MystikIncarnate

I see I get to have this conversation several times.

I looked it up, hydrogen fuel cells can attain about 60% efficiency from the energy potential in hydrogen, when converting to electricity. So I'm not wrong, we're talking about different numbers.

You're referring to the efficiency of the whole system from generation (via solar panels) to conversion to hydrogen (I assume by electrolysis?) to conversion back to electricity by fuel cell (~50-60% efficiency), then any losses getting the electricity to the wheels. That's a very different number than what I was saying.

AFAIK, no real progress has gone into electrolysis for decades. But we can usually also do natural gas reclamation, which is the process of removing the carbon from CH4, and producing pure hydrogen, which, I believe is a much more energy efficient process.

It becomes an entire discussion to figure out how you're producing hydrogen for the system, which is not an easy topic to tackle in a limited written medium like this one. I decided to forego that and focus on the efficiency of the hydrogen fuel cell vs the energy potential in hydrogen directly. I was still off, I'll give you that, but not so far off to make ICE look like a good option compared to FCVs.

BEVs are great short trip vehicles, daily commuters and all around daily driver vehicles. Even with current battery technology, I'm not disputing that. The fact is that the batteries will cause the cars life to end long before anything else wears out that could potentially cause the car to get scrapped. It's cycle life which is the primary issue, but if we get super long cycle life at the cost of energy density, we generally won't switch (see LiFePO4). If the c rate is too low (significantly lower than current tech), then acceleration and charging time will suffer, and we will equally reject the technology as viable for the purpose. So it needs to beat out lithium/cobalt on cycle life, but come close to, or do the same or better than lithium/cobalt in terms of C rate and energy density.

If anyone finds something that is identical to lithium/cobalt for energy density, and C rate, and just has an improved cycle life while all other factors are the same.... Then IMO the entire industry would pivot so fast your head will spin.

Cycle life is the core of the battery problem. Other factors are nice, but the cycle life is where we need to improve before we can really get rolling on EVs. If that problem can be solved, I don't think that ICE cars will even be built anymore. It will end the consumer petrol market within a decade of such a breakthrough. Of course, there's more uses for gasoline and diesel than vehicles so there will still be gas stations, but there will be a LOT fewer of them, and many will likely be replaced by EV charging points.

I would agree the charging is a large issue. Apartments especially.

One problem you didn't mention is generation and the grid. The ability to transmit enough power down the grid if everyone were to go to EVs overnight, simply isn't there. The high voltage transmission lines are simply not up to the task right now; and that ignores if we can even currently generate that much power.

I don't recall mentioning range at all, but I would agree, range isn't much of a factor, fast charging is mainly a side benefit of high C rates, the main focus for C rate is the ability to get the power out of the pack when it is needed, so it can be used for the locomotion of the vehicle. Simply put, the amps needed to lug around several tons of metal, batteries and people, is significant, that's not even factoring in any hauling or towing. The ability to deliver that current directly from the battery on a consistent level is the key here. Current lithium/cobalt cells are more than capable of both charging and discharging quickly, though you can usually extend the life of the battery by primarily using lower C rates of charging, usually 0.5C provides the most benefit, lower doesn't increase longevity by enough to be worthwhile, and you get less and less benefit as you approach, then exceed 1C. Solid state batteries shouldn't have nearly the same trouble with this, as long as it's capable of 2 or 3C, it should be plenty for the application.

I disagree on the fuel cell comment regarding efficiency. ICE engines, last I checked, could only convert 20-25% of the energy in gasoline to motion, whereas fuel cells are capable of up to 60% conversion of the energy in the hydrogen to electricity, adjusting for losses in the motors and everything, you should be able to get around 50% energy conversion to locomotion. Fuel cells are getting to a point where they are running up against the physics of the issue and can't really make it any more efficient, ICE motors have been at that point for a while. There are small gains but a large percentage of the energy is converted into light+heat which is considered to be a waste product. There's also the matter of how to create the hydrogen, which, right now, there are not many good methods. The "most green" method is by water electrolysis, separating the oxygen from the hydrogen in water (H2O), which is a very inefficient process, more energy goes in than the resulting hydrogen has. If this is factored in then yes, you're correct that hydrogen fuel cells are not significantly more efficient, since the electricity to hydrogen to electricity conversion is the most lossy part of the whole system. There may be areas where we can enhance hydrogen production and get the numbers more on par with battery EVs, but I digress. As far as I know that is not a focus of current research.

