Toyota Scion IQ Electric Car To Launch In 2012 344
Mightee writes "Toyota officially announced at an annual dealer meeting in Las Vegas that the all-electric Scion iQ will be launched next year in the United States. According to Toyota, Scion iQ can only go 50 miles on a single charge. Because of this, it will be facing tough competition from 73-mile Nissan Leaf and 85-mile Mitsubishi i."
50 mile range may not be the end of the world (Score:4, Insightful)
If they price it right (ie: much cheaper than a leaf) then I'd consider it. My commute in the morning is 10 miles each way, plus add 10 miles for a trip to the grocery store and this car can take care of 90% of my driving needs. I already own a mini-van with a trailer hitch so I am covered for long trips or for towing or carrying stuff.
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If it's $6k it might have a place in the market. Anymore and it simply costs too much for the limited range especially when you're looking at the geographic scope of north america in the first place. One of the main reasons why people don't live in major cities and commute is because they don't like the city, but that's where their job is. That isn't even touching on public transportation, which is either poor or non existent.
Well this probably won't catch on anyway, especially since people seem to be lo
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$6k? Are you fucking kidding?
Yeah, I wouldn't pay more than $5k for an electric 'smart car' like this one.
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So you're not an early adopter for this technology, so what? Most people aren't. I remember when I first bought a computer back in 1982, most people couldn't imagine that they'd ever have a reason to buy a computer of their own. And Gates "a computer on every desk" was still a seemingly unrealistic goal. 20 years later most people in the developed world had them at home and at work.
You not being in amongst the early adopters won't stop electric cars following the typical S sharped technology adoption curve.
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So you're not an early adopter for this technology, so what? Most people aren't. I remember when I first bought a computer back in 1982, most people couldn't imagine that they'd ever have a reason to buy a computer of their own.
Sad thing is... that thought process lasted for the next 15+ years.
-AI
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Not really. Each of those years more and more people found enough reasons to justify the ever decreasing cost of buying a computer. Everyone has their own point at which they are ready to buy. That's what makes the technology adoption curve.
Same thing happened with TVs. And video recorders. And mobile phones. And the same will happen with electric cars.
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So you're not an early adopter for this technology, so what?
Electric cars are not some magical new technology that allows us to do things we couldn't previously do. Electric cars are nearly two centuries old and were rapidly abandoned when the internal combustion engine appeared because in comparison they totally sucked ass.
Electric cars still totally suck ass compared to ICE cars. We've just had a century or so to forget that so people like you can look at them and think they're something wonderfully new and cool.
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I know very well the long history of electric cars. As I have an interest in the topic, no doubt rather better than you do.
Electric cars suck at the moment in range, recharge times and price tag. But they are far cheaper to run.
But of course the technology improves all the time. They are not the same as the electric cars of a century ago. Those cars had primitive batteries, todays cars benefit from battery technology developed for laptops. Tomorrow's electric cars will benefit from the research being put in
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"Most other EVs are utilizing new variations on lithium-ion chemistry that sacrifice energy and power density to provide fire resistance, environmental friendliness, very rapid charges (as low as a few minutes), and very long lifespans. These variants (phosphates, titanates, spinels, etc.) have been shown to have a much longer lifetime, with A123 expecting their lithium iron phosphate batteries to last for at least 10+ years and 7000+ charge cycles,[4] and LG Chem expecting their lithium-manganese spinel ba
Re:50 mile range may not be the end of the world (Score:4, Interesting)
In California, you could buy this car and get $5,000 state and $7,500 federal tax credits - lowering the cost of the car by $12,500. The standard gas version of this car is looking to run ~$16,000... well equipped probably $20k. So long as this is in the same ballpark, you -could- be driving an EV for under $10k, and that is a steal for a brand new car.
Re:50 mile range may not be the end of the world (Score:5, Insightful)
That only provides incentive for manufacturers to keep prices high - it dies *not*lower the cost of the car, it just distributes it to other people.
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The prices aren't high because the manufacturer's want them to be. They are high because batteries are expensive to make. So yes, the gov scheme does reduce the amount the consumer pays.
Small gov ideologues won't want to accept that though.
