Tag Archives: cars

BYD is not first world competition for Tesla

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In Q4 2023, BYD became the world’s largest electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer, passing Tesla in world wide sales. They mostly sell in China, and claim to make a profit while selling cars for about half the price of a Tesla. They also make robots, trucks, busses, smart phones, and batteries — including blade batteries that Tesla uses for a variant in its Berlin facility. They are a darling of the wall-street experts, in part because Warren Buffett is an investor. BYD cars look to be about as nice as Tesla’s at least from the outside and sell (In China) for a fraction of the price. The experts are convinced enough to write glowing articles, but I suspect that the experts have not invested, nor bought BYD products. — What do I know?

BYD truck. It looks good on the outside. Is it competition?

Part of the BYD charm is that it is considered socially progressive, while Tesla is seen as run by a dictatorial villain. A Delaware judge who concluded that Musk did non deserve the majority of his salary, and confiscated it. There are no such claims against BYD. BYD also has far more models than Tesla, 41 by my count, compared to Tesla’s 4. The experts seem to believe that all BYD has to do is bring their low-cost cars west, and they will own the market. My sense is that, if that was all they needed, they’d have done it already. I strongly suspect the low cost cars that are the majority of BYD’s sales are low quality versions — too low to sell in the US. Here are some numbers.

Total number of vehicles made 2023:
Tesla: ~1,800,000
BYD: ~3,020,000 (1,570,000 BEV)

Employees 2023: Vehicles / Employee 2023:
Tesla: ~140,000 Tesla: 12.86
BYD: ~631,500 BYD: 5.03

Gross Revenue 2023: Gross revenue per vehicle:
Tesla: ~$96.8B Tesla: $53,900
BYD: ~ $85B BYD: $28,100

Net Profit 2023: Profit per employee: Profit per vehicle:
Tesla: ~$9.5B (9.7%). Tesla: $67,857. Tesla: $5,280.
BYD: ~$3.5B (4.1%). BYD: $5,542. BYD: $1,160

Market share based on sales in western countries 2023:
Tesla: US: 4%, EU: 2.6%
BYD: US: 0%, EU: 0.1%

The most telling comparison, in my opinion, is BYD’s tiny market share in western countries. Their cars sell for 1/2 what Tesla’s sell for. If their low-cost cars were as good as Tesla’s, there is no way their market penetration would be so low. My sense is that the average BYD vehicle is lacking in something. Maybe they’re underpowered, or poorly constructed, unsafe, or unreliable: suitable only for China, India, or other poor markets. I suspect that the cars BYD sells in Europe are made on a separate line. Even so, customers say that BYD cars feel “cheap.” BYD charges more for these cars in Europe than Tesla charges for its top sellers, suggesting that these vehicles are of a different, better design. Even so, the low numbers suggest that BYD does not turn a profit on the sales. I suspect they do it for PR.

Both cars look sporty. Why doesn’t the BYD sell?

Another observation is that BYD produces 5.03 vehicles per worker, per year. That’s half as many as Tesla workers produce per worker-year. It’s also about half of Ford’s Rouge plant (Detroit) worker production in the 1930s. That Ford plant was vertically integrated starting with raw materials and outputting finished cars. This low output per worker suggests that BYD is built on low wage, low skill production, or equally damning, that none of these models are really mass-produced.

A first world market favors a polished product that your mechanic is somewhat familiar with. That favors Tesla as it has significant market penetration, and a network of mechanics. Also, Tesla has built up a network of fast charge stations and reliable service providers. BYD has no particular charging infrastructure and virtually no service network. Charging price and experience is a key decider among first world customers. No American will tolerate slow charging in the snow at a high price — especially if they must travel to a charger without being sure the charger will be working when they get there. Tesla has figured out how to make charging less painful, and that’s worth a lot.

Tesla might fail, but if so I don’t think it will be because of BYD success. Months ago the experts assured us that cybertruck would be deadly a failure. I disagree, but it might be. I don’t think BYDs will be better. Government subsidies have ended in many states and countries (Germany, California…) putting a dent in Tesla sales, and they are having manufacturing difficulties, particularly with batteries. These seem fix-able, but might not be. I see relatively little first world competition in the US EV market from legacy auto companies. Maybe they know to avoid EVs. They currently make decent products, IC and EV, but lose money on every EV. They treat EVs as a passing fad. If they are right, Tesla and BYD will fail. If they are wrong, Tesla will do fine, and they may not be able to make up their lost place in the market. As for BYD, given their low production numbers, they will need some 3 million new workers and many new factories. I don’t think they can find them, nor raise the money for the factories.

Most of the data here was taken from @NicklasNilsso14. All of the opinions are mine.

Robert Buxbaum February 18, 2024.

Chinese stocks lost 30% this year, has China’s lost decade begun?

