This is another long post - please be patient - there's music at the end!!
It's also one of those strange posts. I've actually had quite a difficult time putting it together, figuring out exactly what line to take.
On one hand, there's a troublesome report about the NLV Quant and the owner/founder/muse behind NLV - and on the other hand, there's the unknown possibility of the car actually being viable.
And quite aside from all that, there's the downright curious and fascinatingly grooooooooovy.
What it all adds up to is yet another call for someone from the Koenigsegg Group to stand up and talk about their resources and plans.
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The troublesome report
The troublesome report comes from a Swiss journal called WOZ, which I'm told is a reliable publication with a slightly left-wing tilt to it. This story certainly seems to be well researched and written and poses some serious questions, especially if the development of the Quant is a pillar of Koenigsegg's bid and application for EIB loans (though personally, I think it's Koenigsegg's relationship with Cargine that's more relevant in this context).
The report in written in German, so you can do a Googletrans yourself, read the original or just peruse my summary points, below.
One thing I should fill you in on, right from the beginning, is that the NLV in the company name NLV Solar AG, stands for Dr. Nunzio La Vecchia (the "Dr" title is written in the article, though I don't see it on the NLV Solar website or his personal site. It is used on a site from another of his businesses: Juno Technology Products).
The report claims.....
- The Quant plan was a considerable part of Koenigsegg getting the nod to purchase Saab. Part of K-Segg's appeal was their capacity to innovate and bring new environmental technologies, which the author takes as referring to the Quant.
- That La Vecchia claims a PhD, though he refuses to disclose where he obtained it.
- He's 44, of Italian immigrant descent and quite loaded with money (more below).
One of the most curious bits, if I'm translating this correctly, is that whilst all his technology stuff appears quite brilliant, and whilst he's got the house(s) and car(s) that display astute business acumen - no-one in scientific circles there seems to recognise him or give his theories credence. Again, this is my interpretation of an internet translation, so I might be wrong there.
The dot points continue....
.....the article claims:
- Koenigsegg and NLV Solar's collaboration on the Quant was fairly shortly before the Geneva show where it was displayed. (The fact that they got this car designed and built so quick is mentioned on Bard Eker's design website as proof of the capability of the Eker design group - SW). All technical information in the press material refers to NLV for further information, but when asked, they were told that all information is held in confidence for commercial reasons.
- They quote several experts in physics who have had a look at the brief information. One referred to it as 'hot air' and was astounded that he claims his technology is almost 10% more efficient than the best technology known commercially in current terms.
- Another said "This is a quantum car for the Auto Salon, or the headline, but not for an ecologically meaningful mobility."
- Another said "The solar envelope is used to reach admittedly may contribute little, because the achievable performance in full sun is a tiny fraction of the maximum or the average required power"
- Dr Vecchia's reply to these opinions: "The Quant is primarily an electric car with an accumulator." Pressed for more he said "This is subject to commercial secrecy."
Now that's strange enough in itself, but then there's the questions they raise in relations to activities concerned with bringing the Quant to life:
- His brochure claims that the company has rented over 8,000 sq meters of space from Siemens for the building of several prototype vehicles.
- The real estate broker for the property counters: "In the premises are currently no activities."
Their conclusion is as follows:
- The experts (and the writer) all seem to agree that this project, if it is to be considered a chance, will require massive investment.
- The writer concludes that's why Koenigsegg are in this race, because they could take advantage of NLV's green credentials and La Vecchia could access to more funds.
It's a case, once again, of there being this wonderful veneer of sophistication and technology but with an unknown level of depth if you scratch the surface.
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The Unknown
And it's the unknown that's causing a whole bunch of questions to be raised. When I first read about the Quant, I thought the concept sounded great but it seemed like all other concept cars - fantastic idea but unrealistic for mass production and sale.
Then reports started to surface that they wanted Saab's manufacturing capacity because they want to actually mass produce these. You then have to ask the question as to whether that's viable or a fool's errand and it's upon asking that question you're met with roadblock answers.
There are two key technologies involved in the Quant.
The one that takes the limelight is the photovoltaic solar cell coating that's all over the exterior surfaces. This is based on iron pyrite - which is ominously nicknamed "Fool's Gold" for its appearance, but genuinely of interest in solar technology. This is a source of contention because of the efficiency claims made about NLV's method, which is claimed to be 50% efficient. The best anyone can do at the moment is around 42%, so this is a quantum leap.
