What will power our vehicles in the future?

Forums › Transport (cars, bikes and boats) › What will power our vehicles in the future?

1 | ... | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | ... | 34

3963 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2963469 5-Sep-2022 13:06

Sidestep:

Yes 4250kg seems be be the new de-facto 'light duty' GVWR limit. If they're going to let UK spec (RHD) light commercial vehicles into NZ they'll have to make a move.
Vehicles like Ford's (UK) light-duty e-Transit models come in 3500, 3900 and 4250kg, the UK Mercedes e-Sprinter's are 3500kg etc.
The whole COF vs WOF, hubodometer exemption, compliancing etc would be a pain for what is, essentially an electric 'Class NA' light goods vehicle.

In North America it appears a similar 9500lbs (4300kg) 'light vehicle' GVWR is about to take the place of their combined previous Class 1 (max 2750kg) and 2a (3850kg) classifications.
Ford's got both their F150 'Lightning' "light-duty pickup" and lwb e-Transit "light commercial van" (just) under that limit.
The EISA rating of 'commercial' - Class 2b through 8 will likely now be above 9500lbs for zero-emission vehicles.

Apart from being Federal Highway Administration class-limits (in turn affecting manufacturers' emissions and fuel economy certifications) in quite a few States the classification affects both your licensing and Insurance costs.
In turn your taxes/depreciation schedules etc. are affected. The US Department of Transportation (DOT) - along with with the EPA was making noises about gross-weight/class changes back in 2015.

Similarly, over here the move to Battery-electric and Fuel-cell trucks has put the wind up RV manufacturer's groups.

At the moment a motorhome (eg Class A) - to be driven on a standard car driving license - must be under 26000lbs (11800kg) in most States and Provinces.
They're usually built on truck chassis (eg Ford or Freightliner). Following their estimations, with batteries you'll be looking at 15 tonnes for the same size RV.

That's a lot of weight for our elderly neighbour (who drives her motorhome to Arizona each winter) to be driving.
It'll also call for a massive upgrading of RV park's electrical systems. A hundred of those things fast-charging overnight will pull some amps.

And - an architect friend says engineering calculations for things like ramps and multi-level parkades are having to be altered due to increasing vehicle weights.

Yeah, If we want to see pure EV's in vehciles of the size of the bigger hiace van (currently maxed out at 3,500kg gvm), we really need to allow pure EV's to be heaver.

Operators arn't going to tolerate loosing many hundreds of KG's of payload to keep the EV equivalent under 3,500kg, and neither are going to tolerate the higher operating costs that come from Running on a COF. Private buyers are likely to be reluctant to accept the 90km/h max speed limit (especially given 110km/h roads are getting more common). Net result is buyers will just stick with diesel.

I didn't really think about the impact on carparks etc. But suspect many are already engineered to take smaller COF vehicles.

Small trucks, high payload van's, and american style pickups arn't exactly rare in NZ. Some carparks already have signage indicating max vehicle weights / axle loads.

4.2T GVM

4525kg GVM:

4490kg GVM:

2500/3500 Laramie Crew Cab | Ram Trucks New Zealand

Scott3

3963 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2963484 5-Sep-2022 13:23

frankv:

I don't see a particular problem with LiPo batteries in aircraft. After all, avgas is perfectly acceptable despite its safety issues.

Thinking outside the box... how about a tow-car or winch or whatever that accelerates the aircraft along the runway, kindof like the catapult on aircraft carriers (but less violent, since you still have mile-long runways)? This would mean that you don't need to carry as much battery on the aircraft, and could potentially reduce the size of the motors since they're normally only needed at 100% power for takeoff.

Avgas and Jet A1 are both mature fuels, and the industry has good very good at managing the risk's involved.

The aviation industry is rightly fairly jumpy about Li batteries, after the crash of UPS Airlines Flight 6 in 2010 (cargo self ignited), and the fire in a parked Boeing 787 in 2013 (design flaw).

