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Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

theguardian.com

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Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#231

Post by ersiees »

Faaak wrote: post #227
limaoscarjuliet wrote: post #183

The next step is to work on cleaner electricity. While most EU got the message long time ago, eastern bloc countries are much behind. Currently in Poland it is better for the environment to drive a diesel VW Golf than Tesla, as the electricity is produced from brown coal.

That's not true. Even with coal, the end-to-end emissions are better with electric cars. Proof: Poland is 800gCO₂/kWh [1]. With an average electric car (i.e. my hyundai ioniq), you average 11kWh/100km, or .11kWh/km. Taking emissions into account, that gives us 88gCO₂/km. A VW golf is 120gCO₂/km [2] [1]: https://www.electricitymap.org/map [2]: https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/cars/Car-CO2-and-fuel-economy-mp...

You might have missed the production of EVs that causes more CO2 than that of diesel cars.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#232

Post by ratsforhorses »

Just putting this out there but I'd really like to see more "Twike" style, electromagnetic flywheel engineering offerings which aren't overpriced...

I live in Romania and there's a huge potential for taking out the ICE and putting in some sort or electric motor train...

Otherwise we'll take ages to resolve the situation of poorer countries where legislation is looser (Africa, South America etc)

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#233

Post by AYBABTME »

tomp wrote: post #215
WanderPanda wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely agree! I am just really struggling to put a time estimate on when the bill will come due for china. I think they can be in an upward trend for some more years as a technological follower. What I mean by that is that they use simple metrics of current technology (Ghz, GB, battery life, screen colors, electric car range and so in) and just “mandate” to get better in them. But all these things will eventual…

> At least in my (very narrow) experience I have not seen much evidence for qualitative innovation in china This argument never sounded very true and intellectually honest to me. I mean, I want to believe in it, but when I scrutinize it precisely, I wonder - how can you measure the ability to innovate of someone who doesn't want (or need) to innovate? At present time, China's competitive advantage is cheap specialize…

If you look at Japan and Korea who took the same approach of "cheap specialized labour", they both pivoted to high quality, and more innovative once they caught up. I have no doubt China will do the same, but at much larger scale. There's already a lot of innovative consumer products coming online, which I'd attribute to the vibe of rapid and efficient hardware products iteration in Shenzen.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#234

Post by bluetomcat »

kstenerud wrote: post #124
missedthecue wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Autocracies seem to be the most efficient form of governance. It's a shame that this also means that they can do evil things very efficiently, given no one can stop them.

Autocracies are only short-term efficient. Once their initial aims are met, they become terribly inefficient, then corruption sets in, and then they must be forcibly removed. It's good for other nations who can benefit from their trailblazing, but bad for the nation itself because they're basically fucked in the future when the bill comes due. Centralization is long-term the worst kind of governance, inevitably becom…

> Autocracies are only short-term efficient. Once their initial aims are met, they become terribly inefficient, then corruption sets in, and then they must be forcibly removed.

From the point of view of Western individualism, yes. However, a strong autocracy relies on building a strong collective identity through education and the cultural institutions. That identity isolates the individual from his personal beliefs and justifies his suffering, for the purpose of collectively achieving "macro" goals.

A major mistake is to judge non-Western socio-economic systems through the lens of the Western intellectual tradition.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#235

Post by kristopolous »

The "iphone" of the electric car still isn't here.

I've been saying it's coming soon for a while, cars that are so vastly superior to gas cars that it re-frames the gas car as being legacy technology just as the smartphone from apple finally got the consumer interested in smartphones and view flip-phones as inferior.

I think however, it's going to come from left-field (not from Tesla) and for the first time I'm tossing a date on it, 24-36 months:

The key is the bizarre three-wheeled electric cars from micro-manufacturers like aptera, ampere, nobe, elio, arcimoto, electra meccanica, malcolm bricklin, sondors, and vanderhall.

They are offering low priced commuter vehicles with really low drag coefficients, easy parking, and when combined with solar panels embedded in the body (which I know of 3 manufacturers that are releasing cars this year that will do this) you'll get effectively a "worry free" vehicle; it charges more than you usually drive it, needs very little maintenance and repair, and is easy to maneuver.

I think Geoffrey Moore's diagram on this one is starting this year and if the next gen of these funky cars are as "practical" as I think them to be, I think the chasm will be jumped around 2023/2024.

Right, this sounds unrealistic now. Obviously cars like this https://www.aptera.us/product-page/250-miles-per-charge aren't going to see mainstream pickup right this second.

