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Even China can't jump-start the electric car
264 Comments
I’d rather it would be via electricity generated by a large number of these which thoroughly burn transuranic waste from the horribly inefficient (<1% energy recovery from U) light water systems currently in use :
http://nextbigfuture.com/2014/09/integrated-molten-salt-reactor-should.html
Those along with a large number of Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors, something the Chinese are working very seriously on. The very cheap energy would make it possible synthesize liquid fuels as needed.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2014/09/integrated-molten-salt-reactor-should.html
Those along with a large number of Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors, something the Chinese are working very seriously on. The very cheap energy would make it possible synthesize liquid fuels as needed.
We need liquid hydrocarbons for transportation and their synthezis is an issue of costs. With cheap nuclear we can do that and of course use nuclear elsewhere. Hybrids can be used to improve the energy efficiency if needed.
cant use nuclear, it is too SAFE, too reliable, and costs nowhere near enough………..the irrational fear of “radiation” is deeply instilled in the general population……….i get called all sorts of names for pointing out sunlight is “radiation”…….there is also a reactor design that uses the present “waste” as fuel and can be used to desalinate water as a by product.
There’s a world-beating EV company in, of all places, Fremont CA. Tesla Motors makes a 200+ mi range premium sedan, and can’t keep up with orders. It just transitioned to a Dual-Motor version, including the world’s fastest 0-60 sedan (top 155 mph), with almost as much storage space as a minivan, seating 5+2 (counting optional jumpseats). A true crossover will make it to market next year, about 10% larger and pricier. A year or so later, a mid-market 5 seater will debut, also 200+ mi range.
Sells in US, Can, EU, and opened in China, Japan, Aus. this year. 50% growth per annum projected for at least 5 yrs.
Building a $5Bn mixed vehicle & static storage battery factory next door in Nev. in conjunction with Panasonic, its current supplier of component cells. Will DOUBLE world LiIon annual capacity.
No promotion or advertising. Word-of-mouth owner recommendations. Motor Trend 2013 Car of the Year, the only one to get unanimous #1 votes by all its 11 judges. ConsRpts, best and safest car EVER.
Sister company to SpaceX, 5 human capable spacecraft (Dragon) dockings with ISS so far, 11 more contracted for near future. Full return capacity. ¼-½ the cost of any competitor, even the Chinese, per launch. Developing re-usable launch vehicles to cut cost to orbit by ~100X.
Tesla. TSLA, stock up from June ’10 IPO at ~$17 to current $241. Repaid 10-yr gov’t $450M R&D loan in 6 months.
You were saying?
corr: 7-person-capable spacecraft, currently doing cargo launch and return duty, contract for 40% of human passenger flights starting in a year or two, with Boeing attempting (at about twice the price) to do the other 60%. Dragon V2 designed for vertical soft-landing on landing pad, Boeing landing using airbags in desert.
PPS;
Currently the ONLY way to return cargo intact from the ISS. The cost per person will drop 75% vs current Russian charges for transit. Probably even the Russians will rent seats.
Musk plans to eventually build huge launch vehicles, all as reusable as jetliners, for populating Mars, and intends to retire there.
His motto is determine if success is an option, then work from first principles (vs current ‘consensus’). He figures the best way to avoid species extinction at the hands of a statistically inevitable global catastrophe is not be eggs in a single planetary basket!
Tesla can’t keep up with the orders, because the manufacturing process was designed that way. It’s not because they’re seeing a major boom. While 2013 saw a major increase over 2012, 2014 sales for the model S were down by several thousand.
http://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/
Tesla is still a niche car maker and they will remain so until they can adapt to include the broader market that is looking for a great car that can get a good range and won’t cost more than $60,000 to do it. This is how Mercedes, BMW, Audi, and Lexus have all maintained their status.
Brian H: Is Tesla paying to post this PR nonsense? The Tesla S is a toy car for rich liberals. With a tiny, tiny, TINY sales level – and that only propped up by massive subsidies from those who pay taxes. Tesla will go the way of the dodo when those subsidies dry up.
http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-what-could-really-be-going-on-with-tesla-sales-2014-10
November 10, 2014 11:10 am
I had just looked this up a few days ago for Germany for 2013:
2.95 million new registrations/lincenses — 4260 electric cars. That is 0.001%
As Prof Muller of BEST fame had said a few years ago in his Physics for Future Presidents lecture series, the electric car is dead (for technical reasons).
