On one hand, battery busses require lithium and rare earth metals which needs to be mined from a relatively short supply, as well as lots of fancy chemical processing which I’d wager produces plenty of byproducts, and batteries have a limited lifespan before needing to be replaced. On the other hand, trolley busses (the kind that gets power from overhead wires) require extensive infrastructure in the form of wires and poles, which require tons of metal (though much more abundant steel and aluminium) to produce and energy to install and maintain, and the wires also wear out from friction and also need to be replaced from time to time. Anyone know any papers comparing the sustainability of these two technologies? I’m also interested in how the wire-to-wheel energy efficiencies compare between them.
I was talking about a battery + overhead lines hybrid though.
I don’t think normal petrol engine hybrids with a full conventional drive-train make ecological sense. They are too heavy and costly to produce & maintain. One of the big advantages of electric cars is that other than the complex battery technology they are really simple to build.
However a full electric + fuel-cell type of car as Toyota is currently experimenting with, might make sense at some point if they can build the fuel-cells cheaply with common metals.
Yes fuel cells could be great in the future.
I’ve never heard of a “battery + overhead lines hybrid”. How does it make sense? If you have a battery then you wouldn’t charge it with overhead lines, you’d use a charging station. If you really don’t have enough charge for one journey, your second choice would probably be a removable locomotive or a removable battery.
Petrol/diesel hybrids don’t need a conventional drivetrain. That’s the beauty of it. I can go into details if you like but there are several flavours of hybrid. You can have a lighter, more powerful, more reliable, more efficient, more ecological vehicle. And this is all really old and common technology. I just don’t see why pure electric is suddenly in fashion this decade. Batteries are getting better but so is everything. It doesn’t suddenly have a new capability it didn’t have 50 years ago.
Its for trucks. They run via the overhead line while on the highway, and when they leave the highway they use the battery.
So you have all the expense/weight of needing a huge battery on the lorry. And you have all the expense/maintenance putting infrastructure along the highway.
It sounds like the worst of both worlds. I can’t think of any major advantage to this approach, that would make it worthwhile.
Not easier to just put charging stations on the highway?
You can’t really put a large enough battery into a truck and by putting the overthead lines you can charge while driving.
It being experimented with in serveral places, so I am pretty sure that it makes sense economically speaking at least.
I don’t have data. But I am sure it makes more sense to stop for lunch and plug your lorry into a proper 3 phase charger every few hours. The charging rate you’ll get from an overhead line, and the resistive ineffiencies, and the friction wear. It won’t make sense.
Hybrid is the right way, for all but the smallest vehicles.
Agree with this. Might as well just have freight rail + battery trucks at the end points.