Originally Posted by Mkiss
logic slowly turning....

The heating in old ice cars comes for free as it is waste energy from the cooling system.
Seat heating used extra energy from the 12V system as AC does.
Later - with more efficient (diesel) engines - electric heaters came into play as there was not enough waste energy left for heating. So it became a mixture of waste heat and extra energy with AC and seat heating on top.
E-cars have no waste energy left in winter. So any heating is done on extra cost. Just as Peter describes we are all trying to find the most energy effective solution.
It depends very much on the parameters of use (distance, temp, plug in time,...).
Letˋs see what turns out to be best...


Probably H2

Heat is a useful by product of Hydrogen fuel cells.

I have just been reading up on the advances in Hydrogen fuel cell technology and the generation of "Green Hydrogen" using standby renewable electricity: solar, wind, hydro, geo, etc. Huge advances are being made and an Italian based multinational company, Enapter, is ramping up in Germany to produce 10 thousand hydrogen generators a month. At the moment hydrogen generators and fuel cell technology is predominantly used as standby power or in remote areas but an entire tourist village in Thailand is using solar and hydrogen power.

Enapter, by the way, received the Earthshot prize from the Royal Foundation set up by Prince William.

It has been predicted that by 2050 Green Hydrogen will not only be an important energy source but the costs will be significantly reduced.

For me BEV is an intermediate step but will start to be replaced by Hydrogen fuel cell technology in the foreseeable future. Mind you by 2050, at 105 years old, I probably won't care much.

Peter

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