Adding to that last post, I also like the complexity of driving a peaky ICE. keeping it in the power band, heel-and-toeing, showing some mechanical empathy, are all positive aspects of the experience. Just slamming ones foot down feels like an amusement park ride and loses some of the joy.
I suspect it will affect me in much the same way that widespread use of smartphones has affected me.
I don't have a smartphone either.
Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:Adding to that last post, I also like the complexity of driving a peaky ICE. keeping it in the power band, heel-and-toeing, showing some mechanical empathy, are all positive aspects of the experience. Just slamming ones foot down feels like an amusement park ride and loses some of the joy.
Sticky low profile tires are also pretty boring with their low slip angles and high limits, for some people.
Pretty sure I'll get over it. Practically all modern ICE cars are so quiet inside you can't drive them by ear, so not much of a loss IMO. And throttle response just gets more and more atrocious.
The same way factories replaced saddle makers, self driving trucks will replace truckers, look at the big picture people and get ready for the drama.
Electric racing I cant imagine would do anything for me. Without the shifting, and noise, smells and tinkering and all the different systems in a car to account for and maintain, nah. For instance, I'll go rent a kart at AMP or Lanier, but just wouldn't ever pay money to go to an indoor electric kart place. Just isn't the same.
That said there's always gonna be some Mad Max racing somewhere when everything goes electric.
Ether
Ether59 (Forum Supporter) said:
Electric racing I cant imagine would do anything for me. Without the shifting, and noise, smells and tinkering and all the different systems in a car to account for and maintain, nah. For instance, I'll go rent a kart at AMP or Lanier, but just wouldn't ever pay money to go to an indoor electric kart place. Just isn't the same.
Well drag racing might be interesting. A japanese car maker just broke the 2 second barrier for 0-60.
That said there's always gonna be some Mad Max racing somewhere when everything goes electric.
Ether
A japanese car maker jsut broke the 2 second barrier for 0-60.
I was skeptical when we were told a large order of electric buses were coming. I was wrong. These things are awesome. We had to improve electric service in the building to charge them at night but they don't take the time it power I was imagining, then the run most of the day on a charge. We currently have two chargers at terminals to top off our 40 ft buses and our 60 ft artics seem to have enough battery to not need them. They drive like normal buses which is the best thing any new tech can do and they do it with less noise, less maintenance, and no fumes in the building.
In reply to Wally (Forum Supporter) :
Are those buses built by Proterra?
In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
We have two orders, we have New Flyers in our depot and the Proterras went to Brooklyn. From what I understand they are working about as well as ours.
Wally (Forum Supporter) said:I was skeptical when we were told a large order of electric buses were coming. I was wrong. These things are awesome. We had to improve electric service in the building to charge them at night but they don't take the time it power I was imagining, then the run most of the day on a charge. We currently have two chargers at terminals to top off our 40 ft buses and our 60 ft artics seem to have enough battery to not need them. They drive like normal buses which is the best thing any new tech can do and they do it with less noise, less maintenance, and no fumes in the building.
Very cool to get a report from the inside on how they're working. I know Montreal (or Quebec City, I forget) has had some electric buses for some time, but they're tiny little things that are more to prove a point than anything else.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
We had several before these that were laughable attempts, the best being a BYD a few years ago that was fairly bus-like but almost like you described a bus over the phone to the builder. These are honest to God run all day without drama buses.
tuna55 said:In reply to STM317 :
Good math, but it's both better and worse than that.
The Bolt has a monitor. Since I have oodles of range to spare, I use HVAC and go as fast as I please and I -average- 4.1 miles per kwh.
Now I believe that monitor is measuring charge of battery. THus there are some losses between charging and charge in the battery. I don't know what those losses are, but I suspect that the actual number (and that's based on today's Bolt. Future EVs will undoubtedly be better) will be closer to 4 mi/kwh than 3.
Thanks for the first hand input Tuna. Pretty cool that you're seeing over 4 mi/kWh with what I'd consider to be "normal" use. We're in agreement that there are likely to be EV power train improvements. Personally, I think many of those efficiency gains are likely to be offset by being used in larger, heavier, less aerodynamic vehicles like trucks and CUVs, but that's just speculation. I was also figuring that large, commercial EVs like Wally's buses or local delivery trucks will have lower efficiency and they're charging needs have to be calculated into the needs of the grid too of course which will bring the average efficiency of the US "fleet" down.
