40 minutes ago, Lady Elanore said:

Oh come one, who doesn't want an airship? 

 

 

But an airship using Helium as the lift gas rather than hydrogen and you can use some of the helium gas to do funny voices rather than get blown to bits with one chemistry's most powerful energy releases.

 

"When one mole of hydrogen molecules (two grams) combines with half a mole of oxygen molecules (16 grams) to form one mole of water molecules (18 grams), the energy given off turns out to be 242,000 joules, assuming that the water comes out as a gas rather than as a liquid."

https://physics.weber.edu/schroeder/eee/chapter4.pdf

 

 

We don't have much Helium to spare 😞 It's very limited commodity. Besides, floating on air in a ship filled with Voodoo treated seawater and made with windmills, sounds like even more fun than just silly voices. Plus it can lift a little more, so that means I can  have a beer fridge and a drinks cabinet on board 

20 minutes ago, Lady Elanore said:

We don't have much Helium to spare 😞 It's very limited commodity. Besides, floating on air in a ship filled with Voodoo treated seawater and made with windmills, sounds like even more fun than just silly voices. Plus it can lift a little more, so that means I can  have a beer fridge and a drinks cabinet on board 

 

True on both counts of cost and lift, I would still have the inert over the volatile.

Sadly I would probably have to buy two tickets being XXXL as like rugby players I am not even close to the 75 kgs of lifts and airships person averages...

 

 

Edited 4 March, 20224 yr by lol-lol

Maybe you can get hydrogenated beer? It would help offset any excess mass? 

 

Disclaimer not sure if hydrogenating beer would be the same as hydrogenating fat, but it seemed the right verb at the time. 

It looks like MINI/ BMW are going to have the biggest MINI being quite nippy.

 

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/new-2023-mini-countryman-phev-be-firms-most-powerful-car

All they really need to be doing is giving the range on electric with a cold battery when driving the vehicle at full revenue weight at 0*oC ambient temps and prospective buyers will be a bit better informed. 

Show the possible Minimums not Maximums. 

It's certainly not "mini!" anymore and I dread to think what it weighs 😞 

BMW should rebrand the Mini to the Oxymoron.

It's a chance to bring back the "Maxi" name  

Some background on hybrid car users experience.

 

https://octopusev.com/ev-hub/disadvantages-of-hybrid-cars

Horses for courses and there are all sorts of people needing different vehicles for different uses at different times.

So choices are a good thing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

24 minutes ago, Luckypants said:

Some background on hybrid car users experience.

 

https://octopusev.com/ev-hub/disadvantages-of-hybrid-cars

 

Hybrid, sooooo yesterday.  Fully Charged swipe at them............

 

 

I couldn't go electric, mainly because of my job, but partly because I don't like them very much. Nothing against them as a mode of transport, they seem generally excellent at that task, but they don't light my fire. Maybe once I retire or the countries' infrastructure improves I'll be happy to own one, but at the moment it looks like petrol/diesel or possibly hybrid for me.  Perhaps someone will produce a car that can guarantee me at least 300 miles range in the middle of a super cold winters night, with all the ancillaries running...and that I can afford....soon. Although I doubt it 😞 

19 hours ago, Lady Elanore said:

I couldn't go electric, mainly because of my job, but partly because I don't like them very much. ......., but they don't light my fire.

Pry do humour me. Why would you think hydrogen fuel cell cars would be any more exciting than electric cars? The driving experience (no engine noise, electric motor to wheel) will be the same.

8 hours ago, wyx087 said:

Pry do humour me. Why would you think hydrogen fuel cell cars would be any more exciting than electric cars? The driving experience (no engine noise, electric motor to wheel) will be the same.

 

Hydrogen could power an internal combustion engine and not only work as a fuel cell.

 

A ICE revving is a negative thing for the technically minded compared to the plateau of a EV car.

Top two quickest accelerating cars are EVs and ICE cars way behind in the acceleration stakes.

 

I am sure some felt sorry to see steam engines without sealed crankcases ie not seeing those conrods whizzing around.

