Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Electric Car

blog.geoffralston.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 349 posts

Re: The Electric Car

#191

Post by D_Alex »

RedCrowbar wrote: post #70
callesgg wrote: post #50

A big problem is that battery's require lithium, which is quite rare(not supper rare but still rare enough for it to be a problem). My prediction is that sales if electric cars wont become exponential until we get cheaper and greener battery technology.

That lithium is rare is a common misconception. It is actually one of the more abundant elements on Earth, especially in seawater [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium#Terrestrial

Also, the on-land lithium deposits considered commercial already have enough lithium to make every car in the world electric, plus provide battery storage (like tesla power wall) for every home in the world. See:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/m4r/stupid_questions_may_2015/cbjf

Re: The Electric Car

#192

Post by adevine »

JimboOmega wrote: post #93
greglindahl wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For refill time, note that most electric car owners do almost all of their charging in their own garages overnight... not something that's common for gas-powered cars. Long trips are worse for electric cars, sure. But day-to-day driving? Charging is not an issue if you can charge in your garage.

For those of us who live in apartment buildings and don't have a garage where we can install such things, then what? To me this has always been the biggest obstacle of an electric car.

As electric cars become more and more popular, more and more apartment buildings will start offering charging stations. My condo building added them about 2 years ago.

Re: The Electric Car

#193

Post by nulltype »

jtokoph wrote: post #8
toomuchtodo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The truth is we're really not that close to fully-autonomous cars. Google cars are pretty damn close to level 4 autonomous vehicles. They've driven more than a million miles fully autonomously, and Google runs their self-driving vehicle algorithms against simulated virtual worlds constantly (with data previously collected from their self driving cars). We are so much closer to fully autonomous cars than people thin…

I've always thought that the Google cars have driven 95%+ of their miles in Mountain View, CA where every single aspect of the roads have been digitized, tested and tweaked a million times over. If you stuck one of these cars in a brand new city, it wouldn't work nearly as well.

I watched one of these a few days ago get stuck at a 4 way stop near Castro St. I think the human driver had to take over.

Re: The Electric Car

#194

Post by sosuke »

greglindahl wrote: post #141
mahyarm wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you own a single family home, then electric cars are ok. If you live in a multiunit, rent, do not have a garage or similar, then charging at home is not practical.

Well, you just responded to a Tesla owner who rents in a multi-unit apartment. I charge, overnight once per week, in a city garage 1 block away. I didn't say it was easy or common, but that it's possible and getting more common. (And if I ever get short, there's a new supercharger in Mountain View.) Palo Alto's new law mandating chargers in new construction just recently passed; in a few years it will begin to take e…

I want a Tesla, but you are far and away more dedicated to the idea that I am.

Re: The Electric Car

#195

Post by nnethercote »

harshaw wrote: post #165

I wish people would be slightly more honest about technological change. Smartphones are very special. They are very cheap, easy to mass produce, and you can iterate on them very quickly. Cars on the other hand have a much longer life cycle, involve much more capital, and in general are going to follow an elongated investment / replacement cycle. Comparing these two systems, while enthusiastic and great for a college…

Indeed, the fact that phone contracts effectively force most people to upgrade every two years is an unusual, important, and often-overlooked characteristic of the smartphone market.

It's a big part of why Apple makes such incredible amounts of money from iPhones, but their iPad revenue has dropped off significant.

Re: The Electric Car

#196

Post by justin66 »

reedlaw wrote: post #156

I can't believe he's comparing a $70,000 electric car to a huge bucket labeled "old-fashioned gasoline cars". Of course the $70,000 car is better in almost every way. I've driven a lot of electric cars in the $5,000 to $10,000 range and I assure you they are not better than "old-fashioned gasoline cars". Our last gas-powered car was a used Lexus that cost us $8,000. It's an extremely comfortable luxury car that seats…

Bumper cars at an amusement park?