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Ignoring that you ignored the second part of my post... f the price of the expensive battery continues to be subsidized then the manufacturers don't need to work too hard to find cheaper means of energy storage or battery production do they?
The subsidy is a fixed amount per car, so it does nothing to stop competition between manufacturers making electric cars. And since Nissan/Renault started to take the production of mass market electric vehicles seriously, the competition to dominate this new market is truly on.
When the technology is developed, government subsidy won't be needed.
Indeed, it's a limited time requirement to provide a subsidy. But whilst that next generation of technology development needs to be encouraged, it's a good idea for gov to use subsidy to help manufacturers find a market for the curren
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I have looked into this as I've been concerned with the lack of fuel efficiency in bikes for a long time, and hope someone will bring out a larger capacity bike tuned for efficiency and not power. Honda are you listening???
I might be feeding a troll here... but if you take ANY carb'd bike
and rejet the carbs, you'll get better gas mileage.
My CB900C could get me 40+mpg. And when the weekend
came, instead of rejetting, I just swapped one set of carbs
for another, already tuned. MPG dropped to half but the fun
jumped to 400%.
Furthermore, if you take any of the 'popular' bikes now, you
can get ECU dumps and flash new ECUs. I have a project
car with a LT1 in it. I can flash it for a drive to an event and
get mid 20's mpg. Flash it at the
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You should look into what parts of the country are growing. The flight from city center ended and has reversed in the past decade. People are moving back to the cities and loving it. Even downtown Detroit has seen growth...
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You should look into what parts of the country are growing. The flight from city center ended and has reversed in the past decade. People are moving back to the cities and loving it. Even downtown Detroit has seen growth...
You sound like the Mayor of Detroit...
Mayor?
lol
-AI
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Heh, I can't stand Detroit personally but I do have family that lives there. They actually seem to like the current Mayor. He's a bit less corrupt than most of his predecessors. It's also one of the fastest shrinking places in the country so it was a good example.
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Huh, sounds like you had a very bad experience in one particular city. To be fair your description is quite accurate for SOME cities. The best part is if you go back a number of years the urban areas were being bought up and becoming to expensive to live while your description of the services and restrictions in a city was much more accurate for the suburbs and small towns.
Things will change as people move, this is just the start of the return to the city. Times change and the next couple generations wil
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It's not so much the range but the recharge time.
A small fuel tank on a car would mean more stops, but with an electric car the recharge time may be overnight. Not much use. But if it was 10 minutes or there was an option to swap batteries then it wouldn't be so bad.
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The problem is they keep pricing the things so high the economics of buying them just aren't there.
That's because electric cars make no financial sense at this point in time and probably won't any time soon.
Re:50 mile range may not be the end of the world (Score:4, Insightful)
That's because electric cars make no financial sense at this point in time and
95% of all the vehicles on the road don't make financial sense. what's the financial point of a porsche ? a VW jetta/golf can carry more ...
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what's the financial point of a porsche?
Fun, of course. The problem with this is that unless you take especial pleasure from being 'green', these cars aren't enjoyable. They're not even superior, practicality wise, than a cheap 4 door sedan, yet cost more.
Electric cars would really take off if they truly had a lower total cost of ownership, but at this point they don't.
Answer the question that was asked, dickhead (Score:2)
Since when was fun financial? Perhaps you could point me to where it's found on company accounts or bank statements, because I sure as heck can't see it anywhere.
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what's the financial point of a porsche?
Fun, of course. The problem with this is that unless you take especial pleasure from being 'green', these cars aren't enjoyable.
You've never driven an all-electric car have you?
All-electric plus quiet tires, makes for a CRAPLOAD of fun.
Especially in parking lots, parking decks, high pedestrian
areas. I find it enjoyable. If I had a spare 15k lying around,
I would consider electric for my next project car, instead
of dino-juice.
-AI
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What's not to like about a quieter more refined drive? and no gears!!!
Electric motors are hugely powerful and smooth. They just need a lot of power which can't be stored easily right now.
Electricity can be produced from gas, coal, renewables and nuclear. With petrol you have to have oil, there is no choice.
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Fun, of course. The problem with this is that unless you take especial pleasure from being 'green', these cars aren't enjoyable.
