T1B

There's a lot of misinformation here. I'll try to dissect it soon when I have a chance.

People pimping electric cars keep dreaming that a new efficient type of battery would be invented. It is not going to happens. Besides, we are no way running out of oil. I still think it is a geo-thermal product that will last until the sun becomes a super nova and eats up the earth.

Papa Willie wrote: ↑Thu Oct 21, 2021 5:40 pm This isn’t a “bash you” thread, but I know you know more on this than I do. I really don’t have a mega problem with electrics (though I’d be far happier with much quicker charge times and more range), but wanted your thoughts on this. Sorry if I’m glass dicking. The infrastructure problem might be a major fucking problem…




In case you were thinking of buying hybrid or an electric car ...

Ever since the advent of electric cars, the REAL cost per mile of those things has never been discussed. All you ever heard was the mpg in terms of gasoline, with nary a mention of the cost of electricity to run it.

At a neighborhood BBQ I was talking to a neighbor, a BC Hydro Executive. I asked him how that renewable thing was doing. He laughed, then got serious.

If you really intend to adopt electric vehicles, he pointed out, you had to face certain realities. For example, a home charging system for a Tesla requires 75 amp service. The average house is equipped with 100 amp service.

On our small street (approximately 25 homes), the electrical infrastructure would be unable to carry more than three houses with a single Tesla each. For even half the homes to have electric vehicles, the system would be wildly over-loaded.

REALITY CHECK - This is the elephant in the room with electric vehicles. Our residential infrastructure cannot bear the load. So, as our genius elected officials promote this nonsense, not only are we being urged to buy these things and replace our reliable, cheap generating systems with expensive new windmills and solar cells, but we will also have to renovate our entire delivery system! This later "investment" will not be revealed until we're so far down this dead end road that it will be presented with an "OOPS" and a shrug.

If you want to argue with a green person over cars that are eco-friendly, just read the following. Note: If you ARE a green person, read it anyway. It's enlightening.

Eric test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General Motors and he writes, "For four days in a row, the fully charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt switched to the reserve gasoline engine." Eric calculated the car got 30 mpg including the 25 miles it ran on the battery. So, the range including the 9-gallon gas tank and the 16 kwh battery is approximately 270 miles.

It will take you 4.5 hours to drive 270 miles at 60 mph. Then add 10 hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time of 14.5 hours. In a typical road trip your average speed (including charging time) would be 20 mph.

According to General Motors, the Volt battery holds 16 kwh of electricity. It takes a full 10 hours to charge a drained battery. The cost for the electricity to charge the Volt is never mentioned, so I looked up what I pay for electricity.

I pay approximately (it varies with amount used and the seasons) $1.16 per kwh. 16 kwh x $1.16 per kwh = $18.56 to charge the battery. $18.56 per charge divided by 25 miles = $0.74 per mile to operate the Volt using the battery. Compare this to a similar size car with a gasoline engine that gets only 32 mpg. $3.19 per gallon divided by 32 Mpg = $0.10 per mile.

The gasoline powered car costs about $25,000 while the Volt costs $46,000 plus. So the Government wants us to pay twice as much for a car, that costs more than seven times as much to run and takes three times longer to drive across the country.

WAKE UP NORTH AMERICA!!!!!!!


The one thing I really do like about the all electrics? A lot less moving parts, and a lot less metal on metal friction would have to equal better reliability, but the batteries still seem lacking and expensive, so…

Fake news

OK so here's a partial answer. I've gotta take off and go home so I'll finish later. Some of the BS that I haven't gotten to yet really over the top.

Papa Willie wrote: ↑Thu Oct 21, 2021 5:40 pm This isn’t a “bash you” thread, but I know you know more on this than I do. I really don’t have a mega problem with electrics (though I’d be far happier with much quicker charge times and more range), but wanted your thoughts on this. Sorry if I’m glass dicking. The infrastructure problem might be a major fucking problem…




In case you were thinking of buying hybrid or an electric car ...

First let's talk about nomenclature. There are three main categories here, and there are big differences that are important to this discussion, so I'm going to summarize those differences.

Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV) was the original hybrid. You can't plug it in. It has small battery that's charged by regenerative brakes, and an electric motor to use that stored energy. It still has a internal combustion engine (ICE) that runs on gasoline.These generally add maybe 20% to the mpg and driving range. I used to have a Ford Fusion hybrid that could get about 50 mpg.

Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) is a hybrid electric vehicle that you can plug into the wall, or a an EV charger. This can add miles to the range based on how large the battery is. The improvement in range and mpg depends totally on how long your trips are. If the car has an electric range of 25 miles and you have a daily commute of 20 miles, you might never need to fill the gas tank. If you drive 270 miles (90% using the ICE) you're not going to get that much of an mpg improvement. When I got rid of my Fusion hybrid I leased a Ford Fusion Energi plug-in hybrid. It had about 27 miles of electric range when it was new but probably 20 miles by the time I traded it in 3 years later. My commute is about 35 miles total round trip so this worked pretty well but I still had to gas up. Once the battery runs down it functions like a HEV and it got about 50 mpg on long trips.

Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) has no ICE and depends 100% on battery power. Right now I'm driving a Hyundai Kona EV, which has a rated range of 248 miles but, in mild (not too hot or too cold) can easily go 300 miles. It kicks ass over either of the Fords because the 200 HP electric motor puts out something like 291 lb-ft of torque available from a dead stop. It's not a Tesla Model S Plaid, but it kicks ass on about 90% of other cars on the road as far as quick, silent, smooth starts.

