Coast to coast in an Electric car towing a trailer.

Turtle n Peeps wrote:

smkettner wrote:

fireman41 wrote:
Why not hydrogen.(disclosure I transport and deliver liquid hydrogen). Right now Toyota is in the process of building a hydrogen fueling network in the north east it's going to start small and only consists of 12 stations but it's a start. Also lots of food wearhouse have switched there fork lift fleets over to run on hydrogen.

Hydrogen will find it's niche and right now it is a bit expensive for personal transportation.
Huge amounts of government money is trying to get this started. Automakers have also invested huge.
IMO it is just not going to pan out until the cost comes down.

Going to be a long time before a cross country trip is even possible let alone practical.

Hydrogen is not a fuel and never will be.

Most of you have no idea of the energy density problems of batteries. Gasoline has about 100x's more energy density than LI batteries.

Electric cars are fine around town but they will NEVER have the energy density of gasoline.

LINK

Physical energy limits of batteries.

re "Most of you have no idea of the energy density problems of batteries. Gasoline has about 100x's more energy density than LI batteries."

Actually they are not all that much different....you have not checked your facts.

Superficially energy density is like 15x more with gasoline, *with existing technology*. There are already operating prototypes of Li Ion batteries that show triple this density.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density

Also energy density is not the key metric, it ignores efficiency. The very best gasoline motor gets maybe 25% efficiency, max. To the rear wheels less than 20% even without considering what happens when pulling a trailer and so less efficient high revs and volumetric efficiency, etc.. With electric motors you have a decent chance of getting into the 80% range, at the wheels, and that efficiency does not change much with varying loads like a gasoline motor does.
They are already making batteries part of the structure of these cars and distributing them though the chassis and under the seats. Try that with a gasoline tanks if you want to save space .....
Oh wait, you said batteries generically, not just LiIon. They are already prototyping carbon batteries, and even some are on sale. They will be cheap, no rare earth nor expensive lithium, they have virtually no internal impedance and so can be charged much faster than LiIon, and safely too. They have even higher energy density.....they are predicted to be mainstream within 10 years.
In summary the problem is not 'energy density', at least not mid to long term.