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Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

timharford.com

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Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#141

Post by matthewdgreen »

pandaman wrote: post #128
tw04 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This suggests a far more effective strategy of first replacing the fleet with plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) The performance of pretty much every PHEV I've seen is abysmal. The people buying a Model 3 or Model S to replace their BMW or Mercedes aren't interested in something with the performance of a geo metro. So, while on paper a PHEV solution might look better, in the real world it would result in those people just goin…

BMW's and Porsche's PHEVs are pretty good, why other companies cannot follow the same formula (add batteries and electric motor to a regular car without crippling the existing drivetrain) is a mystery. It appears most want you to buy their BEV so they intentionally make PHEVs unappealing.

We looked at the BMW X5 Hybrid recently and it’s kind of a joke. There’s a large (24kWh) battery pack but it only gets 31 miles of range on a full charge. The charge itself takes eight hours on a 240V circuit because they only installed a 16A charger (the i3 has a 32A charger.) Meanwhile it’s gas mileage is lower than the equivalent ICE version. It does not feel like a serious effort to move a lot of customers onto EV usage, more like a compliance car. No idea about the Porches but I understand those to be at an even less affordable price point.

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#142

Post by erulabs »

Gravityloss wrote: post #119
FriedPickles wrote: post #38

To further develop the idea of letting EVs go to people who will drive them the most, the true bottleneck is batteries . So, the problem is to get batteries on the road in a way that they will displace the most gas miles as soon as possible. This suggests a far more effective strategy of first replacing the fleet with plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), then in a second stage, replace those with full EVs. For most city vehicles…

Yes, exactly. One can think of it this way also: if 85 kWh of battery modules is made, how should they be placed to reduce the most CO2. You can put them into 8 plugin hybrid cars with 10 kWh battery in each, and it's used for commuting in each of them, replacing 80% of yearly kilometers with electric ones, that's maybe 10 x 20,000 x 0.8 = 160,000 km electric driving. Those cars still drive 10 x 20,000 x 0.2 = 40,000…

Or if you bought a Tesla 3 to 8 years ago - the “waste” is probably made up for by allowing Tesla to survive financially. But yes - wildly complicated. I’d imagine any honest thinker has to retreat to “I suppose it’s unmeasurable”, which is unfortunate.

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#143

Post by AtlasBarfed »

Retric wrote: post #127
Gravityloss wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, exactly. One can think of it this way also: if 85 kWh of battery modules is made, how should they be placed to reduce the most CO2. You can put them into 8 plugin hybrid cars with 10 kWh battery in each, and it's used for commuting in each of them, replacing 80% of yearly kilometers with electric ones, that's maybe 10 x 20,000 x 0.8 = 160,000 km electric driving. Those cars still drive 10 x 20,000 x 0.2 = 40,000…

Plug in batteries don’t last very long because they charge and discharge every day. Due to this they end up either costing several times as much manufacturing capacity as you’re assuming or they simply get driven as non plug in hybrids which makes them less efficient than EV’s. Further ramping up battery production isn’t any kind of long term barrier, so plug end hybrids just result in less investment in battery manu…

LFP batteries have practically unlimited recharge cycles.

Higher density LFPs are coming too.

I would agree in general with the parent, but with LFPs hitting mainstream 200-300 mile range in pure EVs, and no real resource constraint, hybrids and "standard range" can be LFP and then NMC chemistries can be dedicated to higher density needs.

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#144

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

I bought a new car this year when I graduated and got a new job. The main reason I didn't buy an EV is because of the cost, the dependability (I'm not gonna be a guinea pig wasting time getting repairs that not many people know how to resolve yet), and because I live in the Midwest where salted roads in winter just eat the hell out of everything. So I'm gonna need a new car in 5-10 years anyway.

Obviously EV is the future. But with this "Vehicles as a Service" model where a lot of stuff is not meant to be touched by you, it seems like cars are just getting absurdly more expensive for no reason at all. EV is a marketing term so that somehow causes the product to be worth an extra $5k right off the bat.

By driving less than 10-20 miles a week with a gas vehicle, I feel like I'm actually doing more to save the planet than the typical EV driver doing 100+ miles thinking their excessive driving is 100% eco-friendly. Consumption is never eco-friendly.

