Think of the savings of going from 15 to 50 mpg :)
Using rental cars / taxis would be ideal for electric cars as the main taxi rank / collection point thing would also be the charging station. If you bought the 'car' but leased the batteries which where owned by the grid in exchange for using your car as balancing capacity as it was needed it, might help over come the price. Also the large market of used batteries for large scale energy storage is a no brainer :)

The battery technology is ideal for electric bikes and possibly electric boats??
Electrical energy storage and information is key to a low carbon / low fossil fuel economy, balancing the grid using more renewables and demand based on an instantaneous cost would be a tremendous help. Google are you listening? :P

Electrical transport is far more efficient than using ICE which has a MAX efficiency of 30% more like 10-15%
Lightweight, aerodynamic construction is essential for any vehicle and there are some exciting new composites coming out. Check Amory Lovins work on the hyper car and his series of advanced energy efficiency are well worth a look by all.

I'd like to see a lightweight trike that can be pedaled, then a battery pack and motor added to carry some luggage or a passenger. 21 Century Electric bike rickshaws would be so cool, maybe your train ticket would get you a ride on one.

Alan for president !!

To make it more clear, average VMT in US is now around 12k per year.

Gallons of fuel used over that distance:

15mpg: 800 gal
30mpg: 400 gal
100mpg: 120 gal
250mpg: 48 gal

From X-Prize:

Two friends recently bought Honda Civic Hybrids (50 mpg city/50 mpg highway). The jump to a Prius (65 mpg city & 50 mpg highway) will just not save that much and the $2,000+ tax credit is still available for the Honda. And they both liked the Civic better.

All mpg from memory and old version of EPA tests.

Uhhh...I wouldn't count on the EPA milage, which you apparently do. Owners, including Autoweek find the Prius to come in at about 42 MPG.

The Jetta Deisel gets 50 MPG.

And next year there will be more options. VW will re-introduce the TDI with a 50-state compliant diesel engine, and the SmartCar will reportedly also be available.

All that being said - for those of us that already have 50mpg, the question is what's next? The electric cars sound good - and could be my next vehicle, but the sportscar isn't for me.

In the meantime, I guess I will just ride my bicycle more. Need the exercise anyways...

I am not an electric engineer. So this question may not be rooted in reality. But, what the hey...

Let's say you have a small PHEV (the overall size of a Geo Metro, Smartcar, etc), but with one big difference. It has an intelligent retractable flexible arm in its underbelly that can reach into a subterranean electric cable to get power while in motion. Sort of like the cable cars in SF, except that the power is electricity, not mechanical pulling, and the attach/detach is done on the fly.

HOV lanes in cities could be fitted with these subterranean power lines. Wireless transponder technology allows the car to sense and attach/detach to the power line on the fly. Each car would meter power usage with time for time-sensitive metering.

Essentially you have an electric "trolley" system with small private trolley cars. Such a system could be incrementally installed in cities like Los Angeles to give PHEV drivers greater and greater range on grid electric power.

Could such a system work? With green electricity?

Actually ICEs used in our current car fleet are only 20% efficient or less. I don't know where Chris has the 30% figure from; I had mostly seen figures from 15 to 20%.

The biggest advantage of course is not the overall efficiency, which is only slightly better, but the diversity of sources of electricity. Wind, solar, hydro, nuclear - all emission-free (or almost) and with huge potential for ramping up - unlike FFs which are obviously going away.

"Today's" coal plants are actually 30 years old or more. Contemporary IGCC coal plants routinely achieve close to 50% efficiency. Natural gas plants are even more efficient. With heat recovery for nearby industrial processes, coal plant efficiency can be raised to the 70-80% level.

In addition, it is far easier to control pollutants from a few smokestacks than from millions of tailpipes.

For overall system efficiency, however, nothing beats bicycles. And here's a term paper that argues that electric bikes are 2-4 times more efficient than regular bikes. Can't vouch for its accuracy, though.

Toyota has indicated production and safety problems on the batteries. If they put out a million Lithium battery cars and have even one percent of the Sony like battery problems the lawsuits and other issues would wreck them. They are targeting 2011.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/toyota-delays-introduction-new-hyb...

http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/afx/2007/08/09/afx4002104.html

===========
http://advancednano.blogspot.com

Researchers at UC Davis have been at the forefront of the hybrid movement for years and powerful advocates. I spoke with them at an alternative vehicle exhibition last year and they said they did not feel the Lithium batteries had the endurance and cycle life yet to become the mainstay hybrid auto battery under typical conditions of use. They had built vehicles using the Lithium batteries and were hopeful, but they didn't feel the batteries were ready yet for common use. Fine for a wealthy person who could afford to replace them. In the meantime,there are also ongoing improvements in NiMH tech so that they are coming closer to the safe Lithiun technologies.

The race is still on to develop the best battery and I hope we're close. I very much want a plug-in hybrid.

gTrout, Jon
Google Lithium Mining. There's some USGS publications, but they are long PDF's. Its water soluable, there's a lot in the water in El Paso, but commercial mining is done in North Carolina and Nevada The US is the world's biggest producer. Careful though, don't the meth labs use lithium batteries to make meth? Wouldn't want to have your door kicked in because you googled it and forgot to change the kitty litter box Bob Ebersole

Lithium is widely distributed on Earth and is the 33rd most abundant element;[1] however, it does not naturally occur in elemental form due to its high reactivity. Estimates for crustal content range from 20 to 70 ppm by weight.[2] In keeping with its name, lithium forms a minor part of igneous rocks, with the largest concentrations in granites. Granitic pegmatites also provide the greatest abundance of lithium-containing minerals, with spodumene and petalite being the most commercially-viable mineral sources for the element.[2]

The Trouble With Lithium suggests there is a pretty major global lithium constraint. I haven't looked into it myself, but the report came across as credible on a first reading.

Loremo, 140mpg non-hybrid: http://www.loremo.com/index_en.php

VW 1 Liter, 230+ mpg non-hybrid: http://www.seriouswheels.com/cars/top-vw-1-liter-car.htm

Mercedes Boxfish, 80mpg non-hybrid: http://www.worldcarfans.com/2050607.004/1

VW Lupo, 80mpg non-hybrid: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Lupo

Alan Drake has the plan for Electric Rail and freight.
Bob Ebersole

Thanks goes to Mark Yates who authored the piece.

While it is easy to paint a very bleak picture of the future I think we’ve shown over the last few months that there is, at least from a technical point of view, an alternative. The challenge as I see it is largely political and social. I’m an engineer and used to think if something is technically possible that’s at least half the battle won, these days I’m seeing political and social challenges as far greater than technology.

