Thread: Autonomous Vehicles

What happens if you get to charger and somebody else is using it for 8 hours?

Regards Philip A

Originally Posted by PhilipA

What happens if you get to charger and somebody else is using it for 8 hours?

Regards Philip A

Fast charger= 20 minutes, power point = find another one.

Anyway, Mr Marsh has yet to explain how a particular type of power point will prevent (not just hinder) an electric vehicle, autonomous or otherwise, from meeting a road train.

Originally Posted by bee utey

Fast charger= 20 minutes, power point = find another one.

Anyway, Mr Marsh has yet to explain how a particular type of power point will prevent (not just hinder) an electric vehicle, autonomous or otherwise, from meeting a road train.

I didn't say it would. You just did.

Originally Posted by Mick_Marsh

A friend has a Tesla. Sadly, the required infrastructure to operate these vehicles Australia wide is not yet in place. Drop into a petrol station and ask if you can plug your car into a 3 phase socket for eight hours and see what I mean. You'll be lucky if they have a 16A socket available. For me to go for a drive to Melbourne CBD and back in a Tesla it's fine. For me to drive to Adelaide in a Tesla is an overnighter whereas I could comfortably do it in the Commodore within daylight hours.
Don't be silly. The fuelling infrastructure is in place at the airports and planes nowdays have such big fuel tanks.
I don't see many battery powered commercial aircraft flying from capital city to capital city, let alone the long haul flights.

The infrastructure will come, the same as LPG did. When the first LPG powered vehicles hit the road in Australia, there were almost no outlets to buy the fuel. I remember the closest one to us was in the next town - 20KM away and Dad said no one would buy an LPG powered car because it would be too impractical to run it.

Jump forward to now and the same thing is happening with charging stations. It will come in time.

Originally Posted by Homestar

The infrastructure will come, the same as LPG did. When the first LPG powered vehicles hit the road in Australia, there were almost no outlets to buy the fuel. I remember the closest one to us was in the next town - 20KM away and Dad said no one would buy an LPG powered car because it would be too impractical to run it.

Jump forward to now and the same thing is happening with charging stations. It will come in time.

But it is not here and now.

Interesting you should mention Gas. Another that is not here and now, but should be.
http://cafcp.org/m/sites/default/fil...version%29.pdf

I would like to see the fuel cell vehicle adopted here. We should be putting our efforts into sustainably producing hydrogen rather than producing more of those toxic lithium ion batteries that will need to be disposed of when they die.

The beauty of hydrogen it that it takes minutes to fill the tank. Not hours to recharge the batteries.
Also, it's exhaust gas is water vapour. How green is that!

I don't know if things have changed in the last 20 years, but about 20 years ago Perth did a trial of hydrogen powered buses in conjunction with British Oxygen.

My acquaintance was the MD of British Oxygen Oceania, and he told me the story that is was the most disastrous project that he had ever been involved in.

The story as I remember it was that BO supplied industrial quality hydrogen to the council which then caused all the buses to malfunction.

It turned out that pure hydrogen with very low impurities was necessary to run the buses and that this cost a LOT of money to produce and had to be stored very carefully.

So do not just assume that any old hyrogen is sufficient to run hydrogen powered cars or fuel cells which may or may not be even more picky in their quality requirements.

Regards Philip A.

Originally Posted by PhilipA

I don't know if things have changed in the last 20 years, but about 20 years ago Perth did a trial of hydrogen powered buses in conjunction with British Oxygen.

My acquaintance was the MD of British Oxygen Oceania, and he told me the story that is was the most disastrous project that he had ever been involved in.

The story as I remember it was that BO supplied industrial quality hydrogen to the council which then caused all the buses to malfunction.

It turned out that pure hydrogen with very low impurities was necessary to run the buses and that this cost a LOT of money to produce and had to be stored very carefully.

So do not just assume that any old hyrogen is sufficient to run hydrogen powered cars or fuel cells which may or may not be even more picky in their quality requirements.

Regards Philip A.

I take it they were hydrogen fueled internal combustion motors in the buses.

Fuel cells are an old and proven technology. Mid 19th century I think. Over the decades it has had many refinements.
The beauty about fuel cells is you can use all sorts of fuels, not just hydrogen gas. A fuel cell can be fueled with natural gas, methanol or ethanol. It gets it's oxygen from the atmosphere which has all sorts of impurities in it. Unfortunately, a methane fuel cell produces CO2, which is something we are trying to avoid.

oh look! an autonomous vehicle!
and beer!

Autonomous beer transport is happening in Colorado - Autoblog