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No, EVs were not "totally impossible" 5 years ago. The first GM EV1s with NiMH batteries were produced 23 years ago, and the first Tesla roadsters with Li-ion b
by fsh 5y ago
No, EVs were not "totally impossible" 5 years ago. The first GM EV1s with NiMH batteries were produced 23 years ago, and the first Tesla roadsters with Li-ion batteries 14 years ago. The battery capacity and weight of the roadster are not dramatically different from that of modern EVs.
In vehicles, energy density is not terribly important. The issue has always been the price of the cells. Only very recently they started becoming cost competitive compared to ICE powered vehicles.
The situation is very different in airplanes. At takeoff, something like 40% of the total mass of an airliner is just fuel. The best Li-ion cells have something like 50 times lower energy density than kerosine. It is simply not possible to fly any useful distance with such a low energy density.
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoFamous and highly cited energy theorist Vaclav Smil was still calling them an overhyped dead end 5 years ago, a decade ago he said "The myth that the future belongs to electric cars is one of the original misconceptions of the modern energy era". And he literally wrote a book published in 2015 on the topic of energy density. So I'm glad it's obvious now with 20/20 hindsight, but it seems a lot of people can be wrong about this stuff and have their opinions promoted.