The latest Koenigsegg (Jesko) is a dual fueled car. It can go on both gas/petrol and E85 (ethanol) The power output is even greater when it goes on booze.

The civilian world is trying to replace the fossil fuels with bio-fuels. The military will be forced to follow, but can the armed forces do it? Is Tesla developing a battery driven MBT? It will be a problem to recharge it.

Originally Posted by I3BrigPvSk

The latest Koenigsegg (Jesko) is a dual fueled car. It can go on both gas/petrol and E85 (ethanol) The power output is even greater when it goes on booze.

The civilian world is trying to replace the fossil fuels with bio-fuels. The military will be forced to follow, but can the armed forces do it? Is Tesla developing a battery driven MBT? It will be a problem to recharge it.

I really don't understand the argument over recharging vehicles to me it is no different to refueling a car, you look at the fuel guage and refuel/recharge when necessary.
I currently have an Audi E-Tron and the only difference between that and the A8 I had previously is the time it takes to charge vs filling it with petrol but for the most part that happens while I am sitting at an office desk instead of a gas station and charging systems are improving all the time.

With regard to a military vehicle it would probably make sense to use modular fuel packs where spent fuel packs are simply replaced with full ones in the field.

Originally Posted by MontyB

I really don't understand the argument over recharging vehicles to me it is no different to refueling a car, you look at the fuel guage and refuel/recharge when necessary.
I currently have an Audi E-Tron and the only difference between that and the A8 I had previously is the time it takes to charge vs filling it with petrol but for the most part that happens while I am sitting at an office desk instead of a gas station and charging systems are improving all the time.

With regard to a military vehicle it would probably make sense to use modular fuel packs where spent fuel packs are simply replaced with full ones in the field.

It takes longer to recharge an electric/battery powered car than refueling a car. If we have electric MBT's, APC's, IFV's, and all other armored vehicles in an army and add the amount of vehicles that need to be recharged at the same time. In addition to that, the army needs to bring chargers where ever they go when the civilian infrastructure is most likely damaged or even destroyed so the army cannot rely on the local power grid to get electricity.

I think the military will go for Bio-Diesel to replace the current diesel powered vehicles. I like ethanol for civilian cars, Sweden has now a newer ethanol based on leftovers from the logging industry.

Originally Posted by I3BrigPvSk

It takes longer to recharge an electric/battery powered car than refueling a car. If we have electric MBT's, APC's, IFV's, and all other armored vehicles in an army and add the amount of vehicles that need to be recharged at the same time. In addition to that, the army needs to bring chargers where ever they go when the civilian infrastructure is most likely damaged or even destroyed so the army cannot rely on the local power grid to get electricity.

I think the military will go for Bio-Diesel to replace the current diesel powered vehicles. I like ethanol for civilian cars, Sweden has now a newer ethanol based on leftovers from the logging industry.

I think they will go down a different path and use a mixture of Hydrogen and Electricity.

As for electric charging, there are already 250kw chargers out there that can recharge a car in 30mins and 350kw are expected this year, pulse charging allows much faster charging without stressing batteries and battery technology it improving all the time.

I would not be surprised if within 10 years electricity isn't the only option for light vehicles with only the very heavy transport vehicles using liquid hydrogen.

Originally Posted by MontyB

I think they will go down a different path and use a mixture of Hydrogen and Electricity.

As for electric charging, there are already 250kw chargers out there that can recharge a car in 30mins and 350kw are expected this year, pulse charging allows much faster charging without stressing batteries and battery technology it improving all the time.

I would not be surprised if within 10 years electricity isn't the only option for light vehicles with only the very heavy transport vehicles using liquid hydrogen.

I am somewhat skeptical toward electric/battery powered cars. Batteries don't respond well to cold temperatures. Another reason for my skepticism is if we replace all fossil fueled cars with electric cars, we will experience a power shortage when we are deactivating our nuclear plants. We need to get rid of fossil fuels and I think different countries can after their own assets get functional alternate fuels. Sweden and other Nordic countries have a lot of forests and a logging industry. The "leftovers" from it can be used to produce ethanol

Originally Posted by I3BrigPvSk

I am somewhat skeptical toward electric/battery powered cars. Batteries don't respond well to cold temperatures. Another reason for my skepticism is if we replace all fossil fueled cars with electric cars, we will experience a power shortage when we are deactivating our nuclear plants. We need to get rid of fossil fuels and I think different countries can after their own assets get functional alternate fuels. Sweden and other Nordic countries have a lot of forests and a logging industry. The "leftovers" from it can be used to produce ethanol

The negatives of electric vehicles are slowly being ironed out.
My Audi is currently doing 550km from a charge and takes roughly $4 to charge, the Q7 is about 650km per tank and takes about $160 to fill.
The biggest negative is the charge time 30 minutes to get to 80% with the 100kw fast charger however, there are 150, 300kw chargers on the way.