They certainly are fun!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rntjq2DfaSE&feature=related [youtube.com]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4pd9PQq78A [youtube.com]
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Porsche's have barely changed in years, especially the 911. They get refinements but nothing major.
Electric cars are developing at a faster pace, so by the time you've paid off your car (you would probably need finance) there will be a much better model with twice or more the range.
AC needs POWER (Score:3)
Why would the battery run out? Unlike a gas engine, an electric car doesn't need to "idle".
Note the qualification, "with AC". AC uses a lot of power; in a car you'd simply steal a little from a belt running off the engine. But in the electric car you need to run the AC motor constantly, using up a much larger percentage of your "fuel" than you would in a an electric car.
Yes others have noted accessories run off a separate battery. But that presents two unpleasant scenarios:
1) You are stuck in the middle
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I don't think you're going to melt if you can't run the AC or listen to your pop tunes on the radio. LOL. Open the windows, enjoy the breeze.
I drove a car without AC in Houston for a few years.
As a student that was OK, because I didn't care if I smelled like hell and I was young enough to be fine with 100 degree heat in 90% humidity. BTW, there is no "breeze" you can enjoy under those conditions.
But for most people, running without AC is not a real option. And why should it be? I don't begrudge anyone th
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I don't think you're going to melt if you can't run the AC or listen to your pop tunes on the radio. LOL. Open the windows, enjoy the breeze.
I drove a car without AC in Houston for a few years.
As a student that was OK, because I didn't care if I smelled like hell and I was young enough to be fine with 100 degree heat in 90% humidity. BTW, there is no "breeze" you can enjoy under those conditions.
But for most people, running without AC is not a real option. And why should it be? I don't begrudge anyone this little and now widespread modern convenience and the reality is that anyone with enough money to buy an electric car for the next few years is NOT going tolerate living without it - even (or perhaps especially) in California where it's mostly in the 70's!
My wife is from Houston and she can remember the days before cars had aircon. She said that in the press office where she worked there was a reason that all the men wore strong cologne, the women copious perfume and they all smoked like chimneys!
small... (Score:2, Interesting)
For a daily commuter, it looks a little small. The average size of a 'randomly selected' US commuter car is considerably bigger than this car. I love the concept, but it looks about as 'safe' as commuting via motorcycle.
Heck, at this point I'd consider a smaller car 'enclosed' in a bigger, 'safety' shell.
Tesla anyone? (Score:2)
Tesla Model S [teslamotors.com] can go 160 miles on a single charge with the default battery option. It could have at least be mentioned in the summary, even if it is not "competition/"
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Yeah, that Tesla is expected to be around $60 when it launches. The gas Scion IQ is $15k, so I expect this to be at or under $20k. Not even the same ballpark.
I wish Aptera was succesful, that would have been a radical concept and may have reached under $30k. Batteries just don't have the energy density yet (or in the near future), when you turn on heating, airconditioning, your electronics. I think a combustion-electric, like a train, is a superior solution for now (not like the hybrid cars on the road
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Size has nothing to do with safety. The Smart Car earned the top safety rating [iihs.org] from the IIHS. It uses a very sophisticated airbag system to protect the occupants.
That being said, I wish the U.S. would relax the safety regulations on cars. Motorcycles have essentially no safety while cars have so many requirements that it is nearly impossible to build a truly efficient car. I have wished we would do the same thing they do in Germany and other European countries, which is to allow ATVs to be converted and
Smart car safety... (Score:2)
Smart car safety is slightly overrated. If you're in a head-on collision with another car you'll take two or three times the hit as the other car because it weighs two or three times less.
OTOH most accidents aren't head-ons so it's not all bad news.
(And just to balance things ... statistics show that SUVs are *less* safe then normal cars in non-head-on collisions because they almost always flip over)
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Smart cars make little sense in probably 95% of the US, where their small size is of no advantage.
But put one in a place like Key West or NYC and it will shine : parking is so much easier (or makes that impossible spot, possible – saving you the $20 parking fee), you aren't blocked by double-parked cars, you can fit in very narrow streets comfortably, etc ... And in these places acceleration is not so important, while cargo capacity is more than enough to make your daily commute and pick up some groce
for the city (Score:3)
When I lived near the city center this would have been great as the second car for a couple. Really. I would have loved it, at the right price.