The other is perhaps more significant as it will provide the real driving power to the car (the solar coating is glamorous and a great way to sell the idea, but in reality won't provide much driving power). This is a battery system that reportedly will have a 500km range, will propel the car to very high speeds (270 km/h) and all that whilst carrying up to four people - with just a 20 minute recharge cycle.
One could be forgiven for asking why, if this was actually do-able in any sort of mass-market way, would GM have spent billions of dollars and several years developing the 40-mile range Volt?
Of course, this would imply that the Quant would be as affordable as the Volt, which it wouldn't be.
Wired magazine state that it won't come any time soon, either, saying NLV would need to start doing pregnancy scans on women now to establish contact with future customers.
BUT.....
Despite all this, there's the outside chance that he's on to something that can be made into a production vehicle in the relative near term.
The big question is whether or not this tech is genuine, or vapourware. Tesla faced similar questions (and still do, occasionally) and their way to overcome the suspiscion was to produce actual driving prototypes.
Over to you, Messrs La Vecchia and Von Koenigsegg.
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The fascinatingly groooooovy
You may think from all of the above that I'm wary of Mr La Vecchia and cynical about what he does. That's not the case. I'd just like to know more and I'd love for someone from The Koenigsegg Group to come out and address these concerns and others that have been raised.
People want to have confidence in this new operation.
Mr La Vecchia's sizeable wallet is mentioned prominently in the WOZ article. He certainly seems to have the hobbies of a wealthy man - he flies his own plane (Swiss-Italian Bob Lutz?), has several homes and races a Maserati.
But the hobby that I enjoyed the most is his music. If I make it back to Europe, I might have to bring my bass along for a jam!
Not only does this guy run several companies, hold multiple patents and look a little like a young Elvis, he also records his own music - and I don't mind saying that I liked it quite a lot.
In fact, in what must be a first for an automotive company, this guy even has his own Youtube channel with two freaking film clips on it. (Let's see Bob Lutz in a Travolta suit doing this!)
If you like smooth-with-groove then you should have a listen. I could well imagine the song "Emotion" as a backing track at a Saab function, actually.
Nunzio La Vecchia is a fascinating guy. I wish we knew more at the substance level, and not just the glossy stuff on the surface.
Mr La Vecchia also states he has nothing to do with the SAAB deal, and he also says, the SAAB deal will be a big challenge for K-egg.
The tech in the Quant has also to be demo-ed. And you will need a "special" "charging station" to get the battery full loaded in 20 min.
- The people behind are keen on using the titles, but are often not really interested in talking in detail about themselves or their background.
- Details about the "breakthrough technologies" can't be revealed because of commercial rights, patents negotiations, fear of theft, whatever.
- I haven't read the German article, but wouldn't be surprised if the term "in-house study" is somewhere to be seen and the term "peer-review" is nowhere to be seen.
- Claims about the state of the current activities can't be verified, but are of course used to get new investors.
- And of course, to realize the whole thing will take massive investments with actual results a few years down the road.
I haven't read the full specs. of the Quant in depth and I'm no scientist but the thought of any electric vehicle capable of reaching 270km/h seems almost unbelievable. The claim that the battery holds a 20 minute charge to me means, that even if the vehicle could reach it's maximum speed, you get the notion that the system would quickly run into fuel deprivation. The technology talked about is vague but it doesn't seem impossible. The quant could drive 500km at an average speed of 30kmh and could also drive at 270km/h for 2 seconds before the system shutdown.
It's not as if Nunzio La Vecchia is claiming he has perfected nuclear fission, which when you think about it, would most certainly be capable of meeting our future transport needs. Maybe that's what we need? Not fisson but fussion or a plutonium filled delorean. Think about it, a tiny nuclear reactor with a small capsule of Uranium that can power a vehicle for approximately 2 years. If you drive the car fast it will depleted in 1 year but the service indicator will light up and you bring you car in for service. At the same time the Uranium capsule is replaced. Naturally there is the little potential 'melt-down' risk but what would we rather have a huge melt-down of a power-station that can spread over thousands of miles. or a baby meltdown with a fallout of a few hundred meters.
OK OK, I don't think we're going to be driving any nuclear powered vehicles anytime soon and the same goes for the Quant. Scientists have dedicated their life's work in advancing fuel cells. This man has managed to discover the holy grail in a quick afternoon's down time which he slotted between skidding around on a track and prancing about in a flashy white suit.
Sometimes you have to go by your gut feeling and if Koenigsegg has anything to do with this gimp then I fear for SAAB.
