What will power our vehicles in the future?

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2123 posts

Uber Geek

#2760475 16-Aug-2021 10:25

Technofreak:

How heavy are these batteries? How much do they impact payload?

The 4680 cells are said to have a energy density of 380Wh/kg. The long range Semi with 800km loaded of range is specced to have a 500kWh pack. I'm no math star so I could have done this wrong, but the cells to make up that pack would be 1316kg. That doesn't include the weight of the actual structure that contains the cells, etc, but the 4680 pack is meant to be a structural pack which reduces a lot of that weight too. Depending on how much that adds the actual weight might not be much more than a diesel engine, transmission, fuel tank, etc.

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mudguard

2118 posts

Uber Geek

#2760476 16-Aug-2021 10:25

RobDickinson:

Technofreak:

How heavy are these batteries? How much do they impact payload?

"With both the U.S. and E.U. having approved higher weight allowances for electric heavy-duty trucks, we expect the payload to be at least as high as it would be for a diesel truck. In the E.U., electric semi trucks are allowed to be 2 tons (~4,400 pounds) heavier than diesel equivalents, and in the U.S. the allowance is 0.9 tons (2,000 pounds). When fully loaded, the Tesla Semi should be able to achieve over 500 miles of range, achieved through aerodynamics and highly efficient motors. This truck will be able to reach an efficiency of over 0.5 miles per kWh."

https://electrek.co/2021/08/13/tesla-semi-electric-truck-weight-on-point-crucial/

Not much heavier than normal trucks once you've swapped the fuel/engine/transmission etc.

Pretty sure the hydrogen vs battery for industrial use was discussed in the JCB hydrogen clip in the original post. The owner of JCB was saying electric was great for cars that do maybe 150 hours of work a year. But they have diggers in India that do 3000 hours per year. He said the issue for them, is that their 20 tonne digger would need 8 tonnes of battery, which then means it needs the 30 tonne pulleys and arms etc. So they're going in on hydrogen and will let someone else figure out the delivery mechanism.

Trucks may not come under the same workload with mandatory breaks, but industrial equipment gets double shifts etc.

RobDickinson

1524 posts

Uber Geek

#2760482 16-Aug-2021 10:32

No idea on industrial equipment, there are already battery electric diggers etc but big plant needs a lot of energy.

Hydrogen needs storing (the tanks are heavy) and fuel cells (if they use them) are not light (fcev cars are as heavy as BEVs), for trucks someone calculated Nikola's truck didnt have enough physical space for tanks to provide the range they said..

You can obviously get away with not having tanks for 24/7 use on a JCB and refuel them but you are also not going to have h2 refuelling on site either.

Ge0rge

2052 posts

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#2760485 16-Aug-2021 10:43

RobDickinson:

You can obviously get away with not having tanks for 24/7 use on a JCB and refuel them but you are also not going to have h2 refuelling on site either.

You're going to need to have the refueling on site, regardless of what fuels the plant. This has ben brought up previously - you can't track a 20t excavator back to base every night to plug it in.

geoffwnz

1589 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#2760486 16-Aug-2021 10:43

RobDickinson:

No idea on industrial equipment, there are already battery electric diggers etc but big plant needs a lot of energy.

Hydrogen needs storing (the tanks are heavy) and fuel cells (if they use them) are not light (fcev cars are as heavy as BEVs), for trucks someone calculated Nikola's truck didnt have enough physical space for tanks to provide the range they said..

You can obviously get away with not having tanks for 24/7 use on a JCB and refuel them but you are also not going to have h2 refuelling on site either.

Could that not be provided by tanker delivery in the same way diesel is already delivered to a large number of sites? Either mini tanker or trailer tank.

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Obraik

2123 posts

Uber Geek

#2760488 16-Aug-2021 10:47

Ge0rge:

You're going to need to have the refueling on site, regardless of what fuels the plant. This has ben brought up previously - you can't track a 20t excavator back to base every night to plug it in.