Why didn’t the president listen to him?
Lots and lots and lots of people with lots of university degrees having been trying for over 100 years to come up with a battery better than Henry Ford used. The reality is that private companies come up with the practical economically feasible innovations.
The other reality is that these learned people have only come up with innovations of the original designs – not some wonderful new technological breakthrough cell.
For many years I have been seeing press reports announcing some academics have discovered the “Breakthrough” in electrical storage. Never yet seen one that’s been economically or practical for every day use. What was the last one we saw here? The organic battery?
The vast majority of the millions of cells and batteries produced world wide are still the old lead acid design.
Yo’all can wait and see but don’t hold your breath waiting.
The Lead-Acid battery is dirt cheap and extremely durable. For the purposes of starting cars, it does the job without issues. It’s heavy and has a horrible power density, but it can take abusive charging practices in stride. That’s is why it survives.
Other batteries need more delicate recharging cycles and are more expensive. They have much, much higher power density compared to lead-acid, which is what makes portable electronics possible. Electric cars will increase in marketshare as battery technology improves, but they will always lag behind hybrids. Hydrocarbons have ridiculous energy density compared to batteries. Hybrids trade zero emissions for the extremely efficient burning of hydrocarbons or similar fuels like methanol, and the technology is proven.
It’s worth noting that ICE cars are becoming so efficient that they have a hard time generating enough waste heat to warm the interior in the winter. I believe some diesel cars now have electric heaters for that reason.
Even our mid-2000s Civic will cool down when idling at a stop light at 30 below zero. The Buick it replaced, with a 20mpg V6, had no such problem.
The battery life, range and recharge time as well as the performance in cold weather is the problem for electric cars. And the cost of the battery, of course. Everything else has been solved for almost a century.
Yet battery performance is a technology about which I am actually pessimistic, with respect to significant further progress.
Chemical energy is constrained by the nature of the available elements. You won’t find much more electropositive than Lithium; Li is at the top-left of the periodic table. There must be a physical limit to the electrical charge / weight that is possible with chemical batteries.
Mini-fusion reactors seem more realistic to me.
yup. people often say when its -10 F here or worse that electric will be fine because it heats up faster. supposedly I am supposed to leave it plugged into an outlet with cord covered by snow while warming up.
screw that.
keeping windows themselves clear would be enough of a drain let alone full cabin heat.
Others have said it — using a battery for “heat” — defroster, cabin heat, etc, is quick death for any battery. Heat from electricity (even an unlimited supply from a public utility) is inefficient. But try that from a battery, and it’s an abhorrent practice. Same goes for running an air-conditioner compressor from a battery.
OK, maybe a battery-car might marginally work for short distances in a perfect, year-round 70F climate, wherever that is. Assuming, of course, the battery-replacement costs are reasonable (yeah, right).
ralf;
you make no sense. To the south of France from Canada?
The car uses electric heat, but once moving this is not a serious problem. Range loss is not far off what a gas car experiences.
Hybrids are a complex joke. Two half-vast propulsion systems. The $150K i8 is a dog once its feeble 30 mi electric range is exhausted. And the new Tesla P85D beats it by a full second 0-60. And seats 5+2, not 2+2. And carries all their luggage easily.
The i8 putt-putts along on a 3-cylinder engine for the bulk of its ~300 mile range. Bow-Wow!
>>The car uses electric heat, but once moving this is not a
>>serious problem. Range loss is not far off what a gas car
>>experiences.
Tosh.
A petrol car experiences NO losses from the heating system, which uses waste engine heat. A couple of watts for the blower, perhaps.
Conversely, an electric motor is so efficient, there is precious little waste heat, and the heating must come from the battery.
So come on Tesla – what is the range of your car when the temp is -10, and all the heating is on.
Ralph
November 10, 2014 11:38 am
Hans Erren
November 10, 2014 at 11:15 am
I drive from SW france to the coast of N France (Calais), in my Mercedes Break, fully loaded with rubbish and still have 200km left in the tank. That’s 1000 kms. Nothing else will do.
I also want a 5 min charge and a battery that lasts as long as my diesel engine (800.000 kms). No, I’m sorry, but E- vehicules are useless and will always be useless.
