Assume the battery problem is solved in Shadowrun. (As the fluff tells us it is).

Can somebody think of any reason why there should still be gasoline powered vehicles? I really like to have both, but I cant think of any reason why gasoline powered should still be used at all. Not even one advantage.
I would be glad for any reasons, even if they are somewhat hand wavy.

Depends on what battery problem you mean: Cost and energy density currently are the big ones, but there also are refuel times, storage duration, temperature tolerance (probably not an issue for urban populations, though)...

And you can always make up stuff: Maybe the price for having batteries which hold just as much energy as a tank of the same size is that those batteries have low discharge rates, which are only good for commuter traffic speeds. So if you really want to put the pedal to the metal, you'd still need to burn combustibles.

Because the corps can still make money on oil and biofuels for internal combustion engines, the infrastructure for gasoline is virtually omnipresent even in feral cities, most of the sixth world is not connected to a power grid for electricity to recharge your car when the power cells no longer have the charge to move it, and you cannot power jets for the military or ballistic flights on electricity alone.

Source and care to elaborate? Even in SR4 with it's handwaivium approach to such problems, batteries are not assumed to be limitless in size. In SR3, when comparable technologies existed and were statted, batteries still had a bit less range, though nowhere neat today's levels and apparently without being made of explodium, as real high energy density batteries inevitably are. Mostly, though, Shadowrun electrical cars run on GridLink power, induction energy, and only use battery when they venture off the main roads that are GridLink enabled.


Because a MultiFuel vehicle doesn't need to be recharged and is easier repaired. Plus, being MultiFuel, it can run on anything from Gas to EtOH to food oils. And if you don't assume every last country road in SR has GridLink, they make a lot more sense in remote regions, such as most everything in North America. They also can run entirely off the grid if need be and are, as such, less vulnerable to hacking attacks, whereas electrical vehicles are dependent on GridLink and charging stations, and apparently, Powerline technology also is default in SR.

And finally, most all cars in SR4 are hybrids anyway.

Basically.

Well, we have Cyberlimbs working on battery power, peak discharge battery packs that can even power lasers and very powerful comlinks and cyberdecks that never have to worry about battery or anything that has to worry about battery.
Furthermore: We are, in the real world, on the brink of replacing gasoline with battery. in 20 years, or with the technology available in SR, there will be no question any more.

If you add GridLink, there is absolutely no need for gasoline. Except for special cases like jets and remote places.

But I somehow want to have dirty Noir like gasoline muscle cars. Pure electricity just feels too clean and un-shadowrun like for me. But once the battery problem is solved (which I assume it is, with the technology available in shadowrun, everything else stretches my suspension of disbelief too far) , electric cars seem to have no drawback at all (faster, more silent, more energy efficient, lighter engine, less prone to faults, easier to replace, ...)

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One thought on why you might see them in the city: If we assume that by 2075 gasoline is a more expensive way to power cars, then it makes sense that some up-market cars might run on it for pure snob factor. Sure, the marketing is all about being able to go everyone, the safety of never being trapped in place if power is out for long, etc. But the real value is just that only someone with money to burn and the ability to pay expensive help to keep it running (and getting rare parts, etc) would buy the high end ones. And then of course there would be a portion of the lower part of the market that would want them, even if they are effectively inferior, for that reflected snob value.

With SRs advanced solar tech, there is really no good reason for gasoline anymore . . let the car park in the sun for a day, drive for 2, rinse and repeat.

Because 2070s Seattle is known for it's sunny days? I thought the standard forecast was overcast with occasional volcanic soot blown in from Rainer, and acid drizzle in the late afternoon.

Doesn't matter. FUTURE TECH!
It works. Just like magic.

Other than handwavium to make electric cars the thing, the same problems we have now still hold in SR. With the natural resurgence, most of the West and some of the Midwest is now flat out wilderness. Good luck charging your solar car when it's tree cover for days and the government hasn't maintained the roads since the 30's.

In town, a lot of the vehicles are Grid Guide ™ powered, but gas still rules for energy density when it comes to the middle of nowhere Wyoming.

Yeah, pretty much these things. The only reason we're close to replacing gas with electricity in the Real is because we're close to creating GridGuide-esque solar roads, not because we've fixed the energy density issue. In fact, unless we get quantum batteries or something unforseen like them, I doubt we'll ever get a battery with more energy density than gasoline, not to mention one that's stable with that much density.

As to the muscle car argument? Electric race cars will always beat gas since electric engines offer maximum torque immediately, whereas gas engines have to reach a certain gear and RPM to do the same. Top Gear has plenty of races that show this.

