Our thesis comes to an end, this means that there won’t be more posts.
However you can still read our final blog statement posted below.
Author: arnoutbetrains
Platooning
In February of this year truck manufacturer Scania performed some tests with autonomous trucks in the Netherlands. They received permission from the Dutch government, to let a convey of trucks drive on the highway autonomously, connected through Wi-Fi.
This technology, called platooning, allows truck drivers to come on to the highway, after which the truck connects itself wireless to the other trucks. When the trucks have to stop, they all stop, with the same force and at the same moment. This means that trucks can drive closer to each other, meaning fuel savings, less traffic jams and less accidents.
However just as with the autonomous car, a driver still has to be present, just in case.
Do you think Wi-Fi connected truck conveys are a good thing? I certainly think so, since trucks mostly drive on the highways, which can be tiresome for the driver. However I do wonder what will happen when it goes wrong, will the driver be fast enough to react?
Hydrogen may be the fuel of the future
Hydrogen, is it the fuel of the future. It undoubtely has great benefits, such as being readily available all around us, although not in its usable form, but bounded to other molecules. This is because hydrogen in its pure form is not very stable. This can be an advantage as well as a disadvantage, if you think about the Hindenburg, which a lot of people do when hydrogen is mentioned. However when there is only a small leak the hydrogen will immediatelty react with the oxygen in the air, forming water.
Another advantage of hydrogen as fuel is that it causes no emissions at the exhaust, however depending on how hydrogen is produced it can be polluting (but also almost no pollutant when wind energy is used for example)
the disadvantages are also known, it is highly flammable, but this is also an advantage in an internal combustion engine.
Because of the way hydrogen is produced, through hydrolysis, it is expensive and will probably stay that way.
It would be wrong to look at hydrogen as fuel, we should look at it as a way to store energy in a more environmentally friendly way than batteries.
Keeping all this in mind some constructers have stated that hydrogen fuel cell cars may be released as soon as 2017.
But a lot remains to be done, infrastructure will have to be build, opinions need to be changed. Still a lot of people think of the Hindenburg, as mentioned before, even though today it would be safer, just think of how many cars fuelled by LNG you heard exploded in the last few years.
Autonomous cars in Belgium
This weekend Elon Musk announced that the latest series of Tesla model S can easily be transformed into self driving vehicles through the means of a software update. He says that within three months we can have the first autonomous vehicles driving on the road.
And there’s more news; the Belgian department of Mobility has announced they will give the green light for autonomous vehicles on Belgian roads.
But before you go out spotting cars without drivers there’s a few things you need to know. First Tesla says it will only allow autonomous driving on the highway, because city traffic is still too complex for the computational force available.
Second according to the law, somebody still has to be present, able to take over the wheel and he or she has to have a valid driver’s license. So you won’t be able to call your car and get you home after a night out of drinking, because you won’t be able to take over the wheel in an emergency.
Than there’s the question of insurance. Who has to pay when an accident happens. The insurance companies will use the same policy as they do with self parking cars, meaning they will have the driver pay and not the manufacturer.
What do you think of all these recent announcements? Do you think the autonomous car is a good thing or is it too soon to release it?
Hydrogen fuel cell busses
VanHool the famous bus producer from Koningshooikt in Belgium has announced to produce 22 more busses for the european market powered by a hydrogen fuel cell, in order to comply with the zero-emmision cities goal from the European Union.
VanHool has proofed that hydrogen can work as a relaible and safe alternative for other fuels such as diesel, but even CNG an LNG.
However some remarks have to be made, where will the hydrogen come from? Presumably the will take the hydrogen from a Solvay site, where it is produced as a byproduct, but this is not confirmed. If hydrogen is to be produced from for example methane, we are as far to a clean future as we are now.
Hydrogen can be a clean fuel and can even be the fuel of the future, since when produced by windmills there is almost no polution, except for the impact of the production of the windmill.
http://www.egear.be/van-hool-waterstofbussen/
http://www.madeinmechelen.be/nieuws/van-hool-levert-bussen-op-waterstof-aan-de-lijn/
The driverless car II
What will happen when the autonomous car is completely integrated into society? Of course things will have to be changed. What will happen to the old cars?
In a recent interview Elon Musk stated that he thinks it will be necessary to forbid people from driving a regular car, when the driverless car has become the norm and that this might happen as soon as twenty years from now. But what about the people who can’t afford a driverless car, can you really force them to buy one? Maybe some companies will show up, who will convert your old car into an autonomous one?
But what about the car enthusiast then? They like owning and more importantly driving a car, will this be limited to places such as tracks? Or will they still be able to drive on public roads, but under strict regulation.
We now face the same questions as they did more than a hundred years ago, when the car started to become more popular than the horse. Yet today you can still see people riding horses on the streets, but only for pleasure. I think the same will happen to the car as we know it today. What do you think?
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/18/elon-musk-self-driving-cars-ban-human-drivers
Hydrogen in a diesel engine
Hydrogen, for quite some time car manufacturers have been trying to succesfully implement hydrogen is a fuel. Honda for instance has done a lot of innovation for the fuel cell powered car. However hydrogen can also be used as fuel in combustion engines. Especially BMW thinks this is the way of the future. In the past they have built a 7-series, their most luxurious car, powered by a relatively large gasoline engine converted to run on hydrogen gas. It worked relatively well and was succesfully used as a case study. The only problem it had, was that it lacked power. This was due to the fact that hydrogen doesn’t produce as much energy as gasoline or diesel fuel. A solution was to cryogenically inject the hydrogen, meaning at very low temperature, in liquid fase, since it is stored that way in the tank as well.