I was just thinking that. They would be fine for use as a golf cart. Perfect, in fact.
But, considering I’m not a member of the golfing population, I won’t be interested in buying one.
I’m thinking that we should not allow people who do NOTHING but play golf to have control of powerful machinery…or politics. Their world view is warped and impractical.
Am I right, or am I right? 😉
November 10, 2014 11:42 am
This is not China’s fault, or Murica’s fault, or Engerland’s fault, or the Koch brother’s fault – or even France’s fault (though just about anything you can think of is France’s fault). The failure of the electric car, like the failure of many other great environmentally “friendly” ideas – is the fault of one truly nefarious worldwide organization…
[hulu id=4nx2c2vjmporbqs2vu4maq width=512]
November 10, 2014 11:46 am
“…important new market.” Huh? At the Studebaker Museum in South Bend, Indiana it seems to me I saw an electric car. If I remember correctly it was built in 1911. Sorry, but something that has not been able to deliver for, oh, about 103 years is not something I’d consider new.
“Excellent” when compared to gasoline powered cars because they have more usable torque (acceleration & load capability), quieter, smoother, less complex (reduced maintenance), and can have more interior space (even with battery). Give them more time. Today they are like the model T in terms of life span.
Have you ever actually owned an electric vehicle? If so, you might change your mind about “simple”.
Even disregarding complex stuff like the energy recovery systems – electric motors require a honking big magnet. These get damaged in all sorts of interesting ways which existing repair shops will have no idea whatsoever to replace. Electrical issues are also a big killer: wiring systems in cars, especially over time, are highly vulnerable to corrosion as well as sheer aging of insulators.
I’ve experienced all of these issues with my scooter.
Ultimately the only way to achieve higher efficiency is to return to the soda can cars of the 1970s: very light.
Ah come on. Electric vehicles have a place. In tiny resorts. Like golf resorts where people drive them from house to course, around the course and back again. I haven’t been to Zermat since the late 60’s but they only had electric vehicles, self relocation and horse drawn vehicles way back then. Totally appropriate.
Not appropriate for those of us out on the farm cutting hay or driving 30 minutes to the nearest town at 20 below for supplies. LOL at trying to imagine an electric tractor ….
November 10, 2014 11:56 am
People aren’t buying them? I wonder why?
Could it be that they cost twice as much as a similar petrol powered model? Surely not, think of all those savings on not having to buy petrol ever again.
Could it then be that you only get 100 miles to a full battery and it takes hours to recharge? Surely not, they promised us battery swap stations, where you just drive onto a hydraulic ramp while they hoist you up, and replace your battery in 20 minutes.
Could it be then that your battery which you paid $15,000 for might only last 7 years? Surely not, you can now pay for battery leasing separate for as little as $250 pm.
So why not takers? I just don’t understand it.
November 10, 2014 11:56 am
” Chinese government’s goals were to have 500,000 electric vehicles on the road by 2011 ”
The trick is to not only have them on the road, BUT to have them MOVING with people in them and to do this at a TCO investment that makes sense.
Unlike “the land of fruit and nuts” the Chinese home market is not awash with Chardonnay sipping greenuts who will fall for a feel good spin doctors pitch..
Still, they could always give themselves a cloak of resectability and purloin a great electronic hero’s name..Faraday or Marconi HEY Nikola , NIKKY perhaps?…
November 10, 2014 12:00 pm
The electric car is by its nature a short-range vehicle. Running around town– OK. Problem is, when you buy a car you’re not usually thinking of just back and forth between home and work, and church on Sunday. You want a car that can go on the road on a long trip and NOT take half an hour to 45 minutes for a “quick recharge” every 70 to 100 miles or so. Battery life still kinda stinks. Until they get that worked out, the electric car is still going to be the “po relations” to the standard internal-combustion car.
Not so you’d notice. Most of the ones I see have MSRPs in the luxury-car range. That’ll keep them out of Joe Lunchbucket’s garage for a long time.
I saw a You-Tube video yesterday about a guy converting his pickup truck to electric. Looked good until you saw the battery bank take up more than half of the payload space in the cargo-box— then you realized this thing was just a toy and not a realistic working vehicle. Funny thing is, I could see electric coming into its own in a fleet of work-trucks doing handyman type work around town. But not if all the room for tools and supplies is taken up by a huge bank of batteries.
