Electric cars are not that eco-friendly.

[ThaHoward]

Yeah. I would also like a world where I could use the force. But that is impossible and irrelevant to the topic.

[Yatogami]

1 hour ago, Lonemathsytoothbrushthief said:

Or maybe we could live in a society where work wasn't both necessary to maintain our ability to survive, house and feed ourselves and didn't necessarily make employment scarce enough to drive us into unequal agreements with employers looking to exploit us for profit, which so happened to require us to all cram into small overpopulated polluting towns while driving every day to cover the distance to our difficult to find jobs, or even worse, multiple part time jobs. I'm pretty sure if we didn't have to travel to another town to work for money every day we could live productive lives without taking cars everywhere we went. This is definitely my main objection.

Id rather work, than spend all my free time with myself and hobbies. It is very unhealthy to overindulge. Humans need something to work for, to be happy. Humans were not meant to be content with life. Just like your pet isn't suppose to stay cooped up in the house all day. Humans are meant to leave this rock, and all the problems will fix itself. 

[Lonemathsytoothbrushthief]

You realise it's just as possible to have the things which others do for work, as hobbies, right? I don't understand what you find unhealthy. Personally I have a tonne of things which I'd put more energy into in that scenario. I'd finish reading Kropotkin's major works, teach myself more from a book about climate science, do more coding and piano and skating. And to those who believe they just can't, just pointing out that our society tries to crush our creative impulses in order to make us conform. It's only the very rich who have an education close to modern in its outlook.

[Busrider]

My personal issues with EVs are currently primary of legal & engineering nature. German infrastructure is crap. China is way ahead of Germany with their social / legal EV integration. For EVs to take of, we'd need reasonable chances to charge them. An average vehicle goes to work, stands half the day goes home and stands the other half. I own my garage in a building with many other ones. I have no chance to get a wall socket (even a mere 220V 16A one) into my garage and also no chance to force my employer to provide another. If they wanted to provide recharging power for all employees they might not even have enough grid to do so. We were ordered to lock the main switch of our biggest 74KW machine or its predecessor, to avoid darkening the suburb. 

 

An EV with battery sized to go to work and home long term, is by definition wasteful. Ideal EVs should have modular batteries so you can buy an optimized one for your needs and have space to compensate it's aging with additional batteries purchased later, when needed. 

 

My engineering related pet peeve: Taking the given misery I could still operate an electric motorcycle like a Zero, if it allowed removing the battery and carting it into my wheelchair friendly home for recharging. Most bikes I have seen so far have the battery built in permanently. 

 

The most shocking EV related article I read was about the true cost of operating pedelecs (bicycles with a 250W auxiliary engine) it is unfortunately in German and says: While you might pay between 10 and 50ct for 100km power figuring replacement cost of the battery in you end at about 3Euro/100km. My CNG converted last car guzzled 6 Euro /100km and my motorcycle is at 3 Euro too and going almost 100km/h, so it passes as modest everyday & general purpose transportation. A pedelec is much slower - over here the auxiliary engine has to fade out at 25km/h to give the bike legal bicycle status. - Anything faster requires expensive liability insurance of approximately 50 Euro/year (without discount options!). My guzzler is 18 Euro or less. To switch to a pedelec I'd need some kind of idealism, maybe of environmentalist or sports and exercise related nature.

[Yatogami]

1 hour ago, Lonemathsytoothbrushthief said:

You realise it's just as possible to have the things which others do for work, as hobbies, right? I don't understand what you find unhealthy. Personally I have a tonne of things which I'd put more energy into in that scenario. I'd finish reading Kropotkin's major works, teach myself more from a book about climate science, do more coding and piano and skating. And to those who believe they just can't, just pointing out that our society tries to crush our creative impulses in order to make us conform. It's only the very rich who have an education close to modern in its outlook.

Suffering creates creativity, not even joking. Otherwise you get shit like "Modern art". If all was right in the world, do you really think movies etc would be good? If no one suffered, how could they empathize with struggle in adventures and movies etc? The only thing humans can empathize on is pain and suffering. All that other shit is superficial in the long run. 

