Guest post by David Middleton
Even with up to $10,000 in federal and state incentives, only 4% of car buyers in California chose electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles last year. That’s a huge problem in a state with rising greenhouse gas emissions from passenger vehicles, and with a goal to more than quadruple the number of zero-emissions vehicles on the road by 2025.
How can the state kick-start EV sales and hit its target of 1.5 million zero-emissions vehicles? To Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco), the answer is simple: Spend $3 billion on dramatically higher state rebates — as in, upping the state’s ante from $2,500 to $10,000 or more per vehicle.
Under Ting’s proposal, AB 1184, the state rebate program would be redesigned to make the cost of a compact electric vehicle comparable to a similar gas-powered one.
[…]
But there are several problems that make Ting’s current proposal a no-go. For starters, there’s the staggering $3-billion price tag, which is six times more than the state has spent on rebates since 2010. There’s talk about dipping into the cap-and-trade auction revenue, but there already are lots of proposals for how to spend that money to reduce carbon.
More fundamentally, there’s no analysis of why Californians aren’t buying more electric cars.
[…]
Could it possibly be that 96% of Californian car buyers don’t want to purchase EV’s?
I work in Houston and live in Dallas. Last Thursday, I “evacuated” to my house in Dallas. Our downtown Houston office was partially up and running yesterday. We expect it to be fully operational by Tuesday. My Houston apartment complex never flooded and apparently never lost power. CenterPoint, the local grid operator, mangaed to keep the power on to 95% or more of their coverage area throughout the storm. They are now back to about 99%. Houston METRO, the local mass transit authority, was 50% operational yesterday and expects to be nearly 100% by Tuesday.
I plan to head back to Houston Monday or Tuesday. It’s about a 255 mile drive. My Jeep can go about 360 highway miles on a tank of gas. North Texas is currently experiencing a gas shortage. Most of the gas stations near my house were dry yesterday. I have to plan on not being able to buy gas between here and Houston.
What would it take to persuade you to buy an electric car?
An electric Jeep that can ford 2-3′ of water, with a 360 mile range and be rechargeable in less time than I might have to wait in a gas line in Houston next week… might be what it would take to persuade me to buy an EV… Only if it cost less than $40,000. But that’s just me… What about you?
Featured image from this article:
Bad Weather Guide: What to do if Your Electric Car Has Been in a Flood
BY NIKKI GORDON-BLOOMFIELD • FEBRUARY 13, 2014
It’s something we hope nobody who reads this has to encounter, but given the propensity for extremes of weather we’ve seen over the past few years — not to mention the weather the UK has been subjected to continuously for the past six weeks — waking up one morning to find your prized EV submerged in water is a real possibility.
Here at Transport Evolved, we’ve already discussed how you should drive in stormy, winter weather, but what should you do if your EV ends up in more than just a puddle? What if the water level is above the bottom of your car’s doors, and there’s muddy, wet water in the footwell? What if the only bit of your car you can see is above the water line?
[…]
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The car would have to be given to me free, and all future maintenance must be paid for. I’ll never be a buyer, not interested.
There is not such thing as a “zero emissions” vehicle. All vehicles require power of some king and all means of creating or releasing energy we have so far invented involved “emissions” and waste products of some kind.
Always makes me cringe when I read sentences such as the opening one of the above excerpt: “Even with up to $10,000 in federal and state incentives …”
Should it not read: “Even with up to $10,000 in TAXPAYER-PAID incentives …”?
Or, maybe it should read: “Even with up to $10,000 in SCREW YOUR FELLOW CITIZEN incentives …”?
This is why my family and I will NEVER buy a car under these terms; whether we believe in AGW, or GW, or basic Climate Change [which we do], we will NEVER put, for reasons of personal gain, an extra burden on our fellow tax-paying citizens. We do not want the GOVT WELFARE [bribe?] primarily because of this immorality; in fact, we understand why they do it — for the money — but we shake our heads in disbelief why so many of the wealthy amongst us are so willing to screw their fellow citizens — many of much lesser incomes — by forcing them to pay for such self-serving gains.
Johnny, bravo, and I wish there were many more like you!
Vboring below is about to miss the point that he did not buy his ev if there are subsidies. You want it, pay for it yourself. He makes many other incorrect statements, yet is correct, modern coal plants are very clean.
EV’s are mostly popular with “gadget buffs.” The pocket-protector folks who went from HAM radio to early adoption of computers, now are embracing home robotics and EV’s. Part of it’s a love of technology, of impressing one’s fellow nerds by being “cutting edge,” and the virtue-signaling and camp-meetings around the (few) charging stations are all part of being “in the club.” Literally, here, there is an EV club that has “meets” and “rallies” and brags about lobbying for chargers at the railroad station. I actually see FEWER Priuses lately, Tesla is the thing to have now. Any Ford or GM offerings seem to be non-starters. For the price tag, I can see why!
“There’s not (sic) such thing as a “zero emmisions” vehice”. Yeah, that’s right but the really amusing descriptor for a “clean” vehicle is pzev, partially zero emmisions vehicle.
T Gannett
How long do you think it will be before some genius figures out that millions of electric cars are going to generate a lot of ground level ozone?
All this was known to governments in the mid-1990s, yet they continue to push these dud vehicles on us.
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/08/29/business/another-accepted-truth-under-fire-electric-cars-cleaner-air.html
Also, about 56% of fine particulate matter pollution from motor vehicles is unrelated to tailpipe emissions, from brake dust, road dust and other sources.
Sorry, but Teslas still emit fine particulate matter.
Johnny C., I understand where you’re coming from, but another viewpoint is “I paid for that incentive – I want my share!”
I myself have almost no interest in any of the electric cars. I also despise Social Security, as people (some intelligent) make the assumption that they don’t have to save for their old age, because Social Security will save them. I didn’t expect SS to be around when I retired, so I saved. But every year until I retired, I paid the maximum amount into SS, including those first years when I could hardly make ends meet. That was a lot of money taken from me and poured into a Ponzi scheme. You can bet that I want back out of it as much as I can, even if it is only 15% of my income now. Just like any Government taking, I had no choice, and in the case of SS, no loopholes to escape it.