"Assume the battery problem is solved in Shadowrun" means that a battery can store just as much energy as an equal volume and weight of hydrocarbons, or at least ethanol. There would be no difference between having a tank full of diesel or a battery of the same proportions in your backyard.



Solar Roads are an overly gimmicky solution in search of a problem. There are a lot of issues with solar power, insufficient space to put the cells is not among them.


That is a question of the drive train, not of the energy source
Serial hybrids (basically the technology diesel subs and locomotives have used for a century) deliver all the fun of constant torque, but still get their energy from burning combustibles.

No, we are actually not, because there's a limit to how powerful while still not as volatile as explosives a battery can be, and we're approaching that fast. This will only be solved with fuel cells running on methne or methanol. Until then, we have to try and get by with ever more volatile batteries, but even today those are already problematic (from Boeing's 787 disaster to exploding iPhones).


Have you ever been to America? If you had, you'd know that "remote place" is the standard there. As is, on a side note, shitty infrastructure. And that GridGuide doesn't maintain itself.


Shadowrun has a two-day work week? Of course, charging time is the general problem with electrical vehicles.


No, it means to handwaive problems such as uncharged commlinks. Just like you never have to track your character's digestive processes and make sure they can go to the bathroom every so often. Or track their food intake for that matter. Or whether or not your characters have a cold, brush their teeth, and other things only a Sims devotee would find interesting. All of that does not mean Shadowrun characters are assumed not to have a digestive system.

Good Lord, warn people before you link to TVTropes please! I almost got sucked in. I noticed the URL while it was still loading and "nope'd" out in a hurry.

the funny thing about electric cars is that the electricity doesn't just magically come out of nowhere. someone has to be generating it, and considering most of america is wilderness and a lack of mention of solar panels on every roof in every city, it certainly isn't solar (or most likely wind, or even from damming rivers).

which means you've basically got nuclear power plants (of which we know there are definitely some)... and power plants that run on fossil fuels.

just because the car isn't burning gasoline, doesn't mean nobody is burning gasoline to power your car.

so if you feel like electric cars are too clean for the setting, just make sure to include a run in a filthy power plant that is like a festering sore on the face of the earth but is essential for providing power to the city what with the massively increased electricity requirements they're facing combined with reduced ability to generate clean energy (because almost nobody is setting up giant solar or wind power farms).

Hell, if you've ever read the setting books, they don't even have GridGuide up everywehere in the Seattle sprawl because nobody wants to pay for the infrastructure to run it. Much less the thousands and thousands of miles of road all over the Rockies and the southwestern deserts. Who'd pay to maintain the run from Las Vegas to LA, right? 240 miles through the Mojave, one of the only major roads that makes the run.

Remember that in Shadowrun, the nations have collapsed into nation-states with minimal tax bases and even less actual power. The UCAS can't even maintain the old Eisenhower interstate system, much less the even more strapped NAN who control much of the western wilderness.

They do have fusion plants, but electricity also needs an infrastructure to get to places. And I don't see how that would be better maintained than the interstate system.

Well, that's basically my problem. Shadowrunners will prefer electrical cars, except for very special circumstances.

Thanks for the interesting discussion so far.

Bear in mind that if conventional fuels were not necessary for civilization as we know it, they would have been banned long ago for their ridiculously long list of health and safety hazards.


Regardless of the original intention, the OP's question was "assume batteries are just as good as a fuel tank, why do we need the latter". It is a slightly weird scenario where this might as well be a huge battery, but at least an interesting thought experiment.

By 'volatile' I mean 'ignites when shaken', not the current generation of "may burst on fire for unintelligible reasons" generation of LiOn batteries. Because the new ultra-high gradient metal complex batteries are a lot more volatile. You wouldn't use a car driven by nitriglycerine, would you?


Special like "we want to lie low in a place where the roads aren't maintained, like in the barrens"?


Which doesn't apply to the setting, at least not based on this rules text snippet. Why not speculate about engine-sized fusion reactors while we're at it? Or Warp drives? Rigging a suborbital plane with a VCR 3 gives you FTL speeds, after all, according to SR5 rules.

Because the premise of this thread was not "assume there are compact fusion reactors in Shadowrun"

The premise of this thread was wrong, so there's that (the fluff doesn't tell us that).

It sounds like there is research for less explosive but still high-density batteries. Although there are about 10 stories like this a year that never seem to go anywhere.



Shadowrunners? Define "use."

Nitroglycerine no, but nitromethane? sure.

Drag racers often run close to a 90% nitromethane / 10% methanol or other fuel mix and yeah they are very prone to explosions, but when you have that need for speed.......

How did you know???? You live in Seattle? Great city... As long as you don't want to drive...
Besides, they do get there 2 weeks of sun a year... It's called summer and sometime you even need sunglasses for a few hours.