Bentley Will Ditch Internal Combustion Engines By 2030 (arstechnica.com) 114
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Time is starting to run out for vehicles powered purely by international combustion engines, and the auto industry knows it. This week Bentley, that bastion of British luxury, became the latest OEM to set a date for that happening -- the year 2030. As the company moves into its second century, it has revealed a new plan called "Beyond 100" that it says will "reinvent every aspect of its business to become an end-to-end carbon neutral organization.
Bentley already introduced a plug-in hybrid EV version of the Bentayga SUV and next year it plans to add another pair of PHEVs to its roster -- presumably the Continental GT coupe and Flying Spur sedan. In 2025, the company plans to introduce a battery electric vehicle; Bentley CEO Adrian Hallmark told Autoweek that "you've got to pick a point in time where battery power density, especially for bigger cars, is the liberator for us. We've always said that the mid-2020s is the time when you can expect to see 120-plus kilowatt-hour batteries coming through the supply chain." 2025 will also be the last year you'll be able to buy a Bentley that doesn't plug in, because in 2026 the brand is dropping everything other than PHEVs and BEVs. In 2030, those PHEVs will be gone, too, leaving just BEVs to wear the winged B badge with pride. Along the way, Bentley is also pledging to reduce its factory's environmental impact and go plastic neutral.
Bentley already introduced a plug-in hybrid EV version of the Bentayga SUV and next year it plans to add another pair of PHEVs to its roster -- presumably the Continental GT coupe and Flying Spur sedan. In 2025, the company plans to introduce a battery electric vehicle; Bentley CEO Adrian Hallmark told Autoweek that "you've got to pick a point in time where battery power density, especially for bigger cars, is the liberator for us. We've always said that the mid-2020s is the time when you can expect to see 120-plus kilowatt-hour batteries coming through the supply chain." 2025 will also be the last year you'll be able to buy a Bentley that doesn't plug in, because in 2026 the brand is dropping everything other than PHEVs and BEVs. In 2030, those PHEVs will be gone, too, leaving just BEVs to wear the winged B badge with pride. Along the way, Bentley is also pledging to reduce its factory's environmental impact and go plastic neutral.
Preserve IC engines for older cars (Score:4, Interesting)
Hopefully we will never outlaw gasoline or older vehicles. Simply transition modern cars to batteries.
Cars have their place as historical works of art and engineering.
And when one day computer driving is safer than human being... we will not ban human driving for pleasure.
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Hopefully we will never outlaw gasoline or older vehicles
My uncle has a country place that no one knows about...
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Hopefully we will never outlaw gasoline or older vehicles
My uncle has a country place that no one knows about...
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet,
Axe,
And saw
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When the elderly are gone it will not matter. (Score:3)
Artifacts of their age won't matter (though ICE can run just fine on hydrogen or LP) and their dreams will be dead with them. Nostalgia is fun but fundamentally backward-looking and despite shiny objects most of the past was Hobbesian and shitty.
Humans can find other pleasures like driving simulators.
Re:Preserve IC engines for older cars (Score:5, Funny)
We shouldn't have to. The reliability and longevity of ICE cars is at an all-time high, but by 2031 nearly half of all cars sold this year will be off the road.
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There's no need to get rid of those cars. The average car gets rid of itself in 10 or 12 years.
The emissions regulations in most states already have exemptions for classic cars that have reached a certain age. If you want to drive a shit-filthy car from the 50s, I'm not aware of anyplace where that is an issue. Because how many do you see on the road? 1 guy driving 1 car on the weekends doesn't make the exhaust an issue. It's when millions of guys drive them that it becomes a problem.
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What right do you claim to pollute the air that people will 'BREATHE' in metropolitan areas. What right do you claim to force carbon monoxide and various other toxins when there is none. What right do people have to breathe clean air, well, according to you NONE.
Band the infernal combustion engine as soon as possible, even to the point of subsidising electric vehicles. People do have the right to breathe clean air.
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I agree, but I would like to add some comments...