That’s how a lot of people feel about EVs. I have a friend still working who makes millions a year. He bought the Tesla S because he not only gets a big break on buying the car, but a huge break on the electricity required to cool his $12M home.
Trump, too, used the system imposed by the Government to get ahead. One of the things he campaigned on was that he knew those loopholes for the rich, and wanted to eliminate them. Big reason why I voted for him. So far, he has not disappointed. I haven’t been able to say that for 28+ years.
@kaliforniakook
Is participating in acts of immorality because you were forced by government fiat to contribute to it a valid excuse?
An admittedly extreme example might be Seattle, a city in which hypodermic needles and a “safe space” to use them are being provided by the city at (I assume) taxpayer expense.
Because you’re being forced to participate in this “incentive” with your tax dollars, would you then make the choice to get some heroin and “get your share”, so to speak? Probably not.
Another not-so-extreme example would be my case. I own a corporation and from the income of that corporation I pay myself a wage. Some of the taxes I’m forced to pay (both corporate and personal) go toward funding social programs for the poor. The wage I pay myself from the corporation is well below poverty level, however, for various reasons it is lawful for me to pay most of my living expenses out of the income from the corporation, with the effect being the personal income I earn is pretty much just pocket money.
I could, if I wished, go down to the social welfare office and likely get food stamps or other social benefits because of the low wage I pay myself using the same argument as your friend.
“I paid for that incentive – I want my share!”
But that would be immoral (at least in my view) because I don’t really need it.
The point is that government forces us all to pay for some things we certainly would not do on our own, but that might not be a good reason to participate in that which violates our principles because we’re mad about it. The individuals creating this tax based social policy system understand what they’re doing and are banking (no pun intended) on others to perpetuate the bad idea by enticing them with their own money.
If no one bought an EV until it were properly able to compete in a fair market, there wouldn’t be a continuation of “incentives” because there wouldn’t be an EV to buy.
So just how does Bartleby’s electric car create ground level ozone.
I’m not talking about the source of the electricity being maybe an ozone source; but the electric car itself. What about it makes ozone ??
G
Electric cars are the only cars you can buy today that actually run on coal – or whatever fuel supply you want, really.
They improve ground level air quality. There are many nonsense studies about EVs increasing pollution. They don’t reflect anything like regulatory reality. Coal plant NOx and SOx emissions are extremely low and rapidly falling in the US.
They charge in well under five minutes. It’s more like 30 seconds to plug it in when you get home or at work. And then it is full when you need it. For cross country trips, drive 3-4 hours, stop for an hour, drive 3-4 hours. Chargers are being installed today that will reduce that hour stop to about 20 minutes.
Over their lifetime, unsubsidized Bolts probably are already cheaper than comparable gas compact cars. Depends on your assumptions about fuel and maintenance costs, battery life, etc.
In any case, the user experience is better. Quieter, safer, more fun to drive, lower maintenance. There is nothing to maintain. You can visit the dealer once a year to replace air filters, rotate the tires, and inspect the suspension, if you want. Data from properly managed batteries indicates that they’ll last about a million miles.
And you never have to service the air conditioner.
“Data from properly managed batteries indicates that they’ll last about a million miles.’ Even in freezing temperatures?
And you can peacefully sleep without thinking about the child labor that mined the lithium for your batteries, because you’ve offset that by being so good to the local environment …
They also do the housework and bring you cups of coffee whenever you click your fingers
As the driver of a non-Tesla, your statement about 300 second charge is so far off as to be total fantasy. Even with the optional charger (240V 30A circuit required) the charge time is 3.5 hr. With the freeby charger you get with the vehicle, plan on ~20 hr if you totally drain the battery. With my range extender (2 cyl gasoline motor) I can get a total distance of ~ 185 mi., 105 on the battery, and an additional 80 mi on the 2 gal of gasoline in the aux tank).
Would I have an electric vehicle if the manf hadn’t thrown it at me? Probably no, I’d had a diesel 330i BMW and loved it. NOTE: despite what the press has been writing, BMW hasn’t come close to violating the mileage testing. With each service the urea tank is topped up.
If, and it’s a big if, the current successful testing of LENR reactors at MIT (running since 2012) and other places leads to real products, then I would say that with reasonable prices, I’d be delighted to drive an electric vehicle that didn’t require a charging station. Other than that case, no way.
Yeah, “drive for 3-4 hours, stop for an hour” would increase my cross country drive time by about 25%. A 10 hour trip now takes 12 to 13 hours. Driving a gas car my only stops are 5 min for gas once or twice, and a stop for food. Maybe and hour total for the whole 10 hour drive, if I eat slow. Longer trips will have even greater impact. It’s only more fun if you stay within its single charge range. Those mandatory hour longs stops are definitely *not* fun.
The Safety factor is much more likely to be related to the type of driver that self selects for EV than anything inherent to the platform. Anything that could be said to be an inherent advantage (like lack of a solid steering column) can be easily applied to traditional gas cars.
Face it, EV cannot compete with the versatility of a gas vehicle, and that is why most people will not by one. It is more cost for less functionality.
And a million miles for a battery? Maybe in lab conditions. Out in the real world they last about a quarter as long. They are subject to extreme temperatures, wildly fluctuating discharge cycles and mechanical abuse. Fast charging also dramatically reduces lifespan, so those sup 30 min charges actually cost you quite a bit if you factor that in. They also cost about half as much as the initial purchase, since they are the single most expensive piece of the car. Sure prices are expected to drop to maybe 1/8th to 1/10th the cost (in line with a full engine replacement in a standard car) but they are not there yet, nor do we actually know when they will actually get there. Buying an EV today is a rather big gamble from that perspective.
The only thing that you had right is the power source. Clean coal does indeed have a relatively small environmental impact, and it is a single point of maintenance. This does indeed make it cleaner than car exhaust, since while modern cars are remarkably clean when well maintained, many cars are not well maintained, and so have emissions that are less than optimal. Of course this assumes clean coal. If you are a rich person buying an EV in a developing country like China, then the EV very likely will emit far more noxious gasses than a new luxury car powered by gas.
