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China ‘Is the Only One in the Race’ to Make Electric Buses, Taxis and Trucks

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Re: China ‘Is the Only One in the Race’ to Make Electric Buses, Taxis and Trucks

#81

Post by benj111 »

lolive wrote: post #56

Let's consider hydrogen cars are the next big thing. Is it a good move to go massively towards electric cars? Especially regarding batteries that will have to be massively replaced in 2 years?

Why 2 years?

Batteries last longer than that.

Hydrogen has problems, hydrogen embrittlement, its extremely hard to contain.

Additionally hydrogen's major strength, that it continues the current fill up at a filling station dynamic* means that it needs to start making gains now, while there are still petrol stations left, to make the switch to hydrogen.

Hydrogen may well 'win' but I don't think its an open and shut case.

*yes you can generate hydrogen at home. In that situation you basically you have the same tradeoffs as a standard battery

Re: China ‘Is the Only One in the Race’ to Make Electric Buses, Taxis and Trucks

#82

Post by qwertay »

A2017U1 wrote: post #52
InGodsName wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works in china because CCP thinks, "if it's better for business/control/money/people, we'll do it, doesn't matter if some of us loses in this" Basically, if you are in goverment and you've stock holding in Gas cars, and they are lobbying, gas cars stay. But in China, CCP will simply acquire controlling interest in new winning EV firm if it's better from the perspective of power/money/control over an industry, so t…

They are exporting more petrol vehicles than ever before.

The air quality in other countries doesn't effect them as much.

Re: China ‘Is the Only One in the Race’ to Make Electric Buses, Taxis and Trucks

#83

Post by adrianN »

dmurray wrote: post #58
marvin wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That type of taxation of externalities is really a no-brainer in the West too, but there’s just not democratic majority for implementing it. A tragedy. Tragedy of the commons, really, on a spectacular scale. A general CO2 tax wouldn’t be hard to implement if we were a dictatorship.

Lots of Western countries have heavy tax on gasoline. This passes the cost for the externality on to the taxi owner instead of the customer, but comes to pretty much the same thing.

The taxes for gasoline are way below the cost of pulling the CO2 back from the atmosphere, so they don't pass the full cost of the externality on the owner.

Re: China ‘Is the Only One in the Race’ to Make Electric Buses, Taxis and Trucks

#84

Post by lolive »

lustysocietyorg wrote: post #59
lolive wrote: post #56

Let's consider hydrogen cars are the next big thing. Is it a good move to go massively towards electric cars? Especially regarding batteries that will have to be massively replaced in 2 years?

AFAIK use of hydrogen is inefficient in several ways (creation, storage) and thus there is no reason to expect that hydrogen fuel is the next big thing for cars. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNV8qi_rJBg IMO the next big things are: - Fuel like ethanol. https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2017/09/18/solar-fuel-system-recy... - Quickly charging batteries that are not affected by dendrites.

From that perspective, there will be a strong need for various rare earth elements. Leading to an insane amount of pollution. Are there any breakthroughs in rare earth extraction & treatment process?

Re: China ‘Is the Only One in the Race’ to Make Electric Buses, Taxis and Trucks

#85

Post by paganel »

Why don't we bring trolleybuses back? They rock! You don't need polluting batteries in order to run them, just some copper to put the wires up, and we've been master of this "technology" for almost a century now. Also, we should extend or re-introduce the tram network.

Re: China ‘Is the Only One in the Race’ to Make Electric Buses, Taxis and Trucks

#86

Post by stevefan1999 »

paganel wrote: post #85

Why don't we bring trolleybuses back? They rock! You don't need polluting batteries in order to run them, just some copper to put the wires up, and we've been master of this "technology" for almost a century now. Also, we should extend or re-introduce the tram network.

They required overhead transmission wire planning as well, but I do agree we should overhaul trams that we use it to satisfy the need of short distance and constant location travel.

Re: China ‘Is the Only One in the Race’ to Make Electric Buses, Taxis and Trucks

#87

Post by elorant »

We have electric buses in Greece since the mid 50s. The key difference with modern era buses is that they don't work with batteries but rely on an infrastructure of aerial power lines to which they connect with two antennas protruding from the top of the vehicle. One thing I remember from whenever I was on board them is how damn slow they move. Occasionally the antennas will disconnect which means the driver will has to move to the back of the vehicle and reconnect them. They're still in use as to this day.

Pictures of vehicles from various eras can be seen here: https://www.google.com/search?q=%CF%84%CF%81%CF%8C%CE%BB%CE%...

Re: China ‘Is the Only One in the Race’ to Make Electric Buses, Taxis and Trucks

#88

Post by jai_ »

mtgx wrote: post #38
chillacy wrote: post #6

Just came back from Shenzen, seemed like most of the taxis were electric. You can tell because they're blue vs the red gas taxis. Another ingenious thing they do is there's an added fee to ride red taxis, so people avoid them like they're plague-ridden when they have other options. I thought that was a brilliant use of taxing externalities, you let customers decide whether paying the fee is worth it.

How is it so ingenious? It's very common to tax the things you don't want your citizens to use much of. Like taxing alcohol or drinks with sugar, etc.

In the case of taxis, the additional taxation of fuel for example would affect the taxi owner more directly than the customer.

Applying the additional charge on-top of the original taxi fare itself, affects the customer more and directly influences the market dynamics better than a tax, which does it indirectly.

Re: China ‘Is the Only One in the Race’ to Make Electric Buses, Taxis and Trucks

#89

Post by majewsky »

elorant wrote: post #87

We have electric buses in Greece since the mid 50s. The key difference with modern era buses is that they don't work with batteries but rely on an infrastructure of aerial power lines to which they connect with two antennas protruding from the top of the vehicle. One thing I remember from whenever I was on board them is how damn slow they move. Occasionally the antennas will disconnect which means the driver will has…

Those are trolleybuses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybus

Re: China ‘Is the Only One in the Race’ to Make Electric Buses, Taxis and Trucks

#90

Post by icebraining »

paganel wrote: post #85

Why don't we bring trolleybuses back? They rock! You don't need polluting batteries in order to run them, just some copper to put the wires up, and we've been master of this "technology" for almost a century now. Also, we should extend or re-introduce the tram network.

Some places are bringing them back, e.g. Prague started using them again this year, after 46 years. The modern ones often come with a battery that allows them to run sections of the line without overhead wires.
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