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What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

nytimes.com

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Re: What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

#31

Post by craigds »

czechdeveloper wrote: post #19
megablast wrote: post #11

Hopefully they never take over the world, and we can stop this car nonsense. Having over a million extra people not killed by cars would be nice.

But how would you move around? Public transportation cannot reach everywhere. I would just stop seeing my family without having a car.

We'll find a way though, after some pain. Maybe we'll just become less mobile, and be okay with that. Denser housing and more distributed community hubs seem the obvious solution.

The harder question is how would you get from here to a world without cars in the first place. There are some pretty massive political and social hurdles to overcome. I don't think this will happen until we basically run out of fuel, unfortunately.

Re: What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

#32

Post by adrianN »

ManlyBread wrote: post #21
megablast wrote: post #11

Hopefully they never take over the world, and we can stop this car nonsense. Having over a million extra people not killed by cars would be nice.

I concur, the push for mass adoption when the tech behind the electric cars are in such an infant stage makes me nervous. On top of that it won't be any better for the environment in countries which still have majorly coal-based power plants.

It will be much better for the air quality in cities though.

Re: What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

#33

Post by paol »

These articles keep omitting a pretty big barrier to adoption: street parking. (Maybe it's a function of US being suburb-centric? But at least the New York Times ought to know better.)

One of 2 things needs to happen, either charging technology improves to the point where you can charge at a gas station in a span of time comparable to refueling a conventional car, or all street parking spots need to be fitted with charging ports for overnight charging.

Neither thing looks likely to happen soon.

Re: What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

#34

Post by kuceram »

I think that the market will decide. It will be a balance between few major things like: price, range, efficiency, safety and fancyness (cars are more emotional than rational :-).

The same happened in the beggining of car industry. https://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/hybrid-techno...

Re: What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

#35

Post by gambiting »

Swizec wrote: post #20
_greim_ wrote: post #15

> Drivers will have to shed their attachment to the sound, smell and feel of gas-powered engines. I for one will not feel the least bit sad when continuous, smooth acceleration becomes the norm, and lurchy, awkward automatic transmissions fade into distant memory. I'll probably feel slightly nostalgic about the sound and smell of fuel-burning cars someday, but it won't inform my buying choices in the slightest.

There are transmissions other than automatic. And I agree, they’re better if you know what you’re doing. But modern high-end automatics are in fact smoother than most humans. Racecar drivers might be smoother still but even they use flappypadle automatic sequential gearboxes at the very top end of racing because even the best trained humans are just too slow. Curiously, racing electric cars use gearboxes too.

Yep. ZF 8 speed automatic, Mercedes new 9 speed dual clutch, are probably the smoothest transmissions available on the market. I've got years of experience of driving manual cars and I can't even pretend that I would be able to change gears as smoothly as those boxes. And I drive a Mercedes-AMG with a 7-speed dual clutch and under hard acceleration that box changes gears within 100ms(actual number supplied by AMG) - there's no way a human could change gears that quickly.

Re: What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

#36

Post by cjslep »

delbel wrote: post #13
skookumchuck wrote: post #5

The lithium may not be that much of a problem if existing aged batteries can have the lithium in them recycled.

Its not the Lithium that is a problem. Its the Colbolt-59 that's next to it. A typical Tesla has about 15 pounds of Colbolt-59. If a small tactical weapon would be used near the location of a single parked Tesla, the Colbolt-59 will transmute to Colbolt-60, the deadlist substance known to earth. 15 pounds of Colbolt-60 is enough to kill 24 million people. Imagine a parking lot of them. 4 tons of it is enough to annih…

The entire cross section of a Cobalt 59 atom is only about a barn. Since a nuclear weapons dispersion of neutrons is in three dimensions and therefore the concentration of neutrons drops quite quickly as a measure of distance the car will have to be uncomfortably close to transmute a meaningful amount of Cobalt 60.

Since this phenomena is very much geographically constrained by the properties and physics of the blast, using over the top comparison of "15 pounds could kill 24 million people" should instead read "15 pounds generated from 240,000 micronuclear explosions generating this material near 100 people each could kill 24 million people if they decide to linger near the Cobalt 60 on the order of years due to its long half life".

Edit: It is important to understand the underlying physics to make an accurate characterization of the risks involved. Cobalt 60 is not the most deadly substance to humans; I would argue alcohol is higher than Cobalt 60.

Re: What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

#37

Post by samcheng »

paol wrote: post #33

These articles keep omitting a pretty big barrier to adoption: street parking. (Maybe it's a function of US being suburb-centric? But at least the New York Times ought to know better.) One of 2 things needs to happen, either charging technology improves to the point where you can charge at a gas station in a span of time comparable to refueling a conventional car, or all street parking spots need to be fitted with ch…

Or street parking needs to make way for bike lanes, transit, and pedestrian space!

To be honest, though, electrifying public parking isn't that outlandish either. Fairbanks, Alaska has done it for a while to power engine block heaters.

Re: What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

#38

Post by pjc50 »

ianai wrote: post #22
benjaminl wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all of that is the battery. Even though batteries are coming down in price, they are still very expensive. For example GM’s list price for the Bolt battery is $15,734. Now this is the replacement cost Bolt owners pay for a new battery not the actual cost, but it gives an indication of their cost. https://electrek.co/2017/06/12/gm-bolt-ev-battery-pack-price...

How much power does the electric motor need? -edit- found it https://www.quora.com/How-much-power-is-required-by-the-moto... 80kw to accelerate and 1 kw to maintain. -edit 2- how come no ones put 3 solar panels on top of an EV? Three of the following could output 1 kw and fit in the space available. http://www.solarwholesale.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Sil... Seems like an obvious for electric semis where there’s…

That has to be a typo and the real number more like 10kw - 1kw is 1.3HP, lawnmower engine territory.

Re: What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

#39

Post by bigbugbag »

analognoise wrote: post #4
ckastner wrote: post #3

> Price of an electric car powertrain: $16,000 > Price of a conventional car powertrain: $6,000 Can anyone provide a better source for this? This is exactly the opposite of what I expected. I thought electric powertrains had far fewer (in the hundreds, even) moving parts? Edit: Coffee hasn't kicked in yet. As user analognoise points out, this is literally answered by the sentence that follows the above: How soon that…

Batteries aren't cheap.

Are batteries part of the powertrain though ?

Re: What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

#40

Post by bigbugbag »

megablast wrote: post #11

Hopefully they never take over the world, and we can stop this car nonsense. Having over a million extra people not killed by cars would be nice.

It's already happening in Germany and E.U. IIRC Germany set 2030 for getting rid of all vehicles with combustion motor and E.U. set the date around 2050.
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