Electric cars are a pipe dream

[Neverfly]

Really just a nerd who finds things like steam trains interesting. (And Wikipedia is great as a way to restore all the not-insignificant gaps in my memory.)

I model the '39-'47 era. Steam in HO scale. It's almost a passion. I never heard of a Track pan for scooping up water before.
It seems like once you learn one thing in this hobby, you find two more things you need to learn.

Track pans... hmmm...

 

[KilljoyKlown]

The 10 Best-Selling Hybrid Cars

This looked like a good story for this topic. Considering gas prices are still going up.

http://247wallst.com/2012/09/28/the-10-best-selling-hybrid-cars/

 

[Gorlitz]

A guy invented a way storing electricity using liquid air which could really revolutionise the whole electric car industry. He successfully managed to convert his Vauxhall Nova to run on liguid air, the refuelling looks like something from back to the future. The technology works by using normal air to store energy by cooling it to 190C, turning it into a liquid. When the liquid air is later warmed, it rapidly expands into a gas, creating high pressure that can drive the piston engine of a car, or generate electricity in a turbine.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19785689

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19802190

http://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Liquid-Air-An-Efficient-Energy-Storage-System.html

 

[KilljoyKlown]

A guy invented a way storing electricity using liquid air which could really revolutionise the whole electric car industry. He successfully managed to convert his Vauxhall Nova to run on liguid air, the refuelling looks like something from back to the future. The technology works by using normal air to store energy by cooling it to 190C, turning it into a liquid. When the liquid air is later warmed, it rapidly expands into a gas, creating high pressure that can drive the piston engine of a car, or generate electricity in a turbine.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19785689

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19802190

http://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Liquid-Air-An-Efficient-Energy-Storage-System.html

You did mean -190C, I believe?

 

[Billy T]

Well it ain´t electric and makes for "interesting times" when Congress returns, but saving it probably also is a "pipe dream."

 

[Billy T]

SUMMARY: The car of the future is non- polluting, cheaper to operate than today´s IC engine car, runs on air, water and a tiny bit of alcohol and cost about half of the price of an all electric car or 1/3 of the price of an electric gas hybrid like the complex Volt, but like it has liquid re fueling in a few minutes for no "range anxiety" unlimited range of the all electric car or its hours of "re-fueling" delay. It may have a light weight all plastic motor and requires no heavy water radiator, water pump or fan! It requires only a few more re-fueling stops taking less than an hour total during your cross country trip in 2030 than the Chev Volt would. Electric cars are dead.

Details in quote. The car of the future would be at least 10 times cheaper than H2 fuel cell car and much lower in cost than H2 combustion car and lighter and cheaper (half the price in volume production?) than any electric car. Even the electric /gasoline hybrid has little chance of being the long term winner as the Liquid N2 car quickly re-fuels too for long trips and releases zero NOx or CO2 if solar or nuclear power makes any needed N2, not already being produced as a O2 production by-product. Currently Liquid N2 as O2 by-product sells for 10% of the cost of milk!

As long as its storage container is well insulated, liquid air can be kept at atmospheric pressure for long periods. But on exposure to room temperature, it will instantly boil and revert back to its gaseous state. In the process, it expands 700-fold—providing the wherewithal to operate a piston engine or a turbine. {at end see clever way no costly heat exchanger is need to vaporize / expand LN2.}
Liquid nitrogen does an even better job. Being considerably denser than liquid air, it can store more energy per unit volume, allowing cars to travel further on a tankful of the stuff. Weight for weight, liquid nitrogen packs much the same energy as the lithium-ion batteries used in laptops, mobile phones and electric cars. In terms of performance and range, then, a nitrogen vehicle is similar to an electric vehicle rather than a conventional one.

The big difference is that a liquid-nitrogen car is likely to be considerably cheaper to build than an electric vehicle. For one thing, its engine does not have to cope with high temperatures—and could therefore be fabricated out of cheap alloys or even plastics.

