Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry • Hacker News Board

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#301

Post by todd8 » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 2:48 PM UTC

contras1970 wrote: post #138

not_kurt_godel wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is Australian public transit so much better than American public transit? I would guess it's because Australia is, like, 99% uninhabited and uninhabitable or borderline uninhabitable[1], which probably means they can focus resources almost exclusively on the few densely populated areas. Additionally Australia's urban population seems to be significantly higher than America's (~89% vs ~80% according to 5 seconds…

so USA has poorer public transport than Europe because the latter has much more uniform population distribution; USA also has poorer public transport than Australia because the latter has much more skewed population distribution. american exceptionalism at its finest. :)

Public transit matters where people live. Australia, quite clearly, can more easily focus on good transportation in the small percentage of its land mass where people live.

My state, about the same land area as France has a population density of 39/sq-km, right at the median value for the states. France has density of 122/sq-km. Population density is lower here, where people actually live, than in many locations in Europe or Australia. This may, in part, explain public transportation issues in the USA.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#302

Post by spodek » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 2:49 PM UTC

jernfrost wrote: post #283

spodek wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there must be some incentive My experience and observation say otherwise. I have no incentive not to litter when I know no one will fine me. Still I get up and walk trash to garbage cans. Even with all the litter around, most people still walk trash to garbage cans instead of littering. Most people don't shoplift even when they know they wouldn't get caught. Most people stop at red lights in the middle of the night…

Partly agree. It is fine when it puts low demands on you. It is much harder to get people to do the right thing when it is a significant burden. It is also a question of habit and social norms. A lot of what we claim is internal moral values, is really just social conformism. We don't throw garbage around and shop lift in large part because we don't want to be worse people than everybody else we know. We see this in…

> It is much harder to get people to do the right thing when it is a significant burden.

Beliefs like this are why I focus on leadership first. There are many examples where we choose difficult things because of the reward

- Sports and exercise

- Learning and personal growth

- Hobbies

- Writing free software

- Having children

- Going to the moon

Many other examples. They generally turn out to have other benefits, but they are challenges. Yet we love them.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#303

Post by janekm » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 2:49 PM UTC

stephengillie wrote: post #177

janekm wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, BYD has a factory with a capacity for 1500 electric buses per year opened in California last year: http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-10/07/c_136662718.htm So I imagine the majority of their buses sold in the US in the near future will be built there. Of course that's a small proportion of the number of buses they sell in China...

That's some good capacity, comparable to the Tesla model 3. What's their secret to success?

Well, to be fair that's the theoretical capacity. But if I'm being snarky, BYD considers employing American workers a feature (helps selling buses to the state), while Elon considers it a bug.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#304

Post by tyu100 » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 2:50 PM UTC

danans wrote: post #21

It's a strange shift in affairs that China appears to have the greatest incentives (urban pollution, petroleum imports) today to advance clean transportation and energy while the US has stalled or moved backward, at least the Federal level. Western European countries, for whom fossil fuels don't seem to be an identity politics issue like in the US, are also making more progress in electrifying their transportation an…

What are you basing this on? Europe just signed up to complete the massive Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to keep on getting natural gas from the worst state actor in the entire world while cutting out any leverage their most vulnerable EU partner states had over Putin.

In addition, Germany, in particular, repeatedly shielded and promoted disastrous diesel fuel to give their large automakers a boost in the market. Not only was diesel over electric a terrible idea for carbon emissions but a huge environmental disaster for micro-particulate emissions that cause so many health problems in large urban areas.

Finally, we also have, once again, mostly Germany, phasing out carbon-free nuclear in favour of building new coal plants to give cheap energy to their heavy industries.

Europe is great at promoting its green image to its credulous fans but the reality is a lot more mixed.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#305

Post by hghar » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 3:15 PM UTC

China is definitely going on the right direction, I live in Bogotá Colombia and according to the mayor of Bogotá, the benefit of electric buses are comparable to buses fueled by natural gas, which I think is not that accurate. Despite the new trending worldwide of adopting electric buses, we are not getting them in the near future part of it are political reasons because the cost of an electrical bus is about the same than a diesel bus as far as I know.

Hopefully, this changes in the near future and the government get serious about going green on the public transportation.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#306

Post by _bxg1 » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 3:15 PM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #42

_bxg1 wrote: post #15

Worried as I am about China's authoritarian practices and their growing influence, they sure are effective at solving environmental problems.

