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How big oil will die

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Re: How big oil will die

#111

Post by gregable »

briantakita wrote: post #63
maxsilver wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric cars can have ICE's strapped onto them, and it works really well. The Chevy Volt, for instance, is perfectly designed to handle the situation you described. It gives you 52ish miles of all electric range, so you can commute and grab groceries and do all of your normal driving on pure electricity. And for various road trips, it still gets 40-ish MPG for hundreds of miles without any electricity needed. It als…

> It also needs zero fancy charging infrastructure. Have a regular US household power outlet anywhere in your garage or home exterior? Then you have everything you need to charge it up every night. There will be significant additional load on the Electric grid. This will require the electric grid to be overhauled around the country. Couple this with "smart grid" mandates & you have yet another channel for government…

The grid can manage electric cars. They can actually make the grid more stable since it's not difficult to ask the cars to slow their charging at certain times. You don't even have to build this into the grid layer: just take these network connected vehicles and tell them to stop charging for 5 minutes out of the hour.

You can even go so far as to have the cars soak up the capacity. If you have a 2kW capacity circuit in the house, you can have the car drop it's draw as the fridge compressor clicks in.

Re: How big oil will die

#112

Post by billrobertson42 »

leereeves wrote: post #59
pilom wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree wholeheartedly with you and my next vehicle will be a plug in hybrid. That said, that isn't what the author is saying. He's saying that all private cars will go away because it will be so much cheaper to just call a self driving electric and I don't see it happening because people will never call a self driving car to the trailhead of a 14'er. It is just so much more convenient to have your own (PHEV).

> people will never call a self driving car to the trailhead of a 14'er. As a long distance backpacker I'd love to be able to get a ride to and from the trail at a reasonable price. Of course, we'd also need better cell coverage.

If you had a self-driving car, you could let it take you to the beginning of the hike, and then let it drive itself to the end of the hike where you could take it home.

Re: How big oil will die

#113

Post by mikestew »

saagarjha wrote: post #4

I can see this playing out, but not as quickly as the author suggests. Cameras and cellphones last a couple years at the most, and are much easier to replace, than a car is. Sure, everyone wants a self driving car, but not everyone can switch just like that.

Here’s the thing about the camera argument: if the new-fangled camera doesn’t work out, you’re out a few hundred bucks. How risk averse are you going to be when $30K is on the line?

Re: How big oil will die

#114

Post by DennisP »

leereeves wrote: post #69
function_seven wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument that counters this is that hailed rides will be cheaper than driving what you already have. You don't need to make a new purchase to switch. Even if you have a recent model sitting in the driveway, you may choose to save money by hailing a car rather than driving your own. I don't know if it'll play out like that, but the article is pretty convincing.

Why would a car owned by someone else be cheaper than the same car owned by you? The obvious answer - dividing the cost of the car over more miles - doesn't seem right to me. Driving more miles doesn't generally increase the useful mileage lifespan of cars, it just wears them out more quickly.

If a car can withstand very high mileage, you get the full economic benefit of those miles only if you drive them before the car loses its value from sheer chronological age.

That means driving as much as a NYC taxi (70K mi/year) instead of as much as a normal car owner.

Re: How big oil will die

#115

Post by prawn »

leereeves wrote: post #59
pilom wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree wholeheartedly with you and my next vehicle will be a plug in hybrid. That said, that isn't what the author is saying. He's saying that all private cars will go away because it will be so much cheaper to just call a self driving electric and I don't see it happening because people will never call a self driving car to the trailhead of a 14'er. It is just so much more convenient to have your own (PHEV).

> people will never call a self driving car to the trailhead of a 14'er. As a long distance backpacker I'd love to be able to get a ride to and from the trail at a reasonable price. Of course, we'd also need better cell coverage.

Same. Self-driving cars/vans would be brilliant for trailhead use. In 2016, hiking Trans Zion, we paid US$120+tip to get two of us from our car to a starting point about 60-90 minutes away. Earlier this year, my brother and I hitched three separate times to save 10 hours of road walking in a storm to get back to our car after Buckskin Gulch. We were lucky with the timing of each ride.

