And BMW has one available too....funny how none of the US car manufacturers have anything ready. If they want to know why their stock is tanking, it is because they have become LAZY.... DD
Sorry Honda still can't compete with: The Tesla Roadster's battery pack — the car's "fuel tank" — represents the biggest innovation in the Tesla Roadster and is one of the largest and most advanced battery packs in the world. We've combined basic proven lithium ion battery technology with our own unique battery pack design to provide multiple layers of safety. It's light, durable, recyclable, and it is capable of delivering enough power to accelerate the Tesla Roadster from 0 to 60 mph in under 4 seconds. Meanwhile, the battery stores enough energy for the vehicle to travel about 220 miles without recharging, something no other production electric vehicle in history can claim.
Screwed up the link: http://www.teslamotors.com/ They were going to build the new manufacturing facility here in Albuquerque but instead are going to build them in CA.
yeah it goes only like 125 miles on the hydrogen, and the next 300 on gas. The BMW Hydrogen 7 is a pretender.
It is pathetic, where is the committment to innovation that got them ahead in the 20th century? You have to be thinking ahead or you are doomed to fall behind. Here is a company that will convert any car to run on hydrogen AND gas. DD
Converting to Hydrogen is an unnecessary and very expensive step. Just burn natural gas in conventional combustion engines. Why have the catalyst and expensive storage solutions while you're still getting Hydrogen from Natgas? And if you're going to wait until there are large solar/nuclear/geothermal electrolysis production of Hydrogen, it still makes more sense to go completely electric at the rate batteries are progressing. If you don't think these things through, and try and go in every direction at once you'll repeat mistakes like corn ethanol at the expense of progress in more promising directions.
This depends if you can generate your own hydrogen in your house, using electricity, and slowing down the trips to the gas/hydrogen station, it makes perfect sense. DD
If you're paying .12 cents per kilowatt hour, it'll cost you $6.00 per kilogram H (the rough equivalent to a gallon of gas). That's a lot of new stuff to buy to make more expensive fuel. That Honda goes 350 miles on 5 Kg's of Hydrogen, or 70 Miles per Kg- 35 miles for $3.00. The current Tesla goes about three cents per mile or 35 miles for $1.04. And all you need is that new plug in your garage. No Hydrogen tanks, no 24/7 home fueling operation, no colorless, odorless, explosive gas that needs to be highly compressed- which hasn't been factored into previous cost estimates. The Honda car is a million dollar prototype, the Tesla is in production. The fact that hydrogen production is less efficient to the electrical grid means you'll see higher usage rates vs pure electrics once widely adopted. Why even bother down that road when it's full of inefficiencies and added costs?
Hydrogen makes no sense to me.....there is no net gain in energy. It's a very inefficent process. Plug-in EVs is where its at.
But until you have ultra capacitors (and can charge your car in 5 minutes), people will need Gasoline or Hydrogen. Most of the EV cars go around 300 miles tops, then need to be recharged. How would you take a trip? People will want the ability to travel more than 300 miles....also other vehicles too. Maybe the future is a duplicious one, with each family having a few different types of vehicles. And as for inefficiencies, we have been driving a highly inefficient piston engine for more than 100 years..... I think the technology that wins will be one of convienience. DD
I'm worried about cars becoming appliances. I mean, there are still driving enthusiasts out there. They need to do something for us. lol
In the short term, solutions like the Chevy Volt and it's small gas generator step in. Long term, charging stations could become ubiquitous while batteries give longer ranges and faster charge times. Of course, if we try to go in every direction at once, none of those things will get done, and we'll have three (gas, electric, hydrogen) parallel infrastructures trying to make it and no one will be happy.
This is just not true, when has any innovation ever been just one direction, competing technologies are GREAT at advancing something until one is the clear winner. Did you see the United Nuclear link I posted earlier? They will convert your car to run on both Hydrogen and Gasoline. And a solar panel station that recharges the Hydrogen fuel tanks, so essentially it is nuetral as far as cost goes. I think something like this works well while the rest of the technologies compete to see which works better. For instance in the Tesla, they are having issues with the transmissions, getting them to have 2 gears for higher speeds......I am sure it will get worked out, but still not a totally completed product...even though they are slowly shipping them. DD
How about Edison/Westinghouse? That didn't go so well for D/C. Competing technologies are great when there aren't HUGE up front expenses needed to bring economies of scale. The United Nuclear link you gave is full of it. At current market prices it takes a $56,000.00 solar array to make enough power to produce 1kg/H per day, depending on season/latitude/cloud cover. Tesla having transmission problems makes me think that suppliers are blackballing them or they're doing it in house. Nothing special THAT special about a 10,000 RPM 2 speed transmission. Hell the new V-MAX tranny would probably work with a touch of damping.
LOL - the United Nuclear team has been running on hydrogen for over 10 years.....I don't know about their recharge and solar panels issue, I would guess you still have to plug in to generate the hydrogen. The problem you are still not acknowledging is that in an electric car, I can not drive from Austin to New Orleans...... Until you have a car that can go a lot more than 300 miles or have a way of quickly charging it, people will resist that option, or it will not be a complete option. DD
I did acknowledge the range of electric cars, I mentioned the Chevy Volt, which uses a small gas generator to charge the batteries if you want to drive 300 miles. It is a stop-gap solution until range and charge time/location issues are solved. It requires no revolutionary change in industrial infrastructure or a large investment for the car owner (electrolysis station) If Hydrogen is going to make it, everyone involved has to go all in. I think that's a bad idea but I'd agree it's better than nothing.
I don't think anyone has to go all in, what I am saying is that hydrogen is a supplemental fuel, that you still use gasoline and hyrdogen, and hybrid technology. I do like the volt, but it also uses gasoline....still a step in the right direction though. DD
