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Im also waiting for hydrogen to take off!
Meanwhile on the Autobahn:
Steel rails have even less friction
This is a very nitche application. Tom Scott did a video on it.
I’m very aware of that Tom Scott video, don’t worry. It is an okay middleground, but look at the people in comments pointing out the wear on the trolley.
Not from nimbys
Holy shit
WTF Germany how did I not know this was a thing and why aren’t we doing it here in the US?
Question though. Obviously the wires can’t cover every road and the truck sometimes has to drive off the wired road. Do they have small batteries to carry them between the wires?
There are 5 testing areas for this atm and only a handful of trucks which use that. These are hybrid trucks having batteries and electrical engines besides the main traditional diesel engine. So it’s far from an widely adopted tech right now.
If they can get that to work this can be massive, assuming we don’t want to improve our rail infrastructure. It will also keep trucks from the passing lane
We’ve had these in Boston since I was a kid, but recently they’ve been taking down the wires.
Aren’t those fro the T though? Or did bus routes use them too?
The busses out of Harvard station used them (71, 73, 75? and some others).
Silver line to the airport too, right?
The wires aren’t for propulsion, but for recharging electric trucks.
Is this a trial or is it getting installed all over? It’s the best solution to electrify goods transport by road. Only a small battery required for off grid to delivery point and back
It is a trial atm. On 5 highways in different areas, a few trucks.
More about this from Tom Scott
What the actual fuck⁈ “Batteries can catch on fire.” Sure, whatever could go wrong with a 1000l tank of FUCKING GASOLINE.
AAAaaaaHHhh I hate people!
Going with the “batteries catch on fire argument” is stupid. “Batteries are heavy and expensive” is probably more compelling. But yeah, wires are better solution for things going in fixed routes.
Yup batteries are not the way. By the time the batteries need to be replaced you might have helped slightly but probably not. Batteries is a illusion to going green right now. Just another product that has a demand and an easy market for it.
I think we’re all aware of the costs associated with recycling batteries.
Are you aware of the costs associated with high CO2 levels?
Have to choose the lesser of two evils.
What would be a better alternative if you exclude the use of fossil fuels?
fixed overhead wires, as OP suggested?
The ammount of water required to put out a normal car is infinitely less than the amount required to put out a battery fire.
Not to mention the extra weight, nor the retention loss per recharge meaning we need to change batteries every 2-4 years polluting a lot more, we ain’t even talking about the energy loss when doing the conversion to electric and then again to mechanical.
The electric transport is the way to go in the future, but firts it needs to have a solid foundation, and nuclear is the way to go at least in this moment. Otherwise we are only making things worse.
Edit for those wondering about the battery degradation: https://www.geotab.com/blog/ev-battery-health/
YOu can’t really stop a lithium ion battery fire, all you can do is keep it from catching other things on fire around it, you pretty much just have to let it burn out.
Which means you need to dunk it in a pool. How many of those does your local FD has? 1-5?
and nuclear is the way to go at least in this moment.
Nuclear is about to go away, looking at the statitics.
I thought he wanted nuclear energy in cars?
Why would I want a ducking bomb under me ? No, I want I city with solar+nuclear power energizing public transport and THEN maybe u could use a battery personal vehicle to move like an autonomous trolleybus.
My problem with “electric” cars right now is where the energy comes from.
Small nuclear reactor in your car is stupid, but I would love if every city had its own nuclear reactor. Central power and heating!
I’m aware of the Nucleon, that is why I don’t want this in my car. But, I would love to have a tiny nuclear reactor in my neighborhood substation or something
Yeah… not really something I want to see happening.
Ideally solar + nuclear could be the solution we need.
Nuclear is about to go away FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK German government
Frankly, I don’t mind as long as I can get enough electricity at any time of the day.
So you don’t mind paying 40 cents/kWh?
I’d be paying that anyway for renewable power given the geography of my country, where nuclear is impossible (ABSOLUTELY impossible). If someone could cut the natural gas from our energy pie and give us clean electricity as a replacement we’d be grateful, given our limited space and relative lack of renewable resources.
That would be if we had nuclear only.
we need to change batteries every 2-4 years
Wait, what‽ No. We don’t need to change batteries every 2-4 years. That’s what you do with TV remote controls and temperature sensors, not electric car batteries, LOL!
Electric car batteries are made to last at least 7 years (from a warranty standpoint) but in reality it’s more like 10. Not only that but they’re not single, gigantic objects. They’re made of lots of “cells” so if one of them is going bad you can replace just that one bad cell.