Sadly NZ has had it's first aviation fatality from a (I think LiPo) battery fire.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/northern-advocate/news/lithium-battery-fire-caused-glider-crash-that-killed-far-north-pilot/WVCSAPMETC3QASHXUX5AT5UY3M/

There is some speculation that the battery had been stored at a high state of charge than recommended, but to me that seems very minor

My understanding is that the battery spontaneously combusted, setting the glider on fire. The experienced pilot exceeded the never exceed speed on the resulting emergency decent, which resulted in the glider's structure failing. CAA says that smoke and fumes in the cockpit caused this Handling error, but I suspect the experienced pilot may have pushed the limits due to their desire not to be burnt alive. I understand the pilot was not wearing a parachute, as the glider itself was fitted with a ballistic parachute.

I imagine there will be reluctance from the aviation industry to use the most volatile common battery chemistry, but perhaps the risks can be managed.

Sidestep

1013 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2963509 5-Sep-2022 14:29

Scott3:

Avgas and Jet A1 are both mature fuels, and the industry has good very good at managing the risk's involved.

There's probably some room to run with them. Jet fuel at least.

Thanks to the Russians, Green Hydrogen's now cheaper than LNG in Europe.
The problem with using Liquid Hydrogen to directly fuel aircraft turbines is it's lower volumetric density than kerosene, along with the weight of the required cyrogenic tanks.

There's a lot of interest in engineering Green Hydrogen into e-kerosine - a Power-to-Liquid hydrocarbon conversion using FischerTropsch Synthesis.
Combine carbon dioxide and Green Hydrogen through F.T. synthesis and you can also, during the process, reduce the quantities of particles and aromatic chemicals that produce soot..

P.t.L. e-kerosines can be used mixed 'as-is' without investments in new fueling infrastructure or engines, and both decarbonize and de-pollute commercial aviation.
For Faradair, Honeywell's now going to provide the latest iteration of their e-fuel turbogenerator, able to run on their own (UOP Ecofined) Green Jet Fuel mix.

There are really high energy fuel molecules out there - but so rarely found in oil, extracting a decent amount through distillation' been described as "like processing diamonds out of dirt"
But, they can be synthesized - and a positive of e-kerosenes (as opposed to petroleum distilled) is the ease of engineering higher energy-densities than regular jet-fuels.

There are a couple of companies in California - and I think in Europe - tweaking things further, combine the P.t.L process with fabrication of High-Energy-Density (HED) e-jetfuels.
HED liquid fuels with up to 30% increased energy density over Jet-A1 are theoretically possible before reaching the limitations inherent in the characteristics of hydrocarbon molecules.
The addition of energetic nanoparticles is blowing through that barrier, but that cutting-edge tech's decades away.

In the meantime HED Jet fuels (less dangerous than Jet-B), are being synthesized from wood waste.

With systems designed for it -and assuming suitable long-term storage stability, companies like Faradair with their proposed low altitude, short hop service (avoiding high altitude freezing) might be able to use it.
A hybrid-electric aircraft with excellent STOL & climb (helped by engineered polycyclic hydrocarbons with excellent volumetric energy density) might be just around the corner.

After all Honeywell (along with R.R. etc) have been researching this stuff for years. If cost wasn't so much of an issue, and volumes available, it would have been in civilian use years ago.

Geektastic

17942 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2963539 5-Sep-2022 16:31

As anyone who has played the excellent Fallout 4 would know, atomic power.

Scott3

3963 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2963637 5-Sep-2022 20:32

Geektastic: As anyone who has played the excellent Fallout 4 would know, atomic power.

I haven't

But this 1957 concept car by ford is allways of interest.

"The design did not include an internal-combustion engine; rather, the vehicle was to be powered by a small nuclear reactor in the rear of the vehicle, based on the assumption that this would one day be possible by reducing sizes. The car was to use a steam engine powered by uranium fission, similar to those found in nuclear submarines."

