Are We Reaching the Electric Car Tipping Point?

HughPickens.com writes: Geoff Ralston has an interesting essay explaining why it is likely that electric car penetration in the U.S. will take off at an exponential rate over the next 5-10 years rendering laughable the paltry predictions of future electric car sales being made today. Present projections assume that electric car sales will slowly increase as the technology gets marginally better, and as more and more customers choose to forsake a better product (the gasoline car) for a worse, yet "greener" version. According to Ralston this view of the future is, simply, wrong. — electric cars will take over our roads because consumers will demand them. "Electric cars will be better than any alternative, including the loud, inconvenient, gas-powered jalopy," says Ralston. "The Tesla Model S has demonstrated that a well made, well designed electric car is far superior to anything else on the road. This has changed everything."

The Tesla Model S has sold so well because, compared to old-fashioned gasoline cars it is more fun to drive, quieter, always "full" every morning, more roomy, and it continuously gets better with automatic updates and software improvements. According to Ralston the tipping point will come when gas stations, not a massively profitable business, start to go out of business as many more electric cars are sold, making gasoline powered vehicles even more inconvenient. When that happens even more gasoline car owners will be convinced to switch. Rapidly a tipping point will be reached, at which point finding a convenient gas station will be nearly impossible and owning a gasoline powered car will positively suck. "Elon Musk has ushered in the age of the electric car, and whether or not it, too, was inevitable, it has certainly begun," concludes Ralston. "The future of automotive transportation is an electric one and you can expect that future to be here soon."

Comments

quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[AttillaTheNun]

At least that is my hope. The concept of car ownership is archaic. I look forward to the offloading all the associated penalty costs of car ownership in favour of a service model.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Anonymous Coward]

The service model can be readily adopted in cities where shared car usage already exists in the form of taxis or uber/lyft/etc.

In the suburbs, people tend to allow their cars to accrete items which are useful but not something they'd carry daily if they didn't have the capacity of the car. For example, look at minivans or CUVs - there's usually various child-centric paraphernilia stored inside, or a bag with blankets and jackets. The convenience factor of having these non-essential items along in a private vehicle makes the service model a hard sell to suburban consumers.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[cyberchondriac]

Right, pissing your money away every month to a landlord who does own the building and making a profit off of you is much better. Owning a home can be risky if you don't know what you're doing (lazy) or incredibly unlucky, but for most, it's a good solid investment, and far from "for the already rich". Unless you live in NY or Socal.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you enjoy having the service track everywhere you go and when you do so, so they can sell it to marketers.

Car ownership is a form of freedom from those who control other forms of transportation, and I'd hate to see that go away.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Jason Levine]

We've owned a home for 11 years now. (Yes, in NY.) There are definitely days where I see something's broken and I wish I could just call the landlord, say "have this taken care of", and not have to worry about the details. Then again, when we were living in our apartment, our rent would increase every year and our landlord would blame the repairs he had to make. "The central air conditioning system was broken and needed to be fixed so your rent is going up next year." (As if leaving everything broken was a valid option and he was doing us some big favor by fixing what broke.)

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[TWX]

Heh.

Hiring a car makes sense when one does not use cars very often.

Subscribing to a car service without personal ownership makes sense in some conditions, like high-density urban areas combined with relatively open travel requirements and for those that do not want to keep a given car for a long time.

We own. We keep cars for a long time, are particular about our cars, and it's less costly for us to own than it is for us to lease. We live in a single-family house on a plot of land, so we have room to park. Our jobs both have room to park. There are no toll roads around here either. Most of these things would not change even if we had autonomous vehicles. It also doesn't snow/rust here, so cars can reach 20 years without needing any body/chassis service if the suspensions are not abused.

I could see someone living in urban New York or Chicago or Boston or San Francisco subscribing to some kind of car service; if their work hours are stable and if the service can always have a nice clean sedan ready for them when they leave for work in the morning and can get a sedan to them in the afternoon or evening quickly after being summoned then it would work.

One model isn't going to work for everyone. Stop trying to assume that just because something works for you, that it would work for everyone else, or because something doesn't work for you, that it wouldn't work for any large portion of the population.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Sir_Eptishous]

It is interesting to note that the average age of cars on the road in the US now is at an all time high. The "pundits" wring their hands trying to discover the cause of this "anomaly", when anyone with half a brain knows the answer:

People are sick and tired of car payments and insurance payments.

My best advice for any "young person" out there is to put off buying a card as long as possible. Car ownership, and the required financial hit, IMHO, is the biggest waste of money that anyone can have. Yet, there are amazing deals now to buy new cars. Zero down, low interest, etc. The automakers see what is happening, and they are stepping things up to make the most $ while they still can.

The future will be driverless cars, mass transit and bicycles in urban/suburban areas.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[toadlife]

It won't be the government that pushes people towards autonomous cars. It will be insurance companies.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[mrun4982]

Spoken like someone who doesn't own a home and doesn't understand the benefits of investing.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[cyberchondriac]

I get that. I'm having my electrical box replaced this Friday due to corrosion of the rails from a water leak, which is putting me out $600 all told because we initially thought it was the air conditioning unit that went bad. Ouch. Still, I'd rather be in control of the situation than have a landlord as a middle man. My mortgage (sans taxes) is only about $800 a month for a 2 bedroom rancher with full basement and attic, and a 180 foot long yard; I know some local places where the rent is that high for much less property/housing, yet those occupants will never see equity in their home or any kind of ROI, which is a shame.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[sycodon]

How many groceries can you carry?

How often do you go grocery shopping?

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Macrat]

At least that is my hope. The concept of car ownership is archaic. I look forward to the offloading all the associated penalty costs of car ownership in favour of a service model.

You mean like Zip car?

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Anonymous Coward]

I couldn't be the recession that we've been suffering through for the last 8 years.

Or the increasingly reliable nature of vehicles in the past 30 years.

Or the higher cost of vehicles driven by crazy Government mileage requirements.

Nope, it has to be because everyone wants to be some communal hippy living in dense housing and riding stinky buses.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Ytsejam-03]

I hope you enjoy having the service track everywhere you go and when you do so, so they can sell it to marketers.

You mean like carrying a smart phone?

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[sycodon]

I'm keeping my car and my truck and my motorcycle.

I can work on all three and keep them running for decades.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[coolmoe2]

It depends on your situation but it seems like unless your handy around a house or have a good network of contractors to fix things home ownership is expensive.

Yeah if you one of those people that has no mortgage and your only paying property taxes and your house is in good shape im sure its great most months. But lets say you find out you have problem like needing a sewer run replaced or the compressor on your AC blows up? Those times are when it really sucks to be a home owner because that repair is solely on you unless you were smart enough to get really awesome household insurance.

I think the same thing about car ownership in my situation owning a car sucks. Most of our driving is single person to go pick things up around town and back and yet I have to pay for the cars upkeep, gas, taxes, repairs, tags and insurance for it to sit in the driveway most of the time. I would be happy to have a self driving car service that is just there when I need it. At least im only paying for it when I use it.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Anonymous Coward]

It is interesting to note that the average age of cars on the road in the US now is at an all time high. The "pundits" wring their hands trying to discover the cause of this "anomaly", when anyone with half a brain knows the answer:

Yeah, the answer is that cars today are more reliable than they were 30 years ago (all of those advancements in automation and testing), and it's not uncommon to see a car last to 200k miles with minimal issues (as opposed to the 50k that something built in the 1960s would expect).

People are sick and tired of car payments and insurance payments.

If you don't like car payments, then don't finance it. Car loans are, for the most part, a pretty dumb financial decision. It's an item that loses value over the duration of the loan, has a high potential for the value to drop to zero in an instant due to circumstances out of your control, and (assuming you're not in a dense urban environment) is something that has to be replaced asap in the event that it's wrecked. All of those factors mean that you've got a high potential to wind up owing more than the car is worth while simultaneously having to replace it (therefore risking the same situation in duplicate).

A much better choice is to do your homework and decide on a 2-5 year old model with high reliability (there are tons of readily available metrics for this), then pay cash for a low mileage used one. Half the cost of a new one (so less pressure to finance it), and it'll last 10 years if you actually take care of it.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[TWX]

If you're in a high-density city the grocery store is probably on your block. If you only go once every couple of weeks, you can hire a ride for those trips for less than the cost of subscribing on a regular basis.

There's also this mythical device called a bicycle, that can be equipped with these high-tech things called folding baskets, that can be used to move groceries from one place to another from time to time. Even here in suburbia we've bicycled for our groceries, three baskets per bicycle, allowing for at least six bags, possibly more depending on how we pack the bikes, to be transported the less-than-a-mile home.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[ChrisMaple]

The concept of car ownership is archaic.

Young men are surely going to impress their dates when they show up in the modern equivalent of a rusty self-driving Pinto. For extra points, the last user was hauling dead fish and cow manure.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[0a100b]

Where I live you order your groceries online and the supermarket delivers them at your home, you don't need a car for that.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[MozeeToby]

At some point, the freeway system will go autonomous only with no set speed limit. That will be the day the last non-autonomous, non-just-for-fun car gets sold. When you can hit the freeway at 120mph, getting nearly the same gas mileage as today thanks to drafting, no one is going to want the alternative.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Yunzil]

No. I don't want a self-driving car. First, because I'm one of those weirdos that actually enjoys driving. Second, because I suffer from motion sickness if I'm in a vehicle that I'm not controlling. And third, I'm a software developer and therefore have no faith in software. :-b

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[FuegoFuerte]

More and more, as the hipster commies push their $15/hr minimum wage agenda, these stores will go away and you'll have to get to the suburbs to get your groceries. Have fun doing that on your bicycle.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[onkelonkel]

This has been somewhat well known for a long time. 25 years ago I had family members, and my bank financial guy tell me "The single worst thing a "young person" can buy is a new car". It is a rapidly depreciating asset, usually financed at high rates, and sucks up any savings for 4 or 5 years. Much better to save that money for a down payment on a home.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Pascal Sartoretti]

It won't be the government that pushes people towards autonomous cars. It will be insurance companies.

To be precise : it will be the lower price of insurance policies that will push many towards autonomous cars.

However, smart insurance companies will see this as a dangerous erosion of their market, and will probably fight against this...

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[bluefoxlucid]

pissing your money away every month to a landlord who does own the building and making a profit off of you is much better

You mean the bank?

I have been telling people as of late that interest rates need to go up to 11%-14%. People simply cannot afford a house at $3000/mo payments; more generally, a house isn't sold by a price tag, but by a monthly payment. People will pay a particular monthly payment, which is why the falling interest rates came with rapidly rising house prices: that $120,000 house that cost $1150/mo became a $350,000 house that cost $1150/mo.

In any loan, you have a balance to be paid every month, and a continuous compounding interest. That means you may start the month with a $300,000 balance and an $1150 payment, but you'll make your first payment on a balance of around $350,600--meaning your balance only comes down about $500. We tell the lay person there's a "principle" and "interest" payment, but that's sort of a defrauding view, as the simplification precludes a lot of interesting financial management.

Truth be told, your $300k house at an incredibly low interest rate (2.5% would be an $1185/mo payment) will command a $560 principle payment in the early months, and around $625 of interest. You can skip payments by paying those next months's principle, not payment in full: if you pay $5,600, you'll skip ten months's payment, and save $6,250 off the total cost. Most people can't find an extra $560/month, or $5,600 regularly.

At a price of $100k and a high interest rate (14% would be an $1185/mo payment), the situation changes. The total cost still comes to about $325k; however, your early principle payments are around $18. That means coming up with an additional $200 in that first month's payment skips around 10 payments, saving you $11,700 in total. Even scrounging up a few tens of dollars each month takes thousands off the final total--a $100/mo extra payment cuts over 12 years off the 30-year loan, and saves $162k, more than six times the *total* interest paid on a 2.5% interest loan.

Take that all into consideration, the effect of a high-interest-rate market in driving prices down means we only want the lowest interest rate we can get in the highest interest rate *market* we can manage to buy in: we want a 14% market, but we want to secure a 12.25% loan in that market, if we can. Most homeowners only process that they want a low rate, but not what market they want the rate in; they jump at low-rate markets, instead of shying away.

Remember the rich always had 5-10 year mortgages, up until FDR created the 30-year mortgage. Us poor and middle-class came into the market on lifelong bank slavery, never living in an age of general 10-year mortgages. What I describe above implies an easy route to get down to a 15-year mortgage, if the market rates are high, by putting little additional payment onto the home--an additional 8% payment to save 50% off the total purchase cost of the home. If we could spread the idea far enough, consumers may decide the extra is worth it; more importantly, consumers would become accustomed to 15 or even 10 year loans, and so consumers who *can't* afford the extra $150 (or, to get to 10 years, $400) would become wary of buying, driving prices downward.

In other words: a high-interest-rate market gives an opportunity to educate consumers to get 15-year loans. Widespread middle-class consumption of 15- and 10-year mortgages will drive middle class wealth sharply upwards, as people in their 20s enter their 30s suddenly free of that $1200 or $1500 or $2000 monthly payment--filthy motherfucking rich. Besides the broader economic effect, the public mind may react to this by assuming 30-year mortgages are untenable bullshit (especially when the costs of long-term, high-balance debt are understood), and so the poor may refuse to lock themselves into interminably-long loans, requiring a lowering of house prices to keep the housing market solvent.

A generation of selle

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[__aaclcg7560]

What's next - the "archaic" practice of owning your own home?

You never really own your own home. If you don't pay property taxes, the local government will foreclose and sell the house to someone else. If that person doesn't pay property taxes, rinse and repeat.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[NatasRevol]

I hear some studies say the stock market is a better investment than real estate,

It's ALWAYS location.