I don't think it will be feasible to ban IC engines for a very long time (if ever) in the US. Ever lived in an apartment complex where the parking lot was often too full for you to park close to your own apartment? Or how about cities like New York where some people have to parallel park on local streets? How do you think locations like that would deal with every vehicle needing to plug in? If we get to the point where a car's battery pack can be charged in a
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Yes and no. There are historical plates for a reason. No harm really comes from restricted usage of old cars.
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You're right. I hope there never comes a day when I can't drive down HWY 101 near Pismo Beach and see the occasional Shelby Cobra, woody wagon, or '63 Impala lowrider. Maybe a restored 1960 Apache 10 shortbed pickup in bright green with yellow hubs. It's important to transition to renewable energy, but it's also important to keep beauty in the world.
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Actually I think precisely driving down highways will be the first thing you won't be able to do. I foresee a future where driving a non-selfdriving car on a highway will be what is banned. And by highway I mean like main traffic arterial going into a city and not some back country highway.
But I feel like you'll always have some kind of country road to look forward to.
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Not all of them. I had a neighbor in San Luis Obispo who had the real thing.
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An electric cobra replica built to be as fast as possible will shit all over the real thing.
I drove my friend's electric go-kart once, it was made with a power system from a Zero Motorcycles... uh, motorcycle. And it is a pucker-maker. It accelerates like a mad bastard, and goes way faster than I need to go that close to the pavement. In fact, that probably takes off faster than a 427 cobra. The traction control on launch is flawless. You just nail the pedal, and then your head is whipped the hell back...
If
Re: Preserve IC engines for older cars (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure there is. If electric vehicles become the preferred new vehicle, the cost of operating older gasoline cars will drop as demand for gasoline drops, making an older ICE car an attractive option for people without much money. For a short while.
Once those older ICE cars start to make their way into the scrapyard, the gasoline distribution infrastructure will start to disappear. Then outlawing ICE vehicles will be redundant. They'll be too inconvenient to be a problem.
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As the price of oil and gasoline drops, I expect the taxes to go up to match, and overcompensate. There will be decreasing economy of scale as well. We'll probably be running our ICEs on mostly ethanol in the next 10-20y. E100 is pretty common in Brazil nowadays.
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I do worry about having only one energy distribution network though. Right now, most places in the US have two, if not three. The grid, gas stations, and natural gas, or propane tanks. Outlawing other fuels means that we become more dependent on the grid, and in some places like California, that isn't a wise idea.
However, this can be solved in a pretty elegant way: A series hybrid. The Volt was the first in this design for modern cars, BMW has vehicles with range extenders, Mazda is coming out with an
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I can agree with you on many of your points. I can see the plug-in hybrid as potentially gaining a large segment of the passenger car market. If done right the plug-in hybrid can offer pure electric operation on the typical weekday commute to work and still have the range for weekend trips out to visit grandma and grandpa. It just seems that series hybrids are not selling.
You mention the Chevy Volt as an example, and it apparently didn't sell well enough for GM to keep producing. Even then it wasn't a p
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The Bolt isn't selling well either, so it's probably because GM is a bunch of dummies.
There's some inefficiency in charging the battery with the ICE of course but I doubt that's the problem for most people. While I'm absolutely on board with the idea as a very sensible solution at the moment, it just feels like an inelegant solution, you want to be just purely EV and yet you've got this ICE still stuck in there. And at that point it the difference from parallel hybrids is mostly academic, many can now trave
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A parallel hybrid system can do the same thing. If both motive systems have enough power to move the car, then you can attach one to the front wheels and one to the rear, and still be able to operate regardless. It's more complicated in software (to make it smooth) but it's a lot less complicated in hardware, and hardware costs more than software.
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I've often wondered why that system hasn't taken off, and instead we have pure electrics or hybrids with a complex arrangements joining the electric motor and ICE. Why not take your cheap front wheel drive platforms, bolt on a rear wheel electric drive and call them cheap hybrids? That's how low cost 4WD vehicles are made.
Now that I actually own a hybrid, I have to say that the transaxle technology works extremely well, transparently splitting the load between electric and ICE as conditions and battery le
Re: Preserve IC engines for older cars (Score:2)
Re: Preserve IC engines for older cars (Score:4, Informative)
the cost of operating older gasoline cars will drop as demand for gasoline drops
Not really. You can see that this year. Refining capacity in the world decimated due to COVID and the retail petrol price only moved a little. A large reason behind that is both the fixed costs and taxes applied to fuel. The latter around much of the world is actively used as a lever to promote greener and more efficient vehicles.
