Inboard engines and a changing world

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by Buzzman

This statement is so patently false it must be a typo or mis-statement.

It's quite clear that "electric/hybrid" powered vehicles are perfectly capable of crossing countries and even continents.

The onboard ICE generates the power that recharges the battery. So using a hybrid is just like driving an ICE vehicle, except it goes further on the same tank of gas.

This does, in fact, reduce overall emissions.

OTH, if you meant to specify "pure electric" vehicle, then I'd have to accept it is, as yet *difficult* to cross countries or continents without some difficulty or time delays.

But, having said that, in Oz there are now charging stations at suitable intervals for pure EVs on the major inter-city routes, such as Sydney to Melbourne and, I noticed last weekend while in a remote south coast seaport, even charging points popping up in such less well-travelled locations.

Maybe the US experience is different, but the map showing charging points in Oz gets more added to it every week....

Did I SAY hybrid?? No! I said electric!

An ELECTRIC car cannot travel across the USA (or Australia) in any practical way. You have to stop for hours to charge the thing all the time, assuming you can find a charging station.

Drive one to Perth and let me know how you make out if you're from NSW or something.

[Buzzman]

OK, for all the other pedants out there - if you simply use the single word "electric" you are only implying that some of the propulsion is via elctric motor.

Hybrid, plug-in hybrid, pure electric - they all use "electric".

If you *mean* to refer to a vehicle that is only and solely powered by an electric motor, that requires recharging with electricity before it can go anywhere, then the correct term is 'pure EV'.

The term 'hybrid' may indeed be mis-used in relation to car companies marketing materials, but it's what Joe Public understands as a "hybrid" - and that's what matters in a *general* discussion such as this. Wanna get technical, start a "technical" thread.

For *general* understanding, if it has more than one energy source, it's a "hybrid", regardless of how either or both propel the vehicle.

No doubt once Joe Public gets more used to the terminology we'll be able to split hairs without baffling them.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by Buzzman

OK, for all the other pedants out there - if you simply use the single word "electric" you are only implying that some of the propulsion is via elctric motor.

Hybrid, plug-in hybrid, pure electric - they all use "electric".

If you *mean* to refer to a vehicle that is only and solely powered by an electric motor, that requires recharging with electricity before it can go anywhere, then the correct term is 'pure EV'.

The term 'hybrid' may indeed be mis-used in relation to car companies marketing materials, but it's what Joe Public understands as a "hybrid" - and that's what matters in a *general* discussion such as this. Wanna get technical, start a "technical" thread.

For *general* understanding, if it has more than one energy source, it's a "hybrid", regardless of how either or both propel the vehicle.

No doubt once Joe Public gets more used to the terminology we'll be able to split hairs without baffling them.

Pretty sure that's an Australian thing.

In the USA an electric car is propelled by electricity and a hybrid car is an electric motor with ICE backup.

You call the stuff you trowel onto a wall bog and we call it mud.

No need to cram your local lingo down our throats and demand we speak the way you do. I respect your dialect. Respect mine as well.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by Ifitsworthdoing

Interesting post - am pondering the same options planning to commission a new boat in around 2022 (specifically designed as a technology demonstrator) likely in a deal with Torqeedo or Aquawatt. It will be a 34ft catamaran intended to show that green technology can work for compact passagemakers, with saildrives capable of hydrogeneration, large extending solar panels and 2 wind turbines ... basically a scaled down version of the Energy Observer currently halfway through its round-the-world trip. Clearly some form of sail propulsion (e.g. kite sails) and of a gen set are still needed, and top speed will be capped around 12 knots, but Planet Solar and SolarWave have already completed long distance feasibility (and the Swiss creators of the latter are now building the almost affordable SilentYachts in Turkey ...). Definitely a case of Watch This Space - and the retrofit conversion market should become huge, too!

If this is intended as a cruising boat, this is wildly optimistic.

We had two different 34ft cruising cats...they topped out around 7.5kts...and that was mostly making a lot of noise once you got above 7.0kts.

Now, it's possible to make the hulls really skinny and boost the hull speed but now you are severely limited on load carrying capacity...which isn't that great on a normal 34ft cat.

Given the energy storage limitations, you really should be focused on cruising speed not top speed.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by newhaul

actually if you really want go see what would happen without subsidies for the ev market just look at China .

The problem with considering china...20-30yrs ago, outside the powerful party officials, no one had a car. Even a motorcycle was a luxury item.

So going from a scooter to a 50mile range car was a huge increase in both capability, luxury and status symbol.

In the USA, even those on welfare are accustomed to bigger more comfortable vehicles with 300-500mile range.

This is similar to talking about solar in 3rd world countries...if you don't have access to a reliable 24/7 grid, a solar panel attached to a deep cycle battery is a huge improvement.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

... that sounds very much like the guaranteed feed-in tariff rate offered as an inducement to install solar. Potentially a good idea...but how are these not subsidies or government mandates?

Difference is it is "allowing" price variation across the day based on demand. Those prices are defined by the price the buyer and seller are willing to agree to.

That's market driven pricing.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by GordMay

1. Indeed, but Ford’s new strategy also includes committing to new propulsion choices, such as adding hybrid-electric powertrains to profitable vehicles such as the F-150, Mustang, Explorer, Escape, and Bronco.

It's a falsehood that Ford is departing the passenger vehicle market. They are producing lots of passenger cars but rebranding them.

