No longer worth it to plug in Electric Cars or Plug-In Hybrids in Areas wit High Electricity Costs and Low Gasoline Costs

[Ashton Crusher]

Another issue that bothers me is the added complexity. You have all the possible failure modes for the gas side of it, plus you've added all the failure modes possible on the electric side, plus you've added all the possible new modes simply from combining the two technologies. I doubt very much I would ever buy a hybrid, lease maybe. I want to go with either straight gasoline or straight electric. And of the two I tend to think the electric will be the best in the long run when it becomes possible to charge/swap out batteries in 10 minutes or less.

[Frank]

Fuel cells can be made that use natural gas and State of Delaware was fooled into financing a fuel cell manufacturer, Bloom Energy, to make them here. Delaware has a carbon cap rule but Dem's declared that these cells did not have to abide by it. So far Bloom is way behind in getting anything going yet we've been paying for it with an extra $5 or so tacked on to every electric customers bill. Fact is that turbines can get more electricity out of natural gas than fuel cells not to mention that someone is suing because they have better cells than Bloom and were not given a chance to bid. Get politicians involved in mandating science and we all know what happens.

[Stormin Mormon]

Was it ever cost effective? I doubt it.

- . Christopher A. Young Learn about Jesus

.

[Pete C.]

The good thing about hydrogen is that you can use it in conventional engines and it's combustion emission is water vapor. Thus you can have a "remote electric zero emissions vehicle" in that you can use "green" electricity to separate and compress the hydrogen and then use it to run a fairly conventional car.

[Pete C.]

When gas was below $1/gal, the US Dollar was also worth quite a bit more than it is today. Between the built-in depreciation of the Dollar and the "Quantitative Easing" taxation of every Dollar in existence the value has fallen considerably.

[Frank]

Maybe in some esoteric uses like space craft. I recall, and maybe it is still true, that a pound of car costs about the same as a pound of hamburger. You don't use fillet mignon to make hamburger.

[Frank]

Big problem with hydrogen is cost of transporting it. Off hand, I recall, a mole of gas occupies about 22.4 liters at standard temperature and pressure. A mole of hydrogen weighs 2 grams. You can figure out what kind of pressures and containers it would take to contain even a gallon of hydrogen as if a liquid. Then, of course, there is the infrastructure problem. Hydrogen filling stations needed to fill tanks to maybe 5,000 psi. How'd you like to have a car with one of these tanks parked in your garage? ;)

[Ed Pawlowski]

Actually, my Hyundai Sonata with 2.0 turbo is supposed to have the plugs changed at 48,000 miles. They also recommend oil changes at 4800 instead of the usual 7500 miles on the V6

Oh, at 40k I also changed the cabin filter at a cost of $9. At 100k I will have spent about $900. No anti-freeze, no tune up.

[rbowman]

It's been all downhill since Sunoco 200 made it up to 25 cents a gallon...

[rbowman]

The two popular pressures are 350 bar (5000 psi) and 700 bar (10000 psi). BMW has been fooling around with liquid hydrogen, but that's about -425 degrees F. Even with an insulated tank it's going to warm up and vent.

Even straight compression is another hit on the efficiency let alone going the cryogenic route.

Most people wouldn't think about the tank. An oxygen tank in a welding rig is 2000-2500 psi when it's full, and a scuba tank is 3000 psi. I do get a little squeamish when I see people horsing oxygen cylinders around without the bonnet. Never saw it and it might be an urban legend but I've heard they make great unguided missiles if you snap the vale off.

[Pete C.]

I believe they are running them closer to 10,000 psi. I've routinely strapped 3,000 psi gas cylinders to my back (SCUBA), fire fighters use

4,500 psi ones (SCBA) and I have a number of 2215 psi cylinders in my shop that I transport in my truck periodically. It's not a big deal.

[Pete C.]

Mythbusters did an episode on that, and the cylinder punched through a block wall and would have gone through a second one if it had space to accelerate again.

[trader_4]

It's very unusual to need plugs changed at 48K miles in any car today. I'd bet that's more of a scheme to make money for the dealers than a real service reqt. I recently changed plugs at 140K miles on a BMW. They showed their age, but the car was still running perfectly, no codes, etc. And mileage stayed the same before and after. Typically, I'd change them at around 100K, assuming you intend to keep the car for another 50K+

[trader_4]

Which is a regressive tax that hits everyone, including low income. But that doesn't seem to bother the libs that vote for it.

Remember Carter's shale oil project? They spent $1bil+ and never produced a drop of oil. And ironically now that we could be getting oil from a similar private venture in Canada, that knows what they are doing and has the oil ready to go, the same kind of loons are blocking the K pipeline.

[Stormin Mormon]

Worth noting, hydrogen is not found in the wild. It's only a method of transporting energy which comes from some other source. You can't drill and find hydrogen. It's made by passing electricity through water, and that electricity comes from some where else.

Talking about clean hydrogen power is like talking about clean extension cord power. It's got to get power from some where up the cord a bit.

- . Christopher A. Young Learn about Jesus

.

[Pete C.]

We've been talking about hydrogen used as a "battery", and the fact that hydrogen is rather inefficient for that currently but does have the advantage of being able to be used in conventional IC engines, not just in fuel cells. Hydrogen is also produced from natural gas which is an entirely different thing and essentially still a "fossil" fuel.

[rbowman]

Actually most hydrogen is produced by steam reforming of methane. The bad news is the end products after two reactions are carbon dioxide and hydrogen. When you start with hydrocarbons, you have to do something with the carbon.

[Ed Pawlowski]

This is the first car in a while that requires that. I guess the plugs on a turbo may deteriorate faster if driven hard. Since the engine warranty is 100K, I don't want to give them an "out" if something happens later. On other cars, I've gone 125,000 with no change in performance.

I'm also paying to have the plugs put in. Would never have thought to do that years ago, but I don't even see the plugs on this engine. Under the shroud someplace. As I get older, I find it easier to write checks than to shovel stuff and pull wrenches.

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Malcom "Mal" Reynolds:

27-cent gas in 1961 was really $2.15 per gallon in 2014 dollars per

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

$.90/gallon around here in early 1990, during the gulf war when people expected it to go up.