[Skyy93]

The german car lobby tries something different: Why not using the combustion engine with clean sources of energy?

I think its a rather clever choice to be against the end of the combustion engine when you can fuel them with something like: hydrogen, e-fuels or methanol. In Ingolstadt (Audi HQ is there) a former Audi engineer invented a car with 800 kilometres (500 miles). So there are alternatives to electric-only.

[adrianN]

The efficiency numbers for e-fuels are simple too bad. Fuel cells might maybe be made to work, but there is no Hydrogen infrastructure available.

Any e-fuel that can use normal petrol infrastructure and is burnt in an ICE has absolutely atrocious efficiency. Not only do you lose a large fraction of the energy going from electricity to fuel, but then you burn it in an engine that has 40% efficiency is a lab and 15% efficiency in city traffic. It just makes no sense outside of niche applications.

[Skyy93]

There is also no comprehensive infrastructure for charging your e-car everyhwere, at least in Germany. Also if all cars would be replaced into e-cars we simply do not have enough juice. So there has to be a infrastructure development no matter what way you choose.

You also have charging losses which electric cars, they are just not that high as with e-fuels. E-fuels have the advantage of being easily transportable and refuel is done in 1-3 minutes. So why not create them in countries that have much sun (free and endless energy) and convert this into something useful.

[adrianN]

> So why not create them in countries that have much sun (free and endless energy) and convert this into something useful.

Because that's not economical. It's cheaper to ship in the electricity directly, or if you don't want to build the HVDC lines (there are good reasons for that), turn it into Hydrogen, ship that and turn it back into electricity. Electrolysis is reasonably efficient (>70%), and the round trip to electricity can be done at 40% efficiency or so. Charge an EV with that elecricity and you're still much better off than first turning the electricity to Diesel (<30% efficienct) and then burning the Diesel (<<40%).

And that's not even taking into account all the health benefits of not burning stuff where people want to breathe.

[Skyy93]

If you just argue economical we should continue to burn fossile energy, because its pretty cheap. In smaller countries the amount of space for solar panels and sufficient amount of wind is not given. Not if you also want to produce food in your country. So there you need an alternative and hydrogen that comes from country with nearly unlimited energy and much space is inevitable.

[adrianN]

Fossil fuels are not cheap if you properly price in the externality of causing global warming (and other pollution).

You don't need a lot of space for wind and solar. Take Germany for example. Using just the area currently used for "energy crops" (around 2.4 million hectares) for PV you could cover most of the primary(!) energy demand of the country. Wind is even more space efficient in Germany.

[Skyy93]

E-cars and other technology have also "hidden" costs, your cobalt does not grow on trees.

Yeah perfect idea using farmland that could be used for growing food wasting on PVs. Do not get me wrong, there has something to happen but perhaps only solar and wind will not safe us as long as we have no good battery technology. Therefore it would be better to store this in some fuel.

[phicoh]

In my opinion, we need stop burning things. When we have the technology to heat, cook, or move without burning stuff we need to use it and kill the old technologies.

In theory, hydrogen fuel cell is perfectly fine. But then we reach the other problem: there won't be any infrastructure. Hydrogen, e-fuels, etc. It is just too expensive. Maybe fine for a few rich people driving on a track.

[sterlind]

500 miles of range? You could get by making the fuel tank bigger. I assume you meant miles per gallon or something?

[Skyy93]

Nope, 500 miles of range here the website link https://www.rolandgumpert.com/en/

of course, this range is only correct with best circumstances, in practice it will be less

[_ph_]

As far as I can see, this is a nice prototype but not a practical concept. This car is using a methanol fuel cell. They seem to be quite rare yet and not ready for mass production. And there is no mass production of green methanol yet. It would of course be much more storeable than hydrogen.

[iso1210]

500 mile range, which is what some people care about -- how far can I go before I have to fill up.

Fossil companies are keen on hydrogen as they can still pump their oil.

[jkepler]

I routinely got 500+ miles range out of my diesel TDI Jetta... I believe it was a 2002.

[fogihujy]

My old Peugeot Partner (2003), can easily go 650 km with plenty of petrol left in the tank. I don't think 800 km would be out of the question.

Edit: according to the specs, it should have a range of 960 km (597 miles) under optimal conditions. It sounds more than I would expect, but then the car is almost 20 years old. Still, the low fuel consumption is one of the reasons I keep it -- it uses less fuel than modern hybrids do.