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How big oil will die

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Re: How big oil will die

#121

Post by kjksf »

russdill wrote: post #71
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.

I don't think hailed rides can replace a daily commuter as easily as the author suggests. If everyone were to replace their daily driver by hailing a self driving EV, there would be massive surge pricing as most people would be commuting around the same time.

In such case the density would probably be large enough to efficiently match e.g. 4 people to a car.

Commutes are predictable (people do the same exact trip at roughly the same time) so easy to optimize.

You can therefore pack more people in the same fleet during peak times than during non-peak times.

The second obvious step is to create additional fleet made from half-buses like the 12 seater for peak traffic, a better Chariot.

Re: How big oil will die

#122

Post by psychedelic »

vvanders wrote: post #37
pilom wrote: post #28

Every time I see someone make the argument that "all cars will be electric by 20XX" I feel like they are incredibly sheltered from rural life. The US is HUGE! Sure the majority of commuting could be replaced by electric cars but I've seen no evidence of them being able to replace ICEs for the "I want to go skiing/kayaking/hiking (pick an activity where your car sits on the side of the road all day) 2 hours away and r…

As someone who lives in a very rural area away from the metro with an EV I say: so what? Unless you're going 300mi+ in a day(which is 6+ hours of driving) you're fine. Even if you are large parts of electric charging infrastructure is coming online at a rapid pace. Take for instance the Olympic Peninsula. Used to be really hard to get to via EV. There's now a Supercharger in Sequim and Aberdeen with another planned f…

Exactly. As someone who grew up in northern Utah it is hard to imagine owning an electric car right now. But most people don't live in northern Utah. Now that I live in DC, I would love an electric car since most of my gas money is spent hanging out in traffic anyways. Big cities, where most of the population lives, is where EVs will really make their debut.

Re: How big oil will die

#123

Post by technicalbard »

There are a few problems yet to be solved. First, the battery system in a Tesla Model S has a carbon footprint from manufacturing that equals driving a midsized gasoline powered car for 8 years. If that doesn't change, then there is no net carbon reductions Second, battery energy density needs to get dramatically better. Current Li-Ion batteries are about 6 times the energy density of a lead-acid battery of 40 years ago. They need to get 20 times better to equal a hydrocarbon fuel. Third, the increase in electricity demand has to come from somewhere. It isn't viable to replace all electricity generation with wind/solar, without MASSIVE storage investment. Hydroelectric and nuclear will be needed at large scale to cover this demand if coal and gas are not used. While everyone talks about these technologies getting better at the same rate computers did, they haven't thus far. They might, but the laws of thermodynamics are a steep slope.

Re: How big oil will die

#124

Post by drewmol »

ricw wrote: post #83
pilom wrote: post #28

Every time I see someone make the argument that "all cars will be electric by 20XX" I feel like they are incredibly sheltered from rural life. The US is HUGE! Sure the majority of commuting could be replaced by electric cars but I've seen no evidence of them being able to replace ICEs for the "I want to go skiing/kayaking/hiking (pick an activity where your car sits on the side of the road all day) 2 hours away and r…

This is one of the oddest false beliefs about electric cars. 1) they already have the 300+ mile range for the 4 hour round trip, 2) electricity is totally abundant anywhere. Far more so than fossil fuels. Building charging stations is really really cheap, because the infrastructure (electricity) already exists everywhere. The reason they aren't everywhere as yet is because there are still relatively few electric cars…

I don't keep up on EV development, but has the concept of battery exchange as an alternative to mobile charging stations made any progress? Seems like a big factor in the amount of time spent refilling vs recharging their vehicles.

Re: How big oil will die

#125

Post by prawn »

pilom wrote: post #60
jaggederest wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two hours of driving is half a Tesla's capacity, so that scenario is already solved. It's not going to get any less solved over time. People will own cars individually for the same reason that people own horses now - they enable a specific kind of activity, or a native appreciation for the object in itself. Certainly motorsport is not going to die any time soon. What percentage of automobiles are used for touring and…

A Tesla model 3 has a listed range of 220 miles and it declines in winter and with hills. Therefore I doubt one could actually go from downtown Denver to Vail (~95 miles) for a day of skiing and back in a day without charging at the resort. It certainly couldn't make it from Denver to Salida, CO (~140 miles) for a day of white water rafting without charging during the day. Sure businesses could install chargers in th…

"Sure businesses could install chargers in their parking lots but we have a LONG way to go for that"

Why's that? I've seen hotels in Spain with dedicated Tesla parking/charging stations. Gas stations will be retrofitted with charging/swapping options. Tesla/other may partner with other businesses to install charging stations on the street.

Cars will leave while you're hiking to recharge. National Parks may well install charging stations and have regular, automated shuttles running the most popular routes.

Plus you're talking about a very specific case to suggest this being an issue for "large portions of America".

Re: How big oil will die

#126

Post by skosch »

notyourday wrote: post #103
Lightbody wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace "no one" with "most people". Do you still say hogwash? He laid out a really solid article. You said "hogwash". If you want to change minds you gotta expand a bit more :)

You should ask your wife/girlfriend/daughter if she is planning on getting into a self-driving car with no ability to control it.

I don't think I understand this comment, nor do I think I want to try to understand it.

Re: How big oil will die

#127

Post by drewmol »

notyourday wrote: post #103
Lightbody wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace "no one" with "most people". Do you still say hogwash? He laid out a really solid article. You said "hogwash". If you want to change minds you gotta expand a bit more :)

You should ask your wife/girlfriend/daughter if she is planning on getting into a self-driving car with no ability to control it.

Or, to that point, if she's ever been in a commercial airplane. /s

Re: How big oil will die

#128

Post by prawn »

danans wrote: post #104
pilom wrote: post #28

Every time I see someone make the argument that "all cars will be electric by 20XX" I feel like they are incredibly sheltered from rural life. The US is HUGE! Sure the majority of commuting could be replaced by electric cars but I've seen no evidence of them being able to replace ICEs for the "I want to go skiing/kayaking/hiking (pick an activity where your car sits on the side of the road all day) 2 hours away and r…

> Sure ski resorts and malls and park and rides might put in 1000s of chargers in their parking lots eventually, but it certainly won't happen by 2023 We drove a plugin hybrid to go skiing last winter. Once we got to the hotel we were surprised to find a level 2 charger. We plugged in and 30 percent of our miles while up there were pure electric. If anything, given that ski resorts tend to serve higher income cliente…

It'd be cool to see National Parks add charging stations. Nearby, any site handling RVs would have some base infrastructure to add charging to their repertoire.

Re: How big oil will die

#129

Post by bjt »

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).

Change happens at the margins. For reasons that you and parent comments mentioned, we're not going to go to 100% electric anytime soon. But I think we will see a lot more city dwellers willing to go car-less, and a lot more suburban/rural families willing to go down from multiple cars to just one. That'll still be enough to shake out the less competitive oil companies.

Re: How big oil will die

#130

Post by Gibbon1 »

diafygi wrote: post #14
sigstoat wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it is used as a precursor in chemical synthesis, plastics and a variety of other products. you're not going to replace that with solar.

Sure you will, but maybe later. Super cheap energy makes bio-plastics competitive. Massive solar farms passively making carbon chains when the sun is up. The reason no one is talking about it is that the transportation transition is lower hanging fruit.

There is an interesting line of research into catalysts that use electricity to create stuff like methanol, acetic acid, etc from CO2 and water. Often when you see people comment on this they automatically assume synthetic methanol --> green washed automotive fuel --> yay and I can keep my F150 pickup. But more seriously, pure low weight hydrocarbons --> chemical feed stocks.
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