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I predicted dire times for China six years ago, when Xi Jinping amended the constitution to make himself leader for life, in charge of the government, the party, the military, and the banks. Emperor, I called him, here. It now seems the collapse has begun, or at least stagnation. Chinese history is cyclic. Good times of peace and plenty give rise to a supreme emperor whose excesses bring war and famine, or at least stagnation. The cycle repeats every 50 to 100 years. Since Nixon opened China in 1973, the country has seen 50 years of prosperity and spectacular growth, but the growth has stopped and may be in decline. The stock market (Shanghai Shenzen 300) peaked in 2021 and has declined 50% from there. It’s down 30% for the last 12 months to levels seen in December 2010. US growth seemed slower than China’s but it’s been more steady. The main US stock market, the S+P 500, has more than tripled since 2010, up 24.5% this year.

Five years of the Shanghai 300 index with hardly any change. There has hardly been change in 15 years. One could argue that the lost decade is here and on-going. .

Each year Chairman Xi’s behaves more dictatorial. Last year he arrested his predecessor, Hu Jintao in front of the Communist party. He now tracks all his citizens actions by way of face recognition and phone software, and gives demerits for wrong thinking and wrong behaviors. You lose merits by buying western cars or visiting western internet sites. Taking money abroad is generally illegal. Needless to say, such behavior causes people to want to take money abroad, just in case. Last week, Xi proposed a limit on video game playing and clamped down on banks, demanding low interest rates. This is bad for the gaming corporations and teenagers, and banks, but so far there are no protests as there is no war.

Kissinger said that war was likely, though. Xi is building the navy at a fast pace, adding fast surface ships, nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers, and new attack airplanes. They’ve added hypersonic missiles too, and added listening stations and bases. There’s now a naval base in Djibouti, at the entrance to the Red Sea, where they oversee (or promote?) Iran’s attacks on Western shipping. Then there are the new Chinese Islands that were built to take oil and fishing rights, and to provide yet more military bases on key trade routes. These could easily be a trigger for war, but so far just one military interaction in the region. Last month, the Chinese and Philippines navy clashed over fishing!

In the Gulf of Finland last Month, a Chinese ship, New New Polarbear, destroyed the offshore cables and gas pipes between Finland and Estonia, in protest of Finland’s entry into NATO. It’s belligerent but not war. Undersea cables are not covered by the UN charter, law of the sea. Then there is the evidence that COVID-19 was the result of Chinese bioweapon development, and the Chinese spy ballon that was sent over the US. We maintain at peace, but an unsettled sort of peace — is it a preface to war? Wars don’t have to be big war against the west or Taiwan, more likely is Vietnam, IMHO.

China’s negative population growth means that property values will drop along with product consumption. Kids buy stuff; old folks don’t.

News from China is increasingly unreliable so it’s hard to tell what’s going on. There were claims of a coupe, but perhaps it was fake news. Reporters and spies have been arrested or shot so there is no window on anyone who knows. There are claims of high unemployment, and COVID deaths, and claims of a movement to “lie flat” and stop working. Perhaps that was behind the ban on excessive gaming. Who knows? Xi claims that China is self sufficient in food production, but record food shipments from the US to China suggest otherwise.

Major businesspeople have disappeared, often to reappear as changed men or women. Most recently, Jimmy Lai, the Hong Kong clothing magnate, was indicted for sedition by tweets. Perhaps he just wanted to fire workers, or pay down debt, or move abroad (his daughter is). Many businesses exist just to make jobs, it seems. Not all of these businesses are efficient, or profitable. Some exist to violate US patents or steal technology, particularly military technology. I suspect that China’s hot new car company, BYD, is a money-losing, job factory, behind Tesla in every open market. Some 91 public firms have delisted over the last two years, effectively vanishing from oversight. Are they gone, or still operating as employment zombies. Will BYD join them? If China manages to avoid war, I have to expect stagnation, a “lost decade” or two, as in Japan saw from 1990 to 2010, as they unwound their unprofitable businesses.

A sign suggesting that a Chinese lost decade has begun is that China’s is seeing deflation, a negative inflation rate of -0.2%/year according to the world bank. It seems people want to hold money, and don’t want Chinese products, services, or investment. Japan saw this and tried a mix of regulation and negative interest rates to revive the interest, basically paying people to borrow in hopes they spend.

In Japan, the main cause of their deflation seems to have been an excess of borrowing against overvalued and unoccupied real estate. The borrowed money was used to support unprofitable businesses to buy more real estate. This seems to be happening in China too. As in Japan, China originally needed new lots of new apartments when they opened up and people started moving to the cities. The first apartments increased in value greatly so people built more. But now they have about 100% oversupply: one unoccupied or half-built apartment for every one occupied, with many mortgaged to the hilt against other overvalued apartments and flailing businesses.

Chinese Dept, personal and corporate match Japan’s at the start of the lost decade(s). Personal debt is at 150% of GDP, corporate debt is at65% of GDP, all propped up by real estate.

As in Japan 30 years ago, China’s corporate + personal debt is now about two times their GDP. Japan tried to stop the deflation and collapse by increased lending, and wasteful infrastructure projects. People in the know sent the borrowed money abroad confident that they would repay less when they repaid. We are already seeing this; low interest loans, money flowing abroad and a profusion of fast trains, unused roads, and unused bridges. I suspect most fast trains don’t pay off, as planes are faster and cheaper. These investments are just postponing the collapse. China is also seeing a birth dearth, 1.1 children per woman. This means that within a generation there will be half as many new workers and families to use the trains, or occupy the apartments. As the country ages, retirees will need more services with fewer people to provide them. China’s culture promotes abortion. China’s working population will decline for the next 30 years at least.

