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Comment Re:Intermittent Energy Sources mostly not an optio (Score 1) 100

Hydrogen sucks for multiple small and surprising ways.

- pernicious molecule: embrittlement of metals means expensive installations, heavy maintenance and explosion risks
- it's also a greenhouse gas
- needs to be stored at high pressure and low temperature, so you can't just put it in a tank and forget about it, it requires energy input to store.
- each time you transfer it from one pressure vessel to another, you need to pressurise and cool again

All these small problems add up to make it uncompetitive with other solutions.

Comment Re:Intermittent Energy Sources mostly not an optio (Score 4, Interesting) 100

Intermittent energy sources are so cheap, you just build more of them. Use all the different kinds, and the gaps get smaller and smaller. And with batteries, you can cover the gaps. Eventually, hydro and similar will be filling in the last gaps. And we'll keep a few gas peaker plants that'll run on biogas from garbage and manure.

Comment Re:Ah yes, cheap batteries (Score 5, Informative) 100

It's ok to be a bit paranoid, but not everything is a conspiracy against you.

Also, you think they're talking about consumer batteries? And even if consumer batteries were cheap, you think the hardware store would sell them to you cheap?

We're not talking AAA batteries. These are EV battery-size and bigger.

You can't buy this: https://www.tesla.com/megapack ... at a hardware store.

Comment Re:Hopefully the end of Hybrid too. (Score 1) 472

Lolz.
A hybrid is not more complex than a pure ICE.
It is basically a BEV with a small gasoline engine and a generator in the trunk.

That's exactly what we mean when we say "a lot more complex". Other than the battery itself, and some battery management software, electric vehicles are (can be) extremely simple compared to combustion. No turbo, no timing belt, no catalytic converter, no hot exhaust, no emissions sensor, no variable valve timing, no cam belt, no crank-shaft/piston vibration, no cold starts, no high-pressure fuel injection, no high-voltage spark-plug, no head gasket that leaks, no piston rings, no hydraulics. Modelling and designing fuel/air injection, piston shape etc. alone is hugely complex.

It's just because so much effort has been put into it through the years that you don't notice most of the complexity. Except when things break.

And on top of that, you need technology to know when to use one or the other, and sometimes both. Electrics simplify all that shit.

Comment Re: It's definitely upending auto dealerships (Score 1) 472

> There are people with 2013 Leafs

And I'm sure there are people with Ford Pintos that can't get replacement engines. My point is 1 bad car doesn't mean all cars are bad. Electric or gas or diesel.

In 2013 there were only about 3-4 electric cars on the market. And Nissan, for some crazy reason, chose not to put active cooling on their batteries, even after Tesla showed that it was crucial for battery longevity.

Comment Wow (Score 4, Insightful) 74

This is huge. Most were lamenting that the COP was hosted by UAE and so many oil-lobbyists, but maybe that was what was needed.

I just hope this "compromise" wasn't just giving all our money to oil nations, and allowing them to continue to dominate us in other ways.

The cynical voices are shouting loudly in my head, but hopefully this will guide decision-makers for the coming times.

Comment Re:Doomed (Score 1) 230

So the article you link lists a bunch of companies that have "plans".

The most promising one, and only one that is actually producing batteries right now Qing Tao Energy, has this description from the linked article:

Quote:
> No one has managed to produce them in volume at an attractive price point yet.
>
> We don’t know Qing Tao Energy’s price point and to be fair, they are not quite at
> volume production.

> 100 MWh is a decent capacity, but it would result in less than 2,000 long-range
> electric vehicles per year.

> I’d file this in “interesting development”, but it definitely doesn’t mean that
> solid-state is taking over just now.

You said:
> They are.

Did you mean they are dominant, or they are a new idea? Either way, if you read my comments, I am saying:

* New battery development takes a long time
* There's no guarantee your new tech product will lead the market, even if it's better on paper. For example if it costs 5 times as much to manufacture.
* Solid state won't lead the market for the next 5-10 years.
* People shouldn't wait to buy an electric car because of some tech they are waiting for. The current state of the art is plenty good enough. But buyer beware, make sure you buy a decent EV.

Comment Re: Doomed (Score 2) 230

The Model S was a strategic product for Tesla in the beginning - that's no longer the case. Model 3 and Model Y are Tesla's strategic focus now. That's why they increased the Model S price, to give it some margin head-room.

Model Y is the best-selling vehicle globally so far this year. A bit early to proclaim "Tesla's been dead for quite some time now", don't you think?

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