5 ms·

I recall reading somewhere that the ICE took off because there were quite a lot of low hanging fruits and a path with less resistance, thus it let faster progre

by mrtksn 3y ago

I recall reading somewhere that the ICE took off because there were quite a lot of low hanging fruits and a path with less resistance, thus it let faster progress towards the desirable properties of a car. For example, it's way easier to move around a can of fuel rather than being limited to an electric grid in a time when electricity and proper roads were not ubiquitous yet. I imagine it would have been too limiting to need to bring the car somewhere specific to re-charge when you are still trying to figure out what this automobile thing is good for. Is it good at the farm for example? Can't tell with the electric car if you don't have electricity at the farm.

theodric 3y ago
Furthermore, it's a lot easier to carry an equivalent amount of energy in petrochemical form vs the primitive lead-acid batteries of the day, long before hyper-optimized computer controlled motors were available to wring every last milliwatthour of efficiency out of them. And now increase distances and therefore desirable speeds corresponding with the growth of population, and it becomes more and more impractical to use electricity for personal transport in the years after 1912. I think viable electric cars landed about when they became practicable. Lead-acid absolutely shits the bed rapidly if discharged below FIFTY percent SoC, so take your kWh rating and cut it in half straight away. And remember that you're carrying around a ton of wet lead to achieve that. Not great. NiCd is crap, NiMH is better but not overwhelmingly so, and lead-acid can deliver a lot more current. Li-ion, then? Remember how rubbish laptop battery max charge cycle lifetimes were in 1999? The battery lasts maybe a year of regular use, and then it's shot and the laptop runs for 30 seconds and powers off. And it costs $300 to replace. Now make it 200x the size and put it in a car you use for your daily commute and get ready to spend BMW money annually on new Li-ion. The improvements in battery tech in just the last 15 years are really something to behold, and not coincidentally that's when Tesla was able to start shipping compelling vehicles. Now somebody tell me why I'm wrong ;-)
- jacquesm 3y ago
  > Now somebody tell me why I'm wrong ;-) If you insist: electric motors have always been far more efficient than their ICE counterparts. 80% is easy, 90% is doable. 95% and up requires more tricks and even regular EVs don't bother because they might as well use some of that waste heat to heat the pack or the interior of the vehicle.
  - theodric 3y ago
    The efficiency is undeniable, but it couldn't make up for the awful battery technology and absurd drag coefficient of a garden-shed-on-wheels car from the 1910s. Streamliners and aerodynamics matured a little later. It's a pity we didn't go for Otto-electric hybrid drive cars like the EMD locomotives that have been running since before I was a going concern. The genset runs at its optimal RPM for power delivery and fuel consumption, with rapid refuelling and the massive range benefits of liquid fuel while the electric motors deliver a wall of torque and minimal driveline losses all the time. Dump it into a battery (or a flywheel KERS, whynot) to smooth out the peaks and valleys if you're feeling fancy. I am nearly certain that we had all that tech in 1912 - it's completely analog and self-regulating! - but it probably didn't pay for itself back in the days before they'd invented things like the environment and non-unlimited supplies of crude. Bummer. I still want to build an EMD lawnmower.
    - actionfromafar 3y ago
      Streamlined isn’t a concern below 30 mph or so.
      - theodric 3y ago
        And 30mph is fine if you're not going very far, but that's not what people wanted, and their wants dictated what technology succeeded at the time. Even a Model T could do about 50 MPH, not that you'd want to, and not that you'd be able to stop in time if anything bad happened, but it did it and delivered 20 MPG in the 1910s.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      Yes, it's all in the batteries. But GP suggested it was in particular the last couple of mW advanced electronics squeezed from the batteries that made the difference and I really don't think that mattered at all.
  - Brian_K_White 3y ago
    This does not make him wrong. It's barely even relevant because even with that difference, even with todays batteries and motors, it still doesn't hold a candle to the utility of ice. Let alone then. I'm not saying I like it or hate the idea of evs, but the facts are the facts.
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  With a mature grid and better long distance (electric of course!) rail, electric cars and busses could have been the last mile instead of all the miles. During the War it was not uncommon for cars and busses to carry a little wagon for syngas generation. Imagine that, but with a system of battery wagons.
saalweachter 3y ago
I've always felt like farms should be able to have another route to electrification, because you're dealing with the same set of fields in a constrained geography for years at a time. Like, why go battery-heavy at all? Why not design some sort of EVA-like tether to a utility pole in each set of fields? Hook up your equipment when you enter the fields, spend 8-12 hours driving back and forth attached to the tether, unhook and use a small battery -- or even a battery-trailer -- to reach the next field or the barn at the end of the day. Obviously there are problems with this scheme, but the point I'm getting at is that field work is such a radically different set of constraints to interstate, city or even rail networks that it feels like there should be a different set of solutions possible.
- theshrike79 3y ago
  There are industrial machines that do just this. They move 100% of their lifetime in a specific spot so they're always tethered. Also farms are the premium spot for electrification. Tractors need to run for long times (especially in the HUGE farms in the US that are bigger than some countries...), but there are other vehicles that can be electrified like ATVs, forklifts and other small tools. The best thing is that many farms can produce their own electricity from biogas on-site. Or use the biogas directly in CBG converted engines.
- mrtksn 3y ago
  That sounds quite logical, and almost like there must be some equipment working that way.
  - theodric 3y ago
    There's a tethered electric ferry, anyway https://youtu.be/xhwZ-XFKJKk https://youtu.be/xhwZ-XFKJKk
  - Aardwolf 3y ago
    Not a farm example, but trolley buses do this in cities Apparently there was one in 1882: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:First_Trolleybuss_of_Siemens_in_Berlin_1882_(postcard).jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:First_Trolleybuss_of_Siem...

