The EV & Hydrogen Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle Space Active Investment means some incumbent newcomers fail to commercially succeed in what can be seen as a busy space controlled by large, entrenched corporations like Tesla, Toyota, GM & others.
Think new lower trim Tesla Model 2 for under $25K with 250mi range / or Fiskar Ocean with driver drowsiness detection. Front wheel drive with 6.9sec to 60mph also base trim for under $40,000. Toyota to electrify half of their lineup by 2025. BZ4X like Model Y, with more ground clearance. The angular design more about convivence. Digital gauges above the dash to keep the drivers eyes on the road. Lexus IX a premium luxury version. Equinox EV with Ultium Batteries for 300 mi range for $30k without incentives, while 2024 EV discount can be up to $12,500 making that Equinox EV $18,000 /Watch https://youtu.be/2rTEjySkw54
Given the heavy mass of liquid cooled lithium-ion batteries with 100-1000 kWh of energy storage capacity for Class 8 electric trucks, a market force & technological incentive exists to commercialize hydrogen fuel cell electrical power generators compact enough for onboard vehicle use along with the hydrogen tanks wrapped in carbon fiber reinforced plastic with enough H2 high pressure storage to give good range per H2 fill-up.
H2 Enables Longer Range than Batteries Alone
For long-range or longer flight duration drones, electric turbine powered passenger aircraft, in large trains & many other applications on cargo ships, batteries are either too costly or too heavy & do not offer enough energy storage capacity to rival cryogenic liquid hydrogen stored in liquid tanks then evaporated & pressurize feed into hydrogen fuel cells to make electricity or similar high pressure hydrogen storage in composite H2 tanks.
Nikola Corp Stock Collapsing
Nikola Corp NKLA on the NASDAQ down to around $1 per share now, revenue of only $11,000 on loses of $169 million, with $121 million in cash reserves.
Platinum Cost Limits H2 Fuel Cells
To understand first mover advantage, you have to understand that Ballard Power Systems been trying to commercialize hydrogen fuel systems for vehicle energy transformation to decarbonize transportation since the early 2000's.
The high cost of PEM platinum & the membrane separator film limits the scale of market diffusion and sales of such systems into cost insensitive lower volume applications very unlike the thinner profit margins of automakers making light duty passenger cars.
The fuel cells like the ones in Toyota & Honda Hydrogen passenger cars contain too much platinum to be cost effective for mass production, much more per unit than in the catalytic converters mass produced to clean up the tail pipe emissions of mass-produced ICE vehicles.
Meanwhile Toyota commercialized Mirai & Honda the Clarity, both hydrogen fuel-cell electric passenger light duty cars for under $70k new - but they are only available in a few locations due to the highly limited small number of H2 filling stations to keep those vehicles filled with H2 at high pressure. Worse, when you compare the cost of high pressure H2 from those exceedingly costly H2 stations, it works out to around $18/gal gasoline equivalent or very high cost per mile or very high cost to operate.
Tesla BEV's Proved Lithium-Ion Electric Vehicles can be Awesome with Ludacris acceleration!
It's the early days of Hydrogen vehicles. Kind of like a chicken before the egg catch 22, especially given that lithium ion batteries enabled Tesla to make compelling luxury high performance battery electric cars like the Tesla Model S, 3, X & Y or S3XY if you know what I mean. Tesla BEV's cost a lot more than other similar cars to insure & the instant high-power EV motor torque destroys expensive tires quickly. Tesla EV's allow for traveling in high-class performance luxury for those willing to pay so much to go A to B electrically.
Electric Container Trucks
Class 8 trucks move shipping containers with all matter of consumer goods, foods, materials, feedstocks, chemicals, precursors, toilet paper, diapers, soap, detergent, consumables, commodities, all the stuff you find at stores like Safeway or Fred Meyer or Costco. To say it in another way, trucks are the foundation of economic activity in America without which the entire country would not function & Truck Drivers are the unsung hero's of the US Economy.
The overwhelming majority of existing & currently for sale Class 8 commercial vehicles are energized by diesel fuel pumped at high pressure into turbocharged direct injection engines featuring DPF filter exhaust cleaning emissions controls with DEF or diesel exhaust fluid injection to remove NOX.
This means that the $30,000 emissions control system of my Bluebird School Bus made in 2012 in America very clean compared to older diesel trucks without such elaborate costly exhaust emissions controls. When I say elaborate & costly, the platinum intensive catalytic converter theft problem because of the value of platinum or high platinum costs. Crooked metal recyclers are the problem as they are buying stolen catalytic converters from thieves who obviously stole the cats.
