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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

#381

Post by matwood »

guitarsteve wrote: post #42
angmarsbane wrote: post #17

One thing I keep getting tripped up on with EV cars is the usability during an emergency. I grew up in SoCal when there were rolling black-outs. Just this week, a windstorm took out my parent’s power for 3 days. I don’t view electricity to be as reliable as gas. What fact am I missing that can change my view on this?

In the Miami area after Hurricane Irma in 2017, we couldn’t find gas for our cars for about a week. I think the pumps for gas stations require electricity (which was also out) plus deliveries were disrupted by downed trees, traffic signal outages, etc. Just an anecdote that gasoline is not always available during crises. We did have electricity at home but neighboring buildings and neighborhoods had outages for a wee…

I have also been through many hurricanes. A point you're missing is that places like a gas stations are prioritized to getting power back on over a place like your house. In one large hurricane as a kid, my house didn't get power back for almost a month.

With that said, many places on the coast have improved a lot by building power lines underground. We never even lost power in the last storm I went through a few years ago.

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

#382

Post by fakedang »

BelenusMordred wrote: post #295
kybernetikos wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> strong collective identity This makes a society weaker - it's effectively a monoculture that restricts the data available to the decision makers. It also reduces a societies ability to innovate in art, culture and eventually technology and science - innovation requires the ability to take an outside view, to be self-critical, and a society that is too busy forging a 'strong collective identity' will make it harder…

> it's effectively a monoculture that restricts the data available to the decision makers Would you call Singapore a "weak society" with little ability to innovate? It's essentially what GP was describing.

Not GP, but imo Yes.

Singapore is the best example of a monoculture in a diverse environment. Systematic rejection of one community and elevation of the other in government, education, military, etc. Not to mention how difficult it is to get citizenship if you're not Chinese in some form.

Also where are Singapore's innovations? Apart from building a fancy city, they have done nothing. Many Singaporeans comfortable enough and well off that I know often rush to settle down in Australia or USA or the UK, especially in tech. Why is that?

Singapore is a really good magnet for entrepreneurs from other places, but nothing much otherwise. A very artificial place with zero arts and culture - heck, they destroyed their primary language (Cantonese) in schools so as to be cozy with China for business.

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

#383

Post by alex_duf »

lumberingjack wrote: post #350

Yeah it's great our local coal powered plant started charging more per kilowatt because of electric cars draining the grid. They've also been adding surcharges on anything they can for electric vehicles like big taxes on tires just so they can get that tax that they're missing from the gas pump.

(I'm going to assume it's not sarcastic)

Pretty much the entire world is trying to get rid of Coal on their grid. It's expensive and has (rightfully) a bad image.

So let's assume a brand new car lasts 10 years, by the time that car is ready to be changed, the grid has evolved to the point coal is irrelevant. The whole operation is still better than a buying a new petrol car.

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

#384

Post by _ea1k »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #286
theshrike79 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also suffers from rapidgate and coldgate both. Either the battery heats up too much during driving to accept proper charge (no thermal management). Or it's too cold to accept charge (no heating).

Why is everything a gate now, this is getting ridiculous. Is there a website to keep track of all the gates?

Kind of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_%22-gate%22_scandals

It isn't comprehensive, though.

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

#385

Post by matwood »

jjav wrote: post #96
nic-waller wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easier to set up back yard solar panels than a back yard fuel refinery.

> It's easier to set up back yard solar panels than a back yard fuel refinery. If you have lot of open space with sun exposure, true. For the average small yard, it's easier to buy a 55gal drum of gasoline and a manual pump if you can anticipate the need. Growing up in hurricane country, it's something some people did. Buy a drum in the summer and store it. If it wasn't needed, just use it up after November (end of h…

> For the average small yard, it's easier to buy a 55gal drum of gasoline and a manual pump if you can anticipate the need.

If someone on planning on doing this, make sure to get 'boat' gas or ethanol free gas. Gas containing ethanol is not made to be stored and separates/attracts water.

http://www.lcbamarketing.com/phase_separation_in_ethanol_ble...