Japan came through all this without war, somewhat poorer, but unified and modern. It helped that Japan was a democracy, unified in culture, with an open press and good leaders (Abe). There was no collapse, as such, but 20 years of stagnation. China is a dictatorship, with a disunited culture, and a closed press. I think it will get through this, but it will have a much rougher time.

Robert Buxbaum January 9, 2024. China isn’t alone in facing collapse and/or lost decades. Germany is in a similar state, especially since the start of the Ukraine war. It’s a democracy like Japan, and pacifist for now.

The UAW’s minimally-effective strike.

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The aim of a strike, generally, is the same as the aim of war: it is to win concessions fast. To do this, one must strike to the utmost extent, as Von Clausewitz points out. The target company must come to understand that they need the workers, and that they need a quick settlement. In the case of the current united auto worker strike, the UAW asked for 40% and concessions, but only struck at a few plants. The resulting strike lasted 6 weeks, with Ford settling for a 25% raise over 4.5 years, to April 2028. Viewed on an average, that’s a 5.6% raise per year, assuming the Ford workers accept the deal.

I’m not sure how the UAW boss chose which plants to strike AGAINST. They were mostly low-profit ones at first. Workers at other plants kept on working and received a full salary. The suffering was borne some 45,000 UAW workers (1/4 of the UAW autoworkers) who left the job for strike pay, $500/week. This is a tiny fraction of the 4.36 million auto workers in the US. Auto production was reduced by 80,000 vehicles, we’re told, again a small fraction of several million vehicles typically made in the US in a year.

The strike does not seem to have affected vehicle sales or profits, as best I can tell. The remaining plants ran at higher capacity, and some production was made up by imports from Canada, Mexico, and China. Inventories today are at 60 days, the industry target. In a sense, the major lessons of the strike are that the auto companies don’t need so many workers, and that the UAW can direct suffering to whichever workers they wish.

The gasoline-powered F-150, left, is the most popular vehicle in the US. The Tesla Cybertruck, right, is an EV challenger of a sort that will soon be mandated. EVs require fewer workers and manufacture is non-union.

Ford’s settlement sounds good, but if viewed as a 5.6% raise per year, it barely covers inflation. Inflation is 3.6% now and was 8% last year. Ford retained the right to shed workers and close plants as the economy slows or production shifts. That’s a minimal gain for a 4.5 year commitment.

Battery plants may be covered or not; we’ve not been told. Production is expected to shift to battery vehicles, and these require fewer workers per car. President Biden has mandated a shift as part of his plan to stop global warming (a plan that I find misguided). He’s provided financial incentives for EV owners too, under the “inflation reduction act,” an effort to cause consumers to buy cars they would not otherwise. Largesse of this type is problematic, and highly inflationary, at least in the short term (the next few years). It is supposed to help out down the road, but workers pay their bills in the short term, the here and now.

Despite Biden’s financial incentives to buy electric, most consumers prefer to buy gasoline. The gasoline F150 is the most popular vehicle in America, selling over 600,000 per year. Trump claims that US workers would be better off if we stopped pushing EVs. Less incentives means less inflation, more internal combustion cars, and more union jobs he says. Biden has recently funded a Chinese battery plant, non-union in Michigan, suggesting that Trump is on to something. The strike has produced a raise, but its main contribution, it seems was to punish those UAW workers that the union boss didn’t like.

Robert Buxbaum, October 29, 2023. As I write, Stellantis has offered a tentative deal, but GM is still holding out, and we’ve yet to see if the workers ratify any of these deals.

Solving the evening solar power problem

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Solar power is only available during the day, and people need power at night too. As a result, the people of a town will either need a lot of storage, or a back-up electric generator for use at night and on cloudy days. These are expensive, and use gasoline (generally) and they are hard to maintain for an individual. Central generated alternate power is cheaper, but the wires have to be maintained. As a result, solar power is duck curve, or canon curve power. It never frees you from hydrocarbons and power companies, and it usually saves no money or energy.

People need power at twilight and dawn too, and sunlight barely generates any power during these hours, and sometimes clouds appear and disappear suddenly while folks expect uniform power to their lights. The mismatch between supply and demand means that your backup generator, must run on and off suddenly. It’s difficult for small, home generators, but impossible for big central generators. In order to have full power by evening, the big generators need to run through the day. The result is that, for most situations, there is no value to solar power.

Installed solar power has not decreased the amount of generation needed, just changed when it is needed.

Power leveling through storage will address this problem, but it’s hardly done. Elon Musk has suggested that the city should pay people to use a home battery power leveler, a “power wall” or an unused electric car to provide electricity at night, twilight, and on cloudy days. It’s a legitimate idea, but no city has agreed, to date. In Europe, some locations have proposed having a central station that generates hydrogen from solar power during the day using electrolysis. This hydrogen can drive trucks or boats, especially if it is used to make hythane. One can also store massive power by water pumping or air compression.

