“EVs are a dead-end”
Dittoes and Amen. Electrical propulsion of road vehicles, even very heavy cargo transport, is entirely feasible, and has been used successfully for years with Diesel-electric locomotives in the rail transportation industry. But this reliance on batteries is a series of compounding problems which shall not be solved, and such battery-powered EVs will NEVER be more than a niche product.
An on-board electrical generation capability, using some heat source to drive a Stirling-cycle hot air engine (or even a steam engine, we don’t care), which in turn drives a generator that supplies the electrical energy to drive the wheels would appear to be one of the better engineering designs to follow. Even wholesale production of hydrogen by electrolysis of water, from plentiful and cheap nuclear-generated electricity, and the use of hydrogen fuel cells, would make a true electric vehicle much more feasible than the current designs.
But the infrastructure has not yet been built. The current regime in Washington seems never to take this factor into consideration. First BUILD the infrastructure, then make it economically feasible to convert, and the demand of the general population will drive the rest of the market.
“An on-board electrical generation capability, using some heat source to drive a Stirling-cycle hot air engine (or even a steam engine, we don’t care), which in turn drives a generator that supplies the electrical energy to drive the wheels would appear to be one of the better engineering designs to follow.”
The idea of battery powered cars reminds me of the pie-in-the-sky ideas many top-level managers who have never done anything physical in their lives come up with. To people who know nothing anything is possible. The fact that it hasn’t been done before is due to (pick one) big gas, big oil, chemtrails. My thermodynamics class in college was taught by a genuine NASA scientist. He had us work through every possible fairy dust idea with the most generous assumptions and none of them were better for the environment than existing technologies. But scientists aren’t the people making rules, regulations and laws.
“An on-board electrical generation capability, using some heat source to drive a Stirling-cycle hot air engine (or even a steam engine, we don’t care), which in turn drives a generator that supplies the electrical energy to drive the wheels would appear to be one of the better engineering designs to follow.”
Uhm-m-m ... whats with the exotic power sources for the generator? The Toyota Hybrids are already here and have a small ICE for the generator - no new engineering miracles needed.
DNB diamond nuclear batteries are being worked on.
The battery you dont have to recharge.
It is feasible but the tech is is nascent
I hate EVs but DNBs could change things.