Will this be tomorrow's transportation?

[adventure bob]

Cool article however I'm floored by "Let the whole world see today what Ukraine and the world can do when they unite, how we are able to protect the world from nuclear contamination and nuclear threats,” President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine said. Had they not botched it in the first place they wouldn't have needed to protect the world. Additionally, why'd it take 30 years to get it done? if that's the great example of Ukrainian united effort, lets hope they don't have any other industrial accidents.

 

[buickanddeere]

Yep, until they solve the 'range' problem, electrics will remain a 'short trip' option. Some of the hybrids are onlyh good for about 30 miles on battery power.

There is no way to solve the range problem. Too many people are clueless about physics and chemistry and they believe the engineers will solve it soon. There will be no solution or manor improvement unless the Almighty adds some new elements to the periodic table.
Upgrading batteries is like horse breeders attempting large gains in endurance and strength but it is just is not there . The next technological step will have to be as different as the horse is from a JD 4020.

 

[buickanddeere]

Seems the hydrogen fuel cell can be "filled up" just the same as a diesel. It does not involve an electrical plug in.

[video]http://americanhistory.si.edu/fuelcells/basics.htm[/video]

Hydrogen has fill time challanges and limits to both the pressure and the hydrid storage systems. Hydrogen molecules are so small they creep and seep through otherwise "solid" substances and cause enbrittlemet .

 

[buickanddeere]

Wow
"Tesla is a stupid joke who takes money from fools with liberal arts degrees who don't know diddly squat about science or engineering. Any high school science student can tell you that the tooth fairy doesn't put the electricity in the socket to charge those idiotic things so all they end up doing is burning coal in the most inefficient manner possible."

Blaming tesla for the antiquated state of the US power grid seems a stretch. At this point the car itself is grid agnostic: it doesn't care if its coal powered, wind powered or nuclear powered. The fact that were still burning coal as a jobs program for certain coal producing states is the crime here, not that tesla has a car that from a pure performance standpoint is pretty cool. The tesla S will stomp a challenger hellcat into the ground and not break a sweat is pretty awesome. And if you compare it to dollars for energy per HP the tesla way outshines any gas powered car. If your gonna blame tesla for the way we produce power then you have to take some responsibility cuase your house is powered the same way.

From an engineering perspective electric motors are the engineering choice to move a vehicle, combustion is an engineering throwback to steam engines. Extremely inefficient.

You can't honestly call electricity efficient because the entire process of generating the electricity uas to be considered with the Tesla vehicle.

 

[Egon]

Hydrogen has fill time challanges and limits to both the pressure and the hydrid storage systems. Hydrogen molecules are so small they creep and seep through otherwise "solid" substances and cause enbrittlemet .

Guess those submarines are a figment of our imagination?

The periodic table has had some new additions.

 

[jimmyj]

When I saw this thread I expected to see a picture of a horse and buggy!

 

[Egon]

Horse and buggy! A very pleasant relaxing way to travell. A good team and it might be called auto pilot.

Horse and sleigh were our wintertime transportation in my adolescent years. Still got the foot warmer too.

 

[adventure bob]

Our problem with hydrogen as an energy source is that its a disruptive technology. All of our current delivery mechanisms for energy rely on it being in a liquid pumpable state. To switch to hydrogen is going to take major capital investments in infrastructure. Ultimately, its cleaner, but its till not a grand leap away form combustion.

 

[MossRoad]

Will the transporting industry be converted?

The technology seems to look Good.

[video]https://electrek.co/2016/07/20/tesla-semi-truck-business-cargo/[/video]

I think its going to be more like this truck...

Nikola Motor claims it received over 7, pre-orders worth over $2.3 billion for its electric truck | Electrek

Electric batteries with natural gas engine and/or hydrogen fuel cells.

 

[JamesHW]

I think developments in lighter than air heavy lift has potential for long distance shipping in the future. Instead of venting helium in order to reduce bouyancy the helium is compressed, so issues with the ship being hard to manage on the ground are alleviated. Imagine shipping a container of your household goods cross country in a container while you relax in a stateroom. The ship could make stops, dropping off a tractor to a farmer and picking a container of produce. Emergency supplies, even portable MASH units could be delivered to disaster areas while serious cases could be medivaced out by the same ship. NY to LA could theoretically be done in 56 hours carrying 150 tons.