Tesla made big claims with the hyperloop which turned out to be totally nonsense.
Getting an electric motor to haul a trailer is not the issue. Making it economically viable and efficient to replace highly efficient diesel motors which recharge in 10 minutes and don’t require large percentages of vehicle load in fuel.
Little electric vans for stop start short distance urban deliveries I can see potentially working (much like the old milk floats). Heavy trucking and haulage where you need to move lots of weight long distances and have quick refuel / recharge times is a problem which I can’t really see a solution for.
I seem to recall hgv’s with big tanks can go near the 2000 mile mark without refueling.
Peter wrote:
There is also no solution for trucks. I went to a presentation recently by one of the big people in the electric vehicle business. The current battery size for a 40T truck weighs 20T, and that’s before you start trying to charge it
The climate issue aside, we’d be better off generally if long-haul ground transportation was done with trains and not with trucks. Trains are generally more energy efficient, safer and the infrastructure requires less real estate. For short-haul there is no replacement for trucks, but you don’t typically need 40T for that. So I would rather see improvements in sending goods by train.
Aesthetics is a big problem with environmentalism as it, rather than facts and figures, often drives policy. I live close to a government building in the bottom of a valley. It has some extremely stylish vertical wind turbines on its roof, which I’ve never seen turning even when it’s windy so I suspect they probably don’t even work.
As someone who believes that anthropogenic climate change is a real issue, I would have preferred the money to have been invested in offshore wind turbines, or even in putting the same turbines on top of a hill where they might have seen some wind.
Electric aircraft of this nature seem to me to be an extremely inefficient means of ‘greenwashing’ aviation. I can see some applications for electric power in aviation – in fact I am more enthusiastic than most here. But I’m fairly sure the money spent on many projects would be better invested elsewhere. Almost any form of transport would be easier to electrify than aviation and on a global scale the amount of fuel burned by aircraft of this size will be miniscule compared to that of other forms of transport – even mopeds.
kwlf wrote:
But I’m fairly sure the money spent on many projects would be better invested elsewhere
Don’t say that too loudly 
I have substantial amounts of funding coming in my direction to support design and development of electric aircraft. Actually, the (private) organization supplying the funding is mostly aware of the issues but has wider motives.
Airborne_Again wrote:
we’d be better off generally if long-haul ground transportation was done with trains and not with trucks. Trains are generally more energy efficient, safer and the infrastructure requires less real estate. For short-haul there is no replacement for trucks, but you don’t typically need 40T for that. So I would rather see improvements in sending goods by train.
It works unless the rail system is used primarily for passenger trains. The US rail system is generally used for carrying freight and not people, because freight is less time sensitive and a lot heavier. It may not match the @kwlf ‘environmental aesthetic imperative’ but it saves a lot of energy and cost – US rail shipping rates are the lowest in the world. My German connections have been known to ask “why are there so few trucks on the motorways here, compared with Germany?” It’s not just their imagination.
Silvaire wrote:
The US rail system is generally used for carrying freight and not people, because freight is less time sensitive and a lot heavier. It may not match the @kwlf ‘environmental aesthetic imperative’ but it saves a lot of energy and cost – US rail shipping rates are the lowest in the world. My German connections have been known to ask “why are there so few trucks on the motorways here, compared with Germany?” It’s not just their imagination.
Yes. This is something the US does right and Europe does wrong.
Don’t say that too loudly I have substantial amounts of funding coming in my direction to support design and development of electric aircraft.
Interesting… Are you able to tell us any more? I thought your specialty was IC engines?
@kwlf, more specifics can’t be related but I might add that a lot of people are being drawn into electric and hybrid aircraft stuff these days. I think it’s one of those things where there is a fear of getting left behind within established players and that means programs are at least initiated to see where it goes.
Quite interesting!
Yes, but Aluminium-Air batteries are not rechargeable in place – Once the aluminium is fully oxidised it is removed and recycled, with the aluminium oxide going back into the aluminium electrolysis process. So this system relies on quick-swap batteries, which is why nobody is that interested.
But it is a “pure electrical” cycle, which means that CO2 emissions are primarily determined by the energy mix of the power stations used to produce the aluminium.