I think the problem originates with the idea of the "horseless carriage." We replaced the horse with an engine and found that it was possible to go much faster. Going faster, however, caused the carriage to fall apart. This brought about stronger and heavier carriages which required bigger engines...and so on. Add to this the necessity for a strong frame to resist impact from fellow travellers, and you get all those big SUVs.

I'm sure there are other factors that guided the development of the motorized vehicle down the multi-passenger, heavy-duty line, but I think safety and speed are the biggest.

- Scott
"Try sour grapes; you might like them."

I did see a great YouTube clip about carbon fibre in relation to cars. A main stream media video-article had a person comparing a car door made of steel to one made of carbon fibre. The difference was obviously huge. I can't remember the name of the company. Also when he tried to swing a sledgehammer at the carbon fibre door it wouldn't even dent.
I hope that like plastics and carbon fibre are being used in aeroplanes (A3XXX and Boeing Dreamline) that we're going to see more of them used in cars.

Frankly, I don't quite see why we need to move a personal ton and a half of carapace about with us, electric or not.

Exactly. I find the talk of finding the way to continue to live in an urban or suburban infrastructure that presumes 25 or 50 miles of high speed movement daily to be the real gloom and doom talk.

It doesn't have to be that bad! We can actually design communities so that walking and biking are capable of bringing us all the jobs, all the social interactions, all the pleasures that we think today are only possible if we have the option of personal automotive mobility.

This talk of viable electric cars is just more gloom and doom pessimism, that assumes we can't ever really recover from the nightmare of highways and suburbia that the oil age birthed.

I'm much more optimistic than that.

You have my full support for this. What you described will allow us to go straight to all-electric vehicles - eliminating all the inefficiencies and complications of the ICE.

Just think about how many of the troublesome and expensive to maintain parts of the car would be eliminated - transmission, cooling system, starter, alternator, exhaust etc. etc. Looking in retrospective ICE looks like a terrible idea compared to all electric car. Only its mass production and decades of evolution has allowed it to become dominant now. And without doubt if we had similar level of battery technology 100 years ago currently we would have been driving all electric.

What is left is that we need to find the way to get from here to there, and my only fear is that we are lacking the political and corporate will to do it. Toyota's lagging behind small start-up companies is quite indicative... Too much interests are invested in the status quo.

Well, WNC, I am glad to see that you have made it over the ramparts, littered tho they were with the bodies of the slain- those who tried before and ended up like so many pincushions of arrows, spears, pikes and battle-axes thru the brain-pan.

The first time I suggested this as a solution to the EV range problem, a swap-out battery filling station run by a robot switcher doing the job in seconds- the howling scofffwolves descended on me with execrations , ridicule and specious arguments of great weight and pomposity.

And so also for the others suggesting the same. Maybe you were such an early one.

Now, this suddenly obvious idea seems to have achieved the level of "sure, of course, any idiot would see the merits of that". Ah, well.

But I was warned " There is no limit to what can be achieved if only one can give up any thought of credit".

I shall now sneak back into my cur's hole.

What sort of weights are we talking here though?
If an E.V. needed 100kg of batteries, a lot of people can't easily lift much more than 20kg (44lb) at a time...to change the whole pack over, that's 10 moves of 20kg each. Is that something most people are going to be happy to do on a daily basis?

Googling I managed to find other people suggesting a similar idea, but no actual numbers on likely weight/numbers. This one suggests the process be automated at battery stations, which sounds more feasible:

http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/EV_20Battery_20Stations

I like the idea - but as stated in the article I can't see it working.
1. We already have (at least) 3 manufacturers making the batteries. Each with different charecteristics.
2. So many different makes, shapes and models of car might make a standard fit difficult.
2. Car companies tend to seal the batteries lowdown in the middle of the car. In an EV you might have 200kg of batteries (I think the Tesla has more than that - but it is a sports car). They'd have to be swappable like a garage swaps a tyre. So access would need to be easy (like the access panel on a digital camera / laptop)
3. Warranties. Car companies might not like 3rd party batteries and void warranties.

Why would you need one pack charging while the other is used for driving. Why not let it charge while you sleep. Everyone sleeps.
The batteries are going to be an expensive component. Why would somebody want 2 packs?

You have to make a bunch of mechanical and styling compromises to make removable battery packs, and it would also make one of the most valuable parts of the car very easy to steal.  I wouldn't buy a car with such battery packs.

At $3 to the Euro - the Tesla Roadster certainly will be a solution for us on the east coast of the Atlantic Ocean - so long as we don't end up owning too much US sub-prime!

Helooooo chrisrob111111

1) On concentrations:

River water Li = 3 ppb; Fe = 40 ppb
Ocean water Li = 0.17 ppm; Fe = 60 ppt
Ocean bottom mud Li = 57 ppm; Fe = 0.65%

Source - memory*

2) On recycling

I'd imagine they will be recyclable

3) On C

Running on nuclear or "renewable electricity" I'd imagine the C footprint will be insignificant compared to an ICE.

* ppm = parts per million; ppb = parts per billion; ppt = parts per trillion
source is actually a book called "The Continental Crust: Its composition and Evolution, authored by Taylor and Mclennan; Blackwell Scientific Publications 1985.

Good link for more on the chemistry / geochemistry of Li. Precipitation of LiCO3 from brine would seem to be a good way of cheaply accessing Li.

http://www.webelements.com/webelements/elements/text/Li/geol.html

Note that webelements is a fantastic web site for data on elements and the periodic table.

I'm not sure about point 1. But I haven't seen a "peak lithium" blog yet ;-)
I think we're going to have more difficulty finding things like oil, copper, lead and especially platinum in the decades to come. These have all skyrocketed in price over the last few years. CNN's commoddities page tracks many of these. There's several other graphs online.
2. The latest version of Valence's graph goes to >90% at 1400 charges (Chris didn't publish the latest version of the article I sent him). Valence have been telling me on email they expect the batteries to last 1000's more charges - they're seeing NO acceleration in charge drop-off. It might take 5000 charges to get down to 70-80%. The line has a very flat slope. I wouldn't throw away my electric car if it could only go 70% of the miles? It could be sold to poorer countries.
3. Given that 100,000 miles at 25mpg (car) vs 50mpg (PHEV) = a saving of 3000gallons. Well, that's an awful lot of gallons/oil/energy. I don't know how much oil it takes to make a set of LiFePO batteries - but there's NO way it's going to be even a fraction of that.

20mln out of 85mln is considerable.
I wasn't counting on full EVs - only PHEV's (and that's if you replace all vehicles). So going from 25mpg to 100mpg is still going to use a lot of oil.
Transport oil probably also covers shipping. Tankers, cargo ships, pleasure shipping (cruise liners and small domestic boats) use massive amounts of oil.
I thought I was being optimistic with 20mln :)
Without a dictatorship / government run car companies and 20years we're not going to replace 100% of all cars with PHEVs.