Battery EVs are upwards of 90% efficient or better in most cases, even factoring in all the losses from getting the power into the pack and out of the pack. BEVs are simply more efficient overall. There's no disputing that. ICE vehicles are usually dead last no matter how you look at it.

For charging, foregoing the grid issues, which need to be addressed regardless, every EV owning citizen should have access to a charger at their residence, or at least the option for one. Homeowners can easily buy and install (or have installed) a charger for their own personal use, condos and apartments are the main targets since the parking areas are usually managed by the property owner or condo authority, so installing a charger is a bit more of a problem. That definitely needs to be addressed.

I'm also a fan of hybrids right now. There's fewer batteries to create problems, and the packs are cheaper than what's used in vehicles that are only EVs, reducing cost and weight.

I don't like that some manufacturers have either stopped offering, or never offered plug in hybrids, and bluntly, I don't understand why. It's literally a charge controller, a plug, and some wiring.... Looking at you Honda.

My biggest issue with hybrids and EVs is that many manufacturers use insane designs for them. It's like, no.... I want a normal fucking car, that just has a battery and some electric drive motors. Not a cross between a 3 year olds drawing of a "car" and a Fischer price toy.

Like, give me something that looks like a corolla or an accord, or literally any normal sedan, with a PHEV system under the hood at a reasonable price and I'll sell my old beater car today and buy one, but no. They have to do stupid crap like whatever the hell this is from BMW:

Or the Prius (which I'm sure we all know what they look like.... Kind of a stubby station wagon looking thing)... There's a freaking ton of examples, and the price is always a lot higher (usually double or more to the ICE counterpart).... So I'm going to pay more for this clown car? Fuck.

I'm actually unreasonably angry that so many hybrids and EVs look so stupid.

So, I understand what Toyota is saying. I'm not sure I agree, but I get it.

Simply put, until we figure out a good solution to the battery problem, EVs are kind of at a dead end. They are about as good as they could be with current technology. There's a big push right now towards better energy storage tech, aka battery tech, for EVs and beyond (everything from cellular/mobile/device applications, to EVs, to "grid scale" storage).

The problem is basically twofold: first, limited energy storage. This is compounded by fairly slow charging... Second, current lithium tech used in EVs tends to be rather.... Flammable. Specifically, the most common chemistries are pyrophoric; aka, they burst into flames on contact with air. .... I'll emphasize that pyrophoric battery chemistries are commonly used in just about all consumer goods. This includes every Tesla, and every cellphone.

The only reason that your phone doesn't spontaneously combust in your hand is because the batteries are sealed so no air can get at the chemistry. The issue with Tesla's EVs is when one cell's seal fails, and it combusts, then the chances that adjacent cells will have their air seal compromised, dramatically increases. This can quickly lead to a chain reaction of failures.

Current research is ongoing into batteries. The golden battery for EVs will have, fast charging, high discharge capability (also known as the "C rate"), similar or better energy density to current cells, and longer charge/discharge cycle life. Since we're already comfortable giving pyrophoric batteries to the general public to carry around in their pockets, I don't think anyone is focused on eliminating that, but, if they can, while achieving the other goals, so much the better.

Other battery chemistries exist that are not pyrophoric, but they lack the energy density of their pyrophoric counterparts. One notable chemistry is LiFePO4, which, by sacrificing some energy density, you get much longer cycle life, and no pyrophoric materials.

Solid state batteries are being researched which should extend cycle life significantly if it can be achieved as a "commercially viable product" (which is corporate talk for something that can be mass produced). Thus far, while sold state batteries exist, they're either done in very small batches, and are very hard to produce, or, they simply don't have the same, or similar, energy density to the lithium/cobalt cells that currently dominate the market.

One alternative is hydrogen. Hydrogen fuel cell technology isn't perfect, with a loss of about 20-30% IIRC, from the energy in vs the energy out. The benefit to hydrogen is that it can be stored, highly compressed (a large volume of gas in a relatively small container), and it doesn't degrade or go bad, so it can be stored indefinitely, aka no significant loss over time. But hydrogen is a far more dangerous material than lithium/cobalt, and a tank rupture from a full tank of hydrogen in an EV, could create an explosion of significant size. It's far more dangerous than the pyrophoric batteries. For more information, see: Hindenburg.

