All they need are a bunch more technical improvements to extend the range and reduce the cost of manufacture. Some friends of mine have gotten Leafs, which are fine for regular commuting on flat terrain, but not economical without the government subsidies.
Comment on Towards mass marketed electric vehicles by Matthew R Marler
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Comment on Towards mass marketed electric vehicles by Wagathon
The ME apparently is so preoccupied with the threat of radical Islam within its borders that it’s dropping the ball letting the IP for all of these great alternatives to fossil fuel escape out into the public. I can hear the Left now: “If man was meant to benefit by unlimited low-cost energy, God would have made life without it so damn hard!”
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Comment on Towards mass marketed electric vehicles by omanuel
I own a Camry Hybrid, but electric cars are the result of consensus thinking guided by Big Brother.
Once society accepts the influence on human life of a pulsar only 1AU (one astronomical unit) away from Earth, that scientific fact will almost certainly induce profound changes in mental, emotional and spiritual well-being of society, as noted on E. M. Smith’s blog:
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2014/12/26/i-voted-for-obama/#comment-60807
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Comment on Towards mass marketed electric vehicles by Speed
If I had some ham I’d make a ham sandwich. If I had some bread.
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Comment on Towards mass marketed electric vehicles by AK
In a rear wheel drive configuration the peak power output is 200hp (150kW) – double that for a four wheel drive configuration.
What about front-wheel drive? Almost as good as 4-wheel in snow, etc. Is it really that much more expensive than rear-wheel?
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Comment on Open thread by Richard Greene
Any “scientist” who studies temperature anomaly charts showing:
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(1) Random temperature variations,
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(2) Of very rough measurements of Earth’s average temperature,
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(3) Over very short periods of time (only 134 years of Earth’s 4.5 billion year history),
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(4) In tenths of a degree C.,
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(5) And says the average temperature has increased from 56.5 to 58 degrees F. from 1880 to 2014, without mentioning 1800s thermometers were +/- one degree F. accuracy,
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(6) And claims those small random variations are definitive PROOF, with 105% confidence, that ‘life on Earth will end as we know it’ from climate change,
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(7) … must have a good sense of humor!
Full article here:
http://www.elonionbloggle.blogspot.com
.
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Comment on Towards mass marketed electric vehicles by Bob Ludwick
@ Robert Ellison
Sounds like a plan; I want one installed in one of these: http://birkindirect-usa.com/models/ss3xs-street-series-3-extra-space/ , with a single 35 kw DLR range extender. Two wheel drive only.
The problem with electric cars, assuming that the new battery technology makes the range problem somewhat moot (except for the Australia outback jaunt, of course), is that they are only practical because their numbers are insignificant.
There are currently about 250 million cars in the US, which travel approximately 3e12 miles/year. At 25 mpg, that translates into around 120e9 gallons of gas/year.
It is doubtful that electricity can be generated, moved into the Power Japan Plus batteries, and translated into vehicle motion with greater overall efficiency than by burning the fossil fuels on board the vehicle and filling up at a traditional gas station. Therefore, to run the electric vehicles enough additional generation capacity has to be added to our existing grid to deliver 120e9 gallons worth of electricity to the electric vehicles.
It’s worse than that though. We would have to add equivalent additional grid infrastructure to deliver the electricity to the ‘filling stations’. Even worse worse, the additional grid capacity has to be far in excess of the simple additional energy required, because the demand curve for ‘fill ups’ is extremely ‘peaky’. So not only does the grid have to have huge additional capacity, it has to tolerate sharp peaks and valleys in its delivery schedule.
None of these problems are insurmountable, from a technical point of view (I hope.). Politically, to quote John McEnroe: ‘You cannot be serious!’. The only way in which electric vehicles can contribute to ‘solving the ACO2 problem’, postulating for the moment that there actually is such a thing, is to supply electricity from sources that don’t produce any. Can you see any political problems with adding the additional, CO2 free electrical infrastructure necessary to deliver 3e12 vehicle miles worth of electricity to our electrical vehicles, whenever and wherever their drivers wanted it? If not, it may be instructive to review the multiyear process of getting the permits to add an additional high voltage line to deliver power a couple hundred miles from the coal fired power plants in eastern WV to the burgeoning DC/Northern VA suburbs.
I HOPE that the new technology pans out. I don’t EXPECT it, unless the political scene, currently controlled by green progressives who hate the entire concept of privately owned vehicles, which enable their owners to ‘move about the the country freely’, changes dramatically.
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Comment on Open thread by JustinWonder
Mosomoso
You make a key point right here:
“…you can’t run heavy industries with pea-shooters even if you make ‘em…”
Early in the Industrial Revolution people marvelled that “coal hauled itself out of the mines”. Wind turbines and PV solar panels cannot generate the power to manufacture themselves – it is the old power density problem. In fact, you need to burn even more fossil fuels, and emit more CO2, to manufacture, install, integrate, and operate them.
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Comment on Towards mass marketed electric vehicles by Marc Wagner
Yes. It is something like 13 times more potent as a greenhouse gas as CO2.
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Comment on Open thread by Rob Starkey
Yorman
I was doing a program called advanced aerospace industrial management at U of W but I do also have a masters in economics.
With all due respect, you know you are being misleading to anyone reading your comments. There is nothing in the link you provided that conflicts with what I have written. The link appears to be hosted by individuals that are convinced that AGW will result in substantially worstening climate conditions for humans over the long term. There in nothing showing the probable costs to administer a program that would keep such a tax revenue neutral.
There is no reliable evidence to support this conclusion (imo).
