300rag
It's Not Going to Shift Itself
Genset max output is just that. It will only supply an amount dictated by the load attached to it.
Did French owned Mopar come up with a silly idea? 2025 Ramcharger
- Thread starter Northcoast300h
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Northcoast300h
Active Member
As Daly corrected me, there's 2 bad ideas. You might be correct about the 1500REV. It's est is 70-100K depending on options. The Ramcharger which this thread is about is supposed to start at 65K. A nice $42K 1500 with a 5.7 V8 is less expensive over its life, based on my math on the previous page.
It seems to me the only EV that is cheaper to maintain and run than gas vehicles is small vehicles where they don't cost too much, the small battery isn't pushing too much weight so range is still good.....and therefore can be charged within minutes rather than hours....but what American wants a tiny vehicle? I don't, but tiny EV's are probably a great idea in Europe and Asia.
Northcoast300h
Active Member
Thanks 300rag. I'm guessing French Mopar has some new tech Tesla has never seen before because:
1) Since Ramcharger will probably charge multiple times each day, I'm guessing life will be cut in half. Lithium batteries only have a certain amount of recharge cycles till dead.
2) The Genset - Any charge over 50kwh is considered a quick charge. Quick charges lower the lifespan too. Not too much, only 2% per yr, but that's 20% reduction after 10yrs, plus the normal 2% deterioration, This Ramchargers' battery will be 40% dead after 10yrs....and that's if the truck is maintained properly. Add the multiple charging above and truck won't move.
After about 20% battery loss, will the generator be able to keep up? I see a lot of warranty claims after 5yrs. But again I'm not an electrical engineer so I'm probably wrong.
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polara71
Old Man with a Hat
Give me Gasoline, Give me oil, give me diesel until the end of time.
I only wanna see a plug when life has run out of me.
I only wanna see a plug when life has run out of me.
Mike66Chryslers
Senior Member
Tesla is smart to not develop a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. Hydrogen as an automotive "fuel" is a terrible idea. It is not cheap nor abundant as you claim. Green hydrogen ain't cheap, and cheap hydrogen ain't green. Japan tried to develop a hydrogen transportation infrastructure, not because it made the most economic sense, but as a make-work project for their automotive industry. They have admitted that it has been a failure. Toyota's CEO was forced to step down because he took the company in the wrong direction with H2 and now it will be an uphill battle for them to capture a sizable share of the EV market.
For the convenience of being able to refill quicker (if hydrogen refueling station infrastructure even gets built), you'd pay about 3x as much per mile travelled driving an H2 fuel cell vehicle filled with green hydrogen as you would with an EV. That cost will not go down with new technology or economies of scale either; hydrogen generation is a mature technology and the costs are well known. You can't win against the laws of thermodynamics... It requires more energy from electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen through electrolysis that you get back by recombining them in a fuel cell. Then additional electricity is needed to compress it for storage. Burning hydrogen in an internal combustion engine is an even worse idea. The first best use for green hydrogen would be to replace "black" hydrogen in existing industrial processes where it's already used today.
Oil companies are big pushers of H2 as an automotive fuel. They want to continue to make it from natural gas via steam reforming, then get the government to subsidize the construction of carbon capture and storage systems to make it seem environmentally friendly. That way they could continue with "business as usual". The net benefit in CO2 reduction for what they call "blue hydrogen" would only be 20% better than not trying to reclaim the CO2. IIRC, the US government recently subsidized 7 green hydrogen projects. I read the short descriptions of them, and (thankfully) not one was intended for hydrogen as a fuel for consumer vehicles.
As for storage of hydrogen in a metal hydride, there are drawbacks to that too. Big ones are weight (or energy density) and cost: I read that it requires 100kg of hydride to hold 1.5kg of hydrogen. 1kg of hydrogen has the equivalent energy as 1 gallon of gasoline. At that rate, the weight of EV batteries is starting to look ok by comparison. It also takes time for the hydrogen to be absorbed into the hydride, negating the refueling time advantage over an EV. So that's why they're using high-pressure tanks, which requires the H2 to be compressed. Nobody is going to buy the equipment to generate sizable amounts of H2 from water electrolysis and compress it so they can refuel their H2 cars at home.
Fratzog
Old Man with a Hat
I want to hang on to my Ram but the price of gas here in Canada is becoming stupid with carbon taxes being rolled in. The price here will increase by at least 38 cents a litre by 2030.