Significantly Cummins, one of the main manufacturers of HD inline turbo diesel engines used on class 8 tucks & busses, announced the discontinuation of on-road diesel engine development to focus on off-road engines & electric motor development.
Ceramic Heat Proof Batteries also Fireproof
NGK the world's largest spark plug manufacturer working with Kyocera on high performance high heat passive air cooled ceramic batteries that have much better energy density than liquid mylar wrapped lithium polymer batteries or those 4680 cylindrical liquid cooled cells in Tesla EV's.
This means cheaper BEVs that can be charged in 10 min on LEVEL 4 DC fast charging stations without any battery fading from the high heat created by Megawatt current transfer levels at such rates over very thick liquid cooled cables & connectors.
Nissan LEAF L3 DC Fast Charging & Hot Weather Battery Fade
I thought the dope L3 DC fast charging over ChaDeMo connector at 55kW in our 19 Nissan LEAF SV for 5-20 minutes was fresh sick dope cool cool cool cool, in the early morning hours when the outside temperatures are coolest, when the LEAF parked outside all night also cooled down all the way. This way the L3 DC fast charging does not heat up the air cooled fade prone 40kWh lithium polymer in aluminum heat-sink enclosure pack energy storage traction battery :)
This also means that Nissan LEAF batteries hold up well in temperate climates & cooler locations better than in the hot deserts of the world. This means people in Pheonix AZ, Texas and Palm Springs who park in their driveway during the summer observe Nissan LEAF battery fade or loss of capacity happening faster because of the high heat loading.
Nissan has modified the chemistry of the LEAF battery pack to improve heat resistance & heat tolerance, so that L3 DC fast charging & hotter weather operation does not fade the battery pack significantly before the battery warranty period expires.
There is an entire WIKI on LEAF battery pack fading, since the OG Nissan LEAF back in 2011 only came with a 24kWh battery with about 40-75 mi of range new, that got worse than that if you use all the cabin heaters & AC for defrosting the windows or AC to cool the cabin during hot summer weather, or heating of the battery from L3 DC fast charging.
Making LEAF Batteries Last Longer Intentionally with 30-80% partial charges :)
I never charge L3 beyond 82% and typically keep the LEAF SV battery around 65-75% charged, down to 40% on the low side and rarely above 90% on the high side, with a once per month L1 overnight EVSE balancing saturation charge for 12+ hours to fully charged.
Every 500 hours of operation its ok to fully cycle a lithium-ion battery to format charge or balance charge it. This can recover some lost capacity if you have been regularly partial cycling between 30-80% daily for 15-30 days. If you plan to park the Nissan LEAF for extended periods, it's good to store the battery around 40% charged and then every 3 weeks give it enough juice to keep it around 40% charged.
12v Battery Tender for PbA battery under the hood of Nissan LEAF
The PbA 12vdc battery will discharge when a LEAF SV parked (it runs 24/7 to power the computer that monitors the big battery pack), so if you are going to park for 3+ weeks, using a battery tender on that 12vdc battery (under the front hood) with 1.5 amps of PbA tending current, will help to keep it charged while the LEAF parked for extended periods.
EV Fires Harder to Put Out
Since electric vehicles are trending & popular worldwide with both new car consumers & automakers apt to sell those people new cars, the main benefit being that EV's do not release tailpipe emissions near where other people are breathing, unlike many fossil fueled power plants which are located far away from most people.
When the battery of an EV damaged by an accident, mechanical puncturing, tearing, intrusion, shorting, sometimes EV's catch fire. When an EV is on fire it's much harder to extinguish than an ICE vehicle with gasoline onboard.
H2 Fuel Cell Safest
Hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles are the safest in terms of fire hazards, as the hydrogen fueled Toyota Gadzoo Racing 3 cylinder turbo 24 hour endurance GR Yaris race car demonstrated when one of the hydrogen pipes onboard leaked causing a small heat fire to a plastic part, but 0.1 sec later the ECU turned off the hydrogen flow, so the damage was very small & most of the rest of the vehicle was unharmed.
Saltwater Electrolyte
New research from UCF NanoScience Tech Center called Salt Water electrolyte can replace the flammable solvents commonly found in typical lithium-ion EV batteries that make EV fires so hard to extinguish.
Swelling LiPo Batteries
Anyone familiar with lithium-polymer drone battery packs knows about pack swelling and some smartphone owners whiteness the phone screen lifting away as the polymer battery in their phone swells up hot causing the glue holding the phone together to soften.