A regular segway’s range is a maximum of 25 miles – that assumes you are on perfectly level ground, weight 170 pounds or less, and there’s no wind. Quite fine for grocery shopping in a city, but not so fine if you have kids, need to transport more than just yourself, and is right out for moving furniture 🙂
Actually, electric motorcycles aren’t bad. The cabin heating issue obviously isn’t a concern, and the light weight means much less structural load to have to drive with even more mass of battery. You can get very usable ranges with an electric motorcycle although the charging issue remains.
And, of course, you’re driving a motorcycle – otherwise known as the organ donor harvester.
Thanks for reminding me that the electric car goes back to the 19th century. Some say it goes back to 1835, and it’s still not popular for some reason.
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/hybrid-technology/history-of-electric-cars1.htm
In that era, electric cars were for ladies. The chores involved in starting a gasoline-powered car at the time were dirty and physically demanding. Even the low-compression 4 cylinder engines took a good deal of strength to start, and the Ford Model T was famous for breaking wrists if they backfired when being hand-cranked.
Electric cars were simple and clean by comparison; just get in, switch it on, and go. It was either that, or ladies hired a driver to operate and maintain a motor vehicle for their use.
The adoption of the electric starter eliminated the major barrier to independent ladies driving themselves around, and thus ended much of the attraction of electric cars.
That about sums up my grandmother’s case, Mr. Watt. The hand crank side-lined Grandma. Granddad traded in the Model-T for a 1925 Chevy and kept that for 28 years. I believe it was too hard for her to steer the Chevy and I was led to believe that using a clutch was very off-putting to the ladies. By the time he got his last car, a ’53 Chevy with a PowerGlide transmission, my grandmother was too nervous about driving to take it up again.
I’d love to have a Baker Electric, just for the nostalgia value. But I’ll probably have to settle for this.
http://www.polaris.com/en-us/gem-electric-car/e2
Editor
November 10, 2014 12:08 pm
Air pollution in China – how much of it is caused by coal-fired plants, and how much from other sources? Do the Chinese coal-fired plants have the environmental controls that the western-world plants have? (If not, the next very simple step is to fit them).
[OK, I should look these things up for myself, but it takes time and maybe someone here knows the answer and can save me the time.]
Depends on location, but in Beijing, quite a lot. To prepare for the APEC meeting this week, the government closed a bunch of factories and sent workers on vacation. With factories not running, power plants not operating to supply factories with power, and people not clogging up the transportation systems, the air cleans up a lot. My wife was in Beijing the previous week when the measures were enacted and reported a dramatic improvement in the air quality.
November 10, 2014 12:10 pm
Yet, if coal-fired power is used to meet electric vehicle electricity demand, the absence of tail pipe emissions will likely be entirely offset by incremental power generation.
Indeed.
COAL: “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated”
Guardian – Suzanne Goldenberg – 10 November 2014
The real story of US coal: inside the world’s biggest coalmine
….America gets about 40% of its electricity from coal….its use of coal for energy rose 4.8% last year, in part because of the Arctic blasts of the polar vortex. Carbon dioxide emissions from energy registered one of their steepest rises in the last quarter century….
Australia, where Peabody has three mines and which has the world’s second largest reserves of coal, has ramped up production 37% since 2000,….
China has doubled its use of coal over the last decade. India is preparing to open its large coal reserves to foreign mining companies to meet a promise to hook up the 400 million without electricity on to the grid in the next five years.
Coal use in Germany rose last year for the third year in a row, …..
Overall global coal use rose 3% last year, faster than any other fossil fuel, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy…..
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/10/-sp-the-real-story-of-us-coal-inside-the-worlds-biggest-coal-mine
November 10, 2014 12:18 pm
From “The Gasoline Automobile”, 1915, Section 2 Page 1:
“2. The Electric Car. – The advantages of the electric car are similar to those of the steam car inasmuch as it is very flexible and can be controlled entirely by the controlling levers. By cutting out or in resistance, more or less current is supplied to the motor and the power of the motor is proportional to the flow of the current. The electric car is especially adapted to the use of women and children in cities. It is easy riding, clean, and very quiet.”