A little story:
I own two houses. One in NC (10 years), one in CO (5 years).
The one in NC has decreased in value by 20% in those 10 years. And is even difficult to sell because of the lack of buyers.
The one in CO has increased in value by 60% in those 5 years. And would sell in days. Possibly above asking price & a cash offer.
If I was renting either house, it would cost significantly more than my mortgage payment.

My index funds (mid cap S&P 400) average around 12%/year.

So in order to rent AND save enough money to put into the stock market & earn greater returns, I'd have to get a lesser house, in a lesser area, with lesser schools.

And that's something I'm not willing to do. But if you don't have kids, or care about the size/quality/location of your domicile, then yeah it's a good idea.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[ExekielS]

Service models are pretty much universally converted to consolidated markets which extract rents from whatever economy you live under. The more poor people are, the more they use service models, and the more those things cost. A tv via. Rent to Own is 100x+ more expensive than just buying a tv, renting a place to live is universally paying far more for a lot less and by the Iron Law of Rents, extracts all disposable income from a community possible. Transportation, durable goods, network connectedness all come with the same dangers. Not only that, but the ownership comes with rights, so those who aren't owners have all their rights removed and given to those they purchase services from. You can drive a car in your boxers but if you do that on the public transit here you will be literally shot by the police for your wicked crimes. You can smoke, grow food in your own home, apartments can prohibit you from doing that, they can even tell you how to dress in your own home. You become a slave when you have to submit to paid usage of others services when there isn't enough market competition to guarantee your freedom or when all market players have equal restrictions. We need to tax rents on land and exclusive access rights in order to guarantee people's freedom and individual liberties, but that doesn't do enough, we also need a massive increase and expansion in people's guaranteed rights in various public situations and for renters. Until that day comes, the more we move to a service model, the more we move towards a horrific dystopia that haunts my deepest nightmares.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Taxman415a]

People are sick and tired of car payments and insurance payments.

I'm sure that's partly true, but I would bet it's more due to the fact that cars last longer than they used to. It used to be relatively rare for a car to drive 100,000 miles, but now for many cars that's their first scheduled tune-up. If cars weren't lasting longer it wouldn't matter if people were sick of car payments, they'd still have to buy another one when their current car broke down. Yes and there does seem to be some evidence of particularly younger people choosing to live closer to work where they can bike and walk to work, but it's certainly not as big a factor (yet) as cars lasting longer.

The future will be driverless cars, mass transit and bicycles in urban/suburban areas.

That's probably true. Though bicycles may never catch on in the US the way they have in Europe and elsewhere. The car lobby and car culture in the US has been successful at limiting the options for biking.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Carewolf]

You would have to wait a long time. The first generations of self-driving cars will not be fully autonomous, and nowhere near what you are dreaming of

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Lynchenstein]

Do you have kids? Being a parent of a toddler or even a kid up to 5 or so means you have to have a Boy Scout mentality. BE PREPARED. Toting around a few extra pounds of stuff (change of clothes, snacks, first aid, entertainment) is worth every extra joule it takes to do so.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Taxman415a]

Doing the analysis though shows that the rent vs buy decision is usually fairly close when you consider all the transaction costs, repair costs, opportunity costs, etc. It's tilted a little in the favor of owning in most cases, but it's not as big a difference as most people make it out to be. The average time you need to stay in a home is fairly long in order to make owning come out ahead.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[dywolf]

theres a flexibility and freedom of movement that renting also grants.

once you have a house, relocating becomes a good deal more difficult.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[hawguy]

And this is why I rent an apartment instead of "owning" a house. A house is a terrible, awful, horrific "investment" and real estate only makes sense for the already rich.

Depends where you live and what your renter protection laws are like.

After 2 successive 10% rent increases, I bought a house, now my mortgage (excluding tax benefits) is less than a 1 bedroom apartment, and $1000 less than the 2 bedroom apartment I was in previously. And rents are still increasing. My house has appreciated around 30% in the two years since I bought it, but that's not "real money" unless I sell while the market is still up.

Granted, everything could come crashing down at any time (both rents and home prices), but looking at historical prices, it doesn't seem likely that my home value will be underwater if that happens.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[bluefoxlucid]

I own a home, but don't own it as an investment. When I inevitably dispose of it, I won't make any sort of return on that home; in fact, homeownership will be a financial loss--possibly even a loss compared to renting, although it'll likely be some small gain. Homeownership gives me more temporal control over my finances, however: I've invested quite a lot of money into small returns, such that the amount of money I must spend month-to-month is lower.

If we could get an interest rate market around the 14% mark, homeownership would easily be an attractive option, since you could spend very little to clear your debt. At 2.5%, a home with a payment of $1180 requires an extra $500+/month to skip a payment in the very early months, and more as you get deeper into payments, with the total interest paid at around $26,000; at 14%, a home with a payment of $1180 comes to the same projected total cost at the end of a 30-year loan period, but allows you to skip early payments with as little as $18 additional payment. If you raise your payments by $150, that 30-year loan at 14% interest becomes a 15-year loan, saving you $162,000 in interest--more than six times the total interest cost of the same home in a 2.5% interest rate market where buyers can afford (and do pay) much higher sale prices.

In the end, a house's investment return is a gamble at best, and one that doesn't really work out unless general market interest rates are high when you buy and suddenly drop just before you sell, ratcheting the sale price of your house up extremely high. What we need most is financial education in the next high-interest-rate market, creating a cultural habit of 15- or, better, 10-year mortgages, where people reject the idea of banker fiefdom for 20-30 years. Even if your home is a complete write-off, hitting an age of 30 and realizing you suddenly have $1500-$2500 more to spend every month creates quite a different economic climate--both in your personal finances and in the wider market.

I'd make one hell of a banker, but I decided to go economist on that front. Bankers obviously want people to go for long, high-balanced loans; as an economist--as *the* economist, since I've developed a formal economic theory which unifies and correctly explains all current theory--I see the great value in accelerating and strengthening the wealth cycle. The mortgage market behaviors I've described don't really make banks (much) poorer--in fact, taking the full function of banks into account, they probably only reduce the proportion of bank income from consumer mortgages, and increase its income in business loans and other consumer loans--but they leave more residual wealth in the consumer's hand, creating market opportunities for businesses to sell more goods and services, thus creating demand for new labor.

Even automation would only cut production costs, having the same effect--unfortunately, at an excessively high rate, leading to a serious economic disruption that would require several decades to heal in exactly the same way--with an interesting difference in that you'd need much less new labor to produce new products, and so would produce a much greater volume of new products and services to capture that residual wealth, so long as dynamics of competition come into play (fortunately, competition can be outside market: does the consumer want your overpriced diamonds, or my overpriced cakes? Perhaps one of us--or both of us--must reduce our prices to come closer in line to our actual costs, slimming our profit margins while still retaining a healthy profit... no guarantees there, though).

I'm sure you can imagine why, while I want to protect the income of businesses and high-earners (meaning I'd like to minimize any new taxes), I'm also chiefly concerned with maximizing the wealth of consumers. Many of my economics policies proposals focus on reducing labor costs, increasing income security, and doing so with little expansion or, interestingly, a reduction of total taxes necessary to fund these new sy

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[TWX]

To quote myself:

We own. We keep cars for a long time, are particular about our cars, and it's less costly for us to own than it is for us to lease. We live in a single-family house on a plot of land, so we have room to park. Our jobs both have room to park. There are no toll roads around here either. Most of these things would not change even if we had autonomous vehicles. It also doesn't snow/rust here, so cars can reach 20 years without needing any body/chassis service if the suspensions are not abused.

One model isn't going to work for everyone. Stop trying to assume that just because something works for you, that it would work for everyone else, or because something doesn't work for you, that it wouldn't work for any large portion of the population.

Does this not address your circumstances?

I drive a '95 Impala SS. I love my car. I crossed 30,000 (thirty thousand, not a typo) miles this weekend. I'll probably drive it for another twenty years. We're strongly considering replacing my wife's car with an all-wheel-drive Chrysler 300. She's kept her current car for fifteen years, we expect that she'll keep this one for the same amount of time. I'm not trying to force anyone into a mold, I'm simply expecting everyone to acknowledge that their way, whatever their way happens to be, is not going to fit everyone else's circumstances.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[riverat1]

It's like the Native Americans said (paraphrasing), "How can you own the land? You can't pick it up and take it with you."

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[rtb61]

Investment value is the real gnarly problem here. What do you think will be the future value of high priced exclusive infernal combustion vehicles, in the second hand market when gas stations start shutting down. How are new ones going to be sold, with a limited life span and perhaps no future second hand value. In fact those companies that start afresh without the burden of an infernal combustion past or capital loss in equipment, engineering, now empty patents, will have a huge advantage.

As countries try to dump fossil fuels on a shrinking market, so the price will temporarily drop until economies of scale collapse and regulations ban the pollution. The switch from infernal combustion to electric will be a whole lot messier than most people think unless cheap conversions become possible.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[zlives]

"The concept of "Being a parent" is archaic. I look forward to the offloading all the associated penalty costs of "Being a parent" in favour of a service model." :)

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Grishnakh]

Your advice made sense years ago; these days it does not. 2-5 year old cars with low mileage don't cost much less than brand-new models these days, unless it's some unpopular model (and they're unpopular for a good reason). If the model is popular and well-known to be highly reliable, it'll keep its resale value very well, making it much less worth it to buy used. Also, $15k in cash isn't that easy for most people to come up with on the spot, so most people have to finance. You don't get 0% interest rates on used cars; the rates are much worse. In fact, those low rates are reserved only for people with a good enough credit rating.

Today's crappy economy and ultra-low interest rates have made it so that buying new really makes a lot more sense than buying used.

In addition to this, brand-new cars have much better safety ratings than even 5-year-old models. You're going to fare much better in a crash with a brand-new model that got top scores on the IIHS crash tests than in anything made a half-decade ago. You seem to be worried about risk, from your line about the potential for value to drop, but you're totally ignoring the risk to your health and safety by driving an older model. 50,000 people die every year in the US alone in auto accidents; you could be the next one.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[tlhIngan]

The future will be driverless cars, mass transit and bicycles in urban/suburban areas.

The sea change is already happening - car ownership of all kinds is lowest among millenials. In fact, having a driver's license is no longer the rite of passage it once was - there's a growing group of millenials who do not have a driver's license and have no intention of getting one. Granted, they're generally limited to areas with good public transit, but the car as a form of status symbol no longer applies.

And public transit, especially subways and the like, often get people around faster than being stuck in traffic. (The daily grind of traffic jams will rapidly wear down even the strongest driving advocate). And we know this because distracted driving is either #1 or rapidly becoming the #1 cause of accidents (drunk driving is/was #1) - because driving is boring and horrendous.

Heck, some employers have reported difficulty recruiting people because of the commute. And what was once a good idea to move to an industrial park where land is cheap and you can stuff people in like cattle, businesses are finding that they need to be more urban to attract employees who don't want, or can't, do the commute and want to be close to amenities.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[thinkwaitfast]

the "archaic" practice of owning your own home?

Don't laugh, there are many people pushing for this.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Aighearach]

Your idea that suburban cars collect personal items at a different rate than urban cars is hilarious.

But you're right that the model can be easily adopted. And has been. They are all over town now. You just walk up and wave your credit card at the reader under the driver side windshield. Very popular with young people.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Grishnakh]

Things have changed a lot in the past 25 years. New cars are frequently offered with loans of less than 1%, and even 0% now. And they don't depreciate that fast any more because cars last so long, and also the shitty economy has made used cars hold their value more (because a lot of people don't have the credit rating necessary to get a low-interest new car loan, and don't have the budget for it anyway).

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[riverat1]

I bought my house in 1995 and paid off the mortgage in 2012. Now it's worth nearly twice what is was when I bought it. I pay about $200/month for property taxes and another $200/month for utilities. I'd be paying over $1000/month to rent anything I'd care to live in. The difference is being saved for retirement. But there is the cost of ongoing maintenance, I'm going to have to put a new roof on it in a couple of years and get it painted. I'm well satisfied with owning a house.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[bluefoxlucid]

I look forward to a more wealthy economy in which people own a car and an alternate means--a motorcycle, for example, if not a bicycle or skilled use of public transit--so as to defray those costs. A low-end motorcycle, such as a Honda or Kawasaki 250cc (actually 249cc, to avoid regulations on 250cc+ bikes), provides excellent fuel economy for single-person transit.

Most people counter-argue with me here by pointing out that the average passenger carry of a motorcycle is 1.2, while a car can carry 5 people; I find this dishonest, since a great many cars carry one person driving to work alone. With carry capacity for light shopping--I've carried groceries on a bicycle, and have seen motorcycle panniers frequently--and 78% of commuters driving solo, the doubling of mpg and great reduction of maintenance costs (two wheels, bike itself costs $4000) is an excellent way to defray financial costs and extend the life of your expensive passenger vehicle.

Bicycles and public transit require more effort, carry more risk (bicycles particularly--at least a motorcycle can travel with traffic, and not simply in the same direction), and demand more time investment than a motorcycle. While I personally leverage these mode of transportation fine, I don't imagine most people could more smoothly transition to a motorcycle; an ebike sits somewhere between, with its 20-25mph limit.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[sycodon]

Temp forecast for today is a seasonable 98F.

I'll stick with my truck. You can bike all you want...just stay out of my way.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Aighearach]

I also use up valuable real estate to store an emergency kit full of items that I'll most likely never use.