But this is like if we were in 2003, and I used the bulky, nerdy clunky HP iPAQ 4150 (https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51BH3PKCZ7L...) and argued that these computer-phones would eventually be a mainstream device and be a complete replacement of desktops and laptops for many people. Obviously unrealistic then. You have to iterate in your head.

For instance, take the solar e-trike, make a modular design like how ebussy has (http://ebussy.de/), inductive charging like what bmw and witricity are working on or what's been deployed in sweden (https://www.smartroadgotland.com/) you know, the next steps that everything gets crossing the chasm, you have to do the act of mentally imagining putting these things together, I can see this future coming together.

Also you add the cost trajectories of batteries and solar on to it, and you'll realize this is like anything else in the innovators dilemma: the capacity is moving up, the price is moving down, steadily, year on year and you're maybe looking at say, a honda-civic level rated e-trike car at say $4,000 in 2030 that can get modular addons and be inductively recharged while driving.

I know this sounds as wacky as bill gates home of the future from the 1990s where he talked to a special "assistant computer" in his living room to do things like order a cab or the carputer project MS ran to have an in-dash navigation system with location and map info in the early 90s ... it all looks crazy until it happens.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#236

Post by theshrike79 »

willxinc wrote: post #7

Vaguely curious why this is the case, if people are respecting the pandemic.

I switched to an EV mid-pandemic, my reasoning was:

  - Close to zero maintenance
  - Cheaper to run
  - Less taxes (our cars get taxed by the amount of emissions)
  - Keeps its value better (less parts that wear or break)
Basically the amount of driving I did went down by a good 50%, it's cheaper to have an EV.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#237

Post by ratsforhorses »

socialdemocrat wrote: post #195
erik_seaberg wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

82% of Norwegians are homeowners. Garage orphans will hold back some other countries.

Being a homeowner does not mean you live in single family house. Yes, I own my home in Oslo but I live in an apartment. We have shared garage areas which is indeed common in Norway even for people with single family homes. Garages are often clustered in Norway to keep neighborhoods car free. We also have problems all across Norway with electrical capacity not being enough to install chargers in these garages. So upgr…

Why not get petrol stations to install chargers? They have vacuum cleaners, wash areas, restaurants...seems a necessary evolution...

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#238

Post by Ma8ee »

adrianN wrote: post #221
Ma8ee wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that very unlikely if you have any appliances at all. Multiple it by ten and I might start to believe you. For reference, right now we, granted in a four person household and electric heating in the coldest winter month, are using around 100 kWh per day. Even when the house is unoccupied in the summer the consumption is around 3.5 kWh per day. That is probably mostly just a fridge and two freezers.

From May 2019 to January 2020 we used 706kWh. I have a fridge but no other appliances that constantly draw power. I don't heat electrically, but I cook using electricity. I run the washing machine about once a week or so and hang-dry the clothes. I guess I've used a bit more electricity during the last year because I worked from home more, but I doubt it's a factor 10. 100kWh per day would cost more than I pay for re…

Do you heat water with electricity? That’s a big part of our consumption. Just by looking at what hour we use electricity I realise that just the kids bath every evening is around 2kWh.

And with two small kids the laundry machine runs at least once per day and the dishwasher at least twice when we both grownups work from home.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#239

Post by Ma8ee »

dirkf wrote: post #222
Ma8ee wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that very unlikely if you have any appliances at all. Multiple it by ten and I might start to believe you. For reference, right now we, granted in a four person household and electric heating in the coldest winter month, are using around 100 kWh per day. Even when the house is unoccupied in the summer the consumption is around 3.5 kWh per day. That is probably mostly just a fridge and two freezers.

With a household of 4 and doing everything electrical (cooking, heating, hot water but no electric car) we use on average about 9-10 kWh per day. A bit more in the winter, a bit less in summer. This is a well-insulated, relatively recent house in western Europe. 100kWh seems excessive to me.

This is a 45 year old house with crappy isolation. Compared with similar households in the area our consumption is about 20% higher than average.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#240

Post by bartvk »

dagurp wrote: post #175
Reason077 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toyota now sells the full-electric Lexus UX 300e in Europe, so it’s no longer true that they “don’t offer a single BEV”.

The specs of that car suggest that they want it to fail. It's not competitive to the EVs out there and is too expensive.

It has a bit more range as my Renault Zoe. Which is now 4 years old. It feels to me that this Lexus is nothing more than a compliance car.
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