What will it take to make you seriously consider an EV?

Poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king.

 

He has enough money to buy an amendment.

 

cxbby faints.

 

Honestly I think H2 as a storage medium makes more sense right now. Composite tanks are approved for 10,000 psi and don't have heavy metal pollution or range degradation.

Toyota has the Mirai that hits a sweet spot at 50k.

Quick fuel ups are a bonus

 

I don't like the idea of driving to California to refuel, though.

 

That might work for fleets. Chicken and egg for consumers and fueling stations.

Also, while I understand gasoline and batteries are dangerous... there is something terrifying about hydrogen. It can burn/detonate at extremely low concentrations. I've seen enough stupid with the status quo... Fools pumping 87 into plastic shopping bags. Hydrogen is even less forgiving.

 

Way way way higher than gasoline is required and H2 is so light if there is a leak it's in the atmosphere immediately. Gasoline hangs around to roast you well done. Safety arguments are moot. All potential energy source have the potential to release energy.

Infrastructure is as easy as a tank and hookup. Charging stations require more.


I just think H2 makes more sense. Fuel cells are space age. Batteries are 1800's

 

Hydrogen differs from other flammable gases as it has an extremely large flammable mixture zone extending from 3.9% to 74.1% in air.

 

yeah, and gasoline is way lower than that. It's also a volatile liquid so a spill sticks around and is dangerous for a long time requiring cleanup.

 

If H2 was a liquid and not a pressurized gas, I'd say going from 1.4% to 3.9% was significant. Hydrogen will give you no warning while it fills a given container. There is no odorant for H2 used for fuel cells. It requires far less activation energy than gasoline vapor. You won't see it burn during the day,

If you do everything right, you can use hydrogen safely... it's done every day. If you expect the general public to do this, you're going to have a bad time.

 

your entire premise was lower flammability concentration of H2 and it's way higher than gasoline.

I don't have any idea what you are getting at with "If H2 was a liquid and not a pressurized gas, I'd say going from 1.4% to 3.9% was significant. Hydrogen will give you no warning while it fills a given container."

you can hear gas filling a container at pressure. You can really hear it at 10,000 psi. If you are saying it is "filling a container" at atmospheric pressure it will be out of that container immediately because it's headed for the stratosphere.

The danger of the H2 storage is the gas pressure, not flammability.

 

What I'm getting at is to reach 1.4% concentration air gasoline, you've got to vaporize the liquid. You can smell the vapors long before it reaches 1.4%. A pressurized gas doesn't have to vaporize. A cigarette cherry won't ignite gasoline vapor, but it will ignite hydrogen, albeit at higher concentrations.

If colorless, odorless, explosive gas that burns invisibly in daily operation with the general public doesn't frighten you then you're just more badass than me, I guess.

 

A Tesla was in a junkyard for three weeks. Then it burst into flames.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/22/tesla-fire-sacramento/

excerpt:

A white Tesla Model S was sitting in a Rancho Cordova, Calif., wrecking yard earlier this month — having been severely damaged in a collision three weeks earlier — when it suddenly erupted in flames, according to the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District.

When firefighters arrived, the electric car was totally engulfed. Every time the blaze was momentarily extinguished, the car’s battery compartment reignited, the fire department wrote in an Instagram post. Firefighters and wrecking yard workers tried turning the car on its side to aim water directly onto the battery pack. But “the vehicle would still re-ignite due to the residual heat,” the department wrote.

So they tried something else: They used a tractor to create a pit in the dirt, managed to get the car inside, then filled the hole with water. That allowed the firefighters to submerge the battery pack and ultimately extinguish the fire, which burned hotter than 3,000 degrees, Capt. Parker Wilbourn, a fire department spokesman, told The Washington Post.

All told, it took more than an hour and 4,500 gallons of water for the dozen firefighters to extinguish the blaze, Wilbourn said — about the same amount of water used to put out a building fire.

***
In Woodlands, Tex., two passengers died in April 2021 after a driverless Tesla veered off the road, struck a tree and burst into flames. It was the battery that ignited and burned for four hours, requiring 30,000 gallons of water to put out, The Post reported. Another Tesla Model S in Frisco, Tex., shot out flames “like a flamethrower” after its owner pulled off the road upon hearing odd sounds coming from the car.

Such incidents have led some carmakers to recall thousands of electricvehicles over fire concerns. In December, General Motors recalled 141,000 Chevrolet Bolt electric cars after their batteries started to combust spontaneously. Audi and Hyundai have also recalled electric vehicles over fire risks.

Extinguishing a Tesla battery can take as long as 24 hours and about 3,000 to 8,000 gallons of water “applied directly to the battery,” according to a Tesla Model S guide for first responders. Yet Wilbourn said the amount of water needed to extinguish battery fires could be closer to 20,000 or 30,000 gallons. The lithium-ion batteries found in electric vehicles can be difficult to extinguish because they continue burning until all stored energy is released, Wilbourn said: “We’re basically fighting energy release.”
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more at the link

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Yeah, lets use fossil fuels til they run out or the planet dies…The Republican motto.

When car companies release a $20,000-$25,000 mid-sedan or small crossover that is full-on EV, The oil companies fates is sealed.

 

Mission accomplished

 

Foam.

 

The amount of water firefighters would pour onto an EV fire is miniscule in the grand scheme of things. Get rid of one olive or almond orchard and California would have more than enough water for all the EV fires for the next half-century.

And by the way, ICE rigs catch fire significantly more often than EVs and it will not surprise me if the EV rate goes down as Tesla's market share gets diminished.

In other news, the International Energy Administration released a major report today. The news is not good for climate change and meeting the Paris target of 1.5, but EVs are here to stay. If the chips can keep up, we're on an exponential curve.


Also, battery research is skyrocketing because companies and investors see the future.

 

I believe you can create the hydrogen at home though right?

DD