I would by an electric car is the rebate covered the entire purchase price plus license and taxes. Also they would have to include free replacement batteries when needed and a free $1,000,000 life insurance policy in case the battery explodes or burns. Also, they would have to provide free AAA towing, free charging when needed, and a $1,000,000 cash bond that I would receive the first time the car stopped and failed to run for any reason. Finally, it must include air conditioning, and other amenities specified by the purchaser (me).
@ur momisugly vboring
You need to see your dealer for a seriously urgent reality check.
The charging times you mention are complete pie in the sky – “well under 5 minutes”…and 1 hour will not do it either. How about 3 hours or overnight depending on the charging station. This is one of the EV’s multiple Achilles heels.
Everyone in the business knows that lithium-ion batteries can only be recharged so many time before they reach the end of their useful lifespan of 36-48 months before crashing. In the EU Renault-Nissan in fact makes the exchange of battery packs mandatory every 24 months [against a fee] to prevent users from experiencing that painful moment.
Have a look at last June’s Swedish study [commissioned by their Min of Transportation and Min of the Environment] that nobody in the EV business wants to touch with a barge pole, which quantifies the CO2 emissions involved in the manufacturing process of lithium-ion batteries, and which shows that you can drive a regular 2L I4 engine car for 160,000 km [100,000 miles] before the emissions from that vehicle catch up with those built into the batteries of a Tesla S and 70,000 km for the batteries in a Nissan Leaf. Those numbers are the proverbial head shot for the EV right there, assuming you’re prepared to compare CO2 apples to CO2 apples – which the green Stalinists of course will not do..
The Tesla S electric motors use the equivalent of 4.5L gas/100km, the Nissan Leaf 3l/100km, electricity produced NIMBY somewhere else -so no zero emissions. Last month I drove a 1.2L I4 Fiat 500 for close to 600km on one tank with the AC on all the time, including 300km [190miles] on a French free way at sustained 130-135 km/h [80miles+/hour] resulting in an overall 5.7l/100km [41m/US gallon] fuel consumption. Try running the oh so sporty Tesla S at 130km for 300 km with the AC on and see how far you get.
Remove the obscene tax payer funded subsidies or and barring an Orwellian diktat by green politicians to force their adoption [ I keep some spare lamp posts and a coil of braided rope in store for just such an event..] the EV is a dead man walking.
Riiigghht. I live on I395, there is a Tesla charging station in Inyokern, near my house. I drive by this station twice, sometimes more a day. 20-30 days go by between sightings of of a car charging there. I see the car twice, once going by in one direction, once coming back from where i went to. Usually a few hours apart. Inyokern is a pea-digging desert town without a lot to see. I assume the Tesla owners are over in the Sierra Pub, nursing their drinks, checking their apps for the Second they can hop back in and continue on to Mammoth, or back to whatever Socal hellhole they live in.
I would buy an electric car if:
1. It provided a range of 300 miles in -30 deg C (-18 deg F) with, of course, a comfortable cabin temperature.
2. It could be recharged in about half an hour, which is the rest period I would normally take after driving 300 miles, and assuming recharging stations were as easily available as gas stations are now.
3. Its service life were at least 150,000 miles with no major parts replacement, which is what I expect from currently available ICE automobiles.
4. Its purchase price were about the same as an equivalent ICE automobile, without any government subsidies.
5. Its maintenance costs were no greater than that of an equivalent ICE automobile.
Given all of this, I would happily purchase an electric car.
Lining up to put gas in your car is bad enough, now imagine the line ups when it takes ten times or longer to get the same amount of energy in your car. Drive for one hour, line up for ten hours.
It’s fine when a tiny percentage of the population drives electric cars, but if everyone drives, then the lineups will be unbearably long.
There is also the problem of a massive increase in electrical infrastructure. The Tesla battery capacity is 50 kWh or 50,000 * 3600 seconds = 180 megajoules. If a fill up requires 30 minutes, the power required is 180 MJ / 1800 seconds = 100 kilowatts. The average American house consumes 1 kilowatts ( https://hypertextbook.com/facts/2003/BoiLu.shtml ). In other words, every electric car filling station requires the electrical infrastructure of 100kW / 1 kW = 100 houses.
Since the charging time is so long, a huge number of filling stations will be required to keep wait times down, think of shopping mall parking lots where each parking space is a filling station and each parking space requires the energy infrastructure of 100 houses.
It just ain’t happening.
Since riding in one of those tiny rolling coffins totally creeps me out, thermal activity in the theological place of eternal punishment would need to decrease significantly below the level necessary to prevent the transition of all available hydrogen oxide to solid state.
Give me one paid for out your own pocket, and I might keep it to drive to and from work (about a 12 mile round trip)…in the summer.
(Would I need to keep it plugged in to run the windshield and rear window defroster in the winter? Do they come with a 6 mile extension cord?)
“For cross country trips, drive 3-4 hours, stop for an hour, drive 3-4 hours. Chargers are being installed today that will reduce that hour stop to about 20 minutes.” You forgot the queue at the charging park. When was the last time you were at a gas station and stayed for an hour (20 minutes)? I remember in the 1970s during the gas crisis people going literally berserk. Great, EVs, how to begin to hate your fellow man.
“As the driver of a non-Tesla, your statement about 300 second charge is so far off as to be total fantasy. Even with the optional charger (240V 30A circuit required) the charge time is 3.5 hr.”
I generally try to avoid speaking for other people, but I presume he meant that for the most part, owners of electric vehicles waste less of their time refueling than do drivers of gas/diesel cars. At least with a Tesla where the range dwarfs the typical daily mileage you put on the car, you pop the plug in every night on your way into the house and you’ll rarely have to waste any time refueling. In other words, virtually no one has the opportunity to top off the tank of their gas-powered car every night in their garage. An electric car owner does.
As for the road trips, and again with respect to a Tesla with a large capacity battery the extra fueling time isn’t that big of a hassle – the chargers are spaced closely enough that 15-25 minutes will get you to the next charger. Plug the car in, take a restroom break, buy something to drink, and by that time it’s only an extra 10-15 minutes or so and your good to drive for the next 2.5-3 hours.
