Personally I think hybrids are the way forward, you don’t really have range anxiety when the generator is built in. I really want to get my hands on one of those Edison motors kits and drop it into a late 60s chevy or mid 90s ford.
hybrids might be a PART of the way, but there’s absolutely no reason they need to be the only way. For many many use cases BEVs already work better than hybrids and those cases are only going to grow in number as the charging infrastructure is built out and energy storage tech improves. Maybe there will always be fringe cases where hybrids are practical, maybe not.
In what case is a BEV better than hybrid already?
well for a start it produces 0 gas emissions at point of use. we still have to sort out tyre fragments and brake dust, and ensure the electricity grid is non-polluting too. but every hybrid car is burning petrol or diesel, just the same as we’ve been doing for the last 100 years or so. recent research in the uk has shown that plug-in hybrids are often not plugged in because it’s too much bother.
Why not hybrid or plain ICE vehicles powered by biofuels? Even things like waste vegetable oil can be turned into viable fuel, and it can actually be less environmentally destructive than getting rid of it in other ways. ICE technology is very mature, and we currently produce more food than we need and waste much of it. Why not put it all to some use?
Pretty much any fat could be used in compression ignition engines with the right treatment, any carbohydrates turned into ethanol for spark ignition engines, and all waste wood burned for electric power and domestic heating.
Biofuels are even less efficient than making hydrogen for a fuel cell. It’s the same as growing cattle for a burger. It’s way less efficient an energy source because you have to grow up to 10 x more feed for the cow than you get out of the burger. You’re better using that land to grow the actual food for you. Same for biofuel. You get relatively little out for the shit tonne of land you need. Still use chemicals which all need energy to make and transport and use. Then you’ve got to cut, transport, process, refine, transport and then use the fuel. Much better to use the land for food or hell, just leave it to be wild and soak up carbon. Then all that energy you were going to use to make the bio fuel, stick it in a battery.
You’re forgetting things like used vegetable oil which is waste that would be thrown away otherwise. Same for the stuff wood pellets are made from, they are typically mostly saw dust and other waste products. This should hopefully cover airplanes and maybe diesel trains and some cars for when electric isn’t practical.
Even if you were to start planting crops for biofuels, how much less efficient than solar plus batteries would it be? The problem with solar and especially battery storage is that the materials used to make them are not renewable, and cause all kinds of issues in their mining and manufacturing. We’ve grown plants sustainably for thousands of years now. I’ve yet to see anyone make a solar panel from sustainable or recycled materials.
Right, let’s start with old oil. How much do you think is generated world wide? It’s about 1/20th of the amount of oil we use currently and that created not recycled so that number is far lower so really that’s a niche. Likewise wood pellets. Unless you’re actively chopping trees down to make into pellets you’re not going to have any real volume there. Plus as I said previously, all of that takes energy to be made into usable fuel. Where does that energy come from and also why not just use that energy directly?
As for the last paragraph, no, sorry you’re just misunderstanding that whole arena. Batteries are more than 90% recyclable and that number is going up as we design them to be easier to recycle. Plus that’s most likely 20 years from now on average. As for solar panels they’re aluminium (easily recycled) glass (easily recycled) metals (easily recycled) and silicon (mostly recyclable) and again they’re being designed to be recycled better than they were. Ontop of that they now last up to 40 years with greater than 90% of their original capacity left so basically they’ll outlive most of us on here.
We’ve grown plants sustainable for thousands of years except for in the last 150 where we have systematically wrecked the ecology at the same time as massively increasing our population. The average westerner uses 32 times more resources than the average Kenyan. Do you want to have the same lifestyle as they have? Because they want what westerners have so that means we can’t keep going as we are and have to change.
I’m not sold given that you’ve got the mechanical complexity of two types of engine systems in a hybrid.
I think just getting the charging network sorted out would basically make EVs fine for most people.
Hybrid engines have been around for quite some time, though, and they can be just as reliable as ICEs.
On the other hand, the weakness of EVs right now isn’t just the charging infrastructure - it’s the batteries. They’re big, heavy, and very expensive to replace. This is especially true given all the new electric pickups/SUVs coming onto the market in the US. Battery tech needs to mature a while longer, IMO.
What the hell are you doing that you need to replace the battery enough for it to be classed as a weakness for all EVs??
Look up Lithium Iron phosphate batteries. They will outlive the car they’re in even better than the lithium ion ones that are the majority at the moment. Those lithium ion batteries will also outlive the vehicle they’re in btw. The only ones that won’t are Leaf batteries because either they’re an old chemistry or because nissan cheaper out and didn’t put a coolant loop in them.