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#145

Post by zeckalpha »

Retric wrote: post #127
Gravityloss wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, exactly. One can think of it this way also: if 85 kWh of battery modules is made, how should they be placed to reduce the most CO2. You can put them into 8 plugin hybrid cars with 10 kWh battery in each, and it's used for commuting in each of them, replacing 80% of yearly kilometers with electric ones, that's maybe 10 x 20,000 x 0.8 = 160,000 km electric driving. Those cars still drive 10 x 20,000 x 0.2 = 40,000…

Plug in batteries don’t last very long because they charge and discharge every day. Due to this they end up either costing several times as much manufacturing capacity as you’re assuming or they simply get driven as non plug in hybrids which makes them less efficient than EV’s. Further ramping up battery production isn’t any kind of long term barrier, so plug end hybrids just result in less investment in battery manu…

Better to use the batteries than hauling around mostly unused batteries all the time.

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#146

Post by pandaman »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #141
pandaman wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BMW's and Porsche's PHEVs are pretty good, why other companies cannot follow the same formula (add batteries and electric motor to a regular car without crippling the existing drivetrain) is a mystery. It appears most want you to buy their BEV so they intentionally make PHEVs unappealing.

We looked at the BMW X5 Hybrid recently and it’s kind of a joke. There’s a large (24kWh) battery pack but it only gets 31 miles of range on a full charge. The charge itself takes eight hours on a 240V circuit because they only installed a 16A charger (the i3 has a 32A charger.) Meanwhile it’s gas mileage is lower than the equivalent ICE version. It does not feel like a serious effort to move a lot of customers onto E…

The message I replied to was about performance, not range. PHEVs do not have 300 miles electric range, even BMW. I have an 45e and have no problems with it: it fully charges in ~7 hours, I drove about 6K miles last year and filled total 5 times (not full tanks, I live in an apartment building with shared chargers that go out of order for weeks so I fill up when charger is broken and I have less than 1/4 tank), it still has 90% of tank filled in the early November.

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#148

Post by zbrozek »

alexose wrote: post #134
codazoda wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, not being in the industry, I don’t quite understand why. Look at diesel electric locomotives. They run the diesel only for power and they use the electric motors for drive. Why doesn’t this model work in cars and allow us to get rid of the transmission like a full EV does? Gas engines have an optimal RPM. Why wouldn’t a hybrid run the engine at exactly that RPM to generate the best charge? Instead, they are comp…

The only car I know of that works this way is the BMW i3, which came with an optional 'range extender' that's essentially a little gas generator with a 2(!) gallon tank. One complaint I've heard is that it doesn't necessarily put out enough wattage to fully drive the car under certain (hilly, cold) conditions (But, I have to imagine that could be solved with a bigger generator). The problem as I understand it is that…

You can convince the i3 to believe it's a European car which increases the range extender's utility dramatically. You can unlock more fuel as well as have the generator turn on whenever you want (as opposed to at only very low SOC), largely mitigating hills.

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#149

Post by VintageCool »

tw04 wrote: post #45
FriedPickles wrote: post #38

To further develop the idea of letting EVs go to people who will drive them the most, the true bottleneck is batteries . So, the problem is to get batteries on the road in a way that they will displace the most gas miles as soon as possible. This suggests a far more effective strategy of first replacing the fleet with plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), then in a second stage, replace those with full EVs. For most city vehicles…

>This suggests a far more effective strategy of first replacing the fleet with plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) The performance of pretty much every PHEV I've seen is abysmal. The people buying a Model 3 or Model S to replace their BMW or Mercedes aren't interested in something with the performance of a geo metro. So, while on paper a PHEV solution might look better, in the real world it would result in those people just goin…

I've carpooled in a Prius and a Honda Civic Hybrid. Both of those cars seemed to be extremely capable of accelerating to pass other cars on the freeway. I was riding in the Prius one time and my friend was complaining about the Prius being slow, when we got stuck behind a car going 60 mph. Beep boop, he idly jumped up to 80, passed the guy, dropped back to 67, and went back to complaining that his car was slow.

I was terribly impressed; my car would've had to put more work in to do that.

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#150

Post by roenxi »

oezi wrote: post #32
roenxi wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For starters that plan probably wouldn't work. The cost of taking that much much oil out of the market and sitting it idly would bankrupt the parties involved. For seconds if the plan did work, the group responsible would likely be designated as terrorists and get taken out by the US military.

Why would it bankrupt anybody? Letting it sit idle or scrapping it aren't too expensive when compared to the saved CO2. The US would have certainly done something when they still were highly dependent on foreign oil.

Oil creation & use are both flows, so there needs to be ongoing spending within an order of magnitude of the global oil market. Nobody can afford that sort of money to be spent on a completely unproductive activity, without any form of payoff. Countries would be bankrupting themselves.
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