There's a megatrend suggesting that the Electric Vehicles (like Elon Musk's Tesla) will completely replace the Internal Combustion vehicles within the next decade (or even THIS decade)....
but Mazda said otherwise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87c48vd9Bvk Mazda is pushing its already excellence Skyactive technology to its next frontier. still put much of its stocks in the internal combustion engine R&D while others follow Elon Musk hype.
curran12 wrote: A company that makes its money selling combustion engine cars is pushing a future with combustion engine cars in it? WHODATHUNKIT?!
They push this because the competing technology is still plagued by a big flaw. especially during the recent hurricane disaster that hit the Missisipi basin this year. where Tesla cars were rendered unusable while generic vehicles can still move on its own power.... as long as the EV still have a short operational range (usually urban areas, especially those with recharging stations available) and the infrastructures to resupply the EV aren't yet adequate. (and ... there's still fuels compatible with vehicle-grade combustion engines, be there petroleum distillates or not)..... and the 'comparative fuel costs' the alternative are't yet economically attractive enough. this 'antique' techlology still have its own future.
We should note, there is no technology guarantee that electric vehicles will improve. That is an assumption, that while we hope it does, doesn't necessarily have to be.
I couldn't do my present job with an electric car because I'd have to recharge it in the middle of my shift, and that's with great non-freezing weather and everything working perfectly. A real winter with snow and -20 C temperatures? I could as well quit instead of going out with something that has a max range of 200 kilometers in good conditions but is now eating that range for heat so I see something and stay alive.
The old combustion engine still has a long life ahead of it just because it's so simple and reliable, and has a long range compared to even high-end EVs like the Tesla. Once the industry manages to squeeze in a 2-3 times more efficient battery pack and gets the price down by half or more then maybe.
It's iffy. Electric cars still have 3 major problems.
1) Poor range. Equivalent electric vehicles just can't go the same distance as a gas car can before needing to refuel/recharge.
2) Lack of charging stations. You can only travel on routes where there are charging stations, and those just don't exist in all places yet. So an electric vehicle really limits where you can go currently. There are gas stations everywhere. It also takes much longer to recharge a car vs just refilling a gas tank.
3) Problem #1 is made even worse by the fact that batteries degrade quite rapidly. It's why my dad decided against an electric car he was looking at. It had a max range of 70 miles, his commute to work is just under 70 miles one way. But within a year, his battery would degrade to where it could no longer make it the round trip without recharging halfway, and there wasn't a charging station at work. So he went with a Prius.
I think Hybrids are the wave of the future, not electric. They use existing infrastructure and have comparable/better ranges than a gas car.
Electric cars are still weighed down by our battery technology being quite awful. Until we can massively improve energy storage, battery longevity, reduce the size, and make electric vehicles in the same price range as gas vehicles, electric vehicles will be little more than a gimmick.
Crude oil is finite, once supplies run low it will only be used for essential or costly services and not largely cracked down and burned for thermal energy as it is now. Further, cites are becoming so polluted that clean cars will become more popular even while fossil fuels are abundant. While electric cars currently get most electricity from conventional coal powered stations, the pollution stemming from transport is nationally more diffuse rather than concentrated into urban areas.
Hydrogen has some safety issues, while electric cars have issues with supply and management of metals in their batteries. But both have a future beyond crude oil.
Sure, we will eventually have to move to electric. Or possibly just keep hybrids once we genetically engineer some plants to make renewable combustibles(which has actually already happened) in a practical fashion.
Eventually, we'll have to realize that Nuclear is the only real clean option for power generation that can also keep up with consumption.
2) Lack of charging stations. You can only travel on routes where there are charging stations, and those just don't exist in all places yet. So an electric vehicle really limits where you can go currently. There are gas stations everywhere. It also takes much longer to recharge a car vs just refilling a gas tank.
It's worth noting that a lot of the reason gas powered vehicles work in any real capacity is that we've invested an inconceivable amount of resources into structuring our society around supporting them.
I do think that EVs will become the standard in due time, there isn't really any reason to suspect that technology won't get us there. But there will always be a use for the old technologies as well, and there will be some essential areas that will want to have a reliable standby in case the EV is simply not an option.
Just look at Kerosene lanterns. How long have we had the electric light bulb and how long have we had reliable electricity? But there is still a legitimate market and need for the kerosene lantern. I suspect it will be similar for internal combustion vehicles. I can see gasoline engines going away, but diesel engines to stick around due to their fuel versatility.
2) Lack of charging stations. You can only travel on routes where there are charging stations, and those just don't exist in all places yet. So an electric vehicle really limits where you can go currently. There are gas stations everywhere. It also takes much longer to recharge a car vs just refilling a gas tank.
It's worth noting that a lot of the reason gas powered vehicles work in any real capacity is that we've invested an inconceivable amount of resources into structuring our society around supporting them.
True, but now that infrastructure is there. Good luck just tossing it out. Petroleum is a HUGE part of our economy, we're not just going to completely phase it out in a decade.
2) Lack of charging stations. You can only travel on routes where there are charging stations, and those just don't exist in all places yet. So an electric vehicle really limits where you can go currently. There are gas stations everywhere. It also takes much longer to recharge a car vs just refilling a gas tank.
It's worth noting that a lot of the reason gas powered vehicles work in any real capacity is that we've invested an inconceivable amount of resources into structuring our society around supporting them.
Well that infrastructure can be used for future hybrid, electric, or hydrogen cars, so thats a good thing.
2) Lack of charging stations. You can only travel on routes where there are charging stations, and those just don't exist in all places yet. So an electric vehicle really limits where you can go currently. There are gas stations everywhere. It also takes much longer to recharge a car vs just refilling a gas tank.
It's worth noting that a lot of the reason gas powered vehicles work in any real capacity is that we've invested an inconceivable amount of resources into structuring our society around supporting them.
Which present another problem because a lot of our funding mechanism for maintaining our road network is based on the internal combustion engine. If people don't use fuel, which is taxed to fund the roads, then nobody is paying for the roads.
So then you have to figure out how to tax electricity to make up for lost fuel taxes, which doesn't help when people charge at home.
2) Lack of charging stations. You can only travel on routes where there are charging stations, and those just don't exist in all places yet. So an electric vehicle really limits where you can go currently. There are gas stations everywhere. It also takes much longer to recharge a car vs just refilling a gas tank.
It's worth noting that a lot of the reason gas powered vehicles work in any real capacity is that we've invested an inconceivable amount of resources into structuring our society around supporting them.
Which present another problem because a lot of our funding mechanism for maintaining our road network is based on the internal combustion engine. If people don't use fuel, which is taxed to fund the roads, then nobody is paying for the roads.
So then you have to figure out how to tax electricity to make up for lost fuel taxes, which doesn't help when people charge at home.
mileage or a standard tax when renewing registration.
Full electric will be a long time coming, for multiple reasons:
First, support infrastructure isn't there. Not only do you need charging stations, but also the extra capacity and distribution system to replace the gasoline system. Electricity is cheaper than gasoline NOW, but without huge improvements in generation and distribution, demand will drive the price of electricity up and up. Additionally, the gasoline distribution system acts largely as a back-up for the electrical system (portable and stationary gas powered generators). If the gasoline infrastructure dies due to electric, gas generators won't be a practical solution for power grid outages. Who is paying for these infrastructure upgrades? Either the taxpayer or the electricity buyer, who can ill afford more price increases.
Second is legacy gasoline. There are millions of gas powered cars out there, and a good portion off them are 10+ years old and still running, especially in place that don't salt the roads in winter. Even if they stopped making gasoline powered cars today, it would take probably 20+ years before the old gas powered cars were worked out of the system, which means the infrastructure isn't going anywhere, but it's competing for space with the aforementioned electrical infrastructure. This will drive up the price for BOTH of them.
Third is climate related. Chemical batteries, including lithium ion, work best at certain temperatures. Gas power will be preferred anywhere that it gets really cold in the winter time, because you can't afford a sluggish vehicle when driving in snow. There are places in Canada where the malls have block heater connections in the parking lots. Electric cars generally have the batteries distributed across the entire vehicle, so you'd have to keep the whole thing warm to keep the chemistry ticking over. Anywhere that hits -20C on a regular basis is probably a no-go for electrical, at least for the time being.
Fourth is recycling. Your average gasoline car is made of steel, rubber, and plastic, which are pretty easy to recycle and frankly non-volatile. Pull the engine and dashboard and you've pretty much gotten rid of all the e-waste and can send it to the car crusher. Electric cars are full of e-waste and batteries, which are not easy to recycle, but cannot be left to 'rot' in a field like a gasoline powered car. Eventually the batteries will rupture, expand and catch fire or explode. This is a problem we haven't really even run into yet, as most electric cars are still less than 10 years old, but once they have a decent market penetration, it'll start happening. Electric cars MUST be recycled at end of lifespan, or those batteries MUST be replaced and recycled. Electric vehicle recycling infrastructure must be built in parallel with expanding market segment - hopefully lithium becomes valuable enough to warrant this, though this will drive up the price of all Lithium ion batteries as a consequence.
So basically, you need massive electrical grid improvements and recycling IN PLACE before we can even think about converting to 100% electrical vehicles, and it still won't be practical for a decent portion of humanity to give up on internal combustion. And as long as we're still drawing up oil and refining it, there will be a certain amount of gasoline produced that needs to be 'disposed' of, and we're not abandoning the use of oil just yet (plastic, at a bare minimum).
By the same token, a pretty significant amount of federal taxes go to keeping gas prices cheap. That's what I'm getting at; we've got a system built entirely around supporting our existing fuel technologies. It makes for a lot of impossible comparisons with competing tech that isn't similarly supported.
2) Lack of charging stations. You can only travel on routes where there are charging stations, and those just don't exist in all places yet. So an electric vehicle really limits where you can go currently. There are gas stations everywhere. It also takes much longer to recharge a car vs just refilling a gas tank.
It's worth noting that a lot of the reason gas powered vehicles work in any real capacity is that we've invested an inconceivable amount of resources into structuring our society around supporting them.
Which present another problem because a lot of our funding mechanism for maintaining our road network is based on the internal combustion engine. If people don't use fuel, which is taxed to fund the roads, then nobody is paying for the roads.
So then you have to figure out how to tax electricity to make up for lost fuel taxes, which doesn't help when people charge at home.
mileage or a standard tax when renewing registration.
Mileage would probably be the best way, and the most fair way, of doing it. But man, could you imagine the sticker shock of having to pay all the fuel taxes you are currently paying each year all at once?
Practically speaking, a good solution would be for each vehicle to have GPS to track your mileage, and then get a tax bill for your miles each month.
Realistically speaking, good lock passing any funding mechanism that includes letting the government know where your car is at all times.
LunarSol wrote: By the same token, a pretty significant amount of federal taxes go to keeping gas prices cheap. That's what I'm getting at; we've got a system built entirely around supporting our existing fuel technologies. It makes for a lot of impossible comparisons with competing tech that isn't similarly supported.
You're just thinking federal. States don't make those cuts, but they get a ton of money from the taxes they levy. Tennessee along generates 700 million in tax revenues from gas.
2) Lack of charging stations. You can only travel on routes where there are charging stations, and those just don't exist in all places yet. So an electric vehicle really limits where you can go currently. There are gas stations everywhere. It also takes much longer to recharge a car vs just refilling a gas tank.
It's worth noting that a lot of the reason gas powered vehicles work in any real capacity is that we've invested an inconceivable amount of resources into structuring our society around supporting them.
Which present another problem because a lot of our funding mechanism for maintaining our road network is based on the internal combustion engine. If people don't use fuel, which is taxed to fund the roads, then nobody is paying for the roads.
So then you have to figure out how to tax electricity to make up for lost fuel taxes, which doesn't help when people charge at home.
mileage or a standard tax when renewing registration.
Mileage would probably be the best way, and the most fair way, of doing it. But man, could you imagine the sticker shock of having to pay all the fuel taxes you are currently paying each year all at once?
Practically speaking, a good solution would be for each vehicle to have GPS to track your mileage, and then get a tax bill for your miles each month.
Realistically speaking, good lock passing any funding mechanism that includes letting the government know where your car is at all times.
I'd be on board with that, even now. My truck destroys gas, but I don't put the miles on her. At 14 miles to the gallon city driving, I use almost twice as much gas as a standard car, and drive the same distance. So I'm currently paying twice as much in taxes.
So... the government has to install monitoring devices in everyones home?
Smart meters that measure electricity consumption are already standard here in Ontario. Previously someone had to trespass(*) on your property to physically read the meter. Car chargers in your garage will be purpose specific and easily metered by your power company, who will collect taxes on the government's behalf. There might even be a separation of data involved so long as the government gets its dollars.
(*) not actually trespassing, unless you don't want to buy electricity at all.
Practically speaking, a good solution would be for each vehicle to have GPS to track your mileage, and then get a tax bill for your miles each month.
Realistically speaking, good lock passing any funding mechanism that includes letting the government know where your car is at all times.
Yeah, I can't see that happening. OTOH, cars have odometers, and you could be forced to report your mileage annually.
More likely, electric car charging stations will have fuel taxes built-in, even in-home ones.
So... the government has to install monitoring devices in everyones home?
Your car stores that information and gives it up every time you take it to a mechanic. Cars have their own black boxes. Further, modern cars are effectively networked. That freedom train sailed a long time ago.
For me it is plainly obvious that I and many people in my area will have combustion engine vehicles for some time. The infrastructure in the countryside has always and will always lag behind the big cities. There won't be the charging the convenient charging points in the right areas in a suitable quantity to make electric cars viable outside of returning home to charge again. My main concern is the cost of your electric bill and the life expectancy of the batteries in cars which are can be very expensive to replace.