Nitpicking over refueling time misses the point, because for most every person’s usual daily driving habits you don’t need to go out of your way to refuel at all. On those rare occasions when you do, it’s a slight hassle, but it’s not going to be a game changer for the vast portion of the public – especially those who have more than one car. And because regular fueling stops will be a thing of the past for 90% of most drivers of electric cars, there won’t be a need for nearly as many charging stations as gasoline stations. I think Tesla has a little over 300 supercharger stations in the U.S. to service well over 100,000 cars, and most of those stations usually have at least 2-3 empty stalls at any given time except for some places in California where stations are so dense that owners are taking advantage of Tesla’s free supercharging to use them for their daily driving.
As for the question posed in the original article, I presume that, except for those like the author of the post who seems to have a reflexive need to condescend electric cars, most people will be willing to buy an electric car when its cost-competitive. You can quibble about when and if that’s going to happen, and point out that this should consider subsidies that in an ideal world would end, but that’s the basic, and obvious answer to the long and drawn out post here.
Certainly there is significant fuel savings to be had, and given the relative simplicity of an electric car’s power and drive train there should be significant savings in repair costs and perhaps a longer vehicle life. Electric motors should last at least 20 years. With the Tesla I think it’s certainly possible to be driving one for 10-13 years with minimal repairs compared to a typical car, then only have to replace a battery and be good to go for another round. This may be optimistic, but time will tell.
“They improve ground level air quality.”
Yep. They get it cleaner than clean.
Those 5 minute charges are murder on battery life.
Bolts aren’t unsubsidized, yet are much more expensive than comparable ICE cars, and that’s without counting the cost of replacing the battery back every few years.
Kurt, it really doesn’t matter how long the motor lasts, the big cost for EV’s is replacing the battery pack every few years.
They will never be more fun to drive then a stick shift 2004 VW turbo diesel powered Golf on Pennsylvania country roads and has a range of 600 miles on a single tank of petrol.
If they are so good, then they don’t need the subsidy! Remove it immediately.
People who can afford such a vanity, will probably have a garage. A lot of people wont, especially where an electric vehicle may make some sense (in the centre of large towns/cities where large numbers of the population live). The absence of a home plug-in point is an obvious reason why sales are limited.
SteveT
Well vboring, if your electric bolt’s 5 minute source of “fuel” is in your garage, then please just divide your driving range by three (3).
As any old fighter pilot could tell you (really old) , when you go out on a mission, you have to figure the fuel used getting to the combat zone, plus the actual mission combat time, (which I suspect could be very fuel consuming, ) and then you need fuel to get your rear end, and the aircraft itself back to your base.
These days it is not nice to bail out of your billion dollar bomber, because you run out of fuel; or ditch it in the ocean either.
The only reliable (I can drive anywhere I like) source of fuel for your Bolt is in your garage.
G
It’s going to have to successfully compete and win on the exact same field as the fossil-fuel powered machine for every category of machine in that class.
Norway managed to introduce 25 000 EVs (mainlyTeslas) at the price of the owners not paying tax on the vehicles, and no money for toll-roads (free), and on ferrys, etc. Free charging of batteries, free parking, etc, etc. So, – Norway is the Window for other nations – but it has a huge cost for the taxpayer. Let’s see how long Norwegians can keep this up…We don’t know yet.
Until the first generation of cars’ batteries crap out all together, I suspect. Now, while we’re talking about technology no one really seems to want, how about THIS: What would make you buy a DRIVERLESS car?
Yes and they purchased these vehicles with their “ill-gotten profits” from oil. Doesn’t any one see the irony in this exercise?(sarc)
“BY NIKKI GORDON-BLOOMFIELD
It’s something we hope nobody who reads this has to encounter, but given the propensity for extremes of weather we’ve seen over the past few years — ”
Say what?
This was the first serious storm in FOURTEEN years.
” Incentives ” implies that the lack thereof, would result in you NOT doing what they want you to do; usually because it is NOT a sensible thing to do.
Bribery would be another word meaning the same thing.
What it would take for me to buy an electric car is if that was the best choice of things for me to do.
So that means lower (real) cost, better performance; (I can go around 700 miles ion one “charge” of my gas tank.) ready availability of that energy ANYWHERE, I wanted to go in my car; things I would do because they make sense.
Electric cars make no sense to me; same goes for “self driving” cars.
I have three self driving cars; I drive them myself. I wouldn’t let some machine programmed by the same maroons who program traffic lights, take over control of MY car ; well any more than they already have. Like they tell me to stop and waste all of my kinetic energy, when any fool sitting where I am can see there is NO earthly reason for me to stop when and where they tell me I must.
I can tell when I need to stop; like there’s another car right where I was planning to be very soon.
Traffic lights are programmed to distribute vehicles uniformly over all of the available roads. So when there is not enough traffic on some particular road, they stop all the cars on the other roads, and leave a green light on the road without enough cars, and pretty soon, more drivers discover that empty road will get them there sooner, so they get onto the road with the least traffic.
If you turn on the green light pretty soon the cars will come; it never fails.
G
nothing…ain’t gonna happen
Be able to recharge in about the same time a can fill my gas tank, and cost the same as a similar gas powered car (without government subsidies).
Don’t forget to include the cost of replacing the battery pack every few years.
That’s why for me they would also have to offer to give me a completely new car for free every time the battery ran out of charge, no questions asked.
ok and a million dollars too. since they asked.
It could come to something like that.
All cars are driverless.
All cars are electric.
All cars are identical.
All cars are owned and maintained by the government.
You order a car when you need one and it is there within seconds.
You take it to your destination.
You complete your foray and get into a different car to go home.
You exit the car at home and it goes away for Android their to use.
“Bryan A
September 1, 2017 at 8:56 am
It could come to something like that.
All cars are driverless.
All cars are electric.
All cars are identical.
All cars are owned and maintained by the government.”
And, in the land of the free – if the government of the day dislikes your attitude to – say – Christianity, might they be able, in future, to program their car to deliver you to a re-education bureau?
Possibly?
I can see problems with acceptance right there.