The guy writing this article either doesn't know the difference or is purposely misleading. The Volt he's talking about is a PHEV with a very limited electric range.

Ever since the advent of electric cars, the REAL cost per mile of those things has never been discussed. All you ever heard was the mpg in terms of gasoline, with nary a mention of the cost of electricity to run it.

At a neighborhood BBQ I was talking to a neighbor, a BC Hydro Executive. I asked him how that renewable thing was doing. He laughed, then got serious.

If you really intend to adopt electric vehicles, he pointed out, you had to face certain realities. For example, a home charging system for a Tesla requires 75 amp service. The average house is equipped with 100 amp service.

Home charging for a Tesla requires a 75 amp 240V circuit breaker. You probably would need at least a 75 amp service to us it but it's not the same thing. Even so, why is that a problem if the average home has a 100 amp service?

The writer apparently doesn't know the meaning of "service" and the difference between a circuit size and the service size.

The size of the circuit breaker is not same thing as the size of the service, but the capacity of the circuit feeding the charger. The size of the service is the rating of the main breaker serving your electric panel (also limited by the size of the panel). This is the highest current you can import an a given time from your utility. A completely different thing. You can get a smaller charger that will work on a Tesla, it just doesn't charge as fast.

I installed a "Level 2" charger at my house that requires a 40 amp breaker. It will add 300 miles of range to my car in about 10 hours. I never discharge it that low so I can almost always complete a charge over night while I'm sleeping. You don't have to charge it up all the way anyhow. My commute is still 35 miles (3 days a week) and I put about 150 miles a week on the car so I can charge that much when I plug it in on Saturday night. Never have to stop at a gas station either.

My electrical service is rated at 180 amps. The circuit breakers in that panel probably add up to 300 or 400 amps (I'm not at home right now so I can't check). How is that possible? Not all of my lights, appliances, A/C, electric kitchen, car charger, pool pump, etc. are ever all running at the same time. There are rules in the Electric Code about how much you can dump onto a given size of service.

On our small street (approximately 25 homes), the electrical infrastructure would be unable to carry more than three houses with a single Tesla each. For even half the homes to have electric vehicles, the system would be wildly over-loaded.

REALITY CHECK - This is the elephant in the room with electric vehicles. Our residential infrastructure cannot bear the load. So, as our genius elected officials promote this nonsense, not only are we being urged to buy these things and replace our reliable, cheap generating systems with expensive new windmills and solar cells, but we will also have to renovate our entire delivery system! This later "investment" will not be revealed until we're so far down this dead end road that it will be presented with an "OOPS" and a shrug.

If you want to argue with a green person over cars that are eco-friendly, just read the following. Note: If you ARE a green person, read it anyway. It's enlightening.

Eric test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General Motors and he writes, "For four days in a row, the fully charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt switched to the reserve gasoline engine." Eric calculated the car got 30 mpg including the 25 miles it ran on the battery. So, the range including the 9-gallon gas tank and the 16 kwh battery is approximately 270 miles.

It will take you 4.5 hours to drive 270 miles at 60 mph. Then add 10 hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time of 14.5 hours. In a typical road trip your average speed (including charging time) would be 20 mph.

According to General Motors, the Volt battery holds 16 kwh of electricity. It takes a full 10 hours to charge a drained battery. The cost for the electricity to charge the Volt is never mentioned, so I looked up what I pay for electricity.

I pay approximately (it varies with amount used and the seasons) $1.16 per kwh. 16 kwh x $1.16 per kwh = $18.56 to charge the battery. $18.56 per charge divided by 25 miles = $0.74 per mile to operate the Volt using the battery. Compare this to a similar size car with a gasoline engine that gets only 32 mpg. $3.19 per gallon divided by 32 Mpg = $0.10 per mile.

The gasoline powered car costs about $25,000 while the Volt costs $46,000 plus. So the Government wants us to pay twice as much for a car, that costs more than seven times as much to run and takes three times longer to drive across the country.

WAKE UP NORTH AMERICA!!!!!!!


The one thing I really do like about the all electrics? A lot less moving parts, and a lot less metal on metal friction would have to equal better reliability, but the batteries still seem lacking and expensive, so…

Papa Willie wrote: ↑Thu Oct 21, 2021 5:40 pm

I pay approximately (it varies with amount used and the seasons) $1.16 per kwh.

That's over 10X what we pay here.

Dinsdale wrote: ↑Fri Oct 22, 2021 1:10 am

Papa Willie wrote: ↑Thu Oct 21, 2021 5:40 pm

I pay approximately (it varies with amount used and the seasons) $1.16 per kwh.

That's over 10X what we pay here.

I was going to get to that tomorrow. I looked up the BC Hydro residential rates and it’s less than $0.10 for the first tier (1,350 kWh) and about $0.14 for higher than that. And that’s undoubtedly Canadian Loonies. So he’s off by a factor of about 10. We have the highest rates in CONUS and we’re still at a fraction of that.

Wolfman wrote: ↑Thu Oct 21, 2021 9:19 pm People pimping electric cars keep dreaming that a new efficient type of battery would be invented. It is not going to happens. Besides, we are no way running out of oil. I still think it is a geo-thermal product that will last until the sun becomes a super nova and eats up the earth.

EV's make sense in certain situations. Mikey's is a prime example. He isn't dealing with 100 degree temps or 20 degree temps that seriously reduce the range of the EV. Nor does he have a serious load he needs to haul up a hill or mountain. In other situations the EV or hybrids make little sense. But until we have a battery revolution EVs/Hybrids will not be the majority of vehicles on the road.