Not so much any more though. Our current vehicles get about 25, 20, & 8 mpg. (Don't freak out you greenies, I don't drive the 5-ton very often or very far. It's a pretty harsh ride...) So yeah, since we, current owners of 3 largish vehicles, would have considered it seriously, I'd bet there's a good market for it.
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But you could have vehicles from the 1980s that got 50, 30, and 20. Namely diesel rabbit, Mercedes 300SD (price of a house then; cheap now) and F250/350 with International 6.9/7.3 diesel. With all-synthetics and real smooth rubber (and with the 3.55 gear set) many people get real-world mileage of 20 mpg. Maybe you should let that 460 (or 454 or 440) go, at a minimum. With 4x4 and big knobblies (I live in bumfuck and use my mud tires for mud regularly in the winter) I get around 15 mpg mixed with my 6800 lb
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as for 20 and 25 mpg, if those vehicles are anything larger than a town car, then that is fantastic milage.
Wow! How distorted the perceptions of Americans are.
For European cars, that's shit milage.
Yeah, 50 miles when it's *new* (Score:5, Insightful)
What will the range be like after 5-10 years? And what if it's a really cold winter day? I have to heat the cabin somehow.
This is my main problem with all-electric vehicles. You never really know how much range you have. And if you live in a cold climate like I do, gasoline engines are really quite efficient in the winter since the "waste" heat is not wasted at all; it heats the cabin.
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Wear extra layers. You should be bringing them anyway in case you have a flat tire.
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Would you buy a bicycle to commute? Many people would not, and yet millions of other people do. Just because *you* have some specific issues with this car doesn't mean there isn't a market for it. Slashdotters, in their rush to denounce everything that is new and different (cough ipod cough), seem to forget that a lot.
I am pointing out to people that the 50 mile "range" figure has to be taken with a grain of salt. I am trying to help people.
If somebody has a 40 mile total commute and buys this car because of the 50 mile range figure, I predict they are going to be sorely disappointed in a few years as the car sighs to a halt 5 miles from their house while coming back from work because the batteries are old and they were using the cabin heater. Measuring battery capacity is really quite difficult.
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If somebody has a 40 mile total commute and buys this car because of the 50 mile range figure, I predict they are going to be sorely disappointed in a few years as the car sighs to a halt 5 miles from their house while coming back from work because the batteries are old and they were using the cabin heater. Measuring battery capacity is really quite difficult.
Or while they're stuck in a traffic jam in the rain at night with the AC on.
As you say, there's no such thing as a '50 mile battery' and you should probably assume that you'll actually get no more than half the claimed capacity in the worst conditions.
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Car makers need to start making what consumers need and are useful.
What, you mean instead of cars that the government tells them to make?
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The point is, I think, that the idea of all the cars on the road being basically the same (carry 4-6 people 300-400 miles on a fillup) is changing. A family might get an electric for some purposes, and a minivan for other purposes. Also, the idea that a car MUST fit the above requirements to be on the market is changing. Especially now that a car can easily last 15 years, there is room in the market
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We don't need gimmicks. Want to know what the US really needs on the roads? Turbo diesels.
Additionally...
Diesels last so much longer, that the expense of producing said vehicle
is distributed across a longer life span, as those vehicles can stay in
the market for a much longer amount of time. That helps to reduce
dependence on materials for manufacturing.
Plus, right now, electric's need 'rare earth elements', that unfortunately
create a new dependence on another country (or countries).
While we are actually managing to produce bio-diesels and have the
infrastructure and work-force to produce diesels t
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Energy for AC and lights is not going to cut an electric car's mileage an more than it would cut a gasoline car's mileage.
A stationary gasoline car is producing power 'for free' because the engine is idling anyway. Doesn't much matter whether or not the lights or AC are on because if they're not the power is just wasted.
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A non-stop expense of energy like lights and AC (to say nothing of heating) will be a much more significant fraction of an electric car's energy expenses than it would be for a gas-fuelled vehicle that has to idle.
It would be nice if most... some... ANY of you people commenting,
would have EVER been in a hybrid or all electric vehicle.
The lights... the accessories... the AC, the heater...
DO NOT RUN OFF THE SAME BATTERIES AS THE PROPULSION MOTORS DO.
