lbdroidman
Active Member
Chemical batteries are a dead end. It comes down to the cost, both in terms of price and in terms of environment. The amount of diesel burned through unregulated engines in 3rd world countries to mine for what the batteries are made out of creates much greater emissions than the amount of gasoline that would be run through an ICE engine.
On top of that, the overall energy efficiency of electric vehicles is much lower than ICE. Energy efficiency ratings that suggest that electric vehicles are more efficient are only measuring from the battery to the wheels and comparing it from the gas tank to the wheels on ICE. They don't account for the power plant efficiency, conversion costs, transmission costs, and charging costs. Remember that the ICE vehicle carries its power plant with it.
Its a pipe dream right now to have clean energy. Most electricity comes from coal, oil, gas, or garbage fueled power plants. Hydro/wind/water is a pretty small component. Nuclear is horrendously inefficient and its hard to argue that its clean energy because of the kind of waste it produces. But if power supply was made green, then there could be an argument for electric vehicles, but only when ignoring the vehicle manufacturing costs.
So for electric vehicles to really be viable, two things are needed that we don't have just yet;
1) clean power supply,
2) sufficiently high performing supercapacitors with low cost manufacturing. This is probably closer to reality than clean power supply, some carbon based materials show a lot of promise in this area.
On top of that, the overall energy efficiency of electric vehicles is much lower than ICE. Energy efficiency ratings that suggest that electric vehicles are more efficient are only measuring from the battery to the wheels and comparing it from the gas tank to the wheels on ICE. They don't account for the power plant efficiency, conversion costs, transmission costs, and charging costs. Remember that the ICE vehicle carries its power plant with it.
Its a pipe dream right now to have clean energy. Most electricity comes from coal, oil, gas, or garbage fueled power plants. Hydro/wind/water is a pretty small component. Nuclear is horrendously inefficient and its hard to argue that its clean energy because of the kind of waste it produces. But if power supply was made green, then there could be an argument for electric vehicles, but only when ignoring the vehicle manufacturing costs.
So for electric vehicles to really be viable, two things are needed that we don't have just yet;
1) clean power supply,
2) sufficiently high performing supercapacitors with low cost manufacturing. This is probably closer to reality than clean power supply, some carbon based materials show a lot of promise in this area.
