Freelander 1 Freelander EV

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Nodge68 said:
Someone is giving incorrect figures there. It's technically impossible for hydrogen to take up the same space as diesel and give the same amount of energy. Hydrogen at 700 bar of pressure (about the practical limits of container design) holds just 1.4kWhr of energy per litre of volume, but diesel holds over 10kWhr for the same 1 litre, and doesn't need a pressure vessel to contain it.
Add to this the under 40% efficiency of an ICE engine, and it doesn't take a mathematician to work out that hydrogen won't be a practical or green alternative to diesel. It's actually much more green to use vegetable sourced bio diesel in the engine, which again doesn't need to be stored in a pressure vessel at stupid high pressures.
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The trouble with bio diesel is where it comes from. In many cases forests are cut down to grow crops to produce the veg oil so it ends up being a net contributor to green house gases as the forests held more carbon the the crops ever will.
Unfortunately the only way to reach carbon release targets is to stop burning stuff which means change and for many folk change is something they are scared of or just refuse to contemplate.

Having said that here is a slightly different look at the same system


If we can find a way to make the locally and economically then for this type of use case then maybe hydrogen has a place. It would certainly be better than dieseasel.
 
Alibro said:
In many cases forests are cut down to grow crops to produce the veg oil so it ends up being a net contributor to green house gases as the forests held more carbon the the crops ever will.
Unfortunately the only way to reach carbon release targets is to stop burning stuff which means change and for many folk change is something they are scared of or just refuse to contemplate.
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Indeed.
I'm embroiled in a debate on AG at the moment about hydrogen.

For an ICE vehicle, it's a no go, as you already know, but some refuse to believe it. :(
 
bukko said:
Interesting. The guy at JCB said a baco would use around 6-10 Kg of hydrogen a day (depending on the engine). Unfortunately he didn't mention how this would compare with diesel, but I think those engines are 4-5 litres.
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But you need to fit the hydrogen in the vehicle, which on a skeletal vehicles like earth moving equipment, doesn't lend itself to huge storage vessels, remembering that these vessels are at 700 Bar of pressure.
Having an engine burn through 10Kg of hydrogen a day, means the thing is going to need filling back up every 30 minutes.
There are battery back hoes that run all day, without any noise, no engine maintenance, no stupidly strong tanks full of hydrogen gas at 10,000 PSI.
JCB are on to a looser here, and I just hope the CEO realises before he takes the company down chasing a dream that can't be fulfilled.
Engineering Explained has done a very informative video on hydrogen ICE (he used a V8 as an example), but the maths works for all hydrogen ICE.
 
I can see why JCB are investigating the use of hydrogen as large scale electric plant on a remote site for several days is clearly not practical. Batteries would need to have immense capacity.
 
bukko said:
Actually he said they were at 350 bar, which means even less!
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Yes, less than half the amount.
Unfortunately hydrogen looks like a wonder fuel, and in some applications it could work. But for vehicles that need to move about or run all day, it's far from ideal. This also assumes that the hydrogen is green, which only a few% of the worlds supply is. The rest comes from an energy hungry process passing high pressure steam through natural gas, which is decidedly not green.
 
According to ChatGPT (I couldn't be bothered to work it out) 10Kg of hydrogen at 350 Bar and 10 degrees C occupies 9150 litres (9.15 cubic meters)..
That's quite a big tank!
ChatGPT told me you could use 4-5 standard cylinders of 30 cm diameter and 1.5 meters height for this. It didn't seem right so I asked it to check its figures - it confirmed you would need 86 cylinders!
So, not entirely practical.
 
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bukko said:
According to ChatGPT (I couldn't be bothered to work it out) 10Kg of hydrogen at 350 Bar and 10 degrees C occupies 9150 litres (9.15 cubic meters)..
That's quite a big tank!
ChatGPT told me you could use 4-5 standard cylinders of 30 cm diameter and 1.5 meters height for this. It didn't seem right so I asked it to check its figures - it confirmed you would need 86 cylinders!
So, not entirely practical.
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No it's not practical in a vehicle, or even a large building.

I've done lots of research into alternative fuel sources, including hydrogen for my school. The conclusion was that our current heating fuel (kerosene) is still the most cost effective and efficient way to heat the school buildings, even though last year I spent over £40,000 on the stuff. :eek:

We're looking into large scale solar with backup batteries to help reduce our electricity costs, but heating is going to a struggle, simply because an old and large building needs a lot of energy to keep it warm.
Can you imagine the size tank needed to hold the equivalent of 1 months kerosene in hydrogen? It would be ½ the size of the school.
 
This discussion should be in a separate thread, rather than @Alibro's build thread.


