July 31, 2024
Just a few months after taking office, President Joe Biden issued an executive order setting a national goal for zero-emission vehicles to comprise at least 50% of all new cars and trucks sold by 2030. Then, in March 2024, the Biden Administration finalized new tailpipe rules for passenger cars and trucks.
Curiously, while the new rule is intended to “decisively” push the U.S. auto market toward electric vehicles and hybrids, the EPA backed off from its initial plan to ensure that two-thirds of all vehicles sold by 2030 were electric. The rule favors plug-in hybrids as part of the mix.
If anything, Vice President Kamala Harris (perhaps because of her California roots) is even more zealous than President Biden on the electric vehicle revolution, despite the fact that the $42 billion fast-charging initiative she is in charge of has to date produced nine stations.
Meanwhile, the European Commission a year earlier had agreed to “carve out an exemption” from its absolutist electric vehicle mandate only to allow the continued sale of vehicles that run on e-fuels (fuels made using captured carbon dioxide emissions).
While former President Donald Trump has vowed to end the Biden mandates and likely push to roll back the new EPA tailpipe rules (as he had done before), automakers on multiple continents are fast proving that government regulation all too often locks in yesterday’s technology.
Perhaps inspired by harsh realities that the 125-year-old electric vehicle technology (while much updated since its early days) even today has been unable to resolve nagging problems, automotive engineers on four continents are designing, and companies are manufacturing, vehicles that may soon turn the battery-electric vehicle into a 21st Century Edsel.
Many of these new engine designs will generate zero carbon dioxide emissions, but others will not. None of these vehicles meet the EU’s definition, and all of them appear to fall outside the Biden Administration’s plans, which are wholly keyed to battery-electric vehicles.
In an effort to salvage the Biden mandates, just last month, the Department of Energy announced $1.7 billion in new potential grants, mostly to General Motors and Stellantis, to convert existing plants in eight mostly swing states to manufacture electric vehicles and components. The program would not be finalized until after the November elections.
But just days later, General Motors CEO Mary Barra announced that GM is deferring investments in electric vehicles to ensure that “the company doesn’t get ahead of demand.” The firm is further delaying a second U.S. electric truck plant and the first Buick electric vehicle. It is now certain that GM will not reach its previously announced target of 1 million North America-produced electric vehicles by 2025.
Ford, which has racked up staggering losses on its electric vehicles (nearly $50,000 for each one sold), just announced it will spend $3 billion to expand production capacity at its Oakville, Canada, facility for its very profitable gasoline-powered, heavy-duty F-series pickup trucks. Ford had earlier postponed $12 billion in electric vehicle factory building, including a planned battery factory in Kentucky, citing consumer disaffection.
Meanwhile, Stellantis, the world’s largest automaker, just announced it is investing $6 billion into the South American market to build a generation of motors capable of running on either gasoline or Brazilian ethanol. The flex-fuel internal combustion engines will be able to switch between fuels at will. They can also be combined with plug-in hybrid technology, making a unique combination of the flexibility of the combustion engine, an electric motor, and a battery.
The new “bio-hybrid” family will include a basic bio-hybrid that integrates an internal combustion engine (a petrol detonation engine) with electrical drive; bio-hybrid eDCT which has a bio-hybrid power train with an electric dual clutch (EDC); and a bio-hybrid plug-in, an accessory plugged into the car for recharging.
Wisconsin-based Kohler Engines, a year ago unveiled its zero carbon emissions KDH hydrogen internal combustion engine that can use hydrogen sourced and developed by Kohler. The engine replaces the diesel injection system from a diesel engine with a G.I.D.E. system meant for hydrogen supply. Kohler’s move toward hydrogen is just one of many.
BMW has also decided to switch gears from electric vehicles to embrace hydrogen fuel cell technology. Triton EV has launched its own new hydrogen internal combustion engine, an innovation that originated in India. Toyota, Hyundai, and other companies are also building hydrogen-fueled internal combustion engines. Meanwhile, Volkswagen just announced plans to cut another 1,000 jobs at its electric vehicle factory in Zwickau, Germany.
On yet another front, Mazda recently announced the restoration of its “RE Development Group, with a focus on engineering and development of its trademark Wankel rotary engines. Mazda says the engine’s design allows linking the rotary engine with a lithium-ion battery pack. The company believes its lightweight engine that can operate on carbon-neutral fuels is a better solution than hydrogen fuel cell or pure electric vehicles.
