I Gotta Admit I Really Like The Vulcan

[RonD]

I was joking but........................

They said ALL the same things about the ICE when it was first tried for transportation
"No practical value, will never replace the horse for reliability and range"
"A toy for the rich"

 

[franklin2]

I was joking but........................

They said ALL the same things about the ICE when it was first tried for transportation
"No practical value, will never replace the horse for reliability and range"
"A toy for the rich"

The liberals running our country now are not joking, even if it's not practical or doable. I can't figure out how they are going to get their tax revenue when they quit selling fuels.

 

[pjtoledo]

they will tax our miles.

 

[RonD]

They will just raise the tax on fuel, simple
If you don't want to use an EV then pay MORE to use ICE, they won't lose a dime in tax money

A taxable commodity, often doesn't follow the supply and demand rules, lol
With more EVs on the road and less ICE vehicles, demand for fuel will go down, its just math
But price of fuel will go up, its just government

Same has happened with cigarettes
Less smokers/demand, but higher prices, which is ALL extra taxes
But "its for the children", if it's too expensive then they won't start smoking

Same will happen for fuel, "its for the children" if fuel is too expensive they will buy EVs as first car

 

[Roert42]

I think there is something like 20 states that already have a Tax specifically if you drive an electric car. couple hundred bucks per car on top of yearly registration tax, which is already insanely high in some states.

 

[pjtoledo]

They will just raise the tax on fuel, simple
If you don't want to use an EV then pay MORE to use ICE, they won't lose a dime in tax money

A taxable commodity, often doesn't follow the supply and demand rules, lol
With more EVs on the road and less ICE vehicles, demand for fuel will go down, its just math
But price of fuel will go up, its just government

Same has happened with cigarettes
Less smokers/demand, but higher prices, which is ALL extra taxes
But "its for the children", if it's too expensive then they won't start smoking

Same will happen for fuel, "its for the climate emergency" if fuel is too expensive they will buy EVs as first car

FIFY

 

[stmitch]

Nope. We're going to go down this EV path a ways, only to find out that while you can make a really nice EV, you can't make an automotive transportation system that uses EV's. At least not one anything like what we have now. First, the refueling time issue is not a problem that technology can solve, it is inherent in the process of transferring energy into some chunk of matter so you can carry it around with you. The equation for electrical energy is V*A*Time. It's a lot of energy, and you cannot increase V or A without incurring a lot of losses, so you're stuck with a lot of time. Liquid fossil fuels are matter that the energy got stored in millions of years ago, so that doesn't have to happen now.

The vast majority of current EV owners charge at home when the vehicle is parked for several hours. I plug my PHEV into a standard 120v outlet every night. It takes 5 seconds of my time if I'm being slow. It's fully charged the next morning when I leave and again takes 5 seconds of my time to unplug. It's actually less of my time than stopping for fuel every few weeks.
Charge time does matter for lengthy trips, or those who cannot charge at home. But Porsche's (VW's) latest chargers can send enough electricity into the battery in just 4 minutes to drive 80 miles. That's not quite as fast as filling most liquid fuel tanks, but it's getting closer. How long does it take to put 4 gallons into the tank of a truck that gets 20mpg to drive that same 80 miles?

Second, our electricity comes primarily from fossil fuels, much of it coal. Nasty, brown lignite coal, one step above dirt, is all we have left.

Coal is more expensive than natural gas in addition to being dirtier. It's going away even without tons of government push simply because of economics. Even if we're still burning fossil fuels, switching from coal to NG is a big improvement environmentally. Natural gas surpassed coal as the most common fuel for electrical generation in the US a couple of years ago and that gap is only increasing:

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

www.eia.gov

This is an improvement. If renewables can gain market share, that's an additional improvement. Massive change rarely occurs in a single leap. It takes multiple smaller steps along the way. These are those steps.

Once the present oil glut is used up and the tight oil companies have gone under, or even if they're propped up more, fuel will get increasingly expensive. EV's are not going to save our bacon.

Expensive gas seems like something that would motivate even more buyers to consider EVs to me. The price fluctuations with liquid fuels aren't really present with electricity, so the predictability of that expense can be appealing to businesses and large fleets even if the cost savings can vary depending on the cost of liquid fuels. Commercial/Fleet use of EVs is showing tons of promise.

 

[19Walt93]

I worked at a gas station during the 73 oil embargo and was dumb founded when gas prices spike in 09 and cratered the economy. I know congress doesn't do anything quickly- other than find ways to get on TV- but there's no excuse for us not having a comprehensive energy policy. Gas was less than $.40 a gallon in 73 and should probably be around $4 today, partially from inflation, partially for additional taxes to pay for some badly needed roads and bridge repairs. The power grid we have will not handle everyone charging their cars every night and upgrading it will be expensive, even if we can figure out how to generate enough to feed it. A lot of folks in Texas have no power, how's their car charger working today?

 

[stmitch]

I worked at a gas station during the 73 oil embargo and was dumb founded when gas prices spike in 09 and cratered the economy.

Gas prices had very little to do with the economic collapse in 2009, and actually dropped when the economy tanked.

I know congress doesn't do anything quickly- other than find ways to get on TV- but there's no excuse for us not having a comprehensive energy policy. Gas was less than $.40 a gallon in 73 and should probably be around $4 today, partially from inflation, partially for additional taxes to pay for some badly needed roads and bridge repairs.

A huge reason why gas isn't $4/gal today is because there's a lot more of it, and it's being produced domestically. Improved fuel economy also reduces demand which keeps prices lower. Those things combined lead to energy independence for the US, which is unique among global super powers and has only occurred in the last few years. It's not 2009, and it's certainly not the 70s. It can certainly be improved upon, but there's been progress made.

The power grid we have will not handle everyone charging their cars every night and upgrading it will be expensive, even if we can figure out how to generate enough to feed it.

If an EV has a 250 mile range, it won't need to be fully charged every night. The current infrastructure would crumble if every ICE on the road had to refuel at the same time too, but that doesn't happen because we don't all use 90% or more of our vehicle's range every day. So you'll have some people charge their vehicles a little bit each night, while others will run them most of the way to empty and then charge them back to full once every few days.

A lot of folks in Texas have no power, how's their car charger working today?

Probably about as well as the electric fuel pumps at the gas station are working today. At least at home I can control my situation by having a generator to supply electricity instead of hoping that the gas station that I need is functioning.

 

[Roert42]

They have invented a way to store fuel remotely in cans, so you do not need an electric pump at the gas station to fill your tanks.

How easy is it to store enough electricity to charge an ev?

 

[stmitch]

They have invented a way to store fuel remotely in cans, so you do not need an electric pump at the gas station to fill your tanks.

How easy is it to store enough electricity to charge an ev?

A few hundred bucks worth of generator and transfer switch? Probably takes up less space and less hassle than constantly having a bunch of gallons of dino juice spoiling on the shelf. You can also use the same generator to keep your house warm, your lights on, and your food from spoiling, which isn't happening with a bunch of stockpiled liquid fuel.

Really, a permanent, whole house backup generator appeals to me more and more every day. The natural gas to my house isn't getting shutoff or having outages, and it's not going to run out quickly like a battery backup might.

You could just as easily say "They have invented a way to store electricity remotely in batteries, so you do not need a functional power outlet to charge your battery" couldn't you? That might not be the way that I'd try to solve the problem, but it's the same concept. The point was that ICE's aren't necessarily any more immune to something like a power outage than an EV is. You can cover your ass with either one by storing a bunch of energy onsite, or making new energy (although making gasoline or diesel at home is probably quite a bit harder than making electricity).

How about those Vulcan V6's huh?

 

[Roert42]

a lot of people do not have natural gas plumbed right up to their house, at least I don't, so I have store extra gas to run a generator anyway. 40/50 gallons of gas in a sealed container with fuel stabilizer will last you a few years anyway.

 

[stmitch]

a lot of people do not have natural gas plumbed right up to their house, at least I don't, so I have store extra gas to run a generator anyway. 40/50 gallons of gas in a sealed container with fuel stabilizer will last you a few years anyway.

