Stupid Physics Question

[MW1515]

This just isn’t true. Many seem to assume that we’ve barely scratched the surface and some amazing breakthrough technology is just right around the corner. That’s more science fiction than science unfortunately.

Here’s some good reading:

https://www.caranddriver.com/featur...-history-of-the-electric-car-1830-to-present/

Worth the Watt: A Brief History of the Electric Car, 1830 to Present
EVs weren't born yesterday.

Thanks I'll give that a more thorough read later on. I'm well aware that EVs have been around for a very long time, but for about 100 of those years there were so few being built that no one can possibly claim that a lot of money and effort were going into battery tech research for cars like what was going into ICE research. For most of that time the public probably didnt even know they existed or ever had existed. Also, for all but the last 20 years, and really only about the last 10, all the battery tech was lead acid from my understanding.

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[DYohn]

I vividly recall (think I have the business plan around here somewhere) wanting to do a start up algal oil project, 15 years ago. It is truly the wave of the future, and always will be.

I wonder if you ever met my little brother, Chris Yohn, who worked as a scientist on an algae oil startup a few years back....

 

[Mach1E]

Thanks I'll give that a more thorough read later on. I'm well aware that EVs have been around for a very long time, but for about 100 of those years there were so few being built that no one can possibly claim that a lot of money and effort were going into battery tech research for cars like what was going into ICE research. For most of that time the public probably didnt even know they existed or ever had existed. Also, for all but the last 20 years, and really only about the last 10, all the battery tech was lead acid from my understanding.

While there wasn’t a focus specifically on battery driven cars, research on batteries never really stopped.

And battery tech over the last 100 years has progressed significantly more than internal combustion tech in my opinion.

Which leads me to believe it’s not going to get exponentially better. Incrementally? Sure. Solid state if they can make it work may cut the weight in half, but it’s still not enough.

I still think the next revolution in cars isn’t going to be BEVs, it’ll be something else altogether.

I’m still skeptical we can produce enough batteries to get everyone in an electric car anyways.

 

[bp99]

They are related in that the lower energy dense battery needs to have more mass to get to the same range. That is NOT the same thing as efficiency, which has to do with how much energy is WASTED during the process of converting potential to kinetic energy.

The energy density relates to how big your "fuel tank" has to be to reach a certain range, and of course the more fuel you're carrying your efficiency goes down. In the case of a BEV it is so much more fuel efficient even the ungodly heavy hummer ev has better fuel efficiency than a gas engine.

I was not speaking of comparable energy efficiency, only the capacity to conveniently add range (which could be considered efficiency of a different type). Yes, the bigger your gas tank, the more mass that needs to be moved, and thus there is loss of efficiency. But you also lose mass as you travel and gain efficiency as your tank empties. The weight of the tank itself is negligible. You have a fixed weight with a fully charged and near empty battery so adding capacity is a permanent loss in efficiency. You can add a second fuel tank to an ICE vehicle and nearly double the range (or carry gas cans to refill if you're traveling where there are no gas stations). You cannot simply add a second battery pack to a BEV to increase range. Density and geometry are not in your favor. Even if the vehicle were large enough to double battery capacity, the ratio of the mass of the battery versus the mass of the rest of car is such that your loss in efficiency as well as handling/ride is much higher than adding more gas capacity to an ICE. Yes, you could still be more efficient than an ICE, but you start getting high rates of diminishing returns. Also, imagine a military convoy in active combat trying to advance on only batteries versus supporting fuel tankers.

My point wasn't to belittle BEVs. It was that ICE still has advantages in some use cases. Energy density is a favorable trait in some situations. Having tunnel vision (I'm not saying you do, but there is most definitely political policy of such) and arguing that we need to 100% replace one thing with another without thought to everyone's needs is not productive. It's also what divides and creates camps on each side of an issue with both sides sticking their fingers in their ears. We need to recognize when things can co-exist. ICE still has some advantages that BEVs are not near ready to negate. Once charging infrastructure improves (not just on highways, but for street parkers, apartment dwellers, etc), BEVs will likely be the best option for most people. I don't dispute that.