Scottsbluff Neb. solar farm damaged by hail, 6/23.

In most locations, storage is not available, so solar power has virtually no value. I suspect that, at the very least, in these locations, the price per kWh should be significantly lower at noon on a sunny day (1/2 as expensive or less). The will cause people to charge their eVs at noon, and not at midnight. Adjusted prices will cause folks to do heavy manufacturing at noon and not at midnight. We have the technology for this, but not the political will, so far. Politicians find it easier to demand solar, overcharge people (and industry) and pretend to save the environment.

Robert Buxbaum Aug 8, 2023

A clever range extender for EVs

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Electric vehicles work well for short trips between places where you can charge with cheap electricity. Typically that’s trips from home to a nearby place of work, and to local shopping malls and theaters with low-cost charge spots. If you drive this way, you’ll pay about 3.2¢/mile for home electricity, instead of about 17¢/mile for gasoline transport (e.g. 24 mpg with $4/gallon gas). Using an EV also saves on oil changes, transmission, air filters, belts, etc., and a lot of general complexity. Battery prices are still high, but much lower than they were even a few years ago.

The 10 kW Aquarius Engine is remarkably small and light, about 10kg (22 lb).

EVs are less attractive for long trips, especially in the cold. Your battery must provide the heat, as there is no waste heat from the engine. Expect to have to recharge every 200 -250 miles, or perhaps twice in the middle of a long trip. Each charge will take a half-hour or more, and fast charging on the road isn’t low cost. Expect to pay about 15¢/mile, nearly as much as for gasoline. See my full comparison of the economics here.

One obvious solution is to have two cars: a short commuter and an EV. Another solution is a hybrid. The Toyota’s Prius and the Chevy Volt were cutting edge in their day, but people don’t seem to want them. These older hybrids provided quick fill-ups, essentially infinite range, and about double the gas milage of a standard automobile, 30-45 mpg. The problem is you have even more complexity and maintenance than with even a gas automobile.

Aquarius liner engine as a range extender

I recently saw a small, simple, super-efficient (they say) gas engine called Aquarius. It provides 9.5 kW electric output and weighs only 22 lbs (10 kg), see picture above. A Tesla S uses about 16 kW during highway driving, implying that this engine will more than double the highway range of a Tesla S at minimal extra weight and complexity. It also removes the fear of being stranded on the highway, far from the nearest charge-station.

The energy efficiency is 34%, far higher than that for normal automobile engines, but fairly typical of floating piston linear engines. The high efficiency of these engines is partly due to the lack of tapper valves, risers, crank-shaft, and partially due to the fact that the engine always runs at its maximum power. This is very close to the maximum efficiency point. Most car engines are over sized (200 hp or so) and thus must run at a small fraction of their maximum power. This hurts the efficiency, as I discuss here. The Aquarius Engine makes electricity by the back-forth motion of its aligner rods moving past magnetic stator coils. Slots in the piston rod and in the side of the cylinder operate as sliding valves, like in a steam engine. First versions of the Aquarius Engine ran on hydrogen, but the inventors claim it can also run on gasoline, and presumably hythane, my favorite fuel, a mix of hydrogen and natural gas.

At the moment shown, slit valves in the piston rod are open to both cylinder chambers. The explosion at left will vent to the exhaust at left and out the manifold at top. The sliding valve is currently sending fresh air into the cylinder at right, but will soon send it into both cylinders to help scavenge exhaust and provide for the next cycle; engine speed and impression are determined by the mass of the piston.

A video is available to show the basic operation (see it here). The drawing at right is from that video, modified by me. Air is drawn into the engine through a sliding valve at the middle of the cylinder. The valve opens and closes depending on where the piston is. At the instant shown in the picture, the valve is open to the right. Air enters that chambered is likely exiting through slits in the hollow piston rod. It leaves through the manifold t the top, pushing exhaust along with it. When the piston will have moved enough, both the slits and the intake will close. The continued piston motion (inertially driven) will compress the air for firing. After firing, the piston will move left, generating electricity, and eventually opening the slit-valve in the piston to allow the exhaust to leave. When it moves a little further the intake will open.

The use of side-opening exhaust valves is a novelty of the “Skinner UniFlow” double-acting, piston steam engines, seen on the Badger steamship on Lake Michigan. It’s one of my favorite steam engine designs. Normally you want a piston that is much thicker than the one in the drawing. This option is mentioned in the patent, but not shown in the drawing.

Aquarius is not the only company with a free-piston range extender. Toyota built a free-piston extender of similar power and weight; it was more complex but got higher efficiency. It has variable compression though, and looks like a polluter. (the same problems might affect the Aquarius) They dropped the project in 2014. Deutsch Aerospace has a two headed version that’s more powerful, but long and heavier: 56kg and 35kW. Lotus has a crank-piston engine, also 56kg, 35kW; it’s more complex and may have service life issues, but it’s compact and relatively light, and it probably won’t pollute. Finally, Mazda is thinking of bringing back its Wankel rotary engine as a range extender. Any of these might win in the marketplace, but I like the Aquarius engine for its combination of light weight, compact size, and simplicity.