I believe we will see people using combustion engines right up to whenever a deadline is set where you are not to build and sell new cars with the polluting engines. Certain countries are jumping on the wagon by giving a target date to go all electric, but I will be very surprised if any actually keep to it. People may just keep their old combustion engine car for many years if they can't buy a new one and there is bound to be a big second hand market from this, Electric engines in small cars and commercial vehicles are a good idea, but it is totally unviable to think an electric motor could power the same HGV trucks we have today (at the moment). They just aren't powerful enough and batteries still aren't that efficient. One of the biggest thorns in the all electric utopia is agriculture, my industry. Tractors. An electric motor cannot provide the horsepower needed and would burn out if the battery didn't drain first long before 12 hours were over.
The combustion engine still has a future long after it goes out of the mainstream. If it was banned entirely then heavy logistics and food production would collapse over night. A final concern would be a global power shortage as we will struggle to provide enough electricity to meet our growing demands. Electric may be the future in certain industries and niches, but it is still a long way off, and it won't kill off the combustion engine until a revolutionary technological step is made that bridges the gap in motor power and electric capacity.
Howard A Treesong wrote: Crude oil is finite, once supplies run low it will only be used for essential or costly services and not largely cracked down and burned for thermal energy as it is now. Further, cites are becoming so polluted that clean cars will become more popular even while fossil fuels are abundant. While electric cars currently get most electricity from conventional coal powered stations, the pollution stemming from transport is nationally more diffuse rather than concentrated into urban areas.
Hydrogen has some safety issues, while electric cars have issues with supply and management of metals in their batteries. But both have a future beyond crude oil.
It is worth mentioning that for all intents and purposes, hydrogen is an energy storage medium, not an energy source.
Cracking water into hydrogen and oxygen actually uses more energy than is released when the H2 and the O are recombined in the engine.
Hybrid vehicles are, at current tech, more efficient than hydrogen driven vehicles.
I do not foresee the end of the internal combustion engine anywhere in the next decade.
The Auld Grump - barring a sudden breakthrough in fusion power.... It seems to have been right around the corner for about forty years now....
LunarSol wrote: By the same token, a pretty significant amount of federal taxes go to keeping gas prices cheap. That's what I'm getting at; we've got a system built entirely around supporting our existing fuel technologies. It makes for a lot of impossible comparisons with competing tech that isn't similarly supported.
You're just thinking federal. States don't make those cuts, but they get a ton of money from the taxes they levy. Tennessee along generates 700 million in tax revenues from gas.
I'm just giving the simple examples because there's no way the complexities of the oil industry are going to be properly explored in a forum post. I'd not dare pretend anything said here is remotely comprehensive.
Interesting timing for this thread, as I just read an article that China is working on eventually banning new gas and diesel vehicles. That may be what it takes to kick the car industry into high gear on working on improving electric vehicles.
Lone Cat wrote: There's a megatrend suggesting that the Electric Vehicles (like Elon Musk's Tesla) will completely replace the Internal Combustion vehicles within the next decade (or even THIS decade)....
0% chance. Anyone who genuinely believes this is out of their mind and has no concept of reality.
Gas is here to stay. I don't expect to see it going away in my lifetime. I do see Hybrids getting more popular though, but there will always be a need for a powerful truck that's only gonna run right on gas.
I like the idea of electric cars, but like others said the infrastructure isn't there and in my area anyway, a tesla is just another range rover or benz, people buy em because they need to show off their salaries. For EV to be mainstream, it's gotta be the same price as a regular gas car, if not cheaper. It's gotta be easy to recharge it, getting a full charge in 5 minutes like gas, or like solar panels in the roof to charge as you drive, but solar power isn't good enough for that.
My daily commute is around 65 miles round trip now. I'd love to get better gas mileage, but I don't want to pay extra up front for a hybrid where I won't see a return on the gas savings by the time I trade it in for something new. Until hybrids or electric can actually be cheaper and as convenient or more convenient that gas, I don't see them taking over at all. Would be nice though.
2) Lack of charging stations. You can only travel on routes where there are charging stations, and those just don't exist in all places yet. So an electric vehicle really limits where you can go currently. There are gas stations everywhere. It also takes much longer to recharge a car vs just refilling a gas tank.
It's worth noting that a lot of the reason gas powered vehicles work in any real capacity is that we've invested an inconceivable amount of resources into structuring our society around supporting them.
Which present another problem because a lot of our funding mechanism for maintaining our road network is based on the internal combustion engine. If people don't use fuel, which is taxed to fund the roads, then nobody is paying for the roads.
So then you have to figure out how to tax electricity to make up for lost fuel taxes, which doesn't help when people charge at home.
Yup.
We will likely have to move road maintenance taxes to a flat rate per vehicle tacked on to registration. At the very least, this needs to be done with Electric vehicles right now which currently contribute nothing to road repair.
Vehicle charge stations at least could have some taxes placed on their use, but as you say home use would be trickier. We'd basically have to have the electric companies all add a tax meter onto any electric vehicle charging stations.
I'd like to think the future is efficient super-lightweight vehicles designed to last longer, then who gives a feth what powers it because it'll use almost no power.
Of course that probably won't happen, people love their absurdly large complicated vehicles that amount to probably an average of 1500kg of vehicle to transport each person.
In the future, cars will run on nuclear fusion. You will never have to worry about fuel again! Nuclear power is the future, it is clean (unlike energy from fossil fuels) and efficient (unlike 'green' energy). We just need to make it more safe.
And besides, what is cooler than a car powered by a nuclear reactor?
Also, just as an aside I want to mention that cars aren't really a problem when it comes to pollution. It is ships and aircraft that are the big polluters. Modern cars are already relatively clean. I read somewhere that 15 large cargo ships produce more pollution than all cars in the world combined. And there are thousands of large cargo ships... That is where real gains are to be made
AllSeeingSkink wrote: I'd like to think the future is efficient super-lightweight vehicles designed to last longer, then who gives a feth what powers it because it'll use almost no power.
Of course that probably won't happen, people love their absurdly large complicated vehicles that amount to probably an average of 1500kg of vehicle to transport each person.
That's a nice theory, but crash protection isn't free. Your hypothetical "use almost no power" vehicle would almost certainly be suicide on a real road.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: I'd like to think the future is efficient super-lightweight vehicles designed to last longer, then who gives a feth what powers it because it'll use almost no power.
Of course that probably won't happen, people love their absurdly large complicated vehicles that amount to probably an average of 1500kg of vehicle to transport each person.
That's a nice theory, but crash protection isn't free. Your hypothetical "use almost no power" vehicle would almost certainly be suicide on a real road.
Though combined with some of the projected numbers on accident reduction (90%!) from self-driving cars, it might still be safer! Provided all cars are self-driving of course.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: I'd like to think the future is efficient super-lightweight vehicles designed to last longer, then who gives a feth what powers it because it'll use almost no power.
Of course that probably won't happen, people love their absurdly large complicated vehicles that amount to probably an average of 1500kg of vehicle to transport each person.
That's a nice theory, but crash protection isn't free. Your hypothetical "use almost no power" vehicle would almost certainly be suicide on a real road.
Nah, it's being comfortable and excessive size that makes road going vehicles heavy more than crash structure. People love their comfort more than they care about fuel consumption.
I'd rather have an accident in one of the 250 to 400kg race cars I helped build than most street cars (granted they are only designed for 1 person, the larger ones can probably transport 2 comfortably with a little modification, the smaller ones could transport 2 uncomfortably with a little modification ).
I understand people want big cars for the times they need big cars, but the absurdity when you look around in peak hour traffic and see most vehicles in the range of 1500 to 2000kg with 1 occasionally 2 people being transported.
As much as I love driving and hate the idea of self driving vehicles, one advantage of them will potentially be the ability to really cut down on the huge amount of mass currently required to move people, and if we can combine that with roads that those self driving vehicles can navigate without stopping all the time the power required to move people could be a fraction of what it is currently, making the choice of powerplant far less important.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: I'd like to think the future is efficient super-lightweight vehicles designed to last longer, then who gives a feth what powers it because it'll use almost no power.
Of course that probably won't happen, people love their absurdly large complicated vehicles that amount to probably an average of 1500kg of vehicle to transport each person.
That's a nice theory, but crash protection isn't free. Your hypothetical "use almost no power" vehicle would almost certainly be suicide on a real road.
It isn't, but you don't need the monstrous cars that populate the roads in the cheap-petrol parts of the world to keep you safe, either.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: I'd like to think the future is efficient super-lightweight vehicles designed to last longer, then who gives a feth what powers it because it'll use almost no power.
Of course that probably won't happen, people love their absurdly large complicated vehicles that amount to probably an average of 1500kg of vehicle to transport each person.
That's a nice theory, but crash protection isn't free. Your hypothetical "use almost no power" vehicle would almost certainly be suicide on a real road.
Though combined with some of the projected numbers on accident reduction (90%!) from self-driving cars, it might still be safer! Provided all cars are self-driving of course.
Yeah. And that is why we will never get to the point where we have all self-driving cars. Self-driving cars, in order to reduce accidents, will require all other cars on the road to be self-driving and be able to communicate with each other.
This however will not be possible during any transition period. During which time you'll have a massive increase in accidents caused by the self-driving cars blindly following their programming around human drivers. Which will lead to outcry against self-driving cars and eventually a ban on self-driving cars.
Thats why self-driving cars are a bad idea. The transition period will kill any possibility of them getting accepted.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: I'd like to think the future is efficient super-lightweight vehicles designed to last longer, then who gives a feth what powers it because it'll use almost no power.
Of course that probably won't happen, people love their absurdly large complicated vehicles that amount to probably an average of 1500kg of vehicle to transport each person.
That's a nice theory, but crash protection isn't free. Your hypothetical "use almost no power" vehicle would almost certainly be suicide on a real road.
You cannot have both.
Unless there a huge change in materials, so that a material can be strong as modern cars with a fraction of the weight.
Modern metal structure is weight, engine blocks, etc. All weight.
To make a super light car requires somthing new, new materials, new designs, but retain the same strength.?
That's a big ask to achieve.
Even electric cars can be heavy.
They need alot of batteries to store power.
Best trade off is likely hybrids, that utilise new tech and lighter but stronger metals to make maximum efficiency out of a petrol engine combined with electric moters and advanced batteries to help store maximum power.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: I'd like to think the future is efficient super-lightweight vehicles designed to last longer, then who gives a feth what powers it because it'll use almost no power.
Of course that probably won't happen, people love their absurdly large complicated vehicles that amount to probably an average of 1500kg of vehicle to transport each person.
That's a nice theory, but crash protection isn't free. Your hypothetical "use almost no power" vehicle would almost certainly be suicide on a real road.
It isn't, but you don't need the monstrous cars that populate the roads in the cheap-petrol parts of the world to keep you safe, either.
As an American who has been to many parts of the world where they drive "little" cars, I have seen many first hand accounts where our "big lumbering" American vehicles allowed us to walk away from an accident, while those "light weight fuel efficient" cars were death traps.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: I'd like to think the future is efficient super-lightweight vehicles designed to last longer, then who gives a feth what powers it because it'll use almost no power.
Of course that probably won't happen, people love their absurdly large complicated vehicles that amount to probably an average of 1500kg of vehicle to transport each person.
That's a nice theory, but crash protection isn't free. Your hypothetical "use almost no power" vehicle would almost certainly be suicide on a real road.
It isn't, but you don't need the monstrous cars that populate the roads in the cheap-petrol parts of the world to keep you safe, either.
As an American who has been to many parts of the world where they drive "little" cars, I have seen many first hand accounts where our "big lumbering" American vehicles allowed us to walk away from an accident, while those "light weight fuel efficient" cars were death traps.
Sorry, but I'll take my tank any day of the week.
It would be interesting to see any stats or research regarding which is better (safer).
European car manufacturers and NCAP seem to do a good job and have steadily improved safety on our little cars.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: I'd like to think the future is efficient super-lightweight vehicles designed to last longer, then who gives a feth what powers it because it'll use almost no power.
Of course that probably won't happen, people love their absurdly large complicated vehicles that amount to probably an average of 1500kg of vehicle to transport each person.
That's a nice theory, but crash protection isn't free. Your hypothetical "use almost no power" vehicle would almost certainly be suicide on a real road.
Though combined with some of the projected numbers on accident reduction (90%!) from self-driving cars, it might still be safer! Provided all cars are self-driving of course.
Yeah. And that is why we will never get to the point where we have all self-driving cars. Self-driving cars, in order to reduce accidents, will require all other cars on the road to be self-driving and be able to communicate with each other.
This however will not be possible during any transition period. During which time you'll have a massive increase in accidents caused by the self-driving cars blindly following their programming around human drivers. Which will lead to outcry against self-driving cars and eventually a ban on self-driving cars.
Thats why self-driving cars are a bad idea. The transition period will kill any possibility of them getting accepted.
Only because people are dumb.
I certainly hope the science and technology education improves to the state of countries like some of those in Europe, where the outcry isn't against self-driving cars but rather against the humans who blindly held to their own erroneous fuckups and wouldn't upgrade to an autonomous vehicle.
As battery costs drop - electric car ranges increase. Right now the goal is to make an affordable EC that can go 200 miles without recharge. In 10 years it will 400 miles. Then it will be making batteries that charge faster. In about 20-30 gasoline will be rendered obsolete and we will tell our children how we used to destroy the planet to dig up a limited resource when all the energy we need to run the planet falls on a 1 square mile section of uninhabited deserts in death valley. In europe it's already cheaper and more efficient to do a solar start up than a coal one. The future is already here.
djones520 wrote: Within a decade? Not even a chance. 50 years? Sure.
UK/France have proposed banning conventional internal combustion sales by 2040 (23 years away), and to be honest I doubt there will be many after about 2030. By that point it'll make so much more sense to go for an electric/hybrid. If I was buying new, I'd be getting a hybrid (Mitsubishi Outlander - reasonable sided UK SUV with a 2.0 petrol engine to charge the battery or power the wheels).
The biggest issues are charging time and range, but they are improving dramatically with each generation (obviously we'll hit a point of diminishing returns).