Ford Nucleon - Wikipedia

Technofreak

6530 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2963726 5-Sep-2022 21:48

Scott3:

Technofreak:

The discussion is about Utes but the theme is about heavy vehicles and why BEV isn't a happening thing for heavy vehicles in the foreseeable future.

The point about the amount of energy require to carry the required energy is particularly relevant to aircraft.

https://youtu.be/qIlpHWo5uZo

For light road vehicle's there is a fairly quick and easy fix.

Move the 3500kg GVM threshold to 4250kg for pure EV's.

If you look at the video I linked GVM isn't the real problem. The problem is the range and the charging time. John Cadogan talks about the range acheived with the Ford F150 Lightning with the 131 kW/hr battery towing a caravan. It was about one hours driving then 3 hours to recharge. He postulated that most people wouldn't be happy with that.

Sony Xperia XA2 running Sailfish OS. https://sailfishos.org The true independent open source mobile OS
Samsung Galaxy Tab S6
Dell Inspiron 14z i5

Technofreak

6530 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2963731 5-Sep-2022 21:59

Sidestep:

frankv:

Thinking outside the box... how about a tow-car or winch or whatever that accelerates the aircraft along the runway, kindof like the catapult on aircraft carriers (but less violent, since you still have mile-long runways)? This would mean that you don't need to carry as much battery on the aircraft, and could potentially reduce the size of the motors since they're normally only needed at 100% power for takeoff.

That's not really a new idea.
A winch, or glider type tow launch - to avoid fuel burn (or battery drawdown) - has been looked at by a number of companies, including Faradair mentioned earlier in this thread.

In the end Faradair decided an extremely light, powerful and quiet aircraft with boosted STOL capabilities would fill the niche they envisioned - a low altitude, short hop service.
A couple of years back I listened to a podcast where Faradair CEO Neil Cloughley discussed the reasoning behind this design - they've certainly advanced it a lot since then.
The engineering's there, with some big names and serious players involved.

Neil was right in his predictions - the technical requirements of medium and long-haul aircraft (weight, seat capacity, speed and range requirements) still can't be met with current battery technology.

But - as you noted, taking off - climbing to altitude's where a lot of the energy's required.
They get the launch and climb out taken care of using a hybrid-electric aircraft with basically a one-time (before it recharges again from the turbo-generator) battery powered STOL boost.

The turbogenerator provides power to the motor(s) in parallel with batteries when high thrust is needed, or alone, slowly recharging the batteries when low thrust is needed such as during cruise.
This enables overall downsizing of turbo-engines and increased fuel economy.

Their prototype combines Honeywell’s existing, flight-proven Honeywell HTS900 engine with two compact electric generators capable of providing about 200 kilowatts together.
And Honeywell's developing their near-term system, a 1-Megawatt generator combined with the company's HGT1700 auxiliary power unit, currently flown on every Airbus A350 XWB.

The reality of very high-altitude, composite, tow launched, atmospheric wave riding - passenger carrying - sailplanes is probably beyond my lifetime (though - as someone who used to fly gliders - I'd love to see it).
This is something we might see next year.

Faradair BEHA is a pipe dream. The only amazing thing about it IMO is that Neil Cloughley has managed to keep it going for so long and attact enough funding to keep it going.

Sony Xperia XA2 running Sailfish OS. https://sailfishos.org The true independent open source mobile OS
Samsung Galaxy Tab S6
Dell Inspiron 14z i5

Equinox IT

Cloud spending continues to surge globally, but most organisations haven’t made the changes necessary to maximise the value and cost-efficiency benefits of their cloud investments. Download the whitepaper From Overspend to Advantage now.

Scott3

3963 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2963755 5-Sep-2022 23:25

Technofreak:

If you look at the video I linked GVM isn't the real problem. The problem is the range and the charging time. John Cadogan talks about the range acheived with the Ford F150 Lightning with the 131 kW/hr battery towing a caravan. It was about one hours driving then 3 hours to recharge. He postulated that most people wouldn't be happy with that.

