Electric cars

[Hoofbite]

I wouldn't be caught dead in an electric vehicle.

I would use one if it was more practical. In order to get a full charge in a reasonable time you need an appropriate hookup. In terms of torque, electric can put a combustion engine to shame. I don't care if a car is powered by farts, I'll drive whatever makes the most sense. At this point, I don't think electric does and I live in a state where electricity is dirt cheap because we get most of it from hydro.

Electric will eventually take over. Get widely available charge times down to a reasonable amount and it's over.

 

[rags747]

It sounds to me like the power consumption to drive into t he wind with an EV is much greater than the fuel consumption of an ICE.


I was referring to hydrogen, which is only now becoming less expensive to produce with solar and wind generated electricity. Hydrogen is an ideal fuel because it can be derived from water, it is easy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen and when H2 burns it it combines with O2 to form water again. Not long ago, electricity produced from fossils fuels made the electrolysis process too expensive. There is no carbon used in the process so there can be no carbon emissions. As producing H2 becomes less and less expensive it becomes more appealing as a fuel. Hydrogen powered cars are much more like ICE driven cars. They have a range similar to ICEs and refueling only take a few minutes. People just need to get over that Hindenburg thing.

Honda did the Clarity that I believe was only available in CA. People liked it but it was not that fast. Not sure on how fast you can make a hydrogen car go, or maybe you can make it go fast, I don’t know.

 

[CalPolyTechnique]

for people that live in town, work reasonably close, never haul anything except groceries,
and when they travel more than a few hundred miles they park at the airport,
electric cars make sense.

whatever you do, don't think you are saving the planet by driving one.

Oh, please do expand on this.

 

[lukin2006]

Says a guy using the internet...

You can’t see the difference?

 

[VaqueroTD]

for people that live in town, work reasonably close, never haul anything except groceries,
and when they travel more than a few hundred miles they park at the airport,
electric cars make sense.

whatever you do, don't think you are saving the planet by driving one.

Oh, please do expand on this.

Can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or encouraging but I completely agree with JSB.

If true environmental policy is ever going to work, people have to change the way they look at things.

So in this case with electric cars, we’re still doing something to our natural resources or emitting pollution to make the car and especially to produce the energy to fuel that car. Nothing worse than yuppies who think just because they buy recycled products and drive a Prius that they are somehow innocent of environmental damage. There is always a counter cost to everything. And no country does a better job making disposable products, wrappers for everything, packaging everything they can, delivering everything they can, driving and flying everywhere they can… just a huge energy suck!

On that same note, I get frustrated with the hippies who love to pronounce they are ‘saving the earth!’ Again, if we want environmental policy to work, let’s be honest. Even if god forbid, there was a nuclear war, the earth would still go on. The earth could not give a damn about us. There are certain creatures like cockroaches that will most likely survive anything. What we’re really trying to do is make sure that we have a stable climate that can support human life, and more important support the production I mentioned above to keep that human life happy. If you change the climate of a large food producing region, suddenly McDonald’s is out of luck, and Bobby and Suzy no longer get free school lunches.

If environmentalists would be more practical and real world, they would certainly find a lot more compromise. Because the solution is not the other side’s answer either which is to ignore modern science, put our heads in the snd, cross our fingers and hope for the best. It’s all coming soon, and if it’s not these issues, it will be water supply shortages and other problems linked to overpopulation or a heavy-handed consumer society. I don’t look forward to it.

 

[jsb357]

electric cars make sense.

Oh, please do expand on this.

yes I should have phrased that better...

electric vehicles can carve out a niche market for SOME people,
with very regular localized driving habits and patterns.

 

[Vtwin]

Can everything necessary to mass produce electric vehicles be sourced from within the USA?

 

[HungryLion]

Can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or encouraging but I completely agree with JSB.

If true environmental policy is ever going to work, people have to change the way they look at things.

So in this case with electric cars, we’re still doing something to our natural resources or emitting pollution to make the car and especially to produce the energy to fuel that car. Nothing worse than yuppies who think just because they buy recycled products and drive a Prius that they are somehow innocent of environmental damage. There is always a counter cost to everything. And no country does a better job making disposable products, wrappers for everything, packaging everything they can, delivering everything they can, driving and flying everywhere they can… just a huge energy suck!