For instance, the Nissan Leaf, a small hatchback, last generation had a quoted range of up to 155 miles, but the 2018 generation has a quoted range of 310 miles. For us, that's a lot (my diesel SUV doesn't get much above 300 miles from a tank), and even on long road trips, that means I'd need to stop every 4.5 hours @ 70mph for a 20-30 minute charge. Realistically, I'd be wanting to stop before then for a pee and a snack, so it's a non issue. That's the only time charging would be an issue - otherwise electric charging is a lot more convenient (I can plug it in at home / work / stores / train station and have it charge whilst I'm doing something else, rather than having to make a trip to a petrol station.
Sure, with electric cars you need electricity to run them, but in disaster situations you're quite likely to run out of fuel anyway. Potentially it's easier to charge a car (slowly) via solar panels, instead of trying to ship fuel in.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Necros wrote: there will always be a need for a powerful truck that's only gonna run right on gas..
Why? Electric gives you much more torque across the entire rev range - an electric motor should be better than diesel when it comes to power. Tesla and someone else have already announced electric Semi's within a few years, with a fairly low range - about 200 miles IIRC, so ideal for the "last mile" delivery stuff between depots and stores, rather than cross country hauling.
Hell, performance electric cars are giving performance combustion cars a run for their money too.
The only thing letting electric down currently is the recharging time.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: I'd like to think the future is efficient super-lightweight vehicles designed to last longer, then who gives a feth what powers it because it'll use almost no power.
Of course that probably won't happen, people love their absurdly large complicated vehicles that amount to probably an average of 1500kg of vehicle to transport each person.
That's a nice theory, but crash protection isn't free. Your hypothetical "use almost no power" vehicle would almost certainly be suicide on a real road.
It isn't, but you don't need the monstrous cars that populate the roads in the cheap-petrol parts of the world to keep you safe, either.
As an American who has been to many parts of the world where they drive "little" cars, I have seen many first hand accounts where our "big lumbering" American vehicles allowed us to walk away from an accident, while those "light weight fuel efficient" cars were death traps.
Sorry, but I'll take my tank any day of the week.
Were these modern small cars with good safety ratings?
In many ways light weight vehicles are easier to make safe because the intrusion zones are often smaller, you can wrap the crash structures closer to the occupants and there's less energy involved for the same vehicular speed. The one accident I've been in where I had a high chance of being killed was in a modern Renault and the only reason I'm alive has nothing to do with the size of the vehicle but rather the crash structure the manufacturer put in place, the accident in a bigger car lacking that crash structure and I'd be dead.
As I said earlier, I'd rather be in an accident in one of the 250 to 400kg race cars I've helped build than most street cars.
The challenging one is impact with a heavier vehicle.... which makes the "I'll take my tank" a self perpetuating problem because it only applies when your car is heavier than the one you're crashing in to. Note that I'm saying "heavier" rather than "larger", because a lightweight car might very well be on the large size with that size taken up by lightweight crash structure. Crash structure only has to be heavy when the vehicle it's protecting is also heavy.
Surely I'm not the only one that sees the absurdity of 1500kg of vehicle being required to transport less than 100kg of person. Especially when these days we have engines that can reliably output 100hp in the under 60kg region.
Internal combustion engine vehicles are here to stay.
Even when all the drillable oil is gone there will still be a market for biodeisel, or if we manage the tech, synthetic oil.
Electric car tech will improve and has advantages, but oil powered cars will likely outperform them as tech will develop in parallel.
It may be that in time oil burners are for museum pieces, the rich and privileged and government purpose.
Rescue vehicles, and long range vehicles will be oil burners even in a world without oil sans biodeisel, the military will also have access.
In time laws might restrict everyone else.
Biodeisel is a poor solution for everyone as it takes up precious arable land feeding cars when there is barely enough to feed people, and that will only get worse as humans continue to pollute and breed.
I think it's unwise to think of this as just a vehicle upgrade. We will need to generate a lot more electricity and send a lot more electricity to a lot more places while simultaneous dismantling an enormous amount of existing infrastructure. Where are you putting the new power plants and what kind of power plants are you building? Good look getting all that past the NIMBY regulations. We would need to massively expand and upgrade the power grid as well. Then there is all the gasoline infrastructure to remediate, every underground tank at every gas station and private sector commercial fuel depot needs to be dug up in an environmentally friendly manner. Then everybody, literally every person and business needs to purchase a new electric vehicle not because their old ones no longer work but because we're banning fossil fuels. Where does that capital and disposable income come from?
I don't think so. At least not in it's current configuration and capability. First, the source of the electricity is largely coal fired or other power plants. The are substantial technological limitations. People tend to forget the industrial applications of internal combustion engines. I drive a ladder truck for my fire department. As the technology is currently is, there zero chance of it effectively performing to our needs. Electrical cannot perform over the road trucking, it lacks the endurance. Could it as some point, probably. I think hydrogen is the best option, but 50-75 years out. I don't think corporations are inherently evil. The auto industry isn't inherently evil, they are profit driven. They have a fiduciary responsibility to their stock holders, which often times are average people with 401K or other retirement investments. They will jump to renewable means for transportation win it is profitable. Just my thoughts, echoed by many others. I do think Tesla is good for the automotive industry.
I think people probably aren't realising the timescale for something like this. Benz built the first fuel driven car in 1885. Ford put the first real consumer car on the road in 1908. That's a 23 year gap. But even by the end of WW2, another 37 years later, the horse was still an essential part of transport.
Electric cars have been around for more than 100 years, but they were always novelties at best. But now with Tesla's recent cars we've reached more or less reached the Model T step of the process, we have a product that suits a small but reasonable number of consumers for their purposes. Petrol and diesel are still way better for most of the market, both in terms of price and functionality, but no longer for all of the market. The horse was more practical for most people, in terms of price and functionality in 1908 as well.
But most people don't see the timescale, the process in which a new product incrementally takes ground from the old product, over decades. What happens from here is technology improvements, consumer uptake and infrastructure all go hand in hand, feeding each other. New tech makes the product more appealing and gets more people buying in, that growing consumer base encourages more tech development and drives both private and govt infrastructure, which makes the product more appealing to consumers and so on.
This is standard template for all disruptive tech - establish a niche, then refine and grow and steadily take more market space from the old tech. Nothing is ever certain in tech or economics, but electric cars taking over the market from petrol and diesel over the next 30 odd years seems the most likely transport shift.
djones520 wrote: So... the government has to install monitoring devices in everyones home?
It's really weird that people got to the point of theorising government monitoring systems that tracked your cars every movement, or tracked home energy use for car recharging seperate from domestic use... before they considered that revenue for road maintenance might be decoupled from road use. Just fund road maintenance and expansion out of general revenue.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Iron_Captain wrote: In the future, cars will run on nuclear fusion. You will never have to worry about fuel again!
Nuclear power is the future, it is clean (unlike energy from fossil fuels) and efficient (unlike 'green' energy). We just need to make it more safe.
And besides, what is cooler than a car powered by a nuclear reactor?
Things that actually make some kind of sense are cooler.
Sometimes there are bits of nonsense that are actually more revealing than sensible things. This is one of those cases. Because here Iron Captain has happily just dreamed up all the tech developments needed to make nuclear operate in a car, so incredible reductions in size, near zero maintenance, safe fuel access and dumping, and just assumed they can all happen. Despite none of them being forseeable or even being attempted.
But just above that he said green tech wasn't efficient, and happily assumed that was always going to be so. Despite wind and solar efficiency improving by an order of magnitude in the last decade.
So the question then is why would someone assume a tech with a recent history of enormous improvement would suddenly stop improving, while a tech that's been even looked at for providing power to cars would suddenly be developed and rapidly clear enormous hurdles?
I think if we could come up with the answer to that we'd probably gain a lot of insight in to why so many economic and tech questions are approached so terribly by so many people.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Grey Templar wrote: This however will not be possible during any transition period. During which time you'll have a massive increase in accidents caused by the self-driving cars blindly following their programming around human drivers. Which will lead to outcry against self-driving cars and eventually a ban on self-driving cars.
Thats why self-driving cars are a bad idea. The transition period will kill any possibility of them getting accepted.
You're raised this complaint in previous threads of self-driving cars. It was explained to you then that self-driving cars aren't built on automated programming. They are driven by sensors that detect surrounding objects and react accordingly. Just like humans are.
You ignored this then, and now you're back repeating your mistake again. Please stop doing this. Please read, and learn.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Orlanth wrote: Electric car tech will improve and has advantages, but oil powered cars will likely outperform them as tech will develop in parallel.
It's a weird assumption you're making that a mature tech will advance in tandem alongside a new tech. The bow and arrow and gunpowder weapons are not in equal use today, because the newre tech advanced well past the limits of the old tech.
Biodeisel is a poor solution for everyone as it takes up precious arable land feeding cars when there is barely enough to feed people
That doesn't really work. About 30% of the food produced today is wasted, not even inefficiently used, but just straight up produced, stored, and later dumped. And then if we get in to efficiency there's vastly more improvement, if we want to go that way. And beyond that there's vast amounts of land still able to be turned to farming, if we choose to commit the infrastructure. There is no hard cap, where converting land to biofuel will take food out of mouths.
Of course, if the number of vehicles that require petroleum get reduced down to rescue vehicles, some industry, and some military, then there'd be no issue using dead dinosaur sources for that small remainder.
sebster wrote: It's really weird that people got to the point of theorising government monitoring systems that tracked your cars every movement, or tracked home energy use for car recharging seperate from domestic use... before they considered that revenue for road maintenance might be decoupled from road use. Just fund road maintenance and expansion out of general revenue.
Especially because cars aren't what destroy roads - trucks are. One eighteen-wheeler does as much damage as ten thousand cars, so you might as well just monitor commercial traffic and ignore the cars.
Prestor Jon wrote: I think it's unwise to think of this as just a vehicle upgrade. We will need to generate a lot more electricity and send a lot more electricity to a lot more places while simultaneous dismantling an enormous amount of existing infrastructure. Where are you putting the new power plants and what kind of power plants are you building? Good look getting all that past the NIMBY regulations. We would need to massively expand and upgrade the power grid as well. Then there is all the gasoline infrastructure to remediate, every underground tank at every gas station and private sector commercial fuel depot needs to be dug up in an environmentally friendly manner.
You are right that a transition to electric cars will have to go hand in hand with massive changes in electricity generation. Going to electric cars is a step backwards if the electricity is generated by a coal plant.
I think solar is the key. And in particular solar generated at the home, and stored in local batteries. The dream really is to get home at night and plug the car in, recharging with power you generated yourself, for free. This is still a long way off, particularly economically viable home power storage, but its not for nothing that Tesla's three big consumer products are electric cars, solar panels, and home batteries.
Then everybody, literally every person and business needs to purchase a new electric vehicle not because their old ones no longer work but because we're banning fossil fuels. Where does that capital and disposable income come from?
That is a bit of a false concern. There is no flat ban on fossil fuel vehicles being talked about by anyone who counts. The focus is on getting electric cars to a point where the consumer prefers them.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
AlexHolker wrote: Especially because cars aren't what destroy roads - trucks are. One eighteen-wheeler does as much damage as ten thousand cars, so you might as well just monitor commercial traffic and ignore the cars.
That's a really good point, so the 'user pays' argument doesn't even really work.
Grey Templar wrote: Sure, we will eventually have to move to electric. Or possibly just keep hybrids once we genetically engineer some plants to make renewable combustibles(which has actually already happened) in a practical fashion.
And more efficient methods to make biofuels for those vehicles become available.. which means biofuel plantations can become smaller. (and more lands can be allocated to food cultivations)
Eventually, we'll have to realize that Nuclear is the only real clean option for power generation that can also keep up with consumption.
Dr. Micho Kaku predicted that Nuclear Fusion powerplant will become practical after 2050.
2) Lack of charging stations. You can only travel on routes where there are charging stations, and those just don't exist in all places yet. So an electric vehicle really limits where you can go currently. There are gas stations everywhere. It also takes much longer to recharge a car vs just refilling a gas tank.
It's worth noting that a lot of the reason gas powered vehicles work in any real capacity is that we've invested an inconceivable amount of resources into structuring our society around supporting them.
True, but now that infrastructure is there. Good luck just tossing it out. Petroleum is a HUGE part of our economy, we're not just going to completely phase it out in a decade.
or even two... while some countries have already planned to completely replace combustion vehicles with EV WITHIN 2025!
Orlanth wrote: Electric car tech will improve and has advantages, but oil powered cars will likely outperform them as tech will develop in parallel.
It's a weird assumption you're making that a mature tech will advance in tandem alongside a new tech. The bow and arrow and gunpowder weapons are not in equal use today, because the newre tech advanced well past the limits of the old tech.
No, you are not thinking clearly. Electric cars is not a case of a newer technology, its a technology that caught on later.
The torsion vs gunpowder analogy doesn't match here, instead its closer to VHS vs Betamax.
The assumption that oil powered cars will improve is sound, because this is what is happening. Engine technology is still improving, as is fuel technology. Electric vehicles will become more prevalent for ecological reasons but there will be room for specialist vehicles and luxury vehicles with liquid fuel.
To put it another way steam turbines are still with modern technology the way to go for efficient support for power stations and large ships. Those are essentially steam engines, a technology left behind by the internal combustion engine, but still valid, even optimal, in niche roles.
Biodeisel is a poor solution for everyone as it takes up precious arable land feeding cars when there is barely enough to feed people
That doesn't really work. About 30% of the food produced today is wasted, not even inefficiently used, but just straight up produced, stored, and later dumped. And then if we get in to efficiency there's vastly more improvement, if we want to go that way. And beyond that there's vast amounts of land still able to be turned to farming, if we choose to commit the infrastructure. There is no hard cap, where converting land to biofuel will take food out of mouths.