For another, because it needs no bulky traction batteries, it would be lighter and cheaper still than an electric vehicle. At present, lithium-ion battery packs for electric vehicles cost between $500 and $600 a kilowatt-hour. The Nissan Leaf has 24 kilowatt-hours of capacity. At around $13,200, the batteries account for more than a third of the car’s $35,200 basic price. A nitrogen car with comparable range and performance could therefore sell for little more than half the price of an electric car.

A third advantage is that liquid nitrogen is a by-product of the industrial process for making liquid oxygen. Because there is four times as much nitrogen as oxygen in air, there is inevitably a glut of the stuff—so much so, liquid nitrogen sells in America for a tenth of the price of milk.

Finally, a breakthrough in engine design has made liquid nitrogen an even more attractive alternative than the lithium-ion batteries used in electric cars. An invention made by an independent British engineer called Peter Dearman dispenses with the costly heat exchanger that is needed to vaporize the liquid nitrogen quickly. Instead, a small amount of water and anti-freeze (eg, methanol) is injected into the cylinder just as the liquid nitrogen is drawn in, causing it to boil and expand rapidly—thereby forcing the piston down inside the the cylinder. “Without that,” says Mr Dearman, “you had to have a multi-stage engine, which is cumbersome, inefficient and expensive.” ..”

I think the LN2 fuel tank should be the back of the bench like rear seat perhaps a foot thicker than current seat backs and still divide passenger space from the trunk space. Multi-layer krinkled reflecting foils can be very good insulation only about 1cm thick.

 

[Aqueous Id]

Electric cars are dead.

I think electric cars have the same future that all motorized devices have. The motor will continue to be the device of choice until something equally useful and cheaper comes along.

The car of the future would be at least 10 times cheaper than H2 fuel cell car and much lower in cost than H2 combustion car and lighter and cheaper (half the price in volume production?) than any electric car.

This reminds me of the promise that unleaded gasoline would be cheaper than regular, and was instead more expensive.

Electrons in motion still pack a lot of advantage and practicality into their small, light packages. The batteries and fuel cells of the future will be lighter and higher in energy density. Alternatives to charging will emerge: you will be able to swap your discharged battery or fuel cell with a freshly charged one, in less time than it takes to fill a tank with gasoline. Motors will be more efficient and reliable.

Currently Liquid N2 as O2 by-product sells for 10% of the cost of milk! I think the LN2 fuel tank should be the back of the bench like rear seat perhaps a foot thicker than current seat backs and still divide passenger space from the trunk space. Multi-layer krinkled reflecting foils can be very good insulation only about 1cm thick.

There's a safety issue. No matter how many precautions are taken, the public perception of safety will play into its acceptance if it does ever get past the prototype stage. And while LN2 is cheap now, it would skyrocket with demand that accompanies any widespread use. Also, to be practical, it needs to be available as charged tanks. That tank behind the seat should be able to slide out through a door on the body, for replacement. Stations of the future will need cartridge replacement machines, which can adapt to any footprint, any vehicle, and any style of cartridge and energy medium type, so that drivers can get in and out in minutes without having to exit the vehicle.

I think the car of the future will begin with chassis, body and wheels of the future, running on roads of the future, in which lower mass and less torque are made practical, and a global approach is taken--one that includes urban traffic control systems of the future, which are able to handle high traffic without costing drivers additional time and energy, and practical solutions are implemented for rural driving, which assure access to stations that can quickly replenish the vehicle energy supply.

In the future, practicality will predominate all other issues.

 

[Billy T]

... Alternatives to charging will emerge: you will be able to swap your discharged battery or fuel cell with a freshly charged one, in less time than it takes to fill a tank with gasoline. ...

That idea was beaten to death during a couple of weeks of posts in this thread perhaps a year ago. Rather than search and find it, I will summarize why it is DOD.

(1) People with a failing battery (say 80% self discharge in 24 hours) will swap it away. The customer of the swap center it is soon installed in will re-appear in a day or two and demand his money back, etc. This however is only a minor reason why Swap Center is not economically viable.