I feel it is a big issue in NZ. It's not in Aussie, as their truck rules don't kick in until 4500kg GVM

I covered this video in quite detail in the EV thread about Utes.

We are still in the early adopter stage for EV utes. (well in NZ we are not even their yet as no retail unites have landed yet), with first gen tech. Stuff will get better. First gen tech is never going to cover the more extreme use cases.
NZ's towing speed limit is 90km/h, range in that video while towing was based of a US test where they drove 112km/h. Speed makes a big difference to drag, so running the same test at 90km/h would give a lot more range.
NZ is long an skinny, meaning there are relatively few roads that one can travel very long distance's on, making it easier to serve with charging infrastructure.
NZ already has three of the charge net 300kW charger installations, 13 more planned. Plus a bunch of 175kW chargers. (F-150 maxes out at 150kW, taking 44 mins to go from 15% - 80%).

Of course, towing something big from say Auckland to Wellington with any EV is going to make for a long trip. Regardless of the above.

Also our charge stations aren't configured for towing vehicles, so the trailer will likely need to be uncoupled multiple times, quite a pain.

Sidestep

1013 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2963767 6-Sep-2022 04:25

Technofreak:

If you look at the video I linked GVM isn't the real problem. The problem is the range and the charging time. John Cadogan talks about the range acheived with the Ford F150 Lightning with the 131 kW/hr battery towing a caravan. It was about one hours driving then 3 hours to recharge. He postulated that most people wouldn't be happy with that.

No one's actually going to use a light duty (1/2 ton) Super-Crew shortbox to tow anything other than a garden trailer.
You'd use a medium duty (1-ton or above) pickup for that.

And when you get down to it - electric F150's aren't aimed at the New Zealand or Australian markets.
They're going to sell like Hot-Cakes in North America though.

I bet 90% of F150's are just used as people movers. Worksites are full of them, they show up with a bunch of guys in the cab, tools in the back.
Anywhere you'd see a double-cab ute in New Zealand, you'll see a 1/2 ton crew-cab pickup here - and F150's are by far the most common of them.

Virtually every contractor I've ever had show up - builder, plumber, electrician - has been driving either an F150 or a GMC work van.
After work Walmart and Costco parking lots are full of them, followed by 1/2 ton Silverados and Rams - getting the groceries.

The Lightning's really the first non-niche electric work vehicle to catch the public eye here.

They certainly take some charging, the local dealer suggests a dedicated 50 Amp circuit as minimum, 100 Amp preferred.
And installing a Ford 'Connected' Charge-Station (48 Amp) or Charge-Station 'Pro' (80 Amp) in an older house usually requires an upgrade to 200 Amp Service.

Qmerit's the local Canadian Ford-Approved installer - you get the 80 A 'Pro' included with the extended range truck.
They're a partnership with Schneider Electric, one of the biggest manufacturers of residential breaker panels in North America.

A Journeyman Electrician friend - who installed our 200A panel last year - is moonlighting after hours doing panel upgrades.
There's a 3 month wait right now - with Fall in the air - and everybody's wanting Ford's 'Intelligent Backup' House Power (which still can't be connected here yet).

All this and the wait-list for the actual truck's now extended to 6 months or more. You'll get a 2023 model if you order and put money down today.
I had a quick chat with a guy who was getting out of one in the hospital parkade last week - he ordered it in early Feb, received it in August, and loves it.

Batman

Mad Scientist
29760 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2963770 6-Sep-2022 06:51

hydrogen apparently

https://www.hwr.co.nz/hydrogen?utm_source=NZH&utm_medium=Dailytakeover&utm_campaign=Hydrogen

Sidestep

1013 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2969594 18-Sep-2022 05:11

Another battery-electric aircraft designer's moved to a plan of using a (Honeywell or R.R.) Reserve-Hybrid Turbogenerator system rather than pure battery.
Battery tech's just not advancing fast enough. The chemistry breakthrough allowing battery-electric aviation in anything beyond small short-haul flights hasn't happened.