I've been deterred from hiking the Grand Canyon rim to rim by needing to either hike all the way back, or have two cars and add a 5-hour drive. Salt Creek in Canyonlands is another where a shuttle is a help, or crossing from The Maze over the river to The Needles (avoiding many hours of driving back).

Being able to call a self-driving car to affordably make these trips would be great.

Re: How big oil will die

#117

Post by maxsilver »

maxerickson wrote: post #98
maxsilver wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There will be significant additional load on the Electric grid. This will require the electric grid to be overhauled around the country. Two electric cars in a household, both charging simultaneously, uses less electricity combined than just one standard clothes dryer or one central air conditioner -- the kind of appliances everyone already has in their home and runs regularly. It's not nothing of course. And some…

1400 watts for a plug in hybrid or someone that doesn't drive longer distances everyday. For full electric with higher mileage 5,000-10,000 watts would be a lot more likely (Tesla sells a 17 KW charger).

> For full electric with higher mileage 5000-10,000 kilowatts would be a lot more likely.

I don't think so. Sure, it's technically possible to use that much power, but most people aren't going to empty their Tesla battery every single day, for the same reason most people don't buy a whole tank of gasoline every single day.

You can charge a Tesla on a 1.4kw US household outlet, just like every other car. It will still give you 50+ miles a night. Bump that to just a 3.3kW charger and you'll be pulling over 100 miles of charge nightly. 3.3kW is more than enough to cover 92% of all commuters nationwide, according to USDOT.

Superchargers are awesome and all, and are great for roadtrips, but 99% of people will have no need to pull 17kW down in their home. That's an insane amount of power.

Re: How big oil will die

#118

Post by zeotroph »

trhway wrote: post #81
briantakita wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It also needs zero fancy charging infrastructure. Have a regular US household power outlet anywhere in your garage or home exterior? Then you have everything you need to charge it up every night. There will be significant additional load on the Electric grid. This will require the electric grid to be overhauled around the country. Couple this with "smart grid" mandates & you have yet another channel for government…

while i think you're incorrect on many points, i'll address one for example: >The big advantage of Gas is you can transport the product without the product losing energy. the cost of transportation and infrastructure like for example gas loading terminals and gas stations is higher for gas than electricity. That is the "loss of energy".

Indeed, even when using fossil fuel as the energy source for both a gas-powered and an electric car, the well to wheel efficiency is 14-33% vs 42%, respectivly.

Source (2013): http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~pu4i-aok/cooldata2/hybridcar/hyb... (it also claims a 42% efficiency for diesels on highways)

Re: How big oil will die

#119

Post by mark-r »

chao- wrote: post #43

I want fewer fossil fuels as much as the next guy, and while the core argument about ICEs is beyond my expertise, the data the author presents seems to support it so that's pretty neat. However, I take issue with the article's casual conflating of oil with all fossil fuels, and fossil fuels used for transportation with all uses of fossil fuels. It signals a lack of awareness when the author writes things such as: > T…

As demand drops, the producers who have the lowest cost will win out over the more expensive options and the market share of those expensive suppliers will drop to zero. I believe that's the basis for predicting the failure of the pipeline.

Re: How big oil will die

#120

Post by danans »

pilom wrote: post #47
maxsilver wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric cars can have ICE's strapped onto them, and it works really well. The Chevy Volt, for instance, is perfectly designed to handle the situation you described. It gives you 52ish miles of all electric range, so you can commute and grab groceries and do all of your normal driving on pure electricity. And for various road trips, it still gets 40-ish MPG for hundreds of miles without any electricity needed. It als…

I agree wholeheartedly with you and my next vehicle will be a plug in hybrid. That said, that isn't what the author is saying. He's saying that all private cars will go away because it will be so much cheaper to just call a self driving electric and I don't see it happening because people will never call a self driving car to the trailhead of a 14'er. It is just so much more convenient to have your own (PHEV).

Not all private cars will go away, but a significant fraction of car use cases will move to self driving services (especially the ones that involve drinking).

For some this will mean their optimum is less car ownership, and for others no car ownership.

The trend will be amplified in areas with limited parking and high costs of living.

Also, you can always rent a car to go to the trailhead, just like you do on vacation.

None of this is dependent on electric or even self driving cars, as it is all already happening today with ride services and ICE cars, but self driving cars shift the economics considerably away from private car ownership.

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