And in my minivan it isn't just an extra jacket, (no, a couple jackets don't really add up to much) but 2 axes and a shovel. Required to have in the vehicle in order to drive on forest service or BLM roads during fire season. I probably use an extra gallon of gas by the end of the year carrying those around.

Those who can't imagine living a life where you have emergency equipment (like blankets) ready... are probably young and poor.

Heck, take you for example: you can't even afford a free registration!

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[FranTaylor]

People are sick and tired of car payments and insurance payments.

Those of us with paid off cars and the corresponding low low insurance rates would tend to disagree.

Nobody forced you to buy a new car, you could have bought an old one.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[jfengel]

Even for you, there could be considerable advantages to hiring an automatic car rather than owning one. You offload the maintenance overhead (though that's smaller for an electric car than an internal-combustion engine); that doesn't save money but it does save time. What would save you money is if your car were off servicing four or five other families during the times you didn't need it. Cutting a $30,000 expense by a factor of 4 or 5 would be a huge cost saving to you. Even if the service imposed an overhead of a factor of 2, it's still not an amount of money you'd give up on lightly.

It need not even reduce your flexibility, if you could summon anybody's car on five minutes' notice. It's easy to see how that could happen, if large fleets were deployed strategically, even in the suburbs. (It would work less well as the density dropped, but even in a residential neighborhood, a car can move a fair distance in five minutes. Your house, your work site, your grocery store, etc. are all likely to be five minutes from a lot.)

There are still advantages to just having your own car. Mine is full of my crap, for example. I haven't taken my toolbox out in a while, but I will, and I don't know when. If I were calling for a car every day I wouldn't lug my toolbox around, and thus wouldn't have it. Customization is nice. Not having to worry about peak usage times would be nice (though peak usage will also coincide with peak traffic, which I try to avoid anyway).

Still... I'd consider ditching a car entirely if it saved me that much money. My car hit 200k miles, and while it's a Honda, I'm still gonna need to fork out $20k within the next few years. (I'm cheap, and don't want a luxurious car. I just want it to get me places.) A two-car household would likely make it very compelling to at least split the difference.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Aighearach]

This is ridiculous - I would venture to guess you'd be in favor of a government regulated "service" that the "community" could partake in.

What's next - the "archaic" practice of owning your own home?

Your silly hand-waving isn't stopping companies from offering the service, or communities from creating special parking zones usable by commercially-marked shared vehicles...

If you're curious who offers the service, just find a website like car2go.com there is no need to invent imaginry ebil libraaaaaaaals that only exist on cable news, AM radio, and the minds of their fans.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Venerable Vegetable]

Although I own a car I never use it for shopping. I can pack one week of groceries for five people on my bike. Although I usually go shopping twice a week so I can eat more fresh food. If I need extra capacity I can take a family member to carry the rest. The shopping mall is two miles from my home, but I used to live in a different place where the nearest decent shops were 10 miles away. It never bothered me to go shopping by bike. Get some fresh air, exercise, relaxation and save on gas and parking.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[hawguy]

People are sick and tired of car payments and insurance payments.

Those of us with paid off cars and the corresponding low low insurance rates would tend to disagree.

Nobody forced you to buy a new car, you could have bought an old one.

Or buy one, finance it for a few years, then hold on to it. I've had my car for 12 years, I only made payments for 3 of those years. Insurance is harder to get away from, but after you pay off the car you can drop collision and comprehensive insurance and only pay for liability. Though my car is old enough that collision+comprehensive is much less than the liability insurance.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[BasilBrush]

Even in places where car ownership rates amongst young men is low, they still manage to get dates. There must be something else to it.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[hawguy]

How many groceries can you carry?

How often do you go grocery shopping?

I can carry 2 full grocery bags in my bike rack. If I need more than that, I can use the trailer and carry up to 100 lbs of groceries. Though I don't go to the grocery store much anymore, Google Shopping Express and Safeway home delivery take care of most of my needs, though I do stop at the specialty produce market once or twice a week to pick up fresh produce.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[BasilBrush]

Yeah. And my grandfather insisted on carrying a pocket watch. All you are describing is conservatism related to technology. Such technology adoption issues are solved by the turnover of the human population.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[fahrbot-bot]

The concept of "dating" is archaic. I look forward to the offloading all the associated penalty costs of "dating" in favour of a service model -- oh wait...

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[riverat1]

As the article points out there may come a time when it takes a lot of effort to get the gasoline to fuel them.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[tompaulco]

(As if leaving everything broken was a valid option and he was doing us some big favor by fixing what broke.)

As a landlord I can tell you that tenants do expect things to get fixed that if they lived in the home, they would not bother to fix, and there are definitely things in my own home that I cannot afford to fix and so I leave them broken.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[thinkwaitfast]

Buy small house in good area. Pay it off soon. Sell. Buy bigger house for not a lot more than what you sold your last one for. Repeat.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[AttillaTheNun]

I understand you points. I wasn't assuming or prescribing anything, My comment was a reflection on just how deep the culture of car ownership has influenced our lives in ways few even question. Entire industries, from dealerships and insurance to filling-station convenience stores, are vested in personal car ownership.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[BasilBrush]

I hear some studies say the stock market is a better investment than real estate, while others say the opposite.

The difference of opinion comes about because it depends who you are. For those who work in the investment industry, or have other insider knowledge, the stock market is extremely profitable. But much of those profits are made from the retail investor, who more often than not loses money in the long run.

Overall the stock market goes up, but that doesn't mean the average person has much chance of making any significant money that way.

Property is a much better investment for ordinary people.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[jae471]

There is this called paying cash.

Kinda gets around the who debt thing.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Jeremi]

Young men are surely going to impress their dates when they show up in the modern equivalent of a rusty self-driving Pinto. For extra points, the last user was hauling dead fish and cow manure.

Right, because there won't be any upscale car-sharing companies that specialize in date-worthy automobiles. That could never happen, the free market wouldn't allow it!

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[neilo_1701D]

At least that is my hope. The concept of car ownership is archaic. I look forward to the offloading all the associated penalty costs of car ownership in favour of a service model.

You mean like Zip car?

I loved Zip Car, but not having control of the car is a problem. For instance, having a car available when you need it, for the length of time you need it, is the biggest problem. Life happens; you're on the road and whammo! a traffic jam because of an accident. If you're driving the car, you've now got a problem because the car needs to be returned. Or, you're waiting on a car that's currently stuck in a traffic jam.

We used Zip Car for about a year, and decided that a 15yo QX4 (which we paid for) suited our needs better. Being able to control the transport in our life is liberating.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[tompaulco]

It is interesting to note that the average age of cars on the road in the US now is at an all time high. The "pundits" wring their hands trying to discover the cause of this "anomaly", when anyone with half a brain knows the answer: People are sick and tired of car payments and insurance payments.

I would say two reasons:
1. Cars today last longer than they used to.
2. New cars today are not affordable by the lower or middle class.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[tompaulco]

The concept of car ownership is archaic.

Ah, that would be why literally every person over the age of 16 that I know owns at least one car.

Re: quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[cyber-vandal]

So a huge positive for society then.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Aighearach]

"How can you own the land? You can't pick it up and take it with you."

I guess I'll just have to build a house and stay here with it, then. Thanks for the tip!

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[cyberchondriac]

True, true, it definitely benefits to pay as much on your principle as you can. The first several (or more) years of mortgage goes almost entirely to interest. Therefore I look at it as a long run thing, I think our mortgage is 15 years (now I'll have to go back and check!)
And for those who move once in a while, renting makes more sense there.. but once you settle down for good, I think buying is the best option, as houses tend to increase in value. At least I'll have something to leave to my kid too.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[fatwilbur]

Go to hell - my ability to get up and move freely anywhere I want in the country on a whim is not archaic. If I don't own the vehicle, I'm not in control, period.

Re: quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[cyber-vandal]

Car2go is awesome but they couldn't make any money in the UK so it's not available anymore :-(

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[cyberchondriac]

So, please, spare me your financial ignorance and robotic pride to be a non-thinking herd animal, parroting your easily-refuted points.

Thanks for the laugh and fulfilling the stereotype of an obnoxious french-canadian.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[cayenne8]

Not me.

I dread the day that the fun and thrill of driving is possibly taken away...kinda of the Red Barchetta song coming true.

Sad, I love my cars...and every day I get into one and fire up the engine, is an adventure.

Life is too short not to have fun and some thrills in life.

And what cost? Even a burger flipper can save and get a basic car, if you have an education and a real job, it isn't like it is draining your wallet in a manner you even notice.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[climb_no_fear]

Hopefully not the first step ;)

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Aighearach]

Yeah, people who haven't done the math don't understand the tradeoffs. Buying costs a lot more at the start. You don't get it back until the very end of the process. If you plan to live in the house until you die, there is a good chance that the "savings" are entirely extra value you have to pass on, not actual money you have in your own hand. Unless you sell, you might still have spent more by owning than you would be renting.

And most people have much lower income when they make their down payment than they do at the end when they have it paid off. For a lot of people, if they had rented another 10 years, they would have had more disposable income during that time, and then later when their income is higher they could buy the same house and still have surplus income.

Unless you expect to have flat income your whole life, the reason to buy earlier isn't to save money, it is to be able to covet the property. Mine mine mine. Mine.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[bluefoxlucid]

The point was it's not possible to "pay as much on your principle as you can" (or it's not very beneficial, at least) if your interest rate is low.

A low interest rate leads to saving, at most, 8% by paying extra principle--if you can pay the whole damn loan off in full on day one, meaning never getting a loan in the first place. At higher interest rates--that is, in a market where interest rates are high, and your lowest obtainable rate is a comparatively high rate--you can save 63% by paying extra principle.

Likewise, in the high-interest-rate market, your early payments can save you 65 times as much total cost as the initial payment (you pay $18 and save $1166). In the low-interest-rate market, you get a 111% return (you pay an extra $560, and save $625). It is a fool's errand to try and save money by paying extra into your mortgage in a low-interest-rate market; you'd have to be fucking rich, in which case you've probably taken steps such as buying points or lunking down a big down-payment.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[climb_no_fear]

But being a landlord can be a better deal. People pay most of your mortgage, you can deduct all those repairs, home improvements, mortgage interest, taxes, etc. from those earnings (the rent you collect).

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[dwpro]

It's worth noting that mortgage interest is tax deductible, in addition to the other misc. tax benefits of home ownership. In my city, a mortgage payment is significantly lower then the corresponding rental prices (which seems obvious, in most cases someone is renting a location in order to make money). I can't make the math add up for renting if one is likely to stay in an area for at least 5 years. The only reason I can see for _not_ buying is not having the upfront investment, or not wanting to take on the liability.

How does home ownership give you more control over your finances? Just that someone can't jack up your rent payment on a whim?

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[jae471]

Sounds like a great plan, except that

$1180 @ 2.5% = $300,000 house
$1180 @ 14% = $100,000 house

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[dunkelfalke]

No legs?

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Maxo-Texas]

And homes are tremendously overpriced due to low interest rates. Even when rates just return to 2% (and home loans to 6%), you could see homes lose 16% (or more) of their value.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Aighearach]

It doesn't have to be very high density. It just has to be dense enough that young people can do daily travel by bicycle or public transit. Any community with a decent bus line is ripe for car-sharing, because there will be lots of working class people who are physically strong who don't want to own cars because of the expense. It is a huge convenience for these people to be able to rent a car at reasonable hourly rates once in awhile. And no, it isn't a nice clean sedan and a fixed schedule; fixed schedules are served by public transit in that scenario. A person so used to buying luxury would just own a car. ;) It is non-fixed schedules that benefit.

And no, it isn't for people on-call who might be quickly summoned, either. If that person uses a car-share, they're probably bicycling to work already and the car is for recreation on off days, or distant infrequent errands.

Honestly, based on your comment I doubt anybody in your whole neighborhood is going to use this service. ;)

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[John.Banister]

Anyplace where axes were the minimum requirement, I think I'd be carrying a chainsaw.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[mark_reh]

There's a big difference between owning the house you live in and owning the houses/apartments other people live in. The tax code favors owning other people's houses by allowing depreciation of the value of the property. That helps offset (or even allows a profit) any mortgages and repairs required in the first 10 years IIRC.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[John.Banister]

Maybe it's my love of technology, but anyplace axes were a minimum requirement, I think I'd be carrying a chainsaw.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[ultranova]

However, smart insurance companies will see this as a dangerous erosion of their market, and will probably fight against this...

Actually, isn't this the ideal case for the insurance companies? All they need to know is the software version the car is using to know exactly how it drives.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[PatientZero]

Driving on forest service roads and BLM lands probably doesn't apply to 99.9% of the population, but the general theme of having emergency supplies at the ready does. It would be prudent to have an emergency kit inside each service car in urban areas that could be accessed by the occupants in an emergency.

The cost of maintaining the supplies would be handled the same way as keeping the car clean by including it in the cost of the ride. And whoever used them could be charged for replacement if that is more efficient than spreading it over all riders.

Families with kids that carry around a larger assortment of "emergency" items may choose to own their own car for that time period and return to the service model once their grown enough to require a more manageable set of items. I really think a lot of these issues will be worked out pretty easily once the model takes off.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Maxo-Texas]

The key is when you retire.

Rent goes up faster than retirement income.

I use a home warranty service. As long as you don't try to sign up and then get a repair higher than your annual premium right away they are pretty reasonable. And their repair people are REPAIR people which is nice. A feeling of comfort knowing my max bill will be $65 too. No phony recommendations "well this is so old, better we replace it for several thousand dollars!