The larger point behind my post was to relate the energy consumed by charging an EV to something that many people are more familiar with, and typically don't give a second thought to. A 240v car charger isn't wildly different than a 240v clothes dryer or oven, and most of the "what about the grid?!" folks don't worry about the grid crashing when people do laundry or on Thanksgiving when everybody is using their ovens at basically the same time.
With regards to pollution:
The upside of power production from coal gas or oil at a power plant is that it is far easier technically and cost wise to control the carbon emissions from one gigantic source (power plant ) than thousands of small mobile emitters (cars). And the effects of climate change are becoming more apparent by the day. It is one of humanity's greatest challenges. COME ON SOLAR AND WIND!!!!
Mining is messy and has massive environmental impact but no more so than oil production . I love an ICE but gasoline is super nasty, hard to clean up when spilled, expensive and dangerous to move to where needed and, carcinogenic!
We need to encourage our kids to do well in school because we will Get sure need better solutions to the worlds power addiction.
folks don't worry about the grid crashing when people do laundry or on Thanksgiving when everybody is using their ovens at basically the same time.
Such is Musk's strategy. He doesn't want to just sell you the car. He wants to sell you the solar panels that charge the powerwall, which power the oven and charge the car. Too bad his solar company sucks.
Edit: Come to think of it, it's kind of surprising that they aren't pushing a package deal. Although when the dollar amount get's too high, people are likely to run away.
One aspect of electric is that it might allow some endangered tracks to stay alive. I know of a popular Kart track outside of a college town. Every few years the town creeps closer to the track. Now it's about a quarter mile away. One more urban push and that track is probably kaput over noise regs. Unless that is, it goes electric.
I'm not terribly concerned about what it's likely to do to motorsports - gearheads will race anything, and if local circle tracks are any indication, keeping a car that fits the racing specs around for several decades after it's discontinued isn't too much trouble.
The concerns I do have generally revolve around how the laws of unintended consequences are strictly enforced. Here are some possible unintended consequences:
1. If the California rolling blackouts persist into an electric car era, it's going to be an even worse problem than it is now. Presumably one that's being postponed for the next generation of California politicians to deal with. A related problem could be what sort of solutions people afraid of blackouts might jury-rig to get around the problem, such as homemade high-output gensets using old automotive engines.
2. What sort of pollution will we have to deal with from mining and manufacturing the ingredients for batteries on a much larger scale?
3. How will used electric cars hold up for working-class buyers who can only afford a car that's 10-15 years old? Will you still be able to press the car into service for another 5 years, or is it about to need a battery pack that represents half of the cost of what the car sold for when new? And outside of densely populated cities, I don't see these people switching to public transportation, either. If we do hit a "malaise redux" where people try to press older cars that are worse for the environment into service as long as possible because newer cars have too many problems, it's going to be on the cheap end of the used car market.
Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:folks don't worry about the grid crashing when people do laundry or on Thanksgiving when everybody is using their ovens at basically the same time.
Such is Musk's strategy. He doesn't want to just sell you the car. He wants to sell you the solar panels that charge the powerwall, which power the oven and charge the car. Too bad his solar company sucks.
Edit: Come to think of it, it's kind of surprising that they aren't pushing a package deal. Although when the dollar amount get's too high, people are likely to run away.
One aspect of electric is that it might allow some endangered tracks to stay alive. I know of a popular Kart track outside of a college town. Every few years the town creeps closer to the track. Now it's about a quarter mile away. One more urban push and that track is probably kaput over noise regs. Unless that is, it goes electric.
The thing about the ovens is incorrect as well. Specifically, the natural gas pipeline system gets overextended during northeastern winter events, and there are serious curtailments which have to be made to ensure system reliability. In other words, infrastructure problems are not limited to the bulk power system.
Regarding the powerwall, I just bought a solar system. The powerwalls I would need for my house would have added $8,000 to my system cost and pulled my ROI down from 10%+ to breakeven. If I really wanted a home backup, I could buy a generator for less than $8,000. What does this tell us? Consumer-scale battery storage is uneconomic at current prices.
Utility-scale storage, however, is defnititely economic and is expanding rapidly.
Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:folks don't worry about the grid crashing when people do laundry or on Thanksgiving when everybody is using their ovens at basically the same time.
Such is Musk's strategy. He doesn't want to just sell you the car. He wants to sell you the solar panels that charge the powerwall, which power the oven and charge the car. Too bad his solar company sucks.
Edit: Come to think of it, it's kind of surprising that they aren't pushing a package deal. Although when the dollar amount get's too high, people are likely to run away.