Which can be done with an electric option.

Should Caterpillar start switching to BEV (they already have a few in Europe) then I'm sure your local CAT dealer would be happy to rent you a CAT solar array that can sit on site and charge up a container sized power-bank which can be used to top up the on-site equipment as required 😉

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RobDickinson

1524 posts

Uber Geek

#2760489 16-Aug-2021 10:48

I guess potentially... You'd need more than just a tank I assume.

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frankv

5680 posts

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Lifetime subscriber

#2760491 16-Aug-2021 10:55

https://energy.mit.edu/news/using-aluminum-and-water-to-make-clean-hydrogen-fuel-when-and-where-its-needed/

Aluminium reacts with water to produce hydrogen. The practical problem with doing this is the oxide that forms on the metal surface and prevents further reaction. These researchers have identified a way to stop the oxide depositing on the metal, so the reaction continues. The potential is that you carry round aluminium (and water) to feed into the reactor to produce hydrogen to power your vehicle, thus overcoming the issues of storing hydrogen itself. The idea is to use waste aluminium, which has that energy bound into it... it's not sensible to create aluminium to then react to make hydrogen.

So it may be that airliner meal trays become fuel for the engines. ;) Hostie: "Excuse me sir, could you hurry up and eat your meal, we're running out of gas".

Ge0rge

2052 posts

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#2760492 16-Aug-2021 10:59

Obraik:

Ge0rge:

You're going to need to have the refueling on site, regardless of what fuels the plant. This has ben brought up previously - you can't track a 20t excavator back to base every night to plug it in.

Which can be done with an electric option.

Should Caterpillar start switching to BEV (they already have a few in Europe) then I'm sure your local CAT dealer would be happy to rent you a CAT solar array that can sit on site and charge up a container sized power-bank which can be used to top up the on-site equipment as required 😉

When I think of something like a building site, or a local dump, then absolutely.

When I think of something like Transmission Gully or the new Gorge Rd, I can't see how that will work - unless the battery bank is portable perhaps? Plug it into the solar array during the day, tow it 20km to where the machine is working, plug the machine in for the night. Works really well in theory, right up until we want to work two shifts, and the machine is needed at night too - depending on the charge/run time of course. Or it's winter, and we haven't got enough sun to charge the battery bank for the past two weeks...

The idea of rocking up with an H2 tanker, filling it up, and moving on to the next machine makes much more sense - exactly in the same way that they do with liquid dinosaurs now.

Obraik

2123 posts

Uber Geek

#2760499 16-Aug-2021 11:11

Ge0rge:

When I think of something like a building site, or a local dump, then absolutely.

When I think of something like Transmission Gully or the new Gorge Rd, I can't see how that will work - unless the battery bank is portable perhaps? Plug it into the solar array during the day, tow it 20km to where the machine is working, plug the machine in for the night. Works really well in theory, right up until we want to work two shifts, and the machine is needed at night too - depending on the charge/run time of course. Or it's winter, and we haven't got enough sun to charge the battery bank for the past two weeks...

The idea of rocking up with an H2 tanker, filling it up, and moving on to the next machine makes much more sense - exactly in the same way that they do with liquid dinosaurs now.

There's no reason the charge needs to be an overnight affair. Hook that theoretical powerbank up to a fast charger and the equipment could be charged back up in 30-40mins.

As for quickly refilling with hydrogen, that works for the first vehicle. There's currently a 20-30min turn around before a filler can be ready to fill the next vehicle.

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mudguard

2118 posts

Uber Geek

#2760501 16-Aug-2021 11:15

RobDickinson:

No idea on industrial equipment, there are already battery electric diggers etc but big plant needs a lot of energy.

Hydrogen needs storing (the tanks are heavy) and fuel cells (if they use them) are not light (fcev cars are as heavy as BEVs), for trucks someone calculated Nikola's truck didnt have enough physical space for tanks to provide the range they said..

