# EVs could fill up at the pump



## Tedktis (Jan 20, 2012)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_battery

http://www.mpoweruk.com/flow.htm


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## lowcrawler (Jun 27, 2011)

Forgive the ignorance... but isn't charging at home more convenient?


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## rochesterricer (Jan 5, 2011)

lowcrawler said:


> Forgive the ignorance... but isn't charging at home more convenient?


IIRC, you can do both with this technology. There was a thread about this a few months ago.


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

Yes, it goes both ways. It was making the headlines many months ago. The level of infrastructure to support, however, would rival battery swapping. Batteries are getting good enough, fast enough to make all the work-arounds more hassle than they're worth.


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## ga2500ev (Apr 20, 2008)

gottdi said:


> Dead horse.
> 
> Fast charge infrastructure is going to be easier and cheaper. Less messy too. Why go to a messy fuel station. I'd rather see a nice clean fast charge station ONLY and a place to relax while you recharge. New and fresh rather than old and sloppy/messy. I really don't miss the fuel stations one bit. I'd stop into a clean fast recharge station if they existed.


Virtually every one of these types of technologies attempts to mimic the existing infrastructure. It's hard to envision true paradigm shifts.

The issue that fast charging stations is going to be the time frame. In the old infrastructure, refueling takes between 5-10 minutes. Anything much outside that window, no matter how shiny, clean, and fresh it is, will frustrate users because it doesn't meet their long established expectations.

This is the primary reason I continue to harp on magnetic resonance inductive charging. I know it's inefficient. But it represents a true paradigm shift enough that established expectations no longer applies.

Do not think like a technologist here, think like a marketer, which to some degree you are actually trying to do:

Charge while you shop!
Recharge your car at the movies!
Charge up on the move!
Never stop your car at a station again!

The whole point is to create an infrastructure that is completely different than the current one, because anything that looks like the current one will draw comparisons, and any comparisons that lack will draw criticism.

Why do hybrids work? We all despise them because essentially they are gas cars. They work precisely because... they are gas cars, but better (MPG).

If it's not going to be a gas car, it has to be better in some significant way. Something that cost more, requires more stops to recharge, and requires longer wait times to recharge is a non starter to anyone except for an enthusiast.

A car that costs less to operate and never has to pull into a station is a winner. Electricity can work because you can bring the fuel to the car, instead of bringing the car to the fuel. That's the angle that needs to be worked.

Think like a marketer, not a technologist...

ga2500ev


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## DJBecker (Nov 3, 2010)

Flow batteries also have the potential for better power delivery.

Mechanically replacing depleted chemicals with fresh is far faster than waiting for diffusion. Much like even a mediocre fan-heatsink combination or fluid coldplate is better than the best design of copper convection heatsink.

I agree that most of the range anxiety will be removed when every workplace, mall and movie theater has coin-op charging stations. But it won't solve the driving vacation scenario, whereas a 10 minute "refuel" after two hours of highway driving would be acceptable.


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## lowcrawler (Jun 27, 2011)

The thing I don't get is that every (most) americans has two cars anyway...

Why do they BOTH need to be able to drive across the entire country?


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## ndplume (May 31, 2010)

Maybe the "next generation" u-haul places have trailers for rent that you could connect to your EV. The trailers would provide expanded power to get you from your town down the road to the next where you could drop it off and then tool around with your EV in an 80mile radius, like you were at home.
Trailer Power could be from a generator run by (fill in the blank) or maybe a x,xxx KW battery pack? Size of pack determines the rental price and distance.
Just Maybe...


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## DJBecker (Nov 3, 2010)

gottdi said:


> Not if they don't exist on the market. Not too likely this will happen.


That's why I used the word "potential". Please read what is written.



gottdi said:


> Range anxiety? Hogwash. I drive my Leaf daily and have never had any range anxiety.


Range anxiety is consistently the top consumer concern about EVs. That's not "hogwash", that's the results of surveys.


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

gottdi said:


> It is just a much a potential that we have mini nuclear power plants in the vehicle too. right?


Mini nuke plants have been in production since the 60's. The main thing holding them back is hippies trying to save the planet with the power of ignorance.

There's one cure to range anxiety. It's gas anxiety. People worry how much they'll have to pay next month. When enough people think that worry is greater than FUD, they'll want an EV.


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## DJBecker (Nov 3, 2010)

gottdi said:


> Why then use it at all if they don't exist.


One type was invented at MIT, where they continue to develop it. No fundamental obstacle has been found. Unlike nuclear devices, which would require extensive shielding and cooling and thus are infeasible for small-scale use.



gottdi said:


> According to whom's surveys? No one has surveyed me yet. They won't because I own an EV and have no Anxiety what so ever.


Many surveys. Consumer Reports was a recent one. Dismissing peoples' valid concern is a sure way to be labeled a crackpot and ignored. Give them the right amount of information and let them re-evaluate their use more often leads to a rational choice.


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## Qer (May 7, 2008)

ga2500ev said:


> Virtually every one of these types of technologies attempts to mimic the existing infrastructure. It's hard to envision true paradigm shifts.
> 
> [...]Anything much outside that window, no matter how shiny, clean, and fresh it is, will frustrate users because it doesn't meet their long established expectations.


