05-12-2017, 12:28 PM
(05-03-2017, 09:27 AM)Cormanus_imp Wrote: My prediction is that because the technology of batteries is improving all the time there will be more and more pressure for electric vehicles. That means there will be more pressure to solve the range problem given that it seems likely charging will continue to take quite a while.
The solution is relatively simple if government is prepared to get behind it: mandating a limited number of batteries for use in vehicles and requiring that it be really easy to swap them out. Battery stations will then begin to replace petrol stations or petrol stations will stock batteries that they can charge and then swap for customers. You pull into the station and replace a flattened battery with a charged one and head on.
The battery technology is improving, but in too small increments to be of practical value for transportation. If it did, rail transportation systems that would have no problem standardizing the battery and setting swap-statins would long ago migrate to it.
Quote:The solution is relatively simple if government is prepared to get behind it: mandating a limited number of batteries for use in vehicles and requiring that it be really easy to swap them out. Battery stations will then begin to replace petrol stations or petrol stations will stock batteries that they can charge and then swap for customers. You pull into the station and replace a flattened battery with a charged one and head on.
No government is likely to do that. Why? Because the aforementioned incremental improvements in the battery technology. It is obvious that the battery technology has a long way to go if the vehicle range problem is to be solved, and standardizing the battery would be detrimental to the progress of the battery technology.
Reversible electro-chemical process as the method of storing energy in a moving vehicle is a fad, not a long-term transportation solution. One of these days there will be a clean-burning (or -decaying) solid "fuel" that will lend itself to the creation of a distribution and storage system similar to the present day liquid hydrocarbon system, but more efficient and creating less particulate pollution. It would also have to be economically competitive to hydrocarbon fuel. (What again is the cost of a Tesla car? Before the $18K apiece that is subsidized by tax-payers and naive investors!)
We will know that the revolution in transportation is imminent when we see railways switching to new technology.