(2) Cars have different weights and power requirements. Much more so than lap-top computers do. Yet the lap top computer industry has not been able to all agree to use a standard capacity and shape battery. It will be impossible to have less than 10 different battery shape and capacity sizes for powering electric cars, (unless the government by law makes it illegal for there to be different types of cars). Thus, the number of batteries at the swap center will need to be at least 30 times more than are swapped each day.* Their capital cost will be about the same as having 10 electric cars buried in the ground there and that is just for the minimum size swap center. I.e. the number of batteries required for there to be a 75% chance the shape, capacity and size you need is recharged and waiting for you when you pull in for a swap will cost more, probably more than than twice the cost of all the electric cars. (75% is much too low. No one wants a 25% chance of needing to wait 6 hours or so at the swap center for an "in-car" recharge.**)

This cost, even if only three of the battery you need are at each swap center, and charged up waiting for you to pull in for a swap more than triples the cost of an all electric car as only the drivers of electric cars can be expected to pay for systems that have as their only function support of electric cars. (Most in the town will not be needed for a few days, on average, unless they are delivered while you wait an hour or so at swap center B for one to come there from swap center A.)

The current system of at most two fuel types (say gasoline and alcohol, which any IC car can use) cheaply stored in a huge volume tank (a week´s supply) is the most economical and practical system of "car recharge" except for people rich enough to own a second all electric car they recharge over night at home and use only for short in-town trips or a more expensive hybrid like the Volt.

* Even 300 batteries (30 each of the 10 different types) at a swap centers will be too few occasionally - For example in moderate size town with big football game, golf tournament, etc. that has several thousand owners of all electric car drive there from half or more of their cars range. I.e. cars that need to get a quick swap or their owners must stay in hotel a few days until their turn comes up for hours** at the in-car recharge station. Electric hybrids, like the Volt do not have this "can´t get home for a few days" problem but of course having both electric and IC engines is more costly than either alone.

** Even if someday rapid recharge batteries (probably with internal water pipes for heat removal) are developed, there is still the huge cost of the rapid charge power system - which will be needed instead of over night recharge only a couple of times per year, at most. - Impossible to pay for all that idle capacity unused 98% of the time, without charging more than 100 times the cost of the energy it rarely delivers.

 

[elte]

An idea I got recently involves separate low speed lanes for bikes and tiny microcars that are basically enclosed mobility scooters that can go 15mph. Eventually, fruit and vegetable produce stores become located within a mile of almost everyone in a city. Then it would take only a few to several minutes to get to a good food outlet.

 

[Billy T]

An idea I got recently involves separate low speed lanes for bikes and tiny microcars that are basically enclosed mobility scooters that can go 15mph. Eventually, fruit and vegetable produce stores become located within a mile of almost everyone in a city. Then it would take only a few to several minutes to get to a good food outlet.

That is certainly economically possible if public transit is good and cheap (for cross town or between cities trips) is available, but may not be competitive with internet order of your groceries and well scheduled electric van delivery once or twice per day.* Milk and ice for your ice box was commonly delivered to your house when I was a kid, but the wagon´s traction systems ate grass and was self reproducing (very cheap).

Privately owned cars are an expensive system as they sit idle most of the time. In a decade or so, if the middle class keeps shrinking in size and losing purchasing power at > 1% per year, only the wealthy will own one for their exclusive use. Traffic in São Paulo is terrible and for people over 60, public transit is both good and free, so I don´t own a car.