Amen. The whole concept of "stations" is moronic imo. We have gas stations because gas is volatile and has to be handled in certain ways to be safe. That's not the case with electricity...



ga2500ev said:


> This is the primary reason I continue to harp on magnetic resonance inductive charging. I know it's inefficient.


Compared to gas it isn't.

There already are Volvo trucks that run a hybrid 700 hp diesel and 200 hp electric motor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhgdTTmjQbY

This one has a 700 hp diesel tuned to deliver 1700 hp (IIRC) but it's the electric motor that makes it able to compete with a Ferrari...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cVtzt_bbhM#t=1m15s

(and yes, they have a horrible engrish, I know! Thankfully he drives better than he speaks...  )

Those 200 hp electric motors are in serial production and I know one guy that works with them. According to him it's quite possible to run a truck on one (or two) of those with the diesel engine shut off (but the range is only about 4 km since it's a hybrid only) so these trucks could be converted to pure EVs.

Add inductive roads and those trucks could run primary on electricity, possibly with the diesel engine as a backup for non-inductive roads or in case of a power failure. There's actually a test project going on in Sweden to transport iron ore on trucks (rather than railways) powered by electricity (you'll have to run these through Google Translate I guess):

http://svt.se/2.56952/1.2735075/elvag_fixar_transporten
http://svt.se/2.108068/1.2314104/elvagar_nytt_alternativ_for_lastbilar

Seems that the current idea is to run trucks on air wires but since cars can't reach that high they long time plan is to run those on inductive power (why they want to use two different systems makes no sense to me, but I'm happy they're at least trying to be innovative).

The estimation is that if all cars/trucks would run on electric power it would require about 20% more electricity production in Sweden. That would mean approximately 1/3 of the power we now get from oil import to power our vehicles...

Just add a few nuclear plants and it's a total success!


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## ga2500ev (Apr 20, 2008)

lowcrawler said:


> The thing I don't get is that every (most) americans has two cars anyway...
> 
> Why do they BOTH need to be able to drive across the entire country?


Because to most people the sinking feeling that their vehicle isn't going to move because they are out of "fuel" is one of the worst feelings in the world.

Most cars permanently have a spare tire attached. It's not for the 99.9% of the time that it is not needed. It's insurance for the 0.1% of the time when a tire is flat. I've pulled all of my spares out as it saves weight, and only put them in for long road trips. Anywhere in or around the city, I have enough friends and family that even if I'm stuck it isn't for long.

Everything we are fighting now is inertia of perception. When one learns a certain way and thinks a certain way, it's difficult to shift to a new way of thinking...

ga2500ev


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## ga2500ev (Apr 20, 2008)

ndplume said:


> Maybe the "next generation" u-haul places have trailers for rent that you could connect to your EV. The trailers would provide expanded power to get you from your town down the road to the next where you could drop it off and then tool around with your EV in an 80mile radius, like you were at home.
> Trailer Power could be from a generator run by (fill in the blank) or maybe a x,xxx KW battery pack? Size of pack determines the rental price and distance.
> Just Maybe...


The vacation long range trip isn't the problem. That is something planned and alternatives exists to solve the problem.

The true range issue is the unexpected out of range one. You carefully plan to drive to work and back. An emergency pops up and you need to drive to your mother's house, which is 30 miles farther than work. It now puts your vehicle outside of its range.

Fast fuel vehicles have no problem with this. Even if you are low on fuel, 5 minutes at any point in a station and the problem is solved.

It's simply not likely that waiting 45 minutes for a fast charge, or pulling in to rent a trailer works in this scenario.

Let's try putting this in the context of the last paradigm for comparison: switching from horses to "horseless" carriages:



> Maybe the "next generation" u-haul places have teams of horses for rent that you could connect to your horseless carriage. The horse team would provide expanded power to get you from your town down the road to the next where you could drop them off and then tool around with your horseless carriage in an 80mile radius, like you were at home.


New paradigms require infrastructure. All new infrastructure have a capital cost. The ROI comes from the expansion of the paradigm and the usage of the infrastructure. It's always a chicken and egg problem with new paradigms. But it's really less so with electricity because though it's patchwork and aging, the infrastructure really is already in place. All of us live and work in places with electricity. It's routed to even the most remote areas of all industrialized countries. It's already there.

The small expansion for fast charging stations and some embedding of charging in the road is a relatively small cost in comparison to building hundreds of thousands of gas stations. Electricity is everywhere. So the ability to transfer electricity to an EV should simply be everywhere too.

Then the unexpected "out of range" trip disappears. The car pull extra juice from the road on the way to/from work, and on the way to/from your mothers. Fast stationary plug in chargers give opportunity charging options at longer stops.

It's not an either/or situation. It's and all of the above. Home charging, road charging, parking charging, fast charging should all be on the menu.

ga2500ev


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

ga2500ev said:


> Most cars permanently have a spare tire attached. It's not for the 99.9% of the time that it is not needed. It's insurance for the 0.1% of the time when a tire is flat.


