BEVs on the whole are more reliable than their ICE counterparts. Evidence could be gleaned by Tesla no longer requiring the annual $600 service to keep your warranty... moto g(7) power ?
It doesn't work for retail but would be fine for fleet or farm operation. It matches their 'operational scenario.' Bob Wilson
Maybe "most closely", yet not even close. How are you going to get the power out to the middle of a field? Or are you going to expect to drive the harvesting equipment (combines, tractors, grain carts, semis, etc.) back to the "barn" every night, and somehow route 800kW to each one of them? And don't forget, each one of those packs is going to cost around $800,000 at current prices - more than the entire cost of every kind of tractor but a brand new large combine. And you'll need at least two for each tractor? If you remember, I've spent my career doing wind energy research. Preaching to the choir. How would you move a roughly 25 metric ton battery pack around, mount and dismount it from the tractor, and even more importantly get your now-way-too-heavy tractor to "float" over soft and/or muddy/wet ground? And don't forget, you could need many of them as it's not uncommon to harvest/plant/till/spray with many tractors at once on a single farm. And don't forget, every farm in the neighborhood is going to be doing the same thing at the same time - tens or hundreds of megawatts of power in a rural area probably served by 1% of that amount right now.
A typical EV battery pack weighs around 500-800 lbs and easily fits within the capabilities of: In engineering, we frequently break a larger problem into smaller parts like a wind turbine. So you choose to set the battery weight to "... a roughly 25 metric ton battery pack ..." because? My parents thought sending us kids to spend time with our farm relatives was a 'summer vacation.' What it taught us is to study harder math, science, and engineering. But the hubris of thinking there is some 'hidden knowledge' impossible for non-farmers to understand ... well we'll just have to agree to disagree. IMHO, it is only a matter of time before we see EV technology show up on farms and rural areas. If it happens first in China, India, Africa, and South America, fine by me. With on farm energy generation by either solar cells and/or wind, no problem for me. But I am reminded of solar cells powering cell phones: So I'm patient and keeping my TSLA stock. It is only a matter of time. Bob Wilson
The only problem I have with TSLA is that the PE ratio is sitting above 1000. Sitting here scratching my head which way is it going to go. With mom retiring there's going to be a SEP distribution, and my dad spending thousands on Bradford Exchange kind of got me scared and considering helping them invest, in something. Is Tesla quality going to drive sales, meaning quality good, or eventually cause a slump, meaning quality bad. That will determine the future growth, or not, of this Bull.... moto g(7) power ?
Seeing how a fuel cell combine or tractor would need four to six hundred kilograms a day, I'd say it's closer than a hydrogen future. There is two main issues with pack swapping. The first is that individual packs are 100% the same over time. Swap a pack in a car, and the replacement can have less capacity. Not much of an issue for a fleet of vehicles, since everything is owned by a single entity, but becomes problematic for personal, privately owned vehicles. Tesla opted to have the owner come back to the swap station to get their original battery back, or get charged for the new pack. The other is that you need more batteries than vehicles. That of course increases costs. The question of weight and charging are valid ones for industrial farming equipment. Off the top of my head, I'd say ammonia powered fuel cells are a better options. Farms already have it on hand, and making it renewably isn't a step if you are going into renewable hydrogen production. Farms can also have a hydro option for power. Special hydro-power plant can be deployed in a week and could power up to 60 homes - TheCivilEngineer.org
My path was: BMW i3-REx - owning an EV teaches lessons about what works and doesn't. Hands on time is one of the best teachers. The Prius Prime taught me what doesn't work for our family. Tesla technology skeptics - the anti-Tesla crowd led me to looking closer at Tesla engineering and operations. Everything I learned including SpaceX re-enforced this is a company I want to invest in. So I withdrew half of my 401k and put it in TSLA. Pre-split, ~$300/share ($60/share post split) , it has been the best I've ever done outside of a casino and leaving the Marine Corps. Std Rng Plus Model 3 with Autopilot - hands on time told me the rest of the story. Taking profits, I paid off the last of my auto loan. This has been my path and it worked for me and my family. You'll have to figure out your own path or not take it at all. Bob Wilson
oh that's right, because once the Model T was introduced, they had had 6 megawatt hr combines w/in the next couple years. Baby steps my friend. I dare say that only 12 years ago, you would have never thought there would be a 300+ mile high powered sports car w/ DC quick charging. This is just the beginning. federal reg's prohibit warranty denial just because you don't go back to the manufacturer's approved vendor. The good news - there's handful of shops springing up that service complex plugins & it is growing. Plus, if you have the skills, you could do it yourself to save $600. .
Because that's how heavy a 6.4MWh battery pack (around one day of continuous use, which is about how it's often done) would be.
If batteries were 1000Wh/kg and $30/kWh, this would be possible now. H2 fuel cells are already at those metrics, now.