Boy, I sure hope Saab is permitted to be Saab. Chasing rainbows is not what the company needs to do with limited resources.
Agree with Swade that Cargine is more important to the credibility of K-egg bid for Swedish Gov approval of EIB loans AND a real breakthrough for New Saab.
But, thought it was CvK who mentioned plan to produce Quant at Trollhattan by 2013, and Eker's been focussed on Norway/Swedish electric car future for some time.
As to why GM pursued Volt concept? GM culture has to invent it themselves. The Volt is a real gamble for GM.
Maybe we should be analyzing the new BMW engines versus what Cargine is doing? The internal combustion engine will dominate for at least next ten years. Anything Saab can do in 2010 and 2011 will be critical.
http://www.autospies.com/news/Engine-of-the-Year-Award-2009-BMW-scores-three-awards-with-Four-Six-and-Eight-Cylinders-45150/
"...the result of the BMW EfficientDynamics development strategy characterising both the eight cylinder from BMW M GmbH, the straight-six from BMW, and the MINI four-cylinder. ..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/world/americas/25peru.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=renco&st=cse
because of the recent kerfluffle over Doe Run shutdown.
yes, Saab did dodge a bullet, though I still wonder how Renco made it to the final 3.
In spite of the mystery temporarily surrounding K-egg, beats reading about Iran or US deficits. :)
on the road again -
I am growing less confident each day given the investigations into K-Segg and (now) NLV and the credibility of each. I want Saab to succeed but is is harder by the day not to connect the dots. Small experience, low horsepower, doubtful partnerships and technology? The scrutiny isn't even hard yet.
Is this what Saab needs?
Is this going over your heads?
If you fill you car with hydrogen then the price should include the cost in producing the hydrogen in the first place.
If you fill/charge your car with electricity then the cost to convert the coal/wind/solar energy into electricity should be part of the price.
But where as an electric charged vehicle may carry you 50km a hydrogen filled car could get you 500km. Hydrogen may cost more to fill but it could be a lot less than charging your car 10 times. It's the Diesel vs. Petrol principle. Both of these fuel sources need to be refined and should be reflected in the price but compared to alternatives like pure electric and hydrogen. Is an oil based fuel less efficient and less harmful to the environment.
It's easy to make a direct association from burning petrol to emitting harmful gasses than it is to try and calculate the burning of extra coal to produce the electricity to power a vehicle. I'm trying to simplify this but basically we don't really have a mass of electric vehicles on our roads. The impact to our electric consumption is negligible at the moment. However; the reality is that as we reduce our dependency on oil we are increasing our dependency on something else. If we all eventually start driving some form of 'plug-in' hybrid we will have a huge dependency on electricity. A dependency that doesn't exist today. Which brings me back to requiring a higher production of electricity to meet the demands of basically more electrical appliances. The dependency hasn't been reduced we're just moving onto something else. Something that actually requires more energy to produce the same amount of power. In a sense it's like a drug addict giving up heroin and becoming an alcoholic.
What's the answer? I'm not the rocket scientist and I'm not claiming to be. I just trying to make people aware that electricity DOESN'T just come out of a plug. It has to be produced and that the conversion of a raw material to final usage is far less inefficient than using a direct source. Electricity is great but it is inefficient. Use it when you can't use other methods. Use it in hybrid form in a car to support the main propulsion system but don't use the propulsion system to charge the battery . Use re-generative braking or the gearing of the car that whilst under acceleration the system is inactive and active when coasting, so you're not using extra fuel in charging. You're also not plugging it into a mains outlet which will again be using fuel/energy. However, As Hydrogen is the most abundant element on earth, if it could be produced cheaper, more efficient and has a greater power output than petrol than that is a worthy alternative fuel source for future transportation. If the same can be said for ethanol produced from another massively abundant source, in the form of algae, then that too is a worthy alternative fuel.
But under no certain terms will electricity ever be as efficient as burning a direct source.
I'll leave you with a final thought.
OK you're going to make a fire in you garden and invite your friends around and have a party. In Germany this could be a Osterfeuer (Easter Fire) or say England with their Guy Fawkes night. But instead of building a fire out of wood (just wood) you decide to be all ecological and buy a great big electric fire. Just imagine what that electric appliance would cost in the first place compared to your wood to buy and then think of the amount of Kilowatts of power you would consume in trying to create the same amount of heat that a normal big bonfire produces.
It doesn't take any large amount of brain power to consider that the electric fire as an idea is like (please excuse the language) Pissing in the wind.
