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I like hydrogen. The idea that every personal vehicle should have 1000 pounds of lithium-cobalt-etc is crazy to me, that's before getting into super-trucks and

I like hydrogen. The idea that every personal vehicle should have 1000 pounds of lithium-cobalt-etc is crazy to me, that's before getting into super-trucks and 18 wheelers, then not to mention aircraft and cargo ships. Batteries are neat, but I'm not sure they scale.

devoutsalsa 5y ago
I was hoping we’d just make synthetic gasoline from atmospheric carbon dioxide. Wouldn’t require changing any infrastructure at all. Just make gibs of it using renewables. It sounds good in theory anyway.
- moonchrome 5y ago
  One of the nice aspects of electric cars is going to be eliminating city polution and reducing road noise. I have no idea what the CO2 impact would be and don't really care that much ("cutting CO2 will reset the climate to some state we like" sounds like wishful thinking and most of the talk in this space is ideologically coloured I don't even want to pay attention) but the improvement in urban living is going to be undeniable.
  - jazzyjackson 5y ago
    aside from accelerating at stoplights, electric cars and gas cars make similar noise levels just from the rubber against the road. rubber is a significant pollutant as well, as is brake dust. Don’t get me wrong, electric is much better, i’m only nitpicking since you said “eliminating”
    - moonchrome 5y ago
      Brake dust is much less of an issue with electrics too, but agreed that tires are still a factor. But as someone who lived in urban centers for the majority of his life - I think getting down to tires being the major issue is solving the majority of the problem.
    - cesarb 5y ago
      > aside from accelerating at stoplights, electric cars and gas cars make similar noise levels just from the rubber against the road. There's also the idle engine rumbling noise while waiting at stoplights, which does not exist on electric cars.
  - cesarb 5y ago
    > but the improvement in urban living is going to be undeniable. When the pandemic arrived here back in March 2020, and nearly everyone suddenly stopped leaving their home, it was eerie: the air where I live (in the middle of a major urban area) suddenly smelled as if I was in a rural area. It was something I wasn't expecting to see so soon; I have for a long time been rooting for EVs to arrive and make the air quality better, but unfortunately EVs are simply way too expensive yet (so far, I only have seen an EV once, and it was an i3 with a range extender; and I do live in a major metropolitan area).
- m4rtink 5y ago
  That would still not solve all the localised polution caused by burning it in cars.
coryrc 5y ago
Modern vehicle weigh multiple tons, what's a half-ton battery really matter? Also much of the weight is carbon and oxygen. LiFePO4 also (obviously) is substantially iron and phosphorous. Li-Ion battery production had been growing at double-digit percentage for decades. I think they've proven you wrong many times over. Finally, electric cars charge at ~96% efficiency, while hydrogen is something like 40%. I, for one, am not interested in paying 3x per mile.
- rewma 5y ago
  > Modern vehicle weigh multiple tons, what's a half-ton battery really matter? The Tesla Model S weights about 2100kg. The Tesla Model S battery weights about 540kg. This means that a 1500kg car is forced to pack an additional 540kg to be able to store energy. That's an additional 30% of the mass that you need to accelerate and brake. People do care about that. In the very least, the battery mass is responsible for an effective drop in energy efficiency of around 30% just to cart someone around. > Finally, electric cars charge at ~96% efficiency, while hydrogen is something like 40%. I, for one, am not interested in paying 3x per mile. This claim has little substance and credibility. For starters, if you factor in how much additional energy you need to waste just to pack along a massive half ton battery, you'll eventually realize that the effective energy waste of a EV is not much different than the hydrogen one. I mean, the point of a EV is not to have it parked on the driveway, charge a battery, and proceed to boast about how that was very efficient. Your goal is to move around, and moving that massive half ton beast of a battery along with you wastes a lot of energy too. Also, battery efficiency is around 80%, which naively sounds a far improvement over fuel cell's lauded 40% efficiency. However, a Li-Ion battery weights half a ton and represents around 1/3 of a EV's mass, which also requires energy to be moved around. For reference the fuel cell of a Toyota Mirai is only 40kg, less than the weight of an adult passenger. Once you do your math you'll quickly notice the effective energy use is not that different. And then there's the cost argument. The typical back-of-the-napkin figure for how much EVs cost to run is around 500€/year. Even if you bump that up to twice the cost, that price is eclipsed by the huge markup that you're already paying for an EV. I mean, a Tesla Model S costs about a century worth of energy bills before it even gets it's tires dirty. Playing the frugality card with the current batch of EVs lacks any credibility and is, at best, being penny wise and pound foolish.
simondotau 5y ago
> The idea that every personal vehicle should have 1000 pounds of lithium-cobalt-etc is crazy to me Whether it seems crazy is evidence of unfamiliarity, not whether it is actually crazy. Is it really any crazier that continually pumping every car with juice made from literal fossils? At least the battery is continually reusable — and at the end of its useful life, over 90% recyclable.
- swman 5y ago
  What happens to the lithium and other metals? I don’t know much about this stuff so I’d appreciate to know
  - tantony 5y ago
    They can be almost 100% reused. In fact, given how valuable the metals are it would be cheaper to do so than mine for them . There are multiple companies working on this. E.g. https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/ https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/

devoutsalsa 5y ago

I was hoping we’d just make synthetic gasoline from atmospheric carbon dioxide. Wouldn’t require changing any infrastructure at all. Just make gibs of it using renewables. It sounds good in theory anyway.

