gasoline is 100 time more energy dense than electricity, thus even inefficiencies at 70% for IC engines, gasoline would still be more dense somehow. But there is alot of geopolotics and environement issues involved with fuel. The problem of energy density needs to be resolved for electricity so it would be more convenient to use, even at the industrial scale, which is a major carbon emitter.
The issue is that ICs just suck badly. So badly that carrying around half a ton of batteries still makes EVs much more efficent. that is not even looking at how petrol is made, which btw also requires electricity.
but heavier cars ruin the road structure. Highways need an alternative for bitumen, and overall electrify the production of road components, including steel and concrete.
Yep, road where goes with the square of vehicle weight. A singe semi truck is far more damaging than a hundred cars, and bikes don’t do damage period.
As for EVs, while they are often heavier than ICE’s, it’s only by a few percent, and less impactful than the vehicle obesity epidemic we’ve seen here in the US in the last decade.
It makes some sense to use electric or biofuel trucks to move goods for short distances as well as the distance between a facility and an distribution yard, but for long distance I fully agree that we called them multi modal containers for a reason. You can move a container from truck to electric train in seconds, and indeed we already do that for anything that has to travel by ship anyway.
Moving goods vast distances over land extremely cheaply and with zero carbon emissions is a problem that was solved long ago with overhead electrified rail, and it’s amazing to see the lengths we here in North America will go to avoid investing in it.
Moving goods vast distances over land extremely cheaply and with zero carbon emissions is a problem that was solved long ago with overhead electrified rail, and it’s amazing to see the lengths we here in North America will go to avoid investing in it.
i hope that this falls in the same line but in Germany they rather tow double trailers (40 tons) on the Autobahn (highway) instead of shipping by rail (which is maybe slower) while destroying highways in the process (always Baustelle: road works), and costing the taxpayer money to be repaired. So shipping companies like Hermes® would trick the taxpayer into competitve shipping prices and fast shipping but is in fact stealing tax money from him/her indirectly. Same day delivery is a disaster to nature. Why can’t people be patient about their goods being shipped 3-4 days later than usual? the logic beats me really :/
A lithium-ion battery pack has about 0.3 MJ/kg and about 0.4 MJ/liter (Chevy VOLT). Gasoline thus has about 100 times the energy density of a lithium-ion battery.
gasoline is 100 time more energy dense than electricity, thus even inefficiencies at 70% for IC engines, gasoline would still be more dense somehow. But there is alot of geopolotics and environement issues involved with fuel. The problem of energy density needs to be resolved for electricity so it would be more convenient to use, even at the industrial scale, which is a major carbon emitter.
The article is from August/September 2012
The issue is that ICs just suck badly. So badly that carrying around half a ton of batteries still makes EVs much more efficent. that is not even looking at how petrol is made, which btw also requires electricity.
but heavier cars ruin the road structure. Highways need an alternative for bitumen, and overall electrify the production of road components, including steel and concrete.
Increased truck traffic does way more harm than electric cars do.
Yep, road where goes with the square of vehicle weight. A singe semi truck is far more damaging than a hundred cars, and bikes don’t do damage period.
As for EVs, while they are often heavier than ICE’s, it’s only by a few percent, and less impactful than the vehicle obesity epidemic we’ve seen here in the US in the last decade.
goods should only be transported on rail, period. i agree about the rest.
It makes some sense to use electric or biofuel trucks to move goods for short distances as well as the distance between a facility and an distribution yard, but for long distance I fully agree that we called them multi modal containers for a reason. You can move a container from truck to electric train in seconds, and indeed we already do that for anything that has to travel by ship anyway.
Moving goods vast distances over land extremely cheaply and with zero carbon emissions is a problem that was solved long ago with overhead electrified rail, and it’s amazing to see the lengths we here in North America will go to avoid investing in it.
i hope that this falls in the same line but in Germany they rather tow double trailers (40 tons) on the Autobahn (highway) instead of shipping by rail (which is maybe slower) while destroying highways in the process (always Baustelle: road works), and costing the taxpayer money to be repaired. So shipping companies like Hermes® would trick the taxpayer into competitve shipping prices and fast shipping but is in fact stealing tax money from him/her indirectly. Same day delivery is a disaster to nature. Why can’t people be patient about their goods being shipped 3-4 days later than usual? the logic beats me really :/