There is definitely a push to sell Tesla solar to Tesla car owners. The car actually will integrate with a Powerwall to manage charging when there's a grid outage.
MadScientistMatt said:3. How will used electric cars hold up for working-class buyers who can only afford a car that's 10-15 years old? Will you still be able to press the car into service for another 5 years, or is it about to need a battery pack that represents half of the cost of what the car sold for when new? And outside of densely populated cities, I don't see these people switching to public transportation, either. If we do hit a "malaise redux" where people try to press older cars that are worse for the environment into service as long as possible because newer cars have too many problems, it's going to be on the cheap end of the used car market.
Battery packs don't just suddenly fail to function as they age. Their capacity degrades. So a 10-15 year old EV might only have 70% of the range it used to. The ICE equivalent is an engine that is down on power and has high oil consumption. Still works even if it's not exactly factory-fresh. As noted earlier, the battery packs are not monolithic so they can be repaired (at the moment, this may change if some of the proposed structural batteries happen). I suspect we'll see battery pack degradation/replacement as similar to ICE rebuilding/replacement. And while everyone seems to be waiting for some magical breakthrough in battery tech that will revolutionize everything, the reality is that incremental change is making a bigger difference. In 2010, EV batteries cost about $1100/kWh. In 2019, it was $153. Both GM and Tesla are expecting to be under $100 fairly soon and there's some scuttlebutt that Tesla may be almost there already. Tesla's stated goal is a 56% reduction in battery cost in 3 years - of course, that may not happen, but it's a publicly stated goal. In 10-15 years from now, that battery pack price may not be a big deal. And of course, it can be tested and repaired bit by bit, like swapping out a single cylinder on an old air-cooled VW (if I understand their architecture).
As for the mining/manufacturing - oil isn't exactly made out of sunshine and daffodils, so I'd view that as trading one evil for another. Batteries are almost completely recyclable, so it comes down to relative costs of recycling vs mining. Tesla battery packs have been recycled for almost a decade. There are also efforts underway to make lithium extraction less toxic.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
I still think for the home user, the EV batteries are going to be the only battery storage people own. Utility-scale flow batteries are going to blow away Li-on batteries on cost in the near future.
After working here:
and here:
and having a wife that has been in solar and storage industry for 15 years, I have learned a little about this topic.
As someone pointed out the impact electric vehicles will have the electric grid depends on when they are changed. In California, the best time to charge between midnight and 5 am because there is spare capacity. Things like time-of-use metering are being put in place to give customers incentives to be mindful fo when they are using power.
Peak power demand for residential customers is usually in the evening when the sun is going down. That is the time when you don't want to add any extra load to the grid. What is interesting is that soon you will see EV's that can both change from and discharge to the grid. Meaning that you can you'll be able to use the stored power in your car to offset some of your use during peak demand and recharge later.
Solar, storage and EV's definitely present different problems to be solved for utilities and grid operators. They also mitigate other expensive problems for utilities.
The grid will need to be managed differently. But the problems are solvable and a lot of smart people are working on it.
We have had EVSR electric single seat sports racing cars on the grid now for 7 years. They run in the same race group as SCCA Spec Racer, and are competitive with them for 45 minute races. All with lithium ferrous phosphate batteries. We have one track operator nearby who forbids LiOn cars for fire control reasons, but the LiFePO is so fire safe that there is no concern. The drivers love them because you can hear the tires and chassis, all say they are easier to be consistent with. SCCA and NASA are onboard. Not as cheap as the $10k Radical proposed earlier in the thread, but not nearly $100k either. Electric racing is here now!
As battery prices continue to fall, having a house-size backup battery becomes more plausible. A decade from now, it may be price-competitive with a Generac - or better. Again, I don't think it's going to a single revolutionary technology that will do it, just a gradual improvement of ROI like we've seen with solar. But it may very well be the case that the biggest battery someone owns is the one with wheels.
The problem with using an EV for power supply is that it requires some wiring changes to the house. Our shop has grid-tied rooftop solar and there are big warning labels all over the place so we don't end up with a crispy lineman. You'll need some sort of way to ensure the EV doesn't discharge back into the grid when work is being done. I can see an isolation switch for when the house is running on 100% battery, but how would you mix it? The equivalent of a big diode?
i think some trimming of branches was done in this thread. i'm glad.
In reply to MadScientistMatt :
The working class guy in the old car is already budget constrained as he is putting $10 in his tank at a time, and is therefore range constrained by budget.
AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:i think some trimming of branches was done in this thread. i'm glad.
You sure about that? Or did I miss some foofaraw this morning?
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