Anecdote: The batteries in my Prius lasted 15 years before I had to replace one of the cells. Then a year later I had to replace another one. A year after that I sold it so I have no idea how the batteries are doing right now but I’m sure another cell would probably need to be replaced by now 19 years in service).
I’d also like to point out that the latest electric car batteries are vastly superior to the ones in my Prius.
Electric car batteries are made to last at least 7 years (from a warranty standpoint) but in reality it’s more like 10. Not only that but they’re not single, gigantic objects. They’re made of lots of “cells” so if one of them is going bad you can replace just that one bad cell.
Sincere question, what happens with the second hand electric vehicle market? New electrics make a ton of sense, but in my mind the ‘used car’ market becomes essentially unobtainable for poor folk. If a 12 year old electric vehicle hits the market, eventually the second or third owner is going to have to replace the batteries and poor people can’t afford the 5000 plus labor to get new cells for it.
This isn’t a situation that affects me, at the moment, but there are millions of people around the globe who buy the $1000 car and drive it until it just doesn’t go anymore. I don’t see that being an option for electrics.
Sincere question, what happens with the second hand electric vehicle market?
Doesn’t and won’t exist. And it might be a “conspiracy theory” but I do think it is totally intentional.
I didn’t mean it literally, but easily it could be considering how u lose performance if u use a battery powered vehicle in somewhere to hot, or to cold.
Also, look how much degradation suffers the battery’s https://www.geotab.com/blog/ev-battery-health/
According to Geotab a Tesla will be at 90% of it’s initial State of Health (SoH) after 5 years of use while a Leaf (which is well-known for shit thermal management and poor battery quality) will be at 80%. That’s worse than their other charts which show averages of 85% SoH in an equivalent amount of time.
Regardless, even operating at 80% after five years is completely fine. The curve isn’t really linear anyway so after about 10 years the batteries will likely be operating at about 70% of their original SoH in the worst case scenario.
Also consider that the price of lithium ion batteries has dropped consistently year over year for the past decade. There was a bit of a hiccup because of COVID but that’s over now and the price is continuing to drop. That means the cost of a replacement battery pack in 10 years will likely be 60-90% cheaper (if the current trend continues) than it is today.
So? First of all, my platina already has more than 12-13 years and if I lose any performance if I lose any at all, is gonna be maybe, MAYBE %3. And the real matter is all the implications of making those batteries, contamination, and NO FUCKING IMPROVEMENT OVER A NORMAL CAR, in any case it would be worse. What’s the point of making ur car battery dependent when the energy used to charge it comes from burning the same fossil fuel as before, but now losing energy in the conversions from one kind of energy to another.
That’s without even talking about all the draconian software locks, how companies r starting to lock functions wich already come with the vehicle, how they r trying to kill the right to repair, etc, etc, etc. We don’t even know if changing batteries is gonna be allowed or if its gonna be illegal in some way as apple shenanigans already did it in Mexico where its now illegal to even install linux in a computer u already buy it since it would be “alteration without agreement”. Want a real change and really helping the planet? we need better public transport and changing how we produce electric energy as a whole, because right now just putting a battery in a car and calling it a day is just additional problems to the already present ones in traditional cars.
Yeah, what I’ve heard is that water cooling the batteries (like almost every EV does now) massively extends the life. Early Prius batteries had no cooling and the heat degraded them faster. 15 years is a pretty good life still.
On the subject of battery warranty:
The federal government requires manufacturers to offer an eight-year/100,000-mile warranty on all EV batteries. California does one better, mandating a warranty of 10 years or 150,000 miles. Some companies will cover a battery only if it completely stops working, while others will replace the battery if it falls below a certain capacity, usually 70% of the original, while still under warranty.
It’s important to note, a degraded battery, even with 50% of its original capacity is still useful. Someone who doesn’t need the range could drive it, or the battery could be taken apart, and have the cells repurposed or recycled. Lithium and some of the other rare metals used in batteries are quite valuable for recycling, and our abilities to do so are getting better every year.
Sure, that replacement time isn’t 4 but 15-20 years (well, except early Leafs that didn’t have battery temperature management of any kind), but my 20 year old car’s gas tank fits just as much gas as it did 20 years ago.
If you think any ICE car is going to outlast an electric you’re mistaken. EVs have a fraction of the moving parts of an ICE car and as a result are expected to last a lot longer. 30+ years for an electric car isn’t out of the question. Especially the latest ones with their water cooled batteries.
