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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

#141

Post by _Microft »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #104
_Microft wrote: post #77

I grant that there's a lack of electric buses and trucks in western countries but how is a taxi different from a normal car? Build electric cars and you can have electric taxis? There are counter examples though. The Deutsche Post , the german postal service, wanted to electrify their fleet and bought the company StreetScooter GmbH [0] because there were no other eletric vans available to replace their VW Caddy s. Th…

I'm not sure of the exact details but taxis are different. Think of any big city taxi - NYC, London, etc. - you've ever gotten into. Bigger. Boxier. More trunk space, etc. Now consider GM's plant closing in the USA. Plants are configured to produce certain vehicles. Volume matters. Yes, cars and taxis are close, but for a number of reasons probably not as close as you think.

Well, London cabs might be different but in continental Europe most taxis are slightly modified cars (signs, taximeter, ...) and not purpose-built vehicles. In Germany for example most common taxis are most likely Mercedes Benz E-class, even though that's changing in the last years.

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

#142

Post by ovi256 »

CalRobert wrote: post #66
rapnie wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it is very frustrating. The Dutch are exceptionally good at talking the talk, when it comes to renewable energy transition, having years-long talk about the opportunity to become the best, most innovative player (e.g. in solar), and then not walking the walk. Suddenly stopping subsidies because of 'unprecedented success' is the norm, leaving all businesses who had invested out in the cold. Netherlands is now a l…

Given that the thought of the Netherlands conjures images of happy families in bakfiets {and jealousy on my part) I was startled to learn their per capita greenhouse gas emissions are among the worst in the EU.

They're an almost completely urban population with a high standard of living. Of course that needs energy and greenshouse emissions to make happen.

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

#143

Post by benj111 »

rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #126
benj111 wrote: post #71

So its interesting to think what will happen when they turn their gaze outwards. How long will it take Chinese brands to be a force to be reckoned with? Yes they might be sniffed at to start with, but that's only the same as Japanese cars in the 60s, Skoda in the 90s and most recently Kia, but other manufacturers won't be able to get away with calling them cheap tat for long (assuming they aren't). I assume there are…

>We're all looking at Tesla to bring electric cars to the masses. Should we be looking at China instead? Right now, Tesla consumes more than 60% of the word EV batteries and their shares is still increasing. I'm sure most of the world's EVs will be Chinese but the most high-end ones will probably be Teslas (made in Shanghai if need be). One can draw a parallel with the smartphones market :)

The smartphone parallel is what I was thinking of. More particularly the transition from dumb phone, to smart phone, Tha basically destroyed most of the incumbents.

I take it you're saying Tesla is Apple. Perhaps, you don't have the network effects and lock in with cars, that you do with phones, and Tesla don't seem to make 'the best' hardware like Apple do, but I don't have a crystal ball either, so I won't argue.

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

#144

Post by lustysocietyorg »

lolive wrote: post #84
lustysocietyorg wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Rare earth is not "that" rare. Not every rare earth element is equally rare. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare-earth_element

Quote: Despite their name, rare-earth elements are – with the exception of the radioactive promethium – relatively plentiful in Earth's crust

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neodymium: Although neodymium is classed as a rare earth, it is a fairly common element, no rarer than cobalt, nickel, or copper, and is widely distributed in the Earth's crust.

Good practices and recycling could be very important with regard to costs and environment protection.

There is always progress if progress is financed.

Example: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/11/european-ecoswing-buil...

Quote: A conventional wind generator making 1MW of power will have about one tonne of neodymium in its magnets. The superconductor uses about 1 kilogram of the rare earth gadolinium. It costs just $18.70/kg (£14.50/kg) of gadolinium oxide versus $45.50/kg of neodymium oxide.

I doubt that the rare earth is an important cost factor for such a turbine.

http://www.windustry.org/how_much_do_wind_turbines_cost

Quote: The costs for a utility scale wind turbine range from about $1.3 million to $2.2 million per MW of nameplate capacity installed. Most of the commercial-scale turbines installed today are 2 MW in size and cost roughly $3-$4 million installed.

