I like taking the Metro here in LA to get to Downtown/Hollywood :(
I like taking the Metro here in LA to get to Downtown/Hollywood :(
It's all fun and games until we run out of lithium in 10 years.
Hydrogen is still the route forward.
We're expected to not run out of lithium for another 100 years in worst case scenarioIt's all fun and games until we run out of lithium in 10 years.
Hydrogen is still the route forward.
I like riding public transportation more than I like driving a car. End of story.
If you have an ICE car, drive it till it dies. Get the production costs in terms of impact out of it.
Obviously this depends on the age of the car, but if you can keep your car going till the halfway point of this decade, you'll very much be looking at an EV that is cost competitive with your average new ICE vehicle. This also isn't accounting for the likelihood of government subsidies or government intervention in accelerating EV adoption.
For people who want a deep dive on this topic.
Factcheck: How electric vehicles help to tackle climate change
Electric vehicles (EVs) are an important part of meeting global goals on climate change. They feature prominently in mitigation pathways that limit warming to well-below 2C or 1.5C, which would be inline with the Paris Agreement’s targets.www.carbonbrief.org
By the time we run out of lithium, there will be new battery tech that uses something else
All you need, really is a socket on your parking spot. Sure, this will require some changes, but considering electric lines are literally everywhere in our buildings, it's not a major hurdle requiring tons of money. Given a unified standard for EV chargers, and a simple way of accounting what you use back to you, I don't see why a lot of private parking can't be upgraded to include chargers.
I recently switched from a petrol car to a hybrid - mainly because, as of right now, there isn't really an affordable, AWD, mid-size family SUV with an all-battery electric powertrain. I expect that situation to change pretty rapidly, though, and I'll be surprised if I ever lease or buy an ICE car again after this one.
I do admit that I'm in a lucky position, though. I have off-road parking where I could install a charging point; I drive a manageable amount of miles each week with incredibly rare (maybe twice a year) longer drives; and I run my own business, so I stand to benefit from the UK's super-low company car tax rates on pure EVs when I do make the jump.
For the time being, though, I'm going to have to be satisfied with going from 38mpg (imperial) to around 50mpg. At the very least I'll be spending less on fuel and polluting marginally less than before.
I'm a little surprised BMW moved away from the range extender. That seems a logical progression between plug-in hybrid and full EV. You lose a lot of complexity and engine size for a full ICE, but can support longer ranges with smaller batteries with a generator.
Uhh, isn't a range extender just a plug in hybrid?
(I mean, you can get off into the weeds on whether or not the engine drives the wheels directly, but ultimately you get EV range and then you get gas powered range, what's the difference really)
Now fast forward those models to renewable solar type energy sources and watch those numbers and comparisons drop like stones. I get they need to do real world calculations at the moment but it is shortsighting the long term vision and goals of EV and renewables.
From an emissions point of view, though, they're pretty similar - i.e. poison in the long-term in Europe, where manufacturers get fined according to the average CO2 output of their entire range, and where there's likely to be a shelf-life on how long they can claim stupid 100mpg "ideal" figures for cars that combine petrol and electricity in some way. Whether it's a range extender or a plug-in hybrid, it's still only a stop-gap on the way to full battery EVs.range extender is a small two stroke motorcycle engine that just charges the battery, and the car reduces performance to drive at the rate of electricity generation. Much simpler - no dual drive, no gearbox etc.
Still not taking into consideration all the emissions created from extraction of oil, refining of oil, and transporting gas to the gas station.
Sorry environment, my wallet says EVs are still too expensive :/
Yea, this was my immediate first thought too.
Meh. Still not viable for a massive chunk of the population.
People can be shills and dismiss people when they point out the inconvenience of having to make a special trip to charge for 30-60 minutes for everyone who lives in an apt or condo where chargers aren't available, but people will not settle for that inconvenience. Time is too valuable.
I also think ranges are still a bit too short unless you live in the northeast corridor. People drive between metro's fairly regularly and adding an hour to the commute for a charge stop or two is a not insignificant inconvenience.
That said, I will jump on board when range, price, and infrastructure hit a critical mass. Until them I will continue to drive my hybrid.
Not just that, but a bigger push for green energy and thorium/salt reactors would be amazingEven if electric cars throughout the chain were as polluting as normal combustion cars the single facts of centralizing the smog produced into energy plants instead than the streets we walk on and them being whisper quiet would be enough to warrant a worldwide switch
Even if electric cars throughout the chain were as polluting as normal combustion cars the single facts of centralizing the smog produced into energy plants instead than the streets we walk on and them being whisper quiet would be enough to warrant a worldwide switch
Yeah, this is seriously the first thing any anti-electric vehicle person asks me and these studies never include it. I'm guessing because they're assuming that if a person is considering an EV, they're buying a new car and therefore the manufacturing costs should be negligible between a gas car and an EV.
Except it doesn't tell us the valuable information of whether it is more sustainable to upgrade or stay with your current vehicle. If I have a 24 year old car that gets like 14 mpg, is it better to get a newer, more efficient car with all those manufacturing emissions or stick with the car that is already here? My stupid gut says that additional consumption is going to be worse in the long run because you have the manufacturing emissions from the new car and then you've also still got the old car that will probably still be driven by someone else. But then again, my gut is stupid and doesn't have data.
We're expected to not run out of lithium for another 100 years in worst case scenario
You'd be surprised how misinformed a lot of people are. Information like this needs to be hammered home again and again to try and counteract the huge misconceptions a lot of people have about EV's
MIAMI—I have long said that I don't hate electric cars; it's science that hates electric cars.
There isn't now and likely never will be enough electricity available worldwide to replace all the petroleum for the vehicles we currently drive.
.Don't worry; fuel cells are closer than most people think, and battery electrics give us some real-world experience as a bridge technology to our obvious hydrogen-powered future
Even if electric cars throughout the chain were as polluting as normal combustion cars the single facts of centralizing the smog produced into energy plants instead than the streets we walk on and them being whisper quiet would be enough to warrant a worldwide switch
The next car in our household will be an EV. That should be around 3 years from now. Are there any expectations of major breakthroughs either Technology or pricing in that time frame. At the very least Tesla should have a much smother manufacturing process by then right?
Keep an eye out for the future.
ICE vehicles have been produced in Mass quantities for 100 years now which is why they are at the price they are at now. There is really only a couple EVs that can even be considered to be mass produced and it has only been a few years. As volume increases, prices will drop substantially. It's already arguably cheaper to own a comparable EV over the lifespan of the car. Soon it will reach parity with the purchase price of comparable vehicles.
I wonder if they factor all the mining and refining in that comparison for ICE vehicles?
You can recover the lithium from used batteries as well.
Hydrogen is made from burning fossil fuels, which is better hmmmm.