“The disadvantages are that it is not suitable for long drives, heavy roads, or hilly country. On one charge of the battery the average car will run from 50 to 100 miles, depending on the speed and condition of the roads. If the car is run at high speed, the battery will not drive the car as far as it will when running at moderate rate. This car is also limited to localities where there are ample facilities for charging the storage batteries.”
November 10, 2014 12:40 pm
Yet James Hansen was only saying:
“I have the impression that Chinese leadership takes a long view, perhaps because of the long history of their culture, in contrast to the West with its short election cycles. At the same time, China has the capacity to implement policy decisions rapidly. The leaders seem to seek the best technical information and do not brand as a hoax that which is inconvenient.”
But they can’t get even 10% to their target for electric cars.
The now much touted “agreement” between China and the US on climate goals conveniently put the targets far enough along and usually achievable without breaking a sweat. China can play a waiting game and “face” is always important, Spin it right, and the rioting peasants will be quiet. What was it, about 1,000 riots a week amongst the peasants about graft in the local politicians?
Growth at any cost is the mantra in China to keep the populous happy and the middle class an achievable dream.
Editor
November 10, 2014 12:40 pm
Obligatory mention of the abominable lack of cognitive consistency on the part of Greens:
Do remember that “prices will necessarily skyrocket” for electricity. In California, the price is rising (has risen?) from about 7 ¢ / kW-hr not that long ago to over 35 ¢ / kW-hr for basic usage. Go over that, price goes up more. Last I looked, the tariff request was already filed for $1/2 / kW-hr and in summer during the day in the Central Valley (where it is hot and you want to run your AC then) the added time of day surcharge can make that almost $1 / kW-hr.
So tell me again, just who is going to buy an electric car when the cost to charge it is in mid flight to “necessarily skyrocket” and you can run a roughly 40 kW gas engine for about 15 minutes on that $1. Or about 10 kW-hrs or roughly 10 times as much energy per buck. Multiply that gas cost by 4 and it still is an advantage. (NOT counting losses in charger equipment, battery charging, standby losses, battery discharge and motor controller. A number that can range up to 30% easily…)
Somehow the idea that driving electricity prices sky high is not the way to encourage buying electric cars doesn’t sink in to them…
I have tried driving them. I’ve driven both the Volt and the Leaf, and next time I go for service on my BMW, I’ll try their version. I know someone with a Tesla, but haven’t wrangled a drive yet…
In theory I would seem an ideal candidate for any one of these vehicles. I live in a metropolitan suburb and (now happily early-retired) I drive only about 7,500 miles a year. However, I live in Dallas Texas, where temperatures often top 100 degrees F for days at a time. So, when test driving a car, the first thing one does is test the air conditioning. In both the Volt and the Leaf, this causes a range drop of roughly 1/3. This give you an effective range of 60 miles on the Leaf, with no back-up plan except searching out a charging station and drinking a few Starbucks while you wait. In Texas a 60 mile drive is not unusual frankly. Further, the Leaf has had serious problem with heat deterioration on their batteries…permanent deterioration. This means after a year or two of ownership, that defacto range of 2/3’s of maximum range isn’t 60 miles any more.
My brother in Buffalo NY has the same range-anxiety for the opposite reason. The cold and use of heating saps range. To suggest that seat heaters are a substitute for cabin heat is the mark of a Southerner, and in any case, it’s defroster/defogger use that can’t be avoided.
Finally, the only real-world incentive for an electric car is saving money. That brings us to a perverse oxymoron of electric vehicle use. Their high initial cost is supposed to offset by low per-mile costs. However, they are only good for short-range use. This means that they are only cost effective where you have lots and lots of short trips. Forklifts are an example where a case can be made for them, as are golf carts. However forklifts simply swap the batteries out for fresh ones and golf carts are essentially like livery horses, where you take a different one while you original mount rests.
The Tesla however is a nice vehicle that is indeed practical for real-world use. However, for $100 K it should be, and no plausible case can be made for owning one can be made beyond novelty and egoism.
“Brian H November 11, 2014 at 8:32 am
Wrong. Once a family buys one, it quickly generally becomes the only vehicle they want to drive. Their gas cars collect dust, and eventually get sold. Most buyers swear they’ll never buy a car again from any other company.”