This is not to say that Aquarius motors is a good investment. Aquarius automotive went public on the Toronto exchange in December, 2021, AQUA.TA. The company has no profits to date, and the only chance of them making a profit resides in them getting a good licensing deal from an established company. The major car companies have shown no interest so far, though they clearly need something like this. Their plug in hybrids currently use standard-size, 4 stroke engines: 110-150 kW, 100-150 kg, complex, and low efficiency. Consumers have not been impressed. Tesla autos could benefit from this engine, but Musk shows no interest either.

Robert Buxbaum May 5, 2022. I have no stock in Aquarius motors, nor have I received any benefits from them, or any auto company.

Lithium Battery prices fell 98%, solar prices fell more.

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Most people have heard of Moor’s law, the law that computing power keeps doubling every two years, with the price remaining the same, but the same law is observed with other tech products, notably lithium ion batteries and solar cells.

By my calculation the price of lithium ion batteries has fallen 98% so far, at a rate of 12.5% per year. That’s a remarkable drop given that the chemistry has hardly changed. The size has dropped too; it’s nowhere near as much as the price but enough to make batteries a reasonable choice for powering automobiles, scooters, and power tools. Batteries still lack the range and fast charging for some applications, but even there the low cost means that hybrids become attractive, combining for cars and truck, the long range of gas with a reduced cost per mile. The rate of decrease suggests that prices will be below $100 per kWh by 2025. That’s an $8000 cost for a battery powered car with 300 miles of range.

As for where the electricity comes from, the price of electricity is going up and becoming less reliable. In part that’s because of regulations on coal and nuclear power and the inherent problems with large-scale wind and solar. But decentralized solar may turn out to be a winner. Solar prices have fallen 99.6% since 1976. Even though the rate of decrease is slower, about an 8% drop in price per year, there is a sense that solar power has entered the mainstream. Combined with cheap, home batteries, it may soon make sense to power your home and car by solar cells on the house; there isn’t enough area on a car to quite power it.

Robert Buxbaum, September 27, 2021

Automobile power 2021: Batteries vs gasoline and hydrogen

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It’s been a while since I did an assessment of hydrogen and batteries for automobile propulsion, and while some basics have not changed, the price and durability of batteries has improved, the price of gasoline has doubled, and the first commercial fuel cell cars have appeared in the USA. The net result (see details below) is that I find the cost of ownership for a gasoline and a battery car is now about the same, depending on usage and location, and that hydrogen, while still more pricey, is close to being a practical option.

EV Chargers. They look so much cooler than gasoline hoses, and the price per mile is about the same.

Lithium battery costs are now about $150/kwh. That’s $10,000 for a 70 kWh battery. That’s about 1/5 the price of a Tesla Model 3. The reliability that Tesla claims is 200,000 miles or more, but that’s with slow charging. For mostly fast charging, Car and Driver’s expectation is 120,000 miles. That’s just about the average life-span of a car these days.

The cost of the battery and possible replacement adds to the cost of the vehicle, but electricity is far cheaper than gasoline, per mile. The price of gasoline has doubled to, currently, $3.50 per gallon. A typical car will get about 24 mpg, and that means a current operation cost of 14.6¢/mile. That’s about $1,460/year for someone who drives 10,000 miles per year. I’ll add about $150 for oil and filter changes, and figure that operating a gas-powered car engine costs about $1,610 per year.

If you charge at home, your electricity costs, on average, 14¢/kWh. This is a bargain compared to gasoline since electricity is made from coal and nuclear, mostly, and is subsidized while gasoline is taxed. At level 2 charging stations, where most people charge, electricity costs about 50¢/kWh. This is three times the cost of home electricity, but it still translates to only about $32 for a fill-up that take 3 hours. According to “Inside EVs”, in moderate temperatures, a Tesla Model 3 uses 14.59 kWh/100 km with range-efficient driving. This translates to 11.7¢ per mile, or $1170/year, assuming 10,000 miles of moderate temperature driving. If you live in moderate climates: Californian, Texas or Florida, an electric car is cheaper to operate than a gasoline car. In cold weather gasoline power still makes sense since a battery-electric car uses battery power for heat, while a gasoline powered car uses waste heat from the engine.

Battery cars are still somewhat of more expensive than the equivalent gasoline car, but not that much. In a sense you can add $400/year for the extra cost of the Tesla above, but that just raises the effective operating cost to about $1,570/year, about the same as for the gasoline car. On the other hand, many folks drive less than 50 miles per day and can charge at home each night. This saves most of the electric cost. In sum, I find that EVs have hit a tipping point, and Tesla lead the way.