And predictable costs which is good when retired.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[NatasRevol]

Well, I've never considered cars as an investment as they only depreciate (with very rare exceptions). Financially, the best option for a car is to go as cheap as you can tolerate. i.e. I'm fine with a used Subaru, not sure I could live with a Yugo.

So to compare cars to any investment is specious at best.

I was just addressing the GP's comment on rent vs own vs invest.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Nidi62]

I get that. I'm having my electrical box replaced this Friday due to corrosion of the rails from a water leak, which is putting me out $600 all told because we initially thought it was the air conditioning unit that went bad. Ouch. Still, I'd rather be in control of the situation than have a landlord as a middle man. My mortgage (sans taxes) is only about $800 a month for a 2 bedroom rancher with full basement and attic, and a 180 foot long yard; I know some local places where the rent is that high for much less property/housing, yet those occupants will never see equity in their home or any kind of ROI, which is a shame.

I'm renting a 1700 sq ft house right now for $1360 a month. We are in the process (inspection is tomorrow) of buying a 2000+sq ft house with a mortgage payment of just over $1000 a month (does not include taxes and got a loan with no PMI). Both are 3 bedroom houses but the one we are buying has a completely updated kitchen with granite and new stainless steel appliances while the rental had crappy laminate countertops and cabinets and standard white appliances. Even if we average $2500 a year in repairs we are still saving money.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Aighearach]

When I lived in Portland we shopped at Whole Foods for fish, and a few other items. They have the best labeling anywhere. Yes, it was more expensive.

And no, the specialty cheese shop will be much, much cheaper. And more likely, across town, in regular priced real estate instead of the convenient and expensive location that Whole Foods purchased. I do eat a lot of cheese, I know this one! lol

There isn't anything at WF that is cheaper than other stores that carry like items. However, it has a lot of items in one place that otherwise would be at different specialty stores. That said, most shoppers will find everything they buy at WF at Trader Joes for 20%+ less money, and often higher quality. But there is no fresh fish.

On the west coast, there are a variety of stores that offer these types of higher-quality items without the extra premium that WF charges. Yes, better products are more expensive, but that doesn't mean any high price is just the item cost. In places without a strong health-food culture, WF might be the only game in town for things like organic fair trade cocoa in a glass jar; on the west coast you can actually find that almost anywhere. WF will have all the trendy (mass-produced) European brands, though; regular health-food stores will have more small American brands, and maybe not any mass-produced imports. The same brand is always higher priced at WF than at a family health-food store or regional chain.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[CrimsonAvenger]

I'm sure glad that your monthly car payments give you freedom from those who espouse walking and bicycling.

Haven't made a car payment in a decade. It's actually possible to live without buying a new car every few years....

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Aighearach]

If you go by the 30-year price curve instead of the 10-year, then there is little fear of things crashing down. It smooths out the ~15 year cycles. If the paper appreciation is higher than the expected 30-year, just use the 30-year curve number in your head and then if things "crash" you can just say, "it only came down to the price I expected it to land at. I wasn't ready to sell during the bubble."

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Yunzil]

Uh yeah, no. It has nothing to do with 'conservatism related to technology' and I'm not sure how you got that from my post.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[robi5]

The idea of touching steering wheels and gear shafts after some unknown guy who sneezed on it, or greased it with their grimy hands after ketchup or mayonnaise they dipped their finger in while devouring a burger, or after an honest, thorough scratching of their scaling scalp or their sweaty unwashed ass groove on a hot, humid Saturday afternoon, and the subliminal guesswork ensuing when seeing curly hairs or stains of various color on the seats, or the thought of everybody filtering their gases through the same seating cushion doesn't attract me.

So while you go ahead and antiquate the concept of car ownership, I'll remain committed to this archaic concept, due to the fact that human bodies are also archaic and often, just dirty, sweaty, greasy or contactwise unattractive in some way.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Aighearach]

While I don't agree with Mr Coward's conclusion, that is a pretty severe straw man. Not everybody buys a car that way, and there is no reason to assume that a person who values ownership must have bought a car on credit.

You can buy a cheaper new car for 2 months of income at the median income level. Even a tiny bit of savings is enough to buy a used car for cash.

If you can't afford to pay cash for a quality used car, you can't afford the down-payment for a home loan either. There was a zero-down window during the bubble, but that is long gone.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[hendrips]

As a member of the insurance industry, I can assure you that lower premiums in return for fewer claims (and especially, fewer very large claims) is a trade-off we'd be very very happy to make. Lowering claim severity has huge benefits for an insurer - greater flexibility in reserve investments, more competitive rates, reduced risk of adverse selection, etc. Ask the earthquake and flood insurers how much they like writing high premium lines of coverage - if you can find any still in business.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Aighearach]

If you think people are tired of insurance payments, try getting it on the ballot to lower the insurance requirements. It will fail, and then you can re-evaluate how people feel about car insurance. ;)

Hint: if you think car ownership is a major financial hit, you're really really poor, or bought a car that is expensive to maintain. If that is the biggest waste of money you have, you don't have much money, or are very efficient with it.

My counter-advice to young people: Never buy a new car unless you have enough money to consider it a "toy." Don't buy the cheapest used car, either, it will cost you more. Buy a mid-priced used car built after 1996 or so if you think you need one. When driverless cars with manufacturer-paid insurance show up, that will be the time to consider a new car as a long-term investment.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[CrimsonAvenger]

I'm sure that's partly true, but I would bet it's more due to the fact that cars last longer than they used to.

This.

When I was a kid (40 years ago or so), my dad would replace the car every three or four years, after it got to about 75K miles. Car I'm driving now is north of 130K, and still going strong. I'm expecting it to hit 200K before I have to even think hard about replacing it....

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Ramze]

For want of Mod points. LOL!

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[RabidReindeer]

At least that is my hope. The concept of car ownership is archaic. I look forward to the offloading all the associated penalty costs of car ownership in favour of a service model.

Back in the Good Old Days, the "service model" was called a chauffeur.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[im_thatoneguy]

You're completely missing the economics of car ownership. Whatever you are spending, the car company can spend too. Car services are currently grossly overpriced but it's only a matter of time before they become competitive.

If the total cost of ownership is $3,000 per year (insurance, payments, gas etc). You can spend that or a corporation who can write it all off as an expense can also spend the exact same. If you are careful about model/make they can be careful.

Theoretically you could set up a 'car service' corporation and spend exactly what you spend today but funnel it through a corporation. Some people do stuff like this for airplanes. So at very worst they should match your car ownership expenses. If they charge a profit then that percentage is how much you miss out on. But counter to the profit angle is also the utilization angle. My car is about 8% utilized. That means there is a 92% opportunity for a company to spend about what you spend and then have your car spend the other 92% of its life earning revenue. That's a massive opportunity to not just compete with ownership but actually beat ownership on price.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[robi5]

It's interesting that the GP listed three reasons, all of which, especially the first, are not solved by anticipated advances over the next decade or two, yet you attribute it to conservatism. Of course, unanticipated advances can happen, like some miracle suspension or a one-time childhood innoculation against motion sickness.

But the advances can go both ways. For example, I hear that Tesla is a lot of fun to drive for some, partly because of the acceleration, (lack of) noise or low center of gravity.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[hawguy]

If you go by the 30-year price curve instead of the 10-year, then there is little fear of things crashing down. It smooths out the ~15 year cycles. If the paper appreciation is higher than the expected 30-year, just use the 30-year curve number in your head and then if things "crash" you can just say, "it only came down to the price I expected it to land at. I wasn't ready to sell during the bubble."

Sure, in the long term a home investment is practically guaranteed to appreciate, but the problem is that a housing crash (which is typically associated with an employment market crash) is also the time when it's advantageous to be able to relocate and not be tied to an expensive house that you can't sell. So you can get trapped between a hard place if the market crashes and you can't sell your house and can't find a job locally.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[robi5]

I'm positive that there are insurance policies that are available, so you don't necessarily need to refrain from owning, if the concern is that something might break.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Aighearach]

I drive a 16 yo minivan with ~125,000 miles and it is basically "like new" from a practical perspective. It did once have a plugged fuel injector, a dead battery, and a small hose leak. The hoses were ready for scheduled replacement anyway, and the battery was 6 years old. The injector cost $65 to replace, and I was still able to drive it slowly. New cars can get plugged injectors, too. It was plugged the next day after driving 250 freeway miles with 30 city miles and frequent stops in the middle of that, on a hot day. That happens at any age.

It may sound old to some people, but it has electronic throttle control; all I have to do is floor the pedal and I'll accelerate right on the power curve automatically, no wasted revving. Works great with a $12 bluetooth ODB-II reader, too; I can view all the engine info from a smart phone. Any replacement part can be easily obtained from chain parts stores. Any repair or diagnostic will have a youtube walk-through. Not that it breaks down.

The anti-slip does both anti-lock and also anti-slide on ice, with the same processors. It is front wheel drive, but I can drive over a solid sheet of ice and slam on the brakes and stop in a few feet. If there is 8" of powdery snow that slowly forms an ice layer and eventually turns to slush over 2 weeks, I can drive during every stage of that, with regular tires, and never slide around; even freeway on/offramps are fine on ice-covered with powder. I slide a tiny bit, but control is maintained during any slide, so I'll slide a couple inches and correct. All because of a tiny microcontroller in each brake.

I'd love cruise control that can match speeds when behind somebody without cruise control, but that is luxury stuff. There is not much at all that a new car could offer that my used car doesn't already do and isn't available after-market. If my car was 5 years older, I'd have a giant laundry-list of desired features, most of them related to the computers and interfaces.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Applehu Akbar]

You're describing a special purpose vehicle, the kind which is often customized for some job. If we move away from the everybody-owns-a-car model, the first type of vehicle to be affected will be the commuter jellybeans you take to work every day. If you can set up a standing order for a rental to be available at time X every morning at your home address, and if you could fire up an app at work to call a car for 30 minutes from now, a lot of people would gladly move from ownership to a subscription rental model. All idle cars could be kept at the community solar farm, charging away until calls come in, absorbing the midday generation surge; at night they would sit at the same place, giving back any extra charge to the Smart Grid for the evening's local usage.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[robi5]

Economically, ownership can be seen as a package which includes the following:
- financial risk hedging, in that if the property prices or rental demand grow, your yearly outlay doesn't need to grow in lockstep
- an option, for not having to move based on someone else's decision
- an option to keep your neighbors or provide a stable environment and school district for your children
- an option to plant, nail, drill, paint etc. as you wish

The big price is the financial commitment; the losses that apply if you need to bail out; the risk inherent in a mortgage financed house if the prices went down; the interest rate risk on the mortgage; the pressure to keep up paying mortgage year after year; you can't just take a sabbatical and move back to your parent's basement to work on your own startup company. And of course you have to have the means for a down payment and the credit check.

Okay this is a nontrivial list either. But the point is, a lot more goes into the buy vs. rent decision, to the point where the cost can only be stochastically approximated in its EV (expected value) and distribution (a pretty wide distribution), as the financial model for decades is largely a function of how real estate price, rental rate and interest rate evolve. Other benefits depend on unpredictable life events, e.g. will you have three children or none.

My advice is that make long term commitments if and only if you really see the benefit of it. E.g. you _already_ have three children, AND you haven't divorced a year or two after the youngest was born.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Lodlaiden]

Stay outta my bike lane, and look out the window before turning right when I have a walk sign and we'll both be okay.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[robi5]

Exactly. I totally understand the tenant who rented something and expects that what he rented continues to work in equal functionality; and I also totally understand your lack of incentive for the upkeep. Renting gives the resident a peace of mind that he'll not be out of pocket too much; owning gives the resident a peace of mind that he doesn't have to confront, beg or bargain, or be a nuisance, just in order to have something fixed.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Aighearach]

New cars lose a lot of value driving off the lot. That hasn't changed. Odd you think it has and that they keep value now.

The economy already recovered. Odd you didn't know that, since you include comments about the economy. You don't care enough to follow the subject, but you cite it?

If the newer car has side-impact airbags, it will have a much higher safety rating. If not, then it won't have a higher rating than a 5, 10, or often 15 yo car, which are new enough to have modern crumple zones and front airbags. You can't lean on the average crash ratings, you have to actually compare real cars at real price points. You'll find that "regular-priced" cars had a big safety jump ~1995, and then it depends on the specific model after that. A 10 yo Prius is going to have better crash safety than many larger cars, for example.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[robi5]

> You can bike all you want...just stay out of my way.

What are you, some kind of bully or aggressor?

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[whistlingtony]

I hate this meme... I really do. As if the paltry amount of property taxes are a huge burden. As if your house is a magic island not connected by roads, electrical grids, sewer lines, water lines, internet... Protected by a fire department, police, rule of law.... All of which* are maintained by the local city and/or state government.

To reverse it, you seem to want the services but you seem to want others to pay for them. You take your basic infrastructure for granted then complain when the (completely awesome and low cost due to efficiency of scale) bill comes due.

My yearly property taxes are a week's wages. One out of 52, and look at all the awesome life and business enabling awesome I get for that. My job wouldn't exist without a decent electrical grid, rule of law, water, sewer, etc etc etc.... Hell, my favorite taco cart wouldn't exist without all that stuff either.

You own your home.... Assuming you actually pay off your mortgage. Your taxes pay for the civilization you get around your home. If you don't pay up for all that civilization, yeah, they get cranky. They should. They delivered services to you, that you knew about, that you can NOT pay if you really don't want to but you're going to have to live somewhere a lot more Shit-tastic.

There are shit holes where you don't have to pay property taxes.... but you didn't bother to look into that did you? You knew the deal when you bought your house in a nice neighborhood.

