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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

#181

Post by numpad0 »

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…

> Why doesn’t this model work in cars and allow us to get rid of the transmission

Nissan e-Power system does exactly that, but requires full EV powertrain. Added cost. Also punishes transmission suppliers.

> Why wouldn’t a hybrid run the engine at exactly that RPM to generate the best charge?

Toyota THS system kind of does this. Output shaft is driven at a speed that is function of resistance and generator RPM and engine RPM thereby allowing RPM to stay in optimal-ish area.

The more I think about future drivetrains, the remarkable and more remarkable Prius starts to look for me - everyone hates hideous Toyota aesthetics and so do I, but Toyota hybrid system is rather ingenious and really something.

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

#182

Post by ypzhang2 »

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…

Panamera turbo s e-hybrid or the cayenne turbo s e-hybrid certainly doesn’t have “abysmal” performance

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

#183

Post by [deleted] »

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #65

This kind of strategy ignores second order effects. For example, by buying a gas guzzler and not using it much you might lower the emissions from that specific vehicle. But supply and demand rears its ugly head: you're contributing to the increase of similar gas guzzlers' value in the market, which means that other people are more likely to maintain those vehicles in working order and resell them, instead of scrappin…

[deleted]

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

#185

Post by ClumsyPilot »

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…

"To further develop the idea of letting EVs go to people who will drive them the most"

We have a name for them - Bus Drivers!

Why is all the discussion is focused on personal cars, they sit idle 90% of the time. First vehicles to go electric should be bussed, light delivery vans, taxis and all other service vehicles that are in motion over 10 hours a day, 365 days a week.

Today 95% of all electric busses are in China, because our leadership thinks that since we don't have a planned economy, no planning of any kind is needed at all.

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

#186

Post by AnthonyMouse »

lh7777 wrote: post #152
sokoloff wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 $…

> 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.

Not only that, a subsidy that large would dramatically increase short-term demand without meaningfully increasing short-term supply. So either they would raise the price or they'll be sold out before you can buy one, e.g. because they all went to the friends and associates of the dealers.

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

#187

Post by matthewdgreen »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #155
matthewdgreen wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

31 miles with a small/light/inexpensive battery and reasonably rapid charging would not be a joke, particularly if you also got some gas-only efficiency benefits. But the X5 has a relatively huge and heavy 24kWh battery pack - nearly 1/3 the size of a Model Y, a car that gets 10x the electric range. The result is a substantial cost increase over the gas-only X5, plus gas mileage that is actually worse. Moreover, the internal charger is so weak that you can’t add any substantial range by charging at your destination unless you occupy a charger all day long (the Model Y charges at up to 42 miles/hr on AC, the BMW will add maybe 4.)

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

#188

Post by alignItems »

nojs wrote: post #179

> Each new person who joins a queue goes to the front, standing immediately behind the person being served. This is, of course, an outrage against reason, intuition and natural justice. It is also highly efficient. If you’re next in line to be served, but someone shows up and shoehorns herself into position in front of you, you walk away. The line is only going to get longer, and you’re always going to be at the back…

I thought he was going to say that each new person goes in front of the person currently being served. This would motivate people to complete their orders as fast as possible.

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

#189

Post by Pxtl »

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…

Except that the kind of long distance drivers you suggest in the first paragraph would get minimal benefit from a PHEV, since it only covers the first 40km or thereabouts.

My wife and I only put like 10000km per year on our car, so I generally run down the battery fully on my PHEV and just touch a bit of the gas. That would barely make a dent in a multi-hour commuter's usage.

The hard part is the short-term solutions are unpalatable: pushing back hard on oversized vehicles that are wasteful of fuel and hazardous to people who choose small, efficient, green options.

A Hummer EV uses so much battery to build you could make three Nissan Leafs... but if you didn't make the Hummer EV, the driver would stick to a monstrous huge gas-burner.

So fundamentally, fighting climate change in a world without plentiful batteries demands strong disincentive to driving oversized vehicles.

Which is, of course, politically unpalatable because destroying the earth, obstructing visibility, and threatening your fellow drivers in a hypermassive oaf of a truck is freedom.

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

#190

Post by ClumsyPilot »

olivermarks wrote: post #126
DenseComet wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would expect that to be true. Not the best numbers, but Wikipedia puts coal power plants at 37% efficiency and combustion engines at 20-35%. This makes sense too, power plants have space, money, and an incentive to increase efficiency. And in reality, no power mix is 100% coal, increasing the overall efficiency to above 37%.

Electricity doesn't transport well over wire. iI don't think mass market BEVs are viable until battery technology significantly improves and small modular nuclear reactors can provide local clean power. https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Rolls-Royce-subm...

Does petrol just appear at the station ready for use? Less than half of crude oil makes it into your car.

It travels thousands of miles from the well to refinery, where a chunk of it is burnt to power fractional distillation and separate out Sulphur, impurities, bitumen, kerosene and other stuff that would ruin your car. It's burnt to power catalytic cracking, to convert heavier compounds into something combustion engines can burn. Obviously t is consumed in engines of trucks and ships to deliver it to a petrol station.

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