BTW- what is the long term per capita usage of fossil fuels today (or 2014) in BC vs. in the rest of Canada?
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Comment on Open thread by thebackslider
@AK – “Why should any sensible person waste time “refuting” somebody who makes a statement like that?”
Because you cannot, so out you come with your straw man.
Go ahead, show to us all historically at what level of atmospheric CO2 the planet has ever reached a “tipping point”.
You cannot.
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Comment on Open thread by JeffN
This is interesting, using an adversarial collaboration approach to studies:
I particularly like the “what would change your mind” question. This might work best in evaluating alternatives to fossil fuels.
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Comment on Open thread by JustinWonder
rls
The climate debate will wither on the vine, pushed aside by real economic issues and made irrelevant by now unimaginable technological innovation.
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Comment on Towards mass marketed electric vehicles by RiHo08
Rob Ellison
I agree that electric vehicles are in our relatively near future. Several of the downside issues have been stated and with the automotive industry, I am sure there will be more as details of ride, safety and varying weather conditions become enumerated.
What niche is this concept care targeted? Ford made a blunder with the Edsel. Bringing a concept car to fruition as a mainstream vehicle has to have a variety of audiences in mind other than the crunchy granola organic crowd. Personally, I like the idea of a drive around the city car with as occasional foray into the “Hinterland”.
What has been selling well in the US has been the big vehicle, the enlarged mini-van, the SUV and cross-over, and in particular, pick-up trucks.
Do you have an idea for the pick-up truck as well? The Ford Expedition (early popular SUV) was originally on a pick-up truck frame so I believe that something like that previous evolution may take place with the electric vehicles.
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Comment on Towards mass marketed electric vehicles by JeffN
Excellent point. I like the idea of designing a vehicle for China. Just the infrastructure needed to support existing large gasoline-powered cars – fuel stations, high speed roadways, even parking facilities etc – is daunting in areas where it doesn’t exist.
Why not lower speed, higher range?
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Comment on Towards mass marketed electric vehicles by Rud Istvan
Having been involved off and on in LiIon and supercaps for about 20 years, and as inventor with issued patents on superior supercap carbons, I am deeply sceptical about the dual carbon battery. The claimed filed patent has not published, so that cannot be examined. The claimed power density does nothing to solve range anxiety, which comes from insufficient energy density– more range requires batteries that are too big. Just look at the monster in the Chevy Volt.
Despite all web articles on this the past 6 months, it is all empty echoes of the company’s website. That has no data, even qualitatively, on this battery other than a cartoon of the usual lithium ‘rocking chair intercalation’.
Innovation does happen, but this is extraordinarily well plowed ground. The only advantage of cotton as a carbon precursor is it is surprisingly pure cellulose. The disadvantage is it produces a turbostratic carbon; good for filtration (which they say is another application), bad for batteries. LiIon batteries with high energy density need graphitic carbons. This looks like another EEStor, in which Zenn investors have lost over $40 million.
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Comment on Open thread by Don Monfort
But Rob, this character has a Phd. So he should know better. Any honest economist would advise any state considering a so-called revenue neutral carbon tax to drop the BS immediately. It will disadvantage the state in the world market and it will not reduce emissions. A factory that closes down in clean burning California will open up in smokey China. Yo-ram is a cartoon environmentalist pseudo-economist.
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Comment on Towards mass marketed electric vehicles by aaron
I’ll ask again, is methane really a pollutant?
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Comment on Open thread by Matthew R Marler
a fan of *MORE* discourse: Suggestion 1 Start askin’ better questions, and
Suggestion 2 Start thinking deeper into the future.
If the surface warms by 0.5C, on average, what will be the changes in the rates of surface cooling by advection and evapotranspiration?
You may recall that Romps et al computed a 12% increase in the rate of cloud to ground lightning strikes in the US east of the Rockies for a 1C increase in mean surface temp, but somehow without an overall increase in the cooling rate caused by the speed up of the whole process generating lightning. They assumed that the water vapor remained a constant fraction of each kg of air lifted by convection, across the whole range of temperatures and specific humidities from Denver and St Paul in the winter to New Orleans and Tallahassee in the summer; if the water vapor fraction of air is constant (at least to a first degree of approximation), what is the amount of change in the energy transfer rate by the process if CAPE*PR increases 12% (where PR is precipitation rate)?
According to Wentz, Ricciardulli, Hilburn and Mears, (Science, 317:233-235, 2007), each 1C increase in global mean temperature will produce a 7% increase in annual rainfall. This is at the high end of reported estimates. What is your best estimate of the rainfall change with mean global warming? If rainfall increases, will cloud cover also increase? A 5% increase in rainfall represents approximately an increase of 4 W/m^2 increase in the rate of transfer of latent heat from surface to upper troposphere: what increase in rainfall rate do you think will completely balance the surface warming effect of a doubling of CO2 concentration?
According to your best estimate, what will be the rate of sea level change 100 years from now? 6 mm/year? As you know, Venice is subsiding and New Orleans is below sea level; what multibillion dollar infrastructure projects are most likely to protect those cities throughout the rest of the 21st century? As you most likely know, the Indus Valley is subject to alternations of destructive flooding and drought: what multibillion dollar infrastructure projects should have the highest priority for protecting lives, property and agriculture in the Indus Valley throughout the rest of the 21st century? (repeat question for California, US and Queensland, Aust.)
Take your time and think through the answers — if CO2-induced warming is occurring at all, it is happening slowly. Also, the real “hiatus” is in global warming worry, with nearly all large projects on hold or in reverse (e.g. Germany.)
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Comment on Towards mass marketed electric vehicles by DaveJR
To charge the car over night?
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