Another way forward could be in the form of a hydrogen/bev plug-in hybrid. That way the convinience is there when you need it, but running costs are helped by plugging in at home. Basically like a current plug-in, but doesn't also run on explosive dinosaurs.
Why not just spend the money on a bigger battery? --- Post updated --- So the Motor magazine published the European Commission's data on automaker R&D spending in 2018. I decided to post it here, but also add data on R&D spending as a percentage of revenue, and R&D spending per car (if I could find it on Wikipedia; it'd take too much time to seek further). I also omitted the multitude of low-spending Chinese brands, due to their relative irrelevance in the West. Volkswagen - €13.14b/$14.62b (5.57%, €1193/$1327). Daimler - €8.66b/$9.64b (5.17%; €2551/$2839). Toyota - €7.86b/$8.75b (3.21%; €739/$823). Ford - €6.67b/$7.42b (4.63%; €1112/$1237). BMW - €6.11b/$6.8b (6.27%; €2405/$2675) GM - €6.09b/$6.77b (4.6%; €726/$808) Honda - €5.4b/$6b (4.24%; ?) FCA - €4.28b/$4.76b (3.88%; €930/$1035) Nissan - €3.66b/$4.07b (3.32%; €659/$733). Renault - €2.96b/$3.29b (5.15%; €718/$799). PSA - €2.93b/$3.26b (3.96%; €775/$862). Tata - €2.49b/$2.77b (6.27%; ?) Hyundai - €1.83b/$2.03b (2.54%; €377/$418) Kia - €1.17b/$1.3b (2.89%; €389/$432) Tesla - €1.15b/$1.28b (5.96%; €4694/$5225). Suzuki - €1.03b/$1.15b (4.38%; €358/$400). Mazda - €1b/$1.1b (3.51%; €832/$915). Subaru - €0.89b/$0.99b (3.23%; €836/$930). Mitsubishi - €0.76b/$0.84b (3.63%; €704/$778). Ferrari - €0.74b/$0.82b (21.66%; €79,991/$88,639). Aston Martin - €0.25b/$0.28b (19.86%; ~€50,000/~€56,000). Mahindra - €0.19b/$0.21b (1.4%; ?). I wonder why do Kia, Hyundai and Suzuki spend so little? Do they have some innovative methods, or just good ol' quality control cuts? And: wow, it's costly to engineer a supercar on a per-unit basis.
Well, if a car costs £3 to design and you... Sell 300 of them: 0.01p R&D per unit Sell 3 of them: £1 R&D per unit A super car doesn't cost £500k because it has £500k worth of materials in it. It costs that much because they aren't going to sell very many, and they are expensive to design. In regards to your post, its impossible to comprehend or comment on because there is no key to state what each number represents. --- Post updated --- I suspect a few reasons, but I think it will mostly come down to market segment and number of sku's. Economy cars require less innovation than luxury/sport/"premium" cars. Hyundai and Kia do not allow for optional extras, and typically have very few paint options and trim options. For every option a car has, they have to develop both the option, and what takes its place if the option is absent. Then they have to write software that can cope with 1000's of possible variations of the same car. Then they have to test that it all works together. If you only sell 4 versions of one model, you only need to design and test 4 variants.
Batteries are heavy. I don't feel the power density is ever going to be sufficient enough, nor are they going to charge fast enough to use as a primary vehicle for all use cases within our lifetimes. I just struggle to feel that making a really large RC car is truly the way to go immediately. There needs to be a stop gap before the infrastructure is ready for BEV's. Major unpopular opinion? Apparently so. But I'm a realist. The technology just isn't ready to be used how an ICE or hydrogen vehicle can be used. Not to mention planes, trains, ships, etc. Trains are already hybrids, so the work to convert them to hydrogen is minimal. Planes may still require combustion, though large electric motors are easy to make. Planes can easily be retrofitted. There are already nuclear powered ships, retrofitting is easy. It's the future at best and a stop gap at worst.
Remember, much of the world already use pure electrified trains --- Post updated --- Nah hybrids aren't uncommon actually, but most passenger rail in UK and Europe is already electrified, along with some freight
Trains dont make too much sense with hydrogen because most already use electric power. But planes could be a problem but there would be a way. Also yes im totally with you that electric cars just arent there yet also i dont think its practical to daily use for most people just because of the batterys. Also fast charging and inductive charging waste alot of power too so its not too good to do that. I also think the battle ICE against Electric isnt fought to the end yet.
