The Electric Car - Why It Isn't Taking Off (Articles)

Electric cars promise carefree mobility in an era of increasing environmental awareness, what should we make of this? Will electric cars soon replace vehicles with proven combustion engines? What is the future of electric cars like?

Each drive system for vehicles intended for individual transportation has its own advantages and disadvantages. These will be presented, discussed, and possible solutions will be outlined.


1. Car with electric motor and battery (accumulator)

Advantages:
- The car's engine emits no emissions during operation. No nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons, CO2 that promotes plant growth, etc.

Disadvantages:
- The emissions now originate from different sources. In the worst-case scenario, from electricity generation in nuclear power plants, or coal and gas power plants. In the better case, from landscape-damaging wind turbines or photovoltaic solar systems, which hopefully do not contain highly toxic cadmium. In the ideal case, such as in Switzerland, from hydroelectric power plants. My normal household electricity is, for example, produced to 95% using hydroelectric power. Unfortunately, hydroelectric power plants are not possible everywhere, as there must be enough water and a sufficient slope.
- The heating system of a typical vehicle utilizes the waste heat from the engine, meaning that this normally lost energy must be taken from the vehicle's battery. In cold weather, you face a choice: either freeze or accept a significantly reduced range.
- Current vehicle batteries can only be charged with a significant amount of time.
- With current vehicle batteries, only very short ranges are possible, which further decrease in cold weather.
- The lifespan of current vehicle batteries is significantly limited, with increasing usage, the amount of energy that can be stored decreases, and replacing the vehicle battery is very expensive.


2. Car with an electric motor and a fuel cell as the power source.

Advantages:
- The car's engine emits no emissions during operation. No nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons, CO2 that promotes plant growth, etc.
- To produce fuel, renewable energies can be used, which makes it easier to store. D.h., z.B. auch die Sonneneinstrahlung, die von Solarstrom erzeugt wird, ist nicht nutzlos, wenn niemand Strom benötigt.
- Relatively quick "refueling".
- Currently (10/2021), the vehicle has a better range than with batteries.

Disadvantages:
- The fuel cell uses materials for electricity generation, which are currently uncommon (methanol), sometimes difficult to store or simply dangerous to handle (hydrogen). Hydrogen also has the additional disadvantage that the vehicle's range is limited by the complex and relatively safe storage. Some parking garages are prohibited for hydrogen vehicles (due to the potential explosion hazard caused by leaked hydrogen).


3. Car with hybrid drive, i.e. electric motor and an additional combustion engine

Advantage:
- Greater reach than pure electric vehicles.

Disadvantages:
- Increased complexity, and therefore, susceptibility to errors in the overall system.
- Emissions from the engine are only relocated locally.


4. Car with conventional gasoline or diesel engine

Advantages:
- Best Range.
- High independence, due to fuel availability through a fueling network.
- Cold weather does not significantly reduce range while maintaining comfort.

Disadvantages:
- Direct emissions from the engine.

5. Conclusion

As you can see, none of the solutions are optimal. Regarding the often-discussed emissions of fine particulate matter, there is also the suspicion that the so-called "environmental stickers" or Environmental zones primarily serve the interests of the environmentally-funded purse, rather than the environment itself, and represent a form of disguised economic subsidy, as "outdated" vehicles must be replaced with new "clean" ones.
Regarding emissions such as particulate matter from brakes and tire wear, there are also no significant advantages or disadvantages compared to other drive concepts.

Regarding emissions, Drive Concept 1 is very good, however, only if the necessary electricity to charge the battery can be produced at home itself. Unfortunately, this is not possible in most cases, either because there is no suitable space available or simply for example, Photovoltaic systems either experience insufficient sunlight or lack affordable photovoltaic options in their area.
Furthermore, the very slow "charging" process, meaning charging the vehicle battery, is currently not feasible with existing technology. Even if the vehicle battery were to be very quickly chargeable due to research advancements, this would not help, as in this case, every charging location (residence etc.) would need to have an extremely powerful electrical connection, which would be neither cost-effective nor practical. We don't even want to talk about installing high-voltage power lines into every residential area, as well as laying down powerful, thick, and expensive copper cables to every house, and the corresponding necessary number of transformer stations – that's simply nonsense.
In 1990, when the GDR opened its borders, many GDR citizens bought electric heaters in large numbers. Finally, no more lugging coal, no more dirt in the apartment: The consequence was an unstable power grid, glowing power cables, and exploding electricity prices. A typical electric heater has a typical electrical power consumption of around 2kW. The energy content of typical electric car batteries is 40 - 90 kWh. If you want to charge such a battery in 1 hour (which is impossible!), you would need at least (the charging/discharging process has no efficiency of 100%!) 40 - 90 kW of electrical power. With a 230V connection, 174 - 391 A would flow (= not feasible). Even with a 400V connection, using all 3 phases, 33 - 74 A per phase! The necessary cable cross-sections would then be just slightly thicker than a finger in diameter for each phase. If an entire street charges electric vehicles in the evening after work, one can easily imagine the added necessary cable cross-sections: Enormous and very expensive cables would have to be re-laid, solely due to the material value of the copper used. The fact that a photovoltaic system on a private home cannot deliver 40 - 90kW of power should also be clear to anyone with a reasonably intelligent understanding, which would result in extremely long charging times: The power output of typical photovoltaic systems for single-family homes is in the low single-digit kW range. So, wenn also jemand eine sehr gute, große und teure Photovoltaikanlage mit einer Leistung von 5 kW besitzt, dauert das Aufladen eines Akkus für ein Fahrzeug mit einer Leistung von 40 kW mindestens 8 Stunden bei kontinuierlichem Sonnenschein. 8 Stunden Sonnen-Aufladen für eine Reichweite von etwa 180 km. In 8 Stunden bewegt sich ein Radfahrer mit einer durchschnittlichen Geschwindigkeit von 25 km/h bereits 200 km. What is this for?
The naivety, or perhaps the criminal energy, of leading political figures replacing electric heaters with electric vehicles and forcing us to do so using the money from each of us, is therefore hardly surpassed. Helping them are also numerous media professionals, who, lacking any expertise, shine.
The problem of limited range and excessively long charging times cannot be solved by more powerful vehicle batteries or charging devices, as the fundamental issue lies in transporting sufficient power to the charging location. Instead of the conventional internal combustion engine, which represents the "power plant" of the vehicle, a monstrous (charging) power plant with nearly the combined power output of all vehicles is now required, which must deliver its power over many kilometers to the specific vehicle during the charging process.
The TCO (Total Cost of Ownership, operating costs over the entire usage period) is significantly worse than that of conventional vehicles due to the high initial costs, the expensive vehicle battery, and its limited lifespan (the battery degrades with every charging/discharging cycle, reducing the stored energy and therefore the vehicle's range over time).

The sheer nonsense being spewed by German politicians and self-proclaimed experts becomes clear in the following observation: A single block of a nuclear power plant provides approximately 1300 MW of power. If a small town with 5000 electric cars, each charging at a very slow rate of 40 kW, requires around 200 MW of power, So, a single nuclear power plant block is therefore sufficient to charge 6.5 smaller settlements' electric vehicles. How many wind turbines and high-voltage power lines does one actually want to install and spoil the landscape with?
Please note that this calculation does not take into account unavoidable losses during energy distribution! I call such "politics" nothing more than blatant manipulation, disregarding technical details.

Due to these reasons, Concept 1, the electric car with a vehicle battery as an energy reservoir, is inherently doomed to failure as a mass-market vehicle. This is a political, economic, and technological dead end that has not been successful for around 130 years (invention in 1881 by Gustave Trouvé). The physical laws that limit the meaningful use of such vehicles do not change, even with subsidies or the redirection of tax revenue. These would be more appropriately used elsewhere and would thus not only serve the temporary boosting purposes of companies involved in artificial promotion.

A more promising drive concept would be concept 2 if the existing logistics for fuel cell fuel, such as methanol, are utilized, and this is cost-effectively synthesized from biomass. Unfortunately, the corresponding technology still needs improvement, and there are still questions to be resolved regarding the costs. Here, however, quite a bit has changed since the article was created in 2016, making this solution more attractive.

Drive Concept 3 has a good range, but the price comes with the combination of the disadvantages from Concept 1 and 4.

My suggestion would be to improve Concept 4: Operating existing internal combustion engines with clean-burning, locally produced fuels (Biofuels to Liquid). If the synthesis of these raw materials or fuels is easy, this would even create additional jobs, value creation, and independence in the respective country. As early as around 90 years ago, fuels were synthesized as war-critical goods, so it is technically and economically feasible on a large scale, but the cost side must be optimized.
Also the extraction of biomass from algae as a cheap raw material would be a very promising approach, for example, existing systems for generating hot water using sunlight could be further developed to cultivate algae. Instead of hot water, algae slime is produced. These algae would be interesting as a marketable raw material for fuel manufacturing plants, as has been the case for centuries, for example, sugar beets for household sugar. This would simultaneously enable local value creation and jobs.

That biofuels such as rapeseed methyl esters, or raw materials such as rapeseed oil, which can be easily and cheaply produced locally, are not being further pursued or could serve as a basis for synthetic fuels, can only be explained by political lobbying. Obviously, no one should be able to produce their own fuel for heating and transportation in their garden or on their roof, but rather remain dependent on corporations.

Concept 3 is also moving more towards usability in 2021, and the corresponding developments are to be awaited. Some major players are investing a lot in this area.

Update 01/2022: Now, DE and AT are also among the anti-democratic and fascist countries, which eliminates the corresponding argument in the sub-points.

Tagesspiegel wrote:

Experts warn of energy crisis: 600,000 heaters sold – gas shortage brings Habeck new problems 29.07.2022, 09:50 AM

Okay... A heater fan like that has approximately 2kW of power. The charging speed of an electric car is many times faster.
XXX

Many may also not have light, even when they are sitting in a cold room, and may have to go to the bathroom while showering, and may no longer be able to eat because they have a subscription to a doctor... no, one should not laugh at "woke Stone Age religions" instead of thinking. Is widely used in 2022.

Update 03/2023: The predictions regarding urinating in the shower and cold showers have come true in Germany thanks to the many green-woke individuals. Thinking is Nazi, so 1990 and basically just something old white men do.

Prediction for 2024: The prediction has come true, with mass exodus. Apparently, only a few intelligent people remain in Germany. However, most energy-intensive companies in Germany are ceasing production or going bankrupt.
"People quickly realize that solar power generation is not suitable for heating in foggy/cloudy weather. They also recognize that Germany does not have enough sunshine hours in southern regions, and that the yield cannot be effectively used because there is no suitable technology for storing the energy generated in the summer for use in the winter." A mass exodus of the last remaining inhabitants with brains is taking place in Germany.

Update Forecast 2025: The term "darkness shortage" is being widely used. Germany is massively importing nuclear power from France. The country has become an electricity importer, with corresponding electricity prices. As more and more people are being misled by the green fairy tales and losing touch with reality, demand for electric cars, heat pumps, and photovoltaic systems is declining.
Germany is on the path to deindustrialization.
Of course, the blame lies with everyone else, especially Putin, but never with the governments of the last 20 years.

Update Reality 2025: Large-scale power outages in Spain, Portugal, Northern Italy, likely due to overproduction due to high wind and solar. Network stability not maintained, people are stuck in elevators and subways for hours. Germany will be deindustrialized. The idiotic babble of the green youth: They are proud to have served Germany.

Reality 2025: Fixed-rate electricity contracts are becoming increasingly scarce. Sunshine and wind with low demand: Electricity is expensive. All other conditions: Electricity becomes unaffordable.

Prediction 2026: Because Putin and the AFD are responsible for everything, Germany provoked a war by supplying and using weapons of mass destruction in order to "help".
From export champion to world champion in lying, cheating, and bullying.