Bob: with a million car annualized production rate from 2 factories, and two more Gigafactories coming on-line in the next 90 days, and 14 months to fill the order, I wonder why you would even worry about that.

This is a pretty lame entry into the American EV market by an ambivalent manufacturer. 35kWh is so pathetic, and yet they try to dress it up as more eco-friendly than vehicles with a larger battery. "space-saving battery" means too small to be useful compared to a Bolt or the latest-gen LEAF. Almost as poor a phrase as that "self-charging electric vehicle" line touted by Toyota for their hybrids. Truth is this is very uncompetitive with pure-EV products available last year and this won't be anywhere except California until Q4 this year. Probably just a compliance car that is over compromised, and it's so meh, the sales won't be there, thus they won't get the compliance credits anyway. They'll smugly say to themselves "See, we said there was no demand for EVs". They just don't see the future is coming, because it doesn't look like something they are used too, so they won't be a part of it.

The 100W PSU example is hardly adequate for a scooter application, given that eBikes typically have between 250-750W motors (higher for off-road applications). And that power supply unit looks too big to go on a scooter (the scale can only be guessed at from the plants in the background), even if its a prototype that could be shrunk to halve-size in a production unit. Also their power density figure is for the paste itself and does not take into account the weight of the PEM fuel cell and the PSU to extract the H2 from the paste. Per Davemart: "$2 for 1.6KWH". For the equivalent Li-ion battery the cost to charge would be 20 cents.

Seems like we need to find a substitute antioxidant for tires and test for similar reactions into the roadway runoff from any replacement. Once found it will need regulatory pressure to have tire manufacturers switch to that and/or find other ways to mitigate the environmental harm.

The article doesn't mention how long the vehicle is owned, and that is the single biggest factor that determine the total cost of ownership, as keeping a car for 5 or 6 years will dilute the extra purchase price with lower daily running costs compared to a 3 year term. Insurance is still much higher, and that is totally inexplicable and probably just because the insurance industry shortsightedly treats EVs as a niche market.

What is the point of this comparison. They're incompatible energy sources. AFAIK I can't drink gasoline, and can't use milk as a energy source for any non-living machine. The number of BTUs spent writing and posting this crap can never be recovered.

I think I saw something similar on HBO's Westworld.

It’s a hybrid, and a very “mild” one. What a waste of space this announcement is. Lame.

Nice, except that the battery at 14kWh is too small to allow anyone to expect to be able to drive anything but the shortest daily commute-trips in all electric mode. A Nissan LEAF with that battery size would be able to travel about 50 miles only (80km). Given the bulk of this vehicle (having to carry around an idle engine etc.) compared to that, less than 35 miles (55km) electric range is more likely. And if you dare turn on the heating or the air-conditioning, I bet the engine starts up immediately.

There's a much easier solution. Way cheaper. Benefits everyone. Get rid of the traffic lights. Replace them with traffic circles (roundabouts). These minimise the wait time for everyone. They work well and led to near-no-wait times outside of peak hours if designed right. Drivers have been shown to have some confusion about them at first but quickly adapt, and within a year the flow improvements are dramatic. You need fewer approach lanes (no separating left-turn, straight ahead, right-turning traffic at the intersection). I've seen so many intersections across America that I know would benefit from a simple circle of concrete, some lane markings and signage (arrows).

This is fantastic as in a total fantasy. If it sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is. I’m surprised it doesn’t mention unicorn power. Ridiculous concept for a (unannounced but obviously sky-high) ridiculous price. Just start with something normal, build experience making it and forget “paper concept vehicles”. We’ll never see this as advertised, even for a million dollars or a million years. Click bait or maybe investment hype for persons who don’t know the market.

Depends what they mean by “highly stable”. No mention of solving or improving the significant hurdle to commercialization with Li-S batteries is the expanse of the sulfur/sulphur cathode.

It’s a hybrid. Using the term “EV” is deliberately confusing, they’re just trying to get on the bandwagon with this marketing ploy. 100% of the energy comes from gasoline. Total greenwashing.

