Electric Rag and Tube

[facthunter]

Free with a 2 course meal.. Nev

[kasper]

In my thoughts of the future of fuel is it will be very mixed:

1. EV battery with charge at home/charge at public charge point (30-45min for 80% recharge is currently available)

2. automated battery swap out locations (in addition to 1.) - already exists in china - check youtube to watch it - 3 min swap for battery no human involved - requires manufacturers to agree ... not holding breath on agreement so will see multiple infrastructures 

3. Hydrogen fuel cells and hydrogen combustion - will arrive and part of the fuel mix over time

4. Hydrocarbon liquid fuel from solar direct - already exists in prototype form and will arrive and part of the fuel mix over time - is a direct replacement for existing ICE engine 

 

There will be no single solution that fits all, I am expecting that my airframes will move over the either EV electric with reduced endurance (already preparing one airframe) or will convert to Hydrocarbon liquid fuel at a much higher operating cost than current liquid fuel but retain the range. 

 

Just my two cents

Edited June 24, 2021 by kasper
correction of typing

[kgwilson]

You are all looking backwards. The latest solid state battery technology being developed by Toyota & Panasonic takes approximately 10 minutes to charge and will have a range more than twice that of a vehicle with a conventional lithium ion battery under the same conditions all achieved without sacrificing interior space even in the most compact vehicles.

 

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Most-read-in-2020/Toyota-s-game-changing-solid-state-battery-en-route-for-2021-debut

 

If you drive to work 5 days a week there is no need to use a charging station at all as you just plug the car in when you get home. You will only need these when on a trip.

Edited June 24, 2021 by kgwilson

[danny_galaga]

Walrus. Best you cross your fingers then for continued improvements. Else make sure your diesel vehicles last a long time. But i'm pretty confident that in ten years time, range won't be an issue anymore for anyone.

 

One-track. In ten years time most people will be driving electric and charging from home. And actually, most people who own electric vehicles now charge from home. People, especially the younger generation will wonder why people would ever want to queue at a service station.

 

And for sure less people will be bothered owning a car. Self driving cars, while not really properly developed now, will almost certainly be a normal sight in ten years or so. Most people would probably rather just summon one via an app. 

Edited June 24, 2021 by danny_galaga

[octave]

54 minutes ago, onetrack said:

Octave, the simple problem remains that every EV system supporter merely states that charging points will be everywhere - but the problem remains, that installing that massive charging network is going to cost a fortune.

We've already seen the mind-boggling cost, and cost overruns, with the NBN - where a huge 120 yr old electric network had to be ripped up and replaced with a fibre optic network.

But the copper phone network was already largely installed in our infrastructure - a charging network needs to be added to our infrastructure. 

I could well imagine the disruption caused by ripping up every shopper carpark to install a sizeable charging network - along with transformers, and all the other associated apparatus needed as well.

I think a lot of thought and planning needs to be put into this setting out of a charging network, so it proceeds with smoothness and integrated planning, and doesn't cause major disruption to many areas.

Yet it is being done. The difference  between nbn  and a charging network is that the cabling is largely there  at least in the city and often alongside highways. Shopping centrer  near me already have chargers installed. But again why charge at a public charge station when you can charge much cheaper and conveniently overnight for your weekly drive.

I was reading recently about early cars in the US. Motorists bought fuel at the drug store. There was no network at the time.

[FlyBoy1960]

Here is a map of the Australian charging stations, if you can get 300 kilometres on a charge you are certainly not going to have any problems in a lot of the populated areas.

 

I think you have "premature range anxiety" but I'm told there is a little blue tablet for this  😇

[FlyBoy1960]

They are putting these units at airports in the US, they can be used to charge electric aircraft and also vehicles, especially the vehicles that are used at the actual airport. They have a semi tracking solar panel system on the top, they have battery storage in the stand, they have a pad which acts as the balancing system to stop them getting blown over and you simply drive up onto the pad, plug-in and you get a fast charge from the batteries in the system so it is DC to DC which is much quicker than AC to DC (I am told) apparently there is enough to charge 3 Tesla vehicles in the battery system alone and any time there is no sun it operates from mains electricity.  These systems can be put out in rows like parking bays and they are standalone, there is no other infrastructure needed, just place them on the ground and wait for the  sun to come up. They can also use a couple of extra banks of solar panels on the roof of a building or something or in our case a hangar if the units are getting a lot of use. The panels are roughly 5 kW and you can have remote panels connected up to, I think 35 kW if you wish. It used to be called the EV Ark but apparently someone jumped in and trademarked the name so it is now called BEAM and I have seen about 10 of these in California in some rural airports

