Talk:2948: Electric vs Gas

Now I'm not a fan of gas engines, but that argument is in bad faith. Gas engines have one very big advantage over electrics: Energy density, and by extension, range. Batteries can't come close to the energy density of hydrocarbons, despite the latters' overall lower efficiency. --Coconut Galaxy (talk) 17:22, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

I think that's one of the main arguments for hybrid systems. Using a gas engine to charge an electric motor, and then using the electric motor to actually power the appliance, enables significant efficiency gains. If anything, combining the technologies enables even greater usable energy density from hydrocarbons. Hybrid electric vehicles for example are extremely efficient. Eunakria (talk) 17:43, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Energy density, and the ability to move large amounts of stored energy from one place to another quickly and easily (aka pump gas, vs charge or swap a battery), from a thermal and maintenance perspective. (Which is not entirely unrelated to energy density.) 172.70.39.54 18:08, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Swapping batteries (and slowly charging the batteries in the swap station) could offer comparable "charge" times to gasoline refuelling times, while also being better for battery lifespan, but would require industry coordination and standardisation re: battery packs and install location that, sadly, simply does not exist. 172.70.42.212 19:54, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Plug-in hybrids have been superior since 1904, but the incremental capital cost is still an issue while oil is under $100/bbl. 172.71.150.129 19:16, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Except of course that this isn't quite as simple as this. A Honda Civic (one the most popular US petrol cars) will go about 400 miles on a full tank, about the same as a Dodge Ram. Also about the same as a Tesla Model S. There's a pretty good reason this isn't a coincidence - people don't want more much more range, and a bigger tank is more weight. A Chevy Silverado full tank will go about 500miles. If you really want range, you need to look at a hybrid car. As the comic points out, the torque on a standard otto cycle engine is poor, but that cycle is deliberately designed to give more torque. Hybrids use an Atkinson cycle which is far more energy efficient, but could not provide enough torque - so you use the electric to do that. A Prius has a range in excess of 630 miles, more than any popular petrol car. So if you want range, you still want an electric engine, just store the energy in hydrocarbons. For similar reasons, diesel trains use the diesel to run generators which then power the electric motors on the wheels, and have done for decades. 172.70.162.186 (talk) 20:47, 19 June 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

On the other other hand, in a lot of cases an electric motor is just a gas engine with extra steps due to the current state of the power grid. 172.68.174.232 17:24, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Not here in Washington State it isn't. Most of our electricity comes from hydroelectric dams. RadiantRainwing (talk) 23:10, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

I'd say an electric motor powered by a hydrocarbon grid still usually makes better use of gas than a typical gas engine. Gas engines that don't always run at full throttle (as in, a gas engine in an appliance) have dramatically worse efficiency than electric motors that don't always run at full throttle. It depends very heavily on use case, though; always take measurements and run the numbers before coming to a specific conclusion. Science would be nothing without empirical data. Eunakria (talk) 17:50, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Should this have Category:Climate change? I can’t decide. Usb-rave (talk) 17:40, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, it's better with it for people looking though the category later on, they will want to see it. 162.158.186.10 19:13, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, with this argument the thing has engines have going for them over EVs is the refueling time and availability. 172.69.59.175 18:58, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

It's really remarkable how uninformed and unintelligent this comic is, to the point where I now doubt the veracity of his entire What If? series. 172.70.114.62 (talk) 19:13, 19 June 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

To be fair, there’s sort of an agenda here, while I don’t believe there’s one in What If? I can’t independently verify the accuracy of What If?, of course, but there is that. Usb-rave (talk) 19:18, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

I'd like to know more about the "uninformed and unintelligent" assessment. Given that not all of Randall's characters copy his exact thinking. I don't think he'd espouse much of what he has Black Hat say/do. And clearly many of his Cueballs, even being often accepted as Author Avatars, can be clearly being dumber than Randall (who is 'writing them as dumb') is. What we have is parody. And maybe you just don't see the parody in the way intended (or understood by others). Perhaps you have a completely different mindset, or are just inclined to be anti-Randall> (Even in things he's actually right about...) I don't know where the mismatch may be here, but if you're seriously thinking that there remains not one useful take-away from anything Randall has ever said, just from the possibility that his cartoon characters don't completely mesh with what you perceive as a correct worldview, then this needs looking at from a different perspective than just reassessing the whole What If? corpus. 162.158.74.24 23:15, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Ohhh... OK. I had poor signal so this one took a while to load, and I only saw the "Gas vs. Electric" title. I thought it was going to be about kitchen stoves - ones that burn actual "gas", vs. electrical heating elements. Yorkshire Pudding (talk) 19:45, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

I actually experienced the "cons" of a less limited degree of power and not being noisy at all, today. Someone in an electric vehicle (could have been a Tesla) pulled out of a sideroad, accelerating at what seemed like a reckless rate (it was advantageous to do so, but a petrol-powered vehicle that might have taken a bit longer to switch up the gears would still have been up to speed soon enough to not get into contention with any other vehicles). And with barely more than a whine, and perhaps a bit of road-noise that might have included at one point a bit of grit-splattering. I was watching this, and knew they were pulling out of the junction (and knew for certain, moreover, that there was no traffic coming up or down the road, nor anybody crossing the road anywhere in my rather long sight). Had there been someone actually about to cross the road (within the next 50 yards or so), however, it would have been entirely possible that they would have been caught be surprise by this near-silent and suddenly fast-moving vehicle. If it was a Tesla, then maybe its inbuilt forward 'radar'/whatever would have helped bring the vehicle to a stop, or at least slow it down/stop if from speeding up enough, before any actual accident might have happened... but this is theoretical, as it just happened not to happen anything like this on this occasion... But it could have. And the paradigm for crossing the road that I learnt several decades ago of "Stop, Look, Listen, Think" has probably now started to lose out on the "Listen" bit, and possibly degraded even the "Look" and "Think" until we start to retrain ourselves to anticipate vehicles whipping around random corners that are far more silent-and-deadly then what we've all become used to. Ok, so this is not necessarily the total fault of the electric vehicles (or even the drivers, but they must have some hand in the matter), but in changing the dynamics and situational awarenesses of road traffic so much it might be considered a relatable problem. 162.158.74.24 23:51, 19 June 2024 (UTC)