Could the global auto infrastructure be overhauled in a way that's profitable for business, cheap for drivers, and easy on the planet? Meet Better Place's Shai Agassi and his plans for an electric-car future, featured in the latest issue of Wired. In Agassi's vision, gas stations are replaced with omnipresent recharging spots for electric cars. Vehicles are cheap, perhaps even free; money is made off electricity, and renewable energy is incentivized. Drivers purchase electricity on subscription, paying for unlimited miles, a certain number of miles per month, or pay-as-you-go. No time to recharge? Head to your nearest battery exchange station and swap in a fully charged one. An onboard system is energy monitor, GPS unit, help center, and personal assistant in one. Think it could never happen? Think again: 100,000 electric cars will roll out in Israel by the end of 2011, and Denmark will also provide a testing ground. And wherever Agassi goes, he convinces CEOs, mayors, investors, and statesmen that the world could become a Better Place.
source: Wired
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Delay And Deny Posted 1:53 am
19 Aug 2008
We will be powered by Hydrogen.
Hydrogen is a "battery" without the heavy carcass.
It can be generated from water with 100% efficiency.
In small amounts at home...in large amounts at wind-solar generating plants.
It's engines can be ICE or fuel cells.
The Gaseous Revolution has already begun...anyone not in the 3rd state of matter is left far behind...
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hitbycar Posted 3:17 am
19 Aug 2008
What is clearly needed here is a little bit of thermodynamic and engineering education. lets run through why, to say it politely, these points fall down.
Sourcing of hydrogen - you cant drill for it, you need to make it. Electrolysis is not 100% efficient, in fact its 50% at best. Automotive fuel cells currently convert at about 54%. Ignoring transportation, that is a system efficiency of 27%.
Transportation - Hydrogen can't be transported easily. It embrittles metals, and requires expensive stainless steels and high pressure tanks for containment. is everyone going to generate hydrogen at home for personal use? I doubt it.
Usage efficiency? Hydrogen fuel cells are not 100% efficient, and neither are hydrogen ICEs. If we are going to have electric cars powered by fuel cells, why change electricity to hydrogen, and then back to electricity when every conversion wastes energy?
in favor of PHEVs
Efficiency - the grid is an existing transport mechanism for electric power, it is efficient and has off-peak capacity to power most of our vehicles. so there, i just save probably a trillion dollars of infrastructure, and a lot of electricity lost in conversion inefficiencies. Transmission efficiency is 80%, decent batteries are roughly 90%, and electric motors at least 90%. that is a system net efficiency, including transportation, of 65%. More than twice the efficiency of fuel cells.
Availability - people can make their own PHEVs in a garage with existing technology, and all the major automakers are developing PHEV vehicles for release in the next few years. dont tell me i will be able to buy a cost effective fuel cell vehicle first.
Cost - do you know how much a fuel cell costs? Lets just put it this way, a lot.
It is claims like yours that make environmentalists seem like off-their-rocker nut cases. Education and discretion will go a long way in furthering our cause.
Thank you and good night
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trock Posted 3:40 am
19 Aug 2008
Hydrogen is not the next great thing. Read the criticisms.
http://www.physorg.com/news85074285.html
The physics just is not behind using Hydrogen widespread transportation or any other power need. There are cheaper alternatives.
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theBike45 Posted 5:12 am
19 Aug 2008
is prone to making totally fallacious arguments,
which misleadingly pit his scheme against $8 gasoline powered cars, when his true competition is, of course, the plug-in hybrid. And he also implies that his scheme will eliminate crude oil as a fule, another big lie : only a fraction of any country's transport duel is used for the cars that could be replaced by Agassi's scheme (which he didn't invent - swappable batteries is an OLD idea). He also, like many green souls out there, actually believe that there is a significant
difference between the two technologies : battery-only electrics versus plug-in hybrids. There isn't. Battery-onlies will, in fact will often require more carbon emission from their owner than plug-ins to get somewhere. Even if the driver
off a battery-only could use it for ALL of his transportation needs (fat chance), the differences between the technologies are trivial
in their abilities to avoid either gasoline or emissions. Israel has absolutely no need to spend all that money (and it WILL be their money that pays for it)in order to accomplish nothing and
pay exorbitant prices per mile. Agassi's scheme requires 4 to 5 batteries in reserve for each traveler on a day long trip (such trips in Israel would seldom exist) - that is multiplying the cost of batteries to support the drivers. Each car owner cannot now afford the $20,000 battery pack that last only 5 years and have a 100 mile driving range - they certainly can't afford a system that requires far more than 1 battery pack per car. Even a shallow analysis of Agassi's scheme shows how nutty it really is. And if a realy good battery shows up, most of Agassi's
system becomes instantly obsolete. Right now it is just dumb. Really dumb. I can't beleieve that greenies are gullible enough to swallow a concept this stupid. But then, they also swallowed the thousand lies in "Who Killed the Electric car?"
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Pangolin Posted 5:38 am
19 Aug 2008
Plug-in hybrids and EV's just give us more time to weasel out of really looking at sustainable environmental policy.
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Delay And Deny Posted 5:42 am
19 Aug 2008
Top Ten Things you didn't know about hydrogen
http://www.h2andyou.org/tenThings.asp
1. Did you know that the world produces enough hydrogen right now to fuel 180 million fuel cell-electric vehicles (FCEVs)? More than 56 billion kilograms of hydrogen are produced globally each year (the equivalent of 56 billion gallons of gasoline).
2. 53% of the hydrogen produced in North America is already dedicated to transportation, enough to fuel 21 million FCEVs. It's used to make gasoline cleaner by removing sulfur from petroleum at refineries.
...
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erniecaldwell Posted 6:40 am
19 Aug 2008
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Pierce Posted 11:41 am
19 Aug 2008
seating them selves as the so-called experts across every major energies board (including hydrogen).
no thanks. i'll stick with battery technologies. got my hopes on companies like phoenix, goss132, and tesla. (technically the former 2 are good. tesla is too expensive)
in any event... goss132 says you can exchange the batteries as you see fit as new ones come out. so if you wanted longer range, or faster charge etc just invest in new battery packs instead of a new car all together PLUS it's a alot cheaper. got to love that!
check out goss132.com if you desire to save money!
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Pathos Posted 4:17 pm
19 Aug 2008
"And if a realy good battery shows up, most of Agassi's system becomes instantly obsolete."
Okay, Bike, maybe I'm missing something, but it sounds to me like if a really good battery shows up, Agassi's system becomes way the %#&!! better, and all the objections you raised become instantly obsolete.
Is there a blank someone needs to fill in here, or what?
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tboggia Posted 11:58 pm
19 Aug 2008
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blacksheep Posted 6:17 am
20 Aug 2008
this is a massive toxic waste problem in waiting...eventually, the toxic substances in all these huge batteries will need to be disposed of....
i could also state my opinion about hydrogen vehicles (which is a little more optimistic), but I don't want to distract from the real solutions: density where it counts, getting people to live closer to their jobs via good planning, planning for pedestrian and bicycle commuting, amazing mass transit... a world where the personal automobile is pretty much a thing of the past, except for emergency vehicles, rental vehicles, cooperatively owned vehicles - none of which need to be used for that daily commute or to go buy groceries. we need to focus not on automobile solutions but on planning and transportation solutions....
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usandthem Posted 10:54 am
25 Oct 2008
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