Batterys require a good deal of elements that are only obtained via mining. To come anywhere close to Green New Deal pipe dreams we will need to increase our mining efforts substantially. Where will all this new mining take place? Will any of it be fast tracked, or will enviromentalist fight expanded mining like they do today? See Thacker Pass as an example of what increased mining in the US will face.

Looking at just electrifying the UK's vehicles by 2050 will require all of the world's current annual supply of neodymium.

A team of scientists has written to the Committee of Climate Change warning that if the UK’s 31.5 million cars are replaced by electric vehicles by 2050, as is currently planned by the Government, this will require almost twice the current annual global supply of cobalt.

The researchers have also calculated that based on the latest ‘811’ battery technology (80 per cent nickel, 10 per cent cobalt, 10 per cent manganese), UK demand for EV batteries will require almost the total amount of neodymium produced globally each year, three quarter’s of the world’s lithium, and “at least half” of the world’s copper.

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/ ... -of-cobalt

If we use those numbers and look at the US market which has about 9 times as many vehicles as the UK;

Neodymium production will need to increase 10 fold annually.
Lithium production will need to increase 7 fold annually.
Copper production will need to increase 6 fold annually.

Further this assumes that no other industries will use these materials, which we know isn't correct. On top of that almost all of the world's know Neodymium is located in China.

Again, this isn't meant to bash EVs or Hybrids. Hell, if there was a hybrid Suburban I would probably own one. Rather, this is a question that all those pimping EVs have not answered in a meaningful way. When these dreams are laid out, why are the realities that need to be addressed and overcome completely ignored?

Continuing from yesterday...

Papa Willie wrote: ↑Thu Oct 21, 2021 5:40 pm This isn’t a “bash you” thread, but I know you know more on this than I do. I really don’t have a mega problem with electrics (though I’d be far happier with much quicker charge times and more range), but wanted your thoughts on this. Sorry if I’m glass dicking. The infrastructure problem might be a major fucking problem…




In case you were thinking of buying hybrid or an electric car ...

First let's talk about nomenclature. There are three main categories here, and there are big differences that are important to this discussion, so I'm going to summarize those differences.

Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV) was the original hybrid. You can't plug it in. It has small battery that's charged by regenerative brakes, and an electric motor to use that stored energy. It still has a internal combustion engine (ICE) that runs on gasoline.These generally add maybe 20% to the mpg and driving range. I used to have a Ford Fusion hybrid that could get about 50 mpg.

Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) is a hybrid electric vehicle that you can plug into the wall, or a an EV charger. This can add miles to the range based on how large the battery is. The improvement in range and mpg depends totally on how long your trips are. If the car has an electric range of 25 miles and you have a daily commute of 20 miles, you might never need to fill the gas tank. If you drive 270 miles (90% using the ICE) you're not going to get that much of an mpg improvement. When I got rid of my Fusion hybrid I leased a Ford Fusion Energi plug-in hybrid. It had about 27 miles of electric range when it was new but probably 20 miles by the time I traded it in 3 years later. My commute is about 35 miles total round trip so this worked pretty well but I still had to gas up. Once the battery runs down it functions like a HEV and it got about 50 mpg on long trips.

Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) has no ICE and depends 100% on battery power. Right now I'm driving a Hyundai Kona EV, which has a rated range of 248 miles but, in mild (not too hot or too cold) can easily go 300 miles. It kicks ass over either of the Fords because the 200 HP electric motor puts out something like 291 lb-ft of torque available from a dead stop. It's not a Tesla Model S Plaid, but it kicks ass on about 90% of other cars on the road as far as quick, silent, smooth starts.

The guy writing this article either doesn't know the difference or is purposely misleading. The Volt he's talking about is a PHEV with a very limited electric range.

Ever since the advent of electric cars, the REAL cost per mile of those things has never been discussed. All you ever heard was the mpg in terms of gasoline, with nary a mention of the cost of electricity to run it.

At a neighborhood BBQ I was talking to a neighbor, a BC Hydro Executive. I asked him how that renewable thing was doing. He laughed, then got serious.

If you really intend to adopt electric vehicles, he pointed out, you had to face certain realities. For example, a home charging system for a Tesla requires 75 amp service. The average house is equipped with 100 amp service.

Home charging for a Tesla requires a 75 amp 240V circuit breaker. You probably would need at least a 75 amp service to us it but it's not the same thing. Even so, why is that a problem if the average home has a 100 amp service?

The writer apparently doesn't know the meaning of "service" and the difference between a circuit size and the service size.

The size of the circuit breaker is not same thing as the size of the service, but the capacity of the circuit feeding the charger. The size of the service is the rating of the main breaker serving your electric panel (also limited by the size of the panel). This is the highest current you can import an a given time from your utility. A completely different thing. You can get a smaller charger that will work on a Tesla, it just doesn't charge as fast.

I installed a "Level 2" charger at my house that requires a 40 amp breaker. It will add 300 miles of range to my car in about 10 hours. I never discharge it that low so I can almost always complete a charge over night while I'm sleeping. You don't have to charge it up all the way anyhow. My commute is still 35 miles (3 days a week) and I put about 150 miles a week on the car so I can charge that much when I plug it in on Saturday night. Never have to stop at a gas station either.

My electrical service is rated at 180 amps. The circuit breakers in that panel probably add up to 300 or 400 amps (I'm not at home right now so I can't check). How is that possible? Not all of my lights, appliances, A/C, electric kitchen, car charger, pool pump, etc. are ever all running at the same time. There are rules in the Electric Code about how much you can dump onto a given size of service.