And just days ago, EcoNews reported on a Toyota-designed hydrogen engine that eschews fuel lines and pumps and is very versatile when it comes to temperature – meaning it can operate in different climates and terrains equally, and with a high-grade cooling system. The Toyota fuel cell is capable of generating electricity without transitioning to heat.
The new Toyota news brings to mind a 2021 comment from Gill Pratt, the company’s chief scientist. “Different people have different circumstances and different needs.” That’s something the Biden and EU mandates had apparently forgotten in their subsidized crusade to force the entire world into a battery-electric future that economics and physics suggest cannot be achieved.
What this means is that, even if Kamala Harris is elected in November, the electric vehicle mandate may be dead in the water, killed by innovation.
Duggan Flanakin (duggan@duggansdugout.com) is a senior policy analyst at the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow who writes on a wide variety of public policy issues.
This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.
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“The Toyota fuel cell is capable of generating electricity without transitioning to heat.” What does that mean?
Interesting question. I asked the exact question to perplexity.ai and got the answer below. I’m still trying to digest it myself and welcome any further help.
Answer
The statement “The Toyota fuel cell is capable of generating electricity without transitioning to heat” refers to the fundamental operating principle of fuel cell technology, which directly converts chemical energy into electrical energy without the intermediate step of combustion or heat generation typically found in traditional power generation methods.Here’s a more detailed explanation:
It’s important to note that while fuel cells don’t rely on heat for electricity generation, they do produce some heat as a byproduct of the electrochemical reaction. However, this heat is typically much less than what’s produced in combustion-based systems and can often be utilized for other purposes in combined heat and power applications.
You missed the all important statement
Fuel cells have high internal resistance so only achieve efficiency at low power outputs, at high power outputs they get very hot indeed;
Like with everything: the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Prototypes dont count. Produce a hydrogen cell fuelled standard car without heat and we’ll talk. And present the full costs as well.
Its very simple: the hydrogen passes through a device whose input is the gas and whose output is electricity, with no heat generated during the process.
Now good luck getting the hydrogen, storing it, delivering it to service stations, and piping it into vehicle tanks. The fuel cell is the least of the problems.
There was a hydrogen supply and refueling system for hydrogen powered cars in various parts of California but from what I read much, maybe all of it was recently shut down.
All that achieves is making Ca an Island State with no way to travel elsewhere
“with no way to travel elsewhere” is fine with me. Make them live in the mess they’ve created instead of exporting it to the rest of the country.
Just wait until the DNC and they decide Not to go with Brenda but with Gavin Gruesome Newsome
I am still in a state of disbelief for the energy efficiency of producing hydrogen versus the energy delivered when hydrogen is used as fuel.
That is also my first thought. The electrolysis method is really bad but I’ve heard the making hydrogen from natural gas is a little more efficient.🙄🤦♂️
A fuel cell generates electricity from electrochemical prosses, similar to a battery. Heat is generated as a by-product. So I agree, Jim, how does a real fuel cell transition to using heat? It would be possible to put some sort of generating system on the exhaust using that heat, but that would not be part of fuel cell. And the fuel cell would have to continue operating. Maybe they put a small hydrogen burning ICE to use in certain circumstances. More info needed.
And if that is so, why does it need a high grade cooling system?
There has been a claimed revolutionary breakthrough showing violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Nobel prize sure to follow.
Sounds like the stuff pushed in WUWT comments on a regular basis.
The EV cars are not CO2 emission free. The electricity for charging the batteries is generated in power plants using fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas or oil.
Same goes for hydrogen.
It is very inefficient to make it from electricity
But does that inefficiency necessarily produce CO2? Depending upon how the electricity is generated, it just produces more waste heat
Waste heat contributes to global warming. Electricity when it is used to perform work also produces waste heat.
Also, the CO2 production just in manufacturing the average LI battery is equal to around 100,000 miles of gasoline combustion driving a gasoline powered car, depending upon the size of the battery. That means a LI battery powered car does not start “saving” CO2 emissions over a similar ICE car until it has been used more than 100,000 miles, even if the electricity to recharge it is produced with zero CO2.