The bottom line is actually quite simple: What we should be doing is reducing our dependency on energy period. whatever form that may be, we should be looking for ways to be more efficient so we use less.
Solar power seems to be moot. Imagine if we could grow plants that we could then turn into fuel. The plants are perfect receptors of the sun's energy, just add water.
Oh wait... We can already do that, and Saab have several models that are E85 capable. :P
Back to the Quant: the press releases claim two distinct technological innovations.
The first is the solar coating. It's a nice concept, however there isn't enough solar energy falling on the average car to move it around. Improving cells by 10% won't make that much difference. The best we can hope for on that end is to have the solar cells supplement the primary source of power.
The second technology is a new type of battery that can be recharged quickly. If you read websites like greencarcongress, you will see many such announcements every month. That doesn't mean any of them are commercially viable.
If their batteries are as-claimed, you would surely need a dedicated charging station. Standard household wiring just can't carry that much power without melting (or tripping breakers, hopefully).
And on Quant. None of know if QUant is a significant factor in K-Segg's desire to buy SAAB or in the selection of them as the winning finalist. We're all starting to second guess the process (human nature). Renco may have been there only because they were one of the few viable finalists in terms of interest AND financing, and the decision makers were only too happy to find an alternative without the baggage. And let's face it, there's no "Mr. Right" out there that's perfect in every way. Hopefully, K-Segg has "enough" financing, and "enough" vision, and "enough" financial and managment skills, to allow Saab to be Saab, and to help shepherd it into profitability and a new future.
So there is a lot of stuff out there. Biofuel is probably not a good answer. For now, electricity is probably it, and the solutions have to do with storage and supply, battery technology, recharging, etc. If you have bright people in your company (re: Apple) looking for inovative solutions, they can and will create the next big thing in automobile technology. Let's hope that some of these people are at Quant-K-Saab.
20 people designing airports, stadiums, high-rises, and even towns all over the world. My bosses wore Prada to the office every day. We hired massive firms with sterling resumes to do production for us and our 30-somethings would direct their gray-haired experts in the work.
We had talented people working double-time most weeks, but we really didn't know what the hell we were doing, even though we built some cool stuff. We had connections and confidence, but that was about it; our clients were just willing to pay extra and put up with a lot of problems to be on the cutting edge. If we'd actually bought one of those reputable firms we hired and tried to run it, it would've gone under within a year (though I suppose we could rely on their existing mgmt?). The owners of our company didn't believe that of course, but 90% of us employees did.
I hope that's not what we're seeing here, and there are many indicators that it's not, but that photo just feels unsettlingly familiar.
btw, I love Thyl's comment about the walking trees. Good point.
SAAB needs to concentrate on the new 9-3 with a very efficient and frugal propulsion system. If that needs to be combined with a some form of battery then it is my view that the recharge needs to come from a source not directly related to the burning of fuel.
There are many misconceptions about ethanol out there. We recently had a long period of very cheap grain and once we had a very small spike in the price of grain, everyone panics and start blaming corn farmers for producing ethanol...
I believe there is still vast areas of land not being utilized. EU still have a heavy overproduction of milk, which is a big concern for many developing countries, because dry milk from EU threatens to put local farmers out of business.
Producing plants that can be turned into ethanol could actually be a good solution for many struggling farmers in the third world. And once they rise, they will employ people, and soon those people can afford to feed themselves. Currently the only alternative for many farmers is growing opium... (see Afghanistan)
The problem isn't that we're not growing enough stuff. The problem is that not everybody are able to support themselves, even if the food had been made available free of charge. (free food, now _that_ would really kill the local farmers)
As I see it, the current economic models are ill-adapted when it comes to making sure the population of this planet gets fed.
Next generation ethanol could perhaps be made from algaes. In the end, E85 (eventually E100?) could become a very viable alternative indeed.
But that aside, the plants that are grown to produce fuel would consume CO2 as part of their life-cycle. If we do nothing, i.e. leave them to rot, then that CO2 would be released as the plant decomposes. Surely using it as fuel would not make much difference.
I'm confused as to why your comment suggests that bio-ethanol isn't tackling global warming?
Rune:
Oil was once part of the cycle but not now. The way I see it, plants have to be living to be part of the cycle.
The difference between a volcano and humans is we choose to burn oil. Natural phenomena is natures way of obtaining equilibrium.
Your point about a current living plant decomposing. Crops take from the earth in order to grow. If that crop is not used many farmers would plough that unused crop back into the field.
The e100 solution is not crops but another form of bio-produce. Our own bio-degradable waste or algae are 2 good examples where the production doesn't impact on food sources.