What about all the racing? Drags, F1, Nascar, the sports car circuit, boats, bikes, planes, etc. That's a multi-billion dollar industry. You gonna just kill it off? And all those fun things like jetski's, lawnmowers, snomobiles, weed whackers, etc. I doubt there is enough raw materials on the planet to make batteries (and motors )for everything that currently runs on FF. And let's not forget things like ships, commercial aviation, trains, military, electrical generation plants, and on and on.

If something isn't sustainable it won't be sustained - instead of focusing on what we might lose we should focus on what we can (and want to) sustain and what new things we can develop. What we know for certain is that things are going to change - just how they are going to change is still up for debate.

My heart is bleeding for all those wonderful dragsters, Nascars and lawnmowers. How could we possibly live without them? And... would we have the resources to mine and process the minerals, project, build, assemble and transport all those electrical vehicles? I told you guys - we are all doomed... if only we could possibly eliminate 90% of humanity we would have a chance, but... the poor bastard just don't want to die. Wait, I have an idea! Why don't we nuke them?

What about all the racing? Drags, F1, Nascar, the sports car circuit, boats, bikes, planes, etc. That's a multi-billion dollar industry. You gonna just kill it off? And all those fun things like jetski's, lawnmowers, snomobiles, weed whackers, etc. I doubt there is enough raw materials on the planet to make batteries (and motors )for everything that currently runs on FF. And let's not forget things like ships, commercial aviation, trains, military, electrical generation plants, and on and on.

How are people going to drive to the races to see them? No audience = no races, even if they can still scrounge up fuel for the race cars. "I" am not going to kill them off, the market will do the job.

Cordless electric weed whackers are available now, I've got one. There are cordless lawnmowers, too, and also manual ones. What people will really need to do though is dig up their lawns and plant gardens. For that, rotary cultivators & tillers are needed; there are diesel-powered models, so biodiesel could keep those running.

Jetskis & snowmobiles? What can I say? There will still be gasoline out there available at some price for a long time yet, if someone wants to run one of these things badly enough, there will be fuel available at a price. I suspect that ever fewer people will be willing to pay that price, though.

Ships can run on biodiesel. Commercial aviation is a big question mark. It will probably be expensive and thus a lot less of it. Eventually they are going to need to figure out a way to produce jet fuel from ethanol and/or biodiesel feestock. Trains can and should be electrified. Military equipment, to the extent that we need it (hopefully as little as possible) can be run on biodiesel, except aircraft (see above). Electrical generation plants: solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, tidal.

For the majority of those lawnmowers and weedwhackers, there's an established technology... what is it called...? Oh yes! An extension cord.

As for racing, have you seen the performance of the Killacycle and the Tesla Roadster. What would be the loss to racing to lose the ICEs? No ear-splitting high-decibel engine noise? No gasoline fumes or explosions on collision? Oh, dear. Whatever shall we do?

Ah, ya make me laugh, Gene.

My guess is that they will become the elite...the powerful men in their super fast machines, granted the use of the remaining portion of the Devil's Excrement. We (well, not me personally) will drive our wimpy little voltmobiles to the racetracks to spend a few hours breathing in the fumes and pointing to Dale Earnhardt IV's NASCAR saying "look kids, that thing runs on Gas-o-line. Inside that car is not a battery, but liquid fire, and little tiny explosions !" And the kids will go "Woooooow".

Are you sure you're a peak oil blogger :)
I'm not going to kill it off. It's either going to become ludircrously expensive or people are going to become more "sensitive" to wasting oil in the decades post peak.
What's FF?
I don't know how there's enough resources / factories in the World to make the 200million+ cars on the roads - but we've managed to do this, or to make the 100s of millions of TVs, washing machines, microwaves, childrens toys, the billions of AA batteries.
Why do you think we can't make 100million lithium rechargable battery packs?
As oil prices rise do you not think people are going to take a good look at GM's 160mpg Volt (due out in 2010 or before), or these electric cars that can do 0-60mph in <4 seconds.
The Mirror, a tabloid newspaper in the UK ran a story about "The Lightning" - people in this country, England thought electric cars could only run milk floats or 30mph city-electric cars.
Once people see the performance electric car/100mpg car has arrived things will begin to change (slowly). 10 years maybe, 100 years no way!

Elon Musk's goal (Chairman / financial backer of Tesla Roadster and inventor of PayPal).

Build sports car.
Use profits from sports car to build affordable electric car.
Use profits from more affordable electric car to build very affordable electric car.

They've taken orders for 400 Tesla's so far (sold out for 6months+).
The $50,000 4 seater Sedan will arrive in 2008 apparantly.

He seems to have his head screwed on.
So while "you" might not be driving one in the next 100 years lots of people will be using something other than liquid fuel in their cars in the near future...

In terms of racing, if you work through the numbers, the amount of fuel used by the fans getting to the track far exceeds anything used during a car race. Thus any type of sporting event that requires lots of people to drive long distances could ultimately be endangered.

"If your $15,000 battery dies in 6 years, your car will be pretty much worthless. Is this battery really ready?

We are used to replacing tires, mufflers --I had a whole engine replaced-- whats the big deal? A guess: mass production will lower the cost of the replacement battery. Then in six years, if you are right, you might get better batteries, who knows.

The charts indicate that at that point you'd still have almost 90% battery capacity, and that it would take 7,000 cycles (1C) to get to 80%.

That's not a dead battery...

realist - "The important number of the discharge rate."

Actually it is not, the important number is Depth of Discharge (DOD). This is the quoted cycle life:

"Cycle life at 10C discharge, 100% DOD: over 1,000 cycles"

which means that if you discharge your car battery totally every single day for 3 years then this would be close to the cycle life of this battery. If your electric car had a range of 200km how often would you completely 100% discharge the battery? At 20% average DOD the cycle life would be approx 5 times this and last 15 years. In a PHEV the battery management system rarely lets the battery become totally discharged and can keep it to 50% or so which greatly extends the cycle life.

The AltairNano battery is even better. They have been tested to have a 100% DOD cycle life of 15 000 cycles. Even if in practice the life is half this at 7500 cycles this means that if you drive your car flat every day of the year for 21 years then the battery might be stuffed and need replacing.

I saw a suggestion that you would not buy the batteries but rent them for about $120 a month, what the average person pays for gasoline now. Then when the batteries are worn out you just get a new set and continue to rent them. The car would cost, say, 15k with the $120 a month battery rental instead of the 20k+ it would cost to buy the car with batteries.

What about the 18 hp Citroen 2CV? Whether they want it is not the point; whether they will prefer driving that to walking or riding a bicycle is. reality doesn't give a shit about your comfort and 'needs' .

