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

Adoption of EVs tied to real-world reductions in air pollution: study

keck.usc.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

601–610 of 661 posts

Re: Adoption of EVs tied to real-world reductions in air pollution: study

#601

Post by fwip »

margalabargala wrote: post #430
stephen_g wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That literally makes no sense. There’s a point on the accelerator pedal curve where you are coasting (between it applying power or applying regen), you get used to staying around that position pretty quickly because you stop short of where you are aiming to stop otherwise. You basically only back off past that point and into regen when you would be braking in an ICE car, so there is really no difference.

Yes, you learn to stay around that point. You don't stay at the zero point. It's an impossibly small target. This is not news to anyone who drives an EV and keeps an eye on the readout showing current power usage/regen.

I don't think it's impossibly small. Maybe it depends on your software - you don't need to have a completely linear response across the full range of the pedal.

Re: Adoption of EVs tied to real-world reductions in air pollution: study

#602

Post by PlunderBunny »

ponector wrote: post #573
vel0city wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Old ICE cars are also usually dead when major drivetrain parts fail after a decade and a half.

For old ice car the solution often is to swap with used parts from wrecked vehicles. Not suitable for batteries.

We had a 2010 Ford Transit van (diesel) and after 189000km, we sold it because the parts were becoming too hard to source (disclaimer: in New Zealand).

Re: Adoption of EVs tied to real-world reductions in air pollution: study

#603

Post by anamax »

Analemma_ wrote: post #522
HPsquared wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could see a single "bad" ICE car being the equivalent of 100 "good" ICE cars. Even the VW emissions scandal (where the cars were still functioning as designed, just not as well as they should) had instances where pollutants were 35x higher than they should be. So I could see an emissions deleted diesel (of which there are many, i.e. catalytic converter and DPF removed) could easily have more than 100x the usual emi…

I don’t have hard numbers on this, but I once read a claims that the lawnmowers and weed-whackers in California with their two-stroke engines are responsible for more nitrate and particulate emissions than all the cars and trucks in the state put together, even though by fuel burned the latter outnumbers the former by orders of magnitude. I could totally see a malfunctioning four-stroke ICE with dirty burns being wor…

> the lawnmowers and weed-whackers in California with their two-stroke engines

What's the intended precedence in that sentence?

I ask because I've never seen a lawnmower (in the US) with a two-stroke engine. There are probably some, but they're not common.

Re: Adoption of EVs tied to real-world reductions in air pollution: study

#604

Post by Braxton1980 »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #495
drzaiusx11 wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never got the "blue" and "white" thing. Both look "white" to me, but you're right about subarus also leaking coolant in the exhaust which is easily identified by a "sweet" smell. Blown gaskets on ICE engines like E25s leak both oil AND coolant, no? I might be mixing up blown heads with cracked manifolds which often go hand in hand since temp extremes in engines fissure cast parts like the manifold. Either way the e…

You've never see an old vehicle blow a substantially "bluer than normal" cloud. That's what I'm talking about. > Blown gaskets on ICE engines like E25s leak both oil AND coolant, no? This is way, way too broad of a statement. The Subaru EJ25 tends to leak oil externally from the valve covers. When they have head gasket problems it tends to be combustion gas into coolant which blows the coolant out the expansion tank…

So I was going to reply to mention that all VWs sold in the US at least for the last 10 years use an iron block. I wanted to know if the EA888 (VWs go to 4 cylinder engine) was cast so I asked chatgpt.

"No — the VW EA888 Gen 3 engine block is not cast iron in the latest versions. engines.... use an aluminum alloy block, not traditional cast iron."

So I know for sure it's iron so I said "Are you sure it's an aluminum block on the gen 3"

"No — the VW/Audi EA888 Gen 3 engine does not have an aluminum block"

Re: Adoption of EVs tied to real-world reductions in air pollution: study

#605

Post by deaux »

catketch wrote: post #492
IngvarLynn wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for EVs, but half of PM10 pollution is independent of engine type as it comes from brake and tire wear: http://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JR... So direct environment impact is still huge for EVs and calling them ZEV is literally a scam.

scam is a bit of hyperbole. also, ZEV has always explicitly referenced tailpipe emissions, which is also why there's been the odd sounding "partial zero emissions vehicle" category. It's certainly valid to be concerned about additional sources of fine particles, but eliminating engine emissions is not something to be dismissed as a scam. Further, particle emission from brake dust is mitigated in EV's that use regen b…

> tire particles --- different compounds can effect that, but will always be a side effect of tires on vehicles.

There's vehicles like trains, subways and bycicles, responsible for transporting hundreds of at least a billion people per day, which don't use tires whose particles are the biggest source of microplastics.

Re: Adoption of EVs tied to real-world reductions in air pollution: study

#606

Post by deaux »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #576
ErroneousBosh wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The petrol in the tank will boil quickly and blow the tank apart, especially if it's already a bit melty. You won't get enough pressure for a proper "BLEVE" because the leaky plastic bucket won't hold enough pressure to stop it beginning to boil, but it'll throw burning fuel all over. An automotive LPG tank is a bit different to the kind of thing you'd run your barbecue off with a "multivalve" that's got a float to s…

That ... still sounds more dangerous than liquid gasoline to me. Though I suppose if it were cheaper and as plentiful then the world would switch. Gasoline was after all a byproduct of kerosine processing.