moonchrome 5y ago
One of the nice aspects of electric cars is going to be eliminating city polution and reducing road noise. I have no idea what the CO2 impact would be and don't really care that much ("cutting CO2 will reset the climate to some state we like" sounds like wishful thinking and most of the talk in this space is ideologically coloured I don't even want to pay attention) but the improvement in urban living is going to be undeniable.
- jazzyjackson 5y ago
  aside from accelerating at stoplights, electric cars and gas cars make similar noise levels just from the rubber against the road. rubber is a significant pollutant as well, as is brake dust. Don’t get me wrong, electric is much better, i’m only nitpicking since you said “eliminating”
  - moonchrome 5y ago
    Brake dust is much less of an issue with electrics too, but agreed that tires are still a factor. But as someone who lived in urban centers for the majority of his life - I think getting down to tires being the major issue is solving the majority of the problem.
  - cesarb 5y ago
    > aside from accelerating at stoplights, electric cars and gas cars make similar noise levels just from the rubber against the road. There's also the idle engine rumbling noise while waiting at stoplights, which does not exist on electric cars.
- cesarb 5y ago
  > but the improvement in urban living is going to be undeniable. When the pandemic arrived here back in March 2020, and nearly everyone suddenly stopped leaving their home, it was eerie: the air where I live (in the middle of a major urban area) suddenly smelled as if I was in a rural area. It was something I wasn't expecting to see so soon; I have for a long time been rooting for EVs to arrive and make the air quality better, but unfortunately EVs are simply way too expensive yet (so far, I only have seen an EV once, and it was an i3 with a range extender; and I do live in a major metropolitan area).
m4rtink 5y ago
That would still not solve all the localised polution caused by burning it in cars.

coryrc 5y ago

Modern vehicle weigh multiple tons, what's a half-ton battery really matter? Also much of the weight is carbon and oxygen. LiFePO4 also (obviously) is substantially iron and phosphorous. Li-Ion battery production had been growing at double-digit percentage for decades. I think they've proven you wrong many times over. Finally, electric cars charge at ~96% efficiency, while hydrogen is something like 40%. I, for one, am not interested in paying 3x per mile.

rewma 5y ago
> Modern vehicle weigh multiple tons, what's a half-ton battery really matter? The Tesla Model S weights about 2100kg. The Tesla Model S battery weights about 540kg. This means that a 1500kg car is forced to pack an additional 540kg to be able to store energy. That's an additional 30% of the mass that you need to accelerate and brake. People do care about that. In the very least, the battery mass is responsible for an effective drop in energy efficiency of around 30% just to cart someone around. > Finally, electric cars charge at ~96% efficiency, while hydrogen is something like 40%. I, for one, am not interested in paying 3x per mile. This claim has little substance and credibility. For starters, if you factor in how much additional energy you need to waste just to pack along a massive half ton battery, you'll eventually realize that the effective energy waste of a EV is not much different than the hydrogen one. I mean, the point of a EV is not to have it parked on the driveway, charge a battery, and proceed to boast about how that was very efficient. Your goal is to move around, and moving that massive half ton beast of a battery along with you wastes a lot of energy too. Also, battery efficiency is around 80%, which naively sounds a far improvement over fuel cell's lauded 40% efficiency. However, a Li-Ion battery weights half a ton and represents around 1/3 of a EV's mass, which also requires energy to be moved around. For reference the fuel cell of a Toyota Mirai is only 40kg, less than the weight of an adult passenger. Once you do your math you'll quickly notice the effective energy use is not that different. And then there's the cost argument. The typical back-of-the-napkin figure for how much EVs cost to run is around 500€/year. Even if you bump that up to twice the cost, that price is eclipsed by the huge markup that you're already paying for an EV. I mean, a Tesla Model S costs about a century worth of energy bills before it even gets it's tires dirty. Playing the frugality card with the current batch of EVs lacks any credibility and is, at best, being penny wise and pound foolish.

simondotau 5y ago

> The idea that every personal vehicle should have 1000 pounds of lithium-cobalt-etc is crazy to me Whether it seems crazy is evidence of unfamiliarity, not whether it is actually crazy. Is it really any crazier that continually pumping every car with juice made from literal fossils? At least the battery is continually reusable — and at the end of its useful life, over 90% recyclable.

swman 5y ago
What happens to the lithium and other metals? I don’t know much about this stuff so I’d appreciate to know
- tantony 5y ago
  They can be almost 100% reused. In fact, given how valuable the metals are it would be cheaper to do so than mine for them . There are multiple companies working on this. E.g. https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/ https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/