You may have missed this point in TFA; “China is ahead on electrifying its fleet because it has the world’s worst pollution problem. With a growing urban population and galloping energy demand, the nation’s legendary smogs were responsible for 1.6 million extra deaths in 2015, according to non-profit Berkeley Earth.” It’s great to celebrate progress, but don’t fall for the spin. A study published in Nature [1] found…

I'm not saying they have fewer environmental problems, I'm saying that when they decide to solve one they're able to just go all-in and get it done.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#307

Post by rsynnott » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 3:55 PM UTC

freddie_mercury wrote: post #273

rsynnott wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One issue here, though, is that US urbanisation is _weird_. A lot of that 'urbanisation' is vast suburbs of detached houses; it's not very dense at all.

It is exactly the same in other countries. Unless you have some data to prove otherwise?

New detached houses have become quite rare here in Ireland, except as rural one-offs; most new suburban houses would be semi-detached (duplex in US terminology, I think; duplex means something else here, just to confuse the issue) or terraced (townhouse in US terminology, I think?), interspersed with mid-rise (~6 story) apartment blocks. They'd also be much smaller; average size of a new home here is ~100sqm, vs 250sqm in the US. Same goes for the UK, only moreso (average size of a home is a bit smaller there).

All of this obviously leads to much higher density. Planning rules effectively ban detached houses in many suburbs, as a minimum density is enforced. The higher density you have, the more effective public transport systems are.

Suburban apartment blocks also seem to be somewhat rarer in the US.

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#308

Post by tankenmate » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 4:05 PM UTC

c12 wrote: post #188

scottdupoy wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Norway seems to be progressive and open-minded about this kind of thing. They have a massive sovereign wealth fund which has built up on the back of a successful national oil industry. However, last year they announced their intention to divest from oil and gas stocks. Whether or not this is to try and make the fund more environmentally and socially responsible, or if they genuinely believe that these are poor invest…

Don't they have some requirement by law to always look to the next 50 years or something rather than the usual politician outlook of "however long I am in office for, to benefit me the most." I would imagine over the next 50 years oil and gas is going to be a worst investment than renewable simply because by then it will have largely run out? Then again when companies such as BP are increasing their investments into…

The sovereign wealth fund has a full time philosopher on it's staff; policy decisions are required to have an active input from said philosopher around a number of issues, in particular ethics.[0]

[0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB113340298608010935

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#309

Post by vel0city » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 4:18 PM UTC

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #212

friendzis wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While these are personal choices, there must be some incentive. If increased electricity bill from abusing "Air conditioning to point of needing sweaters in the summer and heating to wearing shorts in the winter" compared to conservative temperatures boils down to single digit percentage values (as non-USian I don't know what those values are) of all annual home upkeep expenses, it is difficult to rationalize saving.

And somewhat useless. Changing the temperature from 72 to 75 in my well-insulated house does take off a few kWh. But it seems a bit meaningless when the shop down the road is trying to get more people to come in by setting their thermostat at a chilly 65 and leaving the door open all day. Likewise in spending thousands to upgrade from an average 25 mpg car to a 35+ mpg car, only to drive down the road alongside coal-…

> Likewise in spending thousands to upgrade from an average 25 mpg car to a 35+ mpg car

I'm really curious about this as well. I drive an old Honda Accord that gets ~22-26mpg. In Texas I can choose to only purchase renewable energy, but how much environmental impact will be had from my purchase from an electric car compared to keeping this nearly two-decade-old car running? What is the point where this car is better left as recycled metal vs. keeping it running?

Re: Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry

#310

Post by dver » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 4:49 PM UTC

icc97 wrote: post #184

dver wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might be better on the bottom. See this rollover during testing. https://insideevs.com/four-injured-electric-bus-rollover-inc... Disclosure< I work for Proterra and our packs are on the bottom.

Bottom seems like the natural place. Can I ask you how you solve the problem mentioned in the article of excess axel weight? > Mr. Stoddart continued: “Provisions for rooftop battery packs are common across all North American and international bus manufacturers. In fact, heavy-duty transit buses built by other manufacturers with batteries located only under the floor (between the axles) have recently been tested at t…

I went to the test doc at: http://altoonabustest.psu.edu/buses/reports/480.pdf?15190591...

The relevant quote there is:

The interior of the bus is configured with seating for 39 passengers including the driver. Eight seats fold away for 2 wheelchair positions. The manufacturer passenger placard indicates that the test bus can accommodate 42 standing passengers. At 150 lbs per person, this load results in a measured gross vehicle weight of 43,540 lbs which exceeds the gross vehicle weight rating of 42,000 lbs by 1,540 lbs or approximately 10 people. At this load, the front gross axle weight rating is also exceeded. All testing performed under this partial test was performed at a seated load weight of 37,230 lbs.

My read from that is total weight, and only about loading to highest placarded passenger count, which using the govt. weight would overload the axle.

I didn't see anything that would change based on weight location or CG.

As with every EV vehicle it's about weight reduction while maintaining structure and safety margins.