If I was going electric I'd be going all in and never mind this half measures hybrid nonsense. Elon's Cybertruck has 3,500 pounds of payload capacity and up to 500 miles of range. It can go from 0-60 MPH in 3 seconds and it can also tow 14,000 pounds. Plenty of truck for a retired old fart like me. Of course the price range might make me settle for the bare bones single motor rwd version. Still thinking about it.
If I was going electric I'd be going all in and never mind this half measures hybrid nonsense. Elon's Cybertruck has 3,500 pounds of payload capacity and up to 500 miles of range. It can go from 0-60 MPH in 3 seconds and it can also tow 14,000 pounds. Plenty of truck for a retired old fart like me. Of course the price range might make me settle for the bare bones single motor rwd version. Still thinking about it.
polara71
Old Man with a Hat
I thought of posting that yesterday. Then I talked myself out of it. I don't think that applies here but what-do-i-know.
Well, the car I pictured could be called an "alternative" fueled car if you think about it.
Of course, if you really get down to it, the Ramchargers were a group of racers rather than cars.
polara71
Old Man with a Hat
That was my thought process but I do not know enough to mount a defense beyond that so I let it roll.
300rag
It's Not Going to Shift Itself
Who are you, and what did you do to the real polara71?
Northcoast300h
Active Member
Thanks for the info Mike. Not saying you're wrong but where did you get that info? Because energy density of batteries is far lower than hydrogen. I agree with you that making hydrogen using the electrical grid would be very inefficient...but batteries are already very inefficient.
Hydrogen weighs near nothing, all the weight are in its tanks and has 3 times more energy than gasoline. When used as HH in vehicles, the energy does decrease, but its energy density declines to about 1/2 of gasoline.
Meanwhile, Lithium batteries energy density is about 100 times less than gasoline. Plus the weight. 20 gallons of gas weigh 120lbs. An equivalent range of 400 mile battery pack weighs about 1000lbs. Batteries are very inefficient. If all cars were electric, we'd have a hazmat apocalypse. You know most new lithium batteries use cobalt.
Cobalt is radioactive. If touched, it will continue to burn thru your body. If burnt and inhaled, you will die earlier.
Hydrogen has much more potential than batteries and its safer. (Google for proof)
Anyhow, wouldn't it of been nice if mfrs continued to clean up gas engines? Toyota made a gas engine which cleans the air. Air coming out of the tailpipe is cleaner than the air in most cities. The carbon captured could be used as energy. Only problem is the exhaust filter has to be changed every 5000 miles and costs $1000.
Still, its better than any electric vehicle.
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Mike66Chryslers
Senior Member
You have to consider the energy density of hydrogen gas by volume, which varies greatly with the pressure that it is stored at, not the energy density by mass (which would be significant if it was being carried as a liquid). So you can't make a blanket statement that the energy density of hydrogen is better than batteries. And now we're talking about compressed hydrogen gas in a tank, not stored in a hydride. As I explained, that is a complete nonstarter because it negates any supposed benefits of hydrogen over batteries (weight and refueling time). That is why no manufacturer is considering hydride storage.
I have done lots of research on this, if you couldn't tell.... much more than you'd get from a few minutes on Google. I have read many articles on the current state of hydrogen as a fuel over the years. Any sources that actually crunch the numbers, not just cheerleading puff pieces that make vague claims, prove that the economics don't work out in favor of hydrogen. Improved technology and economies of scale isn't going to tip the scales in favor of hydrogen either. The costs of generation, compression, storage and transport of hydrogen are well known to industry experts.
A very good source is a chemical process expert named Paul Martin, whom I follow on LinkedIn. I highly recommend reading his posts.
Paul Martin - Spitfire Research Inc. (www.spitfireresearch.com) | LinkedIn
Chemical process development consultant focusing on new processes for the decarbonization… · Experience: Spitfire Research Inc. (www.spitfireresearch.com) · Location: North York · 500+ connections on LinkedIn. View Paul Martin’s profile on LinkedIn, a professional community of 1 billion members.
I read yet another article just today that confirmed once again that the cost per mile travelled of a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle will be 3x as much as an EV, if you use the same source of electricity (same cost per kWh) to charge an EV battery vs using it for electrolysis of water to generate H2 and then compressing that H2. This one is a bit melodramatic in parts, but it is just the latest of many I have read on this, which came to the same logical conclusion.
