Electric cars?

basilio said:

The story itself wasn't BS SP. I checked it out and Cummins is certainly developing a motor that can run on hydrogen as well as diesel
Your right of course about trucks being more focused on torque rather than outright power as such.

I was commenting on the report from ecoticias. It seems totally garbled.
I don't claim to have any special knowledge about truck engines. I can read though and pick up glaring inconsistencies which invite checking out.
Cummins is a an ICE engine manufacturer that is trying to keep its plant solvent in the face of movements to electric power. No surprise it is trying to pivot to Hydrogen.

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sptrawler said:

Running diesels on gas isn't a huge issue, where @IFocus worked at Carnarvon power station, they ran 2,000+hp diesel generators, the project section I worked in converted ghem to start on diesel and run on LNG.
But LNG and H2 will have very different ignition points and exhaust gas temperatures I would guess, so it will take a lot of development to figure out how to get them to be reliable, fuel efficient and at the same time return reasonable power figures.
But as you say, their future depends on it.

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sptrawler said:

Running diesels on gas isn't a huge issue, where @IFocus worked at Carnarvon power station, they ran 2,000+hp diesel generators, the project section I worked in converted ghem to start on diesel and run on LNG.
But LNG and H2 will have very different ignition points and exhaust gas temperatures I would guess, so it will take a lot of development to figure out how to get them to be reliable, fuel efficient and at the same time return reasonable power figures.
But as you say, their future depends on it.

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IFocus said:

Wonder if they could just mix the two together?

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Value Collector said:

Why would you want to burn the H2 in and ICE engine though, wouldn’t it be better to use a fuel cell at that point.

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sptrawler said:

Yes it would be interesting to find out what issues they are having.

I presume the only reason that the ICE development is being pursued, is due to the fact all the manufacturing infrastructure is available and as Bas said they need to try and stay in business.

On the technical side a lot will depend on the efficiency of the fuel cell and also what is the maximum current generating capacity of fuel cells.

The fuel cell basically charges a battery that drives the vehicle, they need the battery to supply the high current drain when taking of and give constant steady state power supply

So the fuel cell has to be able to generate enough power, to replace the energy the vehicle is using otherwise the battery goes flat and the vehicle stops.
I have no idea how big fuel cell are, or how long they last etc, but I have read they use very expensive materials.
So I guess it will all boil back to economics of pure BEV, fuel cell, H2 ICE, or maybe a hybrid.
My guess is that there will be a place where pure battery trucks make sense and there will be other situations where range/time is paramount, what technology wins that market, who knows but it will be interesting.

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sptrawler said:

Yes it would be interesting to find out what issues they are having.

I presume the only reason that the ICE development is being pursued, is due to the fact all the manufacturing infrastructure is available and as Bas said they need to try and stay in business.

On the technical side a lot will depend on the efficiency of the fuel cell and also what is the maximum current generating capacity of fuel cells.

The fuel cell basically charges a battery that drives the vehicle, they need the battery to supply the high current drain when taking of and give constant steady state power supply

So the fuel cell has to be able to generate enough power, to replace the energy the vehicle is using otherwise the battery goes flat and the vehicle stops.
I have no idea how big fuel cell are, or how long they last etc, but I have read they use very expensive materials.
So I guess it will all boil back to economics of pure BEV, fuel cell, H2 ICE, or maybe a hybrid.
My guess is that there will be a place where pure battery trucks make sense and there will be other situations where range/time is paramount, what technology wins that market, who knows but it will be interesting.

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Value Collector said:

Most hydrogen fuel cell vehicles power the motor directly from the fuel cell without a battery, however for extra power you could have a battery too, to provide peak loads so you had the current from the fuel cell and battery combined.

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mullokintyre said:

This could shake up the market a bit, depending on price, but PHEV utes would become popular IMO especially if the have V2L ability.
The flexibility would be very attractive for the tradie who does the weekend camping trip, or the farmer who lives 20km out of town.

