Not really. Hydrogen is stored at up to 3000psi in portable tanks all the time. Of course, that's a much lower energy density then gasoline.
They're trying to use 10,000 psi.
The problem with electrolysis is that it will require much MORE energy to generate the hydrogen then simply charging an EV to go the same distance. Nuthin' comes for free, you know. It requires energy to conduct electrolysis.
The assumption is the grid has very cheap energy and we're just trying to keep cars as useful as they are now.
I'd like to see your reasoning for that though. Is there a fundamental thermodynamic reason you think electrolysis is less efficient than chemical battery reactions? In a very real sense electrolysis is the precise inverse of the hydrogen fuel cell.
Copper does not generate energy.
Stations don't generate gasoline.
But copper does conduct electricity and stations do store gasoline. The capacity to do either costs money, I'm saying the copper isn't more expensive than the tank (or at least they are in the same ballpark).
The problem is there is not enough power generating capacity and the wiring that IS there is insufficient to carry it even if there was.
Well we'll have to get more power if we want to run cars off the grid won't we.
Sticking a tank in the ground is pretty easy. All you need is a digger (and the tank, of course!).
Well let's just gloss over every detail: sticking a wire in the ground is pretty easy. All you need is a digger (and the wire, of course!).
People will buy the cars they want.
The car they want is often the one with the greatest features, speed, and range at the lowest price. The fuel costs are part of the price. If the the grid electricity was dirt cheap (and I know it's not right now) then the cost of owning a car powered from the grid (whatever the intermediate storage) would make people buy those cars over gasoline cars.
Not practical to build a capacitor big enough.
Show me the math.
Ever wonder why they use batteries in EVs instead of capacitors?
The mass and volume energy density of capacitors is much worse than batteries, at least at reasonable voltages. So much worse that the car would be useless.
Fixed installations don't have mass limitations and they don't have practical volume limitations (they could make the whole concrete pad a capacitor two meters thick). Remember they don't need to buffer energy for a week, a day, or even an hour. Just need to buffer for ratio of the median time between EV fast charges and the time for the power grid to deliver the energy.
Power companies already do all sorts of things to spread out power, big capacitors like that would have other uses in DC settings; but again this is assuming that bulk materials become much cheaper and they would given dirt cheap gird power.
Glass and steel are not energy.
but energy is the primary factor in their cost.
Energy for smelting, energy for transportation of ore, energy for sorting, energy for moving the final product. Contrast this with something like strawberries (which I think must be picked by hand). The price for strawberries goes down a bit if energy is dirt cheap but there is a floor represented by the cost factors which don't scale with energy (the crop pickers).
If we had enough energy we could build out of glass bricks rather than cement CMU. There is no shortage of silicon dioxide lying around.
This part is incorrect. Fast charging is the same configuration of cells. Cell configuration is not changed when fast charging an EV.
Still won't work. The internal resistance of single cells is the problem. Configuration makes no difference.
The number and properties of the cells are determined at design time. They can't be changed. All you can do is wire them up in series or parallel banks.
I'm saying that within a temperature range there is no such thing as "fast charging" a single cell, there is an ideal voltage range and that will charge at certain current and thus power. All you can do is make each cell shallow so that current charges the cell quickly. A fast charging battery is a battery with a bunch of fast charging cells. Fast charging cells have shallow charge capacities. Thus you need more cells to hold the same energy.
If you were to try to make a lead acid battery fast charging instead of 6 cells you would maybe do 24 cells where each cell had a quarter of the plates. You'd have groups of four of these shallow cells wired in parallel and then those six groups would be in series to give you 12V with the same charge. When you go to charge it the groups of four can be charged 2.2 + whatever V, but the current would be four times greater than a 6 cell battery. Thus it would charge four times faster.
I'm saying that kind of subdivision (at design time) has its limits. You need more and more cell walls which take up more volume and weight, meanwhile they add thermal insulation and require more fine wire connections.
Nope. It's a mechanical problem. Battery packs are HEAVY.
Well there goes that idea. The species that build the pyramids without access to bronze has never been able to handle heavy objects before.
They have coolant lines in them that must be drained to conduct a swap
Why in the world would you need to drain the coolant to swap?
and new coolant must be installed and all air bubbles removed (requiring vacuum filling methods and a lot of time).
No, we don't need new coolant and we can handle bubbles using standard air seperator. You talk like liquid cooling loops haven't been used since the 1930s.
Even in the worst case scenario that the cooling loop must be absolutely sealed you can just make a heat exchanger part of the interface plate. i.e. the battery dumps the heat to the plate and the car cools the plate.
Further, as T.A. Gardner pointed out, battery packs are not standardized. They never will be.
Looks at AA battery, looks back to screen, looks back to battery.
I'm getting a strong "man will never fly" vibe.
You are forgetting that battery packs STILL NEED TO BE CHARGED, and the requirements for the grid do not go away just because you are swapping them out to be recharged.
Answered above.
No robot is powerful enough.
To build such a specialized robot would be horrifically expensive.
Everything is horrifically expensive when you're building only one. It would be a simple machine compared to a car, and every gas station requires a fuel delivery truck to keep it stocked.
"A fuel delivery truck would be horrifically expensive" didn't seem to stop that system from working.
It is. You can't even standardize body styles or car engines or tires.
Of course you could, people just value the specialization enough to warrant tire places carrying fifty different sizes. If you had to change a tire every hundred miles I can promise you they would start to converge on two or three main tire sizes just like they converged to two or three fuel mixtures.
Obviously you see a way to make a profit here. Go into business and do it. Good luck!
Thanks, let me know when the government let's us produce energy again. Oh and maybe a hundred and fifty million USD investment? For a the prototype. Thanks.
Nuclear power is not a renewable form of energy. Oil and natural gas ARE.
You think its being produced faster than we can use it?
In that case I really do have to agree with the carbon-o-phobes. We can't just keep digging up carbon forever. Maybe five hundred years, but then it really will start to get stale.
I guess you never learned hydraulics. It's why it's not practical.
Norway has very little infrastructure.
You haven't a clue what you're talking about on this one. If there is a rock in the ocean they will build a soccer field on it and then build a bridge and a tunnel to get there. Then they'll run fiberoptic internet so the players can have public wifi at half-time.