by mrtksn 3y ago

theodric 3y ago

Furthermore, it's a lot easier to carry an equivalent amount of energy in petrochemical form vs the primitive lead-acid batteries of the day, long before hyper-optimized computer controlled motors were available to wring every last milliwatthour of efficiency out of them. And now increase distances and therefore desirable speeds corresponding with the growth of population, and it becomes more and more impractical to use electricity for personal transport in the years after 1912. I think viable electric cars landed about when they became practicable. Lead-acid absolutely shits the bed rapidly if discharged below FIFTY percent SoC, so take your kWh rating and cut it in half straight away. And remember that you're carrying around a ton of wet lead to achieve that. Not great. NiCd is crap, NiMH is better but not overwhelmingly so, and lead-acid can deliver a lot more current. Li-ion, then? Remember how rubbish laptop battery max charge cycle lifetimes were in 1999? The battery lasts maybe a year of regular use, and then it's shot and the laptop runs for 30 seconds and powers off. And it costs $300 to replace. Now make it 200x the size and put it in a car you use for your daily commute and get ready to spend BMW money annually on new Li-ion. The improvements in battery tech in just the last 15 years are really something to behold, and not coincidentally that's when Tesla was able to start shipping compelling vehicles. Now somebody tell me why I'm wrong ;-)

jacquesm 3y ago
> Now somebody tell me why I'm wrong ;-) If you insist: electric motors have always been far more efficient than their ICE counterparts. 80% is easy, 90% is doable. 95% and up requires more tricks and even regular EVs don't bother because they might as well use some of that waste heat to heat the pack or the interior of the vehicle.
- theodric 3y ago
  The efficiency is undeniable, but it couldn't make up for the awful battery technology and absurd drag coefficient of a garden-shed-on-wheels car from the 1910s. Streamliners and aerodynamics matured a little later. It's a pity we didn't go for Otto-electric hybrid drive cars like the EMD locomotives that have been running since before I was a going concern. The genset runs at its optimal RPM for power delivery and fuel consumption, with rapid refuelling and the massive range benefits of liquid fuel while the electric motors deliver a wall of torque and minimal driveline losses all the time. Dump it into a battery (or a flywheel KERS, whynot) to smooth out the peaks and valleys if you're feeling fancy. I am nearly certain that we had all that tech in 1912 - it's completely analog and self-regulating! - but it probably didn't pay for itself back in the days before they'd invented things like the environment and non-unlimited supplies of crude. Bummer. I still want to build an EMD lawnmower.
  - actionfromafar 3y ago
    Streamlined isn’t a concern below 30 mph or so.
    - theodric 3y ago
      And 30mph is fine if you're not going very far, but that's not what people wanted, and their wants dictated what technology succeeded at the time. Even a Model T could do about 50 MPH, not that you'd want to, and not that you'd be able to stop in time if anything bad happened, but it did it and delivered 20 MPG in the 1910s.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    Yes, it's all in the batteries. But GP suggested it was in particular the last couple of mW advanced electronics squeezed from the batteries that made the difference and I really don't think that mattered at all.
- Brian_K_White 3y ago
  This does not make him wrong. It's barely even relevant because even with that difference, even with todays batteries and motors, it still doesn't hold a candle to the utility of ice. Let alone then. I'm not saying I like it or hate the idea of evs, but the facts are the facts.
actionfromafar 3y ago
With a mature grid and better long distance (electric of course!) rail, electric cars and busses could have been the last mile instead of all the miles. During the War it was not uncommon for cars and busses to carry a little wagon for syngas generation. Imagine that, but with a system of battery wagons.

saalweachter 3y ago

I've always felt like farms should be able to have another route to electrification, because you're dealing with the same set of fields in a constrained geography for years at a time. Like, why go battery-heavy at all? Why not design some sort of EVA-like tether to a utility pole in each set of fields? Hook up your equipment when you enter the fields, spend 8-12 hours driving back and forth attached to the tether, unhook and use a small battery -- or even a battery-trailer -- to reach the next field or the barn at the end of the day. Obviously there are problems with this scheme, but the point I'm getting at is that field work is such a radically different set of constraints to interstate, city or even rail networks that it feels like there should be a different set of solutions possible.

theshrike79 3y ago
There are industrial machines that do just this. They move 100% of their lifetime in a specific spot so they're always tethered. Also farms are the premium spot for electrification. Tractors need to run for long times (especially in the HUGE farms in the US that are bigger than some countries...), but there are other vehicles that can be electrified like ATVs, forklifts and other small tools. The best thing is that many farms can produce their own electricity from biogas on-site. Or use the biogas directly in CBG converted engines.
mrtksn 3y ago
That sounds quite logical, and almost like there must be some equipment working that way.
- theodric 3y ago
  There's a tethered electric ferry, anyway https://youtu.be/xhwZ-XFKJKk https://youtu.be/xhwZ-XFKJKk
- Aardwolf 3y ago
  Not a farm example, but trolley buses do this in cities Apparently there was one in 1882: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:First_Trolleybuss_of_Siemens_in_Berlin_1882_(postcard).jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:First_Trolleybuss_of_Siem...