Re: Preserve IC engines for older cars (Score:4, Interesting)
Those car shows are a good example. But in all fairness, its not like those cars burn a lot of gas. Nobody puts a ton of miles on them. Those old Model-As and Model Ts might drive 100 miles every 6 months or so. Even the old muscle cars got restored to cherry.
What will happen, worst case, is someone will have to drive 25 miles in an EV, to the only place around to buy petrol at $8/gal, and then have to add additives to get it into spec for what the engine of that era demanded, plus fuel stabilizers. Then they take it back to their car. The car is either local or gets driven via car carrier to to the town of the show, and then the vehicle drives the last bit to the grounds and eventually their spot.
But even before that i doubt they stop making fuel. Too many facilities like hospitals and data centers rely on backup diesel generators for power when storms trash the power grid. But with less supply, prices will naturally increase.
Re: Preserve IC engines for older cars (Score:2)
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Why? Farms have electric power, no? I would have thought they're quite likely to have 3-phase power at higher than domestic voltages, too, and that their machinery doesn't need to be driven massive distances, by and large?
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Why? Farms have electric power, no? I would have thought they're quite likely to have 3-phase power at higher than domestic voltages, too, and that their machinery doesn't need to be driven massive distances, by and large?
Farmers do drive their tractors long distances. Perhaps not from point A to point B but long distances regardless. During planting and harvest these tractors will have to cover many miles going back and forth over the fields. Often time is precious to keep ahead of the weather and changing seasons so needing tractors sit idle to recharge can mean lost crops and therefore lost revenue.
Even if range is not an issue then mass will be an issue. A tractor can be quite heavy, and this requires large tires (or
Re: Preserve IC engines for older cars (Score:2)
You wouldnt happen to know the energy density of hydrogen fuel cells compared to diesel would you? Great explanation of the logistics on industrial farms btw. With a 24x7 duty cycle, some sort of rapid refueling or power swapping would have to occur. That lends itself to a) continue diesel, b) quick change hydrogen fuel cells, c) quick change high density battery packs like that solid state lithium battery that they announced 2 years ago (if they can figure out how to mass produce and isnt egregiously heavy
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Tractors are commonly weighted, building them around batteries means you don't need lumps of iron bolted onto them to stop them popping wheelies. And traction control coupled with a tilt sensor will also let them deliver peak usable torque without ripping up soil with their tires, or having to worry about a wheelie.
EVs are going to become attractive in farming due to emissions restrictions. Currently only California has any even vaguely meaningful emissions restrictions for farm equipment, and even ours are
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I reckon EVs are going to be attractive in farming because they're quiet (which is safer), cheap to run, and can be charged on the farm from existing power lines which is convenient. I'm sure TCO is already comparable and initial purchase price will continue falling for years.
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A moment's cursory research reveals that a typical tractor has a top speed of 22mph. So even one that was driven for 10 hours straight, all at top speed, would be doing comfortably under 250miles. And obviously that's absurd, no-one's going to use a tractor like that. So, no, farmers do not "drive their tractors long distances". And whatever charge they use during the day can obviously be replaced at night, because no-one drives tractors 24/7. Combines, perhaps, but not tractors.
The mass thing is even more
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Farmers will need diesel for a looong tiiime still.
As will over the road trucking, so it's not like truck stops will go anywhere.
Failing that there's still the option of getting suitable fuel at a small airport, and small airports are far more common than many people realize. I've seen aircraft rated for using common over-the-road gasoline, as opposed to aviation grade gasoline, this is for the convenience of using cheap and common gasoline meant for cars. While lower in cost it comes with the price of not allowing the same power, range, and altitude out
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There is no legitimate reason to permit ICE cars on public roads once EVs become ubiquitous and affordable, and a suitable charging network exists, parade permits aside. They can be appreciated in museums.
And I say this as someone with a perverse love of the exhaust note of a 5 cylinder diesel. It's not all about me.