Re: The Electric Car

#197

Post by Qwertious »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #5
danhak wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The truth is we're really not that close to fully-autonomous cars. Even Elon Musk's most ambitious projections for "autopilot" are a car that can drive itself 90 - 95% of the time but will require an alert, licensed driver to take over if necessary. Secondly, I don't feel that the possible rise of truly autonomous vehicles (if that even occurs within the next ten years) affects the main point of this article. In fact…

> The truth is we're really not that close to fully-autonomous cars. Google cars are pretty damn close to level 4 autonomous vehicles. They've driven more than a million miles fully autonomously, and Google runs their self-driving vehicle algorithms against simulated virtual worlds constantly (with data previously collected from their self driving cars). We are so much closer to fully autonomous cars than people thin…

Do they drive properly in rain/fog yet? IIRC they can't drive in rain, which is a hell of a limitation.

Re: The Electric Car

#198

Post by brc »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #151
higherpurpose wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not quite true. In 2007 you would see 90% of the Internet comments talk about how feature-less an iPhone was compared to the Nokia N95 (or whatever was its Nokia competitor at the time). In fact there were some memes comparing the iPhone with a rock . The original iPhone didn't have video recording, had only 2G support (Nokias supported 3G for a while), didn't support MMS, and it didn't even have apps! And of…

Maximum torque will get you home faster by... 1%? You still can't fly in residential areas at 160MPH. Whereas big capacitive touchscreen allowed to read text at least twice as fast. And you can actually manipulate websites UI. That's entirely new enabler. Electric car does not enable you to sleep in it or grow potatoes. It's a great car, but still a car.

one-pedal responsive operation is a win in the same way multi-touch is a win. It doesn't sound like a big deal,but once you get used to it, everything else seems dated.

Operating multiple pedals to operate a vehicle is a leftover from crude technology. Sure, some people like it that way (a set that includes me). But for most people, once they get used to push pedal a bit to go slow, a lot to go fast, let go to stop - they will love it because it makes more sense.

To operate a internal combustion/geared car, you have to modulate the pedal to match the acceleration rate and gears. Max pedal pressure to start, lightening off, re-pressing when gears go up etc. It's normal because it's what we're used to.

Single gear, peak torque engines are much more intuitive to drive. That's why toddler can handle electric toy cars so easily.

Re: The Electric Car

#199

Post by Qwertious »

jannotti wrote: post #179
philwelch wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are still disincentivized from soiling taxis by the presence of the driver. Though at the very least, you'll have to have a membership/accountability system in place, and that becomes harder and harder as you scale.

Cars can drive autonomously, but they can't sense a spill?

Person has a drink inside their bag, no tech that let's the car see through solid objects, it doesn't even know the drink is there.

That's unusual, butnot even the only problem. Someone needs to write something to recognise a liquid container. Not just the one, but all of them, some of which it's never seen before. Not simple.

Re: The Electric Car

#200

Post by brc »

beambot wrote: post #64
hackuser wrote: post #20

The real story my be that car sales may decline, gas or electric: * People drive less; I saw a study showing that significantly fewer millenials are licensed to drive than their predecessors. * More people live in cities, where the cost of cars is higher (insurance and parking) and the demand for them is less due to the proximity of destinations and the availability of alternatives (public transport, taxis, ride-shar…

Another driver for fewer car sales: More ride-sharing and taxi (Uber) services obviating the need to purchase individual vehicles which see sub-5% utilization. This is good for the environment too.... IIRC, the embodied cost to fabricate a vehicle represents something like 30% of its net carbon cost. This is pretty significant when you consider the very low utilization rate for a capital asset.

This factor is often overstated - for a few reasons.

Passenger miles are likely to go up, if anything, even if because more vacant miles are being driven to collect people, and also because making a service cheaper leads to higher consumption of that service.

Passenger miles are what causes car sales - cars wear out. For cars which produce revenue then there comes a point where it's more economical to purchase a new one than to attend to medium-difficulty repairs.

So I'm not convinced ride sharing or automated vehicles will lead to fewer cars sold. If anything I would say it has the potential to increase the number of cars sold.

Post reply on HN