They have a separate 12V battery for accessories.
-AI
Re:Yeah, 50 miles when it's *new* (Score:4, Insightful)
Would you buy a bicycle to commute? Many people would not, and yet millions of other people do. Just because *you* have some specific issues with this car doesn't mean there isn't a market for it.
A bike doesn't cost more than a far more capable gasoline-powered car.
The market for this car is people with more money than sense, which exists, but isn't very large now that banks have stopped lending money to anything with a pulse.
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Slashdotters, in their rush to denounce everything that is new and different (cough ipod cough), seem to forget that a lot.
Wow, you were doing good there til the Apple troll.
Would you like to see the receipt of the MP3 player that I bought...
YEARS before the "creation" of the all-hallowed iPod?
How... was the iPod, new and different? New for Apple maybe
and different for people with blinders on.
-AI
There and back. (Score:2)
According to Toyota, Scion iQ can only go 50 miles on a single charge.
Traffic? Roads? Weather?
I need to know what I can ask of the car under less than perfect conditions.
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I looked up the range of the Nissan Leaf, they say it can go 62 miles in terrible conditions: 14 degrees F outside, traffic jam, average speed of 15mph (it's most efficient speed is 38mph). That's slightly worse than half their best condition 138 miles: flat roads, 68d F, 38mph constant speed. (http://www.nissanusa.com/leaf-electric-car/tags/show/range#/leaf-electric-car/theBasicsRange/index)
If Toyota is playing it safe and reporting their worst condition distance for now, then all is well. If they reported
What is going to hold the golf clubs on the back? (Score:2)
Cup holder: Check. Rear view mirrors are a nice touch but probably superfluous.
Solectria Sunrise; 375 miles per charge in 1997 (Score:4, Interesting)
Subject says it all.
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http://www.foveal.com/ATdS_Report_1996.txt [foveal.com]
They only made something like four of them, and never came close to managing even half that range in real world usage:
http://evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1737 [evworld.com]
And it not only looked hideous, it had hopelessly poor acceleration too (0-60 in 17 seconds), which together would've likely stopped most people even considering buying one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solectria_Sunrise [wikipedia.org]
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Infrastructure (Score:3)
Yes, some few companies are equipping their parking lots with plugin terminals. Very few. And as far as street side (parking meter?) plugins? I can see serious vandalism, just for the lulz.
A 50 mile range means that I have to manage the cars fuel every day. Doesn't sound like fun to me.
I love the idea of an all electric. But I just can't see it yet.
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And as far as street side (parking meter?) plugins?
Did you know that in northern Sweden they already have those installed? OK, they're there to plug in heaters to keep engines warm enough to start in the winter — they have serious winter, and no way do I want to move there — but a plug is a plug. It's quite practical, and people are less likely to mess with it if they get a real benefit from it.
I can see serious vandalism, just for the lulz.
As opposed to now where they just slash your tyres and set fire to the car, "just for the lulz"...
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I can see serious vandalism, just for the lulz.
As opposed to now where they just slash your tyres and set fire to the car, "just for the lulz"...
I suspect that mischief that does not result in permanent damage would be far more tempting than something like slashing tires. Unplugging a car that is in the middle of charging would be such mischief. It reminds me of those parking meters that just internally tracked which spot had what time remaining. Someone would enter their parking spot number, pay for an hour, go shopping, then someone comes along and pays for 5 minutes for that spot in order to cause a ticket to be issued 6 minutes later.
The way
50 miles? (Score:2)
LEAF's 73 mile range (Score:3, Interesting)
When did the Nissan LEAF's range get downgraded from 100 miles to 73 miles? Is it by the same process Top Gear used to determine the Tesla Roadster's 55 mile range [wikipedia.org], or by these guys 313 miles [autoblog.com] (official range is 244 miles). If we want to start using the actual range instead of the advertised range as the range number, can we also start using the actual mpg for cars instead of the advertised number?
For reference: I've owned a plug-in converted Prius [hymotion.com] for over a year and a half and speaking from experience, my assisted mode (electric motor constantly assisting gas engine) is roughly 32 miles. In the summer I rarely dip below 100mpg, but in winter I am lucky to get 80mpg. EV range is roughly 18 miles in summer, but it doesn't even work in winter (Prius limit, not conversion kit limit). I used $143.28 worth of electricity (including taxes and delivery fees) keeping my car charged, and filled up on gas once every 5-8 weeks.