Heart Aerospace, funded by United Airlines, Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, and Mesa - have been promising a 19-seat regional battery electric aircraft, the ES-19.
They had potential orders from Nordic airlines BRA, Icelandair, SAS, and NZ’s Sounds Air - all operators of niche short-haul aircraft.

They've quietly dropped it, and announced a new, 30-passenger aircraft with a reserve-hybrid configuration (two Turbogenerators) and (min) 200km range: the ES-30.
Air Canada and Saab have both joined with (small) initial US $5 million investments, but with a more realistic aircraft design other major players are looking.

Both Honeywell and Rolls-Royce have been pouring research into their Distributed Electric Propulsion architectures. It looks like Honeywell's taking the lead.
Their existing-Gen Turbogenerators are getting power densities close to ten kw/kg and efficiencies of 98 percent.
They're hinting that their next-Gen units are - using exotic alloys and composites, and high energy density fuels - going to far exceed those numbers.

Normally you'd figure that it'd be decades before (notoriously conservative) regulators would approve this sort of tech for passenger-carrying aircraft.
But both companies already have a depth of research though their military programs, and some of their most cutting edge tech is already flight tested.

E-Fuels are one of the keys to a low-emission hybrid aircraft, but turning green electricity into hydrogen, then into e-kerosene, is highly inefficient—about half of the total energy's lost
So rather than purely hydrogen-based e-Kerosines, the consensus seems to be that using green H2 to (more efficiently) hydrogenate a bio fuel base is the way to go.
Pine tree based Turpentines, animal and vegetable fats, and organic wastes are among the easiest converted feedstocks - you'd think NZ would be a world leader...

There are a multitude of companies who's (FT-SPK, HEFA-SPK, HFS-SIP,FT-SPK/A, ATJ-SPK etc.) Bio-Fuel products are approved for blending with conventional Aviation Jet Fuels
Honeywell UOP Ecofining's becoming one of the defacto processes - already licensed to 20 units in nine countries, and fuels now being approved for straight - unblended - use.
And Delta Air Lines, the only major airline to own a Jet Fuel refinery has quietly started to convert it to accept renewable fuel feedstocks.

It's good to see more realistic battery-hybrid technologies entering the ring - Maybe I'll actually see zero-emission commercial flights in my lifetime..

Technofreak

6530 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2969929 18-Sep-2022 21:56

Sidestep:

Another battery-electric aircraft designer's moved to a plan of using a (Honeywell or R.R.) Reserve-Hybrid Turbogenerator system rather than pure battery.
Battery tech's just not advancing fast enough. The chemistry breakthrough allowing battery-electric aviation in anything beyond small short-haul flights hasn't happened.

Heart Aerospace, funded by United Airlines, Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, and Mesa - have been promising a 19-seat regional battery electric aircraft, the ES-19.
They had potential orders from Nordic airlines BRA, Icelandair, SAS, and NZ’s Sounds Air - all operators of niche short-haul aircraft.

They've quietly dropped it, and announced a new, 30-passenger aircraft with a reserve-hybrid configuration (two Turbogenerators) and (min) 200km range: the ES-30.

Air Canada and Saab have both joined with (small) initial US $5 million investments, but with a more realistic aircraft design other major players are looking.

Both Honeywell and Rolls-Royce have been pouring research into their Distributed Electric Propulsion architectures. It looks like Honeywell's taking the lead.
Their existing-Gen Turbogenerators are getting power densities close to ten kw/kg and efficiencies of 98 percent.
They're hinting that their next-Gen units are - using exotic alloys and composites, and high energy density fuels - going to far exceed those numbers.

Normally you'd figure that it'd be decades before (notoriously conservative) regulators would approve this sort of tech for passenger-carrying aircraft.
But both companies already have a depth of research though their military programs, and some of their most cutting edge tech is already flight tested.

