happier

Yawn. Whatever.

 

[selectortone]

Well it was when I was a kid. Town gas / coal gas was roughly 50% hydrogen. So it seems pretty likely that the pipe network is up to snuff, or could be with relatively little work. To use in central heating the burners would no doubt have to be changed, but we did that before, remember, when all the burners in the country were changed over about a weekend to change from town gas to natural gas.

With respect, it's a little more complicated than that.

Back when I was working, selling control systems to process industries, any process to do with hydrogen production on an industrial scale was flagged up a very scary undertaking. Pure hydrogen is several orders of magnitude more volatile than anything else available for your average punter to pipe into their car. They have been trying to introduce hydrogen as an alternative automobile fuel in Japan for over 20 years and it is still proving to be a challenge. Hydrogen is the very simplest element, (ie one atom), which means that containing it presents significant challenges. Basically, it will leak through just about anything (c.f. The Hindenburg). The thought of hydrogen being dispensed in a typical garage forecourt scenario is just not feasible with current affordable (ie scalable) technology.

 

[Rorschach]

Hydrogen is the very simplest element, (ie one atom

Technically 2 atoms, H2, but the point stands, it is tricky to store.

 

[AJB Temple]

Surely Hydrogen is an atom (ie it is not made of atoms as it is one)? A molecule, H2, has two.

 

[Spectric]

Back when I was working, selling control systems to process industries, any process to do with hydrogen production on an industrial scale was flagged up a very scary undertaking.

Yes the engineering gets tough when the outcome from DSEAR states you come under the ATEX directive and everything specified has to comply from control to light fittings. I remember a test facility where I once worked that handled atomised petroleum that had blast walls all down one side so that if anything went wrong the blast was directed to the outside and not into the rest of the building.

 

[Rorschach]

Surely Hydrogen is an atom (ie it is not made of atoms as it is one)? A molecule, H2, has two.

Hydrogen is 1 atom, but in nature it exists as H2

 

[selectortone]

Technically 2 atoms, H2, but the point stands, it is tricky to store.

Yeah, that's a really important point to make in the context of what I was trying to say

 

[Lons]

Makes a change for you to keep quiet when there is an opportunity to attack me.

That wasn't an attack just a statement of fact based on your history.

 

[Rorschach]

That wasn't an attack just a statement of fact based on your history.

Whoooosh

 

[D_W]

He should not be supprised, just the same with conventional vehicles where the MPG figures are obtained using a perfectly tuned vehicle driving in ideal conditions using a feather on the pedal. Where electric vehicles really struggle is when you live in the hills, North wales, the lakes or Pennines.

They do better in the hills here than gas vehicles. US mileage rating has always been more standardized and strict, but in the hills of suburban Pittsburgh, our cars always struggle to get even te city rating. Our mileage is about 65% of trip mileage at best. Hybrid and electric cars with regenerative braking make their ratings while the gas car's tank range drops more than a third.

It's odd that we complain about electric car range under certain conditions but we don't think anything of it if we have a gas car and some driving gives us 230 miles on a tank and others gives 350.

 

[Rorschach]

They do better in the hills here than gas vehicles. US mileage rating has always been more standardized and strict, but in the hills of suburban Pittsburgh, our cars always struggle to get even te city rating. Our mileage is about 65% of trip mileage at best. Hybrid and electric cars with regenerative braking make their ratings while the gas car's tank range drops more than a third.

It's odd that we complain about electric car range under certain conditions but we don't think anything of it if we have a gas car and some driving gives us 230 miles on a tank and others gives 350.

The terrain makes a massive difference for my (underpowered) car. In Devon it's generally very hilly and our city MPG is well below the state range even when using "hypermiling" techniques, motorway figures are a little better. When I drive in the flat lands of East Anglia though we get fantastic MPG, matching or exceeding rated figures both in town and out in the country.

 

[Just4Fun]

He should not be supprised, just the same with conventional vehicles where the MPG figures are obtained using a perfectly tuned vehicle driving in ideal conditions using a feather on the pedal.

My experience is different. I regularly improve on the "official" consumption figures. I read your comment yesterday before heading out on a trip, so I gathered some info to demonstrate.

I drove 235 km, made up of 35km city driving, 6km gravel/forestry roads and the remainder on (in UK terms) B roads and unclassified roads. Conditions were not ideal: temperature averaging -2C, falling snow, and the road surface either wet or settled snow. I was driving my wife's BMW 325ci which is supposed to use 9.6 litres/100km or 29.4 MPG for combined cycle.

According to the dashboard computer I used 7.1 litres/100km on the whole trip. I know from checking it in the past that the computer is about 6% optimistic, so that is 7.5 L/100km true consumption, or 37.7 MPG.

 

[Droogs]

Recently Robert Llewellyn of fully charged did a road test of the new MG5. After the calculations were done this car an estate with 200ml range for around 26K does an average of 187ml per gallon equivalent.

I would rather plan a trip a bit more and save a lot

 

[Droogs]

Also a non tree hugger who has converted to BEVs a few years ago released this vid yesterday good info on his channel

 

[Blister]

I have a Nissal Leaf , Owned now for 11 months , Never run out of power , Charge it at home on the std 3 pin 13 amp charger , Each charge cost me £4.20 this is what the smart meter at home tells me the hourly cost of £0.42 pence per hour , Takes 10 hours to fully charge ( This is the slowest type of charging ) I could use a local 7KW charger and re charge to 80 percent in about 1/2 hour IE at the local ASDA when shopping
I love the car its quiet / smooth / and FAST , does wht I need it to do , I have a app called zapmag that tells me of all the local charging points near my car when I am out and about .

 

[D_W]

The terrain makes a massive difference for my (underpowered) car. In Devon it's generally very hilly and our city MPG is well below the state range even when using "hypermiling" techniques, motorway figures are a little better. When I drive in the flat lands of East Anglia though we get fantastic MPG, matching or exceeding rated figures both in town and out in the country.

I'm not sure if the assumption was that a bev was underpowered, but most of them sold here in the us are overpowered by a lot. All cars here with ice get bad mileage. The hills make it so the only safe place for stoplights is the bottoms of hills, otherwise there would be blind turns at the tops of hills. It's a recipe for terrible mileage. Our family truckster, for example, gets 16 here in mixed driving but on trips to relatives on the highway, it'll get 26. Hybrids are ideal here to get off of the line on electricity and harvest some of the braking force going down the hills to charge the batteries.

I'm sure there will be underpowered electric cars at some point, but the American market probably won't tolerate many underpowered or short range cars.