Other alternatives exist, but generally are not being used in EVs for various reasons. Among these are RITEGs. An RITEG outputs a consistent and stable power flow indefinitely, even a relatively small unit could be used to power a vehicle, with a small buffer battery, for upwards of 40 years without needing to "refuel" so to speak. Possibly longer depending on the fuel used. The reason they're not considered is right in the name. The full name for an RITEG is "radio isotope thermal electric generator". Aka, nuclear. The unique thing about an RITEG is that the power output is dependent on the differential between the heating provided by the fuel, versus the temperature of the surrounding material (usually some sort of passive heatsink). They're very safe unless the seal is broken, in which case, you need Hazmat to clean up the mess. Their energy conversion is very very low. The power is stable, but only a small amount of wattage can be generated. It's constant, but it's a small amount. So the presence of a "buffer" battery for acceleration (and most driving) would be required, and often you can get more power from a small solar array, dependent on the weather. I like the idea of RITEGs, but more as a home generator type option, where you could bury one into the ground and dissipate the heat geothermally. No options exist for this and research into thermal electric tech has been stalled for many years. Nevertheless, I think it's awesome. The idea of having a mostly solid-state, base load generator in your back yard, seems like a really good idea, but nobody has done it, since IMO, the regulations would be a nightmare.

Anyways, the battery problem outlined here is what we're all waiting for... A commercially viable product that is on par with the current battery front runner, lithium/cobalt, for energy density, while having a much higher cycle life and a high "C rate".

Right now?

The only ev I've seen powered by LiFePO4 was built by an enthusiast.

.... So the short answer is: you can only build one.

LiFePO4 batteries are less energy dense than lithium/cobalt, which is what most use (notable example being every Tesla ever), but some use prismatic cells, IIRC. But Cobalt based cells are generally preferred for weight reduction.

What we need is a battery with the endurance of LiFePO4 and power density that's as good as, or better than lithium/cobalt cells. Right now that's the Holy Grail for EVs, and research for such a battery is ongoing. There's a few that are looking good, but still in fairly early stages of research.

IMO, if that kind of battery can be developed, or another method to power EVs is proven to be effective and safe, then very quickly after that, ICE cars will stop being produced altogether.

As a Canadian, the idea of paying thousands, even in Canadian dollars, for a single healthcare visit, seems absolutely insane to me.

I can't imagine living under that kind of threat. I would be deathly scared of getting injured, by no fault of my own, and ending up in the poor house as a result. Forget having any.... More voluntary.... medical costs, like having a child. I couldn't imagine doing that knowing what it would cost me.

Honestly, if I was in that situation, I'd be scared of doctors too. Having to choose between having good health but being unable to afford the basics, or living with disorder or disease, would probably break me.

I had a problem like this with a CPU.

Fresh from the box OEM hardware, either Dell or HP... I forget. A laptop system.

We couldn't get the damn thing to do windows updates, which was part of our initial prep for the system. It kept crashing, no useful info from logs.

I booted off of an Ubuntu live image I had on a USB. Turns out, one of the CPU cores on die was faulty. If I reduced the CPU cores visible to the system to one, it worked fine. All enabled? Crash.

A call to support and a quick service visit sorted out the system, but Microsoft's error reporting was useless at diagnosing the issue.

I apologize for trying to educate.

Have a great day.

Nothing wireless is secure, especially when dealing with end user electronics.

The only possible exception is WiFi and commercial wifi services like 4G/5G... In the case of WiFi, it really depends on the configuration. A local ISP was, by default, programming their combination router modems for WEP security for years after it was known to be insecure, and for years after tools to obtain the security key for WEP were commonly available. However, WPA2 and now WPA3 is used by corporations to secure their wireless traffic, and those technologies have been made available to the public on almost all consumer WiFi products made in the last few years, though, some may need to be updated to show the option for it. As far as I know, as of now, WPA3 has no known vulnerabilities that will allow a hacker to penetrate into the subject network. The weakest part of the system is people using poor passwords for their wifi, which can be easily guessed, which is not a fault of the technology itself.

IMO, the best, most shining example of well implemented security is PKI, which is used in HTTPS/TLS. A high security asymmetric key is used to generate a short-term use symmetrical key to secure the communication. It becomes basically pointless to try to break the encryption at that point.

