Several Republican representatives have proposed amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act to try to stop the Pentagon’s electrification. The proposals sound so mind-bogglingly dumb that they look like they were written by 19th-century Luddites or the fossil fuel industry itself.
With the US military operating a fleet of hundreds of thousands of vehicles, including tactical vehicles, it makes the Pentagon the largest institutional consumer of fossil fuels in the world.
The entire transportation industry is currently transitioning to electric propulsion, and the US military knows better than to be left behind.
I wonder how they prevent the batteries from burning when they are punctured? Diesel doesn’t really burn, but one bullet in the right place can destroy an entire EV in minutes.
a bullet in the right place also disables a diesel vehicle
Doesn’t the one bullet in the right place also kill pretty much every vehicle?
A lithium powered EV will definitely burn itself to ash.
Maybe this means that the US government can invest heavily in battery technology where the patents are publicly owned.
For example, graphene batteries wouldn’t have the explosive problems that lithium batteries have.
A bullet in the right place will kill a person. Better stop using them, too.
All hail the robot overlords!
Well they’re pretty good at stopping bullets. That’s not an argument against anything, it’s just a logistical problem.
So surround the battery in half inch thick carbon fiber plating and call it a day. Military vehicles are usually less worried about weight limits than civilian vehicles and they’re especially not worried about looking pretty. Armoring your vehicle isn’t a new idea.
CFRis actually not the best for ballistic protection. Chances are they will go with a composite based off chobbam armor. (Which may or may not be CF-reinforced ceramics,)
Going to start running into cooling issues there as well.
Look, I’m all for electrification in as many places as we can, but there are absolutely many military use cases where they currently aren’t feasible. Not to mention lithium batteries getting blown up is significantly worse for the surrounding environment long term than a diesel vehicle.
I would imagine the military is considering all of these factors. If there is actually political pressure to electrify vehicles in contexts where it’s truly not appropriate, that would be alarming, but I haven’t heard of any evidence of that happening at all, so I wouldn’t say it’s a meaningful concern.
Reinforced steel then? It both conducts heat and works as armor. I’m confident a technological solution exists.
Yes, and there are likely many circumstances where electric is preferable. With the right equipment this could allow military operations without supply chains delivering fuel. Batteries to be refilled by solar, or portable fission or fusion reactors, for example.
I suspect a military that uses depleted uranium rounds and burns all its waste in massive fire pits doesn’t prioritize pollution reduction.