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Comment by MafellUser | Hacker News Reader

All good but you know that every single hydrogen car contains a generator that powers an electric motor, right?

If batteries take so much space how comes EVs have FRUNKs while no ICE does? Oh because there's no need for a massive engine block, center diff, etc.

If you want to beat the efficiency, why not have everything nuclear powered?

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The advantage of batteries is that you can manufacture them into any form and in case of cars, you can just hide them under the floor. Fine, works well enough in that particular use case. Does not discredit the what I said at all. There are many other applications where the volume and weight of the battery would make it unfeasible.

A lot of trucks have even more available space and headroom for excess weight.

The biggest applications where the volume and weight come into play aren't on the roads.

> The advantage of batteries is that you can manufacture them into any form

Can you really though? For EVs they're all using the classic cylindrical shape as far as I've seen.

You are confusing cells with batteries. A battery is a collection of cells. This difference is rarely important and so few people ever make it. In this context is matters as a EV has many small cells in the battery. You can put those cells anywhere they fit. You can't split an engine up like that. Thus while the battery itself needs more volume and weight than an engine (or at least that is the claim, depending on range desired this might or might not be true), you can put them in empty space where an engine cannot fit.

Its largely Tesla that is using the cylinder shape batteries. It seems to me most of the other manufacturers are using prismatic cells.

Batteries, not cells

Battery.. packs? The cells are the batteries.

It's like conflating gasoline with gasoline tanks.

A battery is a bunch of cells. Etymology is from an earlier meaning, artillery battery (a bunch of cannons together acting as a unit).

battery comes from the verb "to batter", which basically means "to bombard"

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