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

#145

Post by benj111 »

toine_toine wrote: post #140
rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We're all looking at Tesla to bring electric cars to the masses. Should we be looking at China instead? Right now, Tesla consumes more than 60% of the word EV batteries and their shares is still increasing. I'm sure most of the world's EVs will be Chinese but the most high-end ones will probably be Teslas (made in Shanghai if need be). One can draw a parallel with the smartphones market :)

> Right now, Tesla consumes more than 60% of the world EV batteries Not sure where you heard that but that is completely false. BYD alone shipped over 100,000 electric cars (not including buses) in the third quarter (compared to Tesla's 83,000). Other Chinese car companies BAIC, Rowe, and Geel all ship over 20k+ plug-ins per quarter.

I've heard it. Eg https://www.inverse.com/article/47731-tesla-gigafactory-now-...

But yeah I'm not sure whether China doesn't report battery construction, or under reports or what because it sounds suspect to me also.

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

#146

Post by ThePhysicist »

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.

Trolleybuses still require infrastructure wherever they run, hence in many cities in Europe they got replaced by trams as they seem to be more efficient (because they're much longer than a bus).

In Berlin there are already electric buses in operation on several lines (manufactured by Solaris, a Polish company and EVO bus, a Mercedes Benz subsidiary) and they will start experimenting with inductive charging soon. The idea is that you have a charging pad beneath each bus stop, where the short stops the bus makes would be sufficient to recharge the bus enough to keep it running all day.

A single electric bus with charging station costs them about 600.000 € (https://www.morgenpost.de/berlin/article215300097/BVG-Busflo...) btw. So about 1000 times my annual subscription :D They ordered 30 more that will be in service next year and plan to have their whole fleet electrified before 2030.

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

#147

Post by maeln »

nolok wrote: post #101
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.

Quite a few cities in France have been developping trams line this past couple of decade. In "Ile de France" (Paris and its metropolitan area) the last tram line was closed in 1938 but it's coming back and there are now 14 lines planned, 10 of which are already opened (8 of those opened between 2006 and 2017), the oldest one opened in 1992 and the last one in the current plan should open in 2023. https://en.wikipedia…

Nantes was the first city in France to have a tramway [0] :) ! It was very unsafe and thus got the nickname "Péril Jaune" (yellow peril) because of it's color.

Today, Nantes still has a wide Tram network and I really enjoy it. I find it more enjoyable than metro. They tend to smell less and you can enjoy the scenery will traveling :) .

[0] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancien_tramway_de_Nantes

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

#148

Post by swebs »

nothrabannosir wrote: post #114
swebs wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They got rid of them in Philadelphia because people hated driving over the tracks and them ruining their tires. Some routes upgraded to to electric buses that still use the existing overhead power lines. I'd assume the driver has to be careful to stay within certain tolerances since he's no longer on a track.

If it has tracks, it's a tram. An electric bus which uses overhead powerlines is a trolleybus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tram https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybus

Ah, my mistake. We've always just called them "Trolleys"

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

#149

Post by _Microft »

toine_toine wrote: post #140
rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We're all looking at Tesla to bring electric cars to the masses. Should we be looking at China instead? Right now, Tesla consumes more than 60% of the word EV batteries and their shares is still increasing. I'm sure most of the world's EVs will be Chinese but the most high-end ones will probably be Teslas (made in Shanghai if need be). One can draw a parallel with the smartphones market :)

> Right now, Tesla consumes more than 60% of the world EV batteries Not sure where you heard that but that is completely false. BYD alone shipped over 100,000 electric cars (not including buses) in the third quarter (compared to Tesla's 83,000). Other Chinese car companies BAIC, Rowe, and Geel all ship over 20k+ plug-ins per quarter.

I think that's referring to total energy capacity and not the number of battery packs.

Tesla's luxury vehicles ship with 75/90/100kWh packs while BYD's model seem to have 63kWh (not accounting for busses which seems to have about 325kWh). No definite information available for Model 3, afaik, but I heard that the long range version has a 75kWh pack (50kWh for the "normal range" model?).

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

#150

Post by ams6110 »

marvin wrote: post #17
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.

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.

Taxes are hard to implement in many countries, including the USA, because people have seen that the tax money is not spent on what proponents say it will be spent on.

You'd have a hard time getting a CO2 tax passed because it would just end up going into the general fund and get spent on pet projects, not on anything that really addressed CO2 emissions, or helped with the cost of alternative fuels or vehicles.

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