We're not going back to 1920s farming technology. I've been studying EVs since about 1991 or so. It's been possible for a long time, but EVs still suck compared to conventional cars - half the range and 100 times the "charging" time. And it's for exactly the same reason as always - batteries still suck. Even the tabless larger ones Tesla just introduced. Compared to liquid fuels and engines they have like 1/4th (IC) to less than 1/10th (jets) the energy density. And in the case of jets, they have like 1/10th the power density too. I wish it weren't so. But for EVs to be practical for most, rather than niche applications, we need a factor of 5-10 battery breakthrough like Li-Ion was compared to NiMH (and that was closer to a factor of 3, now 5).
And yet the growth of the Bev is much much faster than phev's .... so reality isn't keeping up with your belief apparently. Maybe write a letter to Volkswagen, explain how they're headed down the wrong path - going 100% Bev, it'd be interesting to hear them agree that you know more than they do. .
Why does the pack have to be one piece? Pray tell, how will the farmer refuel their equipment in the field? The portable dispensers Toyota deployed during the hydrogen shortage in California were unable to fully fill a Mirai. We are looking at 320kg of hydrogen minimum for each tractor. Assuming the fill tank is large enough, and fully chilled to -40, it is likely going to take over 3 hours to fill one, and industrial farms are fielding multiple tractors and combines. Slow filling swappable tanks is probably more practical. How much is that equipment going to cost? How much to run a hydrogen pipeline from the plant to the farm? What will be the final cost of the hydrogen once it has been compressed into the tank be?
Normal refueling time is 20 minutes. Multiple packs will slow the process but you'd probably have to do it. For this application, I'd probably go liquid. The cost of harvest has very little to do with the cost of fuel. But probably around $5 a kg.
Following along on the farming side-thread, much of the field work is now often sub-contracted to companies with the equipment who constantly move from field to field and follow the seasons from region to region via 18 wheel flat beds. Much of the harvest season here is during peak summer so 12-14hrs of daylight but they often work well into the night too; very little down time for a charge. Also, diesel for farm use doesn't have all the associated taxes so it's nearly dirt cheap (pun intended) and yet another reason for a farmer to own a diesel truck for personal transportation. They can fuel at home for "free"; hmm, where have we heard that one before?
I must say I am not surprised at the capability developed. It was a brilliant move to start off with an expensive Roadster, then expensive Model S. People with expendable cash and time usually have a Maserati, Mercedes, etc that they can take if something happens and their Tesla needs fixing. They are less likely to be upset or complain, it's covered under warranty and if shuttled back and forth even more convenient. The technology is more reliable relatively, so that's IF it even breaks down. Likely they're used to even more trouble with their ICE luxury or exotic in the first place. Regarding warranty it's easy to say that the law is such, but the practicality of the matter is not that cut and dry. The dealer is not incentivised to do warranty work. As my friend's brother who was a mechanic explained, cash work gets more time, because they charge the customer more $ than they can get from Honda. There's the paperwork, I didn't even ask... There's also Magnuson-Moss but similar denials of warranty happen. As a blatant example, the law states that murder is wrong. It still happens. But your good news IS definitely good news. Tesla sells access to their technical info. If we get one I would definitely look into subscribing. The website even has links to how you can become a Tesla authorized body shop or something similar, meaning they are open to outside work. That's the benefit of not having a dealer network that you are trying to keep happy by pushing repair work to dealer service departments.... moto g(7) power ?
It’s true that batteries are much less energy dense than liquid fuels, but they’re also considerably more efficient. Currently, the gain in efficiency does not offset the drop in energy, but as more research goes into battery tech, it seems likely that the crossover point will be reached far sooner than you may think if you are only considering energy density.
Thought of that later, but it doesn't address how the hydrogen will get to the farm and be stored. Liquid hydrogen can't just be dumped into a tank and left like diesel. They'll chilled tanks, or live with loss through venting. Infrastructure for hydrogen transport will not be cheap. It is a hurdle just like getting extra electricity for BEV equipment.
I disagree. Example: 737-900 airplane. Average cruise (shaft) power, ~20 megawatts for 7 hours = 140 megawatt hours. Current battery energy density of 280Wh/kg (for numerical simplicity) results in a battery weighting 500,000kg. Max takeoff weight is actually 85,000kg of which 21,000kg is fuel. So, 21,000kg of fuel produces the same net power output as 500,000kg of batteries running 100% efficient electric motors, which means batteries have to get more energy dense by a factor of 24 to match Jet-A through a jet engine. John Deere S790 combine weight - 21,000kg. It carries 1,050kg of diesel which can produce around 5.6MWh of net shaft power. A battery that could do that with a 100% efficient electric motor would weigh 20,000kg. So, 20,000kg of battery can do the same thing as 1,050kg of diesel - a factor of 19 difference. Long, long way to go for batteries to be able to do the same thing as liquid fuels in heavier duty applications.
Yeah, it can. We've done it since the 50s. Yes, you need much more expensive tanks, but the energy density of those tanks - and the cost per unit of energy stored - is drastically better than batteries. Transporting liquid hydrogen isn't that expensive. In fact, it's surprisingly cheap - so cheap that the LH2 for the space shuttle was made in Louisiana (IIRC) and transported to Florida.
