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What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

nytimes.com

21–30 of 460 posts

Re: What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

#21

Hopefully they never take over the world, and we can stop this car nonsense. Having over a million extra people not killed by cars would be nice.

I concur, the push for mass adoption when the tech behind the electric cars are in such an infant stage makes me nervous. On top of that it won't be any better for the environment in countries which still have majorly coal-based power plants.

Re: What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

#22
post #3

> Price of an electric car powertrain: $16,000 > Price of a conventional car powertrain: $6,000 Can anyone provide a better source for this? This is exactly the opposite of what I expected. I thought electric powertrains had far fewer (in the hundreds, even) moving parts? Edit: Coffee hasn't kicked in yet. As user analognoise points out, this is literally answered by the sentence that follows the above: How soon that…

Almost all of that is the battery. Even though batteries are coming down in price, they are still very expensive. For example GM’s list price for the Bolt battery is $15,734. Now this is the replacement cost Bolt owners pay for a new battery not the actual cost, but it gives an indication of their cost. https://electrek.co/2017/06/12/gm-bolt-ev-battery-pack-price...

How much power does the electric motor need?

-edit- found it https://www.quora.com/How-much-power-is-required-by-the-moto...

80kw to accelerate and 1 kw to maintain.

-edit 2- how come no ones put 3 solar panels on top of an EV? Three of the following could output 1 kw and fit in the space available.

http://www.solarwholesale.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Sil...

Seems like an obvious for electric semis where there’s often plenty of sun (aka an ever increasing portion of the US)

Re: What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

#23
post #17
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not the Lithium that is a problem. Its the Colbolt-59 that's next to it. A typical Tesla has about 15 pounds of Colbolt-59. If a small tactical weapon would be used near the location of a single parked Tesla, the Colbolt-59 will transmute to Colbolt-60, the deadlist substance known to earth. 15 pounds of Colbolt-60 is enough to kill 24 million people. Imagine a parking lot of them. 4 tons of it is enough to annih…

>If a small tactical weapon would be used near the location of a single parked Tesla, the Colbolt-59 will transmute to Colbolt-60. Source?

This is probably based on the idea of Cobalt bombs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt_bomb) intended to make areas uninhabitable due to radiation. But in that case the Cobalt 59 is placed directly around the nuclear bomb, and spread across the area by the explosion.

It doesn't seem plausible to me that this would be a real danger. If I'm close enough to a nuclear explosion that can affect the Cobalt-59 in my car, I'm probably vaporized anyway.

Re: What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

#24
post #7

"CARMAKERS’ ANNUAL PROFIT: $400 billion" This seems hard to believe. Revenue, maybe?

"According to the consulting firm PwC, the global automotive industry generates about $400 billion a year in profits; about 41 percent of that — or about $164 billion — comes from new vehicle sales."

From another NYT article -- https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/22/business/automakers-prepa...

Re: What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

#25
post #7

"CARMAKERS’ ANNUAL PROFIT: $400 billion" This seems hard to believe. Revenue, maybe?

I doubt it's revenue. A little Googling leads to estimates of the total global number of new cars sold annually being between 75 million and 90 million. Divide 400 billion by the more conservative estimate and it still gives you a bit over $5k per vehicle, which seems way too low to be an average sales price. So revenue has to be quite a bit higher.

Also, Google lists the size of the US auto loan industry (i.e. money owed by buyers) as $1.1 trillion. Since auto loans average around 5 years, that would mean that the US alone spends at least $200 billion per year on automobiles (more probably, since that wouldn't count people who buy their cars outright or pay their loans off early), and we're nowhere near half the world market. IIRC, our auto market is only slightly larger than Europe's.

Re: What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

#26

Hopefully they never take over the world, and we can stop this car nonsense. Having over a million extra people not killed by cars would be nice.

The western market doesn't work like that. It's not a single budget controlled by a single entity, and as such it cannot shift focus in the way you are asking.

Once you realise this, you can see electric cars for what they are: An improvement to personal safety (not explosive, no human exposure to toxic fluids, bigger crumble zone).

Re: What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

#27
post #14

The lithium may not be that much of a problem if existing aged batteries can have the lithium in them recycled.

It was never a problem in the first place. There's more than enough lithium in seawater.

It is a problem for now because at 0.1ppm we are still years away from getting enough lithium out of the seawater/ocean.

Most lithium is 'mined' from salt (water) lakes by evaporation. Which is for now much easier and cheaper.

Re: What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

#28
post #14

The lithium may not be that much of a problem if existing aged batteries can have the lithium in them recycled.

It was never a problem in the first place. There's more than enough lithium in seawater.

How difficult is it to extract that Lithium? There are huge quantities of Gold and Uranium in sea water too, but it's too expensive to filter them out.

Re: What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

#29
post #18
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not the Lithium that is a problem. Its the Colbolt-59 that's next to it. A typical Tesla has about 15 pounds of Colbolt-59. If a small tactical weapon would be used near the location of a single parked Tesla, the Colbolt-59 will transmute to Colbolt-60, the deadlist substance known to earth. 15 pounds of Colbolt-60 is enough to kill 24 million people. Imagine a parking lot of them. 4 tons of it is enough to annih…

It's cobalt. Also, my physics is rusty but transmuting an isotope should involve a nuclear reaction.

Sorry, honest typo. Yes nuclear

Re: What Needs to Happen Before Electric Cars Take Over the World

#30
post #13

The lithium may not be that much of a problem if existing aged batteries can have the lithium in them recycled.

Its not the Lithium that is a problem. Its the Colbolt-59 that's next to it. A typical Tesla has about 15 pounds of Colbolt-59. If a small tactical weapon would be used near the location of a single parked Tesla, the Colbolt-59 will transmute to Colbolt-60, the deadlist substance known to earth. 15 pounds of Colbolt-60 is enough to kill 24 million people. Imagine a parking lot of them. 4 tons of it is enough to annih…

Sorry but polonium 210 trumps any cobalt isotope.
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