I'll suggest that the first thing we solar power is the steel mills and iron mines and car factories. Any organism that can't self replicate isn't around for long.

What? Solar iron mines?

It's worth noting that at $1.75/gallon, lead-acid batteries (including electricty & battery cost) become cheaper than gasoline in a PHEV.

The newest li-ion are just a bit more convenient - lighter, so easier to design around, and not needing changing during the life of the vehicle.

Batteries are ready.

Look! Up there! It's bird. It's a plane. No, it's a Pie in the sky! :)

Just a little levity this am. :)

What we need is Apple to pick up this baton and produce an iCar that can be plugged into an iPod.

The main point for everyone is that technical fixes for transportation, and protecting all that capital spent on suburbia, exist. The difficulty lies in the transition, where convincing national governments, OECD agencies and large corporations of the need to act is paramount.

The base of that pyriamid must lie in reliable energy forecast models.

The company's called MDI - Moteur Developpement International, and what they've developed is an efficient Compressed Air Technology (CAT).

Assuming the indicator diagram here is to scale, the efficiency can be computed (by graph integration) as ≈83% of isothermal (energy recovery would be 100% if both compressor and motor were isothermal). If the compressor-mode and motor-mode efficiencies are the same, cycle efficiency is 69%. Aren't bettery electric vehicles getting c. 85%? Even if the comparable efficiency figure were 100%, the air storage system would have only 45% more energy input for the same output. That might well be acceptable given the relatively low cost of the air storage system.

I have realized I am not adjusting for the (always present) difference between indicated work and shaft work. Unfortunately I do not know how to produce a reliable estimate of this, particularly so given the unusual mechanics of MDI's motor.

You could spin up an flywheel connected to a high speed motor alternator and get around town. You do not need batteries nor air, there are other ways to store energy. Technology may not be the answer to everything, but that does not mean that it can not be the answer to anything.

I am not sold on the electric vehicle being the future of transportation.
And I have 2 of them
http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/994
http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/1025

New technology does not mean it will be afordable for most.

A Xebra made in China might have a chance
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/Xebra_EV/

If the Phoenix SUT is guaranteeing their vehicle and claiming a 12 year, 250,000 !!! mile life (for a pure EV) then the batteries from at least one of the companies must be there.
http://www.phoenixmotorcars.com

It appears detrimental to run Valence batteries in hot climates (45oC sustained) but otherwise I can't see the batteries suffering too much under a lot of abuse. I think the cost has to come down for it to be "really" successfull "really" quickly - otherwise it's going to be a trickle down technology - with car companies slowly coming round to PHEV's using lithium. I hope articles like this help show the batteries are ready :)

PS. I remember being one of the really early adoptors of the DVD player. Lots of people then were saying "it can't record and LD is just as good. Mpeg compression is noticable, I can't see it catching on. The players cost $600". It was adopted faster than any comparable product in history.
It seems news and buzz (with the help of the internet) spreads very quickly these days.
The buzz around cars such as the Tesla will prove to the public that electric vehicles and batteries are ready imho. It should hopefully drive the big automakers (the ones that can make 100000 products a year into doing something).

I also neglected to mention that Tesla Motors are aiming to produce a 4seater vehicle (a Sedan), with a longer range, and a price point of $50,000 in the near future (2008 it seems).
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/08/tesla_motors_ev.php
Code named White Star (though as this is the name of the company that owned the Titanic - I don't think they've picked the best name!)

While progress in the electric vehicle realm seems steady and and impressive, there is a huge problems confronting it.

The worldwide energy cost represented by the construction and operation of such vehicles, as a replacement for current cars in the case of the US, and new ones in the case of the developing world, is astronomical. Where will all the electricity required to do this come from?

Renewable energy resources are not being developed fast enough to provide enough electricity to replace even 20% of the vehicles on the road, even if we go to a "standard replacement car" 1200 pound in weight.

The marginal supplier of electricity still is still coal-fired plants and CO2 sequestration is decades away (if ever). If implemented, sequestration will drain away substantially more of the net energy from this source, resulting in a net yield of electricity of 25% or less, possibly much less. Further, as natural gas supplies start drying up, even less electricity will be available, not only a result of shutting down plants, but due to desperate measures people will be forced to take to keep from freezing in their homes.

While some of you may still think that nuclear power is the answer, IMO,you haven't been doing much reading on the subject. Uranium reserves are limited and already the price is skyrocketing. Besides, who is going to loan us the money to build them?

Personally, I would like to see a cure to this "addiction to driving" we have, and countless more on other continents will soon have. If we could proactively reduce the number of cars on the road by 50% or more, within a decade, I would consider that to be significant progress.

While the good news is that the same hybrid technology can be applied to collective transportation systems (buses), we still need to find a renewable energy source and the technology to harvest it, that is widely available to produce the needed electricity much more cheaply than that which can be provided by coal or nuclear.

There is an answer, called the Atmospheric Vortex Engine, but it needs to be developed and needs more people weighing in to support it. A recent discussion of it was carried out at:

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/13/
are-man-made-tornadoes-the-answer-to-global-warming/

To save time, I recommend comments 61-63 be read, which include a comment by the inventor, Louis Michaud, P.E., who has also patented the technology.

As "Peak Oil" arrives, IMO, it is the only technology that can be developed cheaply enough and quickly enough and in sufficient quantities to mitigate what will otherwise be consequences too terrible to contemplate.

AVE_fan

Hello Super390,

Would you please e-mail me the AC Propulsion's electrified Honda Civic PDF. Send to team 10 tim at yahoo written like my user name. I am interested in converting existing ICE to Electric with swappable batteries. The Honda Civic seemed like a good candidate because it is relatively small and there are so many of them.

Thanks in advance,
Tim

R (in pounds) = 0.01t + 0.0001tv + 0.0026ca(v squared)

where t = weight, v = velocity, a = frontal area and c = drag coefficient.

I still haven't gotten comfortable with using this formula yet, because I still don't know how to convert R to the horsepower and wattage figures I'm used to seeing.

You don't have units for the weight or the speed.  The weight can be safely assumed to be in pounds also, but without specifying MPH or ft/sec for the speed you don't even know what numbers to put in.

First, let us take a moment to convey the fact that we are genuinely honored
by the post from Felix Kramer, and his presence here. I say this not to be flattering or corny. Felix Kramer's group, and the pioneering work of Prof. Andy Frank have done more to alter the paradigm of the transportation energy debate, and give the modern world a radical and creative way forward than any other group or individual has in at least the post WWII period.

While we talked they built.

Historians of the coming energy revolution are already taking note of the places this revolution began. CalCars is already seen by those in the know as the "Independence Hall" of one of the greatest technical revolutions in transportation/energy we have seen to this point in our time, and it's founding members as the "founding fathers" of a new energy and transportation age. Thanks for your reply and clarifcations, Felix Kramer, and we hope you vist often.

