Toyota Ammonia Engine

Bro good rebuttal

 

He is not wrong, hydrogen power is combustion too.

 

Thats true, but its a zero emission combustion

I made an error and correcting it would have been fine. This isnt facebook.

 

Facebook? Never tried it, I'm not the guy to hit with that. I'm a chemical engineer who works on new battery chemistry.

'Bro good rebuttal' seemed pretty facebookian to me so I just provided some technical detail. Nothing personal.

 

Agreed.

But for me, I can't justify the purchase cost based on MPG. My '13 5 lug is under 45k, the '14 RAV is around 76k. Lots of life left, and at a combined 15k mi per year a 30% fuel improvement would not come close to covering the cost over the rest of my expected driving life

But I'd consider a Maverick and / or a RAV hybrid if the need to replace arose.

 

We tell people not to buy hybrids for fuel economy but rather include it in the purchase of a new vehicle when its time to buy a long term model.

I borrow my moms 13 rav4 for highway trips and it gets 8L/100km (no idea mpg) its crazy good for its age. No reason for her to get a hybrid.

 

Perfect. IMHO.

 

Long term it does seem clear that electric motors with improved batteries will be the converged solution to personal vehicles. Mainly due to the simplicity and near solid-state nature of the needed components and the inverse relationship between torque and RPMs which naturally exists in electric motors (power = torque X RPMs), but also because transporting electricity is a solved and economical problem with storage caching solutions improving daily. Batteries are already on the cusp of being a no-brainer for vehicles with respect to performance, and energy density and sustainability/recylability concerns are probably 20 years from being the obvious choice.

This transition period we are in for the next approx. 20 years has a lot of oddball over-complicated and even rediculous solutions arising. In my view one of the most obvious long term losers is hydrogen. Diatomic hydrogen is literally just two protons and two electrons. It is incredibly small in size, and thus readily diffuses under high pressure through the interstices of metal alloys and other containment vessel materials and pipes/hoses which causes enbrittlement and cracking that is essentially impossible to stop because of its small size. Hydrogen is very reactive and extremely expensive to transport over pipelines because the material costs of the pipes and maintenance is expensive. It is oil companies that like hydrogen because a single molecule of say octane ( C8H18 ) can produce 9 molecules of H2. Hydrogen is a means for oil companies to seek funding to participate in the 'green energy revolution' even though the infrastructure to transport and store hydrogen will never be competitive with the physically simpler requirements and much cheaper distribution of electricity.

Things like ammonia chemistry are interesting but it will never replace electricity which has already leapfrogged all the other next-generation fuels with respect to infrastructure in implementation, implementation rate, and also importantly its lack of outstanding technical challenges. A relavent joke among chemists is you could invent a polymer with 10x better properties, but it may only find niche applications because industry is already tooled up for the current polymer choices. The current electrical grid with home solar integration is a similar global-scale tooling which will surely force EVs to the top. From a practical standpoint, EVs will win and the road to get there is really about companies figuring out how to collect from the research funding pool with solutions that may or may not be the ultimate winner.

 

Agree with most of your posts and appreciate your knowledge of chemistry. As an electrical engineer in the power industry I have to say this part is not accurate -

“The current electrical grid with home solar integration is a similar global-scale tooling which will surely force EVs to the top.”​

The existing power/grid infrastructure and charging stations are inadequate and have to be upgraded to be able to support increases in EVs. We have no where near the number of electric power plants needed to support a big increase in EVs. Regarding solar “integration” that’s a niche that will not support a big increase in EVs - and all that does is drive up costs for homeowners significantly and if done by Utility companies, our power bills. Many can’t afford EVs much less a solar installation for their homes.

 

Agree, it's a process. I'm an EE too, solve Maxwells's eqns with N-S and reactions as a day job and consult on things like companies trying to design endpoint storage solutions. I get what you're saying. Thing is, at least electrical infrastructure /is/ upgradeable and already established with obvious and relatively affordable routes for improvement. Definitely not perfect, but at least started with an obvious path forward. It isn't great, but what can we compare it to? Current levels of one H2 station per city? Diesel tanks in the backyard? Firewood in a locomotive?Home nuclear reactors? The race to the future is definitely interesting.

Edit: And for the time being gasoline seems to be the clear winner until better endpoint solutions exist such as solar or battery caching. Reality check: For years I figured my next car would be an EV but just bought a '23 OR.

Also, I totally appreciate you calling me out where you see fit. If it was easy, it wouldn't be a problem.

 

interesting the 'runs on salt water' tech hasn't arisen here. is that concept now officially dead?

 

I believe the only affordable route to EVs being dominate is a slow market driven approach. Building power plants and upgrading the grid is expensive. The current push and hand waving to do it by magic is expensive, the federal and state subsidies are paid for in taxes for many who can’t even afford an EV.
No subsidies, let the market drive it. As efficiencies and technology improves, EV prices should drop and a natural transition will take place.
Currently the average income of an EV owner is $150-$180k+ based on various sources, EV prices are beyond the reach of many.

 

Huge amounts of disinformation out there but hey you can all ways relay on you tube to spread the truth right?

 

Some very underreported news about dealers letter on EV mandates:
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politic...-opposing-bidens-electric-vehicle-mandate.amp

 

I *try* not to get into these threads as emotion usually overrules logic and verifiable facts pretty quick (and this thread is already headed that way).

But as an engineer in the industry, grid limitations are very real and concerning. Lots of interesting ideas how to remedy - everything from brute force capacity upgrades to smart EV systems that control active charging times throughout the day. But none of the options are cheap, and all that cost will be passed onto consumers in one way or another, without a doubt

 

Bingo. Not even touching on cases like PG&E in CA struggling to even maintain their current above ground lines during wind storms.

The big EV guys sperging out at the various aspects of "EV tech" being rightly called out on its shortcomings are sad. A little too much over compensation and ignoring anything that does not fit their narrative.

"but but Muh horse vs buggy memes!"

 

i absolutely agree. i've said the same thing many times.

but i've also come to realize that without the demand, there can't be improvements. very few companies fix things that aren't broken, and power companies are definitely in that category--the texas power grid cold snap problems are a great example of that. there was ample documentation and studies done for years leading up to the event to prove their power grid was incapable of weathering such conditions, but it wasn't an issue until those conditions occurred.

so the grid really needs to start failing and not meeting demand before any utilities will ever make accommodations to improve their capacity.

i think the biggest issues outside of the power grid really come down to the now-currently-high individual vehicle cost, and long term battery material mining/sourcing, which has it's own ethical and ecological complications.

 

Yup. Elect utilities move at a glacial pace. Still though, the amount of energy needed to charge a single EV is quite astonishing. Leaves a lot of questions about the 'how', even if everyone is on board with upgrading

On the note of battery recycling I saw a cool video a few days ago about one company. Vid from Jerry Rig Everything, not really a big fan of his stuff TBH, but the tech was cool to see