However BMW decided to take another route, since cooling the hydrogen would be complicated and energy expensive. They decided to compress the hydrogen as much as possible and inject it into a diesel engine. Not such a bad idea, since a diesel-process is more energy efficient than a otto-process. The only downside is that the engine now requires a high compression ratio of 36/1, mechanically very difficult.
They claim the achieved a efficiency of 42.3% and a power output of 100kW/l. All very godd signals, but improvement is still needed, as BMW admits.
What do you think of these recent developments? Do you think hydrogen stands a change as the fuel of tomorrow? I certainly hope so, since I am a huge fan of the internal combustion engine. Furthermore with hydrogen we have a relatively clean energy source (keeping in mind how it is produced of course) and do not need as much exotic materials, contrary to battery powered cars.
http://www.amt.nl/Techniek/Aandrijving/2009/4/BMW-dieselt-op-waterstof-AMT025068W/
The driverless car
These days there’s a lot of fuzz about the driverless car. Google has been working on it for some years now and recently anounced that it should be available to us as soon as 2020. Other companies, such as Tesla, Mercedes and BMW are also developping a driverless car. Even apple announced that they are working on a driverless car.
Ofcourse these cars have to be tested, that’s why the Californian government mad e special driver’s licenses available for driverless cars. You could say a driverless car wouldn’t need a driver, so therefore no driver’s license is necessary, but the reality is that this technology has not yet been proven completely foolproof and without bugs, that’s why there has to be a driver present at all time, who is watching the road and can act when something goes wrong. This means that watching television or reading the newspaper isn’t an option if you’re a driver just yet.
A driverless car can be a good idea, especially for some driver’s, of whom everybody wonders how exactly they obtained their license. However I’m afraid that a driverless car will create even more inattentive drivers and drivers who aren’t able to react correctly in an emenrgy situation. Furthermore knowing that electronics aren’t always as predictable as we’d hope, I don’t know if I would place my life in the hands of, what is in essence, a driving computer.
And what if the computer has to decide between frontally hitting a car or running over a cyclist in order to save the passengers.
What will happen to the people driving regular cars as soon as the driverless car becomes established. Do they have to switch to a driverless car as well? What about the oldtimer enthousiasts then?
It is clear that although the technology may arrive tomorrow, there’s still a lot of legislation and other work to be done.
Who killed the electric car?
In 1996 General Motors introduced an electric vehicle called the EV-1 to comply with Californian laws. Since it was an experimental vehicle it could not be owned, so it was rented to several users. Honda and Toyota also introduced a similar vehicle, with a similar renting scheme.
However in the early 2000’s GM recalled all the EV-1’s and scrapped them. The same happened to the Honda and Toyota’s. Even though all users were happy with this vehicle and could definetly see them using an electric vehicle in the future. Who exactly killed the electric vehicle is the question that the documentary “Who killed the electric car?” tries to answer. They try to highlight every aspect and find every possible ‘suspect’ for the murder.
It might have been the oil companies, since they would lose profits when such vehicles would be introduced. It might have been the general management at GM, since they still had to sell petrol guzzling cars, like for instance the Hummer. It might also be the consumers fault, because although the users were very happy, others weren’t attracted to electric cars, especially because of the limited range and the slightly odd look.
Who exactly killed the electric car, might never been known. However these days electric cars have become accepted, much due to very desirable models from Tesla, as well as sensible models like the Prius, etc.
It is a shame that we have lost so much time, we could have had batteries with much higher capacities, giving the cars longer range. We could have optimized the electric car much further, then where we are today.
What do you think will be the mode of transportation of the future? An electric car, an electric bike, a hydrogen powered vehicle, public transport, or something enterily different.
I personally think hydrogen stands a change (even if the documentary does not think so), as does an electric bike for commuting. Even ethanol might be a solution for the oldtimer enthousiasts. We will have to wait and see.
Electric cars produce as much particulate matter as conventional cars
A recent study by Transport & Mobility Leuven, a spin-off from KU Leuven, shows that electric cars produce as much particulate matter as cars equipped with a conventional combustion engine. The study makes a comparison between cars with a modern Euro 5 diesel or gasoline engine and cars with an electric motor. The study estimates that the majority of the emissions don’t come from the engine or exhaust, but from the wheels, brakes and the road. They estimate that each of these represents just a little less than one third of the total emissions.
Since electric vehicles unarguably weigh more, there will be more friction between tires and road, so there will be more wear and therefore emissions. Furthermore brakes also wear out more quickly when a vehicle weighs more, because more energy needs to be dissipated through friction between brakes and brake pads.
However before you cancel your down payment on your Tesla, there are a few side notes to be made. It is a bold statement to say that electric vehicles are not as environmental as conventional ones just because they supposedly produce more particulate matter. The paper only looks at the figures and makes assumptions, but doesn’t take the effort to actually measure the particulate matter emission. The paper also doesn’t discuss other types of emission such as CO2 or NOx. Furthermore to conclude if one type of vehicle is more environmentally friendly than the other, production, life time span, recyclability, maintenance, etc. have to be taken into account as well.
The study does get one thing right though, an electric bike is one of the most environmentally friendly vehicles, apart from a regular bike of course, but that doesn’t get you around so quickly.
What do you think of the study? Is this just an attempt to discredit the electric car or do they have some kind of point?
http://www.tmleuven.be/project/fijnstof/belang_niet-uitlaat_fijn_stof_emissies.pdf
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