Smartphone Battery Fires
Sometimes this goes very wrong when the swelling battery torn open on a sharp part inside the phone, causing shorting & thermal runaway or venting with flame & lots of blue, white smoke. I saw this when replacing an iPhone battery that had previously been replaced in an underdeveloped country in Asia where the tech used epoxy resin to glue the replacement battery into the phone case.
Thankfully this iPhone had been fully backed up to iCloud and the elderly male owner was apt to get a new iPhone 12 replacement anyway as I showed him the phone that burned to a crisp when I tried to remove the LiPo battery & the epoxy holding it to the case ripped the mylar of the pack, causing a thermal runaway venting with flame that filled the tech repair room in the back with blue white smoke.
We had to open the double steel back doors & turn on the high-performance extraction fan & close the front door & close the store & vent all the toxic cobalt & lithium & burning plastic rich smoke, then put the phone into a sand bucket outside until it was cooled down all the way. It had a funny burned electrical smell about it and looked charred like someone had barbequed it thoroughly.
Many Low-Speed Low Power EV's Catch Fire
I give this example of an iPhone battery fire because many low quality made in China cheaper self balancing scooters have caught fire while plugged into their chargers. Many E-bikes have caught fire while plugged into their charging adapter. Many e-Bike stores take special precautions to limit fire risk while charging. Most public EV chargers are outside mounted to concrete, away from buildings or easily flammable materials. Many EV chargers are installed in concrete parking garages, where the only easily flammable materials are other gasoline powered vehicles parked nearby.
Na-Ion Battery Future
Salt batteries offer fireproof operation while Na-Ion batteries are poised to replace Li-Ion batteries in future electric vehicles. This is because Sodium or Na up to 500x more abundant & 5000x cheaper than cobalt & lithium used in common EV batteries today.
Plethora of EV Battery Innovation & Big Investments
Foam batteries, air batteries which use oxygen or O2 in the air as the cathode, gold nanoparticles and nanowire batteries, silicon replacing carbon in the anode in super-charge batteries can absorb power 100X faster without any damage. We are seeing rapid innovation in battery technology because of the huge global demand for battery powered consumer electronics, electric battery vehicles of all scales & energy levels. Honda calls scooters & motorcycles low energy vehicles, given the lower power levels & low mass of such vehicles that require so much less carbon emissions to manufacturer. This is significant given that Honda has made more than 100 million Super-Cub motorcycles, the most popular vehicle ever made!
Foggy Mind from Cold Virus Negatively Impacting My Analytics
Sorry if the writing seems a little blurry, I am still not 100% well from that nasty cold virus & had to call out sick again to rest & recover today. The immune system herd load exposure to viral particles on the school bus something known as First Year Teacher Syndrome, since it takes the bodies immune system a while to code for the antibodies and antigens to adapt to so many different cold and flu virus exposures.
It took a lot longer than usual to write this posting and was much harder to think about it! I call my blog Thinking About It because that's what I am doing when writing it! I also genuinely hope that my postings help improve ways that other people understand the world, so they can think about it more like I do, in their own special way.
When we read the writings of others, that reading changes the structure & function of our brains! #Neuroscience
My daily body energy endurance took the hardest hit, my runtime decreased from 18 hours without sleep to less than 4 hours before needing another nap or feeling out of it tired. I noticed that I was feeling off as early as Thursday last week, but it took until Tuesday this week for the symptoms to peak and I went to work for the morning route anyway, but called out for the PM later yesterday as my state worsened. I came home and passed out and woke up drenched in sweat with a fever. Joint pain been more than normal for the past few days, that seems to always happen when I get sick. My eyes really hurt and had to blow my nose so much my face around my nose became painfully sore. I slept in more this morning and feel less ill but not well yet, though I am hopeful to return to work tomorrow after getting more rest & recovering today.
Watch the Warped Perception Channel on YouTube?
Mike Mikka modified his Tesla Model S with a powerful custom mounted generator to go on an 1800 mile road trip without worrying about slow recharging. He even said he dislikes stopping for gasoline filling on road trips. His generator modified Tesla Model S had the gen-set mounted in the back with the rear window removed, was very loud most of the time & resulted in less than 30 MPG overall. In the video's conclusion he even said it was a terrible idea & would not recommend it.
Prius Racing Edition
Toyota Gadzoo Racing TGR Prius at 24h Le Mans Centennial GR Edition with special wheels & sticky racing tires & aero downforce tuning parts inspired from the TGR's WEC-competing GR010 HYBRID
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