It allows me to make my weekend trips for kids sports, shopping, and various errands near the neighbourhood without using a drop of gas. Now that I've had a taste of what an electric car would be like to own I want one. Making trips to the gas station seem so inconvenient now, my car sits in the driveway for 12-18 hours a day; sometimes it sits there all day. It sits in the parking lot at work for 8 hours a day. Why can't that time be used to trickle charge my car so I don't need gas?
The electric charging infrastructure already exists, it's pre-installed into every home and office parking lot. The same just cannot be said of hydrogen. Hydrogen isn't a power source, it's a power medium like batteries. Hydrogen cars today have a range similar to electric vehicles. The hydrogen version of the BMW 7 series has a range of about 125 miles; just 25 more than the Nissan LEAF's range (if we only use advertised ranges). The Tesla Model S can be equipped with a 300 mile battery pack for a vehicle MSRP of $77,000; the BMW is worth $1,000,000 (though is has an attractive lease option).
Hydrogen just adds a level of complexity that simply doesn't exist for electric vehicles. EVs will not replace all cars, at best today they can be a second car, or a single car for someone who lives in a town where everything is less than 30 miles away. Commuting, doing errands, short (less than 100 mile) trips is what you'd get an EV to do; if you do more of everything else (road trips, on-the-road salesman, long drives, etc) then don't buy an EV.
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Hydrogen (Score:3)
You don't need electricity or hydrocarbons, just a source of high heat: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfur-iodine_cycle [wikipedia.org].
The process heat could come from a solar concentrator or a next-generation high temperature reactor.
Of course then you're faced with the problems of transporting and storing hydrogen, which have solutions but not easy ones.
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Where is the hydrogen going to come from? Or the energy to generate it?
Hopefully near a nuclear power plant or some other clean source of energy. Diesel may be used to transport it in the interim, but the whole idea behind a paradigm shift would be that eventually the semis would run off of hydrogen as well.
I see that as more likely than bringing nuclear power everywhere. Considering the incident in Japan, all the nuclear skeptics (and the coal industry) now have something to point to to scare the public away from supporting new nuclear plants. Just look what's happening in Eu
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Well the electric car will be the ultimate realization. Rather than lobby to change the car to suit our power, we should change our power (to nuclear) so we can have the best of all worlds.
Re:Screw Electric (Score:4, Insightful)
Liquid hydrogen is the way to go
LOL Right. Because pumping liquid hydrogen at a station would just be soo safe and liquifying it and keeping it cold doesn't take much energy at all...
All these electric cars are just slowing down the development of hydrogen.
No, they're filling the niche that hydrogen is incapable of filling. There's very little new going on with hydrogen because it is just not a convenient fuel.
I'd be all for electric if nuclear power was common, but in my state almost all the energy is produced in coal power plants. I just don't see how that is so much different from burning gasoline.
You're aware that hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels releasing greenhouse gases, right?
If the automotive industry is going to undergo a paradigm shift, it should be the best one available, not some half-assed compromise.
And it isn't hydrogen. Sorry bud. There's just no good way to get hydrogen to consumers.
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All the major car manufacturers are still researching hydrogen. If they think it still might have a chance, you ought to figure out why, instead of throwing your brain-dead speculation on Slashdot.
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Wow dude, as if gasoline weren't some dangerous liquid that we pump into cars?
It is flammable, but that's about it. It is actually pretty safe. It isn't like splashing a bit on you is going to cause serious burns
All the major car manufacturers are still researching hydrogen. If they think it still might have a chance, you ought to figure out why, instead of throwing your brain-dead speculation on Slashdot.
I've done plenty of research and reading in this area. Hydrogen has too many problems. In many ways it is an unnecessary step. If you produce hydrogen from fossil fuels, you're not doing much better than burning gasoline and if you make hydrogen from electricity, you're wasting perfectly good electricity that could just as well go directly into cars. In practice, what benefit
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There is no guarantee we will be able to overcome the remaining hurdles for electric,
Battery technology, and possibly even ultra capacitors, have much more to come.
and we may find a way to overcome the remaining hurdles for hydrogen.