[Jabiru7252]

Every time I hear about self driving vehicles I get mildly annoyed. A report I read about a driverless bus showed it cost 50% more to operate than a standard bus with a driver. Like computers replacing people in the hospital system. Actual cost is double but offset by speed and accuracy. (unless hackers stuff things up!)

[jackc]

And then there is this……

 

1 Nissan Leaf – a real story here in Australia Phillip Carlson bought a Nissan Leaf in August 2012, which cost about $53,500. Its seven years old today, and it’s worth maybe $12,000 - if you can find someone dumb enough to  buy it. But, let him tell the story. “I bought an electric car from Nissan with 5 years warranty on the battery. They claimed 175km range. >From new I only ever got 120km. Now I can BARELY get 35-40km during winter  or even 25km if I use the heater.  The warranty says the battery is bad if it drops to 8 out of 12 bars, which mine has.  “I took it in and they claim the battery is totally fine and there’s nothing wrong with it and gave me a $33,000 invoice for a new one!!!!! Nissan just won’t listen and I’ve  run out of all hope.  I paid $53,500 for this car and it’s pretty useless now.” - Phillip Carlson The $33k quote Here’s the official battery replacement quote from Lennock Motors in the ACT. An incredible $29,600 for the replacement battery, $750 to fit it plus GST: that’s $33,385 in total. For a car now worth $12,000? If you are lucky. Nissan and other carmakers are moaning about the lack of government support for EVs in Australia.  And I’d suggest that if you’re a carmaker like Nissan, seemingly hell-bent on taking your small group of EV first adopters in this way, then you simply do not deserve any taxpayer support. This is a tacit admission by Nissan that the Leaf is a disposable car. A $50,000 disposable car. Which doesn’t seem very environmentally sustainable to me. Think about it. Replacing this battery for over $30,000.  You could buy about 20,000 litres of petrol for that. Which is enough to drive a similar sized conventional SUV about 400,000 kilometres. So if you are buying your Leaf EV to save money on fuel, even if you are getting your electricity free from a rooftop solar array, every day, you better hope you get 400,000 k’s  out of the battery. Unlikely. If you don’t, you’re just kidding yourself. And the leaf is about $30,000 more expensive than similar sized conventional SUVs. So make that somewhere closer to 800,000 k’s - to  break even, financially.  In what universe does that sound like a sound financial plan? If you’re saving the planet, with your Leaf, it’s even worse: Consigning the Leaf to landfill at seven years of age because it’s grossly uneconomical to repair seems to me like  a fairly unsustainable use of the earth’s limited resources.  So does throwing away the old battery and replacing it with a new one every seven years. This is a vital point. EVs and internal combustion are in a race to reduce CO2. And there’s no question: Internal combustion starts off ahead because EVs are filthier to produce  - that’s mainly the battery.  So, in other words, on a lifecycle assessment basis, EVs start filthy and get cleaner over time, while internal combustion starts cleaner and gets filthier as the K’s mount up. An ADAC  report out of Europe from April 2018 found that equivalent EVs and petrol cars broke even on CO2 (on a lifecycle basis) at about 116,000 kilometres, and after that, EVs crept ahead.  That’s based on Germany’s grid composition.  (Australia’s grid is filthier, admittedly - so it takes a greater distance to reach this point of emissions equivalence.) This means EVs cleaning things up is - at best - a long-term proposition.  And if you’re throwing the vehicle away at 88,907 kilometres, which is where Mr Carlson’s Leaf is at right  now, or if you’re replacing the battery, your EV is never going to be cleaner than an equivalent small petrol powered car.

[turboplanner]

12 hours ago, turboplanner said:

Anyone who raced slot cars knows electric's explosive power off the line.