 

Lots of EVs now do over 300 miles range, bit on the pricey side to buy initially but taken over 3 to 5 years the cost is much easier to deal with.  https://ev-database.org/compare/electric-vehicle-longest-range#sort:path~type~order=.erange_real~number~desc|range-slider-range:prev~next=0~1200|range-slider-acceleration:prev~next=2~23|range-slider-topspeed:prev~next=110~450|range-slider-battery:prev~next=10~200|range-slider-towweight:prev~next=0~2500|range-slider-fastcharge:prev~next=0~1500|paging:currentPage=0|paging:number=all

 

Add to this the much less harm EVs do to children and vulnerable health due to the NOX and the banning of Russian oil and doubling of fuel prices should get us to EV land sooner rather than later. 

 

Looking to forward to seeing more EV motorcycles, I suspect the riding experience will be pretty awesome.

 

Edited 8 March, 20224 yr by lol-lol

@lol-lol 

Lets list them. 

  Which are these EV's that have a '300 mile range when it is a super cold winter night with all ancillaries running and that @Lady Elanorecan afford', 

this was the brief. 

 

I think she can afford quite a lot if she gets low cost electric and runs it instead of what she does, but maybe that is not the case.

 

Norwegian conditions might well be not that common in the UK but not that unusual.

 

 

Edited 8 March, 20224 yr by roottoot

On 08/03/2022 at 08:52, wyx087 said:

Pry do humour me. Why would you think hydrogen fuel cell cars would be any more exciting than electric cars? The driving experience (no engine noise, electric motor to wheel) will be the same.

I like the idea of the technology and if hydrogen was to be used in an I.C.E. it would keep my petrolhead heart alive. 

This thread wasn't meant to be about EVs and the benefits and problems with them, but I'll say this. I recently worked with two people with EVs. One with a Tesla X (claimed 360 range) and one with a Kia Soul (claimed 280 range). Neither car gets anywhere close to these figures in real world driving, easily lose 100 miles of range in cold weather with all the electrics running (which, if you buy a nice car with heated seats, aircon, big sound hifi etc you want to use in the many hours we spend in our cars). In fact, the X model was very disappointing. The build quality is atrocious! The panel fitting was done by a bunch of drunken Lego enthusiasts, whilst wearing blindfolds and the interior leather was stretched terribly. Anyhoo both these cars had to be taken off site during the day and the owners drove around Hartlepool looking for a charge point so they could get home (between 01:00 and 03:00hrs) depending on which driveryou are talking about). They were fortunate that the specific jobs they did on that day, allowed them time to do this, it is not usually the case. Otherwise, they would have had to stop at a service station, probably on the way home and incur the inflated prices therein. I passed them on the motorway on their way home, as they also chose a distinctly slow cruising speed to maximise their range. 

 

Interestingly, the Kia spent most of the first few months of its life at the dealers owing to repeated faults. 

 

So far I am not impressed with EVs and I don't believe they are as ethically green as they claim. Don't get me wrong, I realise they are greener than combustion cars, but in the 'real world' they are not the streets ahead they say. I don't include the sort of cars I like in this, as they are not particular green cars (my 130TC Strada added 0.08% of the petrol fumes in the planet's atmosphere all on its own). I have not posted on here for a few days, because I've been working very long days and driving home in the depths of the night, occasionally getting home around 02:00 before setting off early the next morning for the next job. I'm not entirely sure if I could home charge a long range EV fully in the time available, on the odd occasion where I have a very short turnaround. As it happens this week, very late at night, I simply drove to the petrol station near where I live, handed over a promissory note for my internal organs and filled the tank. Filling a car every day is obviously expensive, but it means I didn't need to find a hotel at stupid o'clock in the morning and I could get home, pop my wet weather gear into a tumble drier if needed, make myself some lunch for the next job etc etc.

 

I started this thread as I am considering a Hybrid. See I don't dislike electric motors  EVs simply don't work for my lifestyle. Perhaps in 8 years or so when I retire, they will be fine, I certainly expect them to be. 

 

Please start another thread though if you guys want to talk about EVs. Lets keep this one to Hybriddiddys Ta  

Edited 12 March, 20224 yr by Lady Elanore
Additional info

On 07/03/2022 at 11:24, Luckypants said:

Some background on hybrid car users experience.

 

https://octopusev.com/ev-hub/disadvantages-of-hybrid-cars

 

Who would have guessed...   An electricity supply company trying to put people off hybrids and promoting EVs which use what...   Oh yes electricity...