30yr ago, the modern crossover SUV would have been marketed as a station wagon even though identically designed and built. Two reasons for the rebranding:
1) SUVs are covered by a different portion of CAFE standards.
2) Station wagons have an undesirable reputation as a mom car (they got this before mini-vans got the label)

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

Difference is it is "allowing" price variation across the day based on demand. Those prices are defined by the price the buyer and seller are willing to agree to.

That's market driven pricing.

Well first you need a market with time of day pricing. Then you need the electric utility to let you feed in (they really don't want you to, in most cases). You need the technology that will record both your usage and your feed-in. Finally you need a feed-in rate that would make it attractive and worthwhile.

All this requires government leaning on the utility to even permit it, let alone paying a rate that makes it worthwhile.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Well first you need a market with time of day pricing. Then you need the electric utility to let you feed in (they really don't want you to, in most cases). You need the technology that will record both your usage and your feed-in. Finally you need a feed-in rate that would make it attractive and worthwhile.

All this requires government leaning on the utility to even permit it, let alone paying a rate that makes it worthwhile.

I suspect you have it backwards. Utilities have a history of not liking household producers because they get special sale rights which usually means the power company MUST take all the power you produce even if they don't need it and they MUST pay full retail price (ie: the power company is still maintaining the grid and must provide guaranteed availability without getting anything out of that kwh). Additionally, the power company has built their grid system over decades based on a small number of large generating plants. To implement significant amounts of dispersed unpredictable power requires retrofitting the grid to handle it.

There have been some moves where net metering is at a wholesale price but I've yet to see one that accurately accounts for providing the grid and base level generation capabilities...so hardly surprising that a company in business to make money isn't a huge fan.

Yes, if you want to sell your power at variable pricing, you need to be able to track how much was used by hour...that's not a technologically difficult thing but when power comes at a fixed price 24/7/365, there was no reason for buyer or seller to push for it.

So this is a drastically different situation we are talking about. If there are peaks that can be addressed with stored battery power, the power company will happily pay a premium for a few kwh rather than build a whole new power station just to handle 20min per day of peak demand.

PS: My presumption is the power company is allowed to step out of it's regulated utility mode and set pricing the way they want to set it...utilities historically have been under heavy govt regulation which makes it difficult for them to react in a market based manner.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by newhaul

with the optional ice generator yes it would.

By definition

A hybrid vehicle uses two or more distinct types of power, such as internal combustion engine to drive an electric generator that powers an electric motor, e.g. in diesel-electric trains using diesel engines to drive an electric generator that powers an electric motor

Whose definition are you quoting?

[Ifitsworthdoing]

Hydrogen for fuel cell use has 3 x the energy density of diesel ... the EnergyObserver tech demonstrator is showing that you can sail a 28 ton boat around the world’s oceans with a 5kn cruising speed (10kn top speed) using 60% H2 and 40% solar with a seawater purifier and electrolyser on board ...

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

...this is a drastically different situation we are talking about. If there are peaks that can be addressed with stored battery power, the power company will happily pay a premium for a few kwh rather than build a whole new power station just to handle 20min per day of peak demand.

PS: My presumption is the power company is allowed to step out of it's regulated utility mode and set pricing the way they want to set it...utilities historically have been under heavy govt regulation which makes it difficult for them to react in a market based manner.

It's a chicken-egg thing. To attract enough early-adopters, you need to offer inducements, else there won't be enough of them to be a useful power source.

Power utilities will always be heavily regulated. It's a monopoly, in exchange for obligations to serve. In a pure market, they wouldn't serve outlying areas affordably, or maintain service guarantees.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

It's a chicken-egg thing. To attract enough early-adopters, you need to offer inducements, else there won't be enough of them to be a useful power source.

Power utilities will always be heavily regulated. It's a monopoly, in exchange for obligations to serve. In a pure market, they wouldn't serve outlying areas affordably, or maintain service guarantees.

It is chicken and egg except, we already have dispersed power providers. Switching to a meter than can adjust by time of day is fairly simple. Lots of meters now have wifi so there are no meter readers. Upgrading so it sends in data once an hour is a very minor technological change.

It could be as simple as new solar installations use this as the method and existing solar owners can opt to upgrade to the new meter.

You are still focused on making a non-viable system work by providing inducements. I'm talking about letting the market provide inducements...but only if there is value...which there likely is if you let the market do the pricing.

A simple early step would be a pre-programmed meter that scales the KWH reading up or down by time of day. It's generally fairly predictable when high and low demand is by time of day, so this would get 80-90% of the advantage while being very simple to implement...ie: if power is 50% more expensive, it records 50% more kwh. If power is half the price, it records half the kwh. No need for the power company to even track this...this could be an interim step towards the power company putting out pricing that is different each day but close enough to actually provide benefits of having dispersed power provided when demand is high.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Adelie

Whose definition are you quoting?

I got that from wiki but you can pick your dictionary of choice
https://www.google.com/search?q=hybr...obile&ie=UTF-8

I am also using the technical definition not the commonly used ( marketing ploy) definition

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by Ifitsworthdoing

Hydrogen for fuel cell use has 3 x the energy density of diesel ... the EnergyObserver tech demonstrator is showing that you can sail a 28 ton boat around the world’s oceans with a 5kn cruising speed (10kn top speed) using 60% H2 and 40% solar with a seawater purifier and electrolyser on board ...

Hydrogen is indeed energy dense, but that doesn’t change anything if your having to make it yourself, your still limited by the Solar panels output, so whether you store that energy in batteries or hydrogen is irrelevant. Just me but I’d bet storing it in batteries is more efficient that making hydrogen, then oxidizing it to make electricity.

However where hydrogen has its advantage is that it can be made somewhere else, and a huge amount of energy can be transported and distributed rather easily.