Also recently public bikes, up to a dozen of so in each rack, have been installed at 50 or so locations within the city. You must get authorized into the system and then pay for hours of use with your cell phone. (I think you get billed monthly in the telephone companies bill.) Cell phone tells your code to unlock a bike from the rack and then you are responsible for it until you lock it back into a rack. You can drop bike off at a rack other than the one you took it from. Part of the cost (or all?) of the bikes has been paid by banks that get to advertize on them (signs over both sides of the back wheel). Bank Itaú is only one I have seen, but surely other business could too. It is new - in an experimental stage -trying to reduce traffic and parking problems. Traffic rules have recently gotten tougher too - bikes have the right of way and you must stay at least 5 meters behind one or pass it in another lane. On Sundays, there are bike only lanes. The system does (or easily can) know which bike you took and you could report by phone tone code any problem it has so it is not unlockable until repaired. Perhaps during this experiment with all new bikes, only a truck with compressed air for the tires, etc. makes a circuit to each rack location daily.

I have not registered for this public bike system, but like the idea. - I have an unused for months cell phone I may reactivate to use it, but usually I just hop on a bus going my way even if getting off at the next stop. You are never more than one traffic light cycle from several buses going your way in São Paulo. They have their own lanes but a taxi with passenger can use them too. I once counted more than 15 buses following one behind the other. They are color coded by the region they serve. Major stops have electronic signs telling how many minutes until the one you need to go a few kilometers will stop there. São Paulo is the 4th or 5th largest city in the world and has good public transit. On the side of many buses you can read (I translate): "Transport: the citizen´s right - the city´s duty." Many buses run on natural gas (as do almost all taxis) but São Paulo just placed into service two Chinese made electric buses to test them.

* I.e. a van as a tiny mobile store with 40 or so commonly used items has a route thru your neighborhood.

 

[elte]

That is certainly economically possible if public transit is good and cheap (for cross town or between cities trips) is available, but may not be competitive with internet order of your groceries and well scheduled electric van delivery once per day.* Milk and ice for your ice box was commonly delivered to your house when I was a kid, but the traction systems ate grass and was self reproducing (very cheap).

* I.e. a van as a tiny mobile store with 40 or so commonly used items has a route thru your neighborhood.

I'm thinking there would still be regular size cars but they wouldn't be needed very often. Maybe renting or car sharing could help there.

Food delivery here is looking to need a lot more development to increase the selection and to lower the cost.

 

[Billy T]

... Food delivery here is looking to need a lot more development to increase the selection and to lower the cost.

Switching to many smaller stores near by will significantly increase the cost vs. a large super market with more selections (that also avoids so much food spoiling unused), but van delivery can avoid delivery vehicles not being used except on very low duty cycle (keep total delivery cost lower).

 

[Aqueous Id]

That idea was beaten to death during a couple of weeks of posts in this thread perhaps a year ago. Rather than search and find it, I will summarize why it is DOD.

(1) People with a failing battery (say 80% self discharge in 24 hours) will swap it away. The customer of the swap center it is soon installed in will re-appear in a day or two and demand his money back, etc. This however is only a minor reason why Swap Center is not economically viable.

The battery of the future will have high reliability. It will run a self-diagnostic. The Recycler will do real time quality assurance. The risk of failure will be met with high standards of reliability, quality assurance, availability, universality, and it will have high energy density. All of this for an affordable price, and the practicality of battery exchange service will motivate drivers to rely on EVs.

(2) Cars have different weights and power requirements. Much more so than lap-top computers do. Yet the lap top computer industry has not been able to all agree to use a standard capacity and shape battery. It will be impossible to have less than 10 different battery shape and capacity sizes for powering electric cars, (unless the government by law makes it illegal for there to be different types of cars). Thus, the number of batteries at the swap center will need to be at least 30 times more than are swapped each day.* Their capital cost will be about the same as having 10 electric cars buried in the ground there and that is just for the minimum size swap center. I.e. the number of batteries required for there to be a 75% chance the shape, capacity and size you need is recharged and waiting for you when you pull in for a swap will cost more, probably more than than twice the cost of all the electric cars. (75% is much too low. No one wants a 25% chance of needing to wait 6 hours or so at the swap center for an "in-car" recharge.**)

Manufacturers of the future will standardize to a universal Cell that fits every vehicle. The energy content per Cell will be quantized such that the mo-ped uses 1, the subcompact uses, say, 5, the midsize uses, say 10, and so on, and the 18-wheeler uses maybe 100. Availability will be high enough to assure that drivers are not waiting for anything to charge. There will be Cells allocated for each vehicle, made available for exchange just in time for the swap. Recyclers will succeed largely because they have solved availability and reliability.