The number of moving parts is just one (albeit a great big) factor as to why EVs are a lot more reliable and will last a lot longer than an ICE car. There’s other elements as well such as the regenerative braking… You basically have an expiration date that tells you when to replace the brake pads instead of a number of miles (or thickness). Because the brake pads themselves will never wear enough from normal driving to warrant replacement. Instead you have to figure out the replacement time based on exposure to natural radiation (LOL) and seasonal hot/cold cycles.
The magnets in the motors lose about 5% of their strength every 100 years. So again, the thing you’re accounting for when figuring out how long the motors will last is the exposure to natural radiation degrading the insulation of the wires (LOL).
I’m aware an ICE car requires more maintenance. But, two things. My gas tank doesn’t get smaller over time and good luck taking your Tesla or Chevy Bolt to an unauthorized repair shop and let them try to fix anything without access to OEM diagnostic tools. Yes, new ICE cars are also full of this bullshit, but hey, my 20 year old ICE car isn’t!
Good luck finding or affording gas in 20 years!
You’ll have to go down to the boat dock to fill up your ICE car because there won’t be gas stations anywhere else.
Just remember that “good” solutions are still preferred over “bad” solutions, and there are never any “perfect” solutions. I see too many people think electric cars are terrible because of what they’ve been told, like the batteries. For me, it’s like “Yeah, but they’re still better than ICE vehicles”. They’ll get better, they’re definitely not perfect, but they are just better
You’re aware that diesel is quite hard to catch on fire
No it’s not. It’s harder to catch fire than gasoline.
It still catches fire easily.
Gasoline doesn’t burn that easily, either. Cars with gas tanks don’t burst into flames while sitting powered off in a garage. Even when they get wrecked they don’t usually burst into flames.
On the other hand, gasoline is slowly causing the world to burst into flames…
Well yeah… You need a spark to cause a fire. To have ignition you need oxygen, fuel and a spark.
Nothing burns easily if there’s no spark.
Gasoline burns accidentally when fumes are released, as the stoichiometric mixture has to be pretty specific to combust.
Gasoline in a gas tank does not achieve this mixture. That’s the entire job of the fuel pump and throttle in modern cars. As the other user said, there are lots of sparks and live electricity in a car crash, it’s just not easy to set gasoline on fire or make it explode.
Diesel does not appear to achieve this vapor mixture readily at standard temp and pressure, like gasoline does, and therefore is technically safer in this specific regard.
Okay.
There are plenty of sparks in a car crash.
Gasoline doesn’t burn that easily, either. Cars with gas tanks don’t burst into flames while sitting powered off in a garage
Diesel combusts at 140 degrees. A care could reach those temps in a car accident as well if we’re making that argument.
You can toss a lit match into a puddle of diesel and the match will go out. Diesel burns, but since it doesn’t evaporate as fast as gasoline, you don’t have those flammable gases hanging in the air. A trail of diesel that’s being burned at one end will not spread, unlike gasoline.
Okay
That’s why he said gasoline tho
But that’s not relevant for busses
Gasoline and diesel can be extinguished relatively easily. Extinguishing an EV means throwing it into a tub of water for a day or two
Gasoline vehicles also don’t tend to catch fire spontaneously while parked. That risk exists with every unattended lithium-ion battery undergoing recharging. People technically shouldn’t be plugging their phones in at night and then going to sleep, but everyone does it anyway.
Doesn’t matter much for phones, but when talking EV charging… Night electricity tends to be cheaper when it’s not solar energy season.
Can’t wait for miles of 240V extension cords when EU makes even used non EVs illegal. Yes, millions of city dwellers in apartments totally have a garage to charge in.
There will be solutions by 2050 (the proposed timeframe for having a zero-emissions fleet). For an example, vehicles with combustion engines can still be newly registered after 2035 if they use only CO2-neutral fuels. I think EU would rather ban sale of fossil fuels than ban used cars that can technically burn fossil fuels. If only plant-based fuels are available, it doesn’t matter what the cars can technically burn.
The German big 3 are already developing cars that would only run on non-fossil fuels I believe.
Secondly, chargers near apartment buildings and on sidewalks can be added. We have plenty of time.
And I’m sure Germany will water down the regulations even more so in the end, I’m fairly sure they’ll consider new MHEVs fine after 2035.
And finally, those who can’t charge at home will do so at the charging stations. It’s not a huge issue if you have a battery with 500+ km of range. Might be an issue for i-miev and first gen Leaf owners though.
Unless we get mass producable, cheap fuel like CHOOH2, “cars can use co2 neutral fuels” is translation to “in reality no ICE cars for the mass population”
Secondly, chargers near apartment buildings and on sidewalks can be added. We have plenty of time.