Below is a link to an essay I wrote, by pure irony, exactly two years ago on my small private by invitation energy group. It was a celebration of my groups 50th post as an organized group, and was a review of where I thought the "confluence" of technology and economics were moving. It was the plug hybrid idea that I considered at that time, and still do, in conjuction with solar (either PV or concentrating mirror solar or some combination of the two) combined with advanced nano materials leading to advanced solar and battery cells, as the central path forward into what would be a completely new age of energy production, efficiency and use. (although to take note, my views on solar were not nearly as developed at that time as they are now)

In two years of study since writing the post linked, I have had no reason to change my view, and in fact am now stronger in my convictions than I was even then. I have moved the post to my accessable (but undeveloped) energy group for anyone interested to read. While I am prone to going long on my posts on TOD, it would exceed the bounds of politeness to post what is an almost 6 page essay (including links) here on TOD.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Voluntary_Energy_Knowledge_Security/m...

Again, Calcars, Felix Kramer, Andy Frank, and all of your devoted asssistants, technicians and volunteers, thank you for the road forward you have opened to the world.

Roger Conner Jr.
Remember we are only one cubic mile from freedm

Hi Felix. Thanks for the positive feedback on the article.
Apologies to Prof. Andy Frank for not acknowledging him in the article. Please pass my apologies onto him if you're in contact with him. It appears in writing this I merged the two of you into one (his decades of EV experience) and your site/group. I had forgotten he was not part of Calcars. I see on the page here that he is indeed not part of Calcars itself: http://www.calcars.org/about.html
There's youtube video conference presentations by him and at least one video featuring your group so I don't know how I got confused :(
Has your group not done a Prius with a Lithium pack? I've seen a photo of several Prius's (taken inside the boot) with the Valence batteries all lined up. If you google image search for "Prius Valence" there appear to be a few out there. Amberjac (here in the UK) seem to be one of a few small companies using Energy CS and Lithium (Valence) batteries.
I think these companies, and eventually the World owe a lot to Andy Frank, and to your teams hard work. Keep up the good work :)

It is a given that Suburbia & Exurbia are innately more energy and oil intensive (The Toronto example of a fairly close-in Suburban location required 4x the transportation and 2x the overall energy of a downtown 11 story residential tower; which is not the lowest energy Urban solution).

Compact, walkable Urban areas require significantly less oil & energy to support.

My fear is that too rapid implementation of PHEVs & EVs will create a "problem solved" euphoria (given the short range planning endemic in the body politic) and no efforts towards other oil use reduction strategies.

And that has very negative Global Warming implications as well. EVs will use a large % of total USA electricity production; I think of them as new air conditioners; imposed a significant new load and creating a higher new peak (despite vehicle to grid claims which seem extremely unlikely; who is going to life shorten a $6,000 battery to save a few dollars on their bill ?). The high efficiency of electrified rail (roughly 20 BTUs oil to 1 BTU electricity). bicycles & NEVs (neighborhood electric vehicles) has a much more positive impact on GW.

The maximum claim is 20 million out of 85 million b/day worldwide and I doubt that we will see 75% implementation world-wide by 2030#. Add a little population growth and perhaps economic growth and residual and the promise of EVs will only delay a coming crunch.

By contrast, my approach (rebuilding our Urban form, Urban rail, bicycles & NEVs, electrifying & expanding railroads, geothermal heat pumps for heating, bio-sources for some petrochemical inputs) EVEN WITHOUT EVs, could trend towards a US oil demand of 4 or 5 million b/day. With EVs, that number could be reduced some more, closer to 3 million b/day.

Alan

While many have seen this as a change to the "doom and gloom" articles. There is a lot of gloom and doom in this article as it points out what cars "should" be on the road now. On my 10 mile commute to work I lose count of the shiny new 4x4s I see with often one small lady purched up inside them.
They might be using diesel and getting 20mpg instead of 15 in them but the waste of resources there is incredible, and America is far worse.
Chavez is worried about Peak Oil but prices there are a few cents a gallon. There's a weird paradox right there! Increasing oil consumption while being a believer in Peak Oil.
Population is exploding in the middle east (50% under 21 I read somewhere) and demand for a Western lifestyle is exploding in India and China. Cars have replaced bicycles in most chinese cities.
I saw a great quote once that said something like "a jet airliner users more energy flying tourists from America to Egypt than the energy it took to actually build the Great Pyramid", or this one...
"In a barrel of oil, there are 6.2 million Btus -- equivalent to over 18000 man-hours, which would cost over $90000 at a (low) wage of $5/hour."
A barrel of oil = about 2 fillups of a 4x4 (117 litres in a barrel).
Future generations are going to look back at us and cry at how we wasted energy. Of course Fox News and the "liberal" media will tell them to blame OPEC for not releasing more oil onto the market, or the Democrats for not opening ANWR, so keeping prices high.
There will then be an advert for the latest 3 litre Dodge Nitro or 4.5 litre Range Rover

PS. May I heartily recomend Dr. Albert Bartlett's brilliant "lecture" on energy here:
http://globalpublicmedia.com/lectures/461
Show this to anyone and they will wake-up to Peak Oil...

I believe while we will drive electric cars. Aviation will continue but use biofuels instead. I believe there are several people already working on bio jet fuels.

Aviation is going to be the most vulnerable form of transport post peak oil, at least in heavier than air vehicles. Electrification is not an option: energy density of Jet-A is about 42-44 MJ/kg, that for Li-ion batteries is between one half and three quarters of a MJ/kg. You can get renewable Jet-A by Fischer-Tropsch of biomass, at a cost yet to be determined.

I disagree that Amazon and the like are out.
In the worst case scenario you mention (which is still unlikely BTW) i.e. no jet fuel whatsoever then mail and product can *still* be shipped by ocean and rail freight.

What will change is *timing*.
Instead of "next day delivery" or 2-3 days international delivery it may revert back to what I remember as a kid in the 70s:

I remember ordering a bunch of superman comics from DC magazines and it said "please allow 4-6 weeks for shipping & handling".

In any event, it's *not* going to get to the point that jet fuel will cease to exist, it will simply become much, much more expensive.

For those that want to take foreign vacations, the options will be more likely based on ocean voyages or trains.

I'm thinking we'll be looking at a wierd hybrid of the 19th century and the 21st century or perhaps more realistically the economy will probably look like that of Mexico with only the rich taking flights and the rest taking a lot of mass transit and bicycles with a very thin middle class with automobiles.

Shipping can run on biodiesel. I do not believe that biodiesel is THE answer to all of our problems, but it will have its uses, at least as a transition fuel. Unlike corn ethanol, at least it has a positive EROI. We can't produce enough biodiesel to fuel all transport, but we can produce enough to keep the essential things running, including ships. Shipping is just too important to not keep it running, and biodiesel is too easy to produce for it not to come on the market in the quantities necessary to keep shipping running.