 

Hobbies don't clean sewage, dispose of carcasses, and do a bunch of other shit no one wants to do. How do you suppose we tackle these problems? Slaves? Slaves would work. That is what they did in the old days.

[SorryNotSorry]

As someone who's driven an EV for just over 2 years, I can tell you that it's necessary to put at least 10,000 miles on one before it becomes carbon-neutral, considering of course that your house isn't already converted to solar power.

 

A lot of anti-freedom and anti-science types will try to tell you that the numbers don't add up, or that the science is BS, but almost all of those who say so just want everyone to remain dependent on the corporate teat. Pure Hegelianism.

[Yatogami]

9 minutes ago, Woodworker1968 said:

As someone who's driven an EV for just over 2 years, I can tell you that it's necessary to put at least 10,000 miles on one before it becomes carbon-neutral, considering of course that your house isn't already converted to solar power.

 

A lot of anti-freedom and anti-science types will try to tell you that the numbers don't add up, or that the science is BS, but almost all of those who say so just want everyone to remain dependent on the corporate teat. Pure Hegelianism.

Most people can't afford solar panels and new cars (and by extention, EV cars). So why not try running the numbers for poor people who make up almost half of the population.

[Tanwen]

When I was young, we had fogs so thick you literally couldn't see more than a foot or two in front of you - the pollution killed thousands leading to the 'Clean Air Act', after this polluted air produced in England made its way to the continent destroying forests on continental Europe (acid rain) so our power stations were cleaned up.
We have targets for air pollution (especially in cities) which we fail on a fairly regular basis but  is anyone suggesting that we shouldn't try to counteract the harmful effects of our activities? Nearly all efforts call for a 'trade off' but surely it's only by trying that we're going to get anywhere. It isn't my generation that will be affected, it's following ones and we owe it to them to look for alternatives

[Skycaptain]

As @Busrider. Stated, the biggest problem with alternative fuels in Europe is infrastructure. We'd need to increase generating capacity, the electricity grid, substations, probably put a three phase supply into every house. Not cheap or easy. 

Then there's efficiency issues, in the cold of a Scandinavian winter batteries will last for a very short time between charges. 

Hydrogen fuel cells are an alternative, but (for want of a better expression) wellhead to wheel energy efficiency is poorer than with batteries. Also, in some areas of the world water to convert to hydrogen is a scarce resource as well. 

 

More importantly what about commercial vehicles, which cover much larger mileages than private cars? Electric motor drive, with maximum torque at zero revs, works even better, but getting the electricity to the motor, when a vehicle is expected to cover 800+ Km in a ten hour day? 

 

Induction loop technology on motorways (autobahns, freeways etc), the cost, given the current needed to power five or more maximum weight trucks per lane per Km, would this be viable or safe? 

These are not easy questions to answer. 

[Tanwen]

The more  alternative fuel sources are available, the more effort companies will put into development and the quicker they'll progress...that's how it worked with petrol/diesel engines  . Commercial vehicles will take much longer to develop.  Hydrogen power is an alternative but produces water vapour...which is a 'greenhouse gas'

Everything is a 'trade off'  

[Lonemathsytoothbrushthief]

5 hours ago, Maou-sama said:

Suffering creates creativity, not even joking. Otherwise you get shit like "Modern art". If all was right in the world, do you really think movies etc would be good? If no one suffered, how could they empathize with struggle in adventures and movies etc? The only thing humans can empathize on is pain and suffering. All that other shit is superficial in the long run. 

 

Hobbies don't clean sewage, dispose of carcasses, and do a bunch of other shit no one wants to do. How do you suppose we tackle these problems? Slaves? Slaves would work. That is what they did in the old days.

The very argument you use here is what people used to claim abolishing slavery in the US shouldn't happen, because workers would become lazy without a whip at their backs.
However George Orwell says it better than I ever could

 

[gisiebob]

8 hours ago, Maou-sama said:

Most people can't afford solar panels and new cars (and by extention, EV cars). So why not try running the numbers for poor people who make up almost half of the population.

someone who cannot afford a new electric car I assume is perfectly capable of buying a used electric car, should one be available, and then they will be much closer if not already passed their cars neutral carbon foot print.

