Thoughts on cars going all electric?

[nonobaddog]

Good idea - lets send it to Europe.

 

[jamil]

Solid,sound reasoning.
Key word being 'Reasoning'.

Most daily commuters, second vehicles, "Grocery Getters" could be electric and for a very reasonable price.
All planned traffic/trips so charging isn't an issue.

When you consider most of the US vehicle traffic travels less than 50 miles a day, less than 10 miles from home, electric commuters make sense.

There is also the fact they cost much less to produce, about 1/3 to 1/6 the moving parts, and take virtually no maintenance other than brakes, tires & wheel bearings.

Depending on DOT/weight restrictions & charge times, I could see class 8 trucks going electric.
It's torque that moves heavy loads, and industrial diesel engines/gear boxes are so heavy they easily offset battery weight.

I don't see flexible schedule (different job sites/times) or intermediate size vehicles being electric anytime soon.
Joe the plumber, or Jack the boilermaker, or Jim the carpenter works out of town on job demand schedules, can't really plan recharging locations/times very well.

By far the biggest 'Perk'/incentive would be for employers to solar charge employees vehicles while they sit in the parking lots all day.
The guy that works night shift and his EV sits in his driveway all day could recharge from solar quite easily, but he has the cost of the solar panels/converter.
I've visited several places that have covered parking for employees that charge EVs, and the number of EVs were MUCH higher with free to employee energy cost, and solar panels keep the rain & snow off your car too...



I agree.
In cities EVs will be more popular, less driving, cheaper lifetime expense for the miles traveled.
Where charging infrastructure is spotty, but there is a gas station every few miles gas will rule.

I have a lot of self produced electricity, so I'm working on an electric tractor.
When the shortages of car parts slacks and prices come down, we will have an EV for my wife.

Of course, I'm not giving up the 60s muscle cars anytime soon...



And this is where it comes off the rails.
Nuclear is WAY more expensive than gas/coal/petroleum to build & operate per megawatt.

Nuclear has produced BILLIONS of tons waste product the TAXPAYER foots the bill on storage & security.

It's not a 'Leftist' thing,
It's a common sense thing.
Nuclear waste is 100% toxic for over 1,000,000 years.
Only the VERY short sighted think leaving billions of 100% deadly waste behind for 1,000,000 years is viable way to do things...



I would say using 2/3 less parts that have to be manufactured and their waste products, the energy consumed is the reason auto makers are working on EVs,

The vehicles don't produce toxic waste in operation, cleaner air, water, etc.

Technology, particularly batteries, have made EVs practical, the same way Henry Ford made cars practice back in the 1920s.
It's simply the next evolution in transportation,
Feet, then shoes, then animals, then boats, then trains, then cars, then planes...

All implementation goes slowly, and the reason is adaptation & refinement.

You are perfectly free to aquire a model T or model A,
Get out there and hand crank it since you don't like batteries,
Drive on those wooden spoke wheels,
Putter down the highway with 12-35 horsepower,
Replace the engine every 20,000 miles,
That would REALLY show your 'Consevatism'!

You really inferred a lot of nonsense from so very few words.

 

[BugI02]

With the power of Taco Bell, perhaps we *can* approach billions if we all work together. Brazil nut tacos...

"By the power of GreyMeat ... "

 

[wtburnette]

 

[jamil]

I'm shocked, shocked I say to find that you are massively wrong once again

Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage and Disposal • Stimson Center

400,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel is stored at hundreds of sites across dozens of countries. Given its radioactive properties, spent fuel must be stored and protected for the thousands. Deep underground storage will help centralize stockpiles, and some are being planned, but the challenge of...

www.stimson.org

Using their numbers, currently spent fuel should be at about:

400000 + ( 3 x 11300) = 433900 metric tons, or 0.00043 of ONE billion, let alone BILLIONS

Well also it’s not the most expensive source of energy “by far.” It’s more expensive than the usual sources these days, but not anything an honest person would say is by far.

 

[Dante1983]

In the early 1900’s there were electric cars all over. They were popular in cities. No smog, no crank start. But they were almost twice the price. Then they made an electric starter for gas cars and the market decided. I say let it decide again. But if they’re going to do any mandates then once again I don’t believe anything they say. That’ll screw the average working class person that buys a used car and hangs onto it for years. And a mandate would once again prove that is exactly what they want to do.