Actually, most don't. It's usually an option you can pay a bunch for (if there's even room in the car), and most people wouldn't bother because they have some roadside assistance plan anyway.


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## MN Driver (Sep 29, 2009)

Ziggythewiz said:


> Actually, most don't. It's usually an option you can pay a bunch for (if there's even room in the car), and most people wouldn't bother because they have some roadside assistance plan anyway.


I had a blowout last year and using the included spare tire, jack, and wrench to swap the tire had me back on the road in probably under 10 minutes from the moment the blowout happened to the time I was driving again. If I call roadside assistance and don't have a spare I'm going to around for an hour for someone to show up and then since there is no tire they need to tow my car either to a tire shop or my house. If it is to a tire shop you are at the mercy of that shop's prices, whatever brand they have, and you better hope they have your size in stock. I used my spare for the day, put a snow tire on when I got home and then had to wait a week for the tire shop to ship a tire matching the same brand in.

I'd rather swap to the spare in 10 minutes than be at the mercy of roadside assistance and a nearby shop if I'm 20 miles from home. Usually you pay $50 for a tow or $70 or so yearly for an auto club membership that has free towing for 3 miles, more if you want to go farther on the membership or you pay dearly for every mile over 3. I also used one of those fix-a-flat cans once and followed the directions including driving for a number of miles to spread it evenly in the tire but once you use it, but found out the hard way after it badly unbalanced my tires with a terrible shaky steering wheel at highway speeds that you must go to the shop to get the tire removed from the rim and that crap rinsed out. From now on if it happens, I'll use the spare and then use the little swizzle stick rubber cement patches, those have worked great for me.

That's some stuff to consider to help decide whether or not you leave your spare behind. I won't. Some cars actually use the spare as part of the car's crash structure in a severe crash, perusing data from crash testing might convince you to keep it or have something in its place as alternative support.


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## Qer (May 7, 2008)

MN Driver said:


> I had a blowout last year and using the included spare tire, jack, and wrench to swap the tire had me back on the road in probably under 10 minutes from the moment the blowout happened to the time I was driving again.


I know a few people that experienced similar situations, only that the spare was flat when they dug it out. Personally I've always had a working spare the few times I've needed one but it has been more dumb luck than any precautions from my side...


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## Tedktis (Jan 20, 2012)

It's like an umbrella, carry one around and there is a good chance it won't rain. Keep your spare. I know I have had more nails, screwdrivers etc blow out my tire. Thank goodness for a spare. That being said, IMO, cars should have 2 fuel pumps, 2 batteries. That way you have minimal back-up and not much more cost. Let's face it fuel pumps, tires and batteries go bad and usually give no warning, unlike squeky brakes, loud exhaust leaks, weep hole coolant leaks etc. Planes have several 'back-up' controls. Back to filling up at the pump; the more brainstorming and ideas the more opportunity we have to get something to work. As far as fueling at the pump, most ppl are programmed to do it this way. We could slowly integrate a more practical solution while keeping the current infrastructure with some modifications. Lots of ppl are knocking a lot of good ideas, some are not practical, but atleast we have those that try. What are we doing? Just a thought.


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## lowcrawler (Jun 27, 2011)

Tedktis said:


> What are we doing?


Showing my family, friends, and community how great charging at home while you sleep is... (vs driving somewhere and fueling for 5 minutes)


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## gor (Nov 25, 2009)

Tedktis said:


> Electric cars could fill up at the MetILs pump. Flow batteries can be rapidly “recharged” by replacing the electrolyte liquid.
> 
> http://www.innovationtoronto.com/2012/03/electric-cars-could-fill-up-at-the-metils-pump/


 
1.5 kwh/kg - its about 15 times higher than existing lithium

range of evs such as nissan leaf would be 1500 miles, not one hour on highway and 12 hours for recharge from standard outlet to get back as it is right now


good work, if they'll make it happen (well, lithium batteries been also non-existing until recently)


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## Ryan800 (Apr 15, 2010)

I don't think pumping fluids makes sense for passenger cars. While people wouldn't accept 30 minute fillups at the gas station, that's not a fair comparison because the only time you need to visit a "station" with an electric car is on long trips. I can't imagine electric cars becoming widely accepted until they can handle an unexpected 50 or 100 miles of errands so what you're really doing is eliminating about 25 5-10 minute stops per year and adding about five 30 minute stops depending on your driving habits. Plus, for a bit extra you can get batteries that charge most of the way in 5-10 minutes anyway.

We will get to this point with incremental improvements of existing technology. Tesla offers such a car for about $70k and I expect my current build to meet the above criteria for $40k plus labor. "Pumpable" batteries and their infrastructure are much further off. I think once pumping fuel becomes unnecessary there will be no desire to bring it back.

Why even discuss what would happen if a battery with 10x the energy density of lithium becomes available soon at reasonable cost? The answer is easy: it will be incorporated into every mobile energy storage application within a year or two, including ground, sea, and air transport. Mayyyyybe ocean shipping would hold out for a while. I'm pretty sure it's not going to happen for long time, but I hope to be proven wrong.


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