You can obviously get away with not having tanks for 24/7 use on a JCB and refuel them but you are also not going to have h2 refuelling on site either.

The JCBs didn't bother with a fuel cell, just ran them like internal combustion engines. Again, it's the storage and refill that is currently hydrogen's problem. And that JCB said they weren't going to try work it out, they just couldn't go electric easily.

RobDickinson

1524 posts

Uber Geek

#2760502 16-Aug-2021 11:16

Even trucking is using 350 bar pressure. You can drop that but the tanks will store less fuel etc...

geoffwnz

1589 posts

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ID Verified

#2760557 16-Aug-2021 11:21

frankv:

https://energy.mit.edu/news/using-aluminum-and-water-to-make-clean-hydrogen-fuel-when-and-where-its-needed/

Aluminium reacts with water to produce hydrogen. The practical problem with doing this is the oxide that forms on the metal surface and prevents further reaction. These researchers have identified a way to stop the oxide depositing on the metal, so the reaction continues. The potential is that you carry round aluminium (and water) to feed into the reactor to produce hydrogen to power your vehicle, thus overcoming the issues of storing hydrogen itself. The idea is to use waste aluminium, which has that energy bound into it... it's not sensible to create aluminium to then react to make hydrogen.

So it may be that airliner meal trays become fuel for the engines. ;) Hostie: "Excuse me sir, could you hurry up and eat your meal, we're running out of gas".

Does this remind anyone else of "Mr Fusion"?

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RobDickinson

1524 posts

Uber Geek

#2760575 16-Aug-2021 11:36

frankv:

https://energy.mit.edu/news/using-aluminum-and-water-to-make-clean-hydrogen-fuel-when-and-where-its-needed/

Aluminium reacts with water to produce hydrogen. The practical problem with doing this is the oxide that forms on the metal surface and prevents further reaction. These researchers have identified a way to stop the oxide depositing on the metal, so the reaction continues. The potential is that you carry round aluminium (and water) to feed into the reactor to produce hydrogen to power your vehicle, thus overcoming the issues of storing hydrogen itself. The idea is to use waste aluminium, which has that energy bound into it... it's not sensible to create aluminium to then react to make hydrogen.

So it may be that airliner meal trays become fuel for the engines. ;) Hostie: "Excuse me sir, could you hurry up and eat your meal, we're running out of gas".

"The concept of using the aluminum-water reaction to provide onboard hydrogen for hydrogen powered vehicles presents a number of difficulties. First, storage systems using this approach will not be able to meet the 2010 DOE system targets of 6 wt.% hydrogen and 45 grams hydrogen per liter. Second, based on published aluminum-water reaction rate kinetics, it appears difficult for his approach to meet the DOE minimum hydrogen flow rate target for fuel-cell powered vehicles Finally, the cost of producing hydrogen by this approach is dictated by the cost of aluminum metal. The November 2007 commodity price for aluminum is $2.36 per kg. At this price, hydrogen from an aluminum-water hydrogen generation approach would cost approximately $21 per kg H2. Even assuming high volume production, the DOE target range for hydrogen cost of $2-3 per kg H2 would not be met. Additionally, the supply of aluminum required for mass market vehicle applications may be problematic"

https://www1.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/pdfs/aluminium_water_hydrogen.pdf

RobDickinson

1524 posts

Uber Geek

#2760592 16-Aug-2021 11:45

Obraik:

Ge0rge:

You're going to need to have the refueling on site, regardless of what fuels the plant. This has ben brought up previously - you can't track a 20t excavator back to base every night to plug it in.

Which can be done with an electric option.

Should Caterpillar start switching to BEV (they already have a few in Europe) then I'm sure your local CAT dealer would be happy to rent you a CAT solar array that can sit on site and charge up a container sized power-bank which can be used to top up the on-site equipment as required 😉

Aye there are cars that are charging at 500kw now, a JCB with a large battery should be able to do 1MW etc

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