It would be 'nice' if we didn't waste 30% of food (I didn't know the statistic) but clawing back that is like asking for true justice or world peace. Its a sentiment, even a goal to inch towards but not a realistic goal for universal application.
Biofuel farms currently exist and it has the same effect as other cash crops, except that it hardly contributes at all to local food subsistence. 85% of biofuels in the UK is imported, much from the developing world, for a start it is not a green solution, it may be renewable but the carbon footprint is horrible.
Of course, if the number of vehicles that require petroleum get reduced down to rescue vehicles, some industry, and some military, then there'd be no issue using dead dinosaur sources for that small remainder.
This is where we will end up, It is also better social control, oil is readily portable, electricity requires an infrastructure source for direct input. Dissidents can lump around oil cans, but electricity can more easily be controlled centrally. Plug your car into the national grid and readers can determine your current legal status, log location and if necessary refuse service. I can see this being appealing to most governments.
Fossil fuels will still exist in a trickle, from yet unviable wells, oil prices will be very high and its usage will be restricted to those who can afford to run 'classic' transport and niche roles. I can even see such devices being highly taxed and regulated to keep them out of reach of the common man.
Tannhauser42 wrote: Interesting timing for this thread, as I just read an article that China is working on eventually banning new gas and diesel vehicles. That may be what it takes to kick the car industry into high gear on working on improving electric vehicles.
Some analyst suggested that China simply wants to 'extort' foreign investers (the likes of Toyota) to retool their automotive productions into EV. yet the Chinese automotive manufacturers will still make combustion vehicles.... a sort of bargain I think.
Lone Cat wrote: And more efficient methods to make biofuels for those vehicles become available.. which means biofuel plantations can become smaller. (and more lands can be allocated to food cultivations)
Once again, there is no meaningful shortage of arable land. We straight up throw out a huge portion of the food we produce, make the rest inefficiently, and can increase farming land considerably if we're willing to invest in the infrastructure to do it.
There are plenty of arguments against biofuel, but needing the land for something else ain't one of them. Hell a lot of biofuel projects right now are happening because govt and farming groups want lower production, and it's politically easier to move to biofuel than to just pay to cut production.
Iron_Captain wrote: In the future, cars will run on nuclear fusion. You will never have to worry about fuel again!
Nuclear power is the future, it is clean (unlike energy from fossil fuels) and efficient (unlike 'green' energy). We just need to make it more safe.
And besides, what is cooler than a car powered by a nuclear reactor?
Also, just as an aside I want to mention that cars aren't really a problem when it comes to pollution. It is ships and aircraft that are the big polluters. Modern cars are already relatively clean. I read somewhere that 15 large cargo ships produce more pollution than all cars in the world combined. And there are thousands of large cargo ships... That is where real gains are to be made
And because those who own and run Airlines and Freight ships are large, (and usually) multinational corporates with HUGE bargaining power. who's gonna blame them for all air pollution problems? (The Freightships are obivious because contemporary freightships are all run on No. 6 Fuel Oil (sticky... yet combustible petroleum products that must be preheated with steam so the fuel can become usable, also not easily to burn out completely within the combustion chamber, I'm not sure if there's a focus to improve combustion efficiency of any combustion engines that burn Bunker Fuel Oil?)... and sulfur contents aren't to be picked off easily). Not sure about how clean any Jet / Turbine engine can burn (Aviation grade) Kerosene though.
Interestingly enough. Industrial facilities that powered by dirty fuels (coal and aforemented Fuel Oil) took more blames than Airlines and Freightships.
Tannhauser42 wrote: Interesting timing for this thread, as I just read an article that China is working on eventually banning new gas and diesel vehicles. That may be what it takes to kick the car industry into high gear on working on improving electric vehicles.
Some analyst suggested that China simply wants to 'extort' foreign investers (the likes of Toyota) to retool their automotive productions into EV. yet the Chinese automotive manufacturers will still make combustion vehicles.... a sort of bargain I think.
China wants to go fully electric for reasons of internal security as well as infrastructure management. This policy forces change yet cushions Chinas own industry, China isnt hot on R&D they will want to see what the US Europe and Japan build, then copy it on a large scale. Hence forcing this.
Lone Cat wrote: And because those who own and run Airlines and Freight ships are large, (and usually) multinational corporates with HUGE bargaining power. who's gonna blame them for all air pollution problems?
We're halfway through a decade long reform of reducing the emissions in bunker fuel from 4.5% to 0.5%, so the bargaining power of those freighter companies isn't quite what you assumed.
The stuff about a handful of ships having emissions as bad as all the cars in the world is an old story now. Things have moved from there. They're still not perfect, and there's lots of work to continue to push for, but we shouldn't ignore the progress that is made.
Lone Cat wrote: And because those who own and run Airlines and Freight ships are large, (and usually) multinational corporates with HUGE bargaining power. who's gonna blame them for all air pollution problems?
We're halfway through a decade long reform of reducing the emissions in bunker fuel from 4.5% to 0.5%, so the bargaining power of those freighter companies isn't quite what you assumed.
The stuff about a handful of ships having emissions as bad as all the cars in the world is an old story now. Things have moved from there. They're still not perfect, and there's lots of work to continue to push for, but we shouldn't ignore the progress that is made.
Modern ships.
Still plenty of older ships sold on to poorer regions that be running and burning the worse fuel.
Changes like that take a few decades to realise there full effects as the ships sometimes linger on. Not as economical for big companies but others will keep em going for even decades longer. They do not care as much as to what the ships burn just that they run and make money at the end of day.
Prestor Jon wrote: I think it's unwise to think of this as just a vehicle upgrade. We will need to generate a lot more electricity and send a lot more electricity to a lot more places while simultaneous dismantling an enormous amount of existing infrastructure. Where are you putting the new power plants and what kind of power plants are you building? Good look getting all that past the NIMBY regulations. We would need to massively expand and upgrade the power grid as well. Then there is all the gasoline infrastructure to remediate, every underground tank at every gas station and private sector commercial fuel depot needs to be dug up in an environmentally friendly manner.
You are right that a transition to electric cars will have to go hand in hand with massive changes in electricity generation. Going to electric cars is a step backwards if the electricity is generated by a coal plant.
I think solar is the key. And in particular solar generated at the home, and stored in local batteries. The dream really is to get home at night and plug the car in, recharging with power you generated yourself, for free. This is still a long way off, particularly economically viable home power storage, but its not for nothing that Tesla's three big consumer products are electric cars, solar panels, and home batteries.
Then everybody, literally every person and business needs to purchase a new electric vehicle not because their old ones no longer work but because we're banning fossil fuels. Where does that capital and disposable income come from?
That is a bit of a false concern. There is no flat ban on fossil fuel vehicles being talked about by anyone who counts. The focus is on getting electric cars to a point where the consumer prefers them.
We will also need a massive upgrade of our power grid. Hot summers can cause rolling blackouts in the northeast due to tens of millions of people running their AC. Having every single person who currently owns a gas powered car to instead have an EV that gets plugged in to recharge every night is going to be a problem. It's a chicken and egg problem, EVs can't expand beyond a niche market without massive infrastructure upgrades/expansion and it's will be extremely difficult to push through that kind of infrastructure spending without having a larger EV user base to justify it.
It's been mentioned in this thread 3 different times prior to my post that multiple governments are proposing bans on fossil fuel cars:
Tannhauser42 wrote: Interesting timing for this thread, as I just read an article that China is working on eventually banning new gas and diesel vehicles. That may be what it takes to kick the car industry into high gear on working on improving electric vehicles.
djones520 wrote: Within a decade? Not even a chance. 50 years? Sure.
UK/France have proposed banning conventional internal combustion sales by 2040 (23 years away), and to be honest I doubt there will be many after about 2030. By that point it'll make so much more sense to go for an electric/hybrid. If I was buying new, I'd be getting a hybrid (Mitsubishi Outlander - reasonable sided UK SUV with a 2.0 petrol engine to charge the battery or power the wheels).
Tannhauser42 wrote: Interesting timing for this thread, as I just read an article that China is working on eventually banning new gas and diesel vehicles. That may be what it takes to kick the car industry into high gear on working on improving electric vehicles.
Some analyst suggested that China simply wants to 'extort' foreign investers (the likes of Toyota) to retool their automotive productions into EV. yet the Chinese automotive manufacturers will still make combustion vehicles.... a sort of bargain I think.
China wants to go fully electric for reasons of internal security as well as infrastructure management. This policy forces change yet cushions Chinas own industry, China isnt hot on R&D they will want to see what the US Europe and Japan build, then copy it on a large scale. Hence forcing this.
Barmy.
R&D in China relating to tech is fast approaching and in some cases outstripping the rest of asia and the west.
Even if it weren't you have as an example Geely ownig Volvo which is heavy into R&D for production of electric versions of all its new models. Also, manufacturing high performance batteries and power packs is something of a given for China. It would be worrying for the world if they werent able to advance.
China will lead and will wait and see what western auto manufacturers can offer them. That is the position they are in.
Prestor Jon wrote: I think it's unwise to think of this as just a vehicle upgrade. We will need to generate a lot more electricity and send a lot more electricity to a lot more places while simultaneous dismantling an enormous amount of existing infrastructure. Where are you putting the new power plants and what kind of power plants are you building? Good look getting all that past the NIMBY regulations. We would need to massively expand and upgrade the power grid as well. Then there is all the gasoline infrastructure to remediate, every underground tank at every gas station and private sector commercial fuel depot needs to be dug up in an environmentally friendly manner.
You are right that a transition to electric cars will have to go hand in hand with massive changes in electricity generation. Going to electric cars is a step backwards if the electricity is generated by a coal plant.
I think solar is the key. And in particular solar generated at the home, and stored in local batteries. The dream really is to get home at night and plug the car in, recharging with power you generated yourself, for free. This is still a long way off, particularly economically viable home power storage, but its not for nothing that Tesla's three big consumer products are electric cars, solar panels, and home batteries.
Then everybody, literally every person and business needs to purchase a new electric vehicle not because their old ones no longer work but because we're banning fossil fuels. Where does that capital and disposable income come from?
That is a bit of a false concern. There is no flat ban on fossil fuel vehicles being talked about by anyone who counts. The focus is on getting electric cars to a point where the consumer prefers them.
We will also need a massive upgrade of our power grid. Hot summers can cause rolling blackouts in the northeast due to tens of millions of people running their AC. Having every single person who currently owns a gas powered car to instead have an EV that gets plugged in to recharge every night is going to be a problem. It's a chicken and egg problem, EVs can't expand beyond a niche market without massive infrastructure upgrades/expansion and it's will be extremely difficult to push through that kind of infrastructure spending without having a larger EV user base to justify it.
It's been mentioned in this thread 3 different times prior to my post that multiple governments are proposing bans on fossil fuel cars:
Spoiler:
Tannhauser42 wrote: Interesting timing for this thread, as I just read an article that China is working on eventually banning new gas and diesel vehicles. That may be what it takes to kick the car industry into high gear on working on improving electric vehicles.
djones520 wrote: Within a decade? Not even a chance. 50 years? Sure.
UK/France have proposed banning conventional internal combustion sales by 2040 (23 years away), and to be honest I doubt there will be many after about 2030. By that point it'll make so much more sense to go for an electric/hybrid. If I was buying new, I'd be getting a hybrid (Mitsubishi Outlander - reasonable sided UK SUV with a 2.0 petrol engine to charge the battery or power the wheels).
It should be noted that those are all focused on banning new fossil fuel powered cars, not pre-existing ones. So people will only be forced to go hybrid (using biofuels like bioethanol and the like which are becoming more efficient and prevalent) or pure electric when buying a new car.
Prestor Jon wrote: I think it's unwise to think of this as just a vehicle upgrade. We will need to generate a lot more electricity and send a lot more electricity to a lot more places while simultaneous dismantling an enormous amount of existing infrastructure. Where are you putting the new power plants and what kind of power plants are you building? Good look getting all that past the NIMBY regulations. We would need to massively expand and upgrade the power grid as well. Then there is all the gasoline infrastructure to remediate, every underground tank at every gas station and private sector commercial fuel depot needs to be dug up in an environmentally friendly manner.
You are right that a transition to electric cars will have to go hand in hand with massive changes in electricity generation. Going to electric cars is a step backwards if the electricity is generated by a coal plant.
I think solar is the key. And in particular solar generated at the home, and stored in local batteries. The dream really is to get home at night and plug the car in, recharging with power you generated yourself, for free. This is still a long way off, particularly economically viable home power storage, but its not for nothing that Tesla's three big consumer products are electric cars, solar panels, and home batteries.
Then everybody, literally every person and business needs to purchase a new electric vehicle not because their old ones no longer work but because we're banning fossil fuels. Where does that capital and disposable income come from?
That is a bit of a false concern. There is no flat ban on fossil fuel vehicles being talked about by anyone who counts. The focus is on getting electric cars to a point where the consumer prefers them.
We will also need a massive upgrade of our power grid. Hot summers can cause rolling blackouts in the northeast due to tens of millions of people running their AC. Having every single person who currently owns a gas powered car to instead have an EV that gets plugged in to recharge every night is going to be a problem. It's a chicken and egg problem, EVs can't expand beyond a niche market without massive infrastructure upgrades/expansion and it's will be extremely difficult to push through that kind of infrastructure spending without having a larger EV user base to justify it.
It's been mentioned in this thread 3 different times prior to my post that multiple governments are proposing bans on fossil fuel cars:
Spoiler:
Tannhauser42 wrote: Interesting timing for this thread, as I just read an article that China is working on eventually banning new gas and diesel vehicles. That may be what it takes to kick the car industry into high gear on working on improving electric vehicles.
djones520 wrote: Within a decade? Not even a chance. 50 years? Sure.
UK/France have proposed banning conventional internal combustion sales by 2040 (23 years away), and to be honest I doubt there will be many after about 2030. By that point it'll make so much more sense to go for an electric/hybrid. If I was buying new, I'd be getting a hybrid (Mitsubishi Outlander - reasonable sided UK SUV with a 2.0 petrol engine to charge the battery or power the wheels).