Lolz, too funny. I have four drivers and four vehicles in my family. The combined value of our four vehicles is about half of $100k. If you said “Most buyers swear they’ll never buy a car again” I would believe you.
Hey Brian do you work for Tesla or did you stupidly buy one? A person in my family bought a Volt. I laughed and asked him how he could be so stupid. I explained that he traded in a car that got 40mpg for a car that gets 45mpg and there was no way he could ever make back the extra $25000 dollars he spent on the Volt before the batteries need replacement since he is only saving 5mpg. I also pointed out that that $25000 dollars is over 15 years of fuel for my Crown Vic at the amount of driving I do every year. You just have to run the numbers and you will see that electric cars are a waste of money.
November 10, 2014 12:56 pm
A modern electric car, raw ingredients needed to build a Tesla S.
Battery:
Graphite
Lithium
Cobalt
– Tesla says they will source all the raw materials for their new Reno Gigabattery plant from North America. Many in the mining industries are skeptical of those claims and that it could still remain economically viable, if it does so. The graphite alone requires opening at least 5 new mines.
Electric motor:
Copper rotor
Aluminum
Nickel
Steel (iron)
– Peak copper (world-wide production) has recently been modeled as occurring around 2040. Which means recycling of used copper will become even more essential in the coming decades.
(note: Tesla does not use a permanent magnet motor, so no rare earth’s. Many presume China’s electric cars will principally use permanent magnet motors due to their monopoly on rare earth, primarily neodymium.)
Still, then of course, you need lots of copper in the Wind Turbines to charge it when the wind is blowing.
OK, DirkH you are correct. China only currently has supply monopoly. Between the US and Chile we have far much more raw rare earth’s. Except China doesn’t care about the environmental costs of mining and refining their alkali salt flats to get it. Plus they have large population of refiners and workers not educated enough to understand the extreme health dangers of toxic metal exposure.
Companies don’t make money on electric cars. They make money on the tax credits they get from selling them, especially Tesla. Their money maker is trading tax credits, not selling cars. Unless electrics are heavily subsidised in China, they’d be extremely expensive, even moreso than electrics in America and Europe. That’s probably part of the problem.
BS. The purchase tax credits accrue to the buyer. Tesla accrues saleable credits in 9 states requiring minimum “zero emission vehicle” sales, but earns >25% gross margin without them. Excludes the credits from all projections and plans. Total sales are about 50k now, which will more than double next year. It is the only US mfr which has repaid ALL its gov’t debt. With interest, 20X faster than required.
No Chinese subsidies. Paying full tax currently, negotiating for some sales tax exemptions, not happening yet. Cornering much of the demand for premium cars by selling without ANY extra markup, unlike other prestige foreign makers.
Is cobalt essential for approaching the green transport utopia in any sensible manner? If yes, it’s worth noting that the European Chemicals Agency is planning to limit cobalt salt use (among others) and perhaps EPA will beat them to it.
For this reason with each passing moment it’s getting harder and harder to exclude that the watermelon politicians in these regions:
-Know nothing about natural sciences and/or
-Have planning capacity limited to max 4 years and/or
-Want to hinder electorate e.g. accessing the polling stations and/or
-Want to implement Malthusian views in their own immediate neighborhood.
Could WUWT start granting some sort of political Darwin awards? For this specific purpose I commit myself to donate
1) 100% of the contributions from the fossil fuel companies to me. This being chronically zero despite of decades of fidelity at the gas stations also
2) a voluntary amount starting now with one Swedish öre.
Great Western Minerals Group Ltd.’s Hoidas Lake Project (located in northern Saskatchewan) has one of the highest proportions of neodymium present in any known rare earth deposit. The company is working on designing an optimal concentration/leaching process with the goal of starting production in 2015-16.
http://www.cbj.ca/features/may_12_features/canada_s_rare_earth_deposits_can_offer_substantial_competitive_a.html
November 10, 2014 1:39 pm
Not only the electric car is a chimera, but one must consider the huge amounts of electric power recharging their batteries will become necessary every night (and day) once they will be by millions on the roads. Certainly the wind mills and solar panels will not ne able to do it. The current power grid and the power plants will have to be replaced by new and more powerful, probaly nuclear, ones
Misconception. People usually compare today’s electric cars with today’s gas powered cars instead of realizing the huge niche they can own…..urban short trips. If your commute falls outside the electric car’s sweet spot then move on. Besides the obvious reduction of noise and air pollution the convenience of recharging at home or work is a huge plus. If recharged at night during sleeping hours the grid would be more effectively used, not overused. Think New York City, Tokyo, Los Angeles etc. As range increases and range anxiety decreases electrics will come into their own but I doubt they will ever replace gasoline powered cars for cross country/extended range trips.