They work for shorter journeys in populated areas, yes. But the minute you try to travel across Siberia or in the wheat fields of the US it's a little impractical. How do we solve that? Run power lines everywhere? That's expensive. Electrify the rails? People like to play on train tracks for some reason. Think of the lawsuits. Sorry folks, I just can't see it. Obviously I'm missing something. Maybe I'm a pessimist, I don't know. I'm agreeing to the fact that electric is the future, don't forget that. I'm just not apart of the BEV circlejerk. There are better ways that people refuse to accept as not fact, but just possibilities.
Don't know how accurate this image is, since I am pretty sure the UK east coast mainline (London->Edinburgh) has overhead wires, but it might be a good visual point of reference. The east coast mainline electrification began in 1976, its pretty established technology at this point. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_electrified_railways_in_Northern_Europe.jpg Red for overhead wire, yellow for 3rd rail, orange for unspecified electrification and black where electrification status is unknown.
Again, perfect for highly populated areas in (relatively speaking) short distances. Europe has a fairly large population density, especially in the cities. It's a very similar story in countries like Japan. Of course, we can't forget that things like Trams and subways all over the world are almost exclusively fully electric. But again, short distances in highly populated areas. Take me across Australia.
Have you looked at China's railway network, or perhaps India's? Obviously they are both heavily populated countries, but their electric railway lines cover quite some distance, including some less densely populated areas. I think the problems you describe with electric rail are not a technological issue. More of a, are people willing to invest in infrastructure problem. In the US, the answer to that, in regards to mass transit seems to be no.
I think that's what it comes down to, lack of investment in the US, and a lack of willingness to invest. Plus a pretty flakey power grid to start with. Does make me wonder how much power a train in motion actually uses though, how viable would it be to have a train that charges where overhead/third rail power is available and coasts between towns on battery --- Post updated --- My suspicion is that it's a crazy idea that won't work. But yeah, electrify the bits of track which are appropriate to do so. You've got opportunity for masses of regen entering stations too plus addition of overhead lines at the station to provide the power to get the train going, then you're only using the batteries to maintain speed until the next station.
There's that old short distance train in Australia that has been converted to have solar panels on the roof. They still give the train a bit of charging at either end, so the train mounted solar panels are not enough alone. But they were using flexible solar panels to preserve the trains appearance. Maybe with a more efficient train design, towing many carriages with high efficiency solar panels, you could maintain motion. Then add some batteries that can be charged at stations, mainly for getting the thing rolling. Then you could have a hydrogen fuel cell as an insurance policy just in case that isn't enough. I'm not a mechanical/electrical engineer, but as far as I know all the above tech is proven individually. Finding a way to combine them isn't outside the realm of human ability, our houses can already choose whether to draw from the grid or a solar panel, which is essentially the same problem. Equally, better solutions that I didn't pull out of my bum on the spot probably exist too, possibly already implemented. But to my knowledge, passenger trains aren't a part of America's transport strategy moving forward?
Shorter term I wasn't even thinking hydrogen. The locomotives in use are already diesel-electric. Could retain the diesel generator
Dammit, I was trying to exploit Cunningham's Law to get counter-arguments, instead all I got was a shitpost.
I was flipping through the last few pages of the Update Speculation Thread recently. Honestly? The discussion there makes me sick. Spoiler: Rant about the climate The environment is literally crumbling around us. Species are being ripped from their habitats, natural resources are being exploited, the ocean is chock full of plastic, and people are getting physically ill over all of the smog. This has to stop. but will it? Of course not! Megacorporations don't want to change their bottom line, "car enthusiasts" don't want to stop having wet dreams about "driving feel" in rattletrap shitboxes from 20 years ago, and the morons who actually think that climate change isn't real don't want to force their absolutely tiny minds to think any differently. None of these things will change, and someday we'll realize what we've done to planet Earth. The days will get warmer and warmer, the beaches smaller and smaller, and soon enough the world will be a completely different place. But every effort made past that boint will be too little too late, and all of a sudden we can't survive here. That is the reality of our environment's situation. One person in the update speculation thread said they'd rather die in a car crash than "lose that driving feel" or "own one of those darn evs that those darn liberals have", and that's honestly kind of sad. We don't know if our world is beyond the point of no return yet. (It most likely is.) If we don't make a change, the environment won't change either. It's so astonishingly ignorant that these people don't care about any of this at all because it doesn't affect their own day-to-day lives. But what about the Indian man who has to wear a mask every time he walks outside? Climate change affects HIS day-to-day life. What about the Puerto Rican family who doesn't have power after one of the world's strongest hurricane struck them two years ago? That effects THEIR day-to-day lives. Just because you're not suffering doesn't mean that someone else isn't. Frankly, I don't want to listen to some broken-english spewing cucumber with a passion for pollution and mundane sedans ramble on and on about the nonexistant "driving feel" that they claim their base model Deisel has. I'm not going to talk about this anymore. I am thoroughly disgusted.