* One could make a case that internet is a private enterprise. One could also make a case that that private enterprise is running over public land, public power poles, etc etc... so I included it here too.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Aighearach]

It may turn out that shared cars are better-maintained than average, and get repainted regularly (and cheaply, done in-house by the company)

Also, truck rentals are a thing. And, the company knows who the last user was; if they left it unclean, they'll get a $300 fee and either not do it again, or get banned.

The funny part is that this is already a thing. Having a dinner date is one of the prime reasons these car-less young men are renting a car a couple times a week. A lunch date, they bicycle together.

I live near downtown, and lots of these cars get parked on my street. Probably 15% of the people I see waving a credit card at the windshield are carrying flowers! And over 50% looked "dressed up." (eg, nice clothes of a style more mainstream than the person's hair)

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[robi5]

> I've developed a formal economic theory

have you a link?

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[jandrese]

Or you know, having to install the kid car seats every time you want to go somewhere would get old fast, especially if it's a different car every time and you have to figure out where the manufacturer hid the bars this time. Or if the car doesn't have the bars and you have to use the seatbelt method. Or the bars are there but spaced differently so you have to adjust the annoyingly difficult to adjust sliders on the seat to make it fit properly.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[robi5]

Many people don't really own their house, though for another reason. They pay mortgage for 25 years, and by the time they repaid it, the children are gone and they sell it for something smaller, or move to a retirement home etc.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[cyberchondriac]

Okay.

You piss your money away on interest to the bank on your mortgage. City tax. School tax. Water tax. Insurance.

Your landlord is just passing those costs on to you in your rent. Utilities, as well.
And I'm not proffering "financial" advice nor being "smug", just the common sense tenet that a solid house is generally a good investment, and something you can sell or pass on to your kids. The only renters I know rent only because they have to, they can't afford a down payment. They live hand to mouth, and it's sad because they're friends. Also, I'm talking about houses with property, not condos.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Investment value is the real gnarly problem here. What do you think will be the future value of high priced exclusive infernal combustion vehicles, in the second hand market when gas stations start shutting down.

Cars are a terrible investment in any case, they lose large lumps of their value the instant they roll out of the dealership. As to the rest, well industries come and go.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[jandrese]

Of course EVs in their current form are almost totally unsuited for a subscription model, since their usage model depends on being parked in places with charging support for a relatively long time and only being used on short to medium trips. They're amazing as commuter cars, but not a good idea for a Taxi. Supercharging is hard on the car and should be used sparingly.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Kohath]

Also a problem for cycling: snow. (Yes, I know it's possible to ride a bicycle in the snow -- but it is objectively unwise.)

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[bluefoxlucid]

You're not getting this.

That $300,000 house was a $100,000 house before the interest rates dropped. Its price skyrocketed during that "housing bubble" thing, you know, the minor issue that tore down our economy.

Do you imagine that $300,000 house, at 14%, will simply command a $3550 monthly payment? When interest rates recover and return to 1980-level rates, do you imagine middle-class families will beat a path to the banks's doors to put their entire monthly paycheck plus whatever they can beg off welfare into their mortgage payments?

In 1990, the average middle-class family spent 47% of their income on housing--mortgage or rent. When the interest rates dropped from 10%-ish to around 3%-ish, do you know how much the average middle-class family spent on their new homes that they just bought, those same homes that other families sold at an immense profit? 47% of their income. A lot of people make arguments like "you're getting more equity now!" to explain this away.

When the interest rates go up again and people try to sell their overpriced houses, how much do you think people will pay for that $300,000 house?

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[jandrese]

People are sick and tired of car payments and insurance payments.

A subscription service has to pay for these too. They're just hidden from you. Plus there is the additional overhead from the subscription service company. Total cost per mile is roughly the same, the savings come from parking costs and not having to deal with age related problems on the cars because you wear them out with pure mileage before they get old.

You don't have the upfront cost of owning the car, but you end up paying more per mile than people who own cars. There's a tipping point where car-as-a-service don't make sense anymore and a lot of Americans are well past that point. In fact most people who live in the suburbs and anybody rural are past that point. If you don't have ready access to good mass transit then you probably need to own a car. If you do live in a city, then you have to weigh the car-as-a-service option against just using mass transit and taxies, and traditional car rental for those rare occasions where you need to travel a good distance from the city.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[kaiser423]

Your advice made sense years ago; these days it does not. 2-5 year old cars with low mileage don't cost much less than brand-new models these days, unless it's some unpopular model (and they're unpopular for a good reason).

My wife's 2 year old Honda Pilot with low mileage cost ~$12k less than new. That's a hunk of change. Now, the payments were a bit higher since you don't get 0% and you don't get to stretch it out over 7 years or whatever crazy long term that they have for new cars now, but you do still save significant chunks of change buying used. If we had gone even a couple of years older, the savings to be had were over 50% versus new for cars that are reliable, popular and have >100,000 miles likely left in them.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[david_thornley]

If you're going to drop the value to zero suddenly, it doesn't really matter that much whether you financed or not. You still need to come up with the money to replace the car, whether you already spent the money or still owe some.. Personally, I've got insurance to cover the expense (minus the $1K deductible).

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Wycliffe]

But you're also making the case for how absurd it is that people use additional energy (compounded over several million vehicles I bet it ads up) in the form of gasoline to always carry around stuff they only sometimes need.

The whole system is designed for people having stuff "they only sometimes need". Most commuters only need a single seat and a 20 mile range but they keep the 4 seat SUV with a gasoline engine so they can take the family to the lake once a month. It's not just cars. Most people have a "guest bedroom" and additional extra rooms in their house that are only used occasionally. It gets even worse than that, how often does someone actually use the ladder, extension cord, etc... that's hanging in their garage. I doubt that in an average city that more than 1% of ladders are being actively used at any one time.
The "parent with extra crap" stuff is actually easy to solve. Just get a large duffle bag with all the stuff and throw it in the trunk when the car shows up but there is a ton of "extra capacity" everywhere in modern life. I would venture to guess that if we could efficiently distribute items only when needed that we could reduce our consumption of things like shopvacs, ladders, ext cords, by 90+% because a vast majority of the stuff in the average house is not used on a daily basis and some of it sits and rots for months between uses.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[GPS Pilot]

It won't be the government that pushes people towards autonomous cars. It will be insurance companies.

That depends on how quickly both insurance companies and government notice that accident rates decline when humans are no longer in control. Ludditism will make a lot of people refuse to believe, and must first be overcome.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[GPS Pilot]

Autonomous cars should benefit everyone (resulting in both lower premiums for drivers, and higher profits for insurers). If not, someone is doing it wrong.

Here's how that works: when a business's costs increase, it tends to pass some but not all of the increase along to the consumer. Some, so that its profits don't bear the brunt of 100% of the cost increase, but not all, because that would make it less competitive.

The same thing happens in reverse when a business's costs decrease (such as when an insurer finds itself paying out fewer claims): it tends to pass some but not all of the savings along to the consumer. If it pockets 100% of the savings in the form of higher profits, it will lose market share to competitors who don't do that. If it pockets 0% of the savings, the owners are not acting in their own interest.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[bluefoxlucid]

No, but the brief of it is as obvious as gravity was in Newton's time (when everyone knew things fell down and planets orbited other large things, but nobody had described gravity).

All costs are human labor. Oil and coal require manpower to mine; the machines and fuel used require manpower to build, operate, and maintain, as well as to mine, refine, and ship. At the root of all of it is wages paid to workers.

Considering this briefly, imagine two mines producing coal, both by the same method. They each need the same manpower to mine a 100 cubic meter block of coal; however, one mine produces a solid anthracite block, while the other produces anthracite mixed with 50% rocks and dirt. The second mine spends twice as much labor per 100 cubic meters of coal (not counting refinement--removing those rocks and dirt), so that coal costs twice as much. Think about that when someone says a restriction of supply causes prices to rise: if your next best competitor needs to spend $100 more per unit than you, he can't undercut your prices unless you raise your profit margin to more than $100 per unit, which is how supply gets restricted.

My theory, in simple explanation, is as follows.

Each improvement in efficiency is a reduction of human labor time invested in each unit of production. Where it takes 8 hours to make a chair by hand, hand-tool making of chairs on an assembly line produces twice as many units in the same time investment--essentially 4 hours to make that same chair--and so the chair costs half as much.

By this manner, each improvement in efficiency CREATES UNEMPLOYMENT, concentrating the wealth of the unemployed into the hands of the employed consumer: by competitive market forces (a great many more than just as my coal competition example), consumer demand arises for lower prices (either by another supplier charging less, or by consumers seeing a different good they find more important than yours). Since your prices come down, consumers, as an immediate effect, have more wealth (represented by money, but, more directly, buying power).

This residual wealth creates an opportunity: these consumers--a great many consumers, often--now make up a demographic owning more buying power than they currently exercise. That means you can sell them things which they previously could not afford.

The cost of producing your new goods is the cost of labor you consume, directly or indirectly. That CREATES EMPLOYMENT, which recovers the displaced labor--this may happen months, years, or decades down the line (industrial revolution created multiple generations of high unemployment)--and, of course, means the consumer must pay for that labor per unit new good created.

That is a basic outline of my theory of wealth. This theory implies many things, and lends itself to understanding many things.

For example: progressive taxes are good, as they reduce labor costs, which for obvious reasons I agree with; however, creating the production capacity to employ displaced labor does cost money, and so taxing the living fuck out of "The Rich" has a negative economic impact. When you roll in Social Security, a flat tax would be around 39.2%, whereas our progressive system is 39.6% above $400k and 16.2% at the lowest income bracket (if you don't flatten social security, the flat tax is about 26%, and everyone making under $117k pays 32.2% in taxes). An extra 0.4% taxes on the fabulously wealthy is absolutely acceptable in exchange for cutting taxes by 23.4% on labor.

My reasoning for a Citizen's Dividend at the ruthlessly bare levels is along the same lines: it *works*--it's amazingly profitable for any enterprising business choosing to sell needed goods and services to the poor--and it's, in total, just slightly cheaper than our existing welfare system. At the same time, it puts several thousand dollars into the hands of consumers; and I'm sure you can recognize the implication of keeping the tax percentage flat, thus following the growth of wealth and incr

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[skaralic]

But you're also making the case for how absurd it is that people use additional energy (compounded over several million vehicles I bet it ads up) in the form of gasoline to always carry around stuff they only sometimes need.

The whole system is designed for people having stuff "they only sometimes need". Most commuters only need a single seat and a 20 mile range but they keep the 4 seat SUV with a gasoline engine so they can take the family to the lake once a month. It's not just cars. Most people have a "guest bedroom" and additional extra rooms in their house that are only used occasionally. It gets even worse than that, how often does someone actually use the ladder, extension cord, etc... that's hanging in their garage. I doubt that in an average city that more than 1% of ladders are being actively used at any one time. The "parent with extra crap" stuff is actually easy to solve. Just get a large duffle bag with all the stuff and throw it in the trunk when the car shows up but there is a ton of "extra capacity" everywhere in modern life. I would venture to guess that if we could efficiently distribute items only when needed that we could reduce our consumption of things like shopvacs, ladders, ext cords, by 90+% because a vast majority of the stuff in the average house is not used on a daily basis and some of it sits and rots for months between uses.

I'm looking at that iPhone 6+ in your hand right now... ;)

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[lgw]

At some point, the freeway system will go autonomous only with no set speed limit. That will be the day the last non-autonomous, non-just-for-fun car gets sold.

You live in a city, don't you. And anyhow:

I strip away the old debris that hides a shining car
A brilliant red Barchetta from a better vanished time
I fire up the willing engine, responding with a roar
Tires spitting gravel, I commit my weekly crime

Wind in my hair
Shifting and drifting
Mechanical music
Adrenaline surge

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Enigma2175]

You can buy a cheaper new car for 2 months of income at the median income level. Even a tiny bit of savings is enough to buy a used car for cash.

LOL, WUT? The median personal income of people over 18 in the US is ~24k, 2 months of that is $4000 (excluding taxes of course). Where can you buy any new car for $4000? Many people in the US live paycheck to paycheck, those that do would find it very difficult to come up with several months of their salary to pay cash for a car. Yes, if they are responsible with their money they should be able to save enough to buy a used car without financing but unfortunately that doesn't reflect reality.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Wycliffe]

Yes, there are things that people use daily (like their phones) or
a lot of people use at the same time (like the lawnmower or even turkey roasters)
but there is a ton of stuff in a typical house that is not used regularly. I have a ladder
that I use once a year. I would gladly give it to an organization to store for me if I could
borrow it when I needed it. Kindof like fractional reserve banking, if 40 people all gave an
organization their ladders, they could sell off half of them and there would still always be
plenty to go around.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[lgw]

Complaining about Whole Foods' prices is like complaining about the price of a Mercedes S-class.

Except that an S-class is actually good, while Whole Foods is explicitly a sort of scam designed by a conservative to separate foolish hippies from their money (this isn't a secret or anything). While WF didn't invent the "call it organic and charge twice as much" idea, they sure did capitalize on it.

They've really nailed the presentation of goods to fool hippies (well, more accurately, middle-class, middle-aged people who still think hippies are cool) into paying more for food. The model doesn't work so well for young hipsters though, which is why the corporation is creating a new chain of stores just to have a different presentation to target hipster suckers separately.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[ShanghaiBill]

The service model can be readily adopted in cities where shared car usage already exists in the form of taxis or uber/lyft/etc.

