2010 Nissan Leaf electric car

Thanks to Kristen for the link.

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if this is what the world is coming to this is a sad day :frowning:

Green tech is a bizzare thing. Everyone wants one but they refuse to accept that all the versions have huge flaws that need to be overcome. Some examples:

Diesel is a “lost cause” in the sense that it won’t be any better than regular petrol. They both need oil to be made. So oil based and doesn’t solve the problem, its more trendy green band aid than true solution.

Electric cars (only source of power, not hybrids) have 2 major flaws, weight and effectivness. Batteries are heavy, the tech right now for the ‘best’ style of batteries (Lithium Ion, or the same as your cell phone, laptop, etc) are going to be extremely heavy in the volume you need to make your car go anywhere other than 100km trips max with in a city. Of course thats fine in europe or japan but canada and the US isn’t going to preform well. So if want to go farther you need more batteries, this adds weight which then increases consumpution of voltage and lowered distance between charges relative to a lighter car. Now there some issue with charging times. Big battery load need longer to change and the best of current level tech still only gives a 300 km to 400 km drive distance between charges. Also it takes about 18 hours to charge (for example) a Tesla, and where did this power come from? Is the wall socket’s source power plant any “greener” than burning fossil fuel? Suffice to say, batteries need to become better and lighter before this will be viable.

Hydrogen looks a like a good choice but its has a major issue, cost of production. Hydrogen is the most pletiful element in the world and out of it (sun is a giant burning ball of it!). 70% of the earth’s surface is just water which is 2 hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. However the process in which to extract hydrogen from water is expensive (and very complicated, I don’t even get it) but if more time was spent making hyrdogen fuel cells and less time on band aid green tech I fairly sure that they could get the cost down and it would be truely a “green” alternative. The resulting product of hyrdogen cell is water and thats it, so the cycle would be continued, the main problem is the power used to make hydrogen and such would be the main cause of pollution but that spreads past cars and into other branches.

Now that I have bored you all to death, thats my 2 cents on the ‘green’ cars… Oh and the leaf should be hydrogen. Yes, I want a hydrogen car leave me alone…

the worst problem with a hydrogen car vs. a hydrogen fuel cell car in both cases are the cost right now. Each case, hydrogen cell and hydrogen engine, also have their own problems. While hydrogen burns with a higher calorific value than gas it still produces the same problem of smog when mixed with air (intake atmosphere) and in order for it to combust clean would require a second fuel tank of just O2 so that it forms only water as a combustion product. Unfortunately the tank would need a volume of at least 4 times that of the hydrogen to be effective. With atmosphere as the combusting air the hydrogen cars will still need cat converters (multiples if in California). Hydrogen cells are getting cheaper every day and we should see them as commuters and light vehicle transit within 10 years. They do not, however, possess the torque required to move large heavy loads. Diesel will outlast pump gas and we will be making jet fuel for our grandchildrens grandchildren to fly around the world.

And, just as a point but not to be ass about it, we harvest hydrogen (as well as oxygen and nitrogen and other gasses) straight from the atmosphere. We have built an Atmospheric Gas Farm right outside of Sherwood Park for Air Liquide that is working wonderfully. There is also one next to Scottford out in Fort Saskachewan that has been supplying western Canada for 18 years now. There are other plants in Alberta but I cannot quote their exact location to you.

You could buy a mazda and do a hydrogen ICE conversion. The wankle motor does well with hydrogen.

Anyway, this a delightfully large topic and it will be intersting to see the results the car companies come up with. My 2 cents too. Thanks