It should be noted that those are all focused on banning new fossil fuel powered cars, not pre-existing ones.
So people will only be forced to go hybrid (using biofuels like bioethanol and the like which are becoming more efficient and prevalent) or pure electric when buying a new car.
Yes but the problem still remains that you are adding extra costs to the consumers. I drive my current gasoline powered car for as long as I can then when I need a new car I have to buy an EV. In addition to the cost of the EV I now have to purchase a charging station for my house and pay for any additional electrical work to make sure my house can safely handle whatever extra load the charging station requires. Are EVs going to cost the same as gasoline powered cars or cost less or cost more? Will there be EV equivalents for whatever gasoline powered car I was using? I'm not seeing a lot of EV minivans or pickup trucks. If EVs and charging stations cost more does everyone just have find a way to scrape together the money or take on additional debt or does the government spend billions of dollars on subsidies?
If the government is requiring that everyone drives EVs and the government is going to spend the money on infrastructure to support EVs then is the government going to take the money build the infrastructure from the EV manufacturers? When I buy a govt mandated EV, say from Tesla, then Tesla earns a profit from my purchase and when I need an infrastructure to support my EV the federal and state governments collect taxes from me and borrow money to fund that infrastructure so more people can buy EVs so companies like Tesla can make more sales and earn more profit. I get an EV, more debt, more state and federal taxes and debt and Tesla/Elon Musk get billions more in profit? No thanks. If we need to redo our infrastructure to support EVs and people are going to be required to only purchase EVs then the EV manufacturers need to be paying the bulk of the costs.
Tannhauser42 wrote: Interesting timing for this thread, as I just read an article that China is working on eventually banning new gas and diesel vehicles. That may be what it takes to kick the car industry into high gear on working on improving electric vehicles.
Some analyst suggested that China simply wants to 'extort' foreign investers (the likes of Toyota) to retool their automotive productions into EV. yet the Chinese automotive manufacturers will still make combustion vehicles.... a sort of bargain I think.
China wants to go fully electric for reasons of internal security as well as infrastructure management. This policy forces change yet cushions Chinas own industry, China isnt hot on R&D they will want to see what the US Europe and Japan build, then copy it on a large scale. Hence forcing this.
It also limits communication via travel - China is still very much a police state, and likes to control communication.
Russia used to do very much the same thing - with notorious choke points for travel - where both road and rail narrowed down to a single point to enter some regions. (Siberia being one of those.)
Very little to do with fixing air pollution, and much to do with security and control.
*EDIT* It is worth mentioning that we won't have to ban gasoline for all that long - we are running out, and it will be gone in a fairly short time.
The Diesel engine was actually intended to be a means of using bio fuels, back when Rudolf Diesel first conceived them.
Prestor Jon wrote: I think it's unwise to think of this as just a vehicle upgrade. We will need to generate a lot more electricity and send a lot more electricity to a lot more places while simultaneous dismantling an enormous amount of existing infrastructure. Where are you putting the new power plants and what kind of power plants are you building? Good look getting all that past the NIMBY regulations. We would need to massively expand and upgrade the power grid as well. Then there is all the gasoline infrastructure to remediate, every underground tank at every gas station and private sector commercial fuel depot needs to be dug up in an environmentally friendly manner.
You are right that a transition to electric cars will have to go hand in hand with massive changes in electricity generation. Going to electric cars is a step backwards if the electricity is generated by a coal plant.
I think solar is the key. And in particular solar generated at the home, and stored in local batteries. The dream really is to get home at night and plug the car in, recharging with power you generated yourself, for free. This is still a long way off, particularly economically viable home power storage, but its not for nothing that Tesla's three big consumer products are electric cars, solar panels, and home batteries.
Then everybody, literally every person and business needs to purchase a new electric vehicle not because their old ones no longer work but because we're banning fossil fuels. Where does that capital and disposable income come from?
That is a bit of a false concern. There is no flat ban on fossil fuel vehicles being talked about by anyone who counts. The focus is on getting electric cars to a point where the consumer prefers them.
We will also need a massive upgrade of our power grid. Hot summers can cause rolling blackouts in the northeast due to tens of millions of people running their AC. Having every single person who currently owns a gas powered car to instead have an EV that gets plugged in to recharge every night is going to be a problem. It's a chicken and egg problem, EVs can't expand beyond a niche market without massive infrastructure upgrades/expansion and it's will be extremely difficult to push through that kind of infrastructure spending without having a larger EV user base to justify it.
It's been mentioned in this thread 3 different times prior to my post that multiple governments are proposing bans on fossil fuel cars:
Spoiler:
Tannhauser42 wrote: Interesting timing for this thread, as I just read an article that China is working on eventually banning new gas and diesel vehicles. That may be what it takes to kick the car industry into high gear on working on improving electric vehicles.
djones520 wrote: Within a decade? Not even a chance. 50 years? Sure.
UK/France have proposed banning conventional internal combustion sales by 2040 (23 years away), and to be honest I doubt there will be many after about 2030. By that point it'll make so much more sense to go for an electric/hybrid. If I was buying new, I'd be getting a hybrid (Mitsubishi Outlander - reasonable sided UK SUV with a 2.0 petrol engine to charge the battery or power the wheels).
It should be noted that those are all focused on banning new fossil fuel powered cars, not pre-existing ones.
So people will only be forced to go hybrid (using biofuels like bioethanol and the like which are becoming more efficient and prevalent) or pure electric when buying a new car.
Yes but the problem still remains that you are adding extra costs to the consumers. I drive my current gasoline powered car for as long as I can then when I need a new car I have to buy an EV. In addition to the cost of the EV I now have to purchase a charging station for my house and pay for any additional electrical work to make sure my house can safely handle whatever extra load the charging station requires. Are EVs going to cost the same as gasoline powered cars or cost less or cost more? Will there be EV equivalents for whatever gasoline powered car I was using? I'm not seeing a lot of EV minivans or pickup trucks. If EVs and charging stations cost more does everyone just have find a way to scrape together the money or take on additional debt or does the government spend billions of dollars on subsidies?
If the government is requiring that everyone drives EVs and the government is going to spend the money on infrastructure to support EVs then is the government going to take the money build the infrastructure from the EV manufacturers? When I buy a govt mandated EV, say from Tesla, then Tesla earns a profit from my purchase and when I need an infrastructure to support my EV the federal and state governments collect taxes from me and borrow money to fund that infrastructure so more people can buy EVs so companies like Tesla can make more sales and earn more profit. I get an EV, more debt, more state and federal taxes and debt and Tesla/Elon Musk get billions more in profit? No thanks. If we need to redo our infrastructure to support EVs and people are going to be required to only purchase EVs then the EV manufacturers need to be paying the bulk of the costs.
That's rather like demanding that the state pay for the cost of ABS, seatbelts and catalytic converters, because they are all legally mandated requirements. If governments were to mandate all new cars be EVs they would have no more obligation to pay for the home infrastructure. A car is not a right or a fundamental requirement. It's a luxury, a new car moreso.
This is where we will end up, It is also better social control, oil is readily portable, electricity requires an infrastructure source for direct input. Dissidents can lump around oil cans, but electricity can more easily be controlled centrally. Plug your car into the national grid and readers can determine your current legal status, log location and if necessary refuse service. I can see this being appealing to most governments.
I predict the opposite, as solar tech improves, it will quickly become easy for anyone to get all their energy needs from the sun, whereas the tech needed to extract and refine oil means the supply of gasoline will forever be in the hands of the wealthy.
feeder wrote: It literally isn't. Not owning a car might make life difficult, but it's not impossible to live without a car.
Ok, it's technically possible to live in poverty and general suck without a car. You will not literally die, just like you will not literally die if you are homeless and living on the streets. But we don't think that either of these situations is acceptable.
feeder wrote: It literally isn't. Not owning a car might make life difficult, but it's not impossible to live without a car.
Ok, it's technically possible to live in poverty and general suck without a car. You will not literally die, just like you will not literally die if you are homeless and living on the streets. But we don't think that either of these situations is acceptable.
This is also only true in rural areas. If you live in a city, life is easy without a car.
Only in cities that have decent public transport, which is not all that many in the US. Try getting around without a car in LA and you'll see just how necessary it is to get anywhere.
Even in areas with public transport, like the Bay Area for example, it's still far behind other Western countries. Other than maintenance and some line extensions, BART hasn't changed much since the 60s. As prices in the city soar, people have had to move further and further from stations, meaning that even if they do take the train to work they'll need a car to drive to the station (and pray to the BART gods that the'res a spot to park).
So yes, life is easy in the city without a car, provided that the city has good public transport, and you can afford to live in it.
Even if it weren't you have as an example Geely ownig Volvo which is heavy into R&D for production of electric versions of all its new models.
Sure they can buy companies, but the design work is in Sweden.
Chinas ability to mimic and manufacture has had a positive effect on their efforts in research and design. There are many areas where China is beginning to excel.
sebster wrote: I think people probably aren't realising the timescale for something like this. Benz built the first fuel driven car in 1885. Ford put the first real consumer car on the road in 1908. That's a 23 year gap. But even by the end of WW2, another 37 years later, the horse was still an essential part of transport.
Electric cars have been around for more than 100 years, but they were always novelties at best. But now with Tesla's recent cars we've reached more or less reached the Model T step of the process, we have a product that suits a small but reasonable number of consumers for their purposes. Petrol and diesel are still way better for most of the market, both in terms of price and functionality, but no longer for all of the market. The horse was more practical for most people, in terms of price and functionality in 1908 as well.
But most people don't see the timescale, the process in which a new product incrementally takes ground from the old product, over decades. What happens from here is technology improvements, consumer uptake and infrastructure all go hand in hand, feeding each other. New tech makes the product more appealing and gets more people buying in, that growing consumer base encourages more tech development and drives both private and govt infrastructure, which makes the product more appealing to consumers and so on.
This is standard template for all disruptive tech - establish a niche, then refine and grow and steadily take more market space from the old tech. Nothing is ever certain in tech or economics, but electric cars taking over the market from petrol and diesel over the next 30 odd years seems the most likely transport shift.
djones520 wrote: So... the government has to install monitoring devices in everyones home?
It's really weird that people got to the point of theorising government monitoring systems that tracked your cars every movement, or tracked home energy use for car recharging seperate from domestic use... before they considered that revenue for road maintenance might be decoupled from road use. Just fund road maintenance and expansion out of general revenue.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Iron_Captain wrote: In the future, cars will run on nuclear fusion. You will never have to worry about fuel again!
Nuclear power is the future, it is clean (unlike energy from fossil fuels) and efficient (unlike 'green' energy). We just need to make it more safe.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Grey Templar wrote: This however will not be possible during any transition period. During which time you'll have a massive increase in accidents caused by the self-driving cars blindly following their programming around human drivers. Which will lead to outcry against self-driving cars and eventually a ban on self-driving cars.
Thats why self-driving cars are a bad idea. The transition period will kill any possibility of them getting accepted.
You're raised this complaint in previous threads of self-driving cars. It was explained to you then that self-driving cars aren't built on automated programming. They are driven by sensors that detect surrounding objects and react accordingly. Just like humans are.
You ignored this then, and now you're back repeating your mistake again. Please stop doing this. Please read, and learn
No, I did not ignore it. I know that they use sensors to detect their environment. What you are ignoring is the massive limitations on this sensors. They can't see a few hundred feet down the road like a human driver can. They have very small areas of detection, well within distances needed to adaquatly stop to avoid collisions at common speeds.
Plus if these sensors get damaged or are malfunctioning or are incorrectly programmed, then you've created a hazardous vehicle. Much more so than human error, and more likely too.
sebster wrote: I think people probably aren't realising the timescale for something like this. Benz built the first fuel driven car in 1885. Ford put the first real consumer car on the road in 1908. That's a 23 year gap. But even by the end of WW2, another 37 years later, the horse was still an essential part of transport.
Electric cars have been around for more than 100 years, but they were always novelties at best. But now with Tesla's recent cars we've reached more or less reached the Model T step of the process, we have a product that suits a small but reasonable number of consumers for their purposes. Petrol and diesel are still way better for most of the market, both in terms of price and functionality, but no longer for all of the market. The horse was more practical for most people, in terms of price and functionality in 1908 as well.
But most people don't see the timescale, the process in which a new product incrementally takes ground from the old product, over decades. What happens from here is technology improvements, consumer uptake and infrastructure all go hand in hand, feeding each other. New tech makes the product more appealing and gets more people buying in, that growing consumer base encourages more tech development and drives both private and govt infrastructure, which makes the product more appealing to consumers and so on.
This is standard template for all disruptive tech - establish a niche, then refine and grow and steadily take more market space from the old tech. Nothing is ever certain in tech or economics, but electric cars taking over the market from petrol and diesel over the next 30 odd years seems the most likely transport shift.
djones520 wrote: So... the government has to install monitoring devices in everyones home?
It's really weird that people got to the point of theorising government monitoring systems that tracked your cars every movement, or tracked home energy use for car recharging seperate from domestic use... before they considered that revenue for road maintenance might be decoupled from road use. Just fund road maintenance and expansion out of general revenue.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Iron_Captain wrote: In the future, cars will run on nuclear fusion. You will never have to worry about fuel again! Nuclear power is the future, it is clean (unlike energy from fossil fuels) and efficient (unlike 'green' energy). We just need to make it more safe.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Grey Templar wrote: This however will not be possible during any transition period. During which time you'll have a massive increase in accidents caused by the self-driving cars blindly following their programming around human drivers. Which will lead to outcry against self-driving cars and eventually a ban on self-driving cars.
Thats why self-driving cars are a bad idea. The transition period will kill any possibility of them getting accepted.