There might also not be a compelling reason to ban them. A number of governments is already aiming to ban the sale of new ICE cars by 2030 or 2035. They'll have to allow them on the roads for a while after... The last ICE cars will either be clunkers kept going by people unable to afford a 2nd hand EV just yet, and classic cars kept running by enthusiasts. The latter category is insignificant (politically speaking), but the first one isn't. And by the time the first category has their EVs as well, the
Re: Preserve IC engines for older cars (Score:4, Interesting)
Norway bans the sale of new ICE cars in 2025 which is 4 years from now. Already in Norway, 60% of new cars are fully battery electric, 20% hybrid and 20% ICE.
In Europe, "electrified" (hybrid + BEV) cars are now outselling diesel car sales.
In the UK, the number of fuel stations has been declining for decades. Fuel efficiency improvements is one reason plus supermarkets became major distributors so pushing out independent fuel stations.
In the UK, both Shell and BP are installing EV fast chargers at their fuel stations.
The switchover to EVs will come faster than people think. It is likely that some big name auto manufacturers will go bust.
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In Europe, "electrified" (hybrid + BEV) cars are now outselling diesel car sales.
BUT "electrified" includes mild hybrids, i.e. the things that can't even move without starting the engine.
Re: Preserve IC engines for older cars (Score:2)
Mild hybrids can move without starting the engine, just not far or fast. Kind of like how on traditional vehicles you can move the vehicle with the starter motor (which is weaker than a mild hybrid motor-generator) by defeating the interlock. That level of motive force is necessary for smooth auto start-stop.
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They can be appreciated in museums.
And on the track.
Re: Preserve IC engines for older cars (Score:3)
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Every problem you can think of can be addressed in a future model or in a software update. That's the nature of technology.
Re: Preserve IC engines for older cars (Score:2)
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See you in 2030.
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Re: Preserve IC engines for older cars (Score:4, Insightful)
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There will be no way to use generators to charge them? What's going to happen to the world's generator supply before then?
If you're going to invent nightmare scenarios, at least put some effort into making them make sense. Otherwise you're just a hack writer of miniature stories.
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Re: Preserve IC engines for older cars (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no legitimate reason to permit ICE cars on public roads once EVs become ubiquitous and affordable, and a suitable charging network exists, parade permits aside. They can be appreciated in museums.
And I say this as someone with a perverse love of the exhaust note of a 5 cylinder diesel. It's not all about me.
Wake me up when EVs can be charged at a camp in the middle of the wilderness in Canada and/or make a "fill-up" portable. It's just not possible with the technology that we have today and I don't see it being developed in 10 years. Until then, there will be a need for ICE vehicles. It's possible that hybrids will take their place, but they are still a variant of ICE vehicles.
Most forget that there are millions of people who enjoy the outdoors and one thing that makes it possible is the portability and energy density of gasoline. I can bring a couple of 5 gallon gas cans with me if I need to. We just don't have the technology to make electricity portable and energy dense enough to charge a car.
Maybe one day we will have fusion batteries or something similar, but in 10 years? Highly unlikely....
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Couldn't an electric car going for an extended off-road adventure in the Canadian wilderness just bring a generator?
You could buy something that L2 charges an EV for like $400.
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Couldn't an electric car going for an extended off-road adventure in the Canadian wilderness just bring a generator?
You could buy something that L2 charges an EV for like $400.
Sure, lets bring a gasoline engine and gasoline to charge the EV. Second, any generator that would have enough juice to charge an EV would be large and cumbersome. You aren't talking about a small portable generator, you would need one of the large house types. At that point you may as well have an ICE vehicle.
Re: Preserve IC engines for older cars (Score:2)
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You just roll out your emergency solar charger when you are in the boonies. RVers already do so.
First, there isn't a portable solar charger big enough to charge an EV any amount over a short period of time, or even over a day. Second, any solar charger would require sunshine. Good luck if an unexpected major storm is moving through.
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You just roll out your emergency solar charger when you are in the boonies. RVers already do so.
The post mentioned "wilderness" and "Canada". This implies high probability of trees and short days limiting the utility of solar panels.