So these batteries have the Lithium ions chemically react with the S/Se, which deposits around the carbon granules as Li2S or Li2Se. Current Li-ion battery doesn't have a chemical reaction just transport of ions. It looks like this is designed to overcome the massive expansion of Sulphur , but I can't tell if the gap above the liquid S/Se at the top of the diagram A is for that purpose. Why the choice of S or Se? Sulphur seems better and cheaper. Is there an inherent problem with it, other than expansion? For static storage solution improvements in density are good, but cost is the most import consideration. This seems to be 1/6th the cost of Li-ion per kWh (why have they written kWh-1 in the quote? "Kilowatts per hour", not "Kilowatt-hours"?). But that for a convention Li-S battery and material costs only, not this new configuration. The high temperature needed for the battery to work makes use in a mobile application difficult, because of the need for instant available power at power-up. (would you really want to keep those batteries that hot 24x7 even within an insulated package?) This brings up the question of what happens if you let these batteries cool to room temperature and re-heat them again. Is that even feasible? You could have a hybrid solution where a small Li-ion battery is used to get you going for the first 5 miles or so, while simultaneously heating the first Li-S pack. Once it is up to temperature, it is used for locomotion, and warming the next pack up, plus recharging the Li-ion so that should the vehicle stop and park right at that moment, there is enough charge in the Li-ion battery to repeat the start-up process. The doubling of the power density (if that really pans out when commercialized) might bring electric light aircraft into viability. Again, a small Li-ion battery pack would allow taxi and warm-up operations, take-off and cruise would need the Li/S battery to be fully operational, with the Li-ion battery as an emergency reserve. Also no info on the cost of making that LLTZO sleeve. Lanthanum and Zirconium are abundant but Tantalum is considered a conflict resource, despite having reserves in places like Australia and Canada (where it is marginally economic or not depending on demand).

Good grief! At that price ($116k for the lower performing model, no price given for the one they quote performance specs for) you could buy 2 Teslas that perform better in every respect listed above AND get it within a month, not sometime next year!

Actually Antimony has an abundance of 3 to 7 times that of Silver, so not so bad. Cost has doubled in a couple of years to around $8500 per ton in 2017. China has 90% of world production.

“You cannae change the laws of physics, cap’n.” - Montgomery Scott.

Tesla is switching to using an NMC based Li-ion battery supplied by the local LG Chem factory in Tesla's Gigafactory 3 in China that is about to start production of Model 3s.

They’re talking about 200 feet of water. Just deep enough to allow divers build the anchoring system. I can’t imagine the size of the anchoring chains/cables that would be needed to hold one of these turbine towers in place while rock and rolling in a hurricane. I hope they also incorporate HVDC technology (High Voltage Direct Current) for transmission to land. That allows for smaller or longer electrical cables over AC systems to open larger potential areas to these devices. Also if it comes ashore as HVDC it can go straight into an HVDC transmission grid to distribute power far inland with little losses. That allows for regional weather differences to fill in for lulls in renewables that occur onshore and reduce the need for energy storage.

Where do they get the hydrogen from? That will determine whether it's non-polluting or not. Not the fact that it makes only electricity and water vapor on site. "Fueled by hydrogen emitted both during the production process for FC system components, as well as during evaluation and testing processes" makes no sense to me, or at least is not sustainable. What H2 is emitted during production? But kudos to them for this pilot system for developing and verifying a stationary power solution in a container.

It seems unlikely that this will get resolved in the courts before Jan 2021, but even if it does and the CARB states lose, they just have to make it clear to the auto industry that there will be a set of you-pollute-you-pay policies in place designed to dramatically curtail sales, registration and even operating such vehicles within the CARB states. A $10,000 initial registration fee with ongoing $1000 annual renewal fee should do it. Plus no HOV access. These fees must be detailed in any bill of sale or invoice with the name “you-pollute-you-pay fee”. All fees raised go to funds designed to encourage cleaner cars (EVs and good hybrids) including reduced registration fees, home charger subsidies, even workplace and public charging station subsidies. Also renewables and grid storage. After all, it’s all about state’s rights. Wasn’t that the GOP mantra 4 years ago?

That's 8% faster than a Tesla Model 3 Long Range on a v3 Supercharger. Not bad :-P for a vehicle that costs twice as much and has 80% of the range. How many of the currently deployed EA chargers are 350kW-capable? I know we haven't really seen any v3 Superchargers outside of SoCal yet (and one in Vegas).

Wow. When Fiat merged with Chrysler, the Fiat styling and brand had some cachet that got them some new sales in North America, albeit as niche player. They will be destroying that brand by dropping their line-up to nothing more than a couple of even-tinier-niche vehicles with no EV and no future. Arrivederci Fiat! So FCA really doesn't have an EV roadmap (no pun intended) to offer in North America at all. They must be relying even more heavily on their billion $ emissions pooling deal with Tesla to meet fleet emissions standards for all Chrysler brands since Fiat sales will be ~0. I assume the 500X is a Mini knock-off for those who don't want to buy German (not really an issue in NA). And the one 500L owner I know is just counting the months until the payments are made so she can move on. Does the 500E continue to be available in Europe or RoW?

Why? Fun and nostalgia. Who wouldn’t want to go on an adventure in a bug that actually accelerates in seconds rather than minutes! It wouldn’t be your everyday car, just for special excursions and trips.

So not that big a gain then (3.6% over a mass-produced vehicle)? That sample battery weighs about twice the typical fuel load of a typical light aircraft. An electric plane doesn’t need a surge of power like a hypercar would, it needs sustained “full” power for climbing and then about 60-75% power for cruise at a higher airspeed than the climb. So I don’t see any advantage to this hybrid battery application in aircraft.