Well, there actually is a new kid on the block since a few years ago, A123systems nanophosphate (Li-FePO) which is used in the Tesla in the form of huge number of their commercially available (about $10/each) ANR26650 cell. It's capable of recharging to 95% in 15 minutes (and full discharge within specs in 3.5 minutes!) and has a lot of other good properties, and almost none of the old battery systems problems (mostly safety and reliability related). This is not hot air, I have actually used that specific cell in a design that needed lots of power fast, and Black & Decker is also using it in some of their power tools. LG have a similar battery, which is supposed to be used in the Volt.
btw, I actually expect this battery technology to replace Lead Acid starter batteries once the prices comes down a bit.
First off, they are going to use FAES (flow accumulator energy storage) batteries (. They are claimed to have higher Wh\kg than li-ion. The car is not supposed to have 20mins of battery power, it's supposed to charge to full in 20mins! The solar power is ONLY to further lenghten the range and aid in charging when parked.
and 500km of range is not to bad, this is an electric car I would be proud to drive.
As for you comment, I'm sorry to say it, but most of it doesn't make sense. I will try to sort it out:
In the energy sector we have something that is called a primary energy. Primary energies are a 'source of energy' from our point of view and popular primary energies are crude oil, coal, natural gas, hydropower, nuclear fuel and biomass.
Now, if the energy company came to your home with a truckload of coal it wouldn't do you much good, so this primary energy is converted to an energy carrier which is easy to transport and use. Gasoline and diesel are popular energy carriers from crude oil and electricity is a popular energy carrier from coal, natural gas, hydropower and nuclear fuel.
Hydrogen is just like gasoline an energy carrier. Hydrogen can be produced from various primary energies using different methods. It can for instance be produced from electricity using electrolysis of water, but it can also be made from fossil fuels using steam reforming.
Producing hydrogen from electricity using electrolysis is a poor option partly because 2/3 of all electricity in the world is produced from fossil fuels (mainly coal and NG) with an efficiency of about 40-50%. Electrolysis has an efficiency of 80-90% which means that the efficiency from primary energy to hydrogen is only about 30-45%, then consider that the efficiency of a (very expensive) hydrogen vehicle is only about 30% seen tank-to-wheel and you're down to a total efficiency around 13% and then we have'nt include losses in the hydrogen transport chain, and hydrogen storage and transport is costly and difficult
With a plug in vehicle running on electricity we still have the 40-50% efficiency of the power plants, which at the plug becomes 35-45 due to transmission losses. But now we have the big difference, the electric car has an efficiency of about 60% seen from the plug in the wall to its wheels. This leads to an overall efficiency around 20-30%, that's a two to three times better energy usage compared to the hydrogen route.
Regarding electricity, it cannot be stored but must be produced and consumed at the same time. That's why we use electrochemical batteries to store it indirect. Electricity also doesn't have a mass of itself, it is simply a difference in electric charge and a flow of electrons between two objects such as the anode and cathode in a battery and it's the battery that is the big engineering trouble for electric vehicles. The current cost of state of the art lithium ion batteries are about 700 euro per kWh and in order to travel 500 km on one charge a 75 kWh battery would be needed, a battery which would cost around 50,000 euro. In order to provide a longer service life the battery is often kept in a narrow window regarding its state of charge, for instance between 30 and 80%. That means you're only using half the energy storage capacity of the battery, thus, the 500 km range battery for 50k euro would only get you 250 km if you want a battery that lasts at least 10 years.
To go back to hydrogen. The only realistic method to produce hydrogen near term is through fossil fuel reforming, something that has an efficiency of 60-70%. That will put the total efficiency slightly below 20%, which still is worse than for a electric vehicle. We could also produce other cheaper fossil fuels from coal, NG and crude oil which would offer a similar or better efficiency but at only a fraction of the cost of hydrogen. Various hybrid solutions is an example of that.
So, to sum it up, the reason to use electricity when possible is because it offer an efficient energy usage. Now, electric vehicles that could replace the current cars in terms of performance would not be possible due to cost. But if we combine the internal combustion engine with a smaller battery pack we have a solution that can replace the current cars and that can offer a much more efficient energy usage.
