• veee@lemmy.ca
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    4 months ago

    Just for comparison: the energy density of gasoline and diesel is around 10,000 Wh/kg.

    Never knew about this metric before.

    I’m looking forward to the instant benefits for e-bikes!

    • IHeartBadCode@kbin.run
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      4 months ago

      The thing is when gasoline is used to power a car about 80% of the energy is loss to heat and only about 20% is used to actually move the car on average. It’s worse when you are doing acceleration and better when cruising at a steady speed on a level surface.

      • GamingChairModel@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Yeah, so you have to divide it by a factor of 5. Which still makes gasoline roughly 5 times as energy dense than this prototype battery, instead of 25 times.

        • SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          4 months ago

          Another problem is the increased complexity of fossil fuel vehicles, specifically in stuff like the engine, gears, pollution filters, etc. A fossil fuel vehicle is just intrinsically more complicated. Which doesn’t directly relate to the density, but it gives electric vehicles an advantage.

            • axsyse@lemmy.sdf.org
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              4 months ago

              Which is where hybrids have a huge advantage, getting the best of both worlds

          • GamingChairModel@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            The weight itself is an engineering challenge.

            With passenger vehicles, the problems have largely been solved. With motorcycles, there are still some tradeoffs on range (especially highway). With large cargo trucks, the weight causes issues with range, weight capacity, and charging times. With aircraft, there’s not really competition on the horizon.

            And electrification of heat production itself for climate control, cooking, hot water, industrial processes, etc. is coming along, too, on an application by application basis. (But note that the energy “lost” to heat is less of a factor for these uses.)

      • espentan@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        In general efficiency, modern cars are a lot closer to 40% than 20. E.g. a Prius engine is at 38,5%.

        It was interesting to see F1 engines go past the 50% mark, a few years back.

    • frezik@midwest.social
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      4 months ago

      Not sure how much it’d improve ebikes. Maybe if you want to take a bike trip longer than 100 miles.

      If anything, sodium batteries are more exciting for ebikes. They’re more than enough for getting around town, and they’re cheap.