https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokai_Challenger
The best ICE still isn't cool because it's fundamentally Earth's chain-smoker with terminal lung cancer failing to light a cigarette while almost blowing up their oxygen tank.
weird metaphor. Given that ICE isn't going anywhere for some time I wish that people would realize that the choices are never a binary "perfectly clean EV" vs. "Coal-powered tree crusher" -- advancement in ICEs still represent an environmental benefit to the world. The Honda Monkey is one of the most efficient ICE vehicles that a consumer could hope to find, but i'll bite : where might I pick up a Tokai Challenger?
The way towards EV isn't by demonizing the things that have made the world tick throughout every industrialized society, it's by incentivizing the use of alternatives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehic...
Anyway, in the next 20 years, virtually all ICE vehicles need to go away. There’s basically no option for them except perhaps e-fuels, but given the 5x energy use compared to EVs, they will have extremely limited scope.
Yes, the lack of monkeys with 100L tank is not an argument; base model will get better fuel efficiency.
> Anyway, in the next 20 years, virtually all ICE vehicles need to go away.
Pretty sure monkey + the fuel for entirety of its lifetime would still produce less CO2 than EV over lifetime + whatever amount of solar panels and power storage needed to keep it powered.
Doubtful for a similarly sized vehicle.
For comparable sized cars, EVs are always better than the ICE equivalent including all production: https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/are-electric-vehicles-defini...
They achieved 91 mpg. A stock 125cc Monkey is claimed to get 169 mpg, but actual user reports are closer to 120 mpg. https://www.fuelly.com/motorcycle/honda/monkey
Is this actually possible? i.e. are there actually enough resources and production capacity to replace all ICE vehicles on the road in two decades. I remember hearing Elon Musk suggest it'd take about double that.
It’s almost surely impossible to replace the global fleet of cars in that time too.
Yes, we are behind schedule, and we can't get there just by replacing ICE cars one for one with electric cars, but there is plenty more we can do.
Living in walkable neighborhoods. Demanding better infrastructure for more than just cars. Working from home if you have a desk job.
And of course personal transport is only part of it. Electricity generation. Industrial precesses like steelmaking, and concrete will need to go carbon neutral as well.
Electric cars will be part of it, though. Those infrastructure changes won't happen overnight, we need all possible options at our disposal, it's not either/or, it's "yes, and."
But it can be done.
Why did you feel the need to wrap your environmentalist polemic in such a complicated metaphor?
Wow, faster too! When comparing the aerodynamics of a dude in a jacket to a wing, I suppose being an average of 20mph faster makes sense.
The Monkey 125 has peak power of 7.5 kW and an area of 1.7 m x 0.75 m or 1.3 m^2 [0,1]. The sun delivers a theoretical maximum of 1.3 kW per m^2. In the same area as a Monkey 125 the max solar energy would be 1.7 kW, or 23% of the Monkey 125's peak power (which was probably all used as the team travelled over mountains). Fraunhofer claims a photovoltaic cell with 47% efficiency so a solar Monkey would have about a tenth of the petrol Monkey's ability to move.
0. Specific model used was probably a variant of this Honda, not the OG Monkey that stopped production in 1999: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Grom
1. https://www.hondaprokevin.com/2021-honda-monkey-125-review-s...
2. https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/05/30/fraunhofer-ise-achiev...
...but having electric bike/scooter just connected to charger is far more practical way to do it
Actually, as the costs of fossil fuels rise, and costs of energy production drop, synthetics are becoming more and more viable. Could be very soon...
Yes, bioruels are better than fossil fuels, but worse than clean electricity.
Anyhow, it's not an either/or. ICE vehicles will be with us for a while, so it's better to use more efficient ones, but we also need to be replacing as many as possible with electric.
Biofuels are better than fossil fuels, but most ICE engines run on gasoline, and can't run on 100% biofuels efficiently and cleanly.
Also, if it turns out biofuels is the answer (and IMO synthetic fuel production seems way more efficient in the long run), there are ways to reduce the externalities. Using land that wouldn't be used for crops, growing the plants or algae without use of fossil fuels. And of course if you're going for externalities, most forms of green energy have them too...
