this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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Cars - For Car Enthusiasts
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Doesn't mean we have to burn fossil fuels. Ethanol is cool as fuck. Less range but more power and you can make it with various methods.
As for bicycles, I cycled for many years and worked at a bicycle shop. Their "gearbox" design is horrible. Their durability is tragic. For commute I am using electric scooter now, much less reliability issues. I hate the tires on bicycles and scooters though, seriously need to get tubeless.
All those methods start with biomass, don't they?
The issue with biomass is that it eats into food production and nature. (It is also not climate-neutral, if fertilizers from fossil sources are used.) Burning it is also not emission free (regardless of production), which will become a problem in countries or regions that are going to mandate "zero emission" for new vehicles by a certain date. Upcoming emission regulations, like Euro 7, even regulate emissions (dust) caused by brakes or tyres ...
Other types of synthetic fuels also exist, but most of them also use biomass as their source or share their main problem with hydrogen: They need huge amounts of electricity for production, which means we would need much more renewable energy (some sources claim 3 to 5 times as much as charging a battery directly) to power the same amount of vehicles.
Considering there are already ongoing protests against renewable energy sites (they supposedly disturb the natural beauty, etc.), I think it is highly unlikely that the general public will support even more renewables. Even more importantly, the fuel will be significantly more expensive to purchase than simply charging a battery, due to its production and transportation costs.
I don't think that those technologies will be available at affordable price points in the foreseeable future. The general public will most likely adopt the most well-established, economical and practical "zero emissions" technology on the market, which at the moment appears to be the battery-electric car.
In other areas (airspace, shipping, etc.) we might see the adoption of synthetic fuels or hydrogen, but I don't expect it to be cost-effective for regular passenger cars anytime soon. If synthetic fuels ever become available in passenger cars, they will, in my opinion, most likely be exclusive to low production models (e. g. Porsche e-fuel production, etc.) and therefore only be available to rich people.
If your bike's durability is an issue that's on you for either not doing basic maintenance or buying a piece of junk.
Lol, lmao even
The most used mean of transportation in the world has durability issues 🙄
Compare how much needs to be spent to ride vs to drive, even if you were to change the chain and cassettes every 10k km...
No wonder you're asking if air cooled engines could make a comeback.