Car makers pin hopes on electronics and hydrogen
Industry conference hears more futurifying
The future is huge fuel economy, more electronics and hydrogen, heard delegates at the automotive conference, Convergence, about which we ran a story yesterday.
Adaptive cruise control
For example, Matsushita subsidiary Denso told the Convergence 2004 conference in Detroit this week Denso has developed an adaptive cruise control system that regulates driving in slow moving traffic at speeds between zero and 20 miles per hour low-speed accidents are common.
The new system, developed in conjunction with a car maker, can be used in heavy traffic and eliminate the need for the driver to constantly shift from the brake to the accelerator, Matsushita said. Systems currently on the market only perform at only higher speeds.
“Denso believes that the crucial technology for safety systems is sensors. We are developing our sensing technology for accurate technology of obstacles and pedestrians,” added spokesman Matt Matsushita.
Other future systems include biometric-oriented systems that automatically measure the comfort level of anyone in the vehicle. Denso also is intent on developing a system that will project all the information the driver needs onto the windscreen.
Future innovations
Ninety per cent of the innovations in the modern car are based on new developments in electronics, according to estimates by engineers at Siemens, one of the auto industry’s top suppliers of electronic components.
Luxury cars today contain as many as 13,000 passive electronic components and the total value of electronics in a vehicle is expected to increase to $3,870 (£2,139) in 2010, Siemens estimated this week, and electronics will represent 35 percent of a vehicle’s average value by 2010. The value of electronic components used in cars back in 2000 was $2,250 (£1,243) per vehicle.
The average car today now contains about $400 (£221) worth of semi-conductors but that will increase by about 20 percent by 2015 even as manufacturing and piece costs decline. The average sensor content in new vehicles is expected to grow from $132 (£73) per vehicle today to $164 (£90) per vehicle by 2006, Siemens' study estimated.
In addition, fully networked cars will become a standard in Europe with the next three years.
Hydrogen is the future
“Hydrogen will play a significant role” in the automobile’s future, declared Convergence 2004 Chairman Gerhardt Schmidt. Pluses include its production of no harmful emission, whether used to feed fuel cells or internal combustion engines, at the point of consumption.
“Hydrogen can completely take transportation out of the environmental equation,” said Dr. Phyllis Yoshida, director of the US Department of Energy’s Freedom Car programme. As proponents like to note, hydrogen is also the most abundant element in the universe, but it is seldom found on its own, so getting a ready supply of the gas requires the conversion of some other source, most commonly by refining petroleum or natural gas or by electrolyzing water.
That process can be itself costly and energy intensive, and even though Ford has said it could put its new hydrogen IC engine into production within two years, there is no infrastructure in place to mass produce or distribute the gas.
But industry officials believe that by putting hydrogen IC engines on the road, most likely in government and corporate fleets, they can encourage the energy industry to begin building that production and distribution network.
If they’re right, hydrogen could be more readily available by the time fuel cell technology is expected to be commercialised, which could be around 2020.
Fuel economy
“It’s entirely possible within 10 years to have a full-size, four-door family sedan that gets 110 miles per [US] gallon,” said John Beale, deputy administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency. Exactly how the industry might get there – and what such a car would cost – is something Beale wasn’t ready to say, but there are signs that significant improvements in fuel economy are within reach.
Though real-world results generally run lower, the EPA has rated some of the new hybrids at up to 70 mpg. And Volkswagen is working on a prototype diesel-electric powertrain that could boost mileage as much as 15 percent above comparable gasoline-electrics. The cost penalty would likely be steep, however, and Beale conceded that “Whether the market embraces (ultra-high-mileage technology) is unclear, but it’s technologically feasible.”
Performance too is another issue that clearly wasn't addressed as part if this equation. Maybe they expect us all to be tootling around in Renault Twingos.
Common standards
Bosch chairman Franz Fehrenbach made a plea for common standards. Three factors are critical to the future success of automotive electronics, including complexity, quality and common standards, Fehrenbach said during one of the keynote speeches at the Convergence 2004 conference in Detroit.