Hi,

I live in Austin Texas and there is a company here that is producing a new battery that is known as an "ultra capacitor". The concept has been around a long time, but i think this might be the first implementation of it. The company name is "EEStor", and has no website. They have been ultra-secret about what they are doing, but claim that they are about to go public, and have signed on to provide these "batteries' to a Canadian company.
There is a short entry in Wikipedia, but very little information.
They claim a 5 minute charge will get you 500 miles.

I apolgize up front for having no hard facts or anything to back this up. I post it only to provide a starting point for possible discussion, as i am certain that some of you folks already have knowledge of this company. I would dearly love to hear anything more that could be offered here.

Thanks to all of you for the incredible amount of information that you provide on the oil drum!

Smaller and lighter car safety issues have been solved. Besides, you haven’t lived till you’ve seen a supposedly safer SUV flip over while moving at 80 miles an hour.

In terms of crash performance, the Revolution relies on a combination of the energy absorbing properties of aluminum and the strength of carbon composites to achieve levels of safety comparable to—and in many crash scenarios, exceeding—those of heavier vehicles. For instance, in front-end collisions, computer analyses indicate that the Revolution would surpass U.S. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) for a 48-km/h fixed-barrier collision even at speeds up to 56 km/h. Additionally, the damage from a front-end collision up to 56 km/h would be contained within the aluminum front sub-frame without any damage to the carbon-fiber safety cell, facilitating occupant extrication after a crash and simplifying repair. In a head-on collision with a vehicle up to twice its mass, each traveling up to 48 km/h, the Revolution is designed to meet FMVSS 48-km/h fixed-barrier head-on standards. Thus, the Revolution’s crash structures would successfully absorb the extra kinetic energy transferred to it during a head-on collision due to its lightness relative to its collision partner without compromising passenger safety.
Design and Manufacture of an Affordable Advanced-Composite Automotive Body Structure David R. Cramer, David F. Taggart, Hypercar, Inc., (from RMI, Amory Lovins) pdf warning

I have seen various comments on why the Honda Insight has been cancelled. I read about it a month back and how sales have declined. Is this not true of many brands a car bring out. I think a lot is also down to marketing. I don't remember seeing any advertising for the car myself.

I saw an article where consumers listed "priorities when they buy a car" - a few years number of cup holders was higher up the list than fuel economy.

America has cheap fuel - far cheaper than the rest of the World. I would expect that 1% to increase. There's certain cars such as the Smart Car and clean diesels (many of which achieve 50mpg+ in the UK) that are banned from being sold in the US.

If Toyota were so "responsible" why do they produce SUVs too? Because the market desires it. Is this responsible? A few European companies don't produce them. Citroen, Smart, etc. Tesla has a vision for a clean, C02 free future. I commend this.

Valence sell a "standard format" 12V battery.

...and on that same month Toyota sold 10,000+ Prius no doubt. Toyota say they've sold a million worldwide now. The Prius is synonymous with hybrids - which is why it's the best selling. If people thought "Insight" when they heard hybrid this wouldn't be the case. Selling just 4 could only be explained by lack of availability / promotion.

A 100mpg hybrid would be revolutioanry in Europe I know a lot of my 30something friends would be interested. Toyota is adding the hybrid option to all cars. With the right oil price and the right price point (and some marketing) they could sell them to more than just TODers.

Even the Tesla (using standard lithiums) features regenerative braking. If frequent "small charges" was bad for the batteries these cars wouldn't have this feature!

Tesla states on their site the battery pack will be used to warm itself before it is charged. (if the temperature is below 0oC).
If people are buying a PHEV they may have a garage. Garage temperatures rarely fall below 0oC even when exterior temperatures drop to -5oC. My parents car never got ice on it in their garage.
A123 systems batteries have a range of -30oC to 55oC so some companies are performing better here.
Vibration? Cars have suspension so reducing any sharp G force impacts. With the lack of moving parts and sealed chemistry I don't see this as a problem. I've never heard this mentioned by any company related to Lithium batteries.
I know their our challenges but if Toyota said they can't use lithium batteries because of vibrations they'd be laughed at.
The Tesla website states you could leave the headlights on a month before the battery drained. The Prius as I state in the article can run it's AC off of 40% of a 1.3kW battery. If the Valence batteries can discharge at C2 on a 9kW pack that sounds like enough to run an AC system! If it can charge in 3 hours. 9kw at C2 is discharging over 1.5 hours at 6000watts (60x 100watt light bulbs). That's a LOT more than an AC would use.
No offence, but I think you're thinking of excuses to explain why Toyota is not doing Lithium Iron. I don't see anything you've stated as a limit to these batteries.

There's about 10 aftermarket companies such as AmberJac and EnergyCS taking the risk and adding packs by Valence and A123 and other companies. Lifecycles for all these batteries appear to be 2 to 5x better than any competing technology. The batteries are ready.

Panasonic (parent company) owns it NiMH factory - so prices to them (and given how old NiMH technology is) must be pretty cheap. A Prius with an 8 mile EV range is not going to blow people away. A Volt with 40mile EV range will.
I am sorry for Toyota if they slip behind GM on this. The series plugin is an even greater leap than a PHEV. Kudos to GM for pushing the boundary on this if this aint just green washing. Many like Calcars also believe that GM are really doing something on this.

Before I became obsessed with peak oil over a year and a half ago I would read or hear someone talk about something like bio diesel with the attitude like it was planet saving magic--and what a bunch of ignorant dopes in the world to not put it right to use. I would think, "This sounds too good to be true." Sorry to put you in the same camp as the bio fuel wackos, because the article is well documented, but I cannot help thinking that this article is too good to be true. Stuart Staniford posted a alarming/enlightening link which I read last night that Oil Drummers need to scrutinize: "The Trouble With Lithium suggests there is a pretty major global lithium constraint."
http://meridian-int-res.com/Projects/EVRsrch.htm#ZnAirSoln
According to Meridian International, and contrary to the article, the new lithium battery may be ready but it will never be ready on the mass scale. We would soon hit peak lithium before mass lithium adoption. So lithium plug in cars will never be a silver bullet and possibly not even a silver BB. If this is true perhaps Toyota knows about this and is why they are not going ahead with lithium powered car production. And when it looks like GM, with the Volt, is finally doing something intelligent it will turn out to be another flop--because the more popular the Volt becomes the more expensive lithium will get.
But before anyone can say electric cars are just people grasping to ensure the easy motoring way of life it looks like there are other alternative silver BBs--and possibly big BBs that oil drummers need to scrutinize:
Meridian International is pushing for plug-in cars with zinc batteries. "Zinc is the only metal which can sustain large battery production in the volumes required by the Global Automotive Industry." (Click the link above.)

