The economic realities of electric car?

[iancampbell]

Battery powered cars are slowly becoming more prevalent. But are they worth it due to the limited life of the battery? As well as the expensive battery replacement costs. I personally think that fuel cell technology would offer an better energy density. If all of the problems could be worked out of course. What do you all think?

I agree with you, for several reasons. First are the twin problems of range and recharging time. Even if range of an electric vehicle could be got to the same as that of an IC engined one, about 500 miles, the recharging time issue might well be problematic.

Second is the problem, not often discussed, of the expense of tooling up for electric vehicles. Both the charging stations themselves and the extra power generation and transmission capacity required.

Third is the fact that the batteries weigh a good part of a ton, which has to affect efficiency.

Fourth is the hazard caused by high energy density batteries in a crash.

Fuel cells don't have any of these problems. For some types of fuel cells (methanol for example) existing fuel delivery infrastructure could be used. Fuel cells are lighter than IC engines, if anything. And recharging is as simple as filling a tank with liquid. And the fuel itself is reasonably safe, if the right one is chosen. Methanol probably - liquid hydrogen, not so much.

BTW, the idea of fuel cells is often rubbished because, of course, if it's worth doing for ecological reasons the fuel has to be made. The solution to that is simple; use spare power, when the network is under light load otherwise - maybe at night.