___________________________________________
If most of your driving is around town, buying gas would be a rare event.
The problem with this fact is that range is key part of utility.
If buying gas is the bugaboo, we should all switch to Vespas. Or bicycles. Or even electric bicycles.
Hybrids combine the weight of batteries and other overhead of an electric vehicle with the extra engine and gas storage/management/usage system of a combustion vehicle. So it will be heavier than a combustion vehicle meaning more tire wear, more systems to maintain/that can break, etc etc.
The key again is: if there were no subsidies, would people buy them?
None of these supposed new technologies pass the smell test. Hydrogen, whether its burnt or used in fuel cells, is a non-starter. Its not availablein the required quantities, and if it were, transport and storage is impossible.
Ethanol has its own problems, including sourcing. And then look at this:
The new “bio-hybrid” family will include a basic bio-hybrid that integrates an internal combustion engine (a petrol detonation engine) with electrical drive; bio-hybrid eDCT which has a bio-hybrid power train with an electric dual clutch (EDC); and a bio-hybrid plug-in, an accessory plugged into the car for recharging.
You would have to be a little mad to buy one of these complicated monstrosities, even could you afford it.
Nevertheless, the Democratic Party is evidently resolved to keep on keeping on, regardless of what it does to the economy and the auto industry. Regardless also of the fact that none of this will have any effect on global emissions or the global climate.
The target of 50% of new car sales to be EV by 2030 is relatively reasonable compared to the UK plans, which are for 80%. The UK has shorter driving distances, but even so for most buyers an EV simply does not fit their use pattern. For either market there is nothing being predicted which overcomes the basic inadequacies of EVs.
The problem is simple: its storage of electricity. Batteries simply cannot replace a tank of gas. Charging times, total energy content, energy density. Governments can ban the sale of new ICE cars effective any date they choose, and they can also tax the remaining ICE cars out of existence.
What they cannot control is the collateral effects of such a move on the economy and society, and none of them are even doing proper analysis on what they will be.
We are looking at a different world, one in which car ownership falls, and everything that depends on its availability withers. I’m not totally knocking it, car use on our present scale and pattern is very destructive. But at least be honest about what present policies are going to lead to, and plan properly for the very different social and economic environment that will result.
In trying to meet the stupid demands of politicians, engineers are being forced down the path of making things more complicated rather than simplifying them. I mean, what could be simple than an IC engine in its original form, before all the complicated add-ons were forced on us?
Very true.
However, I am grateful for the lack of lead in the exhaust.
Lead was added to gasoline as an octane booster to prevent engine knock. It was never necessary to do that, it was a cheap way to avoid further fuel refining to obtain the same result, such as catalytic reforming.
Also as a way to protect valves and valve seats from the damage of microwelds. If you are old enough you might even remember a thing called a valve job. Modern materials negated this requirement.
Any analysis, let alone a proper analysis.
Try as they might, democrats can’t ignore the fact that Force = Mass X Acceleration.
When you want to accelerate 4000 lbs to 60 MPH you are stuck with the same force requirement no matter what the energy source providing the force is.
I know for sure they don’t like that, but all their solutions for satisfying the equation while saving the earth are doomed to failure because they are all less efficient, more dangerous and more costly than the solution in use now.
Hydrogen is absolutely available in the required quantities…it just has to be sourced from fossil fuels.
As for transport and storage: not impossible. Merely extremely inefficient.
Ultimately, the whole shebang is another subsidy harvest mechanism that will primarily benefit rich people, and ones in cities at that, just like all of the other “alternative energy” schemes.
Car use saves time which translates into productivity and money.
It is absolute IDIOCY to mandate something that people don’t want to pay money for.
Hence all the political support in the West.
The mandates are all part of equity. Everyone gets to the same place, according to K. Harris.
Color me skeptical.
The old saying different strokes for different folks seems apposite.
Four stoke for some, two stroke for others, no stroke for the uber anxious and the fuel cell advocates.
I am certain if the whole cradle to grave count of CO2 was made for all power options, battery, ICE fuel cell etc. the actual winner might be surprising. If the eco impact was then added into the decision mix of which is best motive power option/decision for the planet’s wellbeing, I am sure batteries would be in last place.
No strokes for Wankel engine users, either!