On that same note, I get frustrated with the hippies who love to pronounce they are ‘saving the earth!’ Again, if we want environmental policy to work, let’s be honest. Even if god forbid, there was a nuclear war, the earth would still go on. The earth could not give a damn about us. There are certain creatures like cockroaches that will most likely survive anything. What we’re really trying to do is make sure that we have a stable climate that can support human life, and more important support the production I mentioned above to keep that human life happy. If you change the climate of a large food producing region, suddenly McDonald’s is out of luck, and Bobby and Suzy no longer get free school lunches.

If environmentalists would be more practical and real world, they would certainly find a lot more compromise. Because the solution is not the other side’s answer either which is to ignore modern science, put our heads in the snd, cross our fingers and hope for the best. It’s all coming soon, and if it’s not these issues, it will be water supply shortages and other problems linked to overpopulation or a heavy-handed consumer society. I don’t look forward to it.

Bleak. But pretty damn good post


I just don’t think the earth has the resources period to sustain this many people….. and at the lifestyle we all would like.


But you are right. Earth and life will go on, humans or no humans.

 

[SlammedZero]

Can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or encouraging but I completely agree with JSB.

If true environmental policy is ever going to work, people have to change the way they look at things.

So in this case with electric cars, we’re still doing something to our natural resources or emitting pollution to make the car and especially to produce the energy to fuel that car. Nothing worse than yuppies who think just because they buy recycled products and drive a Prius that they are somehow innocent of environmental damage. There is always a counter cost to everything. And no country does a better job making disposable products, wrappers for everything, packaging everything they can, delivering everything they can, driving and flying everywhere they can… just a huge energy suck!

On that same note, I get frustrated with the hippies who love to pronounce they are ‘saving the earth!’ Again, if we want environmental policy to work, let’s be honest. Even if god forbid, there was a nuclear war, the earth would still go on. The earth could not give a damn about us. There are certain creatures like cockroaches that will most likely survive anything. What we’re really trying to do is make sure that we have a stable climate that can support human life, and more important support the production I mentioned above to keep that human life happy. If you change the climate of a large food producing region, suddenly McDonald’s is out of luck, and Bobby and Suzy no longer get free school lunches.

If environmentalists would be more practical and real world, they would certainly find a lot more compromise. Because the solution is not the other side’s answer either which is to ignore modern science, put our heads in the snd, cross our fingers and hope for the best. It’s all coming soon, and if it’s not these issues, it will be water supply shortages and other problems linked to overpopulation or a heavy-handed consumer society. I don’t look forward to it.

That seems to be the first counterargument that people go to in debates about EVs, is the mining of the lithium. While true, they seem to forget that we are already mining the Earth for metals (the debater is usually wearing a gold wedding band on their finger lol) with Copper being one of the worst. I would suggest to anybody to visit the Berkeley pit in Butte, Montana and lay your eyes on one of the largest Superfund sites. So, mining for lithium is bad, yet, nobody has a problem with the copper cable your internet is riding on. It's as you said, everything has a price, but EVs have a lot of positive going for them.........................and I have to leave it about there due to forum policies.

 

[Creeper]

That seems to be the first counterargument that people go to in debates about EVs, is the mining of the lithium. While true, they seem to forget that we are already mining the Earth for metals (the debater is usually wearing a gold wedding band on their finger lol) with Copper being one of the worst. I would suggest to anybody to visit the Berkeley pit in Butte, Montana and lay your eyes on one of the largest Superfund sites. So, mining for lithium is bad, yet, nobody has a problem with the copper cable your internet is riding on. It's as you said, everything has a price, but EVs have a lot of positive going for them.........................and I have to leave it about there due to forum policies.

As long as we inhabit this planet we will be consuming natural resources and in the long run that is bad for the environment. But we used to heat our homes by burning wood and coal in furnaces. We have advanced past that to cleaner and more efficient forms of energy. Sometimes progress is so slow we do not notice it as much, but I do believe the awareness we have now of our environment will lead to better ways to produce and use energy. Necessity is the mother if invention. As we use up one resources, we will naturally look for new sources to replace what we no longer have in abundance. This is not wishful thinking. We are already witnessing changes. We are extending the use of natural gas for example and reducing use of coal to produce electricity. We are increasing solar and wind generated electricity and while these have their own issues, the more experience we have developing these technologies the better they will become.

I still think the future of energy production is something we have not invented yet.

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

Can everything necessary to mass produce electric vehicles be sourced from within the USA?