These kinds of solutions are useful to do research and development on for cases where we're not sure if battery electric vehicles will ever have a path to replace, like long haul aviation.
But for surface transport, it's really hard to see much being competitive with battery electric vehicles; they are already commercially viable, and can be powered with 100% green energy, and green energy prices are already lower than fossil fuel. My EV is charged with 100% carbon neutral power when I charge at home or work. Sure, the mix of sources varies across the grid, but given how cost effective renewable energy is, and incentives, the share of renewables is growing fast.
The infrastructure and production capacity are rapidly developing. And while energy density and specific energy of batteries are a bit limiting now, there are a lot of developments that are nearly ready for mass production that will get rid of many of the remaining limitations of battery electric vehicles for all but the most demanding of applications (like long haul air transport).
I think you might be surprised by how fast ICE vehicles become obsolete for all but niche use cases. As infrastructure develops, production ramps up, and battery technology improves, it won't be long before EVs start to outsell ICE vehicles. EVs already outsell ICE vehicles in Norway, in China they're at about 25% of new car sales, and worldwide they're at about 12% of new car sales; and these numbers are growing rapidly, they may already be out of date by now. Once they are outselling ICE vehicles, it will only be about a decade before EVs are the majority on the road.
I would find it hard to imagine a way in which synthetic fuel would ramp up to production readiness and be cost-effective in the same kind of time scale.
In any case none of what you brought up above contradicts my general point that ICE does not automatically mean evil.
Let’s see. EVs generally have worse range and are substantially slower to charge while on a trip.
But they are quieter, simpler, more reliable, have generally superior performance (at least in categories where weight doesn’t matter), need substantially less maintenance, don’t stink (tires still stink, but the rest of the EV doesn’t), can recharge at home, and can do V2L/V2H/V2G [0].
[0] To be fair, V2L is a surprisingly rare feature. V2G seems likely to get stuck behind an embarrassing unwillingness on the part of anyone involved to use genuinely open standards or do decouple the implementation from various middlemen involved whose sole purpose is to intermediate between the vehicle and the utility. And V2H will share all of V2G’s problems plus the utilities’ general desire to discourage anything that reduces customer’s reliance on them and also the fact that there seems to be nothing remotely resembling a standard for microgrid interconnection devices / disconnects to enable islanding. As far as I can tell, most microgrid solutions are single-vendor, and most of them except the serious hardcore off grid gear are annoying tied to the cloud. We need a standard where a building can have a microgrid interconnection device, with multiple available suppliers, and where customers can install downstream equipment that interoperates with the device, sources from other brands. And this whole thing needs to work without explicit approval from the utility. (Requiring certification of each device makes sense. Requiring paperwork to be filed and permission obtained from the utility to install a V2H-capable EVSE or a solar inverter or a generator or whatever is broken. (Requiring utility permission to export is a different story, and utilities should be able to communicate, in real time, permissible export limits and the current and upcoming rate schedule. This should work without an internet connection.)
But this rant about V2H/V2G shouldn’t distract from the overall point: ICE cars aren’t doing V2G/V2G at all anytime soon.
It’s the pot calling the kettle black! If you need it spelled out.
Electric trucks are becoming available.
Heavy transport trains are now electric:
https://thedriven.io/2022/01/19/mining-giant-bhp-orders-elec...
https://www.australianmining.com.au/fortescue-battery-electr...
https://www.railtech.com/rolling-stock/2022/03/04/australian...
If you are to make a better world you have to build it out of the flawed one, right?
Electric motorcycles are only just becoming viable, and are a lot more limiting compared to electric cars.
And an ICE motorcycle can be a lot more fuel efficient, and is also lower carbon impact to manufacture, and takes up less space on the street and to park. For a single occupancy vehicle, an ICE motorcycle is a lot cooler than an ICE car; and depending on the use, could even be better than an EV car.
I am hopeful that within about 5-10 years, battery technology and prices will improve to the point that electric motorcycles actually become viable. But for now, buying a gas sipping Honda Monkey and commuting to work on it could be a big step up over a car.