90% of the cost of taxis/Uber/Lyft is compensation for the driver. Vehicle non-ownership is only cost effective in urban cores. Self driving cars should make on-demand car renting far cheaper, and make non-ownership a viable option for far more people.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[rhazz]

The "parent with extra crap" stuff is actually easy to solve. Just get a large duffle bag with all the stuff and throw it in the trunk when the car shows up

This is what my wife and I do for our 10 month old. All of his stuff is in a large carry bag. Occasionally we have to add the stroller, but generally it is all taken out when we're at home. Of course, we only have one small car, and it would be a hindrance to leave things in it. I'd like to think we would do the same if we had a larger vehicle.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't like car payments, then don't finance it. Car loans are, for the most part, a pretty dumb financial decision.

You must not understand math very well. If, and I say *if* you can finance at a low APR, say 0.9%. I then take that money I would have used to put into a depreciated asset (car) and invest it in the market. My, current, portfolio is making over a 13% annual rate of return. I can't borrow money for 0.9% but I can get a car loan. That make more financial sense than buying the car outright. Math.. look into it!

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[mattack2]

"The concept of "Being a parent" is archaic. I look forward to the offloading all the associated penalty costs of "Being a parent" in favour of a service model." :)

Aren't you at least several centuries late? It's called a nanny.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[wiggles]

People still ride horses, too - just not to work (unless they're a cowboy or something)

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[mattack2]

The whole system is designed for people having stuff "they only sometimes need". Most commuters only need a single seat and a 20 mile range

That's why my electric smart car works great. Yeah, it has 2 seats, but it's small(*) and cheap.. and you suckers subsidized me $10K for it too.

(*) This morning as the work parking was packed as usual, I even fit *beside* a motorcycle in a single parking spot, and only went a bit into the next spot. (I knew I was leaving at lunchtime, I probably wouldn't've done that for a full day of parking.)

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Grishnakh]

Exactly how did it do that? CfC was a one-time thing (or was it two-time?), you can't get cash for your clunker any more. And it only applied to gas guzzlers as I recall. The cars I've been looking at (both new and used) have been ones getting at least 25mpg and usually over 30.

That did seem to be a rather stupid program though, as it concentrated too much on fuel economy rather than emissions. The focus should have been to get old, poorly-maintained cars off the road, because they're the ones creating the most pollutants, by orders of magnitude. Some 10-year-old car getting crappy fuel economy because it has a big V8 doesn't produce nearly as many emissions as a 30-year-old 4-cylinder. The latter is the one that should be prioritized in removing from operation.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Grishnakh]

Yep, from what I'm seeing, in a lot of places it seems to make more sense to rent than buy (a home) because of this. Landlords may have bought the houses when they were cheaper, so the rent isn't as high, plus with more people renting there's more competition.

Plus, at least in my line of work, and with the crappy economy, it makes more sense to me to not be locked into a mortgage payment, so I can be more mobile. If my job disappears, I can pretty easily pack up and move for another job; that's not so easy when you own a house.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[mattack2]

At least in some states, if you had the money, you *could* do without insurance. For example, in CA, you can have one of the following:

* Motor vehicle liability insurance policy.
* Cash deposit of $35,000 with DMV.
* DMV-issued self-insurance certificate.
* Surety bond for $35,000 from a company licensed to do business in California.

from:
https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/...

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[DocHoncho]

Don't worry, the automakers are taking care of that problem by... tracking you every where you go and when you do so, so they can sell it to marketers.

If you thought "owning" a car somehow got you out of the ubiquitous tracking and data collection that is coming to define this century, you're a fool.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Grishnakh]

When I lived in Portland we shopped at Whole Foods for fish, and a few other items. They have the best labeling anywhere. Yes, it was more expensive.

I've had the same experience with meats: WF is the best place to buy them usually, because they have great selection, including grass-fed beef which shitty grocery stores don't usually carry, and free-range chicken. The meats at regular stores are really lousy.

And no, the specialty cheese shop will be much, much cheaper.

I'm not a big cheese eater, so I don't know much about this. I've only noticed that WF has a far, far better cheese selection than regular grocery stores.

That said, most shoppers will find everything they buy at WF at Trader Joes for 20%+ less money, and often higher quality. But there is no fresh fish.

I have to disagree with this one. TJ is simply a much, much smaller store than WF, at least at every location of each that I've been to. There's no way for it to have a comparable selection. And for things I've looked for, it usually doesn't. They certainly don't have a comparable selection of hot cocoa IME. This isn't to say that TJ sucks: it's a great store, and usually cheaper than WF, but this comes with the disadvantage of a more limited selection. Also, I don't believe TJ has a butcher department at all.

Another thing that's nice about many WF locations is the deli department, and the prepared food tables next to it (not at all locations). At the one I used to go to in New Jersey, they had a huge hot-bar buffet section, so you could just go get your lunch there and eat it in the large open area in front with free WiFi. Or you could get something made for you at the deli. TJ's doesn't have any of that. The hot-bar stuff is a bit pricey ($8.99/lb I believe), but generally good and lets you pick and choose what you want. Deli sandwiches and wraps are actually pretty well-priced IME, compared to the King's grocery store that it competes with in that area, which is even more expensive than WF.

As a side note, WF is not the most expensive grocer around. In NJ, they have King's which is rather pricey, and in AZ they have AJ's. At least at WF, they have a policy forbidding anything with HFCS and trans fats, so the foods all have to meet a certain quality level; the other fancy stores will happily sell you mass-market junk from Coca-Cola, at an inflated price, and with really nice tile floors in the aisles.

On the west coast, there are a variety of stores that offer these types of higher-quality items without the extra premium that WF charges. ... In places without a strong health-food culture, WF might be the only game in town for things like organic fair trade cocoa in a glass jar; on the west coast you can actually find that almost anywhere.

So basically I need to move to the PacNW?

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[LinuxIsGarbage]

A lot can depend on individual circumstances, and the market. I live in an economically depressed area and rent. I'm glad I do.

One guy I know bought his house for $185k and sold it 4 years later for $165k (after being on the market 8 months). Another guy bought his house 5 years ago for $103k, and has had it on the market for 4 months at $100k. If I get a new job and move, I just have to give 30 days notice. The above people will also lose out on commission and closing costs.

I don't have any kids, and can live in an apartment for much cheaper than buying a house, and condos don't exist in this market.

Buying a house is great if you *want* to buy a house, but it shouldn't be bought primarily as an investment. The amount lost to interest alone is scandalous.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[hawguy]

At least in some states, if you had the money, you *could* do without insurance. For example, in CA, you can have one of the following:

* Motor vehicle liability insurance policy.
* Cash deposit of $35,000 with DMV.
* DMV-issued self-insurance certificate.
* Surety bond for $35,000 from a company licensed to do business in California.

from:
https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/...

That's only feasible if you have so few assets that you have little to lose, or have so many assets that you can absorb a large liability claim. In today's litigation heavy environment, it's not hard to rack up a huge claim even for a relatively minor accident.

For those of us in the middle, it makes sense to have insurance so we don't lose our house or retirement savings after an accident.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Grishnakh]

The economy already recovered.

According to whom? Official government figures? The stock market?

All the unemployed and underemployed millenials would disagree with this assertion. What you're seeing is a widening gap between the rich and the poor, with the number of people on the latter side growing. A small number of rich people getting richer on paper does not make for a sound economy.

If the newer car has side-impact airbags, it will have a much higher safety rating. If not, then it won't have a higher rating

Even sub-$20k new cars these days have side airbags and side-curtain airbags. They also have better-designed chasses; the IIHS small-offset frontal crash test is only a few years old, and a lot of new cars (which are older designs) aren't faring well on it, but brand-new designs are doing well because the automakers have designed for this. Something from 1995 is not going to do well in that test at all, or in a side crash since cars back then didn't have side airbags or curtains.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[ShadowRangerRIT]

Funny, for all those "crazy Government mileage requirements", I find that the cost of new cars has generally risen at slower than the rate of inflation, even as they offer more features, better reliability, and (thanks to said mileage requirements) lower fuel costs.

Case example: My parents bought a Geo Prizm LSi (also marketed as the Toyota Corolla) back in 1990. At the time, it cost ~$12.3K. It was much smaller than the current Toyota Corolla, the electrical system sucked (adjusting the power windows dimmed the headlights and radio), etc. The LSi add-on features (power windows) are all standard now, the MPG has gone from 21-22/26-28 MPG city/highway under the old system (that rated all cars better than what you'd actually get), to 27-29/36-38 MPG under the new, more realistic rating system (and remember, the car is actually bigger now than it was), which reduces your fuel costs by a third or so. Yes, the cost is up, between $19.5K and $22K for most models (remember, the 2015 low end model is still better on features than the top end model of 1990). But that $12.3K from 1990 is ~$22.4K in 2015 dollars (according to U.S. Inflation Calculator). So the price actually dropped in inflation adjusted dollars, while the car got bigger, more efficient, and got more "luxury" features.

Remind me how big bad government mileage requirements are making cars so expensive?

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Enigma2175]

They have the best labeling anywhere.

What do you mean by "best"? Their weight on their labels don't match the actual weight, factual things like that I would consider a basic part of labeling.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Maxo-Texas]

Still, you want a paid for house by the time you reach retirement. Rent goes up much faster than property taxes and repair costs (esp with a home warranty).

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[zlives]

i was thinking axlotl tanks

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[CanadianMacFan]

Some cities now have tool libraries (not operated by the city itself) which people can borrow tools that they need instead of everyone having to own a drill, a set of wrenches, etc which are all barely used.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Anonymous Coward]

By that definition, you don't and can't own anything. Because everything can be taken from you.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[mattack2]

From the same page, the minimum liability requirements are:
$15,000 for injury/death to one person.
$30,000 for injury/death to more than one person.
$5,000 for damage to property.

I have no idea if most people have way higher liability insurance than that. If they *don't*, then it seems like the bond "workaround" could be reasonable. I admit I'm not running out and doing it right now, but it is tempting. (I *think* I have the minimum required insurance on my cars, only one of which I actually drive regularly.)

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Anonymous Coward]

The concept of "dating" is archaic. I look forward to the offloading all the associated penalty costs of "dating" in favour of a self-service model -- oh wait...

There, fixed it for you.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[sfcat]

The sea change is already happening - car ownership of all kinds is lowest among millenials.

I think you mean seed change. And young people often don't have high rates of ownership of any kind for obvious reasons. Just because you like Uber doesn't mean switching to a "sharing" model works for most people.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[hawguy]

From the same page, the minimum liability requirements are:
$15,000 for injury/death to one person.
$30,000 for injury/death to more than one person.
$5,000 for damage to property.

I have no idea if most people have way higher liability insurance than that. If they *don't*, then it seems like the bond "workaround" could be reasonable. I admit I'm not running out and doing it right now, but it is tempting. (I *think* I have the minimum required insurance on my cars, only one of which I actually drive regularly.)

If you rear-end someone's Tesla and total it, how comfortable are you paying $95K to replace his car out of your own pocket (or future wages)? Likewise, if he suffers any injury, you could be on the hook for lost wages, medical treatments (including expensive long-term physical therapy), etc. If he goes to the ER, you could exhaust your $15K medical liability coverage before the guy even checks out of the ER that day. And this doesn't even get into the pain and suffering and other indirect claims. Don't even count on support from your own insurance company, they may look at the claim and decide that it's easier to cut a $15K check than to pay a lawyer to try to reduce the damages.

You may think "Oh, well the other guy will almost certainly have medical insurance, that'll cover his injuries", but what few people seem to know is that insurance companies will sue the responsible party to reclaim what they paid out in claims from an accident.

Here's what Consumer Reports says about liability limits (who has no ulterior motive to get you to over-insure):

http://www.consumerreports.org...

Your liability coverage pays for bodily injury and property damage that you cause in accidents. Don't get caught short by reducing your liability limits to the state minimums. Buying more coverage might seem like an odd way to save, but the benefit comes if you have a costly claim, which can put your personal assets at risk. Buy standard 100/300/100 coverage, which pays for bodily injury up to $100,000 per person and $300,000 per accident, and property damage up to $100,000. If you have a high net worth, boost bodily injury to $250,000 per person and $500,000 per accident.

If you're young and have no real assets, then a low-liability policy may be the way to go, if you have significant assets that you don't want to lose, think hard about your liability limits and what it really means if you're in an accident.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Grishnakh]

Rent doesn't go up fast if you move frequently. They only jack up the rent when you stay there a long time. Then they lower it to attract new tenants.

You're never going to pay off a house if you buy a house, move in 2 years, buy another house, move in 2 years, etc. The overhead costs of buying and selling are just way too high. So it makes more sense to rent until you're in a place where you're pretty sure you're going to stay for at least 5 years.

Personally, I really don't want to be where I am now in 5 years, so I rent. My current location is just a stepping stone. For most engineers, it should be the same; these positions just aren't long-term any more.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[aNonnyMouseCowered]

This is just like the way touchscreens have come to dominate the mobile computing landscape. Convenience trumps the corner cases. Since most people are slow typists anyway, the slowness of an onscreen keyboard works out just fine. Since most people are mediocre drivers anyway, if they can drive at all, a self-driving car will become the norm everywhere but offroad and on the racetrack. Maybe human car drivers will become idolized like today's Formula 1 competitors or at least have the rebel youth cool factor of a dragracer.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[adolf]

I'll go further and wager that in an average American city, beds are used on average less than 30% of the time. Most clothes are in use less than 10% of the time.

Let's take your model to the logical extreme. We'll share our beds and housing so that we get optimum use from them, as well as share everything that is bulky and seldom used, and carry our (few) our personal possessions on our back in a duffel bag.

Move to a new city? No problem! Clean uniforms are waiting for you there, so there's no need to carry much more than the clothes on your back. Just throw the duffel into the back of the Electric Carriage and be shuffled off to a new place!