The balancing act is: Power Demand vs Battery Capacity; If you want to exponentially maximise one the price is that you exponentially minimise the other.

BexRbetter gave us a classic example with the story about his trip to another city. Had plenty of quoted range for the journey at the start where he flew down the freeway passing cars left and right. Suddenly a battery warning came on, so he slowed down, the battery info showed he couldn't reach his destination so he slowed down more. That didn't help so he went into limp home mode - very slow, and from memory his one hour trip took about two hours.

People who don't understand, or might like to know exactly, to the last minute detail how long Bex's trip was, what was showng on the dash, how he managed to get there etc. need only to surf back to the actual story.

 

In the meantime the principle of physics I outlined isn't going anywhere.

 

Cars require intermittant power so there's some relief from battery drain slowing down and going down the hills, slowing down in towns etc.  

 

Aircraft require constant speed power in cuise, so there's a more constant drain that needs to be dealt with.

 

What is emerging with the use of tradie tools is the OPERATING management technique of not running a battery fully flat, but having multiple batteries for the skin.

 

What I've found with farm jobs which can be several kilometres from the shed is that quite heavy work, such as angle grinding can be achieved until a job is complete by taking multiple batteries out so no need to load the big generator.

 

Traditionallly when we book lessons or book an aircraft for a local flight, we fly for an hour.

 

If the electric aircraft range is 5 circuits, then if we adopt a policy based on modules of 4 circuits then a break for a battery swap then another 4 circuits, or something like this, we can achieve satisfacory training with today's technology rather than dreaming up battery capacity/mass that hasn't been invented yet.

 

This would also allow more time for students to get ground briefing as they struggle with landing techniques etc.

 

It would also get people thinking about a 30 minute session at regular intervals through the year instead of the 2 or 3 hours they might be doing now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[kgwilson]

One of the biggest issues is the supply of Lithium where demand is outstripping supply pushing the price up. This is being addressed though with new battery technology and one of the simplest and most effective is Sodium. CATL is the worlds biggest battery manufacturer and counts Mercedes & Tesla as customers and will be launching the worlds first commercially available Sodium ion battery in July this year. These promise to be 30% cheaper but are aimed at the domestic, company and national storage markets as their storage density is not as good as lithium. This will free up lithium for EV batteries and sodium will be used for other markets.

 

Solar and Wind will use Na Ion batteries to store excess energy for use at night and when it is calm. They can be used in homes for storage from rooftop solar and will be cheaper than creating pumped hydro, they can be used for EV charging stations etc, in fact  anywhere that size is not an issue. The other benefit of Sodium ion is it is non volatile unlike Lithium. It is estimated by 2040 there will be an excess of available energy world wide 99% of the time. Coal, Nuclear, Gas (fossil fuels) will be totally unnecessary and even green energy like Hydro will not be required any more. I probably won't be around to see it & so long as we can prevent the planet overheating before then, the future looks bright.

[kgwilson]

5 minutes ago, jackc said:

And then there is this……

 