On our small street (approximately 25 homes), the electrical infrastructure would be unable to carry more than three houses with a single Tesla each. For even half the homes to have electric vehicles, the system would be wildly over-loaded.

I'm not sure how he knows this. Does he work for his local utility and know the usage from all 25 homes in his neighborhood as well as the size of the power lines capacities of the step-down transformers? I would say that this is very over stated. Sure, if all the homes in his neighborhood added a constant 75 amp load 24x7 there likely would be a problem. There's a term called "diversity" (no not PC kind), which means that not all the loads are running at the same time. If people charge their vehicles a night when nothing else is operating they are not overloading the the system and actually make more efficient use of the system capacity.

REALITY CHECK - This is the elephant in the room with electric vehicles. Our residential infrastructure cannot bear the load. So, as our genius elected officials promote this nonsense, not only are we being urged to buy these things and replace our reliable, cheap generating systems with expensive new windmills and solar cells, but we will also have to renovate our entire delivery system! This later "investment" will not be revealed until we're so far down this dead end road that it will be presented with an "OOPS" and a shrug.

Pretty much just regurgitating the fear-mongering BS of the fossil fuel industry.

If you want to argue with a green person over cars that are eco-friendly, just read the following. Note: If you ARE a green person, read it anyway. It's enlightening.

Yes. Very enlightening...about either the writer's ignorance or his dishonesty. I'm not saying the electric vehicles are the solution to all of our problems, but this stuff is really pathetic.

Eric test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General Motors and he writes, "For four days in a row, the fully charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt switched to the reserve gasoline engine." Eric calculated the car got 30 mpg including the 25 miles it ran on the battery. So, the range including the 9-gallon gas tank and the 16 kwh battery is approximately 270 miles.

Let's get this straight. A Chevy Volt is a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) and in no way comparable to a battery electric vehicle (BEV). The PHEV is only meant to get you a limited electric range. This works great if you have a relatively short commute and never have to gas up. But if you're going to drive it until the gas tank is empty the electric capability doesn't buy you much. It's not meant to.

Also, the first generation Chevy Volt had a 16 kWh battery and an electric range of "25 to 50 miles (40 to 80 km) depending on terrain, driving technique, and temperature" (35 miles rated). The most recent version (I think the model has been discontinued) had a battery capacity of 18.4 kW and a range of 53 miles. So either the writer was driving an old car around like a maniac or this article is 10 years old and he was still driving his Volt around like a maniac.

BTW...running the heater decreases the range a lot more than the A/C.

It will take you 4.5 hours to drive 270 miles at 60 mph. Then add 10 hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time of 14.5 hours. In a typical road trip your average speed (including charging time) would be 20 mph.

Yes it might take to 10 hours to charge the battery if you plug it into a 120V wall outlet (about 1.5 kW). Even the slowest 240V chargers (like the one I have at home) now work about about 7x faster. But if you're on a road trip driving a PHEV why would you even consider charging in mid-trip, just for the extra 25 miles of range, instead of just filling the gas tank? This is just stupid. Today's DC fast chargers that you will find on the interstates operate at 350 kW and will add 240 miles of range in less than half an hour, if your car is set up for it. And most if not all of today's BEVs are set up for it.

According to General Motors, the Volt battery holds 16 kwh of electricity. It takes a full 10 hours to charge a drained battery. The cost for the electricity to charge the Volt is never mentioned, so I looked up what I pay for electricity.

I pay approximately (it varies with amount used and the seasons) $1.16 per kwh. 16 kwh x $1.16 per kwh = $18.56 to charge the battery. $18.56 per charge divided by 25 miles = $0.74 per mile to operate the Volt using the battery. Compare this to a similar size car with a gasoline engine that gets only 32 mpg. $3.19 per gallon divided by 32 Mpg = $0.10 per mile.

The gasoline powered car costs about $25,000 while the Volt costs $46,000 plus. So the Government wants us to pay twice as much for a car, that costs more than seven times as much to run and takes three times longer to drive across the country.

WAKE UP NORTH AMERICA!!!!!!!


The one thing I really do like about the all electrics? A lot less moving parts, and a lot less metal on metal friction would have to equal better reliability, but the batteries still seem lacking and expensive, so…

Gotta drive home now. I'll finish this up later.

Continuing from yesterday...

Papa Willie wrote: ↑Thu Oct 21, 2021 5:40 pm This isn’t a “bash you” thread, but I know you know more on this than I do. I really don’t have a mega problem with electrics (though I’d be far happier with much quicker charge times and more range), but wanted your thoughts on this. Sorry if I’m glass dicking. The infrastructure problem might be a major fucking problem…




In case you were thinking of buying hybrid or an electric car ...

First let's talk about nomenclature. There are three main categories here, and there are big differences that are important to this discussion, so I'm going to summarize those differences.

Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV) was the original hybrid. You can't plug it in. It has small battery that's charged by regenerative brakes, and an electric motor to use that stored energy. It still has a internal combustion engine (ICE) that runs on gasoline.These generally add maybe 20% to the mpg and driving range. I used to have a Ford Fusion hybrid that could get about 50 mpg.

Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) is a hybrid electric vehicle that you can plug into the wall, or a an EV charger. This can add miles to the range based on how large the battery is. The improvement in range and mpg depends totally on how long your trips are. If the car has an electric range of 25 miles and you have a daily commute of 20 miles, you might never need to fill the gas tank. If you drive 270 miles (90% using the ICE) you're not going to get that much of an mpg improvement. When I got rid of my Fusion hybrid I leased a Ford Fusion Energi plug-in hybrid. It had about 27 miles of electric range when it was new but probably 20 miles by the time I traded it in 3 years later. My commute is about 35 miles total round trip so this worked pretty well but I still had to gas up. Once the battery runs down it functions like a HEV and it got about 50 mpg on long trips.

Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) has no ICE and depends 100% on battery power. Right now I'm driving a Hyundai Kona EV, which has a rated range of 248 miles but, in mild (not too hot or too cold) can easily go 300 miles. It kicks ass over either of the Fords because the 200 HP electric motor puts out something like 291 lb-ft of torque available from a dead stop. It's not a Tesla Model S Plaid, but it kicks ass on about 90% of other cars on the road as far as quick, silent, smooth starts.

The guy writing this article either doesn't know the difference or is purposely misleading. The Volt he's talking about is a PHEV with a very limited electric range.

Ever since the advent of electric cars, the REAL cost per mile of those things has never been discussed. All you ever heard was the mpg in terms of gasoline, with nary a mention of the cost of electricity to run it.

At a neighborhood BBQ I was talking to a neighbor, a BC Hydro Executive. I asked him how that renewable thing was doing. He laughed, then got serious.

If you really intend to adopt electric vehicles, he pointed out, you had to face certain realities. For example, a home charging system for a Tesla requires 75 amp service. The average house is equipped with 100 amp service.

Home charging for a Tesla requires a 75 amp 240V circuit breaker. You probably would need at least a 75 amp service to us it but it's not the same thing. Even so, why is that a problem if the average home has a 100 amp service?

The writer apparently doesn't know the meaning of "service" and the difference between a circuit size and the service size.

The size of the circuit breaker is not same thing as the size of the service, but the capacity of the circuit feeding the charger. The size of the service is the rating of the main breaker serving your electric panel (also limited by the size of the panel). This is the highest current you can import an a given time from your utility. A completely different thing. You can get a smaller charger that will work on a Tesla, it just doesn't charge as fast.

I installed a "Level 2" charger at my house that requires a 40 amp breaker. It will add 300 miles of range to my car in about 10 hours. I never discharge it that low so I can almost always complete a charge over night while I'm sleeping. You don't have to charge it up all the way anyhow. My commute is still 35 miles (3 days a week) and I put about 150 miles a week on the car so I can charge that much when I plug it in on Saturday night. Never have to stop at a gas station either.

My electrical service is rated at 180 amps. The circuit breakers in that panel probably add up to 300 or 400 amps (I'm not at home right now so I can't check). How is that possible? Not all of my lights, appliances, A/C, electric kitchen, car charger, pool pump, etc. are ever all running at the same time. There are rules in the Electric Code about how much you can dump onto a given size of service.

On our small street (approximately 25 homes), the electrical infrastructure would be unable to carry more than three houses with a single Tesla each. For even half the homes to have electric vehicles, the system would be wildly over-loaded.

I'm not sure how he knows this. Does he work for his local utility and know the usage from all 25 homes in his neighborhood as well as the size of the power lines capacities of the step-down transformers? I would say that this is very over stated. Sure, if all the homes in his neighborhood added a constant 75 amp load 24x7 there likely would be a problem. There's a term called "diversity" (no not PC kind), which means that not all the loads are running at the same time. If people charge their vehicles a night when nothing else is operating they are not overloading the the system and actually make more efficient use of the system capacity.

REALITY CHECK - This is the elephant in the room with electric vehicles. Our residential infrastructure cannot bear the load. So, as our genius elected officials promote this nonsense, not only are we being urged to buy these things and replace our reliable, cheap generating systems with expensive new windmills and solar cells, but we will also have to renovate our entire delivery system! This later "investment" will not be revealed until we're so far down this dead end road that it will be presented with an "OOPS" and a shrug.

Pretty much just regurgitating the fear-mongering BS of the fossil fuel industry.

If you want to argue with a green person over cars that are eco-friendly, just read the following. Note: If you ARE a green person, read it anyway. It's enlightening.

Yes. Very enlightening...about either the writer's ignorance or his dishonesty. I'm not saying the electric vehicles are the solution to all of our problems, but this stuff is really pathetic.

Eric test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General Motors and he writes, "For four days in a row, the fully charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt switched to the reserve gasoline engine." Eric calculated the car got 30 mpg including the 25 miles it ran on the battery. So, the range including the 9-gallon gas tank and the 16 kwh battery is approximately 270 miles.

Let's get this straight. A Chevy Volt is a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) and in no way comparable to a battery electric vehicle (BEV). The PHEV is only meant to get you a limited electric range. This works great if you have a relatively short commute and never have to gas up. But if you're going to drive it until the gas tank is empty the electric capability doesn't buy you much. It's not meant to.

Also, the first generation Chevy Volt had a 16 kWh battery and an electric range of "25 to 50 miles (40 to 80 km) depending on terrain, driving technique, and temperature" (35 miles rated). The most recent version (I think the model has been discontinued) had a battery capacity of 18.4 kW and a range of 53 miles. So either the writer was driving an old car around like a maniac or this article is 10 years old and he was driving his new Volt around like a maniac.

BTW...running the heater decreases the range a lot more than the A/C.

It will take you 4.5 hours to drive 270 miles at 60 mph. Then add 10 hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time of 14.5 hours. In a typical road trip your average speed (including charging time) would be 20 mph.

