evehicles vs fuel cell

[mvadventure]

Due to many factors I have been lax visiting ES lately and have to make a confession that I, after 14 years, bought a I.C.E. P.O.V. The ebike simply cannot carry three grandkids.

Prior to purchasing my minivan however I did a lot of research into which vehicle would best suit our long term needs and attempted to predict what would be happening in the future. Consumer Reports auto edition provides a lot of valuable information as to what's out there NOW but stops there. When the Detroit Auto Show was shown on local TV I really thought there would be something besides hybrid SUV's in the near future that would be capable of multi-passenger capacity. Wrongomundo. Nothing.

But due to the miracle of DVR I just watched the Tokyo Motor Show. WOW. While the program I watched spent a lot of time on concept cars there was also a lot of information about the market for electric cars and what can be expected. My understanding of the concept is that electric cars are stopgaps and that fuel cell technology will be the ultimate winner. Several cars of both persuasions were shown but the fuel cell cars was demostrated in the LA market area. Honda is already on second or third generation fuel cell concept vehicles.

There were several awesome electric motorcycles.

It's hard for me to imagine fuel cell technology on a bicycle but when I look back at my first electric bike (Z.A.P. friction drive) and compare it to my current incarnation with the 5304 w/LiPO4's and look at ads for Optibike and other technology advanced machines it becomes hard for me to imagine why everyone doesn't have an ebike in their garage.

New mini-van aside I'll continue to ride my bike albeit less. Hopefully by the time it has to be replaced we'll have something on the market that actually works. Hopefully it'll be, I think, fuel cell. Electric technology for the forseeable future simply give us the range we need.

Opinions?
Mike

 

[oatnet]

Isn't a fuel cell vehicle still an Electric Vehicle, just with a fuel cell instead of a battery?

I believe that EVs are the future, but the storage and the energy source are still up for grabs. Most energy sources can be effeciently (relatively) converted to electricity, wheras it would be less effecient to convert, say, wind to LPG. I see electricity as the common denominator, so I think that any development done in EVs is a good investment, but source and storage are a crapshoot.

-JD

 

[John in CR]

Since you can already get new high power tool packs on Ebay for about $.50/wh, compared to over $1/wh less than a year ago, battery power is getting very close to the threshold of making real economic sense for cars. My question isn't which will win, since I hope they both do, it's when are the car manufacturers going to wake up and give us something different. Cars simply must become smaller and lighter. You see it happening with the startup operations, and I think the vehicles that result will lead the way to a fundamental change instead of going extinct like the micro-cars of the 50's & 60's.

John

 

[oatnet]

Since you can already get new high power tool packs on Ebay for about $.50/wh, compared to over $1/wh less than a year ago, battery power is getting very close to the threshold of making real economic sense for cars. My question isn't which will win, since I hope they both do, it's when are the car manufacturers going to wake up and give us something different. Cars simply must become smaller and lighter. You see it happening with the startup operations, and I think the vehicles that result will lead the way to a fundamental change instead of going extinct like the micro-cars of the 50's & 60's.

John

Unless Chevron buys the LiFePO4 rights and sits on them like they did with NiMh.

I concur with smaller/lighter, that is where I was going with the Comuta Car. I'd love to do an Ariel Atom (a la wrightspeed), but don't have the budget. Without a giant heavy ICE to support, you simply need less of everything - except to protect from collisions with other Giant SUV's.

OTOH I hope to prove, with the VW bus on LiFePO4 insead of Pb, that Electric makes real economic sense for the consumer now. Heck, the EV-1 made good economic sense. GM complained about the cost of the cars, but with such limited production each vehicle was virtually a prototype anyhow, and prototypes aren't cheap. If they sourced cells on the par with the volume of ICEs they make, costs would have gone way down.

Too bad that the huge revenue stream from repairing and suppling parts for ICEs makes real economic sense for the car manufacturers. Now that they are asking for bailout $$$ I hope we can force them to service the consumer instead of padding their lazy pocketbooks.

-JD