1 Nissan Leaf – a real story here in Australia Phillip Carlson bought a Nissan Leaf in August 2012, which cost about $53,500. Its seven years old today, and it’s worth maybe $12,000 - if you can find someone dumb enough to  buy it. But, let him tell the story. “I bought an electric car from Nissan with 5 years warranty on the battery. They claimed 175km range. >From new I only ever got 120km. Now I can BARELY get 35-40km during winter  or even 25km if I use the heater.  The warranty says the battery is bad if it drops to 8 out of 12 bars, which mine has.  “I took it in and they claim the battery is totally fine and there’s nothing wrong with it and gave me a $33,000 invoice for a new one!!!!! Nissan just won’t listen and I’ve  run out of all hope.  I paid $53,500 for this car and it’s pretty useless now.” - Phillip Carlson The $33k quote Here’s the official battery replacement quote from Lennock Motors in the ACT. An incredible $29,600 for the replacement battery, $750 to fit it plus GST: that’s $33,385 in total. For a car now worth $12,000? If you are lucky. Nissan and other carmakers are moaning about the lack of government support for EVs in Australia.  And I’d suggest that if you’re a carmaker like Nissan, seemingly hell-bent on taking your small group of EV first adopters in this way, then you simply do not deserve any taxpayer support. This is a tacit admission by Nissan that the Leaf is a disposable car. A $50,000 disposable car. Which doesn’t seem very environmentally sustainable to me. Think about it. Replacing this battery for over $30,000.  You could buy about 20,000 litres of petrol for that. Which is enough to drive a similar sized conventional SUV about 400,000 kilometres. So if you are buying your Leaf EV to save money on fuel, even if you are getting your electricity free from a rooftop solar array, every day, you better hope you get 400,000 k’s  out of the battery. Unlikely. If you don’t, you’re just kidding yourself. And the leaf is about $30,000 more expensive than similar sized conventional SUVs. So make that somewhere closer to 800,000 k’s - to  break even, financially.  In what universe does that sound like a sound financial plan? If you’re saving the planet, with your Leaf, it’s even worse: Consigning the Leaf to landfill at seven years of age because it’s grossly uneconomical to repair seems to me like  a fairly unsustainable use of the earth’s limited resources.  So does throwing away the old battery and replacing it with a new one every seven years. This is a vital point. EVs and internal combustion are in a race to reduce CO2. And there’s no question: Internal combustion starts off ahead because EVs are filthier to produce  - that’s mainly the battery.  So, in other words, on a lifecycle assessment basis, EVs start filthy and get cleaner over time, while internal combustion starts cleaner and gets filthier as the K’s mount up. An ADAC  report out of Europe from April 2018 found that equivalent EVs and petrol cars broke even on CO2 (on a lifecycle basis) at about 116,000 kilometres, and after that, EVs crept ahead.  That’s based on Germany’s grid composition.  (Australia’s grid is filthier, admittedly - so it takes a greater distance to reach this point of emissions equivalence.) This means EVs cleaning things up is - at best - a long-term proposition.  And if you’re throwing the vehicle away at 88,907 kilometres, which is where Mr Carlson’s Leaf is at right  now, or if you’re replacing the battery, your EV is never going to be cleaner than an equivalent small petrol powered car.

This is old technology news even though it only a few years old. Nissan and Tesla now provide an 8 year or 160,000km warranty. The latest CATL Li-ion batteries will last up to 2 million kilometres.

https://insideevs.com/news/428508/catl-2-million-km-battery-not-tesla/

Manufacture of cars (ICE or EV) is using existing fossil fuel based energy. You have to start this way or you will never transition. Once the transition is completed in 10 to 15 years CO2 emissions will be gone.

[octave]

6 minutes ago, jackc said:

 1 Nissan Leaf – a real story here in Australia

 

I have read this story before and yes that sucks. My understanding though is that this was eventually resolved.  Since then things have progressed.   

 

  Nissan Leaf owner upgrades EV battery for under $A3,500

 

Dozens Of Shops Are Now Replacing Nissan LEAF Batteries

 

BATTERY SWAP GIVES NISSAN LEAF NEW LEASE ON LIFE

13 minutes ago, jackc said:

n ADAC  report out of Europe from April 2018 found that equivalent EVs and petrol cars broke even on CO2 (on a lifecycle basis) at about 116,000 kilometres, and after that, EVs crept ahead. 
That’s based on Germany’s grid composition. 

 

This article is quite critical of the ADAC report as far as I can see.   It is also 5 years old and the energy mix continues to evolve.   

[jackc]

Try making a warranty claim on ANYTHING these days, results in a bun fight more often than not 😞

[octave]

It is also interesting to note that petrol stations did not precede the adoption of petrol driven cars.   The demand drives to supply.      We are slow adopters here but other countries are further down the track.  The UK has 42129 connectors at 15616 locations.  10518 of these connectors are rapid chargers.

 

London lamp posts turned into car charging points

 

The fact is EVs and or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and aircraft are coming like it or not.  I will say again, my rooftop solar sends 2MWh per annum of excess electricity back to the grid for 10 cents a Kwh.  I calculate this would drive the average EV for  between 10000 to 14000 Km This seem like an attractive saving in fuel cost (as well as oil changes brake pads and servicing.

 

i don't really care if people are enthusiastic or not but there are many who in a different age would be shouting from the sidelines at those idiotic Wright brothers and there stupid contraption that can barely get off the ground and will never be anything more than a novelty.