You're raised this complaint in previous threads of self-driving cars. It was explained to you then that self-driving cars aren't built on automated programming. They are driven by sensors that detect surrounding objects and react accordingly. Just like humans are.
You ignored this then, and now you're back repeating your mistake again. Please stop doing this. Please read, and learn
No, I did not ignore it. I know that they use sensors to detect their environment. What you are ignoring is the massive limitations on this sensors. They can't see a few hundred feet down the road like a human driver can. They have very small areas of detection, well within distances needed to adaquatly stop to avoid collisions at common speeds.
Plus if these sensors get damaged or are malfunctioning or are incorrectly programmed, then you've created a hazardous vehicle. Much more so than human error, and more likely too.
Are the sensors really that bad? I was under the impression that machines could see better than people.
And yes, if the sensors get damaged, malfunction, or are incorrectly programmed, then the vehicle is hazardous.
But humans are more fragile physically (susceptible to damage and malfunction) and mentally (susceptible to confusion/madness/distraction) than machines are. So while those things may happen to a machine, they are far far far more likely to happen to a human. Ergo, if you are okay with humans driving, you should be okay with machines driving.
No, I did not ignore it. I know that they use sensors to detect their environment. What you are ignoring is the massive limitations on this sensors. They can't see a few hundred feet down the road like a human driver can. They have very small areas of detection, well within distances needed to adaquatly stop to avoid collisions at common speeds.
Not true. The Telsa driver assistance (or whatever term they have for it), can "see" as good as a person, or better, and is adept at predicting and avoiding accidents.
Plus if these sensors get damaged or are malfunctioning
Very much so. The car would have to include redundant sensor systems to avoid being rendered unusable every time one of the sensors fritzes out.
incorrectly programmed, then you've created a hazardous vehicle. Much more so than human error, and more likely too.
MORE likely than human error? I very much doubt this. Computers are not tired, intoxicated, elderly, or inexperienced. They don't have eyesight or reaction time issues. They don't run on Windows OS.
It's best to get in the mind set that anything you can do a machine can do faster and more reliably. It will help you in the future if you just accept this.
Xenomancers wrote: It's best to get in the mind set that anything you can do a machine can do faster and more reliably. It will help you in the future if you just accept this.
This is correct. Historically, the problem with real-world AI has been "recognition" - other than programming it in, how do you get a machine to distinguish between, say, a banana and a model TIE fighter?
Used to be, you couldn't, and if you wanted to, you had to go in and inform the machine of every single thing individually ahead of time, and not only could you not tell a machine about literally everything in the world but you also could feth up describing even the same object but viewed or felt from different angles.
This issue is no longer relevant. Machine learning means that you can teach machines the difference between an apple and a Mac Truck the same way you might a human child. In fact, since machines have better hardware than us, it doesn't take nearly as much time to teach a machine than it does to teach a human (thank goodness).
For an interesting parallel, consider the adoption of cell phone use in the developing world. They didn't have land lines in many places, so they skipped the installation of land lines entirely for cell phone transmission towers. The same thing can happen with electric car technology. Places like Canada or the USA are enormous countries with well established infrastructures already in use; upgrading them is relatively costly and difficult for little gain. Places that lack significant electrical infrastructure will still have to install it, but making it viable for electrical vehicles at the same time is only a relatively small addition to the system. You have to pay at least once to put in SOME kind of infrastructure, after all, you might as well choose the one that's more viable long term.
Places that are small and densely populated have the economic advantages to do the transition easily - this is the same reason small countries can have very fast internet everywhere, while outside of a big city in North America you're out of luck - there's less economic incentive to doing so.
feeder wrote: It literally isn't. Not owning a car might make life difficult, but it's not impossible to live without a car.
Ok, it's technically possible to live in poverty and general suck without a car. You will not literally die, just like you will not literally die if you are homeless and living on the streets. But we don't think that either of these situations is acceptable.
This is also only true in rural areas. If you live in a city, life is easy without a car.
Not most US cities. On the US west coast there's only a couple cities where you can get away with that, and typically only if you both live and work in a small select number of areas.
I live in one of the best served west coast cities in terms of public transit. By car, I spend less than an hour a day commuting. By public transit that would be over 4 hours a day. Ive had to do it a few times. Not fun. Relying on Lyft or Uber would alleviate the time issue, but id be spending $40-50/day on transport.
Life in almost any US city without a car is exceedingly difficult for all but a very few. Everything is built around cars and distanced accordingly.
feeder wrote: It literally isn't. Not owning a car might make life difficult, but it's not impossible to live without a car.
Ok, it's technically possible to live in poverty and general suck without a car. You will not literally die, just like you will not literally die if you are homeless and living on the streets. But we don't think that either of these situations is acceptable.
This is also only true in rural areas. If you live in a city, life is easy without a car.
Not most US cities. On the US west coast there's only a couple cities where you can get away with that, and typically only if you both live and work in a small select number of areas.
I live in one of the best served west coast cities in terms of public transit. By car, I spend less than an hour a day commuting. By public transit that would be over 4 hours a day. Ive had to do it a few times. Not fun. Relying on Lyft or Uber would alleviate the time issue, but id be spending $40-50/day on transport.
Life in almost any US city without a car is exceedingly difficult for all but a very few. Everything is built around cars and distanced accordingly.
Really? I live in medium sized Canadian city with ~350k residents. Public transit is not ideal but it's totally do-able. Definitely doesn't take half your day to commute.
I will amend my above statements with the caveat that I am speaking from a Canadian perspective.
feeder wrote: It literally isn't. Not owning a car might make life difficult, but it's not impossible to live without a car.
Ok, it's technically possible to live in poverty and general suck without a car. You will not literally die, just like you will not literally die if you are homeless and living on the streets. But we don't think that either of these situations is acceptable.
This is also only true in rural areas. If you live in a city, life is easy without a car.
Not most US cities. On the US west coast there's only a couple cities where you can get away with that, and typically only if you both live and work in a small select number of areas.
I live in one of the best served west coast cities in terms of public transit. By car, I spend less than an hour a day commuting. By public transit that would be over 4 hours a day. Ive had to do it a few times. Not fun. Relying on Lyft or Uber would alleviate the time issue, but id be spending $40-50/day on transport.
Life in almost any US city without a car is exceedingly difficult for all but a very few. Everything is built around cars and distanced accordingly.
Really? I live in medium sized Canadian city with ~350k residents. Public transit is not ideal but it's totally do-able. Definitely doesn't take half your day to commute.
I will amend my above statements with the caveat that I am speaking from a Canadian perspective.
Which city? Suburbs of Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver don't count.
Which city? Suburbs of Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver don't count.
Based on the number, either London Ontario (not a Toronto suburb) or Markham (definitely a Toronto suburb). Halifax has 400k population. The next down is Vaughan, another Toronto suburb, or Gatineau, Quebec.
Also note there are several cities in Canada bigger than Vancouver. It's actually #8 in terms of population.
Orlanth wrote: No, you are not thinking clearly. Electric cars is not a case of a newer technology, its a technology that caught on later.
Electric cars have never had more than a niche interest, and minimal, stalled research. Whereas petrol based cars have been mass production products for decades, with enormous amounts of R&D poured in.
Look at how much the Tesla has improved from its first model to the current model. The vehicle has improved or maintained performance, while dropping the price by half. That's in less than a decade, and before the gigafactory has began to bring in the economies of scale that the car industry has taken for granted for decades.
It would be 'nice' if we didn't waste 30% of food (I didn't know the statistic) but clawing back that is like asking for true justice or world peace. Its a sentiment, even a goal to inch towards but not a realistic goal for universal application.
The amount of waste accepted by the market is a product of the price of the product. Reducing waste isn't a sentiment, it's a natural product of the price driving the market.
So if shifting to biofuel took food out of the mouths of people who need it, then the natural market response is an increase in prices. That price increase is going to encourage greater efficiency and encourage an expansion of farm land.
Biofuel farms currently exist and it has the same effect as other cash crops, except that it hardly contributes at all to local food subsistence. 85% of biofuels in the UK is imported, much from the developing world, for a start it is not a green solution, it may be renewable but the carbon footprint is horrible.
Yeah, there's definitely problems with biofuel. I'm not a fan for lots of reasons. I was just saying it's impact on potential food supply isn't one of the problems.
Fossil fuels will still exist in a trickle, from yet unviable wells, oil prices will be very high and its usage will be restricted to those who can afford to run 'classic' transport and niche roles. I can even see such devices being highly taxed and regulated to keep them out of reach of the common man.
I don't really share your belief in government motivated by an Orwellian need for control (control is reflexive to threats, not a natural state). But I do agree with oil being moved to niche roles, military & other government roles, alongside some industry.
Currently we use cracking to break down the larger fractions of crude oil, that could be used for oils and plastics, into fuel to burn. When we run out of crude oil and can't make anything from plastic any more, future generations will wonder why we didn't find alternative energies sooner and preserve crude oil stocks for anything other than energy.
jhe90 wrote: Modern ships.
Still plenty of older ships sold on to poorer regions that be running and burning the worse fuel.
Changes like that take a few decades to realise there full effects as the ships sometimes linger on. Not as economical for big companies but others will keep em going for even decades longer. They do not care as much as to what the ships burn just that they run and make money at the end of day.
Yeah, and there's also a human cost to banning these ships too soon. I was reading recently about one consequence of LA's clean air regs. A lot of old trucks that weren't capable of long haul trips any more instead were being used for short trips between ports and distribution warehouses. But the regs took these trucks off the roads and the companies didn't want to spend tens of millions on new trucks that met the standards. So instead they entered new contracts with their drivers, the drivers bought the trucks through company loans, and paid them off out of their wages. Surprising no-one, the loans were an impossible financial burden for the drivers and many defaulted on their loans and were left in financial ruin.
Its a reality that a lot of economic activity is dependent on old vehicles that have worked their way down from the top of the economy to the bottom. Disrupting that can really screw people on the bottom.
What this means, basically, is that ports in the developed world have air that's okay and getting better. Don't spend a lot of time on a pier in Mogadishu, though.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Prestor Jon wrote: We will also need a massive upgrade of our power grid. Hot summers can cause rolling blackouts in the northeast due to tens of millions of people running their AC. Having every single person who currently owns a gas powered car to instead have an EV that gets plugged in to recharge every night is going to be a problem. It's a chicken and egg problem, EVs can't expand beyond a niche market without massive infrastructure upgrades/expansion and it's will be extremely difficult to push through that kind of infrastructure spending without having a larger EV user base to justify it.
Markets are amazingly good at ignoring supposed chicken and egg issues. Remember, it should have been a chicken and the egg issue that it wasn't worth buying a car until there was a road network, and it wasn't worth building a road network until there was enough cars. But it wasn't a problem, because markets work in incremental steps, it starts with an upgrade to the most advantageous place, and with consumers who benefit from those early upgrades, or who don't need the infrastructure for whatever reason. That increases the base, which makes the next upgrade justified and so on.
And there's also solar, collected from your own roof, and stored in your own battery. The home is still connected to the grid, but only for supplemental power, not most of its supply. That's really the thing that makes electric cars make sense, because without that we're replacing petrol in cars with electricity produced in coal plants and largely lost when its pumped through an old energy grid, which is probably dirtier than sticking to petrol.
It's been mentioned in this thread 3 different times prior to my post that multiple governments are proposing bans on fossil fuel cars:
China says lots of things, for lots of reasons, few of which have anything to do with what they actually plan on doing. The UK/France talking about what should done in 2040 is meaningless tosh. Do you remember what was being proposed in 1994 about what should be done by today?
That's why I said 'anyone who counts'. Because there will always be talk about all kinds of things, but having a substantive, meaningful conversation means moving past all the outlying claims about this thing or that, and focusing in on the policy initiatives that are in place, and those with a real chance of happening in the immediate future.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Prestor Jon wrote: If the government is requiring that everyone drives EVs and the government is going to spend the money on infrastructure to support EVs then is the government going to take the money build the infrastructure from the EV manufacturers? When I buy a govt mandated EV, say from Tesla, then Tesla earns a profit from my purchase and when I need an infrastructure to support my EV the federal and state governments collect taxes from me and borrow money to fund that infrastructure so more people can buy EVs so companies like Tesla can make more sales and earn more profit. I get an EV, more debt, more state and federal taxes and debt and Tesla/Elon Musk get billions more in profit? No thanks. If we need to redo our infrastructure to support EVs and people are going to be required to only purchase EVs then the EV manufacturers need to be paying the bulk of the costs.
This is a lot like complaining that when you buy a conventional car, then have to go and put petrol in it that its you buying the petrol, not the car company. I mean, have you ever complained that you buy the miniatures, and then its you that has to pay for the paints and hobby supplies, and its you that has to drive your car and burn your petrol to get to the gaming club, and maybe even pay a membership fee to the club? Products have secondary costs.
As to whether electric cars will be more expensive over their whole life, with all costs factored in... at this point they are, but they're moving closer to parity, but still with a long way to go. Maybe they'll be cheaper one day, as petrol prices rise and batteries fall. they almost certainly will be for some time, eventually moving to parity, and maybe one day being cheaper than petrol cars over the life of the vehicle. But so what? Do you buy the cheapest car possible, or do you instead accept a higher price tag and not the best fuel efficiency because the car has the comfort, performance or styling you want? And so if you and everyone else accepts that it is okay to pay more than the minimum for a car for some nice extras, why does it become unthinkable that you might also pay a small premium for environmental reasons?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Peregrine wrote: Ok, it's technically possible to live in poverty and general suck without a car. You will not literally die, just like you will not literally die if you are homeless and living on the streets. But we don't think that either of these situations is acceptable.
But clearly we think of the two issues very differently. There are many government programs dedicated to providing low cost housing and expanding the housing stock. There is endless debate about the homeless problem. But there is no government program dedicated to making sure everyone gets a car, and no-one has ever talked of the national carless problem.
I mean, I get what you're saying about cars being very important to people, and I think any changes ahead will need to be very sensitive to increasing the price of transport (that's a major reason I think the talk about banning petrol cars is foolish and also never going to happen). But we don't think of cars and houses in the same way, you're overstating your case there.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Grey Templar wrote: No, I did not ignore it. I know that they use sensors to detect their environment. What you are ignoring is the massive limitations on this sensors. They can't see a few hundred feet down the road like a human driver can. They have very small areas of detection, well within distances needed to adaquatly stop to avoid collisions at common speeds.
Plus if these sensors get damaged or are malfunctioning or are incorrectly programmed, then you've created a hazardous vehicle. Much more so than human error, and more likely too.
First up, you're changing the point in debate. You started with your old complaint that automated cars only work on roads with 100% automated cars because they rely on comms to know where other cars are. When I mentioned that was mistaken and this had been pointed out to you before, you didn't defend the claim or retract it, instead you just shifted to a new claim about sensors.
As to the claim about sensors... okay whatever. I have no technical knowledge of the range of sensors in comparison to human eyes, and I doubt beyond a few thousand technical professionals who are most definitely not in this thread very few people do.
But we do know that automated cars have been used on the roads, and they have a safety record far better than human drivers. And we also know that automated vehicles will improve more as the tech develops.
It makes no sense to use land to make bio fuels when you can use land to make a solar farms. Solar farms require far less land to produce more electricity - it doesn't even need to be good land - land that is good for solar farms are the least desirable places on earth to live. Even current battery tech is sufficient to run the planet - this tech will only get better and cheaper.
Xenomancers wrote: It makes no sense to use land to make bio fuels when you can use land to make a solar farms. Solar farms require far less land to produce more electricity - it doesn't even need to be good land - land that is good for solar farms are the least desirable places on earth to live. Even current battery tech is sufficient to run the planet - this tech will only get better and cheaper.
You don't need good land to make biofuel either. Genetically modified algae can be grown in hydroponic facilities anywhere, and would yield much more energy density than a solar farm.
Current battery technology is woefully insufficient, and there is no where near enough good solar areas to power everything. Plus you have issues with loss of energy the greater the distance between the solar panels and the end user. Energy generation needs to be relatively close to the end user.
Xenomancers wrote: It makes no sense to use land to make bio fuels when you can use land to make a solar farms. Solar farms require far less land to produce more electricity - it doesn't even need to be good land - land that is good for solar farms are the least desirable places on earth to live. Even current battery tech is sufficient to run the planet - this tech will only get better and cheaper.
You don't need good land to make biofuel either. Genetically modified algae can be grown in hydroponic facilities anywhere, and would yield much more energy density than a solar farm.
Current battery technology is woefully insufficient, and there is no where near enough good solar areas to power everything. Plus you have issues with loss of energy the greater the distance between the solar panels and the end user. Energy generation needs to be relatively close to the end user.
Pretty sure batteries can travel independent of where power is generated. Pretty sure.
feeder wrote: Pretty sure batteries can travel independent of where power is generated. Pretty sure.
Hauling batteries from the power plant to the end user would be ridiculously inefficient, and just plain stupid in a world where transmission lines exist.
Xenomancers wrote: It makes no sense to use land to make bio fuels when you can use land to make a solar farms. Solar farms require far less land to produce more electricity - it doesn't even need to be good land - land that is good for solar farms are the least desirable places on earth to live. Even current battery tech is sufficient to run the planet - this tech will only get better and cheaper.
You don't need good land to make biofuel either. Genetically modified algae can be grown in hydroponic facilities anywhere, and would yield much more energy density than a solar farm.
Current battery technology is woefully insufficient, and there is no where near enough good solar areas to power everything. Plus you have issues with loss of energy the greater the distance between the solar panels and the end user. Energy generation needs to be relatively close to the end user.
Growing algae like that is orders of magnitude more difficult than solar. The water requirements of a hydroponic facility are also significant and can limit where you can build them. Growing algae always seems easy to anyone who has had a fish tank because it seems like it grows with no effort at all but growing the type of algae you want, without contamination, in large enough quantities to be useful, is very far from an easy task. It's so difficult that there are entire businesses that just sell 8oz bottles of algae to salt water aquarists for like $15 a bottle.
Electric vehicles are improving in leaps and bounds, and there are many ways to create the batteries to power them. As it turns out, a byproduct of the oil refining process IS lithium. And they've just been throwing it away.
Xenomancers wrote: It makes no sense to use land to make bio fuels when you can use land to make a solar farms. Solar farms require far less land to produce more electricity - it doesn't even need to be good land - land that is good for solar farms are the least desirable places on earth to live. Even current battery tech is sufficient to run the planet - this tech will only get better and cheaper.
There's a current massive issue right now where Solar Farms are killing birds. One needs to plan the Solar Farms so that they won't be in any migratory paths else there will be some massive ecological damage.
Xenomancers wrote: It makes no sense to use land to make bio fuels when you can use land to make a solar farms. Solar farms require far less land to produce more electricity - it doesn't even need to be good land - land that is good for solar farms are the least desirable places on earth to live. Even current battery tech is sufficient to run the planet - this tech will only get better and cheaper.
There's a current massive issue right now where Solar Farms are killing birds. One needs to plan the Solar Farms so that they won't be in any migratory paths else there will be some massive ecological damage.
Hummm - this sounds like a windmill issue and yeah - that is a problem with windmills. Wind power is not efficient at all - costwise/energywise - it's crap compared to solar. More power to people trying to inovate but the space requirements plus the visual pollution the produce is not good for anyone - including birds.
feeder wrote: Pretty sure batteries can travel independent of where power is generated. Pretty sure.
Hauling batteries from the power plant to the end user would be ridiculously inefficient, and just plain stupid in a world where transmission lines exist.
Yeah - absolutely. The range of electricity is effectively unlimited - though you lose efficiency the farther it has to move. Most batteries I assume will be charged in peoples homes.
feeder wrote: Pretty sure batteries can travel independent of where power is generated. Pretty sure.
Hauling batteries from the power plant to the end user would be ridiculously inefficient, and just plain stupid in a world where transmission lines exist.
Isn't that the current model? I don't buy my batteries from the hydro dam.
Xenomancers wrote: It makes no sense to use land to make bio fuels when you can use land to make a solar farms. Solar farms require far less land to produce more electricity - it doesn't even need to be good land - land that is good for solar farms are the least desirable places on earth to live. Even current battery tech is sufficient to run the planet - this tech will only get better and cheaper.
You don't need good land to make biofuel either. Genetically modified algae can be grown in hydroponic facilities anywhere, and would yield much more energy density than a solar farm.
Current battery technology is woefully insufficient, and there is no where near enough good solar areas to power everything. Plus you have issues with loss of energy the greater the distance between the solar panels and the end user. Energy generation needs to be relatively close to the end user.
Growing algae like that is orders of magnitude more difficult than solar. The water requirements of a hydroponic facility are also significant and can limit where you can build them. Growing algae always seems easy to anyone who has had a fish tank because it seems like it grows with no effort at all but growing the type of algae you want, without contamination, in large enough quantities to be useful, is very far from an easy task. It's so difficult that there are entire businesses that just sell 8oz bottles of algae to salt water aquarists for like $15 a bottle.
Hydroponic facilities recycle their water. So they actually need very little additional water once they are up and running. That's actually one of the primary benefits of hydroponics, you can capture and recycle nearly 100% of the water that is used to grow the product.
No, it's not easy. But you can do it in way more places than you can put solar farms, especially since you are producing energy dense fuel. This type of algae already exists by the way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel
It's not totally economically viable yet, but in the near future it likely will be. And it will yield more energy density than solar farms can give.
This may have been mentioned already as the responses here are quite thoughtful but, here's one: sunk cost. Perhaps solar and / or battery operated cars could work if the supporting infrastructure was built up from scratch around them. However, for many post-industrial countries, the infrastructure is already set up for oil. There would be so much money needed not just to build new stuff but, to tear down the old stuff and, to repair all the areas that were torn down.
RancidHate wrote: This may have been mentioned already as the responses here are quite thoughtful but, here's one: sunk cost. Perhaps solar and / or battery operated cars could work if the supporting infrastructure was built up from scratch around them. However, for many post-industrial countries, the infrastructure is already set up for oil. There would be so much money needed not just to build new stuff but, to tear down the old stuff and, to repair all the areas that were torn down.
It was somewhat.
This is actually probably the best reason that Hybrids are the way to go. They use existing infrastructure, no need to add anything.
feeder wrote: Pretty sure batteries can travel independent of where power is generated. Pretty sure.
Hauling batteries from the power plant to the end user would be ridiculously inefficient, and just plain stupid in a world where transmission lines exist.
Isn't that the current model? I don't buy my batteries from the hydro dam.
It's the current model for small batteries, because most people are too lazy to use the far superior and more efficient rechargeable batteries. And it only works because the disposable batteries are small and purchased in relatively small quantities per person. The logistics of supplying heavy and bulky car batteries fully charged from the power plant would be an absolute nightmare in comparison.
You don't need good land to make biofuel either. Genetically modified algae can be grown in hydroponic facilities anywhere, and would yield much more energy density than a solar farm.
This isn't to say that algae is a bad way to make biofuels, but in terms of raw energy output per square meter it's far lower than just going with solar panels.
Xenomancers wrote: It makes no sense to use land to make bio fuels when you can use land to make a solar farms. Solar farms require far less land to produce more electricity - it doesn't even need to be good land - land that is good for solar farms are the least desirable places on earth to live. Even current battery tech is sufficient to run the planet - this tech will only get better and cheaper.
There's a current massive issue right now where Solar Farms are killing birds. One needs to plan the Solar Farms so that they won't be in any migratory paths else there will be some massive ecological damage.
Hummm - this sounds like a windmill issue and yeah - that is a problem with windmills. Wind power is not efficient at all - costwise/energywise - it's crap compared to solar. More power to people trying to inovate but the space requirements plus the visual pollution the produce is not good for anyone - including birds.
feeder wrote: Pretty sure batteries can travel independent of where power is generated. Pretty sure.
Hauling batteries from the power plant to the end user would be ridiculously inefficient, and just plain stupid in a world where transmission lines exist.
Yeah - absolutely. The range of electricity is effectively unlimited - though you lose efficiency the farther it has to move. Most batteries I assume will be charged in peoples homes.
Unlimited but you lose more as you go further so it's more efficient to have more local power infrastructure than one giant plant powering a entire country.
I don't really share your belief in government motivated by an Orwellian need for control (control is reflexive to threats, not a natural state). But I do agree with oil being moved to niche roles, military & other government roles, alongside some industry.
Increased centralised control is a trend in the US and UK, with the US intrusion being partly blocked by inalienable rights. It is visible in several sectors, most notably CCTV and the broadening of surveillance powers. Still a move to electric cars in the UK would be welcomed by central government if it happened, it isn't a forseeable plan because of the infrastructure investment needed.
China is my go-to example of introducing electric cars for internal security purposes, and yes it is Orwellian.
Oil will remain niche in the UK because the government car if needed drill oil for internal use from oil stocks not viable for commercial drilling. This will in time happen.
They give high fuel efficiency, ranges equal and longer to a regular petrol car, and thr advantage of 5 minute refills with existing infrastructure.
Electric requires new infrastructure. Have less range. Take hours to recharge, and battery life is unknown over long time.
The best compromise of modern and electric is the hybrid car. With advancing technology we could see 100 miles to thr galleon or higher efficiency with upgraded filters and catalytic converters.
Low emissions and high efficiency for every litre of petrol.
Grey Templar wrote: You don't need good land to make biofuel either. Genetically modified algae can be grown in hydroponic facilities anywhere, and would yield much more energy density than a solar farm.
Biofuel (ethanol or diesel) can also be made from different waste products, some of which might not have another use. Waste from the food industry, for example, or leftover components from chemically or mechanically processing wood. And the technology is being made better. Neste Oil's renewable diesel, for example, actually performs better than the petrochem while reducing both particle and nitrogen oxide emission. They still use ~50% palm oil in it which is a problem if poorer nations cut down forests for more money instead of sustainable use, but new sources are under evaluation such as that algae.
Plus the sad fact remains that there are places in the world where EVs just can't hack it unless the tech undergoes a real revolution. Combustion engines produce both their own electricity and waste heat, which is pretty nice in winter. They'll drink more anyway but not as drastically much as an electric would when you actually need to warm the cabin and defrost windows/mirrors. So a hybrid maybe, but the use you get out of a full battery pack in Siberia is probably not very many minutes.
You don't need good land to make biofuel either. Genetically modified algae can be grown in hydroponic facilities anywhere, and would yield much more energy density than a solar farm.
This isn't to say that algae is a bad way to make biofuels, but in terms of raw energy output per square meter it's far lower than just going with solar panels.
In the case of these particular algae, it's not that you're melting down the algae. It's that the algae has been genetically modified to produce a flammable hydrocarbon as their waste product. You're not fermenting the algae sugars to produce ethanol. The algae do it naturally, and you just collect their waste.
Solar farms only work in areas with flat enough land that also receives more or less permanent sunlight. Algae can still photosynthesize even on a cloudy day. And you have the issue that transmitting electricity over long distances is woefully inefficient. While something like biofuel is energy dense enough to where it's worth the effort to ship it around.
In the case of these particular algae, it's not that you're melting down the algae. It's that the algae has been genetically modified to produce a flammable hydrocarbon as their waste product. You're not fermenting the algae sugars to produce ethanol. The algae do it naturally, and you just collect their waste.
That eliminates some of the processing (down to filtering and extracting water from the fuel, but you're still looking at the fact that solar extracts substantially more energy from sunlight than photosynthesis.
Solar farms only work in areas with flat enough land that also receives more or less permanent sunlight. Algae can still photosynthesize even on a cloudy day. And you have the issue that transmitting electricity over long distances is woefully inefficient. While something like biofuel is energy dense enough to where it's worth the effort to ship it around.