[SorryNotSorry]

4 hours ago, Skycaptain said:

Hydrogen fuel cells are an alternative, but (for want of a better expression) wellhead to wheel energy efficiency is poorer than with batteries.

 

More importantly what about commercial vehicles, which cover much larger mileages than private cars? Electric motor drive, with maximum torque at zero revs, works even better, but getting the electricity to the motor, when a vehicle is expected to cover 800+ Km in a ten hour day? 

Here in the US, a proposed hydrogen infrastructure has turned out to be a non-starter for 2 reasons, the main one being—you guessed it—the corporations which control the infrastructure and the supply would want to keep users on the teat, so the price of corporate-controlled hydrogen fuel would not be competitive with fossil fuels. But generating hydrogen from water is nowhere near as compicated as drilling for crude oil and refining it into gasoline or diesel, so the only way to stop the DIYers is to not put a hydrogen infrastructure into place to begin with. As an analogy, imagine what would happen if word got around that a few thousand people in LA or NYC were brewing bathtub gin and successfully running their cars on it instead of buying gasoline.

 

Which brings me to the 2nd reason... the average American thinks of technical know-how as something mysterious and potentially dangerous, certainly something to be kept out of the hands of ordinary people. Anyways, the average American is more inclined to believe things run on magic, not science, and doesn't know or care that all the water in the world is partly made up of hydrogen. Say "hydrogen" to any American on the street, and what's the first thing they think of? Probably the Hindenburg airship disaster, or maybe the 1950s nuclear bomb tests in the south Pacific. That's how I'd want to keep it if I was a corporate CEO whose profits are threatened by DIYers.

 

Re electric working vehicles... a couple of months ago, I rode an all-electric Metro bus in DTLA, and it felt great! Nice and smooth ride with no engine noise or vibration, pretty quick acceleration and braking for such a big vehicle. Regenerative braking (in which the brakes turn some of the friction from slowing down into electricity to send back into the batteries) is standard on all consumer EVs, so including it on a new bus or semi is just a matter of scaling up the right parts. The solution to fueling is simply to put more charging stations everywhere (there are only so many places in or near DTLA where you can put a diesel or CNG fueling center).

 

Consumer EV technology is still relatively young and evolving, kind of where the Ford Model T was before the 1920s. High-performance cars were pretty much a post-WW2 thing, with their higher engine compression ratios, higher octane fuels, and new-fangled automatic transmissions. Lithium batteries are expensive because lithium isn't that easy to find (or smelt!), but many smaller independent labs are experimenting with graphene-based batteries and getting 4-5x the capacity that lithium batteries give. Graphene is made out of carbon. Carbon is an ingredient in all living things, so trying to monopolize control over the supply of it would be a losing proposition. Now you can see why some potential corporate backers are less than enthusiastic about phasing out lithium in favor of graphene.

[Yatogami]

1 hour ago, gisiebob said:

someone who cannot afford a new electric car I assume is perfectly capable of buying a used electric car, should one be available, and then they will be much closer if not already passed their cars neutral carbon foot print.

I work in car retail. We have never sold a used electric car. They just don't exist, and people rarely buy the brand new ones. (I work for toyota)  We sold a whole 1 electric car, and it was a super advanced hybrid with full electric capabilities (prius prime). The resale value of them are shit, and used ones are a gamble. Most hybrids break really easily too.

[Mostly Peaceful Ryan]

 

[ThaHoward]

1 hour ago, Maou-sama said:

I work in car retail. We have never sold a used electric car. They just don't exist, and people rarely buy the brand new ones. (I work for toyota)  We sold a whole 1 electric car, and it was a super advanced hybrid with full electric capabilities (prius prime). The resale value of them are shit, and used ones are a gamble. Most hybrids break really easily too.

But that's a plug in hybrid, not an electrical car. IIRC Toyota is only planning on creating an electrical car. Even then Tesla, Nissan, Opel, Audi, Renault, BMW, Audi, VW etc is making big money in Europe selling electrical cars. But I suppose all these brands have just made a scam and a monopoly...