 

[Jimrpa]

There's also research being done on e-fuel by Porsche and a Canadian company that makes fuel from air both of which would take all existing ICE vehicles and make them burn carbon neutral fuels. Additionally, there's also things like the zero emission turbine engines which are being worked on. Unfortunately, people are stuck on electricity, batteries and solar as the great savior. It's sad that so many people have electrical tunnel vision. People need to wake up to all alternatives.

Solar is becoming the "nuclear waste" of our time (recent article). Solving atmospheric problems with more toxic ground problems isn't a win in my books.

Hey, I LIKE nuclear and with the right reactors, little waste is produced, and those waste products can be effectively managed.
Besides, I’m keeping my fingers crossed for fusion

 

[P. T. Magoo]

Actually, it's perfectly plausible that the electric car could actually gain some minuscule but measurable amount of weight by the end of the trip.

Especially during Mayfly season.

 

[Logal727]

Stupid psychics can’t give themselves the lotto numbers. Oh I guess I misread the subject of this thread.

 

[ctenidae]

.

And battery tech over the last 100 years has progressed significantly more than internal combustion tech in my opinion.

Which leads me to believe it’s not going to get exponentially better. Incrementally? Sure. Solid state if they can make it work may cut the weight in half, but it’s still not enough.

One wrinkle on battery development, though, is what the battery is being used for. For transportation, submarines were probably the biggest driver of battery development, certainly up to 1954, but really beyond that too. But those were lead acid, which was the pinnacle of battery tech for a long time.

Batteries now are better by far to be sure, but I'd say the engine tech developed by F1 alone is leaps and bounds beyond the move from alkaline to nicad to Li-ion. Batteries have a looong way to go. That's not to say they're not going there, but there is a lot of room to improve, and not just incrementally.

 

[Mach1E]

One wrinkle on battery development, though, is what the battery is being used for. For transportation, submarines were probably the biggest driver of battery development, certainly up to 1954, but really beyond that too. But those were lead acid, which was the pinnacle of battery tech for a long time.

Batteries now are better by far to be sure, but I'd say the engine tech developed by F1 alone is leaps and bounds beyond the move from alkaline to nicad to Li-ion. Batteries have a looong way to go. That's not to say they're not going there, but there is a lot of room to improve, and not just incrementally.

Maybe a better question for battery technology is: what haven’t we tried?

I just don’t think a “better battery” is the end solution. Especially from an environmental standpoint. Whatever happened to fuel cells?
Now from a performance standpoint…….. sign me up for batteries that go farther and weigh less amd

 

[timbop]

Ada Lovelace was the first known programmer, working with Charles Babbage on his analytic engine - she died in 1852. Subsequently, Henry Hollerith invented the tabulating machine - which was used for the 1890 census. In the 130 years since then much better computing/analysis machines have been invented. The mixture of carbon, saltpeter and sulfur (now known as gunpowder) existed for centuries before someone got the idea to put it inside a closed tube with a projectile in front of it. More centuries passed before someone thought to put a lot of it in a thick-walled tube with a heavy projectile in front.

Just because the electric battery was invented a long time ago (the first was actually invented in ancient Mesopotamia) does not mean new and better chemistries or form factors cannot lead to quantum leaps in capability today.

 

[dml105]

Maybe a better question for battery technology is: what haven’t we tried?

Graphene!

https://topcharger.co.uk/graphene-e...re-we/#3-graphene-a-new-age-for-ev-batteries-

 

[ctenidae]

Maybe a better question for battery technology is: what haven’t we tried?

I just don’t think a “better battery” is the end solution. Especially from an environmental standpoint. Whatever happened to fuel cells?
Now from a performance standpoint…….. sign me up for batteries that go farther and weigh less amd

There are a lot of chemistries still to try, as well as different configurations and materials for cathodes and anodes. One big limiter is electrode degradation, which impacts charging times and the number of cycles a battery can handle. Graphene appears to be promising, and there are labs all over working on new and better batteries (an all encompassing term, there).