“These issues are interrelated and impact one another. If our industry does not commit to mastering complexity, we will never achieve common standards or improve quality,” Ferhenbach said.
“Without developing common standards, we will never master complexity in the systems we deliver to the market,” he said. Earlier during the conference, Bernie Robertson, former senior vice president at DaimlerChrysler, had told a Blue Ribbon panel that 70 percent of all warranty costs are now tied up in electronics.
Concerns about the quality have prompted some manufacturers remove equipment from vehicles because they wanted to avoid quality problems and a confrontation with irate customers.
Representatives from IBM, however, said in-vehicle electronic systems will continue to expand over the next 10 years and said it is working on systems that will make it easier to manage electronic development processes, which many companies now find difficult to manage.
The RX8 hydrogen car makes half the HP of the petrol car, and thats with a turbo in an engine type suited to H. And you get far less energy out of it so need far more of the stuff for the same journey.
Once we sort em fuel cells will be the way forward I'm sure, until MRFusion comes along...
robdickinson said:
And you get far less energy out of it so need far more of the stuff for the same journey.
Not true.
There is more energy in 1kg of hydrogen than there is in 3kg of petrol.
The only problem is that 1kg of H2 (compressed gas) will take up more space than 40 litres of petrol...
You're right about the horsepower though. A naturally aspirated I.C. engine will make about 40% of the power of its similar sized petrol equivelant.
Ironically it is more efficient though.
Andy
or else we can wait 20 years until they figure out how to get decent power out of these engines, early petrol engines were hardly 100bhp/litre monsters, if its got wheels and a motor then its better than walking
So either expect hydrogen power to arrive much earlier, or BMW to bankrupt themselves (which some people might consider a win-win scenario).
There are also the environmental issues to consider. Despite Dr. Yoshida's absurd statement that “Hydrogen can completely take transportation out of the environmental equation”, there are still issues to consider.
Hydrogen production will probably require water. If so, water used for hydrogen production will be unable to be used for anything else. If seawater can be used, that's one thing, but if fresh water is required, it will have to be taken from the far more limited supply.
What about the environmental impact of the electricity generation required to produce the hydrogen? Coal? Natural Gas? Nuclear? These all have their own impact on the environment and VAST amounts of power will be needed to generate a meaningful amount of hydrogen.
Then there are the environmental repercussions of the water-vapor that is the byproduct of burning hydrogen. Various environmental groups are worried about the climate change from global-warming... what about the climat change from the increased levels of humidity in area with large urban centers?
These are only a few of the more obvious issues. I'm sure that scientists who are working on this technology daily could list many more. It is unforgivable that these issues haven't been discussed in public.
Are we to believe that hydrogen is the simple panacea that these people would have us believe?
What about bio-diesel?
Advantages:
*The technology to produce, refine, distribute and burn the fuel safely and in large scale exists today - as do vehicles which can burn the fuel. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, it is familiar to many car owners and would not require new converts to dramatically change how they operate their cars.
*The greenhouse-gasses produced by its use are part of the current environment rather than being released from long-dormant sources deep within the earth and, therefore, would not contribute to global-warming.
My take on this: Hydrogen power is a fantasy cooked up by oil companies in order that environmentalists can be pacified with the belief that a miraculous new technology of their dreams is "just around the corner" so they can feel better about driving their gas-guzzling cars today. In addition, it provides big companies with an excuse to ask governments for extravagant tax-breaks, subsudies and other favors to engage in the research.
Jon Gwynne said:
Then there are the environmental repercussions of the water-vapor that is the byproduct of burning hydrogen. Various environmental groups are worried about the climate change from global-warming... what about the climat change from the increased levels of humidity in area with large urban centers?
Total Rubbish. The water vapour content of a H2 I.C. engine exhaust is very very similar to the vapour content of a petrol I.C. exhaust.
You do relise that the output from a petrol car is CO2, plus H20 (ie. water) so all the hydrogen contained in the petrol ends up as water vapour.
Which is the same as if you just run the engine on hydrogen.