[Yatogami]

Just now, ThaHoward said:

But that's a plug in hybrid, not an electrical car. IIRC Toyota is only planning on creating an electrical car. Even then Tesla, Opel, Audi, Renault, BMW, Audi, VW etc is making big money in Europe selling electrical cars. 

Key word: in Europe, and the car markets over there are pretty niche to begin with. Tiny cars rarely sell in usa. I was also talking about selling used full. You dont see them, only crappy hybrids.

[ThaHoward]

Pretty niche market in Europe? Uhm. Lol?

 

And I woudln't exactly call these cars tiny:

 

 

Audi-etron.

 

 

Tesla X compared in size to BMW X6 (Which is a big car). 

 

Even then, if we're speking of non "tiny" cars surely electrical cars pollute way less even with production (as it pollute to produce all kinds of cars) then regular SUVs and pickups. 

[Mostly Peaceful Ryan]

3 minutes ago, ThaHoward said:

But I suppose all these brands have just made a scam and a monopoly.

 I don't think you are using the word monopoly correctly here.

[ThaHoward]

I'm not. But I am using it sarcastic as Maou-sama said the whole industry is just a scam and a monopoly. I fail to see how electrical cars may lead to "the biggest monopoly" ever.

 

Quote

Once again, green "solutions" are a scam. It can also create the biggest monopoly ever.

[Kelpie]

34 minutes ago, ♣Ryan♣ said:

 

Even according to this video Electric Cars DO produce less CO2. What's your problem? 

[Mostly Peaceful Ryan]

11 minutes ago, Kelpie said:

Even according to this video Electric Cars DO produce less CO2. What's your problem? 

Coal being used to power that  electric car which is more air pollution in the atmosphere and would lead to more death from that air pollution than Gasoline. Also the amount of CO2 saved is very little. If you wanted to cut that amount of CO2 there are cheaper ways to do it so your money is being used inefficiently when you buy an electric car. 

 

19 minutes ago, ThaHoward said:

I'm not. But I am using it sarcastic as Maou-sama said the whole industry is just a scam and a monopoly. I fail to see how electrical cars may lead to "the biggest monopoly" ever.

Oh never mind didn't see that. 

[Yatogami]

32 minutes ago, ThaHoward said:

Pretty niche market in Europe? Uhm. Lol?

 

And I woudln't exactly call these cars tiny:

 

 

Audi-etron.

 

 

Tesla X compared in size to BMW X6 (Which is a big car). 

 

Even then, if we're speking of non "tiny" cars surely electrical cars pollute way less even with production (as it pollute to produce all kinds of cars) then regular SUVs and pickups. 

You misunderstood me. I meant niche as in most people don't rely on cars in Europe as much as USA. Then they don't have nearly as much selection for the average person. The EC market is pretty much non-existent in USA. They are also expensive.

[Skycaptain]

It's actually the wealthiest who are the early adopters of new technology, which is why Tesla have succeeded by selling premium vehicles. Used Teslas are doing OK for depreciation 

It's smaller cars like Nissan Leafs which are a struggle 

[Knight of Cydonia]

2 hours ago, ♣Ryan♣ said:

 

1. "Electric cars are coal-powered cars". This is a simplistic statement and very misleading. Recent numbers show that only 30.4% of the US electricity grid is coal, and that number has been dropping quickly (compare to past years, such as in 2011 with coal at 42.3%). Natural gas now produces the most on average (33.8%), and it's a lot better (50-60% less CO2 emissions than coal). Furthermore, it's interesting he lumps coal and natural gas together as just "fossil fuels" on his pie chart, and only talks about the change in percent usage of fossil fuels as a whole rather than how much of that is specifically coal and how much is natural gas. As I mentioned, natural gas is a lot better than coal, so the actual distribution is a huge thing to conveniently leave out. For all we know, the amount of fossil fuels will stay the same, but natural gas will heavily outweigh coal by 2040 (as is the trend now). This will significantly affect the cleanliness of electric cars... so why not mention that?

 

2. The electricity grid is highly dependent on where in the US you are. As I said in a previous post, 45% of Americans live in areas with low emissions - a much better power production mix than what I'm guessing he would have used in the video (the specific distribution he actually leaves out, but it seems like he uses an "average" across the US as a whole). Using the average to paint the picture for all electric cars is inaccurate. Over time these will just get cleaner, while conventional cars will still run off gas.

