Balls. I just lost a long post due to a browser crash!
To summarise my dearly departed post:
1. Billions upon billions of dollars are being invested into battery technology with real advances in electrode and battery designs being made year on year. Enormous amounts of research into this stuff is also going on in Universities across the globe and, if you look around, you'll be surprised how many business spin-offs from academic research are already in existence. Rather less investment is occuring into algal biofuels so better batteries will be here long before we see algae-oline on sale at a service station.
Yes, but they're made into making minute changes to improve
proven technologies. They're not invested into radical new designs. Even Li-Po (the newish, "best" battery technology) only develops at a snails pace.
Because, if you have a factory producing the stuff, you're interested in improving productivity (and as long as your employees like the change), but not in building a radically new one just to see if that would work.
And even if it does, you're in it for the long run, as you have to teach all your subcontractors how to do it first.
2. Within about 5 years (definitely nothing like the 20+ years you imagine), I expect Li-ion batteries to be greatly improved compared to current technology. Capacity around twice what it is now, cheaper prices, better cycling, faster charging (to a point). Li-ion batteries don't contain much in the way of rare materials (Lithium isn't going to run out despite what some alarmists might have you believe). A range of 200 miles should be more than enough for vast majority of people. In the longer term, plenty of research is also being made into attempting to create rechargeable Li-Air and Li-S batteries which have the potential to increase range enormously.
Li-Ion is already a dead end, technologically: the successor is Li-Po. But that isn't all that interesting for companies selling Li-Ion batteries at the moment. Li-Po batteries have different specs, voltages, etc, and require different electronics to make them charge and run. So they're not a plugin replacement.
Then again, I think that there is a significant research from the Li-Po producers into producing cells that are a drop-in replacement for Li-Ion.
3. For the few who require longer ranges or even if you wish to go on a longer journey, lightweight genset engines will be able to burn fossil fuels or, when properly developed, algal biofuels/biobutanol/cellulosic ethanol etc. etc. For example, Lotus have already developed a 1.2 litre 35kW genset which weighs just 56 kilograms. You could easily design a space in the boot (or trunk if you're a Yank
) into which one of these could be installed as necessary. Other slightly more outlandish ideas I've seen include a genset trailer!
Well, burning it efficiently isn't the problem. It requiring more energy to produce than is released when doing so is, though.
4. Assuming that a 5 minute recharge is necessary because people won't be willing to change their current routine of filling up once or twice a week is just nonsensical. When (not if) electric cars become enormously cheaper to run than ones run using fossil fuels, people will be quite happy to go to the minor trouble of plugging their cars in when they get home each night. For what it is worth, battery chemistry which allows faster charging (20 minutes or so) is already here but, unfortunately, only at a relatively low energy density compared to other Li-ion types.
I anticipate that, within the next 5 years, one of the two cars in my household will be electric only. Not a hybrid which is just a stopgap.
I agree. Electric is the way to go. But just about everyone I talk with about this ask me if they can go to the fuel station and fill up their tank, or are out of luck and stranded if they run out of juice.