So there wouldn't be an increase in humidity.
Andy
Jon Gwynne said:
Are there any chemists reading this? How much hydrogen gas is contained in water?
i.e. how many cc of hydrogen does a cc of water contain?
Water is approx 11% hydrogen by weight, I think.
So if you had 1 litre of water you'd have 110 grams of H2.
But at atmospheric pressure that would take up approximately 1260 litres of space.
So as a rough guide there is 1260 litres of gaseous hydrogen in a litre of water.
Andy
Jon Gwynne said:
Hydrogen power is a fantasy cooked up by oil companies in order that environmentalists can be pacified with the belief that a miraculous new technology of their dreams is "just around the corner" so they can feel better about driving their gas-guzzling cars today. In addition, it provides big companies with an excuse to ask governments for extravagant tax-breaks, subsudies and other favors to engage in the research.
Yep. It certainly looks that way. It’s strange that easy-to-produce, easy-to-distribute Biodiesel (it’s carbon neutral too) isn’t getting more attention. VW developed their recent diesel engines with biodiesel in mind, and seem think it could be an increasingly important fuel.
Speculation: the oil industry is not too keen on biodiesel because it’s fairly low-tech, there could be many producers, and it might be difficult for a small number of major players to dominate the market. Hydrogen, on the other hand, is very high tech.
But if the major players could come up with ways of producing quantities of biodiesel (by treating sewage with specially engineered strains of algae, say) for less than the cost of agricultural production, they’d still dominate the market. I don’t know what research if any is being done on this.
More speculation: surprisingly, given what they tend to say, many environmentalists don’t seem keen on biodiesel either.
Suppose biodiesel became significant or even dominant. What would change? Nothing much at all. We would no longer be releasing relatively miniscule amounts of fossilized CO2 into the atmosphere (rendering the environmentalists’ main but disputable point entirely obsolete), nor would we be dependent on politically difficult regions for our fuel (sound policy).
On the roads, however, nothing much would change. People would still be hooning around under their own control in efficient and torquey cars. Apparently this is what most people want: free-market transportation.
The lack of green enthusiasm for Biodiesel maybe suggests that global warming and CO2 are strategic positions rather than real concerns, and that what the dark greens really oppose is personal and economic freedom and the almost absurd degrees of prosperity and comfort these two can generate.
To split 1 kg of hydrogen from water with 100% theoretical efficiency takes approx. 33.4 kWh of electricity.
Current hydrolysis is about, say, 65% efficient.
So that’s about 52 kWh per Kg of hydrogen.
Now 1Kg of H2 is equal in energy output to about 3.4 litres of petrol.
Now electricity at 6p per kWh would mean that 1 Kg of H2 would cost a whopping £3.12 and that doesn’t include the cost of compressing the gas into storage.
Now the cost of 3.4 litres of (very heavily taxed) petrol is only about £2.86
Electrolysis (reverse fuel cells) might be more efficient but they are also much more costly to produce than a basic hydrolyser.
You can also understand why it’s a non starter in countries like the States where petrol is cheap.
You might make your savings with a very fuel efficient fuel cell vehicle but again the cost is (at the moment) prohibitive.
And as numerous folk have pointed out the power from H2 always comes from electricity or renewables therefore H2 is ONLY A STORAGE MEDIUM.
Andy
Wouldn't it be nice to encourage the country's farmers back into actually farming? We could do this with bio petrol and diesel. It's a quick and easy fix that solves a lot of issues and would start to help immediately. There's going to be no gold plated solution that solves all the problems at once.
Witchfinder said:
The Article said:
"Hydrogen can completely take transportation out of the environmental equation"...
Where do these people think that hydrogen comes from?
*lol* from energy ... which is produced in coal or oil-burning power plants
Nah, it is a a hugh step if cars would ran on hydrogen. It is quite simply much easier to replace a few plants (with wind, water ... plants) then a hugh number of cars on the road.
btw. Nice to see an MG on the picture
>> Edited by Newromancer on Monday 29th November 15:41
Speed Matters | Motoring News | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff