Elon musk.....

[Bill]

Electric motors have excellent torque characteristics at low rpm, and there have been wonderful electric vehicles sincevthe dawn of the automobile age. In fact at that time they were relatively more impressive as gasoline powered vehicles stank, leaked, smoked and vibrated.

You still can’t make an automotive transportation system based on electric vehicles. As for freight, put that stuff on electric rail. Then you don’t have to charge anything or haul some battery system around.

Musk is a fraud.

I wouldn't say Musk is a fraud. I think he is very passionate about this. Everything he wants to do is possible. The problems that stand in his way right now are the high costs of achieving his goals. There's really no benefit to the trucking sector if the initial cost of this vehicle is excessive.

Making an automotive transportation system based on electricity is certainly doable, but it has limitations. They're great for local commuting or traveling within the distance of a charge (300 - 400 miles). However, you aren't going to hop in one and make a roadtrip from Sacramento to Seattle without requiring a charge.

Electric motors do provide excellent torque. They also enable the ability to use better traction control if each wheel is using an individual motor. They are so much better than the railroad industry uses them in their drivetrains. They generate electricity and use the electricity to power traction motors at the wheels. No transmission needed and the motors can be used for braking.

 

[JoshT]

When i worked at the airport we towed c-5's with tugs powered by ford 300 straight sixes. They weighed half a million pounds. Granted they only went 4mph max but they never even grunted. Im pretty sure the c-17s are even bigger and still use the same old tugs.

Yeah, C-17s aren't bigger than C-5s. Hell they ain't even close to being as big as a C-5.

C-5, C-130, and F-15. The C-17 in middle ground between the C-130 and C-5.



FWIW we have all 4 where I work. I work the smallest of the 4 (F-15) and even they are towed by diesel tugs, not that a 300 I6 couldn't do the job. Our tug is dwarfed by what they use for the heavies.

Also. I support this:

Tesla dashcam catches pickup truck trying to 'roll coal' a Model 3

A Tesla Model 3 owner managed to barely avoid a pickup truck owner trying to roll coal, which consists of...

electrek.co

That one was a laugh, did y'all actually read the article and watch the video.

"He saw the driver look at him in his rearview minor: "

The driver, meaning the driver of that lifted Dodge pickup that is 3-4 car lengths ahead? Driver of that lifted Dodge pickup with the blackout tinted rear window? Tesla driver in the little car saw that Dodge driver look at him in the rear view mirror!?!??!?! Tesla must be giving out binoculars with new purchases to give the driver can bird watch while it's on auto pilot.

Besides if he thinks that's "rolling coal", he's never actually seen it done. I've been behind stock gassers that smoke worse than that, granted it's a wonder that they still ran, but they smoked more than that.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Electric motors do provide excellent torque. They also enable the ability to use better traction control if each wheel is using an individual motor. They are so much better than the railroad industry uses them in their drivetrains. They generate electricity and use the electricity to power traction motors at the wheels. No transmission needed and the motors can be used for braking.

The Navy has used electric motors for ship projection from everything to battleships to carriers to submarines.

But to be fair they are not plug in electrics like a modern diesel locomotive they have an external power source to make power for the electric motors.

 

[sgtsandman]

Electric motors aren't the problem. They work well. It's the power source that is the issue. Those with their head in the clouds are trying very hard to make battery powered ones the norm. Until a battery powered electric vehicle has the same range, convenience, and relative inexpensiveness to operate and purchase as an internal combustion powered vehicle, they will never make it to main stream use. The best one can get is a hybrid and hybrid or pure battery power, the cost of battery replacement when they start to fail is still a big question. Until that is all sorted out, I'll stick with internal combustion.

 

[Bill]

Electric motors aren't the problem. They work well. It's the power source that is the issue. Those with their head in the clouds are trying very hard to make battery powered ones the norm. Until a battery-powered electric vehicle has the same range, convenience, and relative inexpensiveness to operate and purchase as an internal combustion powered vehicle, they will never make it to mainstream use. The best one can get is a hybrid and hybrid or pure battery power, the cost of battery replacement when they start to fail is still a big question. Until that is all sorted out, I'll stick with internal combustion.

I like the idea of a hybrid too. I think it is the way to go. A hybrid with batteries for the daily commute with the flexibility to fire up the engine if/when the battery discharges on long trips. I wouldn't hesitate to buy such a vehicle. I could plug it in and save a lot of trips to the gas station when I'm not driving long distances. I hate stopping to fill up with gas more than I hate paying for it.

I think it is very possible electric cars will become the norm, but not the only option. They work well for people who don't do much more than commute to work and the grocery store, and that is the majority of car owners. At any rate, you will see more of them and improvements in battery technology will improve power density which will enable longer trips.

 

[G8orFord]

Without the advent of the lithium ion battery, we wouldn't even be having this conversation, since lead acid wouldn't get the range without adding immense weight. I suspect battery technology will continue to improve and getting a viable all electric vehicle (1000+ mile range) is probably not too far in the future. Even then, there is the problem with charging. That is still going to take time. You can't pull into a station, plug in for 2 minutes and expect to have a full charge like you can when you fill up with fuel. Hybrids mitigate this problem, but that also inserts additional weak points and maintenance issues for the owner.

My biggest issue is that people seem to think that electric vehicles are somehow "green" and don't harm the environment when the fact is that the energy that charges the batteries largely comes from coal, natural gas and nuclear power. All of which have their environmental impacts. For that matter, while hydroelectric, solar and wind are much more environmental friendly, they still have a certain effect. What happens when all of these batteries have served their useful life? Imagine for a moment, that all of the cars on our roads right now were electric. Think of the environmental nightmare dealing with the huge amount of used batteries that would accompany that. If you've ever seen a lead acid battery recycling facility, you know what I'm talking about. Lithium ion is no doubt even more hazardous and hard to deal with.

If Elon Musk wants to really do something, he should be putting his efforts towards hydrogen and finding a method that's more cost effective to produce it in volume and make it as safe as possible for a passenger vehicle. The hydrogen fuel cell is by far the best option for the future of automobiles, IMO.

 

[Dirtman]

The li-ion and lifepo4 batteries in EV's get refurbished, not recycled. Not saying they aren't hazardous material or have a negative environmental impact but they don't just get thrown out and chewed up for raw material like lead acid batteries.

 

[8thTon]

The problem with an automotive transportation system based on electric vehicles is that an automobile must take its energy source with it. Energy isn't a thing, it's a flow. Gasoline isn't energy, it's matter with energy stored in it already. It's portable and easily moved too, but you still have to take it's mass around with you, accelerating it with the vehicle. The energy in fossil fuels is old solar energy, where the flow from the sun to dissipation at the background heat level of the earth was interrupted for a time.

An electric vehicle must have a source of energy, and then that energy has to get stored into some appropriate chunk of matter so you can haul it around. The equation for electric energy is Volts x Amps x Time. It takes a lot of energy too, and you cannot raise amps or volts at will or the losses go up, so you're stuck with a lot of time. Even with a perfect battery, every single refill on every single vehicle has a time in hours - it cannot work. You still need a source of energy, and a way to transport it - most of our electricity is fossil fuel, and the grid is ancient and we have not invested in maintaining it.

The only way an automotive transportation system worked - taking the energy source with you - was because of fossil fuels that have the energy stored in them already. We can make a really nice electric transportation system, but it's not automobile-based. Those are called trains.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Just need to change the infrastructure and put covered steel mesh over all the roads.

 

[Dirtman]

But trains always smell like pee and are full of homeless people and weird people with bikes... why would you bring a bike on a train! Pick one form of transportation and stick with it!

 

[8thTon]

I like the idea of a hybrid too. I think it is the way to go. A hybrid with batteries for the daily commute with the flexibility to fire up the engine if/when the battery discharges on long trips. I wouldn't hesitate to buy such a vehicle. I could plug it in and save a lot of trips to the gas station when I'm not driving long distances. I hate stopping to fill up with gas more than I hate paying for it.

I think it is very possible electric cars will become the norm, but not the only option. They work well for people who don't do much more than commute to work and the grocery store, and that is the majority of car owners. At any rate, you will see more of them and improvements in battery technology will improve power density which will enable longer trips.

Once I thought hybrids were the way to go too, but they are the worst of both worlds - almost two complete drivetrains and energy storage systems to lug around. It was based on the idea that you could make a really efficient gasoline engine that was optimized to run under a limited range of rpm & load. But now we have direct injection, variable valve timing, light pressure turbo engines that are efficient under a very wide range of conditions. Why lug the weight of a battery system around?

My dad's hybrid Mariner is pretty nice, but man is it heavy, the thing's a tank. With a 1500cc turbo GDI engine it would be more efficient, lighter and more powerful.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Once I thought hybrids were the way to go too, but they are the worst of both worlds - almost two complete drivetrains and energy storage systems to lug around. It was based on the idea that you could make a really efficient gasoline engine that was optimized to run under a limited range of rpm & load. But now we have direct injection, variable valve timing, light pressure turbo engines that are efficient under a very wide range of conditions. Why lug the weight of a battery system around?

My dad's hybrid Mariner is pretty nice, but man is it heavy, the thing's a tank. With a 1500cc turbo GDI engine it would be more efficient, lighter and more powerful.

Most things that have ICE and electric motors don't do it for the efficiency, they do it for the torque and simplified powertrain.

 

[8thTon]

Most things that have ICE and electric motors don't do it for the efficiency, they do it for the torque and simplified powertrain.

Yes, but I haven’t seen an actual series hybrid car or truck. That’s because the losses would be too high going from mechanical to electrical and back to mechanical again. It’s hard to beat a simple gear system for low losses.

Trains, ships and large construction equipment are a different story, in part because of the size and complexity of the drivetrains.

 

[Ranger850]

Did anyone else notice the tip of the Big plane has a Jet sized stabilizer. OMFG

 

[Dirtman]

That peice comes off and turns into a little voltron robot in emergencies....