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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

#151

Post by yholio »

zenexer wrote: post #117
Armisael16 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s an extremely obvious difference in 0-60 times between a Prius and a Model 3, and that matters on an on-ramp. (Replace 0-60 with 5-60 or 25-60 or whatever you measure of acceleration you prefer). Is it necessary? No, obviously, people aren’t dying left and right trying to merge in Priuses. It is very noticeable, however.

I have been driving Priuses for a good chunk of my life now, and there’s really no way I could safely max out their acceleration while merging. Typically the right-lane traffic on highways here flows at 75 MPH when there isn’t much congestion. Why would you benefit from greater acceleration? It makes very little sense from my perspective. What am I going to do, cut someone off? Floor it and merge with no consideratio…

I am perplexed by the insinuation that an average power car is less safe than a sports car on public roads. Everything I was taught shows that proper driving technique is paramount, and I would have to see data supporting a contrary assertion.

While we can construct edge scenarios where a fast car can get you out of trouble (mostly when overtaking) I'm willing to bet that's a marginal effect that is trumped by the inherent danger of very powerful cars in the hands of inexperienced drivers - i.e 100% of the first time buyers who never drove one.

Seems more like a rationalisation for wanting a cool toy, "don't worry honey, those 500HP will mean the world when merging to drop the kids to school".

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

#152

Post by lh7777 »

sokoloff wrote: post #121
natch wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get a Bolt for around $11k after incentives. OK the incentives part is a wrench in the equation to be sure, so it may be hard to answer my question… Are you saying hybrids cost less than that?

Where are the incentives taking the price of a Bolt that low? My LEAF just turned 7 and I'd probably buy a Bolt immediately if I could get one in the $11K range. (The LEAF has been great all around, but only being able to count on 75 miles is annoying from time to time.)

I'd like to know this too -- have had my eye on the Bolt for some time.

The 2022 Bolt base price is $31k and it is no longer eligible for federal tax credits. In my state, EVs are partially exempt from state sales tax, but that just means the total price is something like $32k including tax (instead of $33.5k).

If Build Back Better passed, the Bolt would be eligible for a $12.5k federal credit, so I'd be looking at $19.5k. But that bill is stalled and the Bolt isn't even available to buy new right now -- GM halted manufacturing until at least February due to a battery defect.

It looks like a few states offer tax rebates of $3-5k, so that might get you close to $11k if you could get the dealer to knock a few thousand off MSRP, but I have no idea if that's realistic (and again, this assumes BBB or something similar passes).

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

#153

Post by hedgehog »

codazoda wrote: post #125
gpm wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plug in electric hybrids strike me as insanely complex machines compared to Ev's. It strikes me as highly unlikely that from an environmental standpoint our (societies) time is better spent building them, than it is spent increasing the rate at which we can build batteries.

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…

It doesn't work because of energy loss converting mechanical to electric and back is higher than mechanical transmission straight to the wheels. Honda does do something like what you describe at low speeds but the efficiency is not very good. Toyota and some other manufacturers use clever arrangements of planetary gears + motor/generator to keep the engine closer to optimal parameters independent of wheels. I'm not sure a modern hybrid system is more complex than a modern automatic transmission.

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

#154

Post by zbrozek »

chrisseaton wrote: post #132
philistine wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever driven a plug-in Prius (the Prius Prime here in Québec)? It's got wonderful acceleration when using the all-electric mode.

What opportunity do you have for dramatic acceleration driving legally on a public road? 0-60 in 3s vs 20s how much time can that really add up to shaving off your drive?

I borrowed (actually traded; swapping with my truck) a ~2016 Prius for a month and hated driving it.

Merging is slow; I ended up flooring it and only reaching ~50 mph by the end of the onramp. Bay area ramps are, however, very short. Try the SB 101 Rengstorff ramp in Mountain View, it's horrible. In fact, that very ramp is why I replaced my 2002 Saturn LW200 with a 2010 BMW 135i in 2012.

The Prius also can't maintain speed up hills. I would engage cruise control and find myself dramatically slowing down on any uphill segment. By contrast none of my cars have this problem - the 2010 BMW 135i, the 2022 Chevrolet Bolt, and the 2000 Chevrolet Silverado all do just fine. Of the three, the Bolt is my favorite to drive.

That is, of course, not an indictment of PHEVs in general, just the Prius in particular. It's under-powered for unremarkable basic driving. Hopefully the Prime and other models newer than what I drove are better.

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

#155

Post by KennyBlanken »

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…

I live in a rural area and 31 miles of range is enough to drive into the largest town where everything is, and back again, without the ICE coming on.

That's not a "joke."

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

#156

Post by Retric »

zeckalpha wrote: post #145
Retric wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Plug in hybrids need to haul around an engine, gas tank, transmission, exhaust system etc. They also need extra batteries over a standard hybrid.

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

#157

Post by Retric »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #143
Retric wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

10kWh LFP’s don’t last the lifetime of the average plug in hybrid due to regenerative breaking adding a lot of charge cycles when total battery capacity is that low.

30m/s to 0 on a 2000kg vehicle = 900000 J or 0.25kWh, on a at best 10kWh battery adds up.

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

#158

Post by KennyBlanken »

H8crilA wrote: post #89
toomuchtodo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not how it works. If the price of coal goes up, other generation technologies outcompete it (renewables and natural gas). By disrupting the fossil fuel supply chain, you apply pressure to the point where coal generators are taken offline and demolished (lots of videos if you Google for coal plant demolition). This ensures you can’t go back, as the lead time is too long to build new coal and no one will finance…

FYI, coal is still absolutely huge: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_supply_and_cons... Don't get fooled by stats from rich countries as those countries "cheat" by importing goods and materials with large entry footprints embedded into them.

In the US coal has dropped from 30% of our electricity generation to 10% in barely a few years. Coal plants around the country are shutting down because of how expensive coal is compared to wind and solar. Meanwhile we had nearly 20GW of grid-scale solar and wind added in one year, and that doesn't count small installations like residential rooftop systems.

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

#159

Post by mattlondon »

tw04 wrote: post #130
mattlondon wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many I've seen in Europe are pretty fast - Merc 350e for example has 0-62mph of 5.9s and top speed of 155mph. BMW 330e is 6.1s and 140mph. Granted some are slower, but no one ever bought a brand like Toyota etc expecting high-performance, so it is not surprising if they are slower (FWIW my Toyota non-plugin hybrid is actually pretty fast from a standstill, but won't win any races beyond 20mph) 6s to 62mph is pretty n…

A model 3 performance does 0-60 in 3.2 seconds with some guys going faster on a track with sticky tires. Someone looking at a Benz (at least in the US) isn’t buying the base model 3. The Benz starts at $54k in the US, that’s definitely model 3 performance territory.

In the UK, a Tesla 3 performance is £60k. A base Tesla 3 is about £43k. An equivalent Merc 300e is £45k.

Base Tesla 3 and base 300e appear to be mostly the same price and mostly same 0-62 performance at 5.8s and 6.1s.

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

#160

Post by mattlondon »

pandaman wrote: post #133
zenexer wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been driving Priuses for a good chunk of my life now, and there’s really no way I could safely max out their acceleration while merging. Typically the right-lane traffic on highways here flows at 75 MPH when there isn’t much congestion. Why would you benefit from greater acceleration? It makes very little sense from my perspective. What am I going to do, cut someone off? Floor it and merge with no consideratio…

You don't have metered on-ramps? These are ones with a traffic light at the start where one has to come to stop at the light and then accelerate to match your speed with the traffic.

Very rare in UK at least .. and the few that exist are only active when traffic is at a near standstill.
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