• UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    What could he have possibly been trying to say?

    I mean, the general appeal of ICE engines is the fuel, not the engine. Gasoline is generally more energy dense than lithium.

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Nah, his complaint was lack of torque. Very strange, never got it. Figured he was repeating fossil fuel propaganda. But he was a motorhead!

      And yes, energy density is the thing no one talks about when raging against fossil fuels. A gallon of refined gasoline packs insane energy. I’ve run my 5-gallon, crappy Harbor Freight generator all night into the morning, powering the camp, heaters and all, never came close to emptying it. Contrast that with a monster LIPO4 battery that died in 48-hours only powering LED lights. (Gotta admit, something weird happened there.)

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        Nah, his complaint was lack of torque.

        Maybe just had torque confused with horsepower? That’s been the historical trade-off between gas and electric. Sure, its very easy to get an electric motor to jump into action. But it is comparatively difficult to generate the same amount of power with equivalent fuel density.

        A gallon of refined gasoline packs insane energy.

        Much of which is lost to heat when combusted, which is the historical hang-up.

        Not that batteries don’t have their own heating problems. But the benefit of batteries is that they’re an engineering problem we can solve with miniaturization, which we’ve become incredibly good at. We’re at a soft ceiling in terms of engine chemistry. Petroleum is about as refined as we’re going to get it. Combustion’s math is what it is. Improvements to the efficiency of modern engines have stalled out as an automotive tool, even to the point that a gas engine powering an electric capacitor in a hybrid yields performance improvements over the gas engine just spinning the wheels directly.

      • erusuoyera@sh.itjust.works
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        6 days ago

        I would love to replace work van with an electric one, but so far it’s not possible for one main reason (other than cost)…I often tow quite heavy trailers and my diesel can tow 2500kg, but every electric van I’ve looked at can only tow 750kg. Maybe it’s something to do with that?