intercst
5 Likes
I’m not convinced that EVs are optimal for military purposes, but it seems to be a thing.
DB2
They are not - they are absolutely terrible (currently) as a military vehicle.
How would these have worked in Iraq or Afghanistan? Where are they going to plug in? Who has hours to wait for them to be charged or how much will the infrastructure cost to have mobile or deployable fast chargers?
Plus, these things will be bullet magnets - and who wants to be in a vehicle that is prone to an uncontrollable fire if the battery is punctured.
None of this is to say that these can’t be solutions in the future but we are no where close to that yet.
Last June, Lt. Gen. Ross Coffman, deputy commanding general of Army Futures Command, said “the technology does not exist” to create an all-electric tank that can charge in the “tactically relevant” 15-minute time window the service wants. The 17-megawatt generator such a tank would need to meet this target would burn more than 1,200 gallons of diesel per hour, according to analysis from the Institute for Energy Research.
Now, plug in hybrids are another story.
2 Likes
Do hybrids have a battery puncture problem?
DB2
Of course they do if the batteries are Lithium.
But then, don’t gasoline tanks have a puncture problem too?
And what about gasoline storage tanks?
And what about the supply lines to refuel gasoline?
Mike
4 Likes
The acquisition plan was set in motion by the Biden administration last year as part of a move to convert the Bureau of Diplomatic Security’s fleet of roughly 3,000 armored vehicles into zero-emission electric vehicles by 2035. As the primary security arm of the U.S. State Department, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security is responsible for the safety of personnel posted to U.S. embassies around the world, and its Division of Defensive Equipment and Armored Vehicles (DEAV) was seeking green alternatives to its current fleet.
1 Like
I have to add that if we want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions we shouldn’t send any vehicles to a war. But that isn’t going to happen.
Mike
2 Likes
Sure, but I was curious why Hawkwin wrote that plug-in hybrids were a different story.
Which reminds me of the quote attributed to Leon Trotsky, “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”
DB2
Trotsky was correct. I wish Plato’s vision was as accurate to facts on the ground:
“For surely, Adeimantus, the man whose mind is truly fixed on eternal realities has no leisure to turn his eyes downward upon the petty affairs of men, and so engaging in strife with them to be filled with envy and hate, but fixes his gaze upon the things of the eternal and unchanging order, and seeing that they neither wrong nor are wronged by one another, but all abide in harmony as reason bids, he will endeavour to imitate them and, as far as may be, to fashion himself in their likeness and assimilate himself to them. Or do you think it possible not to imitate the things to which anyone attaches himself with admiration?
Sigh.
3 Likes
They likely do, but they don’t have the refueling logistic problem.
Not one that can’t be remedied with water. If you have an EV fire in a motorpool with other vehicles, you could risk losing the entire motorpool.
Gas is easily transported and easily refilled. A battery is not.
2 Likes
Separation and fire shields are remedies.
As said from someone that has likely never stepped foot in an Army motor pool. ::chuckle:: fire shields
In my long engineering career I have seen more Military motor pools than you think.
Separation and fire shields are used at utility scale battery storage facilities which are closely packed.
1 Like
I don’t think these are battlefield vehicles. They are for State Dept use chauffeuring diplomats around the city in foreign capitols.
intercst
5 Likes
But perhaps not in Moss Landing, California.
DB2
1 Like
According to this item on the wire, the contract for armored Teslas has been cancelled.
I wonder what cancellation charges Tesla will bill the government for?
Steve
Moss Landing battery storage was a engineering mistake to store them indoors, without adequate separation and fire shields.
These fighter planes and vehicles are dumb and old school.
Wars will be fought with autonomous robots and drones which will have micrometer precision and lightning fast reflexes.
Not the world I want but its headed that way.
This photo shows what appears to be trailer storage sheds.
and these are indoors. So perhaps a combination?
DB2
1 Like
It is a combination of indoor and outdoor storage.