Unlikely. There are some pretty hard limits on what we can do with hydrogen while keeping it safe for consumers and maintain energy density.
To say one absolutely will be the way to go is silly, because the answer isn't clear yet.
Absolutely? Maybe not, but things appear to be going towards electric.
Re:Screw Electric (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, gasoline is a flammable liquid with a high-ish vapour pressure at room temperature and pressure...
Hydrogen is a gas at room temperature and pressure, and an extremely low density one at that (in fact, you'll struggle to find a less dense gas - it's the lightest element, but exists as a molecule, still helium is more dense, the next closest).
What the GP was mentioning was the assertion that pumping liquid hydrogen at a filling station would be "safe and easy" (in comparison to gasoline). Liquid hydrogen is a cryogen - that boils at -252C (-450F), so not only is it a) very energy intensive to liquify (either by pressurising and chilling, or just chilling), it will furiously boil when pumped up out of the dewars you keep it in.
The only real way to "safely" store it (without having to consider cryogenic issues like venting, ice build up on the outside of valves and pipework, extensive lagging and bulky dewars etc, is to store it as a compressed gas.
The problem with that takes us back to density: it has a very low energy density, so you need very high pressures to store lots of it (ie, enough to give you similar range to gasoline).
You certainly won't be pumping it as a cryogenic liquid out of a fuel pump into your car in the same way you currently pump gasoline, and to think that liquid gasoline and liquid hydrogen are broadly similar in safety (in terms of the precautions and risks involved in storage, usage and handling) as you suggest with your flippant and uninformed statement that starts with a sarcastic "wow" is just laughable.
The major research right now is "how do we increase the energy density?" - we had effective hydrogen fuel cells back in the 60s - we sent them to the moon on Apollo, but they had to be fuelled with LOx and LH2, which was hazardous, but handy since they were using millions of gallons of the stuff anyway to power the rocket engines themselves, bleeding off a little to run the fuel cells was just a bonus. We simply can't do that in a consumer vehicle, so we need a way to carry enough hydrogen to make fuel cells really worth it, hence research into new polymers that can "absorb" it like a sponge, or new materials that enable us to make higher pressure storage tanks etc.
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You don't need to keep liquid gasses cool,
You don't need to, but it helps depending on the liquid gas. They don't use natural gas in BBQs, BTW. They use propane, at least around here. Propane turns to liquid at relatively low pressures. It is convenient like that. The pressure needed to store it is about the pressure you'd want to delivery it at. Hydrogen, on the other, is very difficult to liquefy and storing it and transporting it is no trivial matter.
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I'd be all for electric if nuclear power was common, but in my state almost all the energy is produced in coal power plants. I just don't see how that is so much different from burning gasoline
Coal comes from the US, oil comes from the middle east. Huge difference, unless you are mainly worried about the worst global warming scenarios. IF we'd been using coal for the last 20 years, think of all the money we could have saved on wars in the middle east (ok, we could have saved the money other ways, but we won't do that in the future, either).
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Re:Screw Electric (Score:4, Insightful)
In 2008, Hyundai announced its intention to produce 500 FC vehicles by 2010 and to start mass production of its FC vehicles in 2012.[12] In early 2009, Daimler announced plans to begin its FC vehicle production in 2009 with the aim of 100,000 vehicles in 2012–2013.[13][14] In 2009, Nissan started testing a new FC vehicle in Japan.[15] In September 2009, Daimler, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Renault, Nissan and Toyota issued a joint statement about their undertaking to further develop and launch fuel-cell electric vehicles as early as 2015
Do you know with 100% certainty that hydrogen is better than electric? No, you don't. Both require development of future technology, and as that develops, one type may be better than the other. We will find out.
But there's no sense in putting all your eggs in one basket. Keep investing in both, and hopefully one of them will work. There is still no guarantee of that, even.
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How do you propose to keep it below 20.28K? Especially considering that the lowest ambient temperature recorded on the planet is 184K. Even the coldest planet in the Solar System has a minimum temperature of 49K
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You can keep it in a dewar - we can make some extremely effective ones. The ones used on Apollo back in the 60s could keep hydrogen and oxygen liquid for moths with minimal boil off because they were so well insulated. The problem is that they're large, heavy and potentially fragile, especially for keeping the real chilly ones cold (oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, helium).