It's just not dangerous, period. There are multiple countries where every single taxi in the country pre-EVs ran on LPG, and now most of them still do though some get replaced by EVs. Ask anyone from there if they've ever heard of them blowing up. You'll get nothing but a "huh, what are you talking about?".

Re: Adoption of EVs tied to real-world reductions in air pollution: study

#607

Post by deaux »

nomilk wrote: post #221

Anyone know how far off economical EV motorcycles are? They'll be game-changers for many south east asian cities where traffic is 90% motorcycles, which seem to pollute as much (/more ?) than cars.

? They're already here. Seeing more and more delivery drivers zooming around on them, especially since a year or so ago. And they're not choosing them for ethical reasons, I can tell you that much.

Re: Adoption of EVs tied to real-world reductions in air pollution: study

#608

Post by drzaiusx11 »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #495
drzaiusx11 wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never got the "blue" and "white" thing. Both look "white" to me, but you're right about subarus also leaking coolant in the exhaust which is easily identified by a "sweet" smell. Blown gaskets on ICE engines like E25s leak both oil AND coolant, no? I might be mixing up blown heads with cracked manifolds which often go hand in hand since temp extremes in engines fissure cast parts like the manifold. Either way the e…

You've never see an old vehicle blow a substantially "bluer than normal" cloud. That's what I'm talking about. > Blown gaskets on ICE engines like E25s leak both oil AND coolant, no? This is way, way too broad of a statement. The Subaru EJ25 tends to leak oil externally from the valve covers. When they have head gasket problems it tends to be combustion gas into coolant which blows the coolant out the expansion tank…

My experience is limited to cars manufactured before 2008 (back to 1928). Maybe the new ones are all welded cold rolled steel tubes but I've only seen cast parts for intake and exhaust manifolds, nearly universally. Shit cracked all the time.

Re: Adoption of EVs tied to real-world reductions in air pollution: study

#609

Post by somerandomqaguy »

dangus wrote: post #393
somerandomqaguy wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd call the that country that adopted EV's first and gasoline second... extinct after WW2. If nothing because the country wouldn't be able to launch an airforce to counter the bombers hitting your power plants. If not that then there's the constant contention of having to pull power lines forward and leaving them vulnerable to artillery fire while the petrol tank hit and run with impunity. Plus now you have problems…

I didn’t say EVs would be used for military vehicles. It’s more like a scenario where 80% are buying EVs and 20% are buying ICE. Again the hypothetical was modern EVs with modern infrastructure. And this hypothetical isn’t that crazy. Many Chinese car buyers’ first vehicles are electric, and many of those people buying cars are quite used to electric scooters as their transportation method. Speaking of wars, how many…

>Really step back and imagine a world where the modern EV [1] was first to market and a gasoline combustion engine was second.

.... you worded that extremely poorly. Being first to market is completely different then someone's personal first experience. Between that first sentence and the follow post, it's like reading the question what if the smartphone came out before the electric telegraph.

If you're trying to say like a future time when we've got fast chargers everwhere with no need for an app, and at home charging is common which makes BEV's 80% of the market? Sure that makes sense. Probably it's going reality by 2040 or so.

But for me right now, as is, I'd probably still sticking to ICE, or MHEV engines for a while. No easy access to home charging, and I don't have data on my phone which makes fast charging way more complicated. And I don't drive enough KM in a year to make break even point in costs reasonable.

And I've test driven BEVs and I could afford to buy a BEV. The advantages don't outweigh the drawbacks in my situation at least, and there wasn't enough there for me to want to just put objectivity aside.

Re: Adoption of EVs tied to real-world reductions in air pollution: study

#610

Post by Mawr »

tzs wrote: post #236
thelastgallon wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best solution is to build walking or biking environments. This was discussed before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43672779 (saving a click) We need to start taxing vehicles based on the damage they are responsible for. The 4th Power Law is a principle in road engineering that states that the damage a vehicle causes to a road surface is proportional to the fourth power of its axle load. This means that eve…

That 4th power law works both ways. A 40 ft bus 2 axle bus with 80 passengers will weigh about 40 000 pounds. The axle weight is 20 000, so by the 4th power law the damage is proportional to 2 x 20 000^4 = 3.2 x 10^17. If instead those 80 passengers each drove alone in a Kia Niro EV it would be about 4 000 pounds each, so an axle weight of 2000, so the damage would be proportional to 160 x 2000^4 = 2.56 x 10^15. That…

> A 40 ft bus 2 axle bus with 80 passengers [...] If instead those 80 passengers each drove alone in a Kia Niro EV

Bzzzt. Wrong, unless you literally have a bus that goes from A to B without stopping. City buses do not carry "x passengers", they serve trips. An 80-passenger bus serves way more trips than 80 (though not on average of course), as people can freely get on and off at any time.

And of course, there are way more aspects of this problem than just road wear, parking space for one.

But sure, we absolutely should put buses on rail tracks!

Post reply on HN