By the way, electricity is more expensive than a primary energy (such as wood) because to produce electricity we must first buy a primary energy and then there are losses involved in production of the energy carrier. If we buy say 1 kWh worth of coal, we can produce (at a certain cost) about 0.4 kWh electricity. So the price of 0.4 kWh electricity must exceed the cost of 1 kWh coal. But this is true for all energy carriers. The cost of gasoline must exceed the cost of crude oil and the cost of hydrogen must exceed the cost of the primary energy used to produce it. In the case of hydrogen the cost becomes very high due to the high losses involved in production and usage.
hughw: Better Place is a financial disatser waiting to happen. As I mentioned above a battery for a hybrid or electric vehicle is very expensive at about 700 euro per kWh. The solution offered by Better Place do not only demand cars where 'standard form batteries' can be swapped by very expensive automated battery change robots (due to the high weight of the batteries), the solution also demand an excess of swappable batteries as a large number of batteries always must be charging and stored fully charged at the swapping station in order to offer fresh batteries for all customers. Ironically, what could make this solution financially reasonable is also what would make it uneccesary; that is faster recharges.
With the swappable solution it's also costly to adapt to new battery technology when such becomes availible since all batteries must follow a certain standard and either the batteries must be adapted after the standard, or the standard adapted after the batteries.
Biofuels are also an excellent replacement for gasoline. With biofuels we are not only replacing the energy carrier used by cars, but also the primary energy from fossil to renewable. The only trouble is that biofuels cost more than fossil fuels and currently doesn't have the capacity to replace all the fossil fuel used by the transport sector in the world. Second genertion biofuels does however more energy efficient use of biomass where for instance biomass-to-liquid can convert all types of biomass to energy carriers suitable for cars with a high efficiency. That's unlike current biofuels which only use a small part of the biomass, ethanol production does for example only use energy stored as sugar or starch and RME production only uses the energy stored as oils in the rapeseeds.
Mailr: Tesla uses batteries with lithium cobalt oxide technology. Such batteries offer a higher energy density compared to lithium iron phosphate, but this comes at a higher cost and such batteries are also chemically unstable. They are the reason cellphones and laptops sometimes explodes or burst into fire.
Replacing lead acid starter batteries with lithium ion batteries are unrealistic as long as the price of the batteries are as high as they are. Infact, Toyota doesn't even plan to replace the NiMH batteries used in Prius with lithium ion batteries. The advantages of lithium ion simply can't beat the lower price of NiMH.
Simon: When I read about the Quant I see a lot of 'red flags'. First off, they claim to offer solar cells with an efficiency of 50%. Current solar cells are not anywhere near 50%, and thin film cells peak at 10-20% efficiency. The highest reported efficiency for cells using pyrite, the technology used in Quant, was in 2000 2.8% and the theoretical maximum is in order of 15-20%. Secondly, the technical description of the technology they offer is vague, but they come with claims of 'excellence'. This method if often used by those who sell snake oils and other quacks. But to make claims is the easy part, the difficult one is to deliver. As I see it' the Quant is an unrealistic concept, it's specifications are unrealistic and even with realistic specifications the car would get so expensive that very few actually can afford it.
I tottaly agree with your concerns regarding the tech behind the Quant, but I still belive the project is an amazing idea. Whether they can pull it off is another thing.
One note on the hydrogen problem you speak off. Isn't youre numbers a bit pessimistic even for todays tech? PEM-cells with effeciency of 50% and upwards are made today. And a loss of almost 50% to driveline and such is just sky-high. With a 50% effecient cell you should see about 40% put to the wheel if you calculate 20% loss to driveline\drag etc. And I think that's a much more realistic figure. But this still doesn't negate all the problems you listed.
We here in Norway are so fortunate that 99.9% of all our electricity comes from hydropower, and with relativly minor expenses could increase the efficiancy of our current plants by 20%. And the posibilitys of other sources (current is dams) like wave/tidal/wind. We are one of the few countries who actually could reach almost zero emissions if we converted to hydrogen.
I'm more worried about the next 9-3 design than the quant anyway... :P
Regards
Simon
For a fuel cell vehicle, an efficiency of 30% is typical, as seen from the fuel tanks to the driven wheels. This is some 10 points greater than for a conventional vehicle but the energy efficiency from primary energy to the wheels of the car is for a fuel cell vehicle comparable to that of a conventional gasoline or diesel car.
That said, I still think a volume market EV car must use iron phosphate or something equivalent, and not old style cobalt stuff as you will run into both the metal fire problem (lithium cobalt cells fires are impossible to extinguish) or fast wear out/limit cycle depth, or NiMH due to the low energy density (further limited in the Prius, as it normally use only 20% cycle depth to improve lifetime, using 100% would make the batteries wear out quickly).