[kuschku]

> it’s safe to assume that it’ll likely charge a hefty premium over traditional gasoline.

> Also worth noting is that while, yes, this synthetic fuel appears to make vehicles slightly more efficient, it still greatly trails the efficiency of EVs. Consequently, vehicles using this fuel will likely always be more expensive to drive per mile than their electric equivalents.

So why are we doing this again?

[scoopertrooper]

Because we could move the entire current stock of cars over to less carbon intensive fuel without having to build an entirely new fleet.

Keeping in mind that manufacturing new cars (and the associated resource extraction) is extremely carbon intensive, then a carbon neutral-ish fuel might actually be the best option overall on a meaningful timescale.

[MuffinFlavored]

if 87 octane gasoline is $2.99/gallon and this is even 30% more, I’m not sure how you can expect to force the majority of the population (who is supposedly scraping by) to switch

maybe the government could subsidize it as national debt?

[kuschku]

In europe, we've been beyond 10$/gallon this year. And yet still far too many people drive unnecessarily.

[dontlaugh]

Sure

Governments could today choose to subsidise high percentage bio diesel and ethanol oil mixes and fund that by taxing all other fuels.

The end result could be exactly the same price for the many who do indeed struggle.

[scoopertrooper]

My comments were limited to the question as to why we might want to do this in preference to EVs. In the case of EVs, the energy source is cheaper, but there is a much higher capital expense as those poor folks who are just scraping by will have to go out and buy new cars.

[adql]

Alternative for cases where electrification is hard (long haul trucks) or impossible (cargo hauling via planes)

[AtlasBarfed]

I don't think long haul trucking is that hard to electrify. If we take the current (Pepsi) Tesla semi that can (allegedly) do 500 miles, and you also tow a trailer that is a "range extender" trailer (as in UPS already does multiple trailer towing), then you could recharge by just unhitching the depleted trailer and hitching up a precharged trailer.

Lithium-Sulfer and/or solid state will also likely come into play.

Aviation though... yeah I think that'll be synth fuel. That'll come down to how cheap solar and wind drop in LCOE in the next decade.

[thworp]

Not so fast here. From what I've been able to find out (telling that Tesla itself did not release any figures on weights for their semi) the Tesla Semi will weigh about 10 tons (without trailer), which is slightly more than even the most powerful, longest-range long-haul trucks that have ranges of 2000+ miles.

So you have (conservatively) 5 tons less cargo which is a 25% reduction from the typical 20 tons. Then you have (very conservatively) 20% less distance traveled due to needing more frequent recharge stops.

In practice then, you need double the trucks. So yea it is theoretically possible to electrify long-haul trucking, but it's also ruinously expensive. And that's ignoring any considerations for different maintenance.

[AtlasBarfed]

But the tesla truck is basically 1.0.

Lithium-sulfur, Sodium-sulfur, and solid state variants plus a host of other tricks are coming down the pipeline in the next 5-10 years. A conservative estimate is that batteries will be 2x better than the current (the papers indicate 4x but let's see what happens).

The other aspects here:

- BEV semis are cheaper to operate long-term since electricity is cheaper than diesel (even without the carbon tax diesel operation should be paying), most calculations 5 years ago before the current 5-6$/gallon diesel crisis showed that.

- electricity will continue to drop in price as Solar/Wind continue to drop in LCOE over then next ten years

- BEV batteries will continue to drop rapidly in price over the next decade until the initial cost of BEVs will be structurally less than any ICE drivetrain

- highway self-driving, or highway "pack" driving, is going to get a LOT more prevalent. Highway self driving for trucks will likely converge/evolve with infrastructure to enable long haul trucks to self-drive at slower rates (more efficient) overnight and then be operated at "normal" speeds during the day.

So the number of trucks will probably be irrelevant in the long run. The key metric is probably the one that always mattered: how much to move a ton of cargo per mile. BEVs are probably close or will pass in 5 years ICE transport on equipment / fuel / energy costs alone. In ten years batteries will be so cheap that ICE drivetrains will simply not be a sane option except in the most extreme cases (long haul ultra-rural routes, long haul in deep winter, etc).

Maintenance wise, BEVs are simpler, less fluids, etc. They also might be more resilient to breakdowns. If you have a HUGE battery pack and three axles of power delivery (the Tesla design apparently uses the three axels for acceleration and then only one at cruise), then if one of the drive motors fails, you can fallback to another drive motor usually used only for acceleration. You can subdivide the huge battery pack and if part of it goes out, you have enough juice and drive motors to limp to someplace.

And again, long range can probably be boosted with swappable extra power trailers. Recharge rates will be moot because the power trailers are precharged. The power trailer can probably be shaped to increase the semi's rear aerodynamics better, and increase the overall efficiency of the semi as well.

[thworp]

> [improving battery tech]

This would be nice if it actually happens, but so far the new chemistries still have many unsolved fundamental issues, not to mention safety issues when increasing energy density further.

> [cost per mile / energy costs]

No arguments here, eventually EV running costs per vehicle will be cheaper. But there will probably be surge pricing for charging when renewable output is low. It won't be easy to manage that risk from a business perspective.

> [self-driving]

Sorry to be snarky, but weren't there supposed to be thousands of people's Teslas operating as robo taxis for 5 years now? I'll believe self-driving truck convoys when I see one operating without journalists or politicians watching.

Also, outside of your "power trailers" (see below) running the truck continuously like that would require battery swapping, which is a promising idea but also has a long list of unsolved problems (wear&tear, additional frames and braces required with swapable battery, cost of labour for swapping a truck's battery 4x per day).