Agree the tank volume is prohibitive, but the calculation above looks wrong to me.
https://stargatehydrogen.com/documents-and-tools/hydrogen-conversion-calculator-tools/
upload_2023-3-13_11-27-1.png
 
Nodge68 said:
How's stripping out freelander No2 going?
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Sorry mate, I missed your post.
Hasn't started yet as my hands don't work so well in the cold so I have been staying inside. :oops:
However the contract I was working on for the last five months has come to an end and I have nothing lined up for now so when the current cold snap comes to an end the work will start. :D I count myself as semi retired so I don't get too concerned when the work is quiet. :p
I think I'll start by stripping the good car of everything ICE and prepare it for the leccy bits. That way I'll be able to take bits out of the test mule, paint and tidy them up before finally fitting properly to the good car. ;)
 
Alibro said:
That way I'll be able to take bits out of the test mule, paint and tidy them up before finally fitting properly to the good car.
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Sounds like an excellent plan Ali.

Have you seen this recent battery for factor from BYD?
The blade cell looks like a good contender for ev conversions when they become cheap enough new, or second hand. And being a LifePo4, they're safer and theoretically shouldn't need a BMS to keep them in check all the time, which safes an enormous amount of complicated wiring.
Here's the specs for one of the blade cells.
https://www.evlithium.com/LiFePO4-Battery/byd-blade-battery-138ah.html
 
Nodge68 said:
Sounds like an excellent plan Ali.

Have you seen this recent battery for factor from BYD?
The blade cell looks like a good contender for ev conversions when they become cheap enough new, or second hand. And being a LifePo4, they're safer and theoretically shouldn't need a BMS to keep them in check all the time, which safes an enormous amount of complicated wiring.
Here's the specs for one of the blade cells.
https://www.evlithium.com/LiFePO4-Battery/byd-blade-battery-138ah.html
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The Electric Viking on YT has been talking about the BYD blade batteries for a couple of years so they are not that new and are getting better all the time. ;)
 
Alibro said:
The Electric Viking on YT has been talking about the BYD blade batteries for a couple of years so they are not that new and are getting better all the time. ;)
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Indeed they are. I've heard of their existence for a while, but not really considered them as a possible source of cells as the BYD weren't selling vehicle in the UK.
Thats set to change though, so more batteries available on the second hand market. :)
 
Today I put the propshaft back on the test mule as I had some 4WD work to do and the good car is now in the garage. It was fun doing the work with a leccy car but as I couldn't be bothered setting up the power steering or brakes it was a bit heavy and hard to stop. :eek:
Of course I couldn't help myself checking to see how quick it felt with a bit less front wheel scrabbling, sorry no video but suffice to say it was quick. :)
I also discovered my DIY VCU refurb done several years ago is kinda slack as it still spun the front wheels. :confused:
Maybe that is a good thing as it might prevent me from breaking something with my heavy right foot. :p
I have to be honest, I didn't take it for granted that the propshaft would still fit after all the work that was done but there was no issue. It probably took longer getting one side of the car onto the ramps than it did fitting the propshaft. I was kinda concerned to see a load of water coming out of a hole at the side of the lower battery box when it was on the ramps but I still haven't decided if there will be a lower battery box so I'm not going to fuss too much about it for now, if it does happen it will be well sealed.
So now the the worst of the winter cold is over and I have a bit more free time I will get back out to the garage and start deicing the good car.
Hopefully by the end of next week it will be done but I also need to check the drive train as there is some dodgy sounds when moving it around. It might just be rusty brakes but.......
 
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Nodge68 said:
I wish there was more incentive for small companies to make EV conversion kits for normal vehicles, and of course Freelanders.
I'd love my FL2 to be electric powered, but the electronics would make it very difficult to do. The mechanics on the other hand wouldn't be any more difficult than the FL1, only with more space in the vehicle.
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I stumbled on this yesterday.

https://orbisdriven.com/

They make hub motors that bolt onto the car's existing suspension setup. The concept is that you take a FWD car and replace the rear hubs with these Orbis wheels to make your car a 4WD hybrid and add 100hp at the same time :D

Cracking idea for a Freelander with stuffed transmission. Would probably not affect weight of the car, losing the rear drive shafts, diff, props and VCU.

The concept then evolves to sticking them on the front of the car as well and go full EV.

Unfortunately though, you could buy a Freelander and have money left over for a holiday for each wheel :(

There's a bit about them on the interweb. This is an interesting article that took a pair and bolted them to a Honda Civic. While they threw cold water on some of the makers claims, they did see a rise in MPG from 25 to 40...

http://www.royalacademyun.org/proje...d-100-horsepower-to-any-car-via-orbis-driven/
 
GrumpyGel said:
I stumbled on this yesterday.

https://orbisdriven.com/

They make hub motors that bolt onto the car's existing suspension setup. The concept is that you take a FWD car and replace the rear hubs with these Orbis wheels to make your car a 4WD hybrid and add 100hp at the same time :D

Cracking idea for a Freelander with stuffed transmission. Would probably not affect weight of the car, losing the rear drive shafts, diff, props and VCU.

The concept then evolves to sticking them on the front of the car as well and go full EV.

Unfortunately though, you could buy a Freelander and have money left over for a holiday for each wheel :(

There's a bit about them on the interweb. This is an interesting article that took a pair and bolted them to a Honda Civic. While they threw cold water on some of the makers claims, they did see a rise in MPG from 25 to 40...

http://www.royalacademyun.org/proje...d-100-horsepower-to-any-car-via-orbis-driven/
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Very interesting but kinda expensive.
 
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