3 ms·

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-

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.
- Geisterde 3y ago
  Its a little overambitious to compare electrical efficiency and heat cycle efficiency. Electrical efficiency says nothing about how that energy was generated; if it was generated in coal, gas turbine, nuclear etc then you simply cant exceed carnot efficiency (solar is far less efficient than that for how much energy hits the panel); it also doesnt say anything about the extractable specific energy, which far favors ICE vehicles, efficiency be damned, ice will run longer on a fixed weight of fuel than an EV will on the same weight battery. EVs in my experience have been a step change in car tech. Having a battery as a starting point rather than an alternator opens so many doors, from just having a stable grid to run devices on, the real time AI video processing, to the ability to play modern games on the cars hardware. The designs are far more simple than ICE, take the steering wheel off a tesla vs an ICE and you can get a peak at just how far behind ICE is in relying on complicated and expensive implementations of basic functions. I just don't like these comparisons regarding efficiency, we arent really making a fair comparison; if we did EVs would probably lose considering the energy source and transmission losses, and it still would be a useless metric because thats not what anyone (sane minded) has ever bought a car for. All I care about is that the cost of ownership makes sense; the fact that the total efficiency of my own setup, where solar charges my car, is probably <25%, does not concern me.
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.

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.
Geisterde 3y ago
Its a little overambitious to compare electrical efficiency and heat cycle efficiency. Electrical efficiency says nothing about how that energy was generated; if it was generated in coal, gas turbine, nuclear etc then you simply cant exceed carnot efficiency (solar is far less efficient than that for how much energy hits the panel); it also doesnt say anything about the extractable specific energy, which far favors ICE vehicles, efficiency be damned, ice will run longer on a fixed weight of fuel than an EV will on the same weight battery. EVs in my experience have been a step change in car tech. Having a battery as a starting point rather than an alternator opens so many doors, from just having a stable grid to run devices on, the real time AI video processing, to the ability to play modern games on the cars hardware. The designs are far more simple than ICE, take the steering wheel off a tesla vs an ICE and you can get a peak at just how far behind ICE is in relying on complicated and expensive implementations of basic functions. I just don't like these comparisons regarding efficiency, we arent really making a fair comparison; if we did EVs would probably lose considering the energy source and transmission losses, and it still would be a useless metric because thats not what anyone (sane minded) has ever bought a car for. All I care about is that the cost of ownership makes sense; the fact that the total efficiency of my own setup, where solar charges my car, is probably <25%, does not concern me.

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.