Auto
It would appear in this era more likely the delivery to your local Attitude Adjustment Center would come from those ascribing to a Statist belief system rather than the Christian belief system:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/5/irs-reveals-list-of-tea-party-groups-targeted-for-/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/10/22/exxon-hits-back-on-ridiculous-rico-allegations-when-it-comes-to-climate-change-read-the-documents/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/11/20/exposing-the-well-funded-manufactured-campaign-of-blame-on-the-exxon-knew-climate-change-would-be-dangerous-fiasco/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/03/03/doj-refers-exxon-climate-crime-to-fbi-for-decision-on-action-if-any/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/04/14/exxon-strikes-back-against-the-climate-witch-hunt/
http://www.dailywire.com/news/19950/google-now-working-liberal-groups-shut-out-joseph-curl
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/08/15/how-facebook-is-tackling-hate-speech-after-the-charlottesville-rally/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/08/31/i-criticized-google-it-got-me-fired-thats-how-corporate-power-works/?utm_term=.1c3718080d57
Sure, companies like Google are private, I get that. Nevertheless, it would appear they lean heavily toward the side of Liberalism, a.k.a., Statism (at least in my view), philosophically.
In “Stranger In A Strange Land,” Ben Caxton’s “autocab” did take him straight to the goon squad. I seem to remember several other SF stories using that plot element although I’m not sure enough of title/author of any right now to claim them by name.
“. . . the cost of replacing the battery pack every few years.”
That’s just silly. I drove around a Honda hybrid and the battery pack, which had to suffer through deep cycling sometimes 3-4 times per outing, still lasted over 10 years. I’ve been driving a Tesla for over 2-and-a-half years and have seen no battery degradation at all – it’s still showing the 306 miles per charge that it showed when I first got it. Batteries tend to degrade faster towards the end of their life, but still the expectation based on past experience with the Tesla Roadster and tests on Tesla’s modern battery pack is that you should get at least a decade of useful life out of the battery.
And how to dispose of the old one.
This is why I am waiting (in vain?) for a hydrocarbon fuel cell equipped electric vehicle. It takes exactly as long to recharge as to fill a gas tank and you go further between fill ups. As it only needs to store energy from braking, the lithium-ion battery can have the plates further apart and separated by an insulator mesh, trading energy density for crash-worthiness and longer life before it self-destructs. It may even be possible to have useful regenerative braking with lead-acid batteries. As these fuel cells will shift an automaker’s average fleet economy upwards, they could even bring back the land yachts that were so popular, before CAFE struck them from the drawing boards.
Lack of compression means that there is no formation of NOx.
Of course, if I am buying a warehouse forklift, it would not take me a second to choose the electric model, as the 3000 pound lead-acid battery over the rear wheels is a feature, not a bug (petrol, diesel, and propane fueled forklifts need heavy steel counterweights at the back to make up for the lack of a dense and massive battery).
Honda has their fuel cell cars on the market. I’ve seen a couple around Goleta, CA, recently. Of course, you’re talking about yet another non existing fueling infrastructure. Speaking with an owner, he seemed to think because hydrogen is light it’s safer than gasoline…Uh, Hindenburg, exploding car batteries, etc., Hello Mr Green-Zealot, are the lights on in there? Certainly an interesting machine, but there will only be one long term alternative to gasoline. Supporting multiple fueling infrastructures nationwide will never be more than a pipe dream. Somebody is going to win, and the others will suffer accordingly.
I’m with you Richard. And I believe an electric-motor-powered automobile is the ultimate solution. And I agree the fuel cell would be (within known reason) the best source for the electricity because fuels are more energy dense than known battery technologies. I’d like to have see a hydrogen economy and infrastructure to fuel the fuel cell, but that would have to happen as a natural demand driven progression. Of course fuel cell powered cars should also only develop because the free market desires it. I think it soon may. And we won’t have to wait long to find out because these cars are being produced now. Think of all the moving parts in an ICE, and compare to an electric motor. Likewise on maintenance. Lots of other benefits, too.
RG, hydrogen storage in cars today is fairly safe, some think safer than petrol. The biggest problem (hurdle), I think, for hydrogen powered fuel cells is its manufacturing, and distribution infrastructure.
https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/10/05/you-wont-believe-how-safe-toyotas-hydrogen-car-is.aspx
Widespread use of hydrogen will be associated with abundant leakage of hydrogen gas into the atmosphere, especially if electrolysis of water is distributed among wind and solar farms. Hydrogen gas is lighter than air. Thus the leakage will rise through the atmosphere until it reaches the stratosphere, where it will react with the ozone, reducing the protective effect of that gas, and creating water vapor, which will promptly freeze into little crystals of ice, changing the Earth’s albedo. I’m not sure that is preferable.
TedL, I defer to you on the chemistry involving the ozone, and you’re right about hydrogen leaking. It can find the tiniest of holes. But hey, think of the opportunity to have exploding envioro heads. With a hydrogen powered electric car whose sole emissions is pure water (if you forget all that went into getting the powering hydrogen or fossil fuel), you’d presumably have happy environmentalists and warmistas – greatly reduced CO2 emissions. But then as you say, the ozone starts breaking down. When the dilemma stares the environmentalists dead face on, they start shaking and vibrating real hard and then their heads do a collective 10:10. Let’s face it, until 5 Billion people are killed off, environmentalists won’t be happy.
Clay, hydrogen doesn’t need holes in order to leak.
WarkW, I did some more research on hydrogen storage. I see what you mean, it can apparently pass thru molecular structures of certain materials, but in some materials it can take years. Anyway, the point is well taken. There are infrastructure issues for hydrogen gas storage and production, which is probably why Richard Bell wanted to go with a hydrocarbon/reformer supplied fuel cell – to bypass hydrogen gas storage and other hydrogen gas issues. I hope a fuel celled powered electric car doesn’t go the way of fusion – always just 10 years away from implementation…
Clay…..“always just 10 years away from implementation ??????? ”
…
You can buy one today from Toyota: https://ssl.toyota.com/mirai/fcv.html
Good luck filling the tank…
https://www.afdc.energy.gov/fuels/hydrogen_locations.html
Are fuel cell vehicles subject to the same restrictions as liquid petroleum gas vehicles? Being unable to use ferries, and some tunnels/underground spaces might be a tad inconvenient.
