Dandy wrote:
Of course you can use the electricity directly, wherever it makes sense!
It makes sense anywhere except, perhaps, in some quite exceptional situations. For sure it makes sense in cars!
falemagn wrote:
Battery technology has improved a lot and continues to do so.
...but involves a lot of substances hazardous to health and environment, once released - maybe by an crash.
We're not in the times of lead-acid batteries anymore, these are the times of lithium ions batteries mixed with certain kind of nanomaterials that boost their performances and make them viable alternatives to fuel.
Have a look at
AltairNano and
A123, for instance.
Furthermore current batteries (which actually are accumulators) mean a lot of additional weight, which results in less payload or less operating range.
Accumulator is a broader term than "battery". A rechargeable battery is an accumulator, but an accumulator isn't necessarily a battery. As for weight, what matters is power density, which measures how much energy can be stored in a unit of volume, and certain batteries have power density higher than standard fuel which makes them more viable than fuel. Add to that that electric motors are less complicated and much lighter than ICE's, and you get the right picture.
Here's some real world examples, cars you can buy
right now:
the Tesla Motors' sport car and the
Phoenix Motors' SUT.
Head to
http://www.autobloggreen.com/ to see what this is all about.
falemagn wrote:
Moreover, hydrogen is quite a dangerous gas, it needs to be stored properly, transported properly, and needs very costly infrastructures.
While it`s not so dangerous as you may think, you are of course right - "it needs to be stored properly, transported properly, and needs very costly infrastructures".
But this is valid for all other fuels as well, especially, if you include the costs for damages to the environment.
It's not valid for electricity: we do have transport infrastructures for it already in place and battery technology has improved to a point where environmental concerns are just out of place: lithium isn't environmentally hazardous and it can be recycled.
If hydrogene gas leaks out of a tank, it immediately rises rises up to the sky, as hydrogene is the lightest element.
Yes, and it might react with the oxygen in the air, explosively so, or go up to the higher atmosphere where it's likely to
cause damages to the ozone layer.
So in case of an accident where a hydrogene tank is penetrated, the "dangerous fuel" immediately rises up in the air (in contrary to a case where a gasoline tank is penetrated) where it either peacefully burns or is diluted until the concentration is beyond fammability.
You forget that to store hydrogen you need very high pressures, which means that if you manage to break an hydrogen tank you need to be prepared to some of the most disastrous explosions both for the flammability of the gas and the pressure it's stored at.
Regardless, there are economical reasons for which hydrogen just doesn't make sense for cars, as explained by the page I gave you a link to.