 

3. I question his use of just a "3%" increase in renewable energy by 2040. Just since 2011 there has been a net 1.7% increase in wind, biomass, solar, geothermal, and hydro production (a 1.3% drop in hydro, but a 3.0% increase in the rest, with solar production clearly on the rise). 

 

4. When he compares the Nissan Leaf to a "comparable" vehicle, it's a diesel... but diesels have higher fuel economy and less CO2 emissions than gasoline counterparts.

 

5. No mention of how electric car batteries can be recycled. Nor that batteries have been rapidly improving in tech over time, a big part of that thanks to the electric car market.

 

6. Love how he compares (at the start) 25,000 lbs CO2 for manufacturing of electric cars, to 16,000 lbs CO2 for conventional cars. But when comparing CO2 emissions he uses tonnes. Saying "only" 3-5 tonnes CO2 less in emissions sounds a lot less significant than saying 6,000-10,000 lbs. And again, these numbers are using his "average" energy mix, but electric cars are going to be cleaner depending on the area you're in. Conventional cars aren't going to be.

[ThaHoward]

4 hours ago, Skycaptain said:

It's actually the wealthiest who are the early adopters of new technology, which is why Tesla have succeeded by selling premium vehicles. Used Teslas are doing OK for depreciation 

It's smaller cars like Nissan Leafs which are a struggle 

Depend on how you define struggle. I've a BMW i3 and it suit perfectly for my needs. Have also went on longer trips, and yes the battery may currently be too small but the versions after it have much longer range and they're still developing them. What's smart here is that they removed car taxes (which is usually 50% of the car cost itself) and other taxations such as tollbooths and parking. As such people with below average income can afford most electrical cars, and Tesla is really a common car here and not a luxury car. (I also personally don't like Tesla that much, but that's another story). 

 

You misunderstood me. I meant niche as in most people don't rely on cars in Europe as much as USA. Then they don't have nearly as much selection for the average person. The EC market is pretty much non-existent in USA. They are also expensive.

People rely much on cars here too. It depend on area to area, country to country and job to job. 

[SorryNotSorry]

@Knight of Cydonia Yes, recycling of batteries has become a huge industry here in the US, largely because of the toxicity of lead which is still used in lead-acid batteries. I'm told it has become damn near impossible to open a new lead mine anywhere in the US because of the environmental regs, so most if not all of the lead in any new lead-acid car battery was recycled.

 

Another advantage of EVs is that the black market for EV parts is practically nonexistent. The battery packs might be able to fetch a profit from a chop shop, but even that won't be much very soon because the auto makers keep pushing up the range of their battery packs each year.

[Skycaptain]

@ThaHoward, I'm talking about struggling for resale. 

Most EV's are fit for use, being realistic most people in Britain at any rate, seldom make journeys of over 50 miles with any frequency. I see the logic in having an EV for daily transport and hiring a regular vehicle for these few longer trips. 

[ThaHoward]

30 minutes ago, Skycaptain said:

@ThaHoward, I'm talking about struggling for resale. 

Most EV's are fit for use, being realistic most people in Britain at any rate, seldom make journeys of over 50 miles with any frequency. I see the logic in having an EV for daily transport and hiring a regular vehicle for these few longer trips. 

Yes that may be true. But here, at least (and "here" is very important as it's the best market conditions for EV) resale of cars went down in general due to EV. But I know plenty who have bought Teslas and Opels and the long range cars to resell them at once or after a few months without any significant problems and profits. 

[SorryNotSorry]

Apparently a lot of people get tht EVs wear differently than gas or diesel vehicles. After, say, 300,000 miles, the motor of an EV will hardly show any wear because there are no contacts/brushes to wear out. You can, however, mush the battery pack by habitually overcharging it. In fact, one guy I know, who has an '11 Leaf, ('11 was a bad year anyway) did just that, and his range went down to 40 miles per charge.

 

Similarly, if you keep filling up a gas car with 100-octane avaition gas, something's going to go wrong sooner than later.