And who will pay for those? My town can barely get enough money to maintain street lights, who will install and maintain the charging infrastructure on streets where it will inevitably get destroyed?
And finally, those who can’t charge at home will do so at the charging stations.
Oh yes, so now instead of 15 minute wait at a gas station I will only have to wait 2 hours before a space is available and then 30 minutes to charge, all while thinking “how much is this quick charge degrading my battery”
There’s 27 years to go till EU’s predicted (not required by law) end of ICE cars. There’s time to invest, time to innovate and hopefully time for your town to reduce crime and gain more resources.
Also HVO is pretty affordable nowadays. Maybe 20% more than regular diesel fuel at most. It is claimed to be carbon neutral. I’m sure something similar will be developed for otto cycle engines.
Also unless you’re planning to use a first gen leaf past the 2050s, quick charging isn’t very bad. All modern EVs have battery cooling and will also throttle charging when the temperature rises. The don’t full on go 350kW for 20 minutes straight.
Waiting 2 hours is solved by installing more chargers. Clearly a regional issue with fuel pumps as well because I never have to wait over 2-3 minutes.
Please don’t put lithium in water; that will make it worse.
Tell that to firefighters.
Seattle used to have these as well. Sadly, the US (outside of a few cities that kept their 1930’s infrastructure and updated it) can’t find it’s ass with both hands when it comes to public transportation.
Seattle still does.
Holy carp they’re still there! You’re right.
…we don’t anymore?
You do! I had to look it up. I haven’t seen them in a long time (I don’t get to Seattle much anymore), but they’re still in service: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybuses_in_Seattle
I heard we tried that in some German Cities way back in the 80ies or even late 70ies, but the technology wasn’t that far yet and the overhead cables would get damaged when the buses engaged them, sometimes leading to complete outages of the tram network, and as such it was scrapped again. Glad to see that other places took it on later, we could really need that right now.
You can also find them in North America, in Vancouver!
They are still in use in Stuttgart/Esslingen since 1944. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/22/TrolleyBusEsslingenVanHool_P1010048.JPG/624px-TrolleyBusEsslingenVanHool_P1010048.JPG
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberleitungsbus_Esslingen_am_Neckar
They are pretty nice and if you are on your bike in traffic behind one, the feeling of not being dieselized is amazing …
Trolley Buses are over 100 years old as a technology. They were super wide-spread in the entire eastern block and now cities in hungary, the czech republic and romania introduce a lot of newer (better) models: For example, Skoda has one that can easily integrate with exsisting tram infrastructure and has batteries to bridge smaller distances in places where there are no overhead lines.
They’re also fairly popular in China! When I was visiting family in Shanghai, a sizeable chunk of the bus service consisted of electric trolley busses.
Minor cosmetic changes like running above ground power infrastructure where it doesn’t exist anymore?
Its much easier and cheaper to install above ground than in the ground. Bonus points you could open it to Electrical trucks for emission free cargo in the city.
They do still in some places. It’s in my city, we have hybrid buses but we could use some of these.
Not in all though, that’s the point. It’s not an easy transition and rail systems are more reliable for public transit in my opinion.
Rail systems are not necessarily more reliable (at leats tram vs bus I mean), I do love the aesthetic of trams, and they are also more efficient due to the small rolling resistance.
And it is definitely easier to transition into trolley than it is to transition into tram.
Meanwhile in Australia:
What am I looking at? A diesel bus on rails?
Pretty much. This is the O-Bahn in Adelaide. More info (and the original picture I shamelessly ganked) here: Wikipedia link
Missed opportunity not have these as 3rd rail trolleybuses on these segments
We have something similar in the UK, guided busses.
Holy shit, I didn’t know that. I always thought the O-Bahn was a unique piece of Adelaide weirdness. Adelaide has a lot of weirdness.
Bitch I’m a truss
Yikes
That looks pretty sick ngl
It didn’t suck as a solution when it was implemented. The buses function like small diesel trains; they don’t have to deal with traffic, and can travel faster because they kinda lock in to the rails. It didn’t need as much land as a freeway or cost as much as a dedicated train line because you could just retrofit old buses. Plus the advantage of being able to run a standard bus route at each end of the line, no need for connecting services.
The best thing trolleybuses have going for them is their relatively low dependence on rare earth elements in production in contrast with BEV buses with their large batteries. Trolleybuses environmental toll is way smaller and it makes producers and operators way less dependent on third world countries devastating the environment with slave labor.