Yes it might take to 10 hours to charge the battery if you plug it into a 120V wall outlet (about 1.5 kW). Even the slowest 240V chargers (like the one I have at home) now work about about 7x faster. But if you're on a road trip driving a PHEV why would you even consider charging in mid-trip, just for the extra 25 miles of range, instead of just filling the gas tank? This is just stupid. Today's DC fast chargers that you will find on the interstates operate at 350 kW and will add 240 miles of range in less than half an hour, if your car is set up for it. And most if not all of today's BEVs are set up for it.

According to General Motors, the Volt battery holds 16 kwh of electricity. It takes a full 10 hours to charge a drained battery. The cost for the electricity to charge the Volt is never mentioned, so I looked up what I pay for electricity.

I pay approximately (it varies with amount used and the seasons) $1.16 per kwh. 16 kwh x $1.16 per kwh = $18.56 to charge the battery. $18.56 per charge divided by 25 miles = $0.74 per mile to operate the Volt using the battery. Compare this to a similar size car with a gasoline engine that gets only 32 mpg. $3.19 per gallon divided by 32 Mpg = $0.10 per mile.

The gasoline powered car costs about $25,000 while the Volt costs $46,000 plus. So the Government wants us to pay twice as much for a car, that costs more than seven times as much to run and takes three times longer to drive across the country.

WAKE UP NORTH AMERICA!!!!!!!


The one thing I really do like about the all electrics? A lot less moving parts, and a lot less metal on metal friction would have to equal better reliability, but the batteries still seem lacking and expensive, so…

Gotta drive home now. I'll finish this up later.

Everyone is making great points about the pros and cons of electric vehicles. The problem is that electric vehicles are being promoted as a panacea to America's core transportation issue: that it is founded upon personal car ownership and personal car ownership in most cities is a prerequisite for being a contributing and financially successful member of society. All these rare earth metals in EVs, limited range and limited "fueling" options. America simply needs fewer cars on the road and more mass transit options everywhere.

Screw_Michigan wrote:Everyone is making great points about the pros and cons of electric vehicles. The problem is that electric vehicles are being promoted as a panacea to America's core transportation issue: that it is founded upon personal car ownership and personal car ownership in most cities is a prerequisite for being a contributing and financially successful member of society. All these rare earth metals in EVs, limited range and limited "fueling" options. America simply needs fewer cars on the road and more mass transit options everywhere.

For once screwball gets something right.

Making cities more bike friendly would be a good thing. Same goes for the burbs.

But there isn’t a buck to be made in doing so like there is in the allegedly green alternatives.

I’d also like to see them do away with the ridiculous crash standards that make every car on the road much heavier than it should be. We should have more people on bikes or very light/small vehicles for urban areas where speeds are limited anyway.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

There is one distinct advantage to having a shit ton of parked cars plugged into the grid.

They are a great way to handle the problem of load variation.

Power demands drop a little?

No problema. Just dump the spare electrons into a car battery. This can also be done with hybrid water heaters. They can be programmed to soak up that extra capacity as higher water temps.

I’m not utilizing it yet for my new water heater because I don’t yet have a smart meter.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

smackaholic wrote: ↑Sat Oct 23, 2021 2:39 pm For once screwball gets something right.

Making cities more bike friendly would be a good thing. Same goes for the burbs.

But there isn’t a buck to be made in doing so like there is in the allegedly green alternatives.

I’d also like to see them do away with the ridiculous crash standards that make every car on the road much heavier than it should be. We should have more people on bikes or very light/small vehicles for urban areas where speeds are limited anyway.

Great to see you and I agree on this. But the problem with not making cities more bike friendly is that politicians live in fear of doing anything that might make everyday driving and commuting more difficult, slower, and with more responsibility on drivers for their behavior. That's why bus lanes in DC take 10 years to roll out and when they do, everyone treats them as parking and they're not enforced. They slow roll protected bike lanes and let churches kill them at will because it might interfere with their parking, or even worse, they are framed as tools of gentrification. Plus all the money that automakers and their dealers give to pols is a huge part of this problem. America's addiction to personal car ownership supremacy is a bipartisan issue.

I also agree with how we should crack down on how huge that typical automobiles have become. They are unsafe for everyone other than drivers. It is insane how our inept pols have allowed automakers to prioritize oversized automobiles because they have fatter profit margins than sedans and light trucks. US transportation policy is fubar beyond belief. Do not even get me started.

Increasing bike and bus access will work in a few coastal cities. It will not work in 98% of the country though where space wasn’t an issue. Take Des Moines, Minneapolis, Tulsa, Denver, Albuquerque, Houston, Nashville, Salt Lake City and on and on and on. Those cities function only with private vehicles. Unless someone wants to complete burn those cities down and start over they will never be serious bike or bus cities.

Even in a progressive city like Austin, politicians screw up mass transit. They put in a commuter train from a suburb to downtown, but also had it go thru lower income neighborhoods. So now the train takes longer to get downtown than a car does even with traffic. Therefore ridership sucks.

Left Seater wrote: ↑Sun Oct 24, 2021 4:20 pm Increasing bike and bus access will work in a few coastal cities. It will not work in 98% of the country though where space wasn’t an issue. Take Des Moines, Minneapolis, Tulsa, Denver, Albuquerque, Houston, Nashville, Salt Lake City and on and on and on. Those cities function only with private vehicles. Unless someone wants to complete burn those cities down and start over they will never be serious bike or bus cities.