 

i don't own an EV yet because I am pretty hard arsed when it comes to crunching the numbers, My present  car 13 years old and in reasonable nick but has a pretty low market value, it simply makes sense to run it into the ground before purchasing something new. Meanwhile prices continue to drop and technology improves.

I did invest some money in shares in an EV company ($1800 now worth almost $1200) in Nov 2019.  I did this with rigorous research.   I know that pretty much all the major legacy car companies have given dates for the end of ICE production and we know many countries have declared future restrictions on IC vehicle sale.   The technology is improving at a great rate.   Battery tech continues to evolve.  A Tesla long range range has a greater range than my ICE vehicle. Cost is reducing.

 

It is easy dismiss new technology without having a poke around to see what is happening

 

 

 

 

 

[Garfly]

 

The (Sometimes) Crazy World of Covering Electric Aircraft

"To say that electric airplanes are a hot item now is to give understatement a bad name. New ones appear almost weekly. In this interview video, AVweb talks to Miles O'Brien who recently completed and aired an hour-long NOVA film on electric airplanes for PBS. O'Brien and AVweb's Paul Bertorelli discuss why it's so difficult to cover this emerging industry."

 

 

[Thruster88]

I recently purchased my first EV. 10km range 25kmh top speed. It is an interesting and fun machine. Snowboarding all year round.

[jackc]

50 minutes ago, Thruster88 said:

I recently purchased my first EV. 10km range 25kmh top speed. It is an interesting and fun machine. Snowboarding all year round.

Bought a red one of these in 1998, my first EV and brought it home from the U.S. in carry on baggage?

The Zappy Scooter, still got it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[octave]

My wife and I recently bought Ebikes, we absolutely love them.   Still get plenty of exercise but the power assist flattens out the hills.  We  rode to our local brewery for lunch today a 20km round trip. We  often do a 40km ride. 

[spacesailor]

That one wheel   'skateboard ' is what gets a  HummleBird owner around !.

Still can,t see how to balance it thou.

spacesailor

[Thruster88]

It has magic inside. Ok it has a gyro to keep the board level, lean forward and the board accelerates to get back under you, slowing the opposite. Turns like skies or snow board.  

[spacesailor]

Well that would be fun,

What happens when you hit an obstacle? .

spacesailor

[Thruster88]

Just now, spacesailor said:

Well that would be fun,

What happens when you hit an obstacle? .

spacesailor

In that respect it is like piloting an aircraft.  Don't hit any obstacle. It also has primary and secondary control interactions like an aircraft.  

[jackc]

I laid my Zappy down…..hit an ice cream stick on a corner in town 😞

[onetrack]

Kgwilsons post about Toyota SS batteries led me to find some recent news, where a company named SAKUU (formerly known as KeraCel Inc), have teamed up with a Japanese automotive drivetrain components supplier (Musashi Seimitsu Industry Co., Ltd.) to go full speed ahead into mass-production of 3D printed SSB's.

 

The SAKUU company hold a number of patents on new 3D printing processes that simplify and reduce the (currently) extremely high cost of manufacturing SS batteries.

In particular, SAKUU have a patented 3D printing process that produces a structure they call "PoraLyte".

This structure appears to be able to blend a mixture of chemicals or metals together in the printer spray stream, to assist in creating an SSB which is 30% lighter than L-ion and which produces 50% more power than L-ion. It appears the major gain with PoraLyte is its form - microparticles with large and complex surfaces that present as the ideal answer to SSB technology.

 

Musashi Seimitsu Industry Co., Ltd. is obviously greatly concerned their business model is facing large-scale destruction, as many drivetrain components they currently manufacture will no longer be needed in EV's. So they have invested big in AI, and poured a large sum of money into SAKUU to get in on the EV gravy train.

 

https://www.electrive.com/2021/05/17/sakuu-presents-3d-printer-for-solid-state-batteries/

 

https://www.sakuu.com/post/sakuu-poised-to-unlock-mainstream-adoption-of-electric-vehicles-with-world-s-first-ev-battery-3d-pri

 

https://www.fabbaloo.com/news/the-mysterious-sakuu-3d-printing-process

 

http://www.musashi.co.jp/en/