There’s also the centralization advantage and long lifespan. Centralized power generation is nearly always most efficient, and EV batteries degrade relatively quickly, while there are real life examples of 30 year old trolleybuses still operating fine.
Those 30 year old trolleybuses die when power dies, but even semi modern ones (aka 15-10 year olds) can still have diesel backup. New ones always have battery backup.
That’s true but still those batteries are significantly smaller than those of BEV buses - usually trolleybuses with batteries have 5-15km of range compared to 200-350 km of equivalent BEV buses which also means that the trolleybuses are significantly lighter than BEV buses, which helps with efficiency of electricity utilisation. Another efficiency factor is that not having to charge and deplete a huge battery will save quite significant ammnount of power that is lost as heat during battery operation.
batteries are significantly smaller than those of BEV buses
And that is an advantage. Lower cost and lower weight.
No argument here. We need more trolleybuses.
Hurr duurr rareearth . Written from your phone with rare earth materials, tomorrow you’re going to drive to work using rare earth to work on your laptop with rare earth materials.
Neither batteries nor drive train components of bevs HAVE to use rare earth. There’s tons of cars without them (bmw electric cars for example).
If you even respond, please include a modern car which does not contain ANY rare earth material and does not use electricity for energy storage.
Nothing is black and white you know. No decision is 100% good or 100% bad, we live in a sepectrum where some decisions may be less bad than others and that is the point.
Also current batteries will use cobalt or lithium, other options are either not efficient enough (like metal hydride or sulphuric acid batteries) or developed enough - solid state batteries, or LiFePo.
Also current BMW BEVs are still using lithium based batteries, whose mining pretty much is environmental disaster as a process.
When I was there I found those busses really cool. But to my knowledge, they’re being phased out. They essentially combine the worst of bus and tram:
- relies on special infrastructure and thus cannot go anywhere, is more expensive than bus
- often shares the street with other cars being more vulnerable to traffic, uses tires (leading to fine particles)
Trams are surely better, but the simple infrastructure and relative simplicity of the drive train make trolley often cheaper than a diesel bus. Trolley buses with a small battery can also deviate from standard lines or bridge small areas between trolley lines.
Trolleybuses are the best compromise because they can (and in my country/city do) work as diesel/battery buses
I see it the other way. Trolleybuses (with either battery or diesel backup) are the best of both worlds. Much cheaper to built (compared to a tram) and doesn’t pollute in the city (compared to a full diesel bus)
Best solution: trams (or streetcars, for Americans)
The fact that “streetcar” means something unrelated to both a street and a car is above my IQ
i actually like the aesthetic.
San Francisco has a fair number of overhead electric busses, too.
I assumed they were pretty common in cities. I don’t know how practical they would be in suburbs.
Down here in NZ my city used to have these too! Apparently it was the last commercial trolleybus network in Oceania. But as a mostly suburban kind of city environment (not quite American suburbia but still low density), their utility definitely was quite limited by the predefined routes. Eventually more and more routes weren’t even using them. But they were still servicing the old main road high frequency routes, so they were still very useful in those instances. Much better than the diesel buses, too, which were so loud you could hear them coming from several stops away! Eventually they phased the trolleys out in 2017, citing all the usual rubbish like maintenance costs and such. But we hadn’t yet electrified our bus fleet, so for a while we had to borrow a bunch more diesel buses. Still on the road to having a fully electric fleet, and I imagine it will be a good while yet before that happens.
I think someone else mentioned that San Francisco has these. I also wanted to throw in that Seattle has got them too. Maybe it’s a West Coast thing in the USA? I’d be curious to know if other parts of the country have them too.
There’s a few in Philadelphia I think
Vancouver, Canada has them as well
We have these in Seattle too
And San Francisco, some guy once modified his Prius to attach to the lines and give him free power to get around.
OMG. Did he get away with it?
This was awesome, thanks for sharing!
I tried to find more information about this repeatedly, because it’s so unbelievable that the city would allow it. I found no other sources. Only chatter that this was an April fool’s joke. That seems to be the case. Certainly someone would have posted video of this by now.
They are still running in The Netherlands, although only in 1 city.
I think trams are pretty good as well, which I know the Netherlands has a lot of
Basically the same thing but with actual rails.
Vancouver, Canada, still rocking these bad bois
Really sad we should have more of them their just better then battery electric.
Switzerland runs a lot of these buses. Also trams, normal buses , trains. For those people in the U.S., it’s a very effective and efficient system called public transport.
Yeah literally, what is this post even saying
Yes Switzerland is famous for its public transport