Being on the Left coast I didn’t think of that. That would mean only 2M in NYC could take advantage of the convenience 🙂 I’ve talked to several Leaf owners (100 mile advertised range) that have yet to be compromised by running out of electricity. It all depends on your personal usage and for those that fit in the criteria it works.
The biggest problem with electric is the charging issue. Basically you’re tethered constantly to a charging system. Because if you run out, the only alternative is a tow truck.
And yes, the street parking is a huge issue. Parking in the large congested cities means paying $300 or more a month just for the garaged parking space.
Electric cars are exactly the case where sun and wind power can be used efficiently. If there is enough recharging points available, you can leave your car plugged in whenever you leave it. And it recharges whenever excess power is available. Of course, fast recharge in the middle of a long trip is a different case. But many cars spend most of their lifetime parked.
“If there is (sic) enough charging points available”…
Well, we can go down that rabbit hole if you wish. My company’s HQ building here in Dallas houses 1,500 workers. I leave you to calculate the infrastructure and utility costs if charging is to be provided for just 10 percent of them. In city parking some form of metered chargers “on the street” will be necessary. Remember that construction and maintenance costs must be factored into pricing, along with profits and (betcha) convenience charge taxes.
November 10, 2014 1:50 pm
Neil Young commissioned the LincVolt to stop the need to go to war for oil.
I don’t make this up:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LincVolt
Various states already add $100 or so per yr to EV registration. Truth be known, trucking does almost all damage to roads, but is essential to clothe, house, and feed the nation — so “user pay”, properly calc’d, would hit cost of living hard in a rather regressive way. It wouldn’t be so bad if gov’ts actually spent the road tax on roads, of course.
November 10, 2014 2:12 pm
“Yet, if coal-fired power is used to meet electric vehicle electricity demand, the absence of tail pipe emissions will likely be entirely offset by incremental power generation.”
I don’t think coal pollution is much of a concern here. Once they manage to convert their road traffic technology, improving energy generation is the easier and cheaper part, be it by gradual switch/refurbishment to less polluting power generation, or by building these plants in areas where their pollution doesn’t matter that much.
Electric cars have many other problems. Building them is expensive, and building the infrastructure for them is also very expensive. And not each country can afford to spend so much on subsidies.
Subsidized car is great example of making poor poorer and making rich richer. Everyone pays for such car from their taxes, and only those rich enough to be able to buy one get those money back, together with money of many other people who can’t afford it.
China’s Electric Vehicle Policy Not Turning Over
November 6, 2014
By Robert O’Neill
Toward the end of the past decade, China set itself an ambitious goal: to dramatically ramp up its electric vehicle production and surpass the rest of the world’s automobile industries in this important new market. It was a policy intended to play a crucial role in the country’s economic development and long-term energy strategy and in solving some of its important environmental and health problems.
“Examining the Chinese effort to develop an electric vehicle market offers a window into the country’s economics and politics as it confronts these three challenges,” write Henry Lee, senior lecturer in public policy and Jaidah Family Director of the Environment and Natural Resources Program at Harvard Kennedy School, and his coauthors, Sabrina Howell and Adam Heal, both research associates at the Kennedy School, in “Leapfrogging or Stalling Out? Electric Vehicles in China.”
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The Chinese government’s goals were to have 500,000 electric vehicles on the road by 2011 (accounting for 5 percent of total vehicle sales) and 5 million on the road by 2020. But, as the authors point out, “in mid-2013, China had only about 40,000 electric vehicles on the road, more than 80 percent of which were in public fleet vehicles, such as taxis and buses.”
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While China’s program has been primarily driven by a desire to build globally competitive electric vehicles, air pollution, especially in the cities, has become a national imperative. Yet, if coal-fired power is used to meet electric vehicle electricity demand, the absence of tail pipe emissions will likely be entirely offset by incremental power generation.
Source: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/news-events/news/articles/electric-vehicle-policy