I don’t know about that. The eccentricity of the rotor could be construed as a stroke. 🤷♂️😉
Headline reads, “…even if Kamala Harris is elected in November, the electric vehicle mandate may be dead in the water, killed by innovation.”
Don’t forget physics and the laws of thermodynamics.
And let us not forget economics….
Politicians, for the most part, don’t concern themselves with such trivia…
Correct. Politicians are only concerned with swaying public opinion to the extent they get re-elected. Once elected all promises are just heated air… until the next election cycle.
the laws of thermodynamics.
That’s not a problem – just sign an EO repealing them.
Wait. Why are we so obsessed with emissions of CO2 to begin with? Back in the ’70’s, when catalytic converters were the innovative solution to smog, it worked by converting unburned hydrocarbons into harmless CO2. Yes, harmless. Urban air quality got better, by a lot!
The really big innovation right now would be to snap out of the manufactured illusion that incremental CO2 will drive harmful warming. Let’s rediscover how the atmosphere’s dynamic self-regulation means that the minor static radiative effect of rising levels of CO2 is not capable of driving the climate to a bad outcome.
. . . the manufactured illusion . . .
____________________________
“The Climate Crisis” is a text book example of “The Big Lie”
The main goal of catalytic converters is to convert oxides of nitrogen, collectively known as NOx, to harmless N2. Formation of smog depends critically on availability of NOx, not hydrocarbons, which are supplied from natural sources.
“…not hydrocarbons…” Incorrect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalytic_converter
Then ALSO to reduce NOx.
So, biofuels, hydrogen combustion, and hydrogen fuel cells.
These technologies work, but don’t scale. We already use almost half of US corn to make enough ethanol to use as an additive in gasoline.
The oil industry is very familiar with hydrogen. Large volumes of it are used at refineries. It’s a giant pain in the ass. Many hydrogen fueling stations in California are shutting down because they are too expensive to operate.
In both cases, the car stuff could work. The fuel infrastructure has no shot.
But, you do you, I guess.
“the EPA backed off from its initial plan to ensure that two-thirds of all vehicles sold by 2030 were electric”
It’s still 100% of new vehicles in Wokeachusetts must be EV by ’35. I haven’t yet determined what happens if you buy an ICE car in another state- if you’ll be able to register it here. Of course Trump will change all this on the national level- but will he be able to force states to drop such laws?
Only sensible thing to do is wait till 2033 or 2034, then buy a new or near new mild hybrid from a reliable long-lived make like Toyota, and prepare to drive it into the ground. Should get 15-20 years out of it, and by then the mania will have subsided. The crunch is probably coming, the early signs are just emerging. The first to hit the wall will probably be New York in the US. In Europe, it will be the UK. The signs are that Germany is waking up to reality, and the place its all coming to a head is elections, both local and EU wide.
Inconvenient things, elections….
Inconvenient things what individual liberties can provide.
I’ve got 20 years exactly on my Tacoma and it’s still going strong.
I’ll keep my 1953 Ford.It has already made it to 71 years old and after my rebuild it will easily make another 30. The old flathead can can be converted to run methanol and the extra intake cooling the alcohol gives would help alleviate its tendency to overheat from the routing of the exhaust through the block.
I am still in a state of disbelief that the EPA has the authority to mandate what cars we drive. Yes, the EPA can impose pain, but that is only an influencer.
“ I haven’t yet determined what happens if you buy an ICE car in another state- if you’ll be able to register it here.”
The new law only prohibits automobile dealers from selling (in-state) any new vehicles that are not zero-emission.
Wokeachusetts is a tiny state with 4 neighboring states. So, it’ll be the car dealers in state who’ll get hurt the worst.
As I have posted previously, E-Fuels are amongst the most ridiculous ways to reduce GHG emissions and could only have been dreamed up by an environmentalist or Just Stop Oil nutcase. Capturing CO2 from the air is already energy intensive, but producing H2 via electrolysis, reducing CO2 to CO, then adding more H2 to produce hydrocarbon fuels is but incredibly expensive and incredibly stupid at the same time. Overall EROI is maybe 20%, and all the energy must come from “excess” wind and solar energy, whatever that is. Even nuclear is not favored for E-Fuels.
But the NGO’s and their government lackies push this idea as if it were totally logical. Their rabid hate of fossil energy drives them to the most absurd conclusions. There simply is not and will not be enough power to produce even tiny amounts of E-Fuels, let alone power a country.