ICCT Hydrogen Trucking Scenario Would Require Europe To Ban All Electric Vehicles - CleanTechnica
Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News! Improbable and unrealistic scenarios are excellent tools to explore the odder aspects of our universe. Schrödinger’s cat being both alive and dead is a case in point. The trolley problem which had a massive...
cleantechnica.com
Here's another article, with statistics from VW. They are developing EVs and not hydrogen fuel cell vehicles because they also concluded that hydrogen would require 2-3x as much energy to travel the same distance vs an EV.
Battery Electric Vs Hydrogen Fuel Cell: Efficiency Comparison
Volkswagen recently released a quite interesting comparison of the battery-electric and hydrogen fuel cell path to zero-emission mobility.
insideevs.com
Here's another informative article I read on the subject, particularly how the fossil fuel industry is pushing hydrogen. This author made a shout out to Paul Martin as well.
What Drives This Madness On Hydrogen? - CleanTechnica
As Liebreich says, it will take until 2030 for the hype to die down, because that's how long it takes to deprogram a cult.
cleantechnica.com
Here is a summary of a report on Japan's attempt to convert their energy infrastructure to hydrogen. Their conclusion is that they have spent a lot of money on the wrong things, such as transportation, which has been a failure.
Japan Tried to Build a Hydrogen Society. It Backfired Spectacularly.
Seemed like a good idea at the time.
I've read other articles that said that the basis of Japan going with hydrogen over EVs in the first place wasn't because hydrogen was superior, but because hydrogen cars would prop-up their existing auto parts businesses more than EVs would, and Japan still has a philosophy of providing their workers with jobs for life. Also, Toyota's CEO was forced to step down in shame because he admitted that he pushed the company to develop hydrogen cars, completely ignoring EVs even though they could've had a head start by leveraging their experience building hybrids, and now they are way behind in the EV market.
Gas engines today are a getting to a Rube Goldberg level of complexity with their emissions systems, stop/start systems, cylinder deactivation systems, variable timing systems, etc etc. These are making them unreliable and difficult and expensive to repair. My brother is a mechanic and he's told me all kinds of horror stories about these systems failing at fairly low mileage and the repair parts costs. It's not going to get any better.
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Northcoast300h
Active Member
Thanks Mike, I didn't know some of that stuff. Still you have to agree batteries are just another stop gap measurement.
Lithium - If all vehicles were lithium, run out in 150yrs with another 150yrs digging deep into earth...still 300yrs is pretty good.
Hydrogen - If all vehicles were Hydrogen, run out...ummmm, Billions of years...never. Even after the next big bang...never run out.
CR, (which I think is the only unbiased source) states Gasoline engines are far more reliable than Electric, and less repair costs too. Only one Telsa model got good ratings.
Today's electric vehicles are trash. Looks like I'll have to wait for all these major problems to be fixed before I buy one.
Lithium - If all vehicles were lithium, run out in 150yrs with another 150yrs digging deep into earth...still 300yrs is pretty good.
Hydrogen - If all vehicles were Hydrogen, run out...ummmm, Billions of years...never. Even after the next big bang...never run out.
CR, (which I think is the only unbiased source) states Gasoline engines are far more reliable than Electric, and less repair costs too. Only one Telsa model got good ratings.
Today's electric vehicles are trash. Looks like I'll have to wait for all these major problems to be fixed before I buy one.
Northcoast300h
Active Member
There's just too many major problems. Hoping they will solve these but engineers have already said electric cars are as safe as they can make them.
Ship set afire shipping electric cars. - Sure it happens with gasoline vehicles too, but they're able to put it out....plus they're not breathing arsenic and other horrible chemicals when lithium is burned. Everyone went overboard/evacuated and ship was set adrift ......It might still be burning today. I don't know.
Tesla Idiot shuts down boat ramp and beach. Sure that would happen with a gasoline car too, but beach was shut down much longer. I'd rather swim thru oil than caustic chemicals in batteries which will burn off your skin.
Ship set afire shipping electric cars. - Sure it happens with gasoline vehicles too, but they're able to put it out....plus they're not breathing arsenic and other horrible chemicals when lithium is burned. Everyone went overboard/evacuated and ship was set adrift ......It might still be burning today. I don't know.
Tesla Idiot shuts down boat ramp and beach. Sure that would happen with a gasoline car too, but beach was shut down much longer. I'd rather swim thru oil than caustic chemicals in batteries which will burn off your skin.