And algae is going to be heavily dependent on the ambient temperature and be subject to other micro-organisms wrecking their day. Solar panels still work on a cloudy day, they just output less energy. We use some solar up here in Canada, and yes, we get less energy from it than California might, but we still get useful amounts of energy. Furthermore, electrical transmission is NOT woefully inefficient. In the USA it averages 6-7% losses from production to consumer, and with AC transmission it's still cost effective to 4000km.
The paper I linked talks about a theoretical 24% solar efficiency compared to 1-4% photosynthesis efficiency. Both numbers are probably inflated versus reality, but given the comparison between the numbers, even with transmission losses solar wins hands down.
Finally, it's likely going to be practical to put solar on everyone's household rooftops. IIRC Tesla already has solar shingles in development. Algae tanks, not so much. Again, algae is a good way to make biofuels, but its probably more practical to use solar to generate the electricity to power the lamps that grow the algae at controlled temperatures, in space-saving three dimensional arrays of tubes using red LEDs. This can even occupy the same real estate.
In the case of these particular algae, it's not that you're melting down the algae. It's that the algae has been genetically modified to produce a flammable hydrocarbon as their waste product. You're not fermenting the algae sugars to produce ethanol. The algae do it naturally, and you just collect their waste.
That eliminates some of the processing (down to filtering and extracting water from the fuel, but you're still looking at the fact that solar extracts substantially more energy from sunlight than photosynthesis.
Solar farms only work in areas with flat enough land that also receives more or less permanent sunlight. Algae can still photosynthesize even on a cloudy day. And you have the issue that transmitting electricity over long distances is woefully inefficient. While something like biofuel is energy dense enough to where it's worth the effort to ship it around.
And algae is going to be heavily dependent on the ambient temperature and be subject to other micro-organisms wrecking their day. Solar panels still work on a cloudy day, they just output less energy. We use some solar up here in Canada, and yes, we get less energy from it than California might, but we still get useful amounts of energy. Furthermore, electrical transmission is NOT woefully inefficient. In the USA it averages 6-7% losses from production to consumer, and with AC transmission it's still cost effective to 4000km.
The paper I linked talks about a theoretical 24% solar efficiency compared to 1-4% photosynthesis efficiency. Both numbers are probably inflated versus reality, but given the comparison between the numbers, even with transmission losses solar wins hands down.
Finally, it's likely going to be practical to put solar on everyone's household rooftops. IIRC Tesla already has solar shingles in development. Algae tanks, not so much. Again, algae is a good way to make biofuels, but its probably more practical to use solar to generate the electricity to power the lamps that grow the algae at controlled temperatures, in space-saving three dimensional arrays of tubes using red LEDs. This can even occupy the same real estate.
The question here though is which one is better for energy for transportation. I don't know the answer to that question, I haven't researched the topic, but eliminating the need for batteries sounds like a huge plus to me.
Grey Templar wrote: You don't need good land to make biofuel either. Genetically modified algae can be grown in hydroponic facilities anywhere, and would yield much more energy density than a solar farm.
Biofuel (ethanol or diesel) can also be made from different waste products, some of which might not have another use. Waste from the food industry, for example, or leftover components from chemically or mechanically processing wood. And the technology is being made better. Neste Oil's renewable diesel, for example, actually performs better than the petrochem while reducing both particle and nitrogen oxide emission. They still use ~50% palm oil in it which is a problem if poorer nations cut down forests for more money instead of sustainable use, but new sources are under evaluation such as that algae.
Plus the sad fact remains that there are places in the world where EVs just can't hack it unless the tech undergoes a real revolution. Combustion engines produce both their own electricity and waste heat, which is pretty nice in winter. They'll drink more anyway but not as drastically much as an electric would when you actually need to warm the cabin and defrost windows/mirrors. So a hybrid maybe, but the use you get out of a full battery pack in Siberia is probably not very many minutes.
There are places in UK it would be harder yet alone Russia.
You go north to Scotland. There are limited stations on route in certain areas. It's wise to fill up max before you depart or in northern England, just to make sure you got plenty sparebjust in case you need it.
You would need to build alot of charging points to make it work and some of these areas are pretty remote from existing power infrastructure. Miles and miles of new power lines and such needed.
Unless range changes massively. Hybrids are the way to go.
They offer environmentally friendly performance with out draw backs..
They give high fuel efficiency, ranges equal and longer to a regular petrol car, and thr advantage of 5 minute refills with existing infrastructure.
Electric requires new infrastructure. Have less range. Take hours to recharge, and battery life is unknown over long time.
The best compromise of modern and electric is the hybrid car. With advancing technology we could see 100 miles to thr galleon or higher efficiency with upgraded filters and catalytic converters.
Low emissions and high efficiency for every litre of petrol.
Hybrids are pretty pointless to be honest. You go to all that effort of putting an electric motor in there only to lose efficiency because you're carrying a dirty great big engine block etc.
They give high fuel efficiency, ranges equal and longer to a regular petrol car, and thr advantage of 5 minute refills with existing infrastructure.
Electric requires new infrastructure. Have less range. Take hours to recharge, and battery life is unknown over long time.
The best compromise of modern and electric is the hybrid car. With advancing technology we could see 100 miles to thr galleon or higher efficiency with upgraded filters and catalytic converters.
Low emissions and high efficiency for every litre of petrol.
Hybrids are pretty pointless to be honest. You go to all that effort of putting an electric motor in there only to lose efficiency because you're carrying a dirty great big engine block etc.
Engines don't have to be all that heavy these days relative to the total vehicle weight unless you're trying to squeeze several hundred HP out of them. If the presence of the eletric motor means you don't need as powerful of a petrol motor (because the electric motor is the one doing the hard accelerations) then you can get away with something pretty light for the petrol motor, probably in the ~50kg range.
The question here though is which one is better for energy for transportation. I don't know the answer to that question, I haven't researched the topic, but eliminating the need for batteries sounds like a huge plus to me.
Yes, it is. Turning solar into an energy storage medium (battery, hydrogen, biofuel, hydrazine, boron, flywheel, hydraulic reservoir) is basically necessary for night time power A lot could change if the correct battery technologies pan out, there are multiple different ones in development right now that could radically change power storage, but it remains to be seen if we can industrialize their manufacture or not.
Orlanth wrote: China is my go-to example of introducing electric cars for internal security purposes, and yes it is Orwellian.
It's fundamentally weird that you would see a country that imports more than 2/3 of its oil, with little scope to increase domestic product but a projected doubling in cars in the next decade or two, and think plan to move away from oil was about anything other than the fact that China doesn't want to their economy to be dependent on an energy source they have no control over.
Orlanth wrote: China is my go-to example of introducing electric cars for internal security purposes, and yes it is Orwellian.
It's fundamentally weird that you would see a country that imports more than 2/3 of its oil, with little scope to increase domestic product but a projected doubling in cars in the next decade or two, and think plan to move away from oil was about anything other than the fact that China doesn't want to their economy to be dependent on an energy source they have no control over.
China has the muscle to control oil imports.
Also energy needs to come from an energy source, it will be more efficient to put oil in a car than put oil in a power station to convert to electricity to put that in the car.
Chinas consumer and infrastructure concerns echo ours, yet we have yet to go so far. China differs from the west in terms of direction of development mostly on internal security issues. The media technology is the same, but the security component is widely different. China is not notably in favour of green politics either, but is consistently looking for means to tighten control infrastructure. Green dam anyone.
It is not 'fundamentally weird' to read a clear trend.
Orlanth wrote: China has the muscle to control oil imports.
That makes zero sense. You can't simply choose to control a global market. Even the US when it was the 600 pound gorilla of the economy and close to energy independent still got hammered by the oil price spike of the 1970s.
The idea that China could just choose to not be affected by oil price movements is not a thing.
Also energy needs to come from an energy source, it will be more efficient to put oil in a car than put oil in a power station to convert to electricity to put that in the car.
China produces coal and gets a lot more from a much more diverse and politically stable group of countries than its sources of oil. China is also the world's largest producer of solar panels. So yes, they will be getting their power from something, the point is less of it will come oil.
Chinas consumer and infrastructure concerns echo ours, yet we have yet to go so far.
China has nothing like the consumer sensitivities that we have. Mandating new cars that have lower performance and much higher prices will sink any government in the West, but this is not the case in China.
I'm not saying China's system is better, because it isn't, its terrible, but it isn't hard to see where they have more freedom to act than in the West.
RancidHate wrote: This may have been mentioned already as the responses here are quite thoughtful but, here's one: sunk cost. Perhaps solar and / or battery operated cars could work if the supporting infrastructure was built up from scratch around them. However, for many post-industrial countries, the infrastructure is already set up for oil. There would be so much money needed not just to build new stuff but, to tear down the old stuff and, to repair all the areas that were torn down.
But much of the infrastructure is already there - most western homes have electricity already, and we'd save a huge amount of national grid consumption if we're not splitting oil into petrol/diesel in giant refineries. We may need to introduce some sort of smart charging to spread the load a bit more evenly when there's high demand, but as the range and efficiency improves the demand should go down.
It's not as if everyone refills their car in a petrol station on the way home from work every day, so why would we assume everyone will charge their car at the same time every day? Most people will probably be able to get away with charging their car once or twice a week.
That's before you get into storage options - it may become feasible to have a battery in the house being slowly charged from a solar panel during the day, and used to charge the car overnight.
We'll probably need to upgrade the grid at some point, and introduce more power plants, but we shouldn't have to re-cable everything. We may need to cable some new places like car parks or upgrade petrol stations, but that's fairly trivial. By the time we need to do these upgrades, EV's will already have a significant market saturation.
The only thing that concerns me is how they'll do the tax. I'd assume an annual fee + some sort of toll system, rather than mileage or location tracking.
Orlanth wrote: China has the muscle to control oil imports.
That makes zero sense. You can't simply choose to control a global market. Even the US when it was the 600 pound gorilla of the economy and close to energy independent still got hammered by the oil price spike of the 1970s.
The idea that China could just choose to not be affected by oil price movements is not a thing.
Take a look at how China operates in Africa, its not considered a colonial policy for nothing. China has the muscle to control and secure oil access.
China has nothing like the consumer sensitivities that we have. Mandating new cars that have lower performance and much higher prices will sink any government in the West, but this is not the case in China.
I'm not saying China's system is better, because it isn't, its terrible, but it isn't hard to see where they have more freedom to act than in the West.
Actually we make similar moves all the time. Our method is to selectively tax, we even do this for hybrid and electric cars and that has helped a trend. However our governments are not committed to the change. We allow the same profiteering over electricity as we do oil, electricity costs could be subsidised if the political will was there. Our governments are also reluctant to invest, so the infrastructure remains largely static. Again this can change if needed.
Orlanth wrote: Take a look at how China operates in Africa, its not considered a colonial policy for nothing. China has the muscle to control and secure oil access.
China's set up is far from new. In fact while they maintain much tighter control than any other country today, their control is nothing like that maintained by most countries decades ago. It didn't help anyone during the oil crisis. This is because your ability to strong arm the producing nation disappears when the global price spikes. Strong arming doesn't work when the global price is a few hundred dollars more per barrel than you want to pay.
Actually we make similar moves all the time. Our method is to selectively tax, we even do this for hybrid and electric cars and that has helped a trend. However our governments are not committed to the change.
Subsidies of new techs and flat out bans of old techs are very obviously very different things with very obviously different levels of political acceptability.
We allow the same profiteering over electricity as we do oil, electricity costs could be subsidised if the political will was there.
Electricity is subsidised. Do you think all those poles and wires run for hundreds of miles out to towns with two dozen people were done by a private company chasing a profit?
Orlanth wrote: Take a look at how China operates in Africa, its not considered a colonial policy for nothing. China has the muscle to control and secure oil access.
China's set up is far from new. In fact while they maintain much tighter control than any other country today, their control is nothing like that maintained by most countries decades ago. It didn't help anyone during the oil crisis. This is because your ability to strong arm the producing nation disappears when the global price spikes. Strong arming doesn't work when the global price is a few hundred dollars more per barrel than you want to pay.
You were given the pointer, look at how China controls Africa. You evidently have not done so.
Chinas control is indirect, subtle and very strong. Also price is irrelevant if everyone or nearly everyone has to pay the same.
In a nutshell - though it goes far beyond this:
Club dictator has been ushered into a client relationship with China, and Chinese imports have been made available to ever larger proportion of the populace. When the national head of state is in China's pocket and China is selling the average African things they never had before.
The west sold the average African tee-shirts and cola, China sells them affordable mobile phones, refrigerators and advanced pharmaceuticals.
Subsidies of new techs and flat out bans of old techs are very obviously very different things with very obviously different levels of political acceptability.
The conditioning for political acceptibility is already there. We have it for things like tobacco and alcohol, and also oil. Less so in the US but in Europe there are very high tarriffs on all three.
Electricity is subsidised. Do you think all those poles and wires run for hundreds of miles out to towns with two dozen people were done by a private company chasing a profit?
Yes.
You have to set the same price regionally, and provide access. Some threshold cases incur losses but they are factored into the whole. Western society is urban and the same region with small rural communities also sells electricity to large conurbations, he returns more than make up for the investment, and while prices rise above inflation, infrastructure overheads are corner-cut.
Orlanth wrote: You were given the pointer, look at how China controls Africa. You evidently have not done so.
I explained to you that China's control, while more overt and aligned directly to the state than their modern counterparts, is not that unusual by historical standards. And in the past when supply shocks have hit the system, the old model proved of little use in safeguarding assets.
And now I've explained it twice. I look forward to you ignoring it a second time.
The conditioning for political acceptibility is already there. We have it for things like tobacco and alcohol, and also oil. Less so in the US but in Europe there are very high tarriffs on all three.
Yes, but the level of political acceptability is vastly different. I mean fething obviously when its a considerable political risk to increase the petrol tax, it's political suicide to ban electric cars.
).