> So the number of trucks will probably be irrelevant in the long run.

This left me dumbfounded. Double the traffic, double the CapEx, double the inspections/maintenance doesn't matter at all?

> [range extending trailers]

So your EV truck already lost 5+ tons of cargo space to a battery, now you wanna hitch an extra trailer (another 5~ tons for the frame and 5 tons for another battery. Since the max legal weight is 40 tons your range-extended Semi can now only transport around 10 tons of cargo compared to 25 tons for the most capable diesel trucks.

[kuschku]

Those are reasonable use cases, but: - those are entirely different types of engines - which are already able to use ethanol today - and none of which mazda is even producing engines for

[ianai]

This is Mazda. They have yet to get serious about electrification. Worse than Toyota in that regard. I am beyond giving them the benefit of the doubt that this was anything but “hey we don’t have to make BeVs!!”

[dragonmost]

They've already announced 3 BEVs and 5 hybrids by 2025 so wouldn't say they aren't investing in EVs. Considering how bad the current batteries are for the environment and the limited supply of lithium I don't see why alternative fuels that leverage existing infrastructure is a bad thing. It remains to be seen but BEVs might not be the be-all end-all especially if you include vehicles where range and weight is important like semi and planes.

[theshrike79]

Announcing isn't releasing.

Even Toyota's first attempt (bz4x) is laughable for a company with their engineering pedigree. First the wheels fell off so often they had to do a recall. Now they're saying that you can fast charge the car a maximum of two times per day, software limited.

If I was a tinfoil hat wearer, I'd say they're sabotaging themselves on purpose.

[ianai]

AFAIK they have a 100 mile compliance car that, true to the definition, can’t be purchased in the USA unless you’re one of the few. That should count as a negative.

[linksnapzz]

Good for them. An electric Miata would require a battery with an unheard-of energy density.

[ianai]

Explain Aptera.

[linksnapzz]

“Someone has more venture funding than taste”

[credit_guy]

Range could be a reason too. EV's have a decent range nowadays, but in wintertime the range could decrease dramatically. With an ICE you always know what your range is.

A hybrid can give the best of both worlds. A hybrid with a battery range of 50 miles can reduce your ICE usage by a factor of 10 easily (the vast majority of trips are shorter than that). But a lot of people think that reducing emissions by only 90% is not enough. With this you get to the full 100%.

[AtlasBarfed]

Well, ICEs do drop in range in winter. Not as much as a BEV, and I believe some of the BEV range loss was the HVAC which has improved.

I too think the 50 mile hybrid would have been a game changer. In an ideal world, 10 years after the Prius release (1997?) in 2007 the US government mandated a 50 mile all-electric range PHEV for all consumer cars.

But now the car companies face a choice: invest in a BEV drivetrain, or invest in a PHEV drivetrain. Almost all will do the BEV, because CEOs that don't get fired (see: BMW, VW, etc).

[fulafel]

A major problem with cars that they're very sticky because of the cost structure you're used to: expensive to buy but cheap to drive per km. Once you join the car club it's got you. This drives people to do all their transportation in cars once they have made the big investment in the the expensive car that has low marginal costs.

ICE cars running on renewable but more expensive fuel would provide a good option to the expensive EVs as we ramp down fossil fuels.

[replygirl]

efficiency only matters to offset the impacts of dirty methods of energy capture or storage

it's believed we can have cars and equipment on synthetic fuels producing waaay lower lifetime emissions than equivalent battery electric vehicles

when that's the case, it has potential to reduce the scope of the mobile emissions problem to a degree where we can focus almost exclusively on cleaner centralized energy capture, for which the most difficult engineering has already been done, and storage, which needs more attention and investment either way

it would also allow for a quicker transition away from fossil, by giving people a more affordable transition option (or free, if cars don't need conversion) vs. buying electric, and by using more of the energy infrastructure that's already in place

[theshrike79]

There is a dream that synthetic fuels or hydrogen will suddenly get their own Elon Musk who will drive down the wholesale price to a viable level.

But in the end (25 years+) I think synthetics will be used for hobbyists to run their vintage vehicles on track days and weekends.

[duped]

Hydrogen has the second largest manufacturer of vehicles on the planet behind it and its still not viable.

[kuschku]

That's actually an interesting use case, vintage vehicles, old diesel trucks used near radio telescopes, etc. That said, I doubt that market would be large enough for the amount of money currently being invested in it.

[replygirl]

motorsport is a quarter trillion dollar industry, about 50x the size of the synthetics market, and there are already a ton of teams engaged in research partnerships with fuel companies

just at the highest level: formula e is floundering; f1's 2026 regulations will introduce a 100% sustainable fuel while making the electric part of the powertrain _less_ sophisticated (removing the MGU-h, so no more energy recapture from turbo spindown)

all three of these seem perfectly realistic:

- synthetics take off widely

- synthetics don't take off, but get far enough along that they are competitive with existing popular race fuels (which go for $10-15/gal)

- synthetics don't take off, but they get far enough along that speciality fuel producers can stand up their own supply chains with marginal r&d spend, but can't compete with other race fuels... for the first 5-10 years, then the race fuels are made illegal

[worldsayshi]

It might be worth using for non EVs once we give healthy prioritization to sustainability?

[anonkogudhyfhhf]

Because they have been dragging their feet and will go bankrupt and this is a last ditch effort to slow down the transition to EVs

[kehrin]

Sportscars and motorcycles are fun :)