Even in a progressive city like Austin, politicians screw up mass transit. They put in a commuter train from a suburb to downtown, but also had it go thru lower income neighborhoods. So now the train takes longer to get downtown than a car does even with traffic. Therefore ridership sucks.

You make my point

I get that. The issue is you can’t easily undue past decisions.

Further, how do you convince my wife and I that we don’t need a suburban and a Navigator for our vehicles? We know what a drunk driver causes? We want to be safe from idiots like that. Plus who wants to spend 100s of miles a week in a smart car?

Sedans are safer than they have ever been. The automakers are phasing them out because their profit margins aren't as high.

I am all for you making the decision to drive a land yacht. I am also for companies being able to produce something like the Edison 2 VLC.

WTF is that, you ask?

It won a prize a little over a decade ago for most efficient 4 passenger car. Very light, very small engine. Google it.

The only reason something like this isn’t on the market is due to NHTSA and their over-regulating.

Doesn’t meet crash standards, they’ll say, but it’s perfectly legal to make 180hp, 500lb 2 wheeled missiles and sell them to any 18 year old that can get a loan.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Screw_Michigan wrote:Sedans are safer than they have ever been. The automakers are phasing them out because their profit margins aren't as high.

People are getting away from sedans because wagons are more practical.

Of course, the public has been told “you don’t want a wagon. Wagons are for nerds”. “You want an SUV” ….which is a wagon.

So everyone has one, except me. I don’t care how nerdy it is, I love my Krautwagen. VW Jetta Sportwagen TDI. Turbo diesel, 6 speed, a blast to drive and about 44 mpg on average.

And I regularly have 300+ mile days. An EV wouldn’t make sense. If I did more urban driving, a hybrid would, but I don’t.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Screw_Michigan wrote: ↑Sat Oct 23, 2021 2:12 pm Everyone is making great points about the pros and cons of electric vehicles. The problem is that electric vehicles are being promoted as a panacea to America's core transportation issue: that it is founded upon personal car ownership and personal car ownership in most cities is a prerequisite for being a contributing and financially successful member of society. All these rare earth metals in EVs, limited range and limited "fueling" options. America simply needs fewer cars on the road and more mass transit options everywhere.

And ebikes. And fewer fat fucks like melty and BrokenPsyche sucking up resources.

Papa Willie wrote: ↑Wed Oct 27, 2021 1:40 am https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a3804 ... questions/

Here's how it works for me. I save a pretty significant amount by driving an EV but, I admit, I'm in a much better position to take advantage than most.

I have a Hyundai Kona EV. It's rated range is something like 248 miles per charge. The only way to tell where you are is by watching the "guess-o-meter" that calculates your remining range based on how you normally drive and the ambient conditions. This time of year mine usually says about 310 miles on full charge. That doesn't mean that I drive like a pussy. What it means is that the weather (mid-70s) is optimal for battery storage, and I don't have to use the AC or the heater. The AC usually takes maybe 10% to 15% off the range.

I normally average about 4.5 miles per kWh in mileage. Sometimes higher, sometimes lower. There's a gauge that keeps a running track two ways; based on your current trip, or by when you reset it.

The electricity I use to charge it costs me $0.09/kWh, a reduced rate because I only charge up between midnight and 6:00 am.

These days I drive about 150 miles per week. 35 miles round trip to the office three times a week and about 45 miles on top of that. That works out to 7800 miles per year.

So, compare this to a car that gets 30 mpg, and they pay $4.00 per gallon for gas (here it's more like $4.50 right now)

7800 miles /30 miles per gallon = 269 gallons per year for gas
7800 miles / 4.5 miles per kWh = 1733 kWh per year for electric

269 gallons x $4.00 per gallon = $1040 per year for gas ($0.13 per mile)
1733 kWh x $0.09/kWh = $156 per year for electric ($0.02 per mile)

So I'm saving $884 per year (85%) on fuel.

Add to that, the maintenance for the Kona amounts to rotating the tires every 5,000 miles and changing the cabin air filter every 10,000 miles. No oil change, no tuneups, no brake fluid, no nothing.

I'm not sure where they guy in Buttsy's original C&P was coming from, but his numbers were way off. As I pointed out earlier, his cost of electricity from BC (British Columbia) Hydro - $1.16/kWh - is more than 10 x the current residential rate from BC Hydro. Like the name implies, it's mostly hydroelectric, which tends to be pretty cheap.

If you charge at a public charger it's going to be a lot more expensive than charging at home. I've heard as high as $0.50/kWh, but I don't really know because I never use them. Certainly not nearly $1.16 anywhere.

What part of SD are you driving to, and does traffic jams ever effect whether you can make it to work?

Diego in Seattle wrote: ↑Mon Nov 01, 2021 12:10 pm What part of SD are you driving to, and does traffic jams ever effect whether you can make it to work?

I drive to Carlsbad, just east of the airport at the intersection of Loker Ave West and Palomar Airport Road. It's about 18 miles each way, all on surface streets. There are several alternative routes, none of which is much better or worse than the others. One of them would put me on 78 East for a couple of miles but I don't usually go that way. I usually take Vista way to Civic Center Drive in Vista, which turns into Sunset. Then a short jog on Buena Vista to Melrose and then to Palomar Airport Road. Traffic depends a lot on the time of day and time of year. If I leave by 6:25 am I can usually make it in less than 35 minutes (29 minutes is my PR but I think I left a few pissed off commuters in my wake). After that, especially during the school year, it can take 10 or 15 minutes longer.