 

[Twangbanger]

...The real problem seems to be that Reagan wanted to build nukes to counter the Soviet Union and nukes are nukes, even if they are making electricity.

The real problem is that scaled, safe nuclear power would allow us to continue to consume energy and increase our standard of living.

It would give us a "way out"...and that's not what the planners want.

This is not about "more choices." It's about eliminating all the options on the board except the one they want.

When then say "back to 1990 levels," they're not just talking about Carbon. Everything that happened since the Berlin Wall fell was a mistake, in their opinion.

 

[Cameramonkey]

Not sure if its been mentioned or not. But imagine being in the tornado zone in KY and having EVs, electric chainsaws, etc. Not really very useful right now. (or maybe for months to a year)

 

[Ingomike]

It would give us a "way out"...and that's not what the planners want.

THIS!!!

 

[ancjr]

It's almost 2022 and people are talking about going back to driving coal fired cars.

 

[wtburnette]

THIS!!!

Yep, we could have been deploying nuclear all along and by now we'd have energy that was abundant everywhere and extremely inexpensive. The fact that we don't isn't because of "global warming" or because of "environmental fears" it's because the people in charge can't control you as easily that way.

 

[jake blue]

I guess I'm a little lost because this was supposed to be about electric cars which I understand inevitably leads to a discussion about the power grid infrastructure...

How exactly does 'green energy' control us more than nuclear energy, or for that matter existing fossil fuel energy? Gov't exerts an unhealthy amount of influence and regulation over the entire energy sector. Greenies use the argument of big oil companies' subsidies and tax incentives as an argument that green tech deserves as much public investment and if that occurs they seem confident the merits of green energy would be self-evident. In fact, the most hands-off-by-gov't energy scheme I've seen is the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) which seeks to promote real-time capitalist principles into the daily lives of Texans but we saw how that turned out last winter and Texans are scared half to death of a repeat this year. It's meltdowns (puns kind of intended) like that which invite more gov't intrusion because gov't believes it's job is to protect people from their own shortsightedness.

If anything, I feel like green technologies like wind and solar are the least gov't intrusive techs out there. Barring stupid local zoning laws, you can buy and install solar panels and/or wind turbines on your own property and become energy self-sufficient. THAT'S actually local gov't's biggest gripe is the potential of losing customers to their municipal monopoly. Both of those techs are scalable so you don't necessarily have to kill the entire cow on the front end to start seeing returns immediately. The only gov't control I can see green energy represents is having it forced upon us by cutting off alternatives or making existing reliable alternatives unaffordable but they still have their hooks in those as well. If they enforce arbitrary mandates and deadlines before the infrastructure exists to comply they're just inviting a national version of Texas last winter or California basically every summer. Those of us in the Midwest aren't going to stand for that and I predict co-ops would start unplugging from the national grid in order to protect their local customers, creating a cascade failure across the country.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

In the early 1900’s there were electric cars all over. They were popular in cities. No smog, no crank start. But they were almost twice the price. Then they made an electric starter for gas cars and the market decided. I say let it decide again. But if they’re going to do any mandates then once again I don’t believe anything they say. That’ll screw the average working class person that buys a used car and hangs onto it for years. And a mandate would once again prove that is exactly what they want to do.

In fairness, there were mandates in the 1900s as well. They were local, since we were much more a hodge-podge of local regulation then and towns/cities/counties had little preemption at the time. NYC is the one I'm familiar with, but there were a lot of anti-horse measures passed as cars became more popular. Cars don't crap in the street and shod horses on cobblestones are both loud and have poor traction. Cobblestones were just rounded river rock, not the square cut stuff we think of which had a different name that I no longer recall. The treatment of horses was also somewhat shocking to the sensibilities of the city folk, and would cause mass outrage today. Life span was some 3 years due to the overworking and harsh conditions, and horses were often abandoned in the city. Nobody worked a car to death or abandoned it. So, ordinances were changed to make horse ownership harder and more expensive.

The invention of cheap paving in the form of asphalt also subsidized car ownership, as more pavement meant easier times for cars and cars meant less feces on the streets. The car companies didn't pave the roads, the gov't did.

So 'the market' did decide, but it's a fallacy to think the gov't had no input on the matter. There were regulations and the gov't created the infrastructure that let cars take off.

