[Sandy and Ed]

Originally Posted by Byte1

I wonder what ever happened to hydrogen fuel cell technology. Not enough profit in it? The byproduct of burning hydrogen is water, I believe. Too simple or too difficult?
Like you said, the materials for making decent batteries is obtained mostly overseas. Until they can make a battery that will fuel a motor vehicle for a 500 mile trip, who wants one? Sitting in line to charge your batteries for hours, makes a distance trip take a long time. Are they planning to build hotels around the charging stations?

Or separate hydrogen from water and produce a burnable gas and oxygen. Use electricity or magnesium to separate??

[tsmall22204]

This thread is full of comments from those who have no clue of what they are talking about.

[Sandy and Ed]

Originally Posted by tsmall22204

This thread is full of comments from those who have no clue of what they are talking about.

Yeah? But it is thought provoking!

[ithos]

Unhappy Tesla owners wait in long line to have their electric cars charged | Wheels

Video Shows Long Line of Louisiana Tesla Owners Wait to Recharge

If you only drive locally and can recharge at your home every night, then EVs are great. But major advances in technology will be required for mass adoption.

Bigger Grid, more generation and so much more. But for some reason no major policy recommendations to accommodate the increase demand for electricity and charging stations.

Can you imagine what a mass evacuation for a hurricane would be like if most people owned EV's?

[Papa_lecki]

Originally Posted by ithos

Unhappy Tesla owners wait in long line to have their electric cars charged | Wheels

Video Shows Long Line of Louisiana Tesla Owners Wait to Recharge

If you only drive locally and can recharge at your home every night, then EVs are great. But major advances in technology will be required for mass adoption.

Bigger Grid, more generation and so much more. But for some reason no major policy recommendations to accommodate the increase demand for electricity and charging stations.

Can you imagine what a mass evacuation for a hurricane would be like if most people owned EV's?

Isn’t the prevailing wisdom, if we all have EV, no more climate change, thus no more hurricanes?

[Two Bills]

No one is forcing anyone to change from gas to battery.
So what's the big deal?
Live and commute in a city, low mileage user?
Electric is an option.
Travel long distances?
Gas until the battery range, and charging points numbers are compatible with long distance driving.
So simple!
Remember, most of us will be a distant memory when all the ICE cars are completely phased out, if they ever are.
Definitely not my problem or worry.

[Stu from NYC]

Originally Posted by Papa_lecki

Isn’t the prevailing wisdom, if we all have EV, no more climate change, thus no more hurricanes?

Hmmm scary when you meet people who actually think that

[Herbflosdorf]

This reminds me of the arguments circa 1900 about the new automobiles never replacing the hose and buggy because of lack of rubber for tires and lack of commercially available fuels.

[Guitarman1951]

Not to mention when people realize that, due to the extremely high cost for battery replacement and very low trade-in or resale value due to that fact, EV's are not going to be as of attractive transportation alternative. Add to that, the lack of distance capability and we'll be back to horses!!

[ThirdOfFive]

Originally Posted by MartinSE

Agree, and remember, fire to candles took millions of years, candles to electric lights took thousands of years, incandescent electric lights to LED lights took a hundred years. Technology advances at an exponential rate.

It appears linear to us, but if you take any aspect of technology and trace it from it's origin to today, you will see this exponential nature

Take speed of transportation - walking on all fours, to walking and running upright (3mph average) Millions of years and we start riding horses. Tens of thousands of years and we get boats and wagons. Thousands of years and we get steam. Hundreds of year(s) and we get gas engines. How long for electric? Who knows.

There is abnormal obvious reason for this. Each step along the way uses the previous tech to help the next step. Once we got computers (and computer aided design) things really picked up the pace. Now, with AI design birthing, we can expect the computers to being making faster smarter, and better computers, which will then increase the advance of technology even faster.

We will see where this goes, but 15 years ago, cell phones were HUGE and dumb, now I wear one on my wrist, that is more powerful than the computers used to get us to the moon and back.

I think there is a chance if we don't destroy ourselves first, that we could switch to an electric based economy in 10 to 20 years.

Excellent points about technology development. I recall hearing awhile back that the sum total of mankind's knowledge doubles every two years. I don't know how accurate that observation is but the development of technology would certainly to bear that out.

Odd, though: a lot of people see technology development as linear. I've often thought that seeing it that way can be limiting. Case in point: the Stirling engine. Most people have never heard of it, but it was invented well over 200 years ago (with the roots going back more than a century before that); a closed-system pressure-differential engine that depending on the fuel, can be very low-emission or even emission-free. They've been around in a limited fashion, used for mine-pumping and the like, but they never really caught on because even though they're an environmentalist's dream they're pretty underpowered, at least at their current state of development. You can buy 'em online: most are toys but some are designed to provide significant (if slow) power.

There's been some work done on using solar power to power 'em. I saw a deal a few years back where someone rigged a fresnel lens to focus sunlight on the heat element of the engine, and the little bugger was humming along at breakneck speed. Pretty impressive, both from a performance aspect and the fact that there was power being produced at absolutely no environmental cost.

Back to the future?

[forebubba]

Originally Posted by MrFlorida

Not in our lifetime...considering most of us are over 65.

Just like our goverment... over 65. Time for them to retire too.
I wonder what the thoughts were when the conversion from horses to cars was. Are they going to build more gas stations? What if we run out of gas on our trip?....

[tophcfa]

Originally Posted by forebubba

Just like our goverment... over 65. Time for them to retire too.
I wonder what the thoughts were when the conversion from horses to cars was. Are they going to build more gas stations? What if we run out of gas on our trip?....

By that time, the horse would have dropped dead.

[OhioBuckeye]

Well electric cars will be way to expensive for a lot of people to afford. I wouldn’t get to worked up about it!

[Topspinmo]

Originally Posted by tsmall22204

This thread is full of comments from those who have no clue of what they are talking about.

And obvious you do. Professor. But I see you made no effort to refute the video, O I see you never listened to it?

[Joe C.]

The day that we go totally electric, China or North Korea will hit us with an EMP.

Now THAT is something that will make all the worry worts bite their fingernails.