Assassin
Well-Known Member
There are some interesting new developments in the pipeline and battery has suddenly had a huge drop in investment due to technologies stalling and its many problems and these problems seemingly cannot be overcome in the short term.
Thermal runaway appears to be the largest issue and this causes the batteries to self combust and set fire to anything in the vicinity such as the vehicle itself and if it is in a garage, then the garage itself; if this is a modern home with an inbuilt garage then the house is also up in flames. If this happens then don't bother calling the fire brigade as they cannot fight the fire, they simply let it burn out.
Electrocution seems to be another major factor in road vehicles and with vehicles running in the 400-800 volts DC range, a simple pile up and a shorted battery could potentially kill all the occupants of all the cars as they are built of steel which is an excellent conductor of electricity; also, the fire brigade now wear insulated clothing to 1200 volts to protect them from electrocution.
There are many more risks and the insurance industry is proposing to cash in on this and they will by raising premiums to cover up to 50 deaths and subsequent payouts in civil claims, after all insurers never make a loss.
Currently the heavy plant industry is developing gas engines for everything from bulldozers to fory lift trucks and anything inbetween by designing high torque, low power engines with combined alternator/generators as direct drive units or as stand alone engines with a bolt on replaceable multi frequency generators to drive both the traction and function elements, and many will look to utilise a range of gases not using steam cracked crude oil as their main source of gases.
Some manufacturers are looking at multi fuel engines which can run on both standard petrol and diesel as well as gas and in the automotive sector Mazda are claiming great success in this endeavour and these work using combustion pressure controls to enable these fuels usage
There are many more but I am contractually bound and cannot say any more.
Thermal runaway appears to be the largest issue and this causes the batteries to self combust and set fire to anything in the vicinity such as the vehicle itself and if it is in a garage, then the garage itself; if this is a modern home with an inbuilt garage then the house is also up in flames. If this happens then don't bother calling the fire brigade as they cannot fight the fire, they simply let it burn out.
Electrocution seems to be another major factor in road vehicles and with vehicles running in the 400-800 volts DC range, a simple pile up and a shorted battery could potentially kill all the occupants of all the cars as they are built of steel which is an excellent conductor of electricity; also, the fire brigade now wear insulated clothing to 1200 volts to protect them from electrocution.
There are many more risks and the insurance industry is proposing to cash in on this and they will by raising premiums to cover up to 50 deaths and subsequent payouts in civil claims, after all insurers never make a loss.
Currently the heavy plant industry is developing gas engines for everything from bulldozers to fory lift trucks and anything inbetween by designing high torque, low power engines with combined alternator/generators as direct drive units or as stand alone engines with a bolt on replaceable multi frequency generators to drive both the traction and function elements, and many will look to utilise a range of gases not using steam cracked crude oil as their main source of gases.
Some manufacturers are looking at multi fuel engines which can run on both standard petrol and diesel as well as gas and in the automotive sector Mazda are claiming great success in this endeavour and these work using combustion pressure controls to enable these fuels usage
There are many more but I am contractually bound and cannot say any more.