SteveT
I am replying to my own comment, because I do not see a reply clicky for any the response to my comment.
Readers are confusing “hydroCARBON fuel cells” and “hydroGEN fuel cells”.
Hydrogen fuel cells take hydrogen and oxygen as inputs and output water and electrical energy. There is minimal infrastructure for supplying hydrogen for vehicles, as there is no good solution to storing the hydrogen on or off the vehicle.
Hydrocarbon fuel cells take a hydrocarbon and oxygen as inputs and output water, carbon dioxide, and electrical energy. The infrastructure to replenish the fuel reserves of hydrocarbon fuel cell equipped vehicles already exist, because they can directly convert gasoline to electric power. Hydrocarbon fuel cell powered electric vehicles deliver more energy to the wheels, because converting electricity to mechanical work is more efficient than converting heat to mechanical work. Despite CO2 being an output, the hydrocarbon fuel cell powered vehicle puts out less CO2 while being driven than a comparable internal combustion engine running on the same fuel.
Fuel cell efficiency is 50%. Electric motor 90% so 45% together. Advantages: wasted heat warms the car, no gearbox needed. Less maintenance.
I wonder if Kurt’s ten year old Electric Honda, was routinely charged on one of those five minute chargers, or even a 30 minute charger. Batteries do not have zero internal resistance, and the fast charging I^2R losses, go up as the square of the charging current, which is after all, why they are called I^2 R losses.
Let’s just see how Elon’s Tesla’s batteries last when ROUTINELY fast charged; like out on the highway; not in the garage.
G
When the State of California passes a law that the State, and ALL state employees may purchase ONLY Electric cars for any State government function that the tax payers must foot the bill for, and may not spend taxpayer funds on any fossil fuelled vehicle, of any kind, then I might consider they are serious about me buying an electric vehicle.
G
Electric car of today’s technology is a good city car – meaning, a second car. This is an attempt to double the number of cars in California.
I’d love to have an electric two door hatch-back for zipping around town.
My current 8 year old gas powered zip around needs to occasionally make the Manitowoc – Milwaukee round trip of a little over 150 miles. It cost way less than $20,000 and so far since 2009 I’ve run about $4,000 worth of gasoline through it – works out to around $2,500 per year.
My practical side won’t allow the purchase of a car that won’t perform that well.
The ability to go 400+ miles without charging the batteries
The ability to charge the batteries in 5 minutes
With no compromise on speed.
Homework assignment – Calculate the amperage needed to fully charge the typical EV Battery fro 15% capacity to 100% capacity in 5 minutes.
Bonus – What size wire will cable on this charger be? Can the typical person handle a cable of this size? can the typical home handle the amperage? Can the typical utility handle this power surge in the evening hours for a city the size of Chicago, Cleveland, etc…?
Ha… not for me to work out. We were asked what it would take to get us to get an electric car. I gave my “requirements” so to speak. If I was doing more than the range of the car in a day.. I wouldn’t want to sit around for hours half way to get the car batteries “filled up”.
Possible solution…remove the battery and power the vehicle through induction
@Bryan A “power the vehicle through induction” In theory should work, however, what of the wasted power over the vast expanse of just the interstate system in the 4 to 10 lanes and the millions of miles of vacant highway? Then there is the coupling loss to consider. Seems like another 25% efficient Renewable Energy source.
Actually, Induction powered cars and powered roadways may be just the answer. But I wouldn’t remove the battery, just scale it down. That way you wouldn’t have to power every driveway and parking lot, and they’d have at least some ‘off grid’ capacity’.
The price for electrifying all those roads would be an obstacle of course, but then again if you started off adding Induction to the EV’s we have today, and electrified the roads as part of their maintenance cycle, you could build up to it slowly. Then once you had a significant part of a cities roads electrified you could start marketing cheaper ‘grid-optimized’ cars with, say 30 to 45 minutes travel on just batteries.
The best part is, no plugging in or charging times. The battery is topped up any time it’s on the road, though any place they are likely to be parked for long periods (airport parking lot) may be a good place to put trickle charging induction fields to keep them from bricking.
~¿~
@usurbrain
Alas, my knowledge of Induction Power is limited to what I know from using an induction stove top and from my electric toothbrush that somehow charges while setting on it’s stand despite not having any electrical contacts.
In short, I know THAT it works, not HOW it works. >¿<
I pretty much was operating under the impression that it would work much like the trains or busses that get their power from electrified rails or wires, but without actually needing exposed contacts (and the risk that entails), and probably a small loss of efficiency.
I take it from your post that the losses would be… substantial?
~¿~
usurbrain-
Good questions.
Assuming the energy required to charge the EV battery from 15% to 100% is 50 kWhr, the lossless charging power to complete this in 5 minutes (or 5/60 = 0.083 hours) is 50 kWhr / 0.083 hours = 600 kW. At 240 V, that requires a current of 2500 Amps.
Typical homes have a utility feed of 100 A – 200 A at 240 V, which is about a factor of 12 – 25 too low.
Lincoln Electric provides welding cable guidelines for choosing copper welding cable size based on ampere rating of welder.
A 1500 Amp welder operating at 100% duty cycle and up to 50 foot cable length requires 5 parallel cables of size 4/0 for each polarity.
A 2500 Amp EV charger operating at 100% duty cycle will require at least 16 cables of size 4/0 (8 for each polarity).
A single 4/0 welding cable weighs about 0.7 pounds per foot. With a cable length of 25 feet, that comes to 17.5 pounds per cable, or about 280 pounds of total cable bundle weight.
Seems a little unwieldy…
This might work until the first utility company arrived to dig up the road. The logistics, practicality and costs would be horrendous.
Plus regular road maintenance.
SteveT
Super charging must also not compromise battery life, as it does today.
Super charge? Is that like a nitrous system for EVs?
Why? Supercharging is a rare event in the driving experience of most Tesla owners.
And those induction powered roads must not radiate any EM energy, or create any RF interference on any frequency band already in use for some purpose.
There’s actually a nut job at I believe it is Stanford, who is seriously considering induction powered cars, and it requires a variable frequency for it to work the way he claims it will.
There are more looney tunes masquerading as educators, than you know of. Remember if you can’t do anything useful, you can always become a professor and teach. Oh I forgot; professors don’t teach, it’s some grad student doing the teaching, and (s)he’s right up on it, having just passed finals in that subject.
G
Give me a million dollars. Then I will buy a new Toyota Tundra and laugh as I drive away with $950,000 left over.
You could use it to tow the EV… 😉
Or get 3 other people and pick it up and put it in the bed. Would be room for a couple of coolers and grill, too!
3 other people to pick it up? The batteries alone weigh 800 kilos!
Aren’t they lighter when they are not charg,,,,,,,,,Damn! I couldn’t even type it without busting out laughing. Which is the exact reaction when I read or hear the words electric and car together.
I used to work at the top of a long steep hill and had a colleague who was a bit older than me and couldn’t quite manage the cycle ride. So he got an electric bike and was really pleased with it – initially. Problem was with each overnight recharge the performance dropped a little so he was having to work harder with each passing day. Unlike a conventional bike where you get a bit fitter every day and the ride becomes easier his journey was getting each day just that bit more onerous. Totally unmotivating. He doesn’t do that anymore.
Well, this post gives an advantage to the EV (or the hybrid). It is easier to transport electrons than bulk gasoline.
Huh? Where did you get that from?
While electrons don’t weigh much, the thing you need to store them in is very heavy and expensive.
He said the gas stations where dry but the power was still on.
If you live in a place that gets cold in the winter, you would also need a battery that doesn’t poop out when the temperature goes below freezing.
What about hot weather. I have a battery strimmer that uses the same technology as the car batteries and it is fine and does our full garden until the temperature gets above 25C. Above that it cuts out if used continuously after about two thirds at most.
Also the car range if you have air con or heating must be really pathetic.
Be able to recharge in 5 minutes to give a 400 mile range carrying 4 adults and their luggage in all weathers day and night. Power points to recharge as easy to find and access as gas stations. Sufficient baseload power in the grid to support all the charging. A way of recharging when car bricks due lack of charge at night miles from nearest power point.
It will never happen. The energy density of batteries is insufficient, the charging rates are insufficient, the grid power is insufficient.
Spot on.
The only way electric cars will ever become widespread is when a “hot” rail is implanted in major thoroughfares that will allow charging while driving. Building rails and roads was required before mechanical transportation was widely available in the past. Then we can address the problem of burning 3 times as much fossil fuel to generate enough electricity to replace a gallon of gasoline.
Yup.
Should solve the problem of those annoying jaywalkers as well.
Ten dollar gas might do it. Which is apparently what some enthusiasts have in miind.
The same enthusiasts also want upwards of two/three dollar Kw/h electricity as well.
We must never lose sight of the agenda behind all of this “frontage” – the destruction of the western way of living. There is a core of activists and a large number of “useful idiots” the latter thinking they are caring environmentalists etc.who are really aiding and abetting the continuing suppression and deaths of the poorest people around the world.
The champagne socialists, politicians and multi-billionaire backers all expect to be part of the small elite running the planet once the population gets to a “manageable” size. Most of these have UN connections.
SteveT
with a goal to more than quadruple the number of zero-emissions vehicles on the road by 2025
OK, Green Utopia California, where exactly would the electricity come from to charge all those cars?
Problems, problems…
Easy, they will make electricity so expensive that nobody else can afford to use any. Then there will be plenty of subsidized power available for electric cars.
Recycled bong water from all the pot those moonbats are smoking!
My present car can go approx. 1000KM on a tank of gas. It operates in cold and warm temperatures, is very reliable and was not expensive to buy. Why should I buy an EV??????????…..Unproven claims of doom days coming is not a reason.
That’s easy. A portable source of energy, instead of a mere storage.
Mr. Fusion?
^¿^
1. recharging EV’s is not common sense. Change batteries and load directly from RE sources.
2. low range limits use to cities.
3. hi price
it takes a lot of (blind) idealism to buy an EV.
Finally: if trees could speak they would say: “thank you” to every SUV passing by. Driving gasoline powered cars greens the world.
Electric car rebates are welfare for rich people (both the buyers and producers like noted welfare queen Elon Musk). I think it’s pretty disgusting to take money from the middle class and give it to the rich so the rich can feel smug about how much they’re doing for the environment. In any just world, the subsidies would have never existed.
The middle class doesn’t pay much in income taxes anymore.
The bottom 50% of income earners pay only about 1% of all taxes.
MarkW
True, but who pays most of the gasoline tax, corporate taxes (through higher prices) and any other fee or hidden tax in goods purchased, not to mention SS money that has been raided to be used for general funds?
Yes, but do the same calculation for the Social Security and Medicare tax. Then add in the lottery and get the true picture of how much the bottom half pays in taxes.
President Reagan came very close to effectively implementing a flat tax when he managed to get rates to, as I recall, 15% and 28% for a brief time. The combined SS/Med tax was around 13% at the time and the 28% rate kicked in at about the level of income that SS/Med tax was no longer collected.
The result was that everyone was paying around 28% after they hit the standard deduction. If they’d have put everyone on a standard deduction and done away with itemizing them, we’d have been very close to a flat tax on income. Didn’t last long, however.
The poor get back everything they pay into SS and Medicare and then some.
The lottery is a tax on stupidity, and is 100% voluntary.
Gasoline tax is based on how much you use, and many urban poor don’t even have cars.
Corporate taxes are also based on how much you consume.
Right on. Take from the poor and give to to the rich. Most subsidies are like that. Concerning Mr. Musk, I do not recall hearing about Mr. Ford, Mr. Chrysler, and zillions of others, based their enterprise on subsidies from the Gov’t.
Musk is a loon, and one of these days his investors are going to see through his dreams of futuristic avarice and his stock is going to TANK. You can only go so long on hot-air castles before having to actually produce some tangible return. If the subsidies are pulled, the cars will NEVER sell beyond 1%. “Space-X” may have some viability as a trucking company to low earth orbit, but the rest is a Trekkian dream. As for the newly-launched “neural interface,” you really want Borg implants? Hyperloop, REALLY? When this guy’s dreams are exposed as non-starters by someone who’s actually conversant with the laws of physics and economics, he’s going to leave a pretty big smokin’ hole in the stock exchange.
My sentiments exactly.
I live and commute in the LA area. Most drivers on the roads will never be able to scrape together the $$ to buy an electric vehicle. However, taxing them to subsidize this low cost is akin to opening the refrigerator door to cool the kitchen.
There must be some analogous economic principle to the 2nd law of thermodynamics:
“You cannot tax individuals into prosperity.”
I would say “The economy cannot be taxed into prosperity.”
SR
Socialism is the belief that by taking money from the people who earned it and using it to buy votes, you can improve the economy.
California is real trying to control GHG emissions – Sure they are controlling the CO2 emissions by doing everything possible to shut down every ZERO CO2 producing Nuclear power plant. How many Wind Turbines and/or Solar panels does it take to replace Diablo Canyon? If of the CA NPPs had remained open, 73 percent of power produced in California would be from clean (very low-carbon) energy sources as opposed to just 34 percent. Of that clean power, 48 percent would have been from nuclear rather than 9 percent. And the 9% will be 0.0% in just 7 years. How many cars, SUVs, truck does it take to produce 53 Million Megatonnes of CO2?
Just how do you charge the EVs at night when your car is at home and pluged into its charger? Makes no sense to charge a battery during the day while your car is parked in a parking lot to be used to charge up the battery in your car when you come home. That means twice as many environmental polluting batteries. The Greenwhackos are not thinking through their Renewable model.
How are Californians going to charge their EVs in the daytime? Look at the Renewables “duck” curve –
“Thinking through?” You don’t “think through” a religious belief, you just . . . BELIEVE!!!! Gaia will provide, or at least Al Gore!
The day of the Eclipse me, my Sister and a friend drove 6 hours from Fort Wayne, Indiana to Bowling Green, Kentucky. We spent an hour there watching the Eclipse and having lunch, then drove 6 hours home.
It was a crazy Road Trip made with 2 days planning, real spur of the moment.
When they have an Electric car that can do that, and doesn’t cost much more then my Jeep Grand Cherokee, I’ll seriously consider it as a next car.
They need 3 to 5 min charging time or long trips will simply be too much trouble.
The base Tesla model 3 for 35K would have let you done it. You would have had to plan a little extra time each way to stop for charging, but there are several places to do it on that route.
Oh, and your annual fuel costs will be cut in half, at least, and if you drive less than 100 miles in a typical day, you will rarely have to stop to refuel at all. If the Jeep Grand Cherokee is your standard, you should start looking into electric cars right now,
Try this one. Sit and watch it on telly and save the planet.
Get a flight to Nashville , then a taxi.
Try picking somewhere closer on the eclipse path
Schittzree, it should be I not me in your opening sentence. 2 days planning? Get some modern technology like a satnav or a map.
My Initial Offer: Voucher for full upfront purchase price, waiver of all taxes on purchase, voucher for battery replacement, and $10,000 for convenience factor in cost of less reliable system with range issues. I reserve the right to sue in the event that there are unforeseen safety issues with these small cars on busy under-funded highways and bridges.
I don’t understand wasting even more money on EVs when they are not building more generation capacity. When Diablo Canyon shuts down, where are they going to get all the electricity to charge all these new EVs, especially at night when solar is off line and the hydro systems are wanting mucho MW to pump their water back up hill for the next day??? Right now, the only people that can afford to buy and operate EVs are the well off, and most of them don’t need a subsidy. I hate paying (with my taxi) for other peoples toys!
I’m sure that one could divert some of the electricity that they use to pump up the hydros.
A gas powered generator in the car hooked up to the electric motor 🙂
They’ve thought of that.
http://www.eptender.com/
Now ask, why not just use an ICE vehicle and skip the unnecessary Thermo2 tax? :]
Second offer: Fire Nancy Pelosi and most of the current party leaders and retire the Moonbeam and I will consider buying one.
Looked at Transit Evolved (transportevolved.com) and instantly saw an additional issue with EV I haven’t seen before — heating/cooling. An article there boasted that it only reduced range by (at most) 19%.
So, here in Texas (I, too, live in DFW) where distances between major cities (and even within metro areas) can be considerable and, yes, it sometimes gets cold and definitely gets hot, you must factor out 10-20% of the range so that you don’t sweat/freeze. (The article noted that the range only decreased t 195 miles, or just a little beyond Austin on our friends trek to Houston.)
So, a one-day trip becomes a 2 day journey with a stay in a hotel (likely pricey) that has a charging station. That becomes a non-starter.
In addition, I have friends outside of El Paso, a mere 610 miles away. To visit them would suddenly become, at minimum, a 3 day trip — one way — with all the attendant motel costs (and just try to find charging stations along I-20/I-10).
EV: As a nice little commuter-mobile, maybe. As the family car, never. As someone above noted, this is a good way to double the number of cars in California — or any state of any size outside the East Coast Corridor.
Pfft it doesn’t get cold in Dallas 😉
Problem is Dallas gets cold but not cold enough. I would much rather drive in the 6-8″ snow storms in the Midwest compared to driving in the 1/4″ ice storms that happened while in lived in Dallas.
Have you ever seen the automotive carnage from a Dallas ice storm?
And that’s assuming you can get to your destination without any wrong turns, heavy traffic, an out-of-date GPS map getting you lost, etc.
Unless every single individual in California is well fed, has a roof over their head and access to good education, it would be reprehensibly immoral to spend this kind of tax money on getting more folks into electric play toys just for political theatrics. There is NO scientific, environmental or economic justification.
I would take one if they came in packages of Cracker Jacks. Sadly, I believe Cracker Jacks cause cancer in the State of California.
It seems everything causes cancer and/or birth defects in the State of California nowadays.
Which would probably explain all the low IQ’s in the State of California. Either that, or the weed.
It would need to have the range of a ICE and be rechargeable in minutes, so it will likely not happen in my lifetime. A PEV, however, is quite practical because you can spin around town on an electric motor and then fire up that ICE when on the open road, but the costs are going to have to come down a little. A PEV (hoping for diesel hybrid) will quite possibly be my next vehicle purchase.
Errr I mean PHEV