The more important part of article is the raise in price for Lithium Carbonate, from $4000 to $14000, how does that help reduce cost of batteries. We already have cheap oil, it may not be forever, but lets assume adoption of EVs improves drastically the would make OIL dead cheap, and most of the oil would be diverted to power generation or to other countries that do not have Electric Infrastructure etc. The point is the article is full of linear thinking and no room for second order effects and most optimistic projections.
Electric cars: The death of the internal combustion engine
51–60 of 158 posts
Re: Electric cars: The death of the internal combustion engine
#52For most of the time, I'd be totally cool with an electric vehicle (this has changed in recent years as ranges and cold-weather performance has improved dramatically). However, that time when I'm traveling off the "grid" would be an absolute nightmare. For example - taking a vacation up in the mountains. No power, limited direct sunlight for solar, and your car is your lifeline. Or cross-country travel that isn't on…
You don't even need a gas turbine. A simple ICE generator will suffice. I'd personally go for a DC generator (domestic power supply is AC), that plugs directly into the battery charging system of the car. A few gallons of fuel can certainly add more than a 100 miles.
I'd still prefer a turbine, for many of the same reasons as an electric motor. Fewer moving parts, more fuel efficient.
As a point of their reliability, most of the old pumpjacks you've seen about (if you're my age) are powered by turbines. Turned on, and left running for years without stopping.
Re: Electric cars: The death of the internal combustion engine
#53The Economist article fails to mention that electrical vehicles are massively subsidized by governments. The production and adoption of electrical vehicles would not exist, but for these http://dailycaller.com/2015/08/10/tesla-is-hemorrhaging-mone... subsidies. As an honest observer, the natural market forces that would influence a rational decision to adopt electrical vehicles, do not exist. The true cost of electri…
The subsidies you bring up to justify your argument do exist. But they also exist in greater numbers for the gas/car manufacturers, so your argument that market forces would make electric cars untenable is very questionable.
https://electrek.co/2016/10/10/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-challenge...
Re: Electric cars: The death of the internal combustion engine
#54Anytime you make something cheaper, easier to use, more useful and/or more efficient you get an increase in usage. Autonomous electric cars are all 4, and will lead to a dramatic increase in the number of miles driven. Some of those miles we can imagine (for instance sending your car on a dead-head journey somewhere for somebody else to use it), but most of the increase will probably be from new usage models that we…
I worry that self-driving cars are going to be used as an excuse not to expand public transit, especially in the Bay Area. The problem is scale -- once the population reaches a certain size, the roads are going to be gridlocked even if every car is self driving. I'm not sure if the Bay Area is at that point yet, but NYC certainly is, as are most of the major cities of the world.
Hopefully Uber/Lyft start a van/bulk transit service. This would help reduce traffic by combining trips while being more efficient than buses because the server can dynamically route the driver to optimize pickups and departures.
Perhaps even adding discounts for riders willing to trek the last mile on foot.
Re: Electric cars: The death of the internal combustion engine
#55If I had to choose between a world where 1) everyone owned electric cars 2) no one owned cars but just hitched rides on autonomous ones and 3) no one used cars at all, I would take the third option. I think it's possible if we start building new cities designed for walking, instead of just expanding our current cities, with all the problems that presents. I think the trick would be to strictly limit their footprint t…
You mean a city like Tokyo?
Re: Electric cars: The death of the internal combustion engine
#56If I had to choose between a world where 1) everyone owned electric cars 2) no one owned cars but just hitched rides on autonomous ones and 3) no one used cars at all, I would take the third option. I think it's possible if we start building new cities designed for walking, instead of just expanding our current cities, with all the problems that presents. I think the trick would be to strictly limit their footprint t…
I agree with you in principle, but any city has to have the ability for delivery services and emergency vehicles to move around.
Re: Electric cars: The death of the internal combustion engine
#57Anytime you make something cheaper, easier to use, more useful and/or more efficient you get an increase in usage. Autonomous electric cars are all 4, and will lead to a dramatic increase in the number of miles driven. Some of those miles we can imagine (for instance sending your car on a dead-head journey somewhere for somebody else to use it), but most of the increase will probably be from new usage models that we…
Thank you for pointing this out, it seems like it's often forgotten. We're probably about to make all the same mistakes we did when cars first showed up in cities. Of course, if we actually get coordinated driving that allows long-distance 100+ mph runs mere feet apart, the city will expand to cover... well, even more of what little remains of wild habitat. We're already urbanizing an area the size of Britain every year. Why pay high rent to be close to work when you can have a villa in what used to be Big Sur and nap during your hour commute to work?
Pity the motorcyclists, walkers, and cyclists who dare to get in your way.
Re: Electric cars: The death of the internal combustion engine
#58As if ICEs are going to be replaced for emergency power generation any time soon. And with new tech coming out where regular gasoline engines can be as efficient as diesels (in fact using the Diesel cycle to a degree) if not more, you're going to find a resurgence of them in hybrid-electric vehicles. I doubt you're going to be rolling around with a solar-powered weed-eater to do your yardwork. I can guarantee you are…
Weed-whackers are probably not the best example. Apparently the current battery-powered ones are pretty good for typical personal home use. But absolutely for anything bigger or with a higher duty cycle (e.g. that lawn services would use).
Small engines like those are also horrendously dirty. A gas-powered lawnmower, for example, produces an order of magnitude more pollution than a car in the same amount of time. Weed whackers, despite being smaller, can be even worse because smallness means less complete combustion.
Lawn equipment is fairly low-hanging fruit for electrification, much easier than cars, and would have a disproportionate impact on air quality.
Re: Electric cars: The death of the internal combustion engine
#59Anytime you make something cheaper, easier to use, more useful and/or more efficient you get an increase in usage. Autonomous electric cars are all 4, and will lead to a dramatic increase in the number of miles driven. Some of those miles we can imagine (for instance sending your car on a dead-head journey somewhere for somebody else to use it), but most of the increase will probably be from new usage models that we…
I worry that self-driving cars are going to be used as an excuse not to expand public transit, especially in the Bay Area. The problem is scale -- once the population reaches a certain size, the roads are going to be gridlocked even if every car is self driving. I'm not sure if the Bay Area is at that point yet, but NYC certainly is, as are most of the major cities of the world.
Not expanding public transit already happens. Google/Cisco/Apple/Facebook was running its own shadow public transit system for free to the cities, but the anti-techie lobbies demanded that SF regulate it to a shadow of its former self and tax the tech companies every time a bus stops to pick up passengers.
In Seattle, Google just gives its employees a bus pass, because their public transit system isn't full and dysfunctional.
Re: Electric cars: The death of the internal combustion engine
#60If I had to choose between a world where 1) everyone owned electric cars 2) no one owned cars but just hitched rides on autonomous ones and 3) no one used cars at all, I would take the third option. I think it's possible if we start building new cities designed for walking, instead of just expanding our current cities, with all the problems that presents. I think the trick would be to strictly limit their footprint t…
>I think it's possible if we start building new cities designed for walking, instead of just expanding our current cities, with all the problems that presents. I think the trick would be to strictly limit their footprint to something that would allow anyone to walk from one end to another in ~30 minutes. You can still have a big city, you just have to rely on the world's greatest form of public transportation (the el…
I'm all for increased public transportation, electric cars, and renewable energy. But I'm also hoping to give people ideas for what would be ideal.
I think you could argue that my idea is less fantastical than Musk's. People have built and migrated to new cities since the dawn of civilization. It's a more recent phenomenon that we stopped building large cities. My idea doesn't require any new technology. It doesn't require the government to do that much. It doesn't require people to behave any differently that what is natural.