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xkcd #2948: Electric vs Gas (xkcd.com)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/xkcd

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An idling gas engine may be annoyingly loud, but that's the price you pay for having WAY less torque available at a standstill.

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[–] someguy3 299 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (54 children)

The motors have never been the problem, it's always been the battery. See train engines, they are a diesel generator with electric motors.

This is where history pisses me off. We should have been headlong into battery research after the oil embargoes. Could have been 40 years faster.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I hope you are not talking about battery locomotives.

With overhead wires the train has a practically unlimited battery capacity.

[–] EarMaster 18 points 1 week ago

There are use cases for battery trains. In remote, mountainous locations where the cost for electrifying a track is very high it is not uncommon to use electric trains with batteries. Here in Germany we have several regions where diesel trains have been replaced by them.

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