While attending university I was a member of the solar car competition team. During a competition (which had the elements of a race but with speed limits) the cars could charge up for an hour or so from the morning sun, then "race" (again not really a race) for maybe four hours, then try to catch a few more hours of sun while the sun was setting. The solar panels had hi
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There's no fucking way that solar panels on an RV will provide any meaningful power to move it.
Last time I did the math I came up with about three weeks to go 30-50 miles, depending on how much solar panel you used, and how much your vehicle weighs. That's not great, but you can move it. There are several bus conversions with slide-out or fold-out solar panels actually on the road today.
However, I explicitly said on-road use in the first place. If you're in the back of bumfuck then there's good reason to use liquid fuels... for now.
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Wake me up when EVs can be charged at a camp in the middle of the wilderness in Canada and/or make a "fill-up" portable.
I'm confused. I have no problem running all manner of electronics when I go camping. Do you not have a sun in your part of the world?
I'm only half joking with this comment. I do hire a large diesel 4wd for my camping trips, but when I get there the first thing that comes out are the solar panels. Incidentally there's nothing stopping you from taking a small generator and some fuel with you on a camping trip. Charging batteries should not really be a concern.
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"Wake me up when EVs can be charged at a camp in the middle of the wilderness in Canada "
I too enjoy digging an oil well when I want to end my camping trip.
Re: Preserve IC engines for older cars (Score:5, Interesting)
Obsolete technology does not need to be banned. If electric cars are really good, there will be no use for ICE, and they will naturally thin out. Only a very, very small number of ICE cars will be left on the road, to the point where it's not worth worrying about them.
Banning gasoline cars makes about as much sense a banning floppy drives or banning Adobe Flash. I think you're real worry is that electric cars aren't good enough to fully replace ICE. That's been true for a very long time (despite what Tesla's fanboys have been telling us), but that time is quickly coming to an end.
PS - Yeah, I'm pissed that modern web browsers are on the cusp of outright banning Flash. Let me make that choice, please.
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Obsolete technology does not need to be banned. If electric cars are really good, there will be no use for ICE, and they will naturally thin out. Only a very, very small number of ICE cars will be left on the road, to the point where it's not worth worrying about them.
Agreed.
PS - Yeah, I'm pissed that modern web browsers are on the cusp of outright banning Flash. Let me make that choice, please.
It's for your computer's health. You could try masking it.
Re: Preserve IC engines for older cars (Score:2)
REX makes sense in the short term but more charging stations makes more sense, so you don't have to carry it around.
Mobile charging stations that unfold are a viable medium term solution for off road use, if they are seasonally delivered to popular trail heads and similar.
Larger four-by regions could install wind farms for the use of off-roaders.
For the immediately foreseeable future there will still be a place for liquid fuels in the boondocks, but even those uses can be replaced over time.
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If the market develops a carbon-neutral biofuel in the next decade that can 'webscale' up to billions of ICE vehicles then sure.
The size of the arable land needed for this will kill that idea in any nation but the largest. least populous, and/or with the lowest in standard of living. Maybe USA, Canada, China, India, Russia, and Brazil might come out okay. This would mean converting even larger chunks of Brazilian rain forest to energy crops.
If you want to see an environmental disaster on a global scale then go ahead with the plan on using biomass fuels for transportation.
Synthesizing fuels using solar PV power would be an order of
International? (Score:1)
Don't tell them [internationaltrucks.com] that!
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Don't tell them [internationaltrucks.com] that!
They can get on board with EVs now and staying business or they can stick with the internal combustion engine and go out of business down the road. It's really up to them which they want.
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They can get on board with EVs now and staying business or they can stick with the internal combustion engine and go out of business down the road. It's really up to them which they want.
Or, they can read a few articles on synthesized carbon neutral hydrocarbon fuels, as well as articles on "zero carbon" (in scare quotes because nothing is truly zero carbon) and profitable energy from onshore wind, geothermal, hydro, and nuclear fission power, and continue doing what they are doing with the confidence that this is a solved problem.
It will be far more practical to replace petroleum based hydrocarbon fuels with net zero carbon synthesized hydrocarbon fuels than try to engineer practical batte
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They can get on board with EVs now and staying business or they can stick with the internal combustion engine and go out of business down the road. It's really up to them which they want.