If this situation goes on long enough, you'd eventually have to choose between using your stored fuel to keep your lights on with the generator or fueling your vehicle. That choice is a bit different with an EV, where you just suffer some increased loads on the generator while charging while you'd still have some lights/heat/appliances. It's less of an either/or choice.

 

[8thTon]

The vast majority of current EV owners charge at home when the vehicle is parked for several hours. I plug my PHEV into a standard 120v outlet every night. It takes 5 seconds of my time if I'm being slow. It's fully charged the next morning when I leave and again takes 5 seconds of my time to unplug. It's actually less of my time than stopping for fuel every few weeks.
Charge time does matter for lengthy trips, or those who cannot charge at home. But Porsche's (VW's) latest chargers can send enough electricity into the battery in just 4 minutes to drive 80 miles. That's not quite as fast as filling most liquid fuel tanks, but it's getting closer. How long does it take to put 4 gallons into the tank of a truck that gets 20mpg to drive that same 80 miles?

Yes, charging overnight works great for you, or for a few, but when everyone does it then there is no longer any "off peak" time for the grid. Transformers and other current carrying equipment never get to cool down, there is less time available for maintenance, etc. If something fails the system will be at higher capacity more of the time, making that failure more of a problem. A system without excess capacity is inherently more vulnerable. We don't have more capacity because just like all of our infrastructure we can't even afford to maintain what our forbears built, let alone improve it.

As for higher charge rates, when energy is transferred there are losses, and those go up with higher rates of transfer. You can't get out of these effects, it's not a technology or engineering problem, it's physics and thermodynaics.

Coal is more expensive than natural gas in addition to being dirtier. It's going away even without tons of government push simply because of economics. Even if we're still burning fossil fuels, switching from coal to NG is a big improvement environmentally. Natural gas surpassed coal as the most common fuel for electrical generation in the US a couple of years ago and that gap is only increasing:

This is an improvement. If renewables can gain market share, that's an additional improvement. Massive change rarely occurs in a single leap. It takes multiple smaller steps along the way. These are those steps.

"Renewable Energy" is an oxymoron that confuses people. Energy flows from higher concentration to lower, it flows once and is dissipated as heat at the background temperature of the system (heat death), doing work along the way. It can never be renewed. For the most part fossil fuel and so-called renewable energy are all solar energy - fossil fuels are old solar energy and "renewables" are the real-time flows of solar energy. You can do a lot with the real time flows of energy, it's what mankind had for almost all of our existence. If you want to see what really smart people can do with that, look to history. Our industrial world was built on the stored energy of millions of years ago, and the idea that we can do all the same with the real time solar energy flows is absurd.

Natural gas is a fossil fuel - it puts less nasty toxins in the air than coal, but plenty of CO2 (if you are concerned about that), and is also quite finite in supply.

Expensive gas seems like something that would motivate even more buyers to consider EVs to me. The price fluctuations with liquid fuels aren't really present with electricity, so the predictability of that expense can be appealing to businesses and large fleets even if the cost savings can vary depending on the cost of liquid fuels. Commercial/Fleet use of EVs is showing tons of promise.

EVs (and new cars in general) cost a fortune. If I keep some older vehicles running well and avoid buying one I will be well ahead for a very long time, even with expensive fuel. The cost of electricity is dependent on the cost of the fossil fuel it is generated from.

 

[8thTon]

A huge reason why gas isn't $4/gal today is because there's a lot more of it, and it's being produced domestically. Improved fuel economy also reduces demand which keeps prices lower. Those things combined lead to energy independence for the US, which is unique among global super powers and has only occurred in the last few years. It's not 2009, and it's certainly not the 70s. It can certainly be improved upon, but there's been progress made.

There is a glut of fuel because the economies of many industrial countries are in the toilet and fuel use is down. Also KSA tried to beat Russia in a fuel price war (again) and lost (again), so they pumped flat out for a while. That drove the price of oil down too far for the tight oil fraud in the US to pretend to be profitable, and by the time that glut of oil is used up much of that will be out of business. Expect the price to go up after that.