Wife and kids don't want to go? No big deal, we'll just share those, too! Just be assigned a new family at whatever sleeping tube structure you decide to call "home," and your old family will await similar and complete male utilization at their old tube structure.

Also: We don't need to own books; we have libraries! We don't need to keep pets; we have zoos! We don't need underutilized personal kitchens; we have restaurants! We don't need personal computers; we have public terminals! We don't need currency; everything is provided for you!

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need!

tl;dr I like owning and driving my car.

(See also: THX-1138)

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Blaskowicz]

I'll respectfully disagree on the physical risk on a motorbike vs a bicycle. Riding with traffic (and going on highways etc.) means cars will slam into you while you're going over 50 mph.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[rtb61]

I don't like to rent and to be clear it is factually a depreciating capital investment. So yes a car is a valid investment, investments do not need to gain value as much as provide value. So the depreciating value is meant to align with the value received in it's use, if the depreciation exceeds the value of it's use, then it is a bad investment, if the depreciating value remains higher than the value obtained via it's use, then it is a good investment (think of it like claiming money has now capital value because it is under a mattress vs in a bank vs in the hands of corrupt pension funds soon to disappear or in car terms a vehicle driven once on week to church on Sundays vs a taxi). Problem is as a depreciating asset, that depreciation will wildly exceed any value obtained from use, causing major problems in new car sales, unless manufacturer supplied conversion systems become available. So when talking about investments talk about investments do not make specious arguments. Yep, there are investment geeks out there who actually understand all the economist crap, some of it logical and accurate and some sheer utter crap with the full intent of deceiving people (to hear the good stuff you needs to listen to smart business people privately talking to other smart business people and not the crap spewed to ignorant punters, especially by politicians and main stream media).

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[just another AC]

I would venture to guess that if we could efficiently distribute items only when needed that we could reduce our consumption of things like shopvacs, ladders, ext cords, by 90+% because a vast majority of the stuff in the average house is not used on a daily basis and some of it sits and rots for months between uses.

One flaw - in modern society we look at efficiency in $ terms.

Cost of purchase and storage vs cost of logistics and transport. Most things will be cheaper to purchase and store.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[goose-incarnated]

Car ownership is a form of freedom from those who control other forms of transportation, and I'd hate to see that go away.

So putting yourself into debt and/or signing an onerous lease agreement is a form of freedom?

I'm sure glad that your monthly car payments give you freedom from those who espouse walking and bicycling.

I own three cars. I don't have monthly car payments.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[jecblackpepper]

Or you know you could order the car with the child seats already fitted? Then you don't need to own child seats either. When I go on holiday I don't take my towels, I'm happy for the hotel to supply them, similarly sheets. Why wouldn't I be happy with a car service company providing a car with child seats and "kid kit" containing blankets and other supplies. You'll pay a premium over the "standard" commuter vehicle, but that might still be ultimately cheaper than owning your own car. Ultimately it will be a decision you can make yourself. No-one is saying that no-one will be able to own a car just that it looks like the service model might work well. If it doesn't for you then fine, maybe it won't actually work well for anyone and it won't take off.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Maxo-Texas]

Rents have risen by 400% in Texas (and similar top states) in the last 15 years.

Housing has risen by 500% during the same period. But... if you owned your house, your value rose but your payments increased only by the tax increase. My house payment before i paid the house off in 2012, was $700 a month. Total- including taxes. Now, it's $330 a month.

Once your house is paid off, property taxes, insurance, and repairs are approximately 1/3 of rental costs or new home costs.

I totally agree- it's right for you right now. But it's a terrible option for anyone who ever hopes to retire unless they are earning in the top 10% of all citizens.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[tehcyder]

At least that is my hope. The concept of car ownership is archaic. I look forward to the offloading all the associated penalty costs of car ownership in favour of a service model.

This service announcement brought to you by Uber.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[tehcyder]

Anyplace where axes were the minimum requirement, I think I'd be carrying a chainsaw.

Anyplace where axes were the minimum requirement, I think I'd be avoiding.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[tehcyder]

Car ownership is a form of freedom from those who control other forms of transportation, and I'd hate to see that go away.

So putting yourself into debt and/or signing an onerous lease agreement is a form of freedom?

I'm sure glad that your monthly car payments give you freedom from those who espouse walking and bicycling.

It depends where you live. If you have to commute thirty miles a day, and there is no nearby train service, then you're going to waste a lot of time doing it by bike.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[tehcyder]

The future will be driverless cars, mass transit and bicycles in urban/suburban areas.

You forgot personal jetpacks.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[tehcyder]

No. I don't want a self-driving car. First, because I'm one of those weirdos that actually enjoys driving. Second, because I suffer from motion sickness if I'm in a vehicle that I'm not controlling. And third, I'm a software developer and therefore have no faith in software. :-b

No, I really want a self driving car, I just don't want one on the Uber plan.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[tehcyder]

Even here in suburbia we've bicycled for our groceries, three baskets per bicycle, allowing for at least six bags, possibly more depending on how we pack the bikes, to be transported the less-than-a-mile home.

If it's really less than a mile, why would you cycle? I'd rather just take a decent rucksack and walk. You can't carry all that much safely on a bike.

I suppose you'd save ten minutes each way travel time, but by the time you get the bike out, lock it up at the shops then put it away when you get home, it probably isn't any quicker over all.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[tehcyder]

It need not even reduce your flexibility, if you could summon anybody's car on five minutes' notice. It's easy to see how that could happen, if large fleets were deployed strategically, even in the suburbs.

Farily big "ifs" there.

In reality, companies like Uber aren't going to provide anything like a universally good service. They'll probably be ok in cities (if you don't mind paying their surge prices just when you and everybody else most want to use them), but elsewhere the service will be much patchier.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[bingoUV]

CfC successfully raised the anchor of the price a used car should command. It takes time for an anchor to lose effect even if its cause is no longer in force.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[KGIII]

The person you are replying to obviously has never mated with anyone of the opposing gender. They will not have children. We can be grateful.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[bluefoxlucid]

I've ridden my bike on 25-35mph roads going 15mph. If I were going 25-35mph, I wouldn't get hit as much; fortunately, getting sideswiped by a car isn't the biggest deal in the world, aside from smashing up their passenger mirror.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[KGIII]

Three years ago, I purchased a 48 unit apartment building. I have a building manager who lives there for free - he works as an HVAC dude as well. He also has a plow truck. I give him free rent. That is it. That is what he wanted. He had the same arrangement with the prior owner. He is a moderately skilled carpenter and I can do the rest. We have an electrical company contracted.

I paid cash for the building (I actually rented a small apartment there for a spell as it was closer to the real world than my house is) and was happy with the price. It has paid itself off entirely and is now making a tidy profit and has for almost four months. Everything is insured. I do not bother doing background checks or credit checks, it is a great area. Everything is up to code so those who are on Section 8 or other subsidized housing can now stay there. I have already been offered more than twice as much as I paid for it by a company that is putting in a retirement community on adjacent land. Heat, electricity, and hot water are all included.

I have been trying to contract with DirecTV to get them satellite - wiring already exists and they were smart enough to put in large conduits and raceways when they converted it from an old hospital. I paid about 550k for the property. Taxes run around 40k/year all told. The standing offer is 1.2m currently. It would make sense for them to buy it - I sunk a bit of money into it when I purchased it. Rent averages about $620/mo. I estimate that I spend ten hours a month being business-like. I do not do much unless I am bored. Seth takes care of the rest.

I was going to mortgage it at first - figuring that I made more money with interest and gains than I would and the banks all had loan officers nearly jumping out of their seats to throw money at me. As I was improving the property (which included some narrow infrastructure improvements) the town also threw money at me in the form of tax breaks and taking care of arrears. This is my sixth rental property, though I am retired and have no need of more income - it keeps me busy, and they are all much the same. I have only had a couple of bad residents so far and they are poor so they settle out of court.

One had to have slammed a window on their hand as we could not reproduce it. The other slipped and fell on the ice and mysteriously got better with a small cash payment. The one with the broken hand was a junkie - I had used with them in the past and we paid medical plus 6k to get them out of the building. The total amount was 6k and that included hiring them a moving company and paying the deposit at their new place.

I think the most important thing is, if you are going to rent, you need to have cash on hand. This is important especially when first starting out. You need to have some wealth in order to generate wealth. You also need to be vigilant and not lazy but those are a given. Hell, even needing wealth to get started is a given. Anyhow, if you are in a position to gamble then rental property is a nice source of income.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Wycliffe]

One flaw - in modern society we look at efficiency in $ terms.

Cost of purchase and storage vs cost of logistics and transport. Most things will be cheaper to purchase and store.

Self driving cars could change this equation. A $20k toilet cleaning robot isn't cost effective today but if it could arrive on schedule, do it's job, and move on to the next house, it might be. Even something like a shopvac or ladder, if you could call it, and it could arrive via a self-driving pod or drone 15 minutes later and it was all automated, the logistics and transportation costs would be negligible. Most of the logistics and transport costs are because it's currently done by humans.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[KGIII]

The very second you drive it off the lot you have lost at least 30% of its value. That quickly... It is now a used car and its value is that of a used car. I have owned a number of brand new cars over the years. One way to buy them (and the only way, in my opinion) is to pay cash. You get a great bonus in pricing and you have no interest. Otherwise? You might as well lease it.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[ballpoint]

Having a decent amount of stuff at the ready right when you need it is being well off. If you need to go on a scavenger hunt begging for each item you use only several times a year and have to settle for misfit, worn, dirty, partly broken or unavailable items because that's what somebody is able and willing to lend you, you're poor.

Funny how the leftist movement tries to convince people that being poor is great and the way forward. It ain't, and one should struggle to avoid the temptingly easy path downhill.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[NatasRevol]

Being the tenant vs the landlord is a vastly different arrangement.

And if you have $550k in cash, you're not worried about being a tenant vs buying your own house.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Joce640k]

It won't be the government that pushes people towards autonomous cars. It will be insurance companies.

No it won't. It will be the day people realize you can move down highways while surfing facebook and watching porn.

The day that happens you won't be able to sell an old manual-control car for more than about $50.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[NatasRevol]

To quote you

Problem is as a depreciating asset, that depreciation will wildly exceed any value obtained from use,

this is why comparing cars to an investment is specious.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[KGIII]

I am not the least bit worried about buying a home. I have one. ;) I had it built to my strange specs too. It is a salt-box envelope house with passive and active solar.

Anyhow, you mentioned owning two - I was suggesting that if you have gone that far you may want to go further and start renting out to people if you are interested. It appears to be a rather good investment and, I suspect, is likely to remain a sound investment for the foreseeable future. I would ensure you have either a line of credit or cash on hand as bad things could cripple you pretty quickly without such insurance.

Finally, yeah... I got fairly lucky in life. Eventually I sold my business and retired at a fairly early age. My business (consulting mostly with modeling vehicular and pedestrian traffic) was surprisingly profitable and considered mature (20 years old) when it sold. To be quite frank, I do no think I can actually easily spend all of my money without doing something absurdly stupid. I live off interests, dividends, all capital gains. I make money doing nothing really. I have more than I had last year which seems odd to me, really. Meh... It just means I can donate more this year.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[cyberchondriac]

Well, I never said it's the *best* investment you can make, nor did I allude to it being the best reason for buying a house; but unless you buy a lemon or fell for really crappy terms, owning your home, as opposed to renting, has historically been a pretty solid investment, especially for those are that aren't into playing around with stocks, and not everyone takes a 30 year mortgage. I was never talking about flipping houses or playing the real estate market, in any case. Lastly, buying stocks can be a very risky venture as well as rewarding, but the safer mutual funds don't have much of a return.
I agree with you on the other aspects though. Buy a house because you want it.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Slashdot Parent]

If you don't like car payments, then don't finance it. Car loans are, for the most part, a pretty dumb financial decision.

Uhh, no. My car loan is 0.9%, which is less than inflation, never mind my return on the money. I'd have to have rocks in my head to pay cash.

A much better choice is to do your homework and decide on a 2-5 year old model with high reliability

I tried to do that, but nobody is selling their cars these days so the used care market is inflated. I wound up buying new instead.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[superdave80]

I noticed the same thing when buying a new car recently. Back in 2003 we purchased a new Nissan Murano w/ AWD. Out the door price was about $35k. After 12 years we replaced it with a 2015 Hyundai Santa Fe. The Santa Fe was superior in every way. Seated seated seven vs. five in the Murano, gets slightly better gas mileage, more cargo room, navigation, etc. Price? $40k. So, in 12 years, the average inflation rate was about 1%. And the car is BETTER than the old car.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[StikyPad]

Vehicle non-ownership is only cost effective in urban cores.

Even then, it's questionable. I have some vehicle-ownership-eschewing friends, but they're compensated by their employer, who spends a minimum of $20/day, or $400/mo, just for their commute. You can easily pay for a decent vehicle -- including fuel and maintenance -- for that much, let alone when you factor in the extra $100 to $200 they're paying for personal Uber rides and weekend car rentals so they can actually leave the city.

Self driving cars should make on-demand car renting far cheaper, and make non-ownership a viable option for far more people.

It will only be cheaper if those savings are actually passed along to the consumer rather than gobbled up as profit. I predict that a driverless taxi will be cheap for just long enough to make taxi driving obsolete, and then once that happens, prices will rebound to just below the cost of owning a seldom-used vehicle.