The more I look into hybrids, the more I think they are a clever idea that might give an economy edge to the petrol car and at the same time, raise it's green credentials, But, at the same time, it is the worst of two different technologies. I feel it can be no more than a stop gap measure, regardless of whether we go battery, or some form of hydrogen power. I detest the current batteries that we have, as they are extraordinarily heavy, and relatively slow to charge. If you want to hold a large charge, then the whole shebang weighs a ridiculous amount and so reduces some of the gains the capacity increase should bring. It presumably will eventually show no further gains in range at some point on that seemingly inverse exponential curve. It feels to me that battery tech is like fusion tech, it's always just around the corner...

7 hours ago, Lady Elanore said:

I like the idea of the technology and if hydrogen was to be used in an I.C.E. it would keep my petrolhead heart alive. 

Only part of the problem is using stored carbon fuel, the other part is combustion. The 3rd part is the massive inefficiency with getting the hydrogen, let along idea of combusting it in such thermally inefficient way.

 

1 hour ago, Lady Elanore said:

It feels to me that battery tech is like fusion tech, it's always just around the corner...

That's exactly hydrogen and solid state.,....

 

But we must stop burning stuff ASAP!

We have been told repeatedly, that batteries which are made of more environmentally friendly substances are "just around the corner" and solid state batteries are "just around the corner" but if they are, they don't seem to in anything I can see at the moment. 

 

Burning hydrogen can be made very friendly, with the NOx being controllable and of a very low order, with a bit of care and attention. You won't get high performance engines that way (see JCB), but it's early doors for that specific use of technology, unlike batteries and electric motors. An advantage of making hydrogen is it can be stored comparatively easily and stored for a very long time. It is also a quick way to replenish the energy store in your car. 

 

But this is not Hybriddidy...   at the moment 

24 minutes ago, Lady Elanore said:

We have been told repeatedly, that batteries which are made of more environmentally friendly substances are "just around the corner" and solid state batteries are "just around the corner" but if they are, they don't seem to in anything I can see at the moment. 

 

Burning hydrogen can be made very friendly, with the NOx being controllable and of a very low order, with a bit of care and attention. You won't get high performance engines that way (see JCB), but it's early doors for that specific use of technology, unlike batteries and electric motors. An advantage of making hydrogen is it can be stored comparatively easily and stored for a very long time. It is also a quick way to replenish the energy store in your car. 

 

But this is not Hybriddidy...   at the moment 

 

My firm has made thousands of car with solid state Lithium Metal Polyimide batteries.

 

We now licence the tech to Mercedes and they use it in their 12M buses.

 

https://youtu.be/Om3uVW4lskE

 

 

 

 

Edited 13 March, 20224 yr by lol-lol

10 hours ago, lol-lol said:

 

My firm has made thousands of car with solid state Lithium Metal Polyimide batteries.

 

We now licence the tech to Mercedes and they use it in their 12M buses.

 

https://youtu.be/Om3uVW4lskE

 

 

 

 

 

Those are lithium ion batteries...   Not solid state... 

 

https://www.mercedes-benz-bus.com/en_GB/models/ecitaro/technology/battery-technology.html

29 minutes ago, skomaz said:

 

Those are lithium ion batteries...   Not solid state... 

 

https://www.mercedes-benz-bus.com/en_GB/models/ecitaro/technology/battery-technology.html

 

I will await your apology.....

https://blue-storage.com/en/our-technology/

 

LMP®: cutting-edge, effective and safe technology

Backed by more than 20 years of research, the Bolloré Group is the only manufacturer that masters solid-state Lithium Metal Polymer technology (LMP®)

Considered as safer than other battery technologies, these fourth-generation batteries present major benefits.

Made of thin films produced using extrusion techniques perfected by the Bolloré Group, LMP® batteries stand out by their high energy density, safety of use, and performances :

• They are not affected by high external temperatures and do not need any cooling system thus preserving excellent performance with improved reliability

Operating up to more than 105 ° C, they do not present a risk of thermal runaway thus ensuring optimum safety

• They are solvent-free and contain no “rare earths” so the risks of local pollution are especially limited in the event of an accident or violation of the battery pack integrity.
• They do not undergo a calendar aging keeping all their capacity along their lifespan
• They are composed of cells made in France and Canada, without cobalt and nickel, leading to an optimized LCA

 

No apology needed...   I didn't say they weren't made...   But Mercedes' info I've seen says they aren't in that vehicle.

 

There is a version of the eCitaro with solid state battery technology but it's limited availability, cannot be used with pantographs etc. and has a range of about 120 to 200 miles which potentially limits it's use in general service.

Edited 13 March, 20224 yr by skomaz