FULL CIRCLE
God, imagine the trouble we could’ve saved if battery technology was less primitive at the time.
imagine where battery tech would be if we never started burning bones for power.
Not much different than it is now. Batteries are used by a large number of industries in a wide variety of products and mind bogglingly vast sums of money have been spent on improving them for the last century.
Removed by mod
Ever heard of the first car reaching 100km/h? Yep, an electric one, in 1899, “la jamais contente”
From a 110 year old book I picked up recently:
I’m fairly convinced that the reason internal combustion won - even though it would regularly break your wrist when you started it - was that it made loud noises.
Back then cars were a luxury, and if you’re buying something flashy you want people to notice you. A gasoline engine sputtering down the road would draw far more attention than an electric motor, so people bought those.
From an engineering standpoint, liquid fuels have a far greater energy-to-weight ratio than batteries. Some of the largest advancements in combustion engines for the purpose of conveyance were made during the world wars. Noise was something they actively fought against. Loud tanks are scary, but unexpected tanks are much scarier. If they really needed it to be loud, sirens exist (see: Jericho siren). The energy-to-weight problem is only now finally being solved via modern batteries using exotic materials and processes well outside of early 1900’s technology.
That’s the textbook answer but I think mine is more fun.
Oh certainly! I only felt the need to add the textbook answer because of the… Conspiratorial side of Lemmy that will happily believe misleading information as long as it confirms pre-existing biases.
I would love to know the power capacity & range for these cars
