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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

#141

Post by Tade0 »

wojt_eu wrote: post #45
_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.

I already feel nostalgic about gas-powered cars, their place is alongside steam locomotives as movie props and tourist attractions. Imagine people doing gas-punk cosplay in a couple of decades.

Dieselpunk enjoys a pretty substantial following, but then again it's emulating a different era.

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

#142

Post by avar »

alkonaut wrote: post #96
bigbugbag wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are batteries part of the powertrain though ?

Yes, for hybrid and electric vehicles the batteries are now considered part of the powertrain, although the fuel tank was as far as I know never considered part of the power train for an ICE vehicle.

Because if the fuel tank breaks you can just weld pretty much any replacement on and it'll work, you could even use a bucket on the back of your pick-up trunk & a hose as a temporary replacement.

That's not the case with electric cars and their batteries. They're deeply integrated with the rest of the powertrain.

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

#143

Post by explainplease »

IndrekR wrote: post #126
mamon wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are confusing electric vehicles with self-driving ones.

Not confusing. It is so much easier to make electric vehicles self-driving compared to the ICE vehicles. It may be economically feasible to do so in not so distant future. Real estate, including parking spaces is expensive. There was a good Freakonomics episode about that few years ago [1]. Main barriers to self-driving will soon be juridical, not technological. This is not just random internet rambling. I'm an engin…

> It is so much easier to make electric vehicles self-driving compared to the ICE vehicles.

Why?

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

#144

Post by dagw »

alex_duf wrote: post #139
3chelon wrote: post #137

I'm totally in favour of electric cars, but I'm surprised the article never mentioned the problem of sourcing all the power. There have been a lot of contradictory claims over how many more power stations would be needed for a fully-electric future, with some sources claiming the UK alone would need an extra ten nuclear power plants, and other sources massively downplaying that, but clearly if everyone was driving an…

I hope that we never reach the point where everyone buys an electric car. By then most big cities will heavily rely on a fleet of car pool, potentially self driving. That decreases the number of needed cars by an order of magnitude.

The number of cars is irrelevant when talking energy needs, only distance traveled matters. And I can definitely see how easily available self driving pool cars will increase rather than decrease the total distance driven, and thus increasing the total need for electricity.

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

#145

Post by 3chelon »

alex_duf wrote: post #139
3chelon wrote: post #137

I'm totally in favour of electric cars, but I'm surprised the article never mentioned the problem of sourcing all the power. There have been a lot of contradictory claims over how many more power stations would be needed for a fully-electric future, with some sources claiming the UK alone would need an extra ten nuclear power plants, and other sources massively downplaying that, but clearly if everyone was driving an…

I hope that we never reach the point where everyone buys an electric car. By then most big cities will heavily rely on a fleet of car pool, potentially self driving. That decreases the number of needed cars by an order of magnitude.

Yes, I think autonomous/shared vehicles could be a massive factor in reducing the number of vehicles, but it wouldn't reduce the power consumption unless the number of actual journeys was reduced. A shared EV running 24/7 would use a huge amount of power.

And that's assuming we could get people to share. Cars seem to be unique in bringing out the very worst in humanity. Jeremy Clarkson, for example.

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

#146

Post by rcxdude »

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…

On top of cars is probably the second-worst place to put a solar panel, just after on the road itself (I say this after having participated in building a solar car). It's extremely difficult to get solar panels to work efficiently in that environment, they're almost never pointing in the right direction, they are frequently shaded (even partial shade will wreck the efficiency of a panel). You're much better off putting them at the charging points.

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

#147

Post by Tepix »

crottypeter wrote: post #93
paol wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we're no where near the point in which it's the main obstacle to further adoption Sure. I'm talking about universal adoption because the article is ("take over the world") > We don't drive especially far in a typical week This is a good point, EV range is already long enough that many urban drivers will not need to charge every day. > For some subset of street parkers, enough of that parking time will be spent at f…

Decreasing charging time might not be as helpful as you think. Lets say a car can be fully charged in 30 minutes: So the driver shows up somewhere and parks in one of the EV charging spaces and plugs in his or her car. They are not going to hang around for 30 minutes so they connect the car and go about their business. When they get back 3 hours later... This is still a problem if you can charge in 5 minutes.

If you know you will be away for 3 hours, why not use a slow charger instead of the limited fast chargers (that are probably more expensive as well)?

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

#148

Post by Retr0spectrum »

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…

In the slightly more distant future, when we have perfected autonomous driving, it could be feasible for a car to drive itself to a large parking facility on the outskirts of a city, for example.

Assuming people still want to own their own cars by then.

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

#149

Post by explainplease »

craigds wrote: post #31
czechdeveloper wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, unfort…

> Maybe we'll just become less mobile, and be okay with that.

This is bizarre. Is there any other technology, any other quality-of-life issue, in which people would advocate or settle for regression? Technology is advancing faster than ever before, the pace is still increasing--yet people are saying that we should go back to not having personal vehicles, not travelling much...

What's going on here?

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

#150

Post by kozak »

IndrekR wrote: post #63
chrisper wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>continuous, smooth acceleration becomes the norm, This was achieved with CVT (Continous Variable Transmission). I did not like to drive one, but it already exists. Also I currently have a car with 7 gear automatic transmission and the acceleration is pretty smooth. >lurchy, awkward automatic transmissions fade into distant memory. Again, newer automatic transmission aren't bad anymore.

I drive a hybrid with CVT. After getting used to its smoothness driving with a "normal gearbox" feels really awkward.

Electronic e-CVT (that hybrids like the Prius have) and mechanic push-belt CVT (non-hybrid) are completely different things mechanically.
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