This cost, even if only three of the battery you need are at each swap center, and charged up waiting for you to pull in for a swap more than triples the cost of an all electric car as only the drivers of electric cars can be expected to pay for systems that have as their only function support of electric cars. (Most in the town will not be needed for a few days, on average, unless they are delivered while you wait an hour or so at swap center B for one to come there from swap center A.)

In the future availability will be one of the linchpins of success of the Recycler enterprise. Investment will be another. The Recycler will have an adequate stock to meet average demand the way gas stations do. The same way the gas retailer orders a tanker when his inventory falls to, say, 10%, the Recycler will rely on delivery of charged Cells from a central distribution point.

The current system of at most two fuel types (say gasoline and alcohol, which any IC car can use) cheaply stored in a huge volume tank (a week´s supply) is the most economical and practical system of "car recharge" except for people rich enough to own a second all electric car they recharge over night at home and use only for short in-town trips or a more expensive hybrid like the Volt.

Which is history. We were talking about the future. Innovation, standardization, practicality, market demand, delivery and investment--at the confluence of these you will find the 100% EV.

* Even 300 batteries (30 each of the 10 different types) at a swap centers will be too few occasionally - For example in moderate size town with big football game, golf tournament, etc. that has several thousand owners of all electric car drive there from half or more of their cars range. I.e. cars that need to get a quick swap or their owners must stay in hotel a few days until their turn comes up for hours** at the in-car recharge station. Electric hybrids, like the Volt do not have this "can´t get home for a few days" problem but of course having both electric and IC engines is more costly than either alone.

The Cells that those people are not using when they left their locale will track them and be made available through the distribution process. Availability of charged Cells will be linchpin of the future success of the EV.

** Even if someday rapid recharge batteries (probably with internal water pipes for heat removal) are developed, there is still the huge cost of the rapid charge power system - which will be needed instead of over night recharge only a couple of times per year, at most. - Impossible to pay for all that idle capacity unused 98% of the time, without charging more than 100 times the cost of the energy it rarely delivers.

That will be overcome by distribution, the way gas retailers haul gasoline.

 

[Billy T]

To Aqueous ID
Are you seriously suggesting individual cells in their own separate cases? I.e. hook up X in series to get battery voltage of about 1.5X volts. You do realize that the cranking current is on the order of 200 amperes don´t you, so you need cell interconnection cables the diameter size of the typical current battery to battery cable and for current 12 Volt battery about seven cell to cells connections of 14 heavy duty terminal connections to reliably make with some sort of clamp bolts. Just making them, not even counting installing each cell with secure mounting to resist sudden breaking forces, will take longer than filling a gas tank, yet you claimed it would be quicker to swap out more than 200 pounds of eight separate battery cells packages than to fill a gas tank. Each cell having its own separate case with bolt down lugs or clamps, would weigh several times more on a per cell basis than an 8 cell battery with all cells in a single factory made case with very short (less than 2 inches) internal non-bolted cell to cell series interconnections.*

Even if that were practical, you still need several different size cells as some cars need more cranking amperes than others. What do you estimated the cost of a mechanic´s time making 14 heavy duty terminal connections to be? Also it is a false idea that you could just add another cell in the series string to get some more power - the lights will not work if one cell too few and burn out if one too many. Same for radio, and dozens of other electrical components of a modern car that have fixed voltage requirements.

With each cell in its separate case, and seven heavy wire cell to cell connections cables terminating in 14 clamp bolts, (for current std 12V systems like head lights, etc.) plus individual cell clamp-to-car-body straps and bolts, the energy density (Kwh / pound) will at best be half what 8 cells, all in the same case with no cell-to-cell high current clamp bolts and wires, would have.