Now to consider hydrogen. When most people think hydrogen, they think H2 fuel, and a PEM fuel cell car. The problem here is that hydrogen is expensive, and PEM FCs aren’t particularly efficient. Hydrogen costs about $10/kg at a typical fueling station and, with PEM, that 1 kg of hydrogen takes you only about 25 miles. The net result is that the combination hydrogen + PEM results in a driving cost of about 40¢/mile, or about three times the price of gasoline. But Toyota has proposed two better options. The fist is a PEM hybrid, the hydrogen Prius. It’s for the commuter who drives less than about 40 miles per day. It has a 10kWh battery, far cheaper than the Tesla above, but enough for the daily commute. He or she would use charge at home at night, and use hydrogen fuel only when going on longer trips. If there are few long trips, you come out way ahead.

Toyota 2021 Mirai, hydrogen powered vehicle

Toyota also claims to have a hydrogen powered Corolla or debut in 2023. This car will have a standard engine, and I would expect (hope) will drive also — preferably — on hythane, a mix of hydrogen and methane. Hythane is much cheaper per volume, and more energy dense, see my analysis. While Toyota has not said that their Corolla would run on hythane, it is supposed to have an internal combustion engine, and that suggests that hythane will work in it.

A more advanced option for Toyota or any other car/truck manufacturer would be to design to use solid oxide fuel cells, SOFCs, either with hydrogen or hythane. SOFCs are significantly more efficient than PEM, and they are capable of burning hythane, and to some extent natural gas too. Hythane is not particularly available, but it could be. Any station that currently sells natural gas could sell hythane. As for delivery to the station, natural gas lines already exist underground, and the station would just blend in hydrogen, produced at the station by electrolysis, or delivered. Hythane can also be made locally from sewer gas methane, and wind-power hydrogen. Yet another SOFC option is to start with natural gas and convert some of the natural gas to hydrogen on-board using left-over heat from the SOFC. I’ve a patent for this process.

Speaking of supply network, I should mention the brown outs we’ve been having in Detroit. Electric cars are part of the stress to the electric grid, but I believe that, with intelligent charging (and discharging) the concern is more than manageable. The driver who goes 10,000 miles per year only adds about 2,350 kWh/year of extra electric demand. This is a small fraction of the demand of a typical home, 12,154 kWh/year.It’s manageable. Then again, hythane adds no demand to the electric grid and the charge time is quicker — virtually instantaneous.

Robert Buxbaum, September 3, 2021

A useful chart, added September 20, 2021. Battery prices are likely to keep falling.

Adding H2 to an engine improves mpg, lowers pollution.

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I month ago, I wrote to endorse hythane, a mix of natural gas (methane) and 20-40% hydrogen. This mix is ideal for mobile use in solid oxide fuel cell vehicles, and not bad with normal IC engines. I’d now like to write about the advantages of an on-broad hydrogen generator to allow adjustable composition fuel mixes.

A problem you may have noticed with normal car engines is that a high hp engine will get lower miles per gallon, especially when you’re driving slow. That seems very strange; why should a bigger engine use more gas than a dinky engine, and why should you get lower mpg when you drive slow. The drag force on a vehicle is proportional to speed squared. You’d expect better milage at low speeds– something that textbooks claim you will see, counter to experience.

Behind these two problems are issues of fuel combustion range and pollution. You can solve both issues with hydrogen. With normal gasoline or Diesel engines, you get more or less the same amount of air per engine rotation at all rpm speeds, but the amount of air is much higher for big engines. There is a relatively small range of fuel-air mixes that will burn, and an even smaller range that will burn at low pollution. You have to add at least the minimal fuel per rotation to allow the engine to fire. For most driving that’s the amount the carburetor delivers. Because of gearing, your rpm is about the same at all speeds, you use almost the same rate of fuel at all speeds, with more fuel used in big engines. A gas engine can run lean, but normally speaking it doesn’t run at all any leaner than about 1.6 times the stoichiometric air-to-fuel mix. This is called a lambda of 1.6. Adding hydrogen extends the possible lambda range, as shown below for a natural gas – fired engine.

Engine efficiency when fueled with natural gas plus hydrogen as a function of hydrogen amount and lambda, the ratio of air to stoichiometric air.

The more hydrogen in the mix the wider the range, and the less pollution generally. Pure hydrogen burns at ten times stoichiometric air, a lambda of ten. There is no measurable pollution there, because there is no carbon to form CO, and temperature is so low that you don’t form NOx. But the energy output per rotation is low (there is not much energy in a volume of hydrogen) and hydrogen is more expensive than gasoline or natural gas on an energy basis. Using just a little hydrogen to run an engine at low load may make sense, but the ideal mix of hydrogen and ng fuel will change depending on engine load. At high load, you probably want to use no hydrogen in the mix.

As it happens virtually all of most people’s driving is at low load. The only time when you use the full horse-power is when you accelerate on a highway. An ideal operation for a methane-fueled car would add hydrogen to the carburetor intake at about 1/10 stoichiometric when the car idles, turning down the hydrogen mix as the load increases. REB Research makes hydrogen generators based on methanol reforming, but we’ve yet to fit one to a car. Other people have shown that adding hydrogen does improve mpg.

Carburetor Image from a course “Farm Power”. See link here. Adding hydrogen means you could use less gas.

