We Don't Need No Stinking Sparky Cars

When I find a fuel source that has less environmental impact than petroleum based fuels I will switch assuming no price difference. However at the moment alternate fuels do more ecological harm than conventional fuels so there is no point in me trying anything different.

Of course that heavily depends on your definition of alternative fuel vehicle. If natural gas prices stay low you will see a heavy shift towards it, regardless of government incentives. Currently NG costs about 25% or less for the equivalent amount of btus as gas or even diesel. That's a huge savings.

atural gas is not practical for car and small engine. They are little bombs so no enclosed parking and they take forever to fill up.

Forever to fill up with a home station yes - about 8 hours or so. A public station takes only a few minutes. Too bad the Civic GX is not sold in Canada. It has been sold in the US for about 14 years.

NG is even worse than propane.

I recall a few years back...a buddy had a business delivering new vehicles...especially school buses...and propane was a real problem.
Such critters had to be escorted by gas or diesel units....so the weird fuel things could get towed if necessary....

For drivers, finding a propane filling station was difficult and finding them open even more.
Queerbec for example only ALLOWED propane to be bought/sold 9-5 on week days.

While propane vehicles were popular in such places as Dawson Creek....they were always within range of an outlet.

For the forseeable future....NG much like propane or electric will be limited to about town, cummuting and local delivery....

Like many other sectarian religions, the one as promulgated by Gore "The God of Blunder" and his self-righteous Pharisees commands self deprivation, sacrifice and suffering as the only mark of true faith. Usual punishment for transgressors is shunning by the faithful and the threat of eternal damnation.

The sinner's only hope for salvation is to buy indulgences (carbon taxes and so forth) to minimize their stay in purgatory.

Golly, if the gubmnt keeps pouring tax dollars in these green powerplants,everybody will have one.

They'll be as successful as the "wankel" engine.... won't they?

Note that electricity is considered an "alternative" fuel in this article. Joe's attitude notwithstanding, I still believe electricity is, or can be, the cleanest fuel we have available.

The problem with "sparky" cars, to use Kate's term, is petroleum has a huge advantage in terms of energy density. 75 lbs of gasoline (about 10 gallons) can propel most new cars 300 miles or more; a 75 lb battery just a few miles, at most.

But, as I've learned to say about tech, 'never say never'. The fellows at one of those big, evil, giant corporations vilified by the left are hard at work. IBM's 500 mile battery. This battery has a potential energy density that puts it in the range of petrofuels.

A small science-y interlude here. Gas has a high energy density, but the effective use of that energy is not so great. The typical auto engine's efficiency (in terms of energy used to energy transferred to the crankshaft) is limited by the Carnot cycle, ultimately, and user maintenance, practically. 25% is about the most you can hope for. Electric engines, in contrast, convert about 80% of input power to useful output power.

But that's not all. To use that energy, you need the support system - motor, tranny, rad, pumps, a battery, alternator, muffler, etc. So, to move four adults (say, 600 lbs?), you need to move an equivalent amount of motor train. The output power per kg of a typical gas engine is on the order of .5kW/kg, while the maligned Toyota Prius's electric engine produces 1.3 kW/kg. Now those figures are just for the engines, so if you add in all the stuff you need to support the gas engine, and balance it off against the weight of the battery (don't forget to add the weight of the gas tank and gas to your gas car!), you're getting figures that are very much alike when you look at total usable power produced vs. total weight of motor/fuel supply/support systems.

Now, that's where we are today. Electric cars with very light motors and very heavy batteries achieve similar performance on the road as gas vehicles do. Yes, a gas car does better, but electric vehicles provide reasonable acceleration, reasonable top speeds, reasonable handling, etc. The big drawback today is range. No electric car comes close to the range of even the most vilified 'gas guzzlers'.

That's where the IBM battery is a game-changer. Although they're positing a 10-fold improvement in energy density, let's say they only get half that. That means the 40 mile range of today's electric-only cars becomes 200 miles. Now, that's eminently practical for many people.

Every time I post about this, some moron jumps on me and extrapolates from "e-cars make sense for some people" to "e-cars make sense for all people". So let me say it baldly: ELECTRIC CARS DO NOT AND WILL NOT MAKE SENSE FOR EVERYBODY. However, an e-car with a 200 mile range is an eminently practical second car for many people, and has a host of benefits.

We're not going to see these batteries any time soon, but they're coming, and they're going to be a good thing.

" First, additional urban planning is required to demonstrate plug-in hybrids and EVs will be viable options for buyers "

Maybe investing in barb-wire futures would be a good idea.

Taxis in Ottawa have mostly run on natural gas for twenty years or so now.
Buses in some cities run on natural gas.
But I always think of natural gas as being in the same category as oil.

Taxis in Budapest ran on coal, a long time ago.

Most factories and warehouses use electrically powered forklift trucks.

Well, that's the whole point!
To them, government assistance isn't a bug. It's a feature. The bureaucrats get more jobs and the politicians get a steady revenue stream from the "government assistance" stake holders.
To these crackpots, it's all to the good!

"Alt-fuel cars unsustainable without government assistance."

Except in Dildo McDinkyland, of course.

I'll have you all know that here in Ontariarario, contary to what Standard and Poors may say, all forms of green energy are reliable, economically sound, and sustainable.

Don't know what the rest of the world is doing wrong.

The glitch in independent e-car technology is and always will be the battery. Current battery tech relies heavily on toxic metals and does not deliver the current needed for practical commercial road transport. Electrical cars may be viable if common source AC can be delivered through embedded roadway gris but that is impractical given the reluctance to use high efficiency coal fired AC geration.

I cant believe the drivel from electric car enthusiasts.When I was a lad every city had electric buses to which they had switched from streetcars,with electric heaters to keep the passangers warm.With electric lines over the roadway to power said buses and once in a while a driver would turn too wide and the bus had to be rescued.Those bues werent electric and neither are the cars.They are BOTH powered by coal,hydro,nuclear or natural gas from stations hundreds of miles away. I know of NO city with electric buses on trunk or other routes because the maintenance and the line loss is too high.Thats why they were replced by diesels.I have said nothing of the road tax that WILL be assesed per kilo driven

Well by definition they're unsustainable without government assistance. They're subsidized now to the tune of about 10 grand as I understand it, and yet I know one guy who owns one and I live in Michigan. Nobody wants to own one of these cars even with help buying it. Nuff said!

Related...

Japan's Mazda bets future on internal combustion engine:

"We can provide hybrid-level fuel economy and carbon emissions levels in the CX-5 without the weight and the cost..." - Jeff Guyton, Chief executive, Mazda Europe.