Fuel cells are great, except hydrogen is a real pain to deal with. Tiny molecule so it leaks, surprisingly reactive so it can destroy materials (steel, I'm looking at you), odorless and colorless, yet highly flammable (oh, the huge manatee!), and all kinds of mean and nasty things.

Def need some faster better cheaper action on the battery front. In the meantime, what we got works pretty good for a lot of uses.

 

[Mach1E]

There are a lot of chemistries still to try, as well as different configurations and materials for cathodes and anodes. One big limiter is electrode degradation, which impacts charging times and the number of cycles a battery can handle. Graphene appears to be promising, and there are labs all over working on new and better batteries (an all encompassing term, there).

Fuel cells are great, except hydrogen is a real pain to deal with. Tiny molecule so it leaks, surprisingly reactive so it can destroy materials (steel, I'm looking at you), odorless and colorless, yet highly flammable (oh, the huge manatee!), and all kinds of mean and nasty things.

Def need some faster better cheaper action on the battery front. In the meantime, what we got works pretty good for a lot of uses.

For all the downsides of hydrogen though isn’t it:
plentiful and renewable
Burns clean
Powerful and lightweight

I dunno, but it seems like from a physics and technology standpoint, it might be easier to solve the hydrogen issues than the battery ones. And possibly significantly better for the environment if we do!

But either way, my point isn’t that fuel cells are the future. It’s that something like that really could be. I think batteries are just a stepping stone and not the end game.

A lot of people here, like was mentioned by someone else, seem to have battery tunnel vision.

 

[ctenidae]

For all the downsides of hydrogen though isn’t it:
plentiful and renewable
Burns clean
Powerful and lightweight

I dunno, but it seems like from a physics and technology standpoint, it might be easier to solve the hydrogen issues than the battery ones. And possibly significantly better for the environment if we do!

But either way, my point isn’t that fuel cells are the future. It’s that something like that really could be. I think batteries are just a stepping stone and not the end game.

A lot of people here, like was mentioned by someone else, seem to have battery tunnel vision.

Agreed, hydrogen ought to be pretty darn good. It's just a logistical and infrastructure nightmare. No matter how good a fuel cell might be, it's useless without fuel. Methane shows some promise as a fuel, and it's easier to handle, but I recall they produce some solid waste (a carbonate of some sort?) and/or CO2, so that's less than ideal but Co2 is still better than CH4 form an environmental standpoint. Just have to collect all the cow farts.

As to battery tunnel vision, yeah, probably. Depends on how broad your definition of "battery" is. I tend to start with "anything that can accept, store, and discharge electricity on demand." Aside from a Mr Fusion(tm), that's a pretty wide tunnel.

 

[MW1515]

While there wasn’t a focus specifically on battery driven cars, research on batteries never really stopped.

And battery tech over the last 100 years has progressed significantly more than internal combustion tech in my opinion.

Which leads me to believe it’s not going to get exponentially better. Incrementally? Sure. Solid state if they can make it work may cut the weight in half, but it’s still not enough.

I still think the next revolution in cars isn’t going to be BEVs, it’ll be something else altogether.

I’m still skeptical we can produce enough batteries to get everyone in an electric car anyways.

I don't think what we are saying is all that far apart, I'm just a bit more optimistic about battery development and a bit more skeptical about hydrogen fuel cells. I would argue that even an incremental improvement in batteries (solid state reducing weight by half like you said), combined with reducing the amount of battery metals and minerals that need to be mined, combined with a transition from fossil fuels to renewables on the grid charging our batteries (already well underway) will lead to an absolutely ENORMOUS improvement in the environmental impact from transportation. I wouldn't call it battery tunnel vision, I'd call it being excited about the current revolution in automotive power generation . Let's meet back here in 10 years to discuss how things have progressed.

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