Are we not headed to a point where there is not a sufficient supply of potable water to keep the 8 billion humans from a constant state of dehydration sickness?
No
The advocates of making liquid hydrocarbon fuels using nuclear power as the process energy source say that it will only work with seawater, not with air capture.
Seawater has a much higher concentration of CO2 and is a ready source of the large volumes of hydrogen needed to manufacture the complex hydrocarbon chains needed for gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel.
What the advocates of using nuclear power combined with seawater as the carbon / hydrogen resource base for manufacturing complex liquid hydrocarbon fuels haven’t yet done is to present a fully comphrehensive analysis which covers all the technical and economic facets of producing liquid fuels from nuclear.
Producing such an analysis covering all of the needed bases in the detail which is needed is an expensive proposition. Which possibly explains why it hasn’t yet been done — at least to my knowledge, anyway. .
“Many of these new engine designs will generate zero carbon dioxide emissions….” Like the Libraloto engine which seems best suited for constant speed operation as with an electrical generator.
The Libraloto engine is a pipe dream. No working prototype after 10 years or more. 600rpm on what they have built, but it apparently had severe design problems. Inability to make a 50kw prototype so they modelled it in software? This is pure vaporware. Make a prototype, do a public demo, complete with numbers. At least something that does some real work. Like, run a generator. For example.
Teach me something I don’t know, please. Do the ICE engines in a hybrid car run at a constant speed? Do they turn themselves off when the generator has charged the battery to the required %? Then turn themselves on when the battery charge is sufficiently low? Or does the ICE run faster and slower depending on the weight of the right foot of the driver?
According to the IEA Korea has the largest fuel cell car market with around 32,000 vehicles by June 2023. The US had 8,000. Japan was the third largest market but sold less than 1000 in 2022. By mid 2023 there were approximately 7100 fuel cell trucks, 95% in China and 7000 fuel cell buses, 85% in China.
Globally there were 1100 hydrogen refuelling stations, over 300 in China, 250 in Europe, 180 each in Korea and Japan.
IEA ‘Global Hydrogen Review 2023’ (Revised version Dec 2023)
It is interesting to note that the German State of Saxony in 2023 axed their hydrogen train service introduced almost a year earlier in Aug 2022 saying the lines would transition to electric battery trains which are “cheaper to operate”
K.Harris: We all start at different places. Equity means we all end up at the same place.
Each according to his ability to each according to his needs.
In other words, equity means you cannot get ahead and you will be held down to the lowest common denominator.
Equity means we all end up at the same place.
For a good example of equity in practice, read Harrison Bergeron.
The new Toyota news brings to mind a 2021 comment from Gill Pratt, the company’s chief scientist. “Different people have different circumstances and different needs.”
My favorite professor at my alma mater, Purdue University, was a wise guy named J.R. Osborn, who was the repository for Purdue’s rocket propulsion expertise. My favorite of J.R.’s many aphorisms was: “Different people view different things differently. And you can quote me.”
I so hope that Gill Pratt was one of Osborn’s grad students. If so, the spirit of J.R. is manifest in good hands.
Hydrogen? I guess those companies haven’t heard of the Hindenburg hydrogen airship disaster in 1937.
There are obvious mistakes in the above article’s last paragraph, corrected here:
“What this means is that, even if Kamala Harris is elected in November, the electric vehicle mandate
maywill be dead in the water, killed byinnovationpractical economics.”Little-known facts about plans to use “clean” hydrogen-fueled vehicles:
1) Burning hydrogen with air (as opposed to pure oxygen) produce oxides of nitrogen (NOx) because air is mostly made up of nitrogen and heating air to high temperatures creates NOx. All oxides of nitrogen indirectly contribute to the creation of ozone, a greenhouse gas, through photochemical reactions in the atmosphere.
2) The production of hydrogen can also emit greenhouse gases, such as CO2 and methane, depending on the method used. For example, Steam Methane Reforming (SMR), the most common method of hydrogen production, typically produces around 8–10 kg of CO2 per kg of hydrogen.
Old saying, still appropriate: “The devil is in the details.”
I don’t know of a single company that is proposing transportation vehicles that use both stored hydrogen and stored oxygen for their engine reactants.