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

California Has a Plan to End the Auto Industry as We Know It

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 218 posts

Re: California Has a Plan to End the Auto Industry as We Know It

#101

Post by gertef »

msandford wrote: post #92
tdaltonc wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How big is that fixed cost in proportion to the fuel energy? Also, how much energy does it take to make a combustion engine?

It's not really a fixed cost. Batteries aren't good for forever. They have a limited lifespan. An electric car could be thought of as a gas car with a very, very large, magical fuel tank. If a battery costs $20k (like a Tesla) and I spend $200/mo on gasoline then that's 100 months (simple interest) or about 8 years, before we even talk about the cost of the car or the cost of the electricity. I know that this doesn't…

> If a battery costs $20k (like a Tesla)

That's not nearly the asymptotic price, though. Tech is still developing.

Re: California Has a Plan to End the Auto Industry as We Know It

#102

Post by msandford »

aianus wrote: post #96
msandford wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really a fixed cost. Batteries aren't good for forever. They have a limited lifespan. An electric car could be thought of as a gas car with a very, very large, magical fuel tank. If a battery costs $20k (like a Tesla) and I spend $200/mo on gasoline then that's 100 months (simple interest) or about 8 years, before we even talk about the cost of the car or the cost of the electricity. I know that this doesn't…

That economic analysis is flawed because you're ignoring the externalities of burning gasoline (health costs, climate change). Only if there were high enough taxes on gasoline to mitigate those effects, then you could accurately do that sort of dollar-cost analysis.

Sure but then every analysis is flawed because everything has some kind of externality that's hard to measure and account for.

How much fuel is burned to make the cells? How much pollution happens to mine the rare earths for the cells and the motors? It's super easy to poke holes in both sides of the argument because building a car is so damn complicated whether it's an ICE or electric.

Re: California Has a Plan to End the Auto Industry as We Know It

#103

Post by gertef »

DannyBee wrote: post #32

California also has the worst electrical infrastructure in the nation, and is not doing something like "requiring the EV people who will stress it" to pay a tax for improvements, or if they wanted to be punitive, a tax on gas cars to pay for it, or anything other than saying what a great idea this would be and pushing for it on the environmental side. Given that converting all cars in CA to electric would seriously s…

Cars charge overnight, which is a trough in electric demand. power plants prefer even loads. So car charging loads would be much less stressful than, say, growing population 10% and increasing peak demand.

Re: California Has a Plan to End the Auto Industry as We Know It

#104

Post by gertef »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #68

That she pushes hydrogen so much is disturbing to me. The source we need will either be water or polluting processes. Water is something we should be protecting and conserving with battles going on for it all over. Definitely don't need to be putting Niagara Falls worth of it into cars. The alternative is commercial production which is anything but ecofriendly. That it contains less energy than gasoline for same volu…

Does water-powered hydrogren power consume freshwater? If you can get it the input from ocean, there is no scarcity problem.

Re: California Has a Plan to End the Auto Industry as We Know It

#105

Post by Animats »

The California Air Resources Board and the EPA have achieved quite a lot. Los Angeles air was barely breathable in the 1970s. Now, there's very little smog. Look at 1960s pictures of Los Angeles, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, New York. That was once considered impossible. Now, it's mostly done.

The only thing keeping electric cars from taking over is battery cost. Performance and range have already been fixed. Once battery cost is solved, and it looks like it's going to be, electric cars will start to take over. At some point, there will be a tipping point, as gas stations start to close.

Re: California Has a Plan to End the Auto Industry as We Know It

#106

Post by Steko »

stickfigure wrote: post #30

I don't get it. Mandating that auto manufacturers sell a certain percentage of electric vehicles seems a bit like legislating the weather. If CA really wants to push people into electric vehicles, why not manipulate the demand for electric vehicles? Perhaps add another dollar or two to the gasoline tax?

Tax increase requires supermajority in CA.

Re: California Has a Plan to End the Auto Industry as We Know It

#107

Post by [deleted] »

gertef wrote: post #97
knorby wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing here, but since fleet fuel efficiency standards have been around for awhile, making cars like hybrids attractive to sell, extending that concept is natural. I would love to buy an EV right now, but charging it really wouldn't be practical for me given where I live, so it isn't really a practical option, but I believe that could change in the future. As bad as gas prices could get, it still takes some inc…

CAFE is a farce, as it it forces manufacturers to design and build cars that no one buys . It's the wrong metric. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Average_Fuel_Economy... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Average_Fuel_Economy > The CAFE achieved by a given fleet of vehicles in a given model year is the production-weighted harmonic mean fuel economy, expressed in miles per U.S. gallon (mpg), of a manufa…

[deleted]

Re: California Has a Plan to End the Auto Industry as We Know It

#108

Post by cpprototypes »

danielweber wrote: post #28

What is the comparison between using energy to generate liquid fuels from atmospheric CO2 (which would be carbon neutral) and trying to electrify the entire transportation sector? Those Los Alamos guys [1] said in 2007 they could get it down to $3.40 a gallon. Okay, maybe they were wrong and/or optimistic. But, still, there is some price point at which it is break-even. What is it? Five dollars? Ten? The advantages o…

An interesting idea related to this: Would high income people pay extra to buy gas from a carbon-neutral gas station? It could be designed and marketed as an environmental/elite gas station (something much better than the usual mini-mart).

Re: California Has a Plan to End the Auto Industry as We Know It

#109

Post by jksmith »

marcosdumay wrote: post #44
danielweber wrote: post #28

What is the comparison between using energy to generate liquid fuels from atmospheric CO2 (which would be carbon neutral) and trying to electrify the entire transportation sector? Those Los Alamos guys [1] said in 2007 they could get it down to $3.40 a gallon. Okay, maybe they were wrong and/or optimistic. But, still, there is some price point at which it is break-even. What is it? Five dollars? Ten? The advantages o…

Where's the electricity coming from? If your answer is natural gas, or oil powered generators, then no, there isn't a price point where it will break even. Now if you can answer that question with nuclear reactors or renewables of any kind, then your logic probably applies. Yet, I doubt it will ever be the main fuel powering our transportation.

The back story for electricity is peer grid and arbitrage techniques. Power grid should be just like the internet - every endpoint can produce as well as consume services. Would this allow for grid defection? Don't know, but it will radically change the model for energy economics for sure.
Post reply on HN