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Mike66Chryslers
Senior Member
I doubt that. Citation needed.
There are many new developments in battery technology now. These take about 10 years to go from the lab to production. Some include new chemistries that use less lithium, have higher energy density, virtually never wear out, and solid state batteries that are much safer against catching fire in accidents. EVs are still the best alternative we have to fossil fuels for vehicle power. There is little chance that they will be replaced with hydrogen, despite your glib comment about hydrogen never running out.
Hydrogen may be the most abundant element in the universe, but on earth almost all of it is tied-up attached to hydrocarbons (e.g. methane, CH4) or water. Water is the byproduct of combustion of hydrogen, and it takes more energy to reverse the chemical reaction to split it into hydrogen and oxygen that you get from the forward reaction. Hydrogen is not really a "fuel", just an energy carrier, like an inefficient type of battery that uses a fuel cell to turn it in to electrical energy.
Speaking of fuel cells, they require rare earth metals as well: platinum and iridium. Some catalytic converters also use platinum, but fuel cells use 10x as much per vehicle. And if the "hydrogen economy" actually took off, the demand for iridium would quickly outstrip the supply. And the major supplies of both these metals come from unfriendly jurisdictions such as South Africa and Russia. This and more issues with hydrogen and fuel cells are discussed in this video from physicist and science communicator, Sabine Hossenfelder:
This excellent article came out a couple days ago. It's an interview with an expert in the clean energy transition. It includes a great chart showing best to worst uses for hydrogen. The top uses are where green hydrogen can replace dirty hydrogen in existing applications, and applications that are very difficult to replace with anything else. (Light-duty transportation fuel is near the bottom of the chart.) The main focus of the article is discussing the Canadian government's plan to generate hydrogen and transport it by ship to the EU, to replace their natural gas supply from Russia that was cut off. I thought the plan was crazy the first time I read about it, which this article confirms.
Hydrogen hype: 'History will have a good laugh' at us - Halifax Examiner
Hydrogen hype is ramping up in Nova Scotia. EverWind Fuels CEO Trent Vichie recently told the Colchester Municipal Council that his company’s proposal to build massive new wind facilities in the province to power production of green hydrogen and ammonia in Point Tupper for export to Europe is...
www.halifaxexaminer.ca
Northcoast300h
Active Member
Thanks Mike for the info. Yes, hydrogen has problems, however hydrogen has much more potential than the glass ceiling of batteries. The more power they squeeze out of batteries, the more dangerous they are. You see this in the real world.
The more electric cars, the more electric utilities will raise rates for everyone. Its already happening in California.
Citation needed? So are you saying engineers can make battery cars safer....but they don't? You're making my original statements about ner....oops sorry, engineers correct. Anyhow, I saw it on a Reuters newscast, so sorry couldn't find it online.
Hey, looky here! Another problem when people believe in BS and technology is rushed thru.... like almost every battery tech....Almost every single Tesla ever made is being recalled. I can't wait when all EV's are recalled for fires. hee, hee!
I can go on about batteries being worse than fuel....but it would be a book. The only advantage I see is batteries make great muscle and sports cars, as long as they are parked far away from anything that can combust.
www.bbc.com
The more electric cars, the more electric utilities will raise rates for everyone. Its already happening in California.
Citation needed? So are you saying engineers can make battery cars safer....but they don't? You're making my original statements about ner....oops sorry, engineers correct. Anyhow, I saw it on a Reuters newscast, so sorry couldn't find it online.
Hey, looky here! Another problem when people believe in BS and technology is rushed thru.... like almost every battery tech....Almost every single Tesla ever made is being recalled. I can't wait when all EV's are recalled for fires. hee, hee!
I can go on about batteries being worse than fuel....but it would be a book. The only advantage I see is batteries make great muscle and sports cars, as long as they are parked far away from anything that can combust.
Elon Musk's Tesla recalls two million cars in US over Autopilot defect
It follows investigation into crashes which occurred when firm's Autopilot system was in use.
www.bbc.com
PG&E was just approved for a 13% price hike, and now they're asking for $2 million (billion?) to help prevent forest fires. I must say, I love this house we bought that has owned solar; my highest bill so far was in August when it was $22.95! In September it was -$17.00.
barnfind
Old Man with a Hat
Looking at Nikola trucks, hydrogen trucks costs are 2 to 3 times that of a conventional diesel truck. They have over 100 EV trucks on the road. No numbers I can find of hydrogen trucks.