I don't think the majority of cars sold in the USA are completely sourced or put together in the USA.
So I doubt if an electric vehicle would be any different in that aspect.

 

[Creeper]

Can everything necessary to mass produce electric vehicles be sourced from within the USA?

I think the answer is no. Rare earth minerals needed to build circuits and electronic components are not that common in the US. We would need to get them from other countries. I don't think we have enough lithium in the US to mass produce batteries either. I think everything else can be made from natural resources found here in the US, although we may have to use some substitutes and we would have to ramp up production of many materials we currently import.

 

[Vtwin]

I don't think the majority of cars sold in the USA are completely sourced or put together in the USA.
So I doubt if an electric vehicle would be any different in that aspect.

That's what not what I'm getting at though. I believe it would be entirely possible to produce everything necessary to build and operate a conventional vehicle in this country. I'm not sure if that is possible with new tech electric vehicles.

 

[DFWJC]

I think the future of individual transportation has not been invented yet, or maybe just not perfected. I am not convinced the battery powered electric motor is sustainable. I think as metals needed to make batteries and electric motors become more expensive, it will open the door for technologies that may appear too expensive today.

Agree.
I guess we'll keep working on it and eventually we'll come up with something efficient and good environmentlyy.
Battery-powered cars are for sure not that, but it's a work in progress.

 

[DFWJC]

I think the answer is no. Rare earth minerals needed to build circuits and electronic components are not that common in the US. We would need to get them from other countries. I don't think we have enough lithium in the US to mass produce batteries either. I think everything else can be made from natural resources found here in the US, although we may have to use some substitutes and we would have to ramp up production of many materials we currently import.

Lithium, NIckle and Cobalt.
Rare earth minerals that require massive excavation (with often large oil/gas-powered vehicles) to get small amounts of product.
This applies to solar panels too.

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

That's what not what I'm getting at though. I believe it would be entirely possible to produce everything necessary to build and operate a conventional vehicle in this country. I'm not sure if that is possible with new tech electric vehicles.

I doubt it. I think that is too far gone at this point. Well let me rephrase that. I do believe it is Possible...I don't think it is likely because they don't do it now.

 

[Vtwin]

I think the answer is no. Rare earth minerals needed to build circuits and electronic components are not that common in the US. We would need to get them from other countries. I don't think we have enough lithium in the US to mass produce batteries either. I think everything else can be made from natural resources found here in the US, although we may have to use some substitutes and we would have to ramp up production of many materials we currently import.

This is what I'm getting at.

We have just had a serious wakeup call regarding supply chain issues. The conventional automobile market was hamstrung due to lack of availability of a simple computer chip.

Call me crazy but I think that all possible outcomes of becoming even further dependent on other countries, must be considered. We are all experiencing negative effects of this sort of reliance right now.

Then there is the issue of looking the other way as we consume these materials, sourced with a significant effect on the environment, in countries that may not care so much about the environment, all while patting ourselves on the back for being so environmentally conscious.

I'm happy to see the technology being developed and in a perfect world we can all live happily ever after in a zero emission world. I can't help but look behind the curtain though.

 

[Vtwin]

I doubt it. I think that is too far gone at this point. Well let me rephrase that. I do believe it is Possible...I don't think it is likely because they don't do it now.

I understand and agree with you, but I'm focusing strictly on whether it's possibe, even if it requires creating the infrastructure.

Good article about the current semi-conductor mess we've gotten ourselves into.

Now U.S. lawmakers are changing course. June’s Senate bill, officially the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, is squarely aimed at competing with China, in part by subsidizing semiconductor manufacturing. “There’s been a growing bipartisan consensus over several years now that the U.S. needs to make more domestic investments to keep our competitive edge, particularly in an era of sort of strategic competition with China,” says a senior Administration official. “It was an easy political oversight,” says Neuffer, of the Semiconductor Industry Association. “It’s not an oversight anymore.

https://time.com/6075425/semiconductor-chip-shortage/

 

[nightrain]

Some things I wonder about with the push for EV.
Have they figured out how to effectively evacuate tens of thousands from a catastrophic weather event in their electric vehicles?
Once we are all driving electric vehicles, will the power grid infrastructure be robust enough to serve us all? What is fueling all that additional electrical load?
What do we do with all the battery waste that will be generated from an all EV world?

 

[csirl]

I wouldn't be caught dead in an electric vehicle.

The irony is that by the time most of the people on CZ pass away, all hearses will probably be electric!