Traal posted a link for a company making a cheap car that outperforms any other plug in with compressed air: http://www.theaircar.com/
This seems too good to be true, but perhaps it works.

Best Hopes for Alan Drake's Rail Plan Implementation & Viable Electric Car Silver BBs

Read here about Tesla's extensive changes (that have added 100lbs+ weight and also limited the range of the car from 250mile range to >200mile range.
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog2/?p=48
Then you might want to take back your comment:

"...I see a responsible and innovative company with a deep concern for quality (lacking in start-ups like Telsa no doubt)."

If a Tesla blew up with Arnie, the ebay founders, Flea from Red Hot Chilli Peppers, George Clooney (or any of the other owners) in it - I think the World would hear about it! I don't think quality is sacrificed in this car!

Here's the list of improvements...

Range Reality
by Martin Eberhard
CEO

SAE shake and vibration testing caused us to stiffen up (and add a fair bit of weight to) several parts inside the Energy Storage System (or battery pack), damping out resonant frequencies.
Durability testing caused us to improve (and add weight to) the mounting system for the modules within the ESS, and to strengthen the brackets that mount the ESS to the chassis.
Durability testing also caused us to increase the strength of one of the front suspension brackets on each side.
We broke the top motor mount on two EP cars doing demonstration “hole shots,” necessitating changing from magnesium to aluminum, and increasing the bracket size as well. (Did any of you notice a funny clunk in the car late in the evening at our launch last July?)
Hard driving convinced us to change the motor end housings from magnesium to aluminum as well - under severe testing, we had trouble with the bearings spinning in their mounts.
Hard driving in the desert caused us to increase the size of the coolant pump. Several heat sinks (both in the PEM and on the motor) got a bit bigger (and heavier) too.
We got very conservative when we redesigned the transmission because we knew we had to get it right the first time - no opportunities to strengthen it later.
Upon strong urging from our new transmission supplier, we also changed to an electro-hydraulic shifting mechanism (instead of a purely-electrical one), because it is far more reliable and durable and because it shifts much more quickly. Needless to say, it is a bit heavier too.
On our first try, the side intrusion test failed, largely because we lowered the door sill height. The redesigned door beam is, naturally, stronger and heavier.
NVH (Noise, Vibration, and Harshness) testing caused us to add damping material to solve various noise issues, particularly the sound of the A/C compressor.
Our original electric door latches were simply unreliable. We changed to a much better latch from a different (American!) vendor that is (as you already guessed) heavier.
The original stereo did not sound like it belonged in a sportscar of this caliber (okay, it sounded like heck), so we redesigned it to take a 12-liter subwoofer and higher-end speakers.
Because the car got heavier, we had to increase the strength (and therefore weight) of the suspension and brakes.

"The highest mpg automobile sold in the USA (by a major manufacturer), the Honda Insight, went out of production due to poor sales in 2006."

It was a tiny two-seater. At the same time the Prius had a waiting list.

"Today, one can buy 50+ mpg cars at Honda & Toyota dealers, yet they represent about 1% of all USA sales (and one could still get a discount off list price on a Honda Civic Hybrid as of 3 months ago)."

Hybrids are 2.3% of all USA sales - Prius and Civic hybrids are the majority of them - and they're growing 55% per year. 2 years to get to 5%, easily less than 10 to get to 30%. First adopters won't be needed - PHEV's like the Volt will have no compromises, and much lower lifecycle costs.

"Just 1% in a world of $2.50 to $3 gasoline."

But only for the last 2-3 years. PHEV's are only cheaper than ICE's when gas is over $1.75/gallon. It's reasonable to give hybrids/PHEV/EV's a little time to ramp up before judging them.

"And the author calls Toyota "stupid" and unwilling to change. I see a responsible and innovative company with a deep concern for quality (lacking in start-ups like Telsa no doubt)."

The "stupid" comment was over the top, but Toyota did make a mistake. They committed to the wrong battery, a conventional li-ion which requires very precise manufacturing to be safe, and then got nervous, due to recalls on other models and a fear of taking any further risk of hurting their quality reputation, already on thin ice.

"Unlike the author, Toyota takes not take company technical sales data at face value and looks at all aspects of operations, such as vibration (always a major issue), operations below -30C, fast drain while operating air conditioners, repeated shallow recharges while braking, and so forth."

No, it was as I stated above.

"The author loses credibility with the speculation that "Maybe, as this is just a new model Prius, they don't have the engineering budget to try anything too new, like better batteries".

True. They just made a mistake, and will lose very roughly a year in fixing it.

"I could speculate that the author and Toyota have reviewed the same technology (one in much greater depth than the other) and come to differing conclusions about the readiness of new Li batteries for "mainstream" automotive use. "

Yes, you could, but that would be incorrect, as noted above.

"And if Toyota (and Honda) do market a few PHEV models in 2009/2011, how many will they sell ?"

My guess is that they will make the Prius plug-in, and phase PHEV status into their other models, until for Toyota hybrid equals plug-in. IOW, PHEV's will grow as much and grow as quickly as hybrids.

"Since post-Peak Oil will almost certainly be accompanied by a severe recession and/or depression, overall car sales will plummet. "

Sure, if the economy completely crashes mitigation will be more difficult, but we'll have more money for rail?

Yes, the transition will be difficult. Best to get started ASAP...

”I have yet to see the US do anything very significant in the way of making a better future. We're still endlessly expanding highways, and it is absolutely idiotic. Instead of hoping for the technology savior, do some more walking and bicycle riding. You'll feel better.

Sure bicycles take energy and resources to build and maintain. But I'm certain that's only a small fraction of that used for cars - electric or not.”

You will get no argument from me on that. Seldom will your taxes fund alternatives to cars, like light rail. I recall $20 trillion was a figure bandied about as the sum required just fixing America’s road infrastructure and $200 million a day to pay for its war in Iraq. How many bikes would $200 million buy?

Speaking of bicycles, not everyone avoids riding a bicycle because they are obese or lazy. I’ve seen plenty of seniors riding and many who couldn’t possibly. I’ve had the delight of back surgery. It kills me to balance on a bike seat. But I don’t feel so bad, I witnessed my neighbor in a neck brace and one shoulder in a cast ride by on his bicycle; of course I wouldn’t want to be forced to do what he is doing.

I have an old bicycle. I put air in its tires, ride it, the chain comes off and I put it away for another extended period. I don’t like bicycles. I like to walk instead, though it is slower and carrying things gets old rather fast.