I expect that in the long term the military will head down the electric path once batteries have improved and it wouldn't surprise me to see modular power packs so instead of requiring a giant generator there will be pre-charged battery packs.

Regarding ethanol, NZ has a ton of forestry as well and we currently make ethanol from dairy farming waste but don't use it in our fuel.

Originally Posted by MontyB

The negatives of electric vehicles are slowly being ironed out.
My Audi is currently doing 550km from a charge and takes roughly $4 to charge, the Q7 is about 650km per tank and takes about $160 to fill.
The biggest negative is the charge time 30 minutes to get to 80% with the 100kw fast charger however, there are 150, 300kw chargers on the way.

I expect that in the long term the military will head down the electric path once batteries have improved and it wouldn't surprise me to see modular power packs so instead of requiring a giant generator there will be pre-charged battery packs.

Regarding ethanol, NZ has a ton of forestry as well and we currently make ethanol from dairy farming waste but don't use it in our fuel.

NZ seems to have a better gov than Sweden. We have chargers in our urban areas, but not many in rural areas. Setting up these chargers go very slow and that makes having an electric/battery car more complicated for those living on the country side

So the Kiwis prefer to drink it instead? That's understandable

We have buses and semi trucks powered by some sort of a natural gas from our waste plants. It seems working pretty well, except for an increased fire hazard when they are involved in traffic accidents. You are probably right about batteries.

You mentioned hydrogen earlier, I think that is a pretty good idea for heavy traffic and the military

Originally Posted by I3BrigPvSk

NZ seems to have a better gov than Sweden. We have chargers in our urban areas, but not many in rural areas. Setting up these chargers go very slow and that makes having an electric/battery car more complicated for those living on the country side

So the Kiwis prefer to drink it instead? That's understandable

We have buses and semi trucks powered by some sort of a natural gas from our waste plants. It seems working pretty well, except for an increased fire hazard when they are involved in traffic accidents. You are probably right about batteries.

You mentioned hydrogen earlier, I think that is a pretty good idea for heavy traffic and the military

Hehe yes are one of the largest beer drinking nations per capital in the world unfortunately I think we tend to drink for the wrong reasons and it is a major contributor to our high family violence and suicide rates.

I have always wondered why we never added ethanol to our petrol if for no other reason than to lower the cost of petrol but it has since been pointed out that 70% of the cost of petrol is tax so the last thing the government will do is encourage cheaper fuel.

Originally Posted by MontyB

Hehe yes are one of the largest beer drinking nations per capital in the world unfortunately I think we tend to drink for the wrong reasons and it is a major contributor to our high family violence and suicide rates.

I have always wondered why we never added ethanol to our petrol if for no other reason than to lower the cost of petrol but it has since been pointed out that 70% of the cost of petrol is tax so the last thing the government will do is encourage cheaper fuel.

Alcohol and other drugs contribute to domestic violence. We have pretty high rate of domestic violence and drunk drivers.

Sweden has two different octane of gasoline, 95 and 98. We add ethanol into it, even the ethanol fuel has 15% gasoline in it, I guess that's for preventing us from drinking it. We have what they call bio-gasoline and bio-diesel. I don't know how they make the first one. The latter one can be produced by crops, but I'm not sure how

Originally Posted by I3BrigPvSk

Alcohol and other drugs contribute to domestic violence. We have pretty high rate of domestic violence and drunk drivers.

Sweden has two different octane of gasoline, 95 and 98. We add ethanol into it, even the ethanol fuel has 15% gasoline in it, I guess that's for preventing us from drinking it. We have what they call bio-gasoline and bio-diesel. I don't know how they make the first one. The latter one can be produced by crops, but I'm not sure how

You can make bio-diesel from almost anything you can extract oil from, it isn't much more than making the oil pH neutral and adding a bit of methanol to bump up the octane rating.
Bio-fuel is a fermentation process to produce a low grade ethanol (85-90%), crops (usually corn) are broken down through an enzymatic fermentation process.

Neither method is all that efficient however bio-diesel at least repurposes a waste stream, NZ uses dairy factory waste streams, lactose (milk sugar) is fermented to make ethanol and I imagine Sweden uses enzymes or chemicals to break down forestry waste into cellulose to ferment into ethanol.
It is a surprisingly easy process although I have always believed methanol and not ethanol would be a far cheaper and easier fuel to manufacture as you could generate it from waste plants, farm run off and sewage systems by converting methane to methanol.