But this isn't the issue in the OP. The problem is: where does everyone keep their keys? If you said "at the front door" you'd be right. In most cases, keys are at, or very near the front door. Where are most people's driveways? At the front of their house, next to the front door. There's usually enough distance to keep the fob from being detected by the car and unlocking it for anyone who walks up, but with a small amount of tech, attackers can pull the signal through your front door and relay it to the car. The process is actually kind of trivial. This is known very aptly as a relay attack. One attacker with a high gain antenna loop, places that loop on or near your front door, while their partner has another device which is relaying the signals from the high gain antenna to the car. This makes the car think the key fob is nearby, and it unlocks the doors, and the vehicle can be started.

Once started, the vehicle will not automatically power off if the fob goes out of range, since that would create an unpredictable safety hazard. At this point the attackers only job is to get the vehicle somewhere that they can work on it for an unlimited amount of time, and program new fobs for it (which can be done with diagnostic tools).

The best way to prevent this is simply not to keep your keys in range of your front door, nullifying the attack. Otherwise, buy an RF blocking key box to put them in at the front door. Something that automatically closes would be beneficial here; something with a Faraday style mesh, or lead (embedded in the walls of the box) would be best IMO. Keep any spare keys in a similar lock box elsewhere in the home.

My family has our keys, at least 10 feet away from the door for storage, in our kitchen. It's a short walk from the door down a tiled hallway, which makes for easy cleanup if someone walks over to get their keys from that location with muddy/wet boots or something.

Relay attacks are very common and easy to execute with a high degree of success. To their credit, manufacturers have done their diligence in implementing anti-replay attacks (where an attacker well record the signal to unlock/start a vehicle, then replay it later for access), but the relay issue is harder to account for. From the perspective of the car, or simply looks like you started the car, dropped your fob on the ground and drove away. This is a legitimate scenario, and one that is entirely plausible for an end user to create unintentionally.

Yeah, I agree, this chain has mostly been about the awkward parts of it. I didn't mean to imply you invaded her privacy, someone may have in the pursuit of the information, but I certainly didn't mean to imply that was you.

Regardless, whether her privacy was invaded or not, the information is now out there about her, and that is what I had assumed you were referring to. The misunderstanding stems from my comments; specifically that when such a question is raised, some may seek that information quite enthusiastically, even if obtaining it means that you're invading their privacy. I don't know if that's what occurred, but the fervent pursuit of relatively trivial information, damaging someone's right to privacy in the process is questionable at best. I'm just trying to make a comment on the ethics and morals of those that desire information for no better reason than to have it about someone they don't even know.

I would rather not think that people would simply disregard her rights just to have a trivial question answered, but I don't have that much faith in humanity.

I'm certain you're fine and you've done nothing wrong in this instance. I apologize if my words implied any differently. That was not my intention.

I hope you have a wonderful day.

I can see why people cared. That's just not me.

I don't really think people's curiosity is just cause to violate her privacy. It's entirely up to her to decide to share that information or not.

I don't understand people's fascination with it. I'm fairly indifferent about people's genders or sexual preferences in general. You make the choice that suits you best, I'll do the same for me. If you want to be called he/she/they/whatever, then fine, that's cool. I'll do my best to respect your wish to be referred to by a particular title/pronoun. It makes no difference to me.

I'm also pretty indifferent about how people refer to me. Call me sir, miss, he, she, they, them, "hey you".... I don't honestly care. I'm fine with gender normative terms and that's what I tell people that I "prefer" but honestly, I could not care any less. I usually avoid gendered terms as much as I can when I'm in someone's presence; I'm also bad with names, so I usually just use personal direct pronouns such as "you". I try my best to side step the whole issue because it's trivial in my mind. I won't fault someone for caring about it, the same way I don't care if someone gets my name wrong, or says it differently. I don't care enough to correct them, and I don't care that it's wrong unless they need to enter my legal name into a thing for something, which is when it actually matters, legally, so I'll correct them at that point. The only other correction I'll make is to avoid confusion with coworkers. I work with some people who have similar sounding names to mine, so I'll correct clients and co-workers so that I'm not conflated with them (and I don't take flack for something they did, and they don't take flack for something I've done, etc). Beyond that, I couldn't care less. At the same time, people have gotten angry with me for pronouncing their name slightly wrong, so I know people are out there with very strong opinions on it.

Maybe I'm weird. Who knows. There's just so many more important things in the world than what people call me that I'm just consistently unbothered by people getting it wrong.

Is she really?

I actually didn't know. The difference seemed trivial to me, and it still does. It really doesn't change their message or anything.

It never bothered me at all, nevermind bothering me enough to dig into information about them to figure it out; regardless, that's a nice thing to know in the situation.

I hope she's doing well.