Adding hydrogen plus excess air means there is less pollution. There is virtually no CO at idle because there is virtually no carbon, and even at load because combustion is more efficient. The extra air means that combustion is cooler, and thus you get no NOx or unburned HCs, even without a catalytic converter. Hydrogen is found to improve combustion speed and extent. A month ago, I’d applied for a grant to develop a hydrogen generator particularly suited to methane engines. Sorry to say, the DoT rejected my proposal.

Robert Buxbaum June 24, 2021

The solar powered automobile

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The typical car has about 60 ft2 of exposed, non glass surface area, of which perhaps 2/3 is exposed to the sun at any time. If you covered the car with high-quality solar cells, the surfaces in the sun would generate about 15W per square foot. That’s about 600W or 0.8 horsepower. While there is no-one would would like to drive a 0.8 hp car, there is a lot to be said for a battery powered electric car that draws 6000 Wh of charge every sunny day — 6kWh per day– moving or parked — especially if you use the car every day, but don’t use it for long trips.

Owners of the Tesla sedans claim you can get 2.5 to 3 miles/kWhr for average driving suggesting that if one were to coat a sedan with solar cells, one day in the sun would generate 15 to 20 miles worth of cost-free driving power. This is a big convenience for those who only drive 15 to 20 miles each day, to work and back. As an example, my business is only 3 miles from home. That’s enough for the lightyear one, pictured below. The range would be higher for a car with a lighter battery pack, and some very light solar cars that have been proposed.

Lightyear one solar boosted plug in electric vehicle.

Solar power also provides a nice security blanket boost for those who are afraid of running out of charge on the highway, or far from home. If a driver gets worried during the day, he or she could stop at a restaurant, or park in the sun, and get enough charge to go a few miles, especially if you stick to country roads. Unlike gas-powered cars, where mpg is highest on the highway, electric vehicles get more miles per kWh at low speeds. It seems to me that there is a place for the added comfort and convenience of solar.

Robert Buxbaum, May 21, 2021

The Great, New York to Paris, Automobile race of 1908.

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As impressive as Lindberg’s transatlantic fight was in 1926, more impressive was George Schuster driving and winning the New York to Paris Automobile race beginning in the dead of winter, 1908, going the long way, through Russia. As of 1908, only nine cars had ever made the trip from Chicago to California, and none had done it in winter, but this race was to go beyond California, to Alaska and then over the ice through Russia and to Paris. Theodore Roosevelt was president, and Americans were up to any challenge. So, on February 12, 1908 there congregated in Times Square, New York, a single, US-made production car, along with five, specially made super-cars from Europe; one each from Italy and Germany; and three from France. The US car, a Thomas Flyer (white), is shown in the picture below. The ER Thomas company sent along George Schuster, as an afterthought: he was a mechanic and test-driver for the company, and was an ex bicycle racer. The main driver was supposed to be Montague Roberts, a dashing sportsmen, but the fellow dropped out in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Schuster reached the Eiffel tower on July 30, 1908, 169 days after leaving New York. The Germans and Italians followed. None of the French super-cars got further than Vladivostok, and one dropped out after less than 100 miles.

The race was sponsored by The New York Times and Le Matin, a Paris newspaper. They offered a large trophy, a cash prize of $1000, not enough to pay for the race, and the prospect of fame. The original plan was for drivers to go from New York to San Francisco, then to Seattle by ship, and Northern Alaska, driving to Russia across the Arctic ice. That plan was abandoned when Schuster, the first driver to reach Alaska, discovered ten foot snows outside of Valdez. The race was modified so that travel to Russia would be by ship. Schuster took his Thomas to Russia from Alaska, the other two drivers reached Russia from Seattle by way of Japan. Schuster was given a bonus of days to account for having taken the longer route. Because of his detour, he was the last to arrive in Russia. From Japan, the route was Vladivostok, Omsk, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Berlin, and Paris, 21,900 miles total; 13,341 miles driven. Schuster drove most of those 13,341 miles, protected by his own .32-caliber pistol, and mostly guided by the stars and a sextant. He’d taught himself celestial navigation as there were no roadmaps, and hardly any roads.

George Schuster driving the Thomas Flyer, the only American entry, and the only production motorcar in the race.

George Schuster driving the Thomas Flyer with another mechanic, George Miller, the Flyer was only American entry, and the only production motorcar in the race. Note that the flag has only 45 stars.

The ship crossing of the Pacific was a good idea given that, even in the dead of winter, global warming meant that the arctic could not be relied upon to be solid ice. As it was, Schuster had to content with crossing the Rockies in deep snow, and crossing Russia in the season of deepest mud. He reached the Eiffel tower at 6 p.m. on July 30, 1908. The German car had arrived in Paris three days ahead of Schuster, but was penalized to second place because the German team had avoided the trip to Alaska, and had traveled some 150 km of the Western US by railroad while Schuster had driven. The Italian team reached Paris months later, in September, 1908. That the win went to the only production car to compete is indicative, perhaps of the reliability that comes with mass production. That Mr. Schuster was not given the fame that Lindberg got may have to do with the small size of the prize, or with him being a mechanic while Lindberg was a “flyer”. Flyers were sexy; even the car was called a flyer. The Times saw fit to hardly mention Schuster at all, and when it did, it spelled his name wrong. Instead the Times headline read, “Thomas Flyer wins New York to Paris Race.” You’d think the car did it on its own, or that the driver was named Thomas Flyer.