E-Fuels are one of the keys to a low-emission hybrid aircraft, but turning green electricity into hydrogen, then into e-kerosene, is highly inefficient—about half of the total energy's lost
So rather than purely hydrogen-based e-Kerosines, the consensus seems to be that using green H2 to (more efficiently) hydrogenate a bio fuel base is the way to go.
Pine tree based Turpentines, animal and vegetable fats, and organic wastes are among the easiest converted feedstocks - you'd think NZ would be a world leader...

There are a multitude of companies who's (FT-SPK, HEFA-SPK, HFS-SIP,FT-SPK/A, ATJ-SPK etc.) Bio-Fuel products are approved for blending with conventional Aviation Jet Fuels
Honeywell UOP Ecofining's becoming one of the defacto processes - already licensed to 20 units in nine countries, and fuels now being approved for straight - unblended - use.
And Delta Air Lines, the only major airline to own a Jet Fuel refinery has quietly started to convert it to accept renewable fuel feedstocks.

It's good to see more realistic battery-hybrid technologies entering the ring - Maybe I'll actually see zero-emission commercial flights in my lifetime..

I didn't realise the ES19 had been dropped. I'm not in the least bit surprised. I'm just surprised/perplexed that anyone thought it was remotely feasible with current tech. From time to time I still see articles that mention Sounds Air and an electric aircraft (I'm guessing the ES19). Apparently the memo on the ES19's demise hasn't filtered through yet. No point in bursting the electric aircraft bubble too quickly or too loudly.

Battery hybrid is more realistic but still a pipe dream IMO. Let's face it a 200 km range isn't particularly useful. Remember the real world useful route length is going to be about 50% of that 200 km range. New Zealand uses regional aircraft on routes that are generally shorter than in most countries. There's about only one route that I can think of that is less than 100 km where that 30 seeat aircraft would be used. That route is the Wellington Blenheim (Woodbourne) route. The number of routes where this might work won't justify the development of these aircraft.

You may see zero emission battery or battery - hybrid commercial flights in your lifetime but I rather suspect they'll be very niche routes if at all. There has to be a major quantum leap in battery energy density before battery electric aircraft become economically viable.

Sony Xperia XA2 running Sailfish OS. https://sailfishos.org The true independent open source mobile OS
Samsung Galaxy Tab S6
Dell Inspiron 14z i5

frankv

5680 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2969961 19-Sep-2022 08:57

Technofreak:

I'm just surprised/perplexed that anyone thought it was remotely feasible with current tech. From time to time I still see articles that mention Sounds Air and an electric aircraft (I'm guessing the ES19). Apparently the memo on the ES19's demise hasn't filtered through yet. No point in bursting the electric aircraft bubble too quickly or too loudly.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that electric passenger aircraft are feasible with current technology. I think the promises are all based on expectations that battery tech will improve by an order of magnitude or two, which is (currently) always just over the horizon.

Scott3

3963 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2969969 19-Sep-2022 09:21

Heart aerospace are projecting a rough doubling in electric range between late 2020 and late 2030.

Technofreak

6530 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2969984 19-Sep-2022 10:03

frankv:

Technofreak:

I'm just surprised/perplexed that anyone thought it was remotely feasible with current tech. From time to time I still see articles that mention Sounds Air and an electric aircraft (I'm guessing the ES19). Apparently the memo on the ES19's demise hasn't filtered through yet. No point in bursting the electric aircraft bubble too quickly or too loudly.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that electric passenger aircraft are feasible with current technology. I think the promises are all based on expectations that battery tech will improve by an order of magnitude or two, which is (currently) always just over the horizon.

Heart Aerospace were with the ES19, which is what I was referring to.

Sony Xperia XA2 running Sailfish OS. https://sailfishos.org The true independent open source mobile OS
Samsung Galaxy Tab S6
Dell Inspiron 14z i5

1 | ... | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | ... | 34