This is what BYD’s Ford Ranger and Toyota HiLux-rivalling hybrid ute will look like

BYD's upcoming mid-size ute, expected to be called Shark, has been caught in the wild without any camouflage.

www.drive.com.au

It does look at least a little bit better than a cybertruck.
Saw one in the flesh in Palm Springs today.
Looks as ugly in real life as it does in a picture.

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Knobby22 said:

There is a lot of serious research going on with this in relation to trucks. Including in Australia with Hyundai ( I know someone involved).

I reckon it will be batteries for domestic vehicles and hydrogen for serious commercial vehicles and buses one day.

I would love to see diesel vehicles replaced along with the pollution and cancer inducing chemicals they produce but fear they are becoming more popular.

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divs4ever said:

simple ... just convert them to use vegetable oils ( Bouganville did during the resistance )

originally the diesel engine was designed to run on vegetable oils .. but the fossil fuel lobby had bigger pockets

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qldfrog said:

I know people in France who illegally feed their diesel car with vegetables oil..usually a mix of diesel and directly from shop bottle to tank.
With diesel efficiency, a 5l bottle of oil give you 100km drive..not bad a price plus diesel engines routinely go over half a million to a million km..and the torque is great to pull drag push
I personally consider anyone using a work ute (farm/trade/industry) and not going for a diesel is a clown...
But I know most utes are for show here...see we will even have EV utes

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divs4ever said:

for tradesmen who operate in the city ( only travel relatively short distances ) yes i see an obviously niche , similar for local delivery vans , however only select niches ( and would probably mostly replace petrol engine vehicles )

but logic would have had the world awash with nuclear power stations by the 1980's and yet here we are

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divs4ever said:

for tradesmen who operate in the city ( only travel relatively short distances ) yes i see an obviously niche , similar for local delivery vans , however only select niches ( and would probably mostly replace petrol engine vehicles )

but logic would have had the world awash with nuclear power stations by the 1980's and yet here we are

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Value Collector said:

Why would you want to burn the H2 in and ICE engine though, wouldn’t it be better to use a fuel cell at that point.

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Smurf1976 said:

In terms of efficiency yes but there's already a huge base of ICE in terms of engines, infrastructure, manufacturing and so on.

If we consider the >50% efficiency of the engine on a ship, well that's not bad. A fuel cell could beat it but the ICE isn't terrible.

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Smurf1976 said:

In terms of efficiency yes but there's already a huge base of ICE in terms of engines, infrastructure, manufacturing and so on.

If we consider the >50% efficiency of the engine on a ship, well that's not bad. A fuel cell could beat it but the ICE isn't terrible.

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Value Collector said:

Depends on how expensive the hydrogen is, and also how dense it is, if you have to have 3 times more hydrogen On board to go the same kilometres it will be expensive and cumbersome.

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Smurf1976 said:

Thing is though with a ship it's nowhere near that since the engine is already ~50% efficient and there's no regen braking to consider.

Ship engines being efficient largely because they're big and heavy since that's not a problem on a ship in the way it is with a car.

Same with stationary engines. In SA there's some 17,500 kW internal combustion driven generating sets (for power generation) with efficiency up to 49.4% depending on operating conditions. They're big, heavy (377 tonnes each in fully assembled form) and definitely not moving anywhere at least not intentionally. Operating speed is 500 RPM.

So for reasonably high efficiency ICE the potential benefits of fuel cells are less.

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Value Collector said:

I was talking about trucks and cars.

But, That maybe be so in some cases, for example when a ship is underway and is running its engine in the peak performance of say 75% of its max output.

But at other times when it’s running at higher or lower speeds the fuel efficiency can drop down to 35% or less.

Even when they are just sitting in port or at anchor idling engines to keep the lights on and refrigerator containers running the efficiency can be very low compared to how much fuel a fuel cell would consume to provided the same power.

I guess it all comes down to how important fuel costs are to the operator.

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