The Flyer crossing a swollen river in Manchuria.

Schuster in his Flyer crossing a swollen river in Manchuria.

The Times could not get enough of Montague Roberts; the driver of the first leg was famous and photographic. They tried to get Roberts to drive the last few miles into Paris, “once the roads were good”. And Roberts was the one chosen to drive in the hero-parade in New York, Schuster rode too, but didn’t drive. Schuster was feted by Theodore Roosevelt, though, who said he liked people “who did things.” Schuster said he’d never do a race like that again, and he never did race again.

The race did wonders for the reputation of American automobiles, and greatly spurred the desire for roads, but it did little or nothing for the E.R.Thomas company. Thomas cars were high cost, high power models, and they lost out in the marketplace to Henry Ford’s, low-cost Model T’s. You’d think that, in the years leading up to WWI, the US Army might buy a high cost, high reliability car, but they were not interested, and the Thomas company did little to capitalize on their success. The Flyer design that won the race was discontinued. It was a 60 hp, straight 4 cylinder engine version, replaced by lower cost Flyers with 3 cylinders and 24 hp. Shortly after that, Edwin R. Thomas, decided to drop the Flyer altogether. His company went bankrupt in 1912, and was bought by Empire Smelting. The original Flyer was sold in 1913 at a bankruptcy action, lot #1829, “Famous New York to Paris Racer.”

ER Thomas went on to found another car company, as was the style in those days. Thomas-Detroit went on make similar cars to the Flyer, but cheaper. The largest, the K-30, was only 30 hp. The original Thomas Flyer is now in the National Automobile Museum, Reno Nevada. after being identified by Schuster and restored. Here is a video showing the original Flyer being driven by a grandson of George Schuster. There is a lower-power Thomas Flyer (black) in a back space of the Henry Ford museum (Detroit). Protos vehicles, similar to the one that came in second, were produced for the German military through WWI. Their manufacturer, Siemens, benefited, as did the German driver.

Advertisement for the Protos Automobile, a product of Siemens motor company. The race did not include a production Protos but one made specially for the race.

Advertisement for the Protos Automobile, a product of Siemens motor company. The race did not include a production Protos but one made specially for the race.

The Thomas engine (and the Protos) engine) live on in a host of cars with water-cooled, four-cylinder, straight engines. In 1922, Chalmers-Detroit merged with Maxwell and continued to produce versions of the old Flyer design, now with an internal drive-shaft. The original Flyer was powered via a gear-chain, like a bicycle. In 1928, Maxwell was sold to Chrysler. Chrysler persists in calling their high-power, four-cylinder engines by the name Chalmers. As for Schuster, when ER Thomas closed its doors, he had still not been paid for his time as a race driver. He went to work for Pierce-Arrow, another maker of large, heavy vehicles. The “cheaper by the dozen” family (two parents, 12 kids) drove a Pierce-Arrow.

The Great race appears in two documentaries and two general audience movies, both comedies. The first of these was Mishaps of the New York–Paris Race, released by Georges Méliès, July 1908, just about as the Flyer was entering Paris. The second movie version  “The Great Race” was released in 1965. It’s one of my favorite movies, with Jack Lemon as the Protos driver (called Dr. Fate in the movie), Tony Curtis as “The Great Leslie”, the Flyer driver. For the movie, the Flyer is called “The Leslie”, and with Natalie Wood as a female reporter who rides along and provides the love interest. In the actual race reporters from the New York Times, male, traveled in the Flyer’s rear seat sending stories back by carrier pigeon.

Path of the Great Race

Path of the Great Race

As a bit of fame, here’s George Schuster in 1958 on “What’s my secret.” He was 85, and no one knew of him or the race. Ten years later, in 1968, Schuster finally received his $1000 prize, but still no fame. A blow-by-blow of the race can be found here, in Smithsonian magazine. There is also an article about the race in The New York Times, February 10, 2008. This article includes only two pictures, a lead picture showing one of the French cars, and another showing Jeff  Mahl, the grandson of George Schuster, and a tiny bit of the flyer. Why did the New York Times choose these pictures? My guess is it’s the same reason that they reported as they did in 1908: The French car looked better than the Flyer, and Jeff Mahl looked better than George Schuster.

Robert Buxbaum, July 20, 2018. What does all this mean, I’ve wondered as I wrote this essay. There were so many threads, and so many details. After thinking a bit, my take is that the movie versions were right. It was all a comedy. Life becomes a comedy when the wrong person wins, or the wrong vehicle does. A simple mechanic working for a failing auto company beat great drivers and super cars, surpassing all sorts of obstacles that seem impossible to surpass. That’s comedy, It’s for this reason that Dante’s Divine Comedy is a comedy. When we see things like this we half-choose to disbelieve, and we half-choose to laugh, and because we don’t quite believe, very often we don’t reward the winner as happened to Schuster for the 60 years after the race. Roberts should have won, so we’ll half-pretend he did.