The stuff I've read about Firefly is that it has good power density, but their energy density is still no better than ~20 watt-hours/pound, so not that different than a Trojan T105 lead-acid, which costs only 5 cents per watt-hour. I'm betting the Firefly will be several times as expensive. I don't see a breakthrough with much less than 50 watt-hours/pound.

Tim,

Interesting idea, you might want to just start with an investment group. I own a little Altairnanao, hard to know which horse to bet on with batteries, but learned from this thread. You might consider the following listing of sustainable stocks as a starting point.

http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/stocks/

been meaning to try and go through it myself. You could have someone research one stock a week and present on it. Doubt Oildrum is the place for this and don't know if it would find much traction here.

I own a bit larger stake in a company called World Water and Power WWAT.ob. This one has an interesting story. Apropos to your posting it has recently had a former hedge fend manager, David Gelbaum, invest some 20-30 million. He now owns some 10-20% of the company as well as similar stakes in maybe a handful of other small sustainable energy companies. OEGY.ob the solar roofer (though I don't one any) is one that comes to mind. So there are some rich investors thinking along your lines, though I would surmise "former Hedge Fund manager" is not the most popular title these days. There is now a whole little cult of investors scanning filings to see what Gelbaum invests in next.

Yes I own it but WWAT really has a fascinating story. The CEO, Quentin Kelly, after visiting Sudan and seeing people dying from lack of water with an aquafer only some 30-40 feet down, came back and started asking Princeton scientists to help him with this problem. This led to a number of patents on using solar cells to power high horsepower pumps for pumping water. After some installations in poorer areas of the world were successful but not profitable, the company shifted emphasis to agricultural and utility applications. There are a number of these midsized 10 -200kw projects successfully completed. More recently they received a contract for a 2 Mw solar installation at Fresno airport, the largest airport solar installation to date. Most recently, they received a less than one million dollar order to deliver 10 MaxPure(tm) self-contained solar water pumping/purifying units to Darfur, Sudan to provide drinking water to displaced refugees. So this sort of brings the story full circle. Each unit has the capacity to pump/purify 30,000 gallons/daily. Kelly was raised in New Orleans and a MaxPure was also provided at company expense to Waveland MS after Hurricane Katrina and provided potable water there for, I believe, some six months. The company recently announced a letter of intent to build a solar farm in Spain of some 130 Megawatts over 5 years. They are also in the process of acquiring Entech a small private supplier of solar cells for NASA space applications. Entech has expertise in concentrating photovoltaic which should further reduce the cost per watt of WWAT projects.

As you can see I like this company and obviously believe in supporting them though I also think they are a great long term investment. Solar and Water: says it all. I will say, and I may be way off base here, but I think the stock price has gotten ahead of itself. The Spain deal is a LOI not a signed contract, and WWAT is taking its own sweet time finalizing the Entech merger. Because of the lumpiness of revenue from working on larger projects, the revenue from the last two quarters looks terrible, but this is forecasted to be over with. Without news, it may trend down for a month or two but if they close Entech and sign the Spain deal I think things continue to look great for this sustainable energy company.

If you're interested in further reading
http://www.worldwater.com/pages/aboutwwp.html
http://www.worldwater.com/maxpure/
http://www.worldwater.com/pages/disaster_relief.html
http://www.forests.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=35903

I'd hasten to add between us we probably also have a lot of skills and abilities which would be very usesful for all sorts of ideas, from local council advice to community makeovers and company direction. Most people are hear because they realise there is likely to be a huge shift needed in the way we do things and the way the world 'works' there is also enough sensible ideas coming out of peoples fingers that there is a real posibility that sensible ideas can be formed with the financial support and ability to carry them out.

Its not the size of the tank its the size of the tap

There are more knowledgeable folk than I here re: refining, but basically it goes like this. Crude oil has a bunch of "fractions" that go by boiling point (basically vapor pressure, which mostly goes as the number of carbons). The very light fractions are gases like ethane (2 carbons, or C2), propane (C3) and butane (C4); a very light liquid fraction from about C5-C10 or C12 called naphtha; a heavier fraction called gasoil, light gasoil, or middle distillate (C12-C20 approx); a heavy fuel oil which won't boil off until 650F; and residual asphalt-like stuff which boils at over 1000F. The light end of middle distillate is kerosene, the rest of it is diesel or heating oil. Gasoline is a mix of mostly C5-C10 or C12 hydrocarbons with a minimum octane rating of 85 or so, depending where you are. The minimum octane is the kicker, because unlike diesel or kerosene there is little if any gasoline in most crudes, and if you want it you have to make it (this is why gasoline has lower EROEI than diesel). The light naphtha fraction has an octane rating of low 70s, too low to use directly but usable as part of the mix. The heavier naphthas are more like mid 50's and can't be used directly, so they are isomerized to form high octane components which get added to the stream (so called "reformate") There are also aromatics (benzene, toluene, naphthalene etc) which come off in the higher boiling point fractions and have very high octane ratings, so they get thrown in the mix. Generally you want even more gasoline, so you crack heavier fractions into naphtha, high octane isomers of naphthas, and aromatics. In the end, you make about 20 gallons of gasoline for every barrel of crude.

You could, of course, crack the heavier fractions into diesel or kerosene instead, but AIUI changing the finished product ratio is very expensive and basically refineries specialize in certain products (also feedstocks -- heavy sour vs light sweet, eg) Also AIUI at least up to recently aromatics were added to diesel because they have good lubricating properties, even though they have terrible cetane numbers. Not sure that's still the case. What is still the case is that we have the lowest cetane number diesel in the developed world.

About

As you say, it all hinges on whether or not the battery problem has truly been solved. Time will tell whether the Lightnings and Teslas are still running in five years time, and until then I shall remain sceptical.

Well, I'm a bit more hopeful, although I will want to see independent numbers before taking anything too seriously. But I think the Phoenix is much more interesting than the Tesla (or Lightning). Tesla quite understandably started with about the lightest frame they could get, which is not feasible for the Phoenix. Also, whether they're intended for it or not, most uncompromising 2-seat sports cars (and the Lotus Elise is exactly that) end up as pampered garage queens.

"The reason why Toyota can't produce PHEVs using their existing NiMH batteries is that they aren't allowed to. Chevron bought the patent, and sued Toyota to stop them."

I do not believe in the benign corporation, which inclines me to believe your statement, but where is your evidence?

As hybrids are about 104 years old the only thing I can see holding back the hybrid has been cheap gasoline (blame OPEC and also non-OPEC crashing the price of oil to $10 a barrel when they found new areas in the 60s and 70s) and heavy lead acid batteries. Cars also used to be smaller. I couldn't imagine a mini or many European cars fitting two drivetrains in it. American cars were bigger, but their oil price was so low that until the 70s many vehicles weren't getting much above 10mpg and the owners didn't care! There was certainly no incentive for the american car companies to increase fuel economy.