 

[woowoo2]

Dot Gov is going to force you into going electric.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday announced new fuel economy standards to promote President Biden's goal of reducing the nation's greenhouse gas emissions.


The transportation sector is the biggest emitter in the country of heat-trapping pollution, which stokes climate change. The EPA's new rules reverse a much weaker Trump-era regulation for automakers to improve their cars' and light-duty trucks' fuel economy.


The finalized rule calls for vehicles in model years 2023-2026 to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions between 5% and 10% each year. This means that by 2026, cars will be required to achieve 40 miles per gallon.


The plan will improve air quality as it cuts the amount of pollution cars pump into the atmosphere, reduce climate pollution and save Americans money at the pump as cars' fuel efficiency improves, the EPA and environmentalists said.

 

[Leo]

Lots of good, well researched replies. We are clearly not any where close to replacing our private transportation with electric cars. If you are in the physically larger 50% of the population, electric cars just do not fit our bodies. I am 6'2" and 220 lbs. It is easy for fully grown couples to go places in my Mercury , including luggage for a few day vacation. It is easy to go places over 500 miles away. We really enjoy road trips.

I have a few neighbors that have gone to electric lawn mowers. I will not even comment on when the weather grows the grass too quickly. I am still using the Toro gas mower I bought in 2012. We have small yards. I seldom buy more than two gallons of gas in a season. If I do buy 3 gallons, I pour the excess in the car at the end of the season. The neighbors with electric mowers need replacement batteries yearly. The batteries cost over ten times what my gas costs, and they still have to buy electricity from coal fired power plants.

It just does not add up.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

The finalized rule calls for vehicles in model years 2023-2026 to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions between 5% and 10% each year. This means that by 2026, cars will be required to achieve 40 miles per gallon.

For clarity, this is fleet wide averages after "credits". I think it's moving too far too fast, but it's not a ban on cars that don't get at least 40mpg.

The attached document expects about 17% of cars to be electric only or plug in hybrids (which, to me, is still a pretty compelling technology). You can get "credits" for things like LED lighting that reduce the overall energy demands of the vehicle.

That said, it's too far IMO.

 

[jake blue]

For clarity, this is fleet wide averages after "credits". I think it's moving too far too fast, but it's not a ban on cars that don't get at least 40mpg.

The attached document expects about 17% of cars to be electric only or plug in hybrids (which, to me, is still a pretty compelling technology). You can get "credits" for things like LED lighting that reduce the overall energy demands of the vehicle.

That said, it's too far IMO.

Maybe not too far but certainly too fast. Barring some breakthrough miracle voodoo tech that makes cars run on snake oil I think we've squeezed just about all the efficiency possible out of burning dead dinosaurs. An energy revolution is certainly a welcome proposition but it won't come simply because gov't mandates it.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Some more BS in the order:

Reductions in GHG emissions from this rule will benefit populations that may be especially vulnerable to damages associated with climate change, such as the very young, the elderly, communities of color, low-income, disabled, and indigenous populations.

Ok, air pollution hits the elderly and some disable harder, sure. But do "communities of color" have different lungs? Do lower income people breathe differently? I could even understand if they said "urban" as air pollution is harsher in cities than rural areas, but this? C'mon.

They do know that 'breathing rarefied air' is not a literal thing, right? RIGHT?

 

[mmpsteve]

Some more BS in the order:



Ok, air pollution hits the elderly and some disable harder, sure. But do "communities of color" have different lungs? Do lower income people breathe differently? I could even understand if they said "urban" as air pollution is harsher in cities than rural areas, but this? C'mon.

They do know that 'breathing rarefied air' is not a literal thing, right? RIGHT?

Not only what you said, but efficiencies take tech - tech takes $$ - costs passed onto consumer (unless subsidized). Almost seems like discrimination against low income and younger folks, when .gov forces higher and higher prices. Yet these very same people keep voting for it.

.

 

[HoughMade]

Some more BS in the order:



Ok, air pollution hits the elderly and some disable harder, sure. But do "communities of color" have different lungs? Do lower income people breathe differently? I could even understand if they said "urban" as air pollution is harsher in cities than rural areas, but this? C'mon.

They do know that 'breathing rarefied air' is not a literal thing, right? RIGHT?

Air polution.

We need a time machine to see REAL air pollution:

Los Angeles:

NYC 1966