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

#386

Post by mcv »

free_rms wrote: post #365
mcv wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Autocracies are efficient only as long as they are correct. It certainly helps if they're lead by scientists and engineers, at least for some issues. But when an autocratic government is wrong, it's nearly impossible to correct it. And every government is wrong sometimes. As much as I like China stimulating electric cars, there are a lot of issues they're handling poorly or are being downright evil about (Uyghurs, fo…

Huge buried assumption in this comment that democracy in general or America's system in particular is more likely to produce 'correct' decisions than China's 100 million party members and their hierarchical politics. It's interesting to compare/contrast the incentives created in each system but in light of the last 20 years of decision making, it's hard to claim America aced it.

I think a well-functioning democracy with an educated electorate will do better than China, but I wouldn't argue that the US meets those criteria. A better comparison might be the Nordic countries. If that's too much cherry-picking for you, consider that China is probably also the best-functioning autocracy in the world; plenty of autocracies are terrible.

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

#387

Post by yarcob »

throwaway2a02 wrote: post #75
acomjean wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a solar array on the roof. It’s great. But the dc->ac converter needs the grid to be active to do its conversion, so when the power goes out no solar. (I suspect it syncs with the grids 60hz...) If you include a battery backup in your system, you can run without grid power. When I worked at a power monitoring start up we had a demo house that was charging an electric rav4, so it’s possible.

I understand why grid-tied systems are built this way, but from an engineering standpoint this is really inefficient. Converting from DC to AC and back to DC, for no reason. In fact, most solar controllers are already designed to use and charge batteries. It doesn't help that most car manufacturers use locked battery charging protocols that don't allow you to easily change this process.

Only Tesla uses a proprietary charging protocol.

AFAIK other car makers in the US use either CCS or ChaDeMo.

In Europe, all car makers (including Tesla) support CCS.

CCS allows DC charging and has support for load balancing, so I assume it could be feasible to create a home CCS charger that directly charges an EV with DC from solar panels.

However, considering how expensive power electronics are, and how difficult it would be to integrate such a charger into an existing solar installation, I have doubts that many people would buy such a charger. Also, I don't really know how CCS works in detail, so I may be totally wrong about this.

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

#388

Post by Misteur-Z »

sircastor wrote: post #10

I’ll be interested to see the lifespan of EVs for “normal” people. I’ve got a 2012 Nissan LEAF we bought post-lease in 2015. I love it still, and don’t have any plans to replace it. The battery is not in great shape, but it gets me where I need to go. I am genuinely considering replacing the battery rather than buying another EV when the battery finally fails.

There are a few Teslas with over 500,000 miles! They have a leader board but I can't find an up to date version.

https://twitter.com/TeslaMiles

https://insideevs.com/news/339110/highest-mileage-tesla-now-...

https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-record-mileage-900000-ki...

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

#389

Post by blackrock »

refurb wrote: post #380
blackrock wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, it never crossed your mind that racist write people enslaved Asia for hundreds of years? They destroyed the Asian government, drugged the Asian population, and forced financial restitutions on the Asians to pay for their their own enslavement. But yet, here we are. Hundreds of years later, and the Asian countries are finally shaking off their colonial enslavement from the white man. And here you are, claiming tha…

China hasn’t been a colony since when? 100 years ago? Then it was Japanese colonialism. So Asian colonialization of other Asians. Then China decided on a political system that stunted their growth for 40 years. Vietnam stunted their growth for 25 years. Yet we blame the white man?

You seem to think that a society can turn on a dime. And that past historical grievances does not factor into modern day realities.

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

#390

Post by selykg »

julianlam wrote: post #374
jeffreygoesto wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"just old" applies to the battery technology used when they were built. Not to "a car" in general. It is totally uneconomic to scrap a car only because one part broke. I own a car from 1978 that is in very good shape (for some minimal maintenance cost, you should not just let it rot).

The calculus changes when you factor in labour cost. If the transmission from your 1978 car gives out, will you take it into the shop?

Depends a lot on the transmission. Rebuilding a Turbo 350 or 400 from a GM car is relatively inexpensive in my experience.
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