I would bet that it would be trivially easy to design a tank that could keep liquid hydrogen cold with minimal energy consumption and low boi
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I'd be all for electric if nuclear power was common, but in my state almost all the energy is produced in coal power plants. I just don't see how that is so much different from burning gasoline.
The coal plant is far more efficient than ICEs.
If the automotive industry is going to undergo a paradigm shift, it should be the best one available, not some half-assed compromise.
Gasoline is deeply entrenched. Replacing it with hydrogen would mean replacing or upgrading the extensive distribution network of gas stations nationwide. It's a messy Catch-22:
Cars are expensive. Nobody will buy hydrogen cars because there aren't any hydrogen gas stations.
Gas stations are expensive. Nobody is going to build or renovate hundreds of stations in order to sell something nobody will buy.
Designing, building, and selling cars is expensive. If nobo
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How do you think Hydrogen is manufactured, if not from electricity?
Um, steam reforming of natural gas, dude.
I'd guess you'd do a lot better just running the cars on the natural gas and forgetting the hydrogen crap.
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From solar power, which is widely available, and only requires painting something black in this case, maybe adding some reflectors? Except, of course, that's not how we do it :p
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How do you think Hydrogen is manufactured, if not from electricity?
It doesn't matter. Conversion from electricity and water to hydrogen and back can be very efficient.
The problem with electric cars is energy storage (batteries), and hydrogen can be stored more easily than electricity.
Re:Screw Electric (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't matter. Conversion from electricity and water to hydrogen and back can be very efficient.
And yet almost nobody does it. Most hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels.
The problem with electric cars is energy storage (batteries), and hydrogen can be stored more easily than electricity.
Actually hydrogen storage is fraught with problems. And not just "oh, but we can fix that" problems. It is more like hydrogen is just not very convenient. For example, hydrogen has a nasty habit of slowly breaking down metal (embrittlement). There's much more room for improved battery technology than there is for hydrogen storage and transmission. Besides, we already have the infrastructure to deliver electricity to every home. What's the point in introducing the hydrogen middleman?
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No it wouldn't. Energy density by volume of liquid hydrogen is 1/3 that of gasoline. So unless you're willing to carry around 3 times teh amount of fuel, I don't think you're getting the same range. And even then, do you really think it is reasonable for every car to carry 40 gallons of liquid hydrogen around with them? I don't.
It really makes more sense to cut out the hydrogen middle man and either use fossil fuels or electricity in consumer grade automobiles. Both gasoline and electricity are much easie
Re:Screw Electric (Score:4, Informative)
No it wouldn't. Energy density by volume of liquid hydrogen is 1/3 that of gasoline. So unless you're willing to carry around 3 times teh amount of fuel, I don't think you're getting the same range. And even then, do you really think it is reasonable for every car to carry 40 gallons of liquid hydrogen around with them? I don't.
Why compress it. it's lighter than air. You could have floating cars. The question is does "BMW Hindenberg" or "Toyota Hindenberg" have a better ring to it?
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Actually hydrogen storage is fraught with problems. And not just "oh, but we can fix that" problems. It is more like hydrogen is just not very convenient. For example, hydrogen has a nasty habit of slowly breaking down metal (embrittlement). There's much more room for improved battery technology than there is for hydrogen storage and transmission. Besides, we already have the infrastructure to deliver electricity to every home. What's the point in introducing the hydrogen middleman?
Hydrogen does not need to be stored as pure hydrogen. There are new ways of storing hydrogen being developed, for example via carbazole: http://www.techthefuture.com/energy/renewable-fuel-offers-alternative-to-battery-powered-electric-cars/ [techthefuture.com] You tank "energy rich" carbazole, and when the hydrogen is discharged (while driving), the energy deficient carbazole is stored in a separate tank. Back at the filling station, that "used" carbazole is pumped back (and reused), and you get your primary tank full of ener
Re:Screw Electric (Score:4, Interesting)
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Hydrogen is not an energy source; it's an energy storage mechanism. You need to compare the merits of hydrogen against the merits of batteries, not electricity.
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False [discovery.com].