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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

#211

Post by moduspol »

MagnumOpus wrote: post #208
moduspol wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully, it's a pipe dream. If gas, energy, or home heating prices double, whoever's in power is going to be voted out. It's not the capture of political bodies that drives that--it's normal people. It'll take a suspension of democracy or a long time to make a measurable impact on climate change.

Not if the tax revenues get distributed back as a carbon dividend - then the only people against it are heavy polluters who lose out. (And since emissions are not distributed linearly, the losers from a cost-neutral carbon-tax with per-capita-dividend will always be a minority.)

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but:

From what I'm being told, fundamental changes need to occur in our consumption to have a measurable impact on climate change. That won't happen with normal people continuing to consume at the same rates they have.

Could a carbon tax be designed such that normal people are effectively reimbursed and heavy emitters pay more? Yes. But you're not going to measurably impact climate change without somehow incentivizing people to use less. At some point, people need to use less, and when you force them to (through taxes or restrictions), it won't be popular politically.

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

#212

Post by mtgx »

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.

Most likely because you need a whole railway to go with it, and it seems modern societies tend to hate railways and don't have any interested in investing in new ones or even maintaining the old ones anymore.

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

#213

Post by jbay808 »

Nasrudith wrote: post #207
D_Alex wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simply because electric buses are the superior technology right now. Metro bus services is actually an ideal application for electric vehicles: The needed range is short, charging facilities can be in one place (depot), stop-start driving suits the propulsion system, and low noise and no emissions are a bonus in the highly populated areas.

Not to mention infastructutal redundancy - trolleys are a bit worst of both worlds in that they require roads, tracks, and overhead wires while often causing manuevering and congestion issues. They are kind of awkward road sharing wise. They are a way of dodging the battery expenses but unfortunately have their own set of issues. If you already have a great cable car infastructure by all means keep on doing it but th…

Trolleybuses don't need tracks, they just need overhead cables.

We use them in Vancouver. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_buses_in_Vancouver

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

#214

Post by omnimus »

Nasrudith wrote: post #207
D_Alex wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simply because electric buses are the superior technology right now. Metro bus services is actually an ideal application for electric vehicles: The needed range is short, charging facilities can be in one place (depot), stop-start driving suits the propulsion system, and low noise and no emissions are a bonus in the highly populated areas.

Not to mention infastructutal redundancy - trolleys are a bit worst of both worlds in that they require roads, tracks, and overhead wires while often causing manuevering and congestion issues. They are kind of awkward road sharing wise. They are a way of dodging the battery expenses but unfortunately have their own set of issues. If you already have a great cable car infastructure by all means keep on doing it but th…

I am from city with trams and trolley buses as main public transport. Trams are often deployed on roads (rails are in roads) and when there is car accident trams just have to stop trolley bus can atleast partialy manuever around obstacles.

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

#215

Post by dagw »

wazoox wrote: post #209
smarinov wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This explains it. I come from a former Eastern Bloc country and Škoda was well established here well before the former regime overtook power after a short occupation by the Red army. Also, they were definitely not unknown in (parts of) Germany from very early on, although I guess not as prominent as in countries who didn't build their own cars, for obvious reasons. I never knew that until very recently they had such…

Actually that's mostly the Lada that were the subject of many jokes, such as "how do you double the value of a Lada in 5 minutes? By filling up". "What's a Lada on the top of a hill? a miracle. several Lada on a hill? a weird place for a Lada factory. lots of Ladas on a hill? A landfill" etc.

While Lada was probably the most popular source of car jokes I certainly also heard every Lada joke also told with/about Skoda.

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

#216

Post by tedshroyer »

Chattanooga has operated electric buses since the 1990s. I would be surprised if this wasn't known by many municipalities in the US, but still it hasn't taken off. Numbers from late 90s indicate that fuel and maintenance costs would be about 1/4 the cost of diesel( https://afdc.energy.gov/files/pdfs/chatt_cs.pdf). I guess range has been the problem stopping adoption.

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

#217

Post by NeedMoreTea »

smarinov wrote: post #202
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skoda were the subject of many terrible jokes in the 80s and 90s, thanks to poor reputation and reliability of earlier decades. They were so cheap, but far more basic, compared to the better known makes. They started to get OK reliability in the 80s which meant they started to become popular as value for money motoring. They got pretty common on UK roads. Popular and reliable enough to become a common choice for priv…

See also my reply to the sibling, but in the country I come from they were well known maybe from some time between the 20s or 30s, and they were generally always regarded as a good quality brand. Usually not as prominent as others, but still decent nonetheless. I didn't know that until the last decade or so they were seen as poor vehicles elsewhere, to the extent as to become the target of jokes . Thanks for the cont…

Not sure how much of the joking was simply down to price as they were a lot cheaper than others, or how much was build quality vs reliability.

The context of the era helps too, no 70s and 80s mass market cars were without a weak point or six, and jokes on the back of those.

Eastern Bloc makes had poor consistency, technology, and sometimes reliability compared to others. Applied to Lada, Skoda, MZ motorcycles etc. Simple tech also meant simple to fix of course.

Italian makes were beautiful but rusty before even getting to the showroom, with just as poor a rep for reliability and build.

Japanese makes didn't rust, but they couldn't weld and used bolts made of soft cheese pretending to be steel.

British and French? No one knew, they were on strike. ;)

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

#218

Post by ema »

kd5bjo wrote: post #111
chiefalchemist wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Until recently, the most common vehicle I saw being used as a taxi was a Ford Crown Victoria -- a large standard sedan with an aftermarket partition between the front and back seats.

The taxis I have been driven in in Germany and Spain didn't even have a partition between the front and back seats. Honestly I would feel weird sitting in the back of a taxi when the shotgun seat is empty. Must be some internalized egalitarianism.

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

#219

Post by beginningguava »

FooHentai wrote: post #50
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…

And yet, in a weird way it's working in a way that aligns to wider, long-term, individual interests. By making the government the controlling monopoly, China ends up with a form of capitalism where externalities apply to other countries rather than surrounding corporations and citizens. That's kinda interesting compared to how most other capitalist nations are handling their shit right now. You can do 'common good' s…

It's called national socialism. Nobody wants to say it but modern China has essentially copied the economic system of Nazi Germany. Capitalism is simply a tool to be used rather than some great ideal of free markets and competition. You can see it by the way they criticize the US for protectionism while actively being the most protectionist country on earth.

The way EV's have been forced is similar to how Hitler created Volkswagen, the People's Car. Hitler wanted an affordable German made car for the German citizens.

They've copied it right down to the extreme ethnic self-interest if the Muslim concentration camps are any indicator and the fact that foreigners aren't allowed to own companies in China. Also copying the seizing of neighboring lands.

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

#220

Post by joncrane »

I've heard that the environmental impact of building the vehicles (the batteries in particular) and charging them outweighs the savings in emissions.

Basically batteries use lots of toxic chemicals and require LOTS of energy during manufacture.

Also isn't most electricity generation in China still based on burning coal?

Have any experts done any analysis to see what environmental benefit this brings, if any?

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