I'm all for electric cars but....

Hydrogen always made more sense to me. Little in by-products and you could potentially fill your car just like you would petrol. Although if I remember chemistry well enough it makes for a nice pop when set alight.

As opposed to petrol, which has no reaction when set alight.
 
With the likes of this new Tesla thing with is range of 215 miles or whatever. IF sometime in its lifetime (say it's good 10 years) a new battery / technology comes out, would it be able to use it, assuming something compatible could be made), and increase the range?
 
Hydrogen is expensive and dangerous to store. And the biggest problem is we need vast amounts of hydrocarbons (eg polluting fossil fuels) to produce, making it expensive and polluting to do so.

That statement also holds true to some extent if you replace "Hydrogen" with "Electricity", or even "Petrol".
 
With the likes of this new Tesla thing with is range of 215 miles or whatever. IF sometime in its lifetime (say it's good 10 years) a new battery / technology comes out, would it be able to use it, assuming something compatible could be made), and increase the range?

We have gone into quite a bit of detail in the Tesla 3 thread, but in summary, batteries don't have enough energy density, and are unlikely to go much beyond a 4x reduction in size without a massive breakthrough in the technology. They also take too long to charge no matter where you charge them, and there is a significant draw on the grid that would be needed to sustain them.

Basically, batteries are a "problem" with regards to EVs, and it looks like the solution is to find another way rather than chase improvements in batteries.
 
Electrify the roads, so it charges as you drive. Make it toll to pay for itself over time.

It will be HUGELY expensive but should work!
 
It will be HUGELY expensive but should work!

The former prevents the latter :p

The power drain on the electricity grid would need to be taken into consideration too. Charging as you drive at a speed that would allow effectively infinate range would also require charge speeds much higher than most chargers (currenly home chargers put about 7 miles per hour of charge into your car. Even fast chargers (50kW) put only about 120 miles per hour of charge. You would need a supply that could sustain 30kW of charging for EVERY car on a motorway :p).
 
Quite :D.

Again probably I am wrong but I thought hydrogen was a bit more dangerous that petrol in regards to going boom.

I'm no expert on Hydrogen Fuel Cells, but my understanding is that we aren't putting Hydrogen in them and then setting it on fire like we do with petrol?

Actually, how do they work? Is it a chemical reaction?
 
The former prevents the latter :p

The power drain on the electricity grid would need to be taken into consideration too. Charging as you drive at a speed that would allow effectively infinate range would also require charge speeds much higher than most chargers (currenly home chargers put about 7 miles per hour of charge into your car. Even fast chargers (50kW) put only about 120 miles per hour of charge. You would need a supply that could sustain 30kW of charging for EVERY car on a motorway :p).

One word "dodgems".

Issue solved!
 
The former prevents the latter :p

The power drain on the electricity grid would need to be taken into consideration too. Charging as you drive at a speed that would allow effectively infinate range would also require charge speeds much higher than most chargers (currenly home chargers put about 7 miles per hour of charge into your car. Even fast chargers (50kW) put only about 120 miles per hour of charge. You would need a supply that could sustain 30kW of charging for EVERY car on a motorway :p).

You could just have 1 lane for charging (dedicated slow lane) as opposed to all 3 or 4, you don't necessarily need to charge the cars but more like a little kick until you get to the next station. Just a way to boost the distance of your vehicle.
 
You could just have 1 lane for charging (dedicated slow lane) as opposed to all 3 or 4, you don't necessarily need to charge the cars but more like a little kick until you get to the next station. Just a way to boost the distance of your vehicle.

The same limits apply to the network though. I think in the Tesla thread someone worked out that if we dedicated the entire UK electricity grid to charging cars, it would only sustain 14 million vehicles at 7kW.
 
I'm no expert on Hydrogen Fuel Cells, but my understanding is that we aren't putting Hydrogen in them and then setting it on fire like we do with petrol?

Actually, how do they work? Is it a chemical reaction?

It is. Hydrogen passes into a catalyst that breaks it into protons and electrons. the protons are attracted the to negative terminal on the other side seperated by some kind of membrane. The electrons flow round the circuit which gives the power. At the negative terminal the electrons, protons and the oxygen(supplied via another inlet) combine to produce water.

At least thats my basic understanding of it. The dangerous side comes from the tank of hydrogen needed to power it.

I drive the M25 quite a bit, some people seem to have already assumed they have this technology!

I always thought this would be a good idea. Massive tyres around cars. Less write offs and insurance claims for scuffs. I'd like to see someone get their shopping trolley past that(actually I wouldnt) :D.
 
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I'm no expert on Hydrogen Fuel Cells, but my understanding is that we aren't putting Hydrogen in them and then setting it on fire like we do with petrol?

Actually, how do they work? Is it a chemical reaction?

The clue actually is in the name.

a Cell in this terminology IS a battery.

You can almost think of it as a normal battery except instead of it being a sealed unit it can be topped up with in this case liquid hydrogen.

So we are still talking electric cars.
 
That statement also holds true to some extent if you replace "Hydrogen" with "Electricity", or even "Petrol".

I didn't say it didn't, but it holds true that its one bar to mass adoption because its more expensive and dangerous to store and transport Hydrogen than it is Petrol or Electricity.
 
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