Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.
2017/09/13 07:17:26
Subject: Electric Vehicle a future? Or Did a good'ol Internal Combustion engine still have its own future?
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.
n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.
It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion.
2017/09/13 08:27:52
Subject: Electric Vehicle a future? Or Did a good'ol Internal Combustion engine still have its own future?
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.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
2017/09/13 11:46:56
Subject: Electric Vehicle a future? Or Did a good'ol Internal Combustion engine still have its own future?
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.
Sgt. Vanden - OOC Hey, that was your doing. I didn't choose to fly in the "Dongerprise'.
"May the odds be ever in your favour"
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
I have no clue how Dakka's moderation work. I expect it involves throwing a lot of d100 and looking at many random tables.
FudgeDumper - It could be that you are just so uncomfortable with the idea of your chapters primarch having his way with a docile tyranid spore cyst, that you must deny they have any feelings at all.
2017/09/13 13:00:32
Subject: Electric Vehicle a future? Or Did a good'ol Internal Combustion engine still have its own future?
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).
Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur
2017/09/13 13:26:05
Subject: Electric Vehicle a future? Or Did a good'ol Internal Combustion engine still have its own future?
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.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/09/13 13:27:21
2017/09/13 13:43:19
Subject: Electric Vehicle a future? Or Did a good'ol Internal Combustion engine still have its own future?
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.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/09/13 13:44:35
2017/09/13 14:41:05
Subject: Electric Vehicle a future? Or Did a good'ol Internal Combustion engine still have its own future?
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.
n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.
It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion.
2017/09/13 15:20:18
Subject: Electric Vehicle a future? Or Did a good'ol Internal Combustion engine still have its own future?
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.
Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur
2017/09/13 15:30:02
Subject: Electric Vehicle a future? Or Did a good'ol Internal Combustion engine still have its own future?
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.
The Auld Grump
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/09/13 15:33:20
Kilkrazy wrote:When I was a young boy all my wargames were narratively based because I played with my toy soldiers and vehicles without the use of any rules.
The reason I bought rules and became a real wargamer was because I wanted a properly thought out structure to govern the action instead of just making things up as I went along.
2017/09/13 15:33:48
Subject: Electric Vehicle a future? Or Did a good'ol Internal Combustion engine still have its own future?
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.
insaniak wrote: Sometimes, Exterminatus is the only option.
And sometimes, it's just a case of too much scotch combined with too many buttons...
2017/09/13 15:46:31
Subject: Electric Vehicle a future? Or Did a good'ol Internal Combustion engine still have its own future?
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
2017/09/13 15:49:11
Subject: Electric Vehicle a future? Or Did a good'ol Internal Combustion engine still have its own future?
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.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/09/13 16:06:28
We were once so close to heaven, St. Peter came out and gave us medals; declaring us "The nicest of the damned".
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
2017/09/13 16:15:14
Subject: Electric Vehicle a future? Or Did a good'ol Internal Combustion engine still have its own future?
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.
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
2017/09/13 16:29:03
Subject: Electric Vehicle a future? Or Did a good'ol Internal Combustion engine still have its own future?
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.
We were once so close to heaven, St. Peter came out and gave us medals; declaring us "The nicest of the damned".
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
2017/09/13 16:46:53
Subject: Electric Vehicle a future? Or Did a good'ol Internal Combustion engine still have its own future?
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.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/09/13 16:47:22
2017/09/13 17:02:36
Subject: Electric Vehicle a future? Or Did a good'ol Internal Combustion engine still have its own future?
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.
2017/09/13 17:53:26
Subject: Re:Electric Vehicle a future? Or Did a good'ol Internal Combustion engine still have its own future?
Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios
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.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/09/13 17:54:25
Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines
Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.
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.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/09/13 18:18:24
2017/09/13 18:20:00
Subject: Re:Electric Vehicle a future? Or Did a good'ol Internal Combustion engine still have its own future?
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.
We were once so close to heaven, St. Peter came out and gave us medals; declaring us "The nicest of the damned".
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
2017/09/13 18:26:48
Subject: Electric Vehicle a future? Or Did a good'ol Internal Combustion engine still have its own future?
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.
If we fail to anticipate the unforeseen or expect the unexpected in a universe of infinite possibilities, we may find ourselves at the mercy of anyone or anything that cannot be programmed, categorized or easily referenced.
- Fox Mulder
2017/09/13 18:32:04
Subject: Electric Vehicle a future? Or Did a good'ol Internal Combustion engine still have its own future?
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).
2017/09/13 19:06:34
Subject: Re:Electric Vehicle a future? Or Did a good'ol Internal Combustion engine still have its own future?
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.
IRON WITHIN, IRON WITHOUT.
New Heavy Gear Log! Also...Grey Knights! The correct pronunciation is Imperial Guard and Stormtroopers, "Astra Militarum" and "Tempestus Scions" are something you'll find at Hogwarts.
2017/09/13 22:12:32
Subject: Electric Vehicle a future? Or Did a good'ol Internal Combustion engine still have its own future?
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.
We were once so close to heaven, St. Peter came out and gave us medals; declaring us "The nicest of the damned".
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
2017/09/14 01:35:07
Subject: Electric Vehicle a future? Or Did a good'ol Internal Combustion engine still have its own future?
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.
Q: What do you call a Dinosaur Handpuppet?
A: A Maniraptor
2017/09/14 05:20:00
Subject: Electric Vehicle a future? Or Did a good'ol Internal Combustion engine still have its own future?
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.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
2017/09/14 06:50:52
Subject: Electric Vehicle a future? Or Did a good'ol Internal Combustion engine still have its own future?
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.
2017/09/14 06:56:10
Subject: Electric Vehicle a future? Or Did a good'ol Internal Combustion engine still have its own future?
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.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2017/09/14 08:25:20
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
2017/09/14 19:28:46
Subject: Electric Vehicle a future? Or Did a good'ol Internal Combustion engine still have its own future?
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.
If we fail to anticipate the unforeseen or expect the unexpected in a universe of infinite possibilities, we may find ourselves at the mercy of anyone or anything that cannot be programmed, categorized or easily referenced.
- Fox Mulder