Or, they can read a few articles on synthesized carbon neutral hydrocarbon fuels, as well as articles on "zero carbon" (in scare quotes because nothing is truly zero carbon) and profitable energy from onshore wind, geothermal, hydro, and nuclear fission power, and continue doing what they are doing with the confidence that this is a solved problem.
It will be far more practical to replace petroleum based hydrocarbon fuels with net zero carbon synthesized hydrocarbon fuels than try to engineer practical battery powered heavy trucks. Just search the web for the words "net zero carbon synthesized hydrocarbon fuels" with your favorite search engine to see what I mean.
Batteries will not allow an airplane to fly over the ocean, at nearly the speed of sound, while carrying passengers. Even if there was a leap in the technology of batteries to make this possible tomorrow it will take decades to produce enough vehicles, and the necessary infrastructure to support them, to replace all the hydrocarbon burning vehicles in the world with battery powered equivalents.
You have a real thing about dead end technologies.
Because external combustion is so much better (Score:1)
Steam engine or bust!
Re: Because external combustion is so much better (Score:2)
The first years of land speed records went to steam and electric powered cars.
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The first years of land speed records went to steam and electric powered cars.
How well do they perform in this century?
Re: Because external combustion is so much better (Score:2)
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A wood fired steamer is very eco friendly.
Eco friendly, but still polluting and carcinogenic, producing fine carbon soot, wood ash, and dioxins.
Bentley to be irrelevant for 10 years - got it (Score:3)
Need to speed this up.
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I really hate typing this because I grew up a massive Bentley fan. But 10 years? Way, way too slow. Particularly since they're owned by VW and VW is making such a big push. Need to speed this up.
VW has been sitting with its thumb up its ass betting on 'clean diesel', gasoline, lobbying against emission caps and cheating on emission tests for the last several decades. Considering that they ceded the EV market to Tesla for almost two decades, setting themselves the target of making their EVs competitive with those of companies that got into the EV market at the ground level (and who are sitting on a stack of key patents) in a mere ten years from now is actually quite ambitious.
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Like you I think 10 years is too slow. The message is more like saying: "we can't".
Indeed I didn't know before your post that Bentley was owned by VAG and it makes sense: VAG is a manufacturer of low-end, low-performance but cheap vehicles. VW, AUDI, SKODA are all low-end cars.
For decades they've invested billions in marketing to deceptively raise the price instead of in R&D and innovation. For several years now their technological debt in car manufacturing has been blatantly showing.
Any technological e
Re: Bentley to be irrelevant for 10 years - got it (Score:2)
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If only we didn't go the stupid way... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm all for not using non-renewable and environmentally destructive energy sources,
but batteries are such a bad choice. They are only chosen because they are the "best we can do" right now.
But it does really really not take much, to run a fuel cell on fully synthetic hydrocarbons, created from CO2 and water collected from the fuel cell and solar power. So no leaking oil tankers and pipelines, no refineries, no fracking, no oil platforms, and most of all, no air pollution or climate destruction.
Recharging efficiency is also a false problem. We've got literally yottawatts of power from the sun. So as long as it is cleaner, it can be more inefficient.
The massive advantages of this would be energy density, no usage of toxic conflict minerals or rare earths, much lighter cars, no complicated tech just so it can be stopped from burning. (Gasoline is harder to light on fire than people think. And easy to stop burning.)
But alas, let's jump on the bandwagon to the circle-jerk, and dogpile on top of everyone who doesn't Hail Batteries, under the false assumption that there is only one alternative (fossil fuels) and they hence must side with that. Just like the elections. ;) *
_ _ _ _
* [Removed a true but unnecessary Goering analogy for your convenience.]
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But it does really really not take much, to run a fuel cell on fully synthetic hydrocarbons,
That would be nice, but if pigs had wings ... porcine aviation!
If you can get it to work practically, both the fuel synthesis and the hydrocarbon fuel cells, we will build statues of you and sing songs of your genius for generations to come.
Meanwhile the problems far outweigh the advantage of improved energy density. You might as well be promoting Mr Fusion, as fusion has better energy density than hydrocarbons.
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But it does really really not take much, to run a fuel cell on fully synthetic hydrocarbons, created from CO2 and water collected from the fuel cell and solar power.
Actually it takes a lot. Fuel cells are not cheap to produce. Having them run on hydrocarbons, and not get fouled with carbon, is even more expensive. Then if they are to power a vehicle then it has to be sufficiently low in mass, low in volume, low in maintenance needs, high in durability, high in reliability, and (again) low in cost to compete with the internal combustion engine.
The comes the problem of using solar power to produce this fuel. Using onshore wind, geothermal, hydro, and nuclear fission
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If we can produce net zero carbon synthetic hydrocarbons then burning them in internal combustion engines removes the problems of petroleum fuels for transportation.
No, it does not. They will still produce soot. Even diesels with DPFs still produce soot, when the regeneration occurs the trapped soot turns into a combination of CO2 (which with renewable fuels is OK) and finer soot particles (which are more carcinogenic than the bigger particles.) Gasoline vehicles already produce soot which is very fine (PM2.5) and which cannot reasonably be trapped.
Carbon-neutral fuels are a good way to reduce carbon emissions of cars which are on the roads now, some of which will be o
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Theoretical fuel cells will always look better than actual internal combustion engines. The good thing about internal combustion engines is that they exists, and in large numbers, while hydrocarbon fuel cells do not, at least not in any meaningful numbers, at any meaningful cost, for people to actually buy and have in their cars.
I find it difficult to believe that fuel cells that burn hydrocarbons will not produce soot or CO. I'd like to see a source on that.
Re: If only we didn't go the stupid way... (Score:2)
That is why batteries rule. Hydrogen is the "best" thing to put into a fuel cell, and even that is problematic.
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But it does really really not take much, to run a fuel cell on fully synthetic hydrocarbons, created from CO2 and water collected from the fuel cell and solar power.
So where are all these vehicles then if it's not that hard?
that bastion of British luxury (Score:2)
That bastion of German luxury, since it belongs to the fraudsters at VW.
Re: that bastion of British luxury (Score:2)
Indeed. Also, the 'bastion' of the UK luxury car market has always been Rolls Royce, ( Bentley was the sporting brand). Of course, RR belongs to the Germans too. BMW.
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Not quite- Bentley is what’s left of the RR car making company. RR make jet engines. When the car company was sold the name rights didn’t go with it (and the purchaser failed to notice!). The RR name rights for cars were then sold by the jet engine maker to BMW.
So one company has the name and another the heritage. I’m not sure which one constitutes a ‘bastion’....
L or go home (Score:3)
Bentley was downhill after they ditched the venerable RR-Bentley L-series engine anyway. They brought it back eventually, but they never got their mojo back.
Bentley is not the entire industry (Score:3)
One car maker pledging to abandon the internal combustion engine is cute, the claims I'm seeing of this being the end of the internal combustion engine is quite naive.
There's a number of demonstrations of the towing capacity of an electric truck versus one that burns hydrocarbons. At issue is not the ability of an electric motor to produce sufficient torque or power. What proves this is the abundance of diesel-electric vehicles, with locomotives on rails being the primary example but there's also vehicles that move on the water and both on and off the road. The problem is energy density. The energy stored in a battery compared to that of the same mass or volume of a liquid hydrocarbon is orders of magnitude. This is something that is not likely to be rectified any time soon. It's also not a trivial problem that people can ignore no matter how much battery-electric vehicle advocates protest otherwise.
For a luxury car maker it's easy to make a switch to all electric vehicles. Especially when it is a small segment of a much larger corporation that makes vehicles, there's no real loss in market share here since those that would not buy a Bentley because of the limitations of battery energy storage could simply be directed to some other badge that makes a hydrocarbon burner.
It's not just the problems of towing that will limit the utility of a battery electric vehicle. There's cold weather performance. There's issues of times when there's an electric utility outage. This is an issue along with cold weather performance since power outages typically come with ice and snow. Even in sunnier climates there's hurricanes, wildfires, and earthquakes. As people in California discovered with their recent power outages it takes more than solar panels on your roof to ride out a power outage. The solar panels need a battery pack of it's own.
The claim I've seen many times here is that this is the beginning of the end for the internal combustion engine, and with that the end of filling stations for people to fill their hydrocarbon burner even if they wanted to buck the trend and keep their hydrocarbon burner. Remember my comment on towing capacity of a battery electric vehicle? That applies ten times over for over the road trucking. So long as trucks burn diesel fuel there will be truck stops for people to refill their cars and light trucks. And diesel trucks will rule the road until batteries can get a full recharge in 20 minutes, power that truck for hours, and weigh in at less than a half ton.
For those that want the refill at home convenience of an electric vehicle and do without many of the limitations of electric vehicles there is the option of natural gas as a fuel. A double bonus if this natural gas burner is a plug-in hybrid.
This is not signalling the end of hydrocarbon burning vehicles. It's signalling that Tesla is getting the attention of other luxury car makers. It's showing that there are people that have a lot of money and little concern for towing, long range travel, or extended power outages. People that likely own more than one vehicle. People that will keep a hydrocarbon burner for cases when they need to tow a boat, take a long road trip, or get out of town during a widespread power outage.
Bentley is not the entire industry, it's a very small segment of it. It's also quite possible that switching to all electric products by 2030, for even a car maker of this size of market, will prove impractical. We shall see in 10 years.
Unreal (Score:2)
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I would imagine consuming a large flaming bag of dicks would solve all your problems.
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No. I use logic and problem solving techniques. Crying about shit is for babies and bitches.
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Mmmmm. Rammstein good.
It's a joke, Jesus Christ! (Score:2)
You really think I'm pro cannibalism?
Check out the live music video! It's great fun!
Not likely (Score:2)
At some point the demand for gasoline & diesel will diminish to the point where fuel stations become unprofitable. That may be 50 years out.
That's not likely even in 50 years.
Batteries will not power an aircraft across an ocean. It's not likely to change in 50 years. Even if we had this technology tomorrow it would take nearly 50 years for the airline industry to switch over to electric planes. First problem is it has to be proven practical. This means not just working in one plane but working in a way that is durable, reliable, reparable, and repeatable. Then it has to be proven safe. A jet fuel fire is certainly a terrible mess but so i
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Batteries better than lithium might be (in lab are) made with absurdly common materials, like carbon nanotube or graphite and sodium. Then your mining arguments go *poof* as do a lot of toxicity / environmental concerns.
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Batteries better than lithium might be (in lab are) made with absurdly common materials, like carbon nanotube or graphite and sodium. Then your mining arguments go *poof* as do a lot of toxicity / environmental concerns.
No, they do not "go poof". That's a lot of material that would be diverted from the market. Let's assume that there was enough mining capacity, and indeed this issues "goes poof", there's many more other concerns.
The batteries need to be made. That means factories to make the batteries, and for batteries with a novel chemistry there's no existing capacity to dip into like Tesla has done with lithium batteries, or other electric car makers before them with other battery chemistry.
The batteries will have t
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considering lots of places are banning the sale of fossil vehicles in the next 10 years or so, diesel trucks will be gone long before 50 years
Any legal prohibition on internal combustion engines can only hold if the voters support it. If people don't want to buy something on principle then a legal prohibition is just superfluous and virtue signalling by the legislators. Also, an internal combustion engine doesn't have to burn petroleum. The first Ford cars burned corn ethanol, and early diesel engines burned peanut oil. We have the technology to synthesize net zero carbon hydrocarbon fuels that are direct replacements for fossil fuels. There
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"Again, if anyone wants to convince me on how electric trucks will replace diesel trucks then put your money where your mouth is. If you are in the truck making business then build those trucks. If you are in the business of moving stuff over the
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"Any legal prohibition on internal combustion engines can only hold if the voters support it." - if its illegal to sell them, they manufacturers won't make them. They make keep old ones running if they can still get the fuel but they won't be able to buy new ones.
That's right, if it's illegal to make them then manufacturers won't make them. This prohibition only holds if the voters want a prohibition.
It's not that difficult to produce an internal combustion engine. Hobby shops have been doing this for 100 years. Finding fuel is trivial. Early Ford cars ran on corn ethanol, and early diesel engines ran on peanut oil. People have been running backyard distilleries for a very long time, another tradition that dates back 100 years.
This means people will get them if