Going home it's usually at least 45 minutes.

It's actually in stop and go, or at least surface street, traffic where the EV has the greatest efficiency advantage.

I try to avoid Interstate 5 at all times of the day. It's a mess.

18 miles/45 mins
Holy fuck

Gives me plenty of time to smoke a phat one on the way home.

Kierland wrote:

Screw_Michigan wrote: ↑Sat Oct 23, 2021 2:12 pm Everyone is making great points about the pros and cons of electric vehicles. The problem is that electric vehicles are being promoted as a panacea to America's core transportation issue: that it is founded upon personal car ownership and personal car ownership in most cities is a prerequisite for being a contributing and financially successful member of society. All these rare earth metals in EVs, limited range and limited "fueling" options. America simply needs fewer cars on the road and more mass transit options everywhere.

And ebikes. And fewer spam fucks like melty and BrokenPsyche sucking up resources.

I suspect/hope we see lots more ebikes going forward. Awesome for commutes up to 30-40 miles if you can recharge at work. You could even make single passenger enclosed ones.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The wife and I have e-bikes in Colorado. No way I am communing to work on one. Where does my computer bag go? Then where do the dry cleaning items, grocery store, dog(s), etc, etc, etc items go?

Maybe leave your dog at home fatttty.

What does an "enclosed" e-bike look like? Inquiring minds want to know.

This looks pretty cool, though I don't think I'd want to get hit by a Hummer while driving one. Supposedly they are so aerodynamic and efficient that they will be able to run 100% self-powered by their solar collectors.



https://www.aptera.us/

This is what I've been hoping would be my next vehicle, though I don't think there's much chance of snagging one by the time my current lease runs out in May of 2022.

Each wheel is driven independently by a 200 HP electric motor. So 800 HP total, with instant torque and 0-60 in about 3 seconds. Plus its off-road capability kicks ass on most any 4x4 out there and has a 12,000 lb towing capacity. Perfect vehicle for the Apocalypse, assuming my magic shade tree still works.







They're also building an SUV version with the same chassis and power train. The towing capacity is slightly less, something like 9,700 lb.




https://rivian.com/r1t

That thing looks pretty serious. Problem is you can't really expect to tow much with it. Per the website with 22 inch wheels and a pulling a full load you will get 140 miles per charge. If you add in some serious heat or cold or mountains, that range is probably closer to 100 miles. That isn't ready for prime time, but I could be great for getting things around town.

Yeah, the vehicle and the company are definitely serious. One of their major backers is Amazon which is planning on getting at least 100,00 delivery vans from them. The R1T is their first consumer vehicle and just starting to deliver to the public. They're supposed to be able to deliver at least 200,000 vehicles per year by 2023.

I wouldn't expect to be pulling too many 12,000 lb loads anyway. And, based on personal experience, I think very cold weather will have a bigger effect on range than hot weather. They're supposed to be coming out with an extended range battery that adds something like $10K to the price.

That's valid, but when you need it it is nice to be able to have that capacity.

I tend to compare EVs to the Seater's needs. Driving between SA and Beaver Creek 6 to 8 times a year. Mountain passes over 12,000 feet in temps that approach 0. The suburban requires 1 refill of the tank along the 969 miles between homes. We would be looking at 5-7 charges on that route. We usually spend one night in a hotel, so that would take care of one of the charges, but there would be serious time lost otherwise for charging.

I keep hoping that we see a leap in battery technology, but until then EVs don't make sense for us. But when that hybrid Suburban hits the market, I am likely all over that.

To me, hydrogen is pretty much pie in the sky material. Here's why.

Pros -
You can probably get a longer range with less weight than batteries, also faster refueling.

Cons -
There's even less of a hydrogen infrastructure than there is for battery chargers. You would have to build out a whole new system of high pressure pipelines to do it.

Hydrogen cars are really electric cars that have a tank of compressed hydrogen instead of a battery. Then, to convert the hydrogen to electricity you also need to have an on-board fuel cell. Added weight, and more stuff to go wrong or break down. One huge advantage of EVs is that electric motors and batteries are highly dependable and need no maintenance.

"Green" hydrogen is hugely inefficient. Yes. Inefficient. It's not really a fuel but a medium for storing and transporting renewable electricity. The only way to make green hydrogen right now is through electrolysis of water using renewable electricity (i.e. solar or maybe wind). Then you compress it. Then you transport it (pipeline or tanker trucks?). Then you put it in your car. Then you convert it back to electricity. You lose probably 75% or more of the original renewable electricity from end to end.

There's also "gray" hydrogen and "blue" hydrogen, but they are not renewable fuels. Gray hydrogen is produced through chemical "reformation" of natural gas. It produces almost as much CO2 as just burning the natural gas. "Blue" hydrogen is the same a "gray" hydrogen, except they capture and store the CO2. But that's expensive, and then what do you do with the CO2? Gas companies really like to push this but they're full of shite and just fighting for survival.

So hydrogen, though showing some promise, is not nearly as efficient as battery storage and is not nearly as well developed. I put it right up there with making ethanol from corn to add to gasoline, which actually produces more CO2 than it saves from what I've heard, but the farm lobby loves it.

Yeah, but where the fukk are you gonna get all the RARE earth elements for all those batteries?

If we start building nuke plants again, which will solve our current nuke waste issue by turning it into electrons, we may have enough power to turn all that sea water into H2.

Shouldn’t be a need to pipe it around either. You “pipe” the electricity and water to the pump stations that convert it on site.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk