Electric Cars

So first world nations are moving to ban gas vehicles. Electric vehicles are overpriced & their abilities exaggerated. Reports have been released by actual field testers indicating the electric vehicle manufacturers exaggerate the performance in some cases by over 50%.

Not too long ago California asked people not to charge EVs because of energy shortages.

So how the f— is it going to work when everyone has one ? Electricity rates will probably be higher then oil ever was. I predict it fails spectacularly and forces people back to burning fossil fuels.

@Skarwolf: well, how would you solve the issue?

Let's focus on solutions instead of "owning the libs" or whatever it is you seem to try to do in these threads you make.

Let's just say for example you want electric cars to succeed; how would you avoid the issues you claim are plaguing the transition that will doom us all to what we are already doing?

I have two questions to all three claims: 1.) they are?, and 2.) got links?

In regards to EVs.

1. They are not the solution. We should be phasing out the car itself. We have already seen a lot of success with this 15 minute city model being adopted in europe.
2. Whether you like it or not, they are the future as far as cars are concerned. Oil is simply put, unsustainable. Not only from a environmental perspective (climate change), but also from an economic and political one.
3. In 2023 we have made some really promising developments on battery tech. These advancements may help reduce the price of EVs.

@Maroxad: Phasing out cars is a pipe dream. We can argue it's a better outcome until we're blue in the face, it will not happen.

We are already making progress towards phasing them out here.

In northern sweden we are already seeing districts banning cars. Southern sweden will likely cling on to them. But the moves to ban them from certain districts and gradually phasing them out is popular among local residents.

@Maroxad: Good luck. Tell me when they're gone, haha.

They are full of poop and don't have a hole to release it out of. People that want electric vehicles should get on and people that want gas vehicles should be able to get one. Gas vehicles are only a problem because there are too many people in the world driving them. Once more people start getting electric vehicles, gas vehicles shouldn't be a problem.

@mrbojangles25: i never mentioned libs wtf you smoking kid. I’m liberal just not fascist left liberal.

I watched a YouTube video of this British guy testing an EV. By his calculations it was costing him on average $9-10 a day charging.

As more people begin to use EVs the infrastructure doesn’t currently exist to support it. The rates will increase based on demand it won’t be economically efficient.

We’ll be riding horses to and from work. Not everyone lives in cities. People require personal transportation.

Let's not pretend that petrol/diesel cars are not drinking over 50% more fuel than the manufacturers claim in unfavorable conditions, i.e. short trips in cold weather when you'd be lucky to stay below 2x the claimed fuel efficiency with a diesel.

There are plenty of cities, including Stockholm, where Cars are not the plurality. I dont think it will ever hit 0. BUT, we there are plenty of cities where they make up only around 10-20%.

First of all, societies are adjusting their infrastructure to support an increase of EVs. This is factored when countries are transitioning to EVs. As people get more EVs, countries will adapt. Norway is a shining example of successful EV policies.

Second, people have been doing fine before cars, and cities that have phased out cars are still doing fine. Streetcar suburbs, were a thing before WW2 and today, they tend to be the most valuable by quite a bit. They are just illegal to build in most of the americas because of car industry lobbying.

@mattbbpl: it will happen. You must be hiding under a rock if you haven't seen the AI systems. Once we get autonomous vehicles, the AI will simply drive us around, no need to ever own a car, just have the AI car drive us places. After seeing chatgpt, I can say that we are not too far from this future. The next decade is going to be fucking amazing.

Why does everyone forget Angel Fuels which are 99% Ethonal (alcohol) and only 1% fossil? It's what you're pumping into your car right now. We'll never run out of Fossil fuels either, a whole world of dinosaurs died.

Paranoid Hippies.

@Skarwolf: I was driving around yesterday, and was angry seeing gas prices. These scumbag bastards, as soon as opec hints at some production cut, the gas stations everywhere immediately raise prices. But when the opposite happens, and demand is much lower, it takes about a week for the gas prices to drop. Not to mention, seeing how everyone is getting in on the action for gas. The government gets a cut, opec gets a cut, the fucking city and state gets a cut, scumbag shit head dictators like putin get a cut, the piece of shit warhawks here get a cut and even worse is the pollution and global warming.

My next vehicle is going to be an EV or a plug in hybrid, to give them all the finger. This much is guarantees.

Ummmm, you vote for Democrats so the country's electric grid can be modernized, instead of throwing you hands in the air and proclaiming that progress is a bad thing. Why do we always have to drag Republicans kicking and screaming into the future? SMH

Fossil fuels aren't made from dinosaurs.

Yeah but a fossil is... never mind.

For those who don't know, Crude Oil come from the remains of plankton, algae and bacteria. Not Dinosaurs.

You're going to disappoint a slew of people who thought fossil fuels were literally made from fossils and who thought they were powered by burning dinosaurs.

I don't think EVs are a solution, though the technology should be supported because oil/gas production is a precarious and will only become more so, we can't just say "well, EVs aren't viable solution to transplant the excessess of 20th centuey living, so screw it, back to gas guzzlers".

For the United States, much of our reliance on oil can be addressed through city and transportation planning and zoning. Though, making necessary changes to curb our reliance along these means would be a monumental shift economically, and would require a national mobilization to address, which isn't feasible. We are by our nature, reactionary, not proactive. So, we're fucked and won't do anything until it's a painful pickle we wished we addressed sooner.

But to even think we're capable of seeing the errors of our ways as a society when confronted with the consequences of our collective lack of foresight, people are likely to latch onto the ramblings of authoritarian despots in times of heightened fear and anxiety, and that's probably the scarier outcome.

Doesn't the production of EV's create a bigger carbon footprint than ICE cars?

Mining the ground for the resources needed for the EV's will need to increase to support the change to EV. That will create more environmental damage. I don't see the heavy machinery needed to do the becoming electric.

Oil will still be needed for the production of EV's as they will still require a lot plastic.

Will people be able to pay the vehicle off before they need to spend $20K+ on a replacement battery?

Will the owner of the EV also be charged for the disposal of the bad battery?

Will a person still be able to get a new battery for a 10 year old EV? Or will the government force the manufacturers to support replacements for the 10? 15? 20 year?

Taiwan is a large producer of microchips. If Chine were to attack them how will this effect the future market?

I feel that there needs to be lots of changes and issues addressed before they start pushing for ICE to be phased out.

Yeah, I'm American. Most of us commute, our cities are shit, as our the suburbs we live in to often commute to those cities. Hell, I barely commute (about 5-10 drive from one side of a small town to the other side) and I still need a car because work is too far to walk and public transportation is lame around here.

The issue is that our energy comes from, in many cases, fossil fuels as well.

If we build more nuclear as a temporary measure (say, 20-30 years of planned use) while we build up our "green" infrastructure, then it won't be such an issue and prices can remain low.

The problem is bureaucracy, bloat, and corruption in our system; it could be affordable to build a lot of smaller, modern reactors but unfortunately it isn't.

EV's are incredibly efficient; there's a picture going around of a guy charging his EV and in the background there's a coal plant belching out smoke and while the picture is intending to "own the libs" (i.e. look at this guy thinking he is making a difference, he still needs fossil fuel hur hur hur), the fact is EV's are almost 100% efficient in delivering power from motor to tire, whereas gas cars are quite the opposite (they go from engine, to transmission, to axle, then to tires...and a lot of energy is lost there).

TL;DR: electric vehicles are not the problem. It's our infrastructure and the bureaucracy that prevents us from building up that infrastructure that is the issue.

Autonomous cars are cars.

I don't understand why progress is thought to be a negative thing. If better energy efficiency over fuel usage can be achieved, it will be strived for. It's simply ideal. And if you turn your back on that renovation, you will be left in the dust.

@mattbbpl: autonomous cars are cars, but if they can drive themselves, then we don't need 2 cars on every driveway and every family needing a car all the time. With autonomous AI cars, you could get by with 10% of the cars and people would be ok. Entire neighborhoods could be redesigned.

I think smaller transportation like ebikes will take over, and autonomous cars used for things like school, work, etc. Less cars on the road, less human error, less accident, more safety. I'd say we're around 20 years from this happening, optimistically speaking. The AI are advancing that quickly, that it could happen now, not in 20 years. But architecture, policies, and older ways of thinking take much longer time to change.

@blaznwiipspman1: Lowering the number of cars isn't phasing them out.

@mattbbpl: it won't be phased out in our lifetime, but the way people imagine transportation will change. We're using an older way of 1920s thinking when it comes to cars anyways. They are extremely inefficient, cause massive amounts of pollution, non stop traffic and grid lock. Future generations will be better off without them.

Then we agree.

@mattbbpl: no, it will happen lol. Phasing out is a process. We have already started that process, it's just going to take time, nobody said its going to happen tomorrow. There's 1.4 billion vehicles in the world, and countries, cities, communities are built with them in mind. Just getting rid of 1/4 of the parking lots will give us back a huge chunk of land.

@blaznwiipspman1: Lol, if your position is that at some point in the future which we won't see, cars will cease to exist, then yes, I agree.

In the long run we're all dead, as Keynes was fond of saying.

Waiting for EV or Hydro powered vehicles to mature. Its still bit to expensive for me and the range/time to charge is still not worth it. Electric charge cost as much or more than fossil fuel but the time waiting for full charge is long.

@Skarwolf: You predict wrong. It no longer matters what govt wants wrt EVs. The industry itself has already decided and there is no going back. This is the beauty of capitalism at work.

The most efficient automanufacturer on earth is Tesla. The highest profit margin % per vehicle for a mass auto manufacturer is Tesla. This is across all ICE and EV mass manufactured platforms.

Ironically, Tesla is now weaponizing these advantages to drive other EVs under in some parts of the world. This will be accelerated when they release their smaller compact model. The point being they scare both ICE and EV market competitors.

Around the world, some EV models are at price parity with their ICE equivalents in some markets. Within 2-3 yrs EVs will be at price parity or cheaper than their ICE competitors. Quote me on that.

Why? Because EV batteries are rapidly increasing performance in energy density at lower cost which is a very big deal for EV reduced costs. Second, overall manufacturing cost per vehicle decreases as production scale increases. As EV sales increase, per unit costs will decrease. Both of these factors will continue to drive down EV prices relative to ICE and that trend is not reversible.

As for California, EVs and extreme weather events... that is irrelevant. Texas had the same with cold and freezing of their natural gas generation, and hurricanes, broken pipelines, refinery explosions, etc. have all led to temporary electricity or gasoline shortages in local markets. Indeed, in future world EVs can be used as battery backup...but that is a whole other post.

Electric has less problems than fossil fuel powered cars in cold weathers, do they not? At least that is my impression.

Only problem I ever had in winter was a dead battery and electric using batteries so I don't know if that's true. Then again you live where it's colder.

their are different type of batteries. dont blank assumption

A little north of me requires engine heaters when parked. It gets pretty darn cold there, though.

@horgen: EVs take a major downgrade in range the colder it is. That can easily be 40% or more range to lithium ion batteries when you are at minus 20 Celsius or worse, which is frequent in my country. Anything nearing or below 0 Celsius will take some hit.

The battery must do 3 things: propel the vehicle, heat the cabin, and keep the battery pack itself at optimum operating temp via the battery management system. In comparison, ICE uses waste heat from the engine to warm the cabin and itself (engine oil).

Sodium ion batteries are debuting this year. They are much cheaper (salt everywhere) and not as susceptible to cold as lithium (less range loss) but they have less energy density. Energy density is key to range both in the direct power relationship but also the weight to power relationship because the battery pack weight itself is a key range factor.

Next year will be combo lithium and sodium...will reduce the cold issue. The so called best of both solution. There are also many other battery types like LFP etc. All battery solutions will by definition have shortened cold range issues to some degree.

Also, some EVs do use small heat pumps to capture other forms of waste heat and use it instead of battery power in the cabin, but that is essentially worthless in really cold environments. It is like a heat pump for your house which is potentially a good solution when it is temperate/cool but useless when cold/freezing cold.

You leave near Chicago if I remember correctly? It can cold here but not for that sustained of a time and actually this was such a mild winter. Barely any snow but we did have temps low enough for the water company to send warnings but the most it last was less than a week maybe once or twice.

@LJS9502_basic: Yeah, just south of it.

That's much rarer now then decades ago and reflects (in part) the change to better oils including greater use of synthetic oils. When I was a kid every car had a block heater to deal with minus 20, 30, or 40 Celsius. The engine oil would thicken/freeze/greatly change its viscosity which meant that the (cold) battery couldn't generate enough power to turn over the engine. Hence heat the bottom of the oil pan, keep the oil warm, reduce the stress on the battery. But overall things like fuel injection, engine management, etc. have made block heaters mostly redundant.

In my hometown in the 70s, we used to always carry two sets of keys so you could leave the car running when you stopped at the convenience store and use the second set to lock and unlock the door.

@SUD123456: My coworkers in MN have to use them.

And gas cars use more fuel during winter. Partly because there are more additives in them to stop them from freezing but also to heat the cabin. My current vehicle uses close to 50% during winter than good summer conditions.

It's not like I should let the engine run for some minutes before hitting the road with electric engine in cold weather.

Heat pumps helps, but yeah they are less effective at minus 25C or colder. Unsure how good those in vehicles are these days, but if you are buying for your home I think it is difficult to find ones that are effective below minus 25C. Or they aren't advertised much here because colder than that is unusual.

One form of energy propulsion creates lots of free waste heat that is easily moved into the cabin and doing so has no effect on range. The other does not and uses the same propulsion energy to warm the cabin which reduces range.

Whether you choose to warm the cabin before driving off is a personal choice. Personally I do not as the engine generates more heat faster under load while moving than while idling.

More importantly, modern gasoline engines do not need to reach normal operating temperature before moving. They require 30 secs to properly lubricate the moving parts and that is all.

Don't know what it is like in your country but in N America summer gas is more expensive than winter gas but you get about 1.7% more energy efficiency than winter. However, this has nothing to do with winter and cold per se. In fact, it is the opposite because blends are based upon evaporation and pollution standards using the Reid vapor pressure scale which is designed to reduce evaporation, smog and emissions in the summer. It is not about additives in the winter.

Gas mileage in winter is mostly affected by unnecessary idling and warm up, colder air which creates more drag, lower tire pressure which increases rolling resistance of rubber, and longer time to reach max fuel efficiency (which disproportionately affects people who primarily drive short distances). The worst fuel efficiency is warming up the vehicle in cold winter weather to drive a short distance.

No effect on range on most vehicles. But if you're seeing north of 50mpg summer time, you're most likely getting less wintertime. Sure increased drag and roll resistance account for some of the increase in fuel consumption during winter, but not all of it depending on the vehicle.

I am not saying electric cars is a replacement in all settings yet, but for most people they are. More so in Europe than US I guess.

Gas tends to be slightly more expensive during summer I think, mostly due to increased usage of it I believe. I've heard the difference comes from additives, but you might be right as well. The end result is the same.

But Europe is tiny for the amount of countries within...

they may not be the solution but they're certainly a solution.

we don't need 100% EV to have a MASSIVE impact. you get the same arguments over and over from the ideologically EV opposed people:

1) range anxiety
-- if you need a car to drive 500 miles a day and an EV won't work for you, OK, don't but an EV then. but there are millions of people for whom that is not the case.

2) they're not "green"
-- first, define "green"
-- next, they might not be "green" but they're sure as shit "greener" than ICE autos belching out poisons and wasting 75% of their fuel's potential energy

3) charging infrastructure is shit
-- my guess was when ICE autos were first introduced, there probably wasn't a station on every corner yet. not to mention the convenience of for many of being able to charge at home.

It’s not really fair to compare Europe to the USA in terms of transportation. Compare driving through one state such as California from south to north to driving across all of Europe. The only place where you can hit five or more states in a relatively short amount of time is the Northeast (New England). Most states in the US are massive pieces of land that require most people to drive a car for substantial distances daily unless you live in the middle of a major city such as NYC, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc.

That said, I like the idea of electric vehicles. I just don’t think they’re feasible for American lifestyles or the grid…yet. Fossil fuels have a limited use anyways. I say we plan for the future with the realization that fossil fuels are slowly becoming a thing of the past. That does not mean we need to abandon them as quickly as possible, not without a realistic, applicably sound plan in place.

I also don’t think the conservative position should be “we like our gas; we don’t want EVs.” That’s not a realistic position either.

@The_Deepblue: I’d like to get off oil just to stop giving money to an Islamic terror state Saudi Arabia. They export as much wahabist islam as they do oil

Due to a little thing known as trains, we don't need cars for long distance travel either.

Cars are only a necessity in cities are spread out.

My problem with electric cars is that the market is not deciding on them, the government is trying to force them on us. And, when you look at the complete carbon footprint, including manufacturing and disposal, they are not more environmentally friendly than fuel efficient gasoline cars.

Why can't we just use Porsche's synthetic gas?