* There is a good reason (more than one actually) why we don´t use individual cells connected together in series at the gas station with short heavy cables and 14 cell-to cell heavy current clamp bolts even though this means you throw away (trade in) the whole factory made battery when one cell in it shorts out internally.

That will be overcome by distribution, the way gas retailers haul gasoline.

You should compare the KwH and fuel weight in one gasoline delivery truck to the same energy but much greater weight in the fleet of X charged battery delivery trucks (each with its own paid driver) before making statements like this. Also it will take considerable paid manpower to unloads the fleet of X battery trucks delivering the same energy as one gasoline tank truck does as unlike the gasoline, the batteries do not just flow down thru a hose into a hole in the ground by gravity. Just parking several of the fleet of X battery delivery trucks in the gas station while they are unloaded will effectively close it down for gas sales while this unloading is done.

SUMMARY: Your ideas are not even close to "half baked" - entirely too expensive and inpractical.

 

[billvon]

The battery of the future will have high reliability. It will run a self-diagnostic.

The only way to run a truly reliable self diagnostic is to cycle the battery. This means recharge times will triple, cycle life will decrease by a factor of 2 and power costs will go up by a factor of 2. That is somewhat impractical.

The Recycler will do real time quality assurance. The risk of failure will be met with high standards of reliability, quality assurance, availability, universality, and it will have high energy density. All of this for an affordable price, and the practicality of battery exchange service will motivate drivers to rely on EVs.

Battery manufacturers have been trying to do that for about 100 years now, so the odds that this will happen soon are low.

Manufacturers of the future will standardize to a universal Cell that fits every vehicle. The energy content per Cell will be quantized such that the mo-ped uses 1, the subcompact uses, say, 5, the midsize uses, say 10, and so on, and the 18-wheeler uses maybe 100. Availability will be high enough to assure that drivers are not waiting for anything to charge. There will be Cells allocated for each vehicle, made available for exchange just in time for the swap. Recyclers will succeed largely because they have solved availability and reliability.

You can't run a moped on a 4 volt battery.

Which is history. We were talking about the future. Innovation, standardization, practicality, market demand, delivery and investment--at the confluence of these you will find the 100% EV.

Those are contradictory desires.

"You have a new cell chemistry? Sorry, it's not the standard cell voltage, so we can't use it."
"You gave me a brand new $10,000 battery, and I just swapped it for an old used up battery? Sorry, your problem, not mine."

The Cells that those people are not using when they left their locale will track them and be made available through the distribution process. Availability of charged Cells will be linchpin of the future success of the EV. That will be overcome by distribution, the way gas retailers haul gasoline.

Having quick-change batteries is about as practical as having service stations that do quick five minute engine swaps. I mean, both should be quite easy, right? Just design all cars so they have the same sized engine with standard interfaces.

 

[elte]

Switching to many smaller stores near by will significantly increase the cost vs. a large super market with more selections (that also avoids so much food spoiling unused), but van delivery can avoid delivery vehicles not being used except on very low duty cycle (keep total delivery cost lower).

Hmm, that's an idea.

 

[Grumpy]

Two words, Flow Battery.

A flow battery is a rechargeable fuel cell in which electrolyte containing one or more dissolved electroactive species flows through an electrochemical cell that reversibly converts chemical energy directly to electricity. Additional electrolyte is stored externally, generally in tanks, and is usually pumped through. Flow batteries can be rapidly "recharged" by replacing the electrolyte liquid (in a similar way to refilling fuel tanks for internal combustion engines) while simultaneously recovering the spent material for re-energization.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_battery

Simply pull up to the pump, dump your expended electrolite tank, fill your supply tank with freshly charged electrolite and be on your way. The station just has to charge the electrolite and keep a tankful ready to pump(just like gasoline, only much cleaner, especially if the charge is provided by wind, solar or hydro).

It's coming, get ahead of the curve. Good luck is simply the residue of good design.

Grumpy

 

[billvon]

Two words, Flow Battery.

Great idea, but no reasonable solutions exist yet. A flow battery with its tanks of reactants weighs a LOT more than a lithium ion battery of the same energy.

To take an example, a lithium ion battery that would take you 70 miles weighs around 600 pounds. The same flow battery (with zinc-bromine reactants) would weigh 4800 pounds.

 

[Grumpy]

billvon

Great idea, but no reasonable solutions exist yet. A flow battery with its tanks of reactants weighs a LOT more than a lithium ion battery of the same energy.

And the biggest computer in 1960 filled a large room and wouldn't be able to do what your watch will do now. Your modern car contains several computers of vastly greater capabilities. There are several chemistries in development and nano materials have the same capacity for miniaturization and efficiencies that chips have over single transistors and tubes in electronics. As in all new technology, prototypes and test devices are often many times the size and weight of the finished product, as well as orders of magnitude more inefficient compared to mature technology. Flow battery systems would be near equivalent to internal combustion engines in the proportion of weight of power train/total weight of vehicle, at least half as efficient in terms of range/fill up(depending on tank size), equivalent in ease of use, and would be cheaper and infinitely more ecologically friendly(zero emissions if renewables are used to charge the electrolite)than fossil fuels or bio-fuel. They could even be recharged by plugging in at home, forget the charging station. Since they are electric, the drive system of the car could be built into each wheel and the other components can be put anywhere you like(like into a flat floor). This increases the total usable area or, alternatly, allows much smaller, lighter cars to do the same job as our large, space-inefficient vehicles do today. And while electric drive systems today have efficiencies above 80%, IC cars do well to get 25% of the energy in gasoline to the ground, even steam does better than that!

Grumpy

 

[billvon]

And the biggest computer in 1960 filled a large room and wouldn't be able to do what your watch will do now.

Definitely!

Now compare those advances to the advancements in batteries. In 1900 the state of the art battery was a lead-acid battery; electric vehicles of the time (which were the most popular vehicles on the road at that point) used them. The energy density of those batteries were around .1 MJ/KG. Nowadays our best lithium-ion batteries are around .7 MJ/KG. That's a factor of 7 improvement in 100 years. At that rate you'd have to go about another 120 years before you get flow batteries to the density of lithium-ions, which seems like a long time to wait.

The problem is that battery chemistry is not amenable to miniaturization like processors were. There are only so many electrons in lithium ions, and you can't miniaturize electrons. I think we will get significantly better storage systems in the near future but they definitely won't be flow batteries (or any other technology that relies purely on electrochemistry.) In the meantime the remaining improvements to be had in lithium chemistry will give us about 1.5x the energy density we are seeing right now, which should be sufficient for most personal transportation vehicles.

There are several chemistries in development and nano materials have the same capacity for miniaturization . . . .

They really don't. You can't miniaturize electrons, so as long as you are storing them chemically you're going to run into that limit.

and efficiencies that chips have over single transistors and tubes in electronics. As in all new technology, prototypes and test devices are often many times the size and weight of the finished product, as well as orders of magnitude more inefficient compared to mature technology.

Agreed. Unfortunately batteries are a mature technology.

Flow battery systems would be near equivalent to internal combustion engines in the proportion of weight of power train/total weight of vehicle, at least half as efficient in terms of range/fill up(depending on tank size), equivalent in ease of use, and would be cheaper and infinitely more ecologically friendly(zero emissions if renewables are used to charge the electrolite)than fossil fuels or bio-fuel.

You could get the same eco-friendliness out of fossil fuels right now by compressing and storing all the exhaust, then reprocessing the gas (via the RWGS and Sabatier reactions) back to fossil fuels. It would probably weigh less than a flow battery.

They could even be recharged by plugging in at home, forget the charging station.

Flow batteries require external chemical reprocessing facilities.

Since they are electric, the drive system of the car could be built into each wheel

There are a lot of problems with that.

and the other components can be put anywhere you like(like into a flat floor).

True, although you can do the same with rechargeable batteries.