And there are some parts of vehicle ownership that are difficult to reproduce. Instant availability with no wait-time, a somewhat reasonable assurance that you're not sitting in or touching the remnants of someone else's bodily fluids, and a low penalty for forgetting your wallet or phone in your own car. The value of those features is, of course, subjective.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[publiclurker]

I don't know about that. Leaving stuff in your car in the city means that you are a lot more likely to have it broken into.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[StikyPad]

Part of the value of a new vehicle is the low maintenance costs, helped by the warranty. My GF has a 7 year-old car, and it's absolutely falling apart. Transmission is dying, suspension is shot, and the AC compressor is frozen. It is, essentially, totaled, in that it would cost more than half the value of the car to fix it.

Also it's easy to find 0% financing, which is better than paying cash, thanks to the time value of money.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[StikyPad]

Fuel economy is directly proportional to emissions.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[StikyPad]

Looks pretty fun to me!

https://youtu.be/e90x4R88Ag0?t...

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[NatasRevol]

Oh, I rent the second one. Because I have to, not because I want to. Couldn't sell it (even at 20% below purchase), had to move 2,000 miles away. Have up & down on renters who take care of it to varying degrees.

Want to buy it :-) Consider it a tax writeoff.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[StikyPad]

WTF is a seed change?

GP was right, at least in his word choice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[TheBilgeRat]

Well, the thousands of municipalities who depend on that citation money aren't going to be thrilled.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[jandrese]

Do you want the seats front facing or rear facing? 10-30lb or 20-50lb? Even then you're going to have to adjust it for your kid, and figure out what sort of bizarre adjustment scheme this particular seat uses. On some seats you have to take them apart to adjust past certain points. Uh oh, the kid always wants to sit behind the driver and the seat is installed on the passenger side.

Who is going to install and remove the seats every time someone calls for one? Are they going to have liability insurance in case they accidentally install a seat improperly and a kid is injured or dies?

And then the parents have to go back and make sure the seat is clean once they're done with the car. Kids are amazing at finding ways of making messes when you least expect it.

I think "have young kids" is one of the ares where the "car as a service" concept does not work. Not unless you drive only very rarely with the kids.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[StikyPad]

Right, you can't save money on interest if you're not paying it to begin with.

I agree that houses (and cars, these days) are sold on a monthly payment rather than total cost. But if you buy *less* than the most expensive payment you can afford, then you have other money to enjoy. Many people buy the biggest they can afford, though, and then are house-poor.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[bluefoxlucid]

All true, and it stands with my point well; I'll point out that your argument distinctly is not a counter-point. There is no way you can buy yourself into a house to the point that you can't scrounge $20 more to make on the payment each month and expect to actually make your payment every month in the first place; it is almost guaranteed that your ability to easily afford your payment every month doesn't imply any ability to find an extra $600 every month to add to it. Buying into a slightly-cheaper house (location, size) would magnify the effects I describe in high-interest-rate markets; it is, in fact, the strategy I took even with 2.875% interest rates, hence my 3-year mortgage.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[AlanBDee]

$15k in cash isn't that easy for most people to come up with on the spot

You'd be surprised how easy it is to save that money when you don't have any car payments and pay cash for everything. You'd also be surprised at how cheap one becomes when paying cash.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Grishnakh]

No, it's not at all. The total volume of emissions is directly proportional, but the type of emissions is not. Older vehicles produce much more toxic emissions (carbon monoxide, etc.), whereas new cars produce much cleaner emissions (water and CO2, with far less of the nasty stuff). CO2 is a global warming gas, but it's a lot better than carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, unburned hydrocarbons, particulate pollution, etc. Newer cars produce far less of these than old ones.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Toshito]

The concept of ownership is archaic. I look forward to the offloading all the associated penalty costs of ownership in favour of a service model.

FTFY

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Toshito]

there's a growing group of millenials who do not have a driver's license and have no intention of getting one. Granted, they're generally limited to areas with good public transit

You're talking about those fucking kids who boast that they don't need a car, then everytime they need to haul something big or get out of the city to see some family they come knocking on your door begging for a ride?

Well fuck them.

And get off my lawn (and car seat)!

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[uninformedLuddite]

Militant Hippy

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[uninformedLuddite]

I'm not trying to force anyone into a mold, I'm simply expecting everyone to acknowledge that their way, whatever their way happens to be, is not going to fit everyone else's circumstances.

Sounds like you will be one of the first to visit a mandatory environmental reeeducation camp

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[KGIII]

Maybe... LOL This is the one in CO? I think my attorney would poop a brick if he heard of me even talking about even preliminary discussions on Slashdot. I kind of like Colorado a little bit. The mountains are majestic there. Where I live there are mountains, I am in them, but they are old and wise - having been around since forever ago. The Rockies are majestic in their rebel-filled youth. They spire high and with purpose. Mine are tamed and have seen the many ice ages and lived to tell the tale.

Where is this property located more specifically? You never know. I may be interested. The closest thing I have to CO is in Henderson, NV. That is not a rental though it was an investment. I use it when I go out to Vegas and I allow family to use it when I am not there and when they are headed out that direction.

Anyhow, a description or whatnot would be interesting. I have never had a seller turn down cash. If I were you AND the tenants were sane then I would consider keeping it so long as it has a return percentage higher than your other investments. I would also make damned sure to pay off your mortgage as quickly as possible including making extra payments where you can. You can request (they hate it) - no demand - that they apply extra payments directly to the principal. Banks are sneaky bastards and will apply them in a manner that best suits them. You have a right (so far as I know this is applicable in every state) to pay the principal down when you are paying more than the monthly payment.

Pay that down, get it all paid off, then sock some money away and let it grow at a steady rate in something solid like the DIA or even Berkshire Hathaway. Let it grow and dump more money into those savings. When you have enough capital buy another rental property. By the time you are on the third or fourth rental (just from my own calculations based on information I found online at the time I was curious) you will actually be able to stop working assuming you make the median income. The key is to get those first few properties tucked under your belt and have them fully paid off.

The major risk, as near as I can tell, is something catastrophic. Insure the hell out of them - if nothing happens then you are lucky but if something does happen you will be damned grateful. My limited research, actually I did a bunch, suggests that the loss of a single property or a single major lawsuit at the start would be the most crushing blow one could suffer unless they are cash wealthy. Right now you would probably be considered (by most) to be cash poor and land wealthy. Getting those to balance would be nice. My guesstimate suggest striving to have enough liquid assets to be able to replace any one single property would be a good starting point. Well, not a starting point. More like a good spot to begin to relax and feel more comfortable.

Then, when you retire, you can do a couple of things... You can keep the properties and have a very nice steady income as everything should be pure profit (minus obvious expenses) or you can unload the property onto someone else and have a lump sum to play with. As the properties may be getting a bit old and you may wish to have less stress in your life at that age you may just want to unload it and buy yourself a small island in the Caribbean.

I suspect, however, that I am preaching to the choir so to speak and that you are already aware of these things. Be nice to your tenants and they will, generally, be nice to you. Let them know, for example, that you have to raise the rents due to whatever reasons you want, and then ask them how much more they can safely afford to pay. Then raise the rent, over a two year period, to less than what they said they were willing to pay. Let them know that you are going to do that and that it will be less than they could pay. They will win and you will win.

Anyhow, ya never know... LOL I have not once considered buying property from anyone in a forum type of environment - well, not land. I have bought other things from these types of t

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[whoever57]

Yeah, people who haven't done the math don't understand the tradeoffs. Buying costs a lot more at the start. You don't get it back until the very end of the process.

Bullshit.

Had I not bought my house 13 years ago, I would be paying more in rent than my net housing costs (after tax effects are factored in) are now. Yes, my cost was a little higher initially, but after my first re-fi, that changed. I am reaping the benefits now.

Unless you expect to have flat income your whole life, the reason to buy earlier isn't to save money, it is to be able to covet the property. Mine mine mine. Mine.

No. The main reason is that, when you buy a house, you fix most of your housing costs, while rental rates will continue to increase. With a flat income, you eventually won't be able to live in the same house, if you buy, the point at which you can no longer afford your house will come much later, and when it does, you will very likely have a nice profit on the sale.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[NatasRevol]

No, this is the one in NC. It's only an hour from the outer banks, if that temps you! I've been gone from there for 6 years. Only paid 2 months mortgages myself in that time, so it's a very rentable property. With about $250/month cash flow.

If I lived near it, I would keep it. But managing it from 2000 miles away while working a full time job + family is just too much.

http://www.zillow.com/homes/37...

I really want to sell so I can rent closer as I do realize that it's a good investment with good cash flow (if you want/need it). Appreciate the details you & experience.

That's a very nice apt complex. We just went to Maine a few weeks ago, Sebasco Harbor, and loved it.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[KGIII]

I am perfectly free to make my own choices but, as a bit of a lark, I am going to have my lawyer take a look. I buy a lot of land but it is usually unimproved land. I have just recently closed on a chunk of property that was sold by the holdings company that retains some of the International Paper property. I have a shameful amount of land but, in my defense, I buy it so that it remains open for access and so that it will always remain that way. Other than a "small piece" it all goes into a trust which will be maintained by that trust in perpetuity. The number is high enough that, quite frankly, it is embarrassing. However, my altruism is real.

Anyhow, I have a daughter in that area. Her graduation present was a piece of property with a small house on it. A nice starter house, really. I think her and her spouse would make excellent care-takers of such a property and it might give them an additional leg up. I do make it easy for my kids but I do not make it so that they do not have to work if they want to have nice things. I sold my business (our HQ was in Winston-Salem by the way) and made an absurd amount of money from the sale, both in cash and in stocks in the parent company. After thinking, long and hard too, I realized that I could easily make it so that my children would never have to work a day in their life. Then I thought about the repercussions of that and decided to try to give them motivation to be productive in a capacity that suited their desires. So they both have small trusts, as will their children. They can be wise with that and do great things with that or they can live at not much higher than a comfortable middle-class level. Hell, it would be lower middle-class really. So far, so good.

I have sent off a copy of the page and a link to this thread. You never know, it may just happen. Going by the property values in the neighborhood and viewing property as it should be - as a long-term investment even if the goal is to rent it out, then I have sent a suggestion that he consider a 10% increase of the listed value at Zillow to be a fair starting point. You could consider an agent but I think that premature at this point. Also, I have a liar on retainer just for such things because, as I mentioned, I have a bit of an addiction to property ownership. He serves to keep me sane, as well, I used to drink - a lot.

Anyhow, my email is valid. I can certainly see your point. It is much easier to own a rental property that is close to you. Otherwise you have all sorts of potential issues and may end up needing a property management company to deal with it and that, frankly, eats profits when one can simply do many things on their own with little real effort and contract the rest out for less than a property management company charges. I wish I could attribute my success to great skill and hard work (not that both are not applicable) but it was mostly luck and being in a position to take advantage of situations that arose. Being able to do interesting things, like this, is an added bonus. Every day is interesting. If I can pass that 'luck' along then all the better - it is not like I'd be losing money.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[NatasRevol]

Heh, I'm definitely up for it. Starting bid seems fair, for the area. If it was in my CO neighborhood, it'd be worth 2.5x that, but location, location, location. If you're wanting to move forward, I'll send my contact info.

Buying land for the future good is always a great thing to do.

And I laughed at 'I have a liar on retainer'.

If I can pass that 'luck' along then all the better

I like this thought.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[just another AC]

(late reply... sorry)

Agree with high cost items, like a 20K robot, but even driverless cars still cost money to operate and might not be feasible for lower cost items.

You have to allocate fuel, servicing, administration (scheduling, servicing, etc). Centralising assets only makes sense where the cost of distribution is low enough. Driverless cars remove the labour cost, but do nothing for physical distance, time, traffic congestion, ...

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[rtb61]

The crazy argument is you are better off leasing or renting a car then buying one because of course the business that buy cars and rent or lease them are all insane and do so at a loss. What, that isn't true, so that in addition to paying the full price of the vehicle in rent, you will also be paying interest on their capital investment and their profit margins and their management costs. Specious is the fool who thinks you can save money by renting when those who rent it to them generate returns by borrowing capital, investing in the depreciating asset and then renting it out at a profit.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[bluefoxlucid]

It's worth noting that mortgage interest is tax deductible

So your interest, minus about $12,000, is cut down by about 2/3, and given back to you. If you pay $25,000 in interest this year, you get $8,000 back from the Government. Cool.

in addition to the other misc. tax benefits of home ownership.

Which are all lower than the costs of home ownership.

In my city, a mortgage payment is significantly lower then the corresponding rental prices

That's why I bought my house. Normally, rent costs less than a mortgage, slightly; it also saves you on maintenance and homeowner's insurance ($892/year HOI, $118/year RI), as well as taxes (although my house is reported as worth $3,000, so I only pay $72; if it were reported as the $50,000 I paid for it, it would cost about $1,200/year in taxes, or roughly 3 month's 15-year mortgage). In this case, house prices had dropped, and rents hadn't followed (a lot of realtors had new mortgages...); a lot of houses got abandoned, and I picked one up from an investor cheap.

How does home ownership give you more control over your finances?

I managed to plan to pay my mortgage off in 3 years, and then decided to divert that to updating the insulation (cut my heating needs by 80%), installing a split system (cut my $500 heating bills by 2/3, not counting insulation), and installing new windows--it'll be a 5 year pay-off instead.

I tend to take ~$10k loans to do work in blocks. I took $10k for a project to remove the trees from my back yard (before they eat the sewage line, and of course so I could kill the poison ivy by saturating the ground with triclopyr--90 days to non-kill levels, 420 days to complete decomposition, and any run-off immediately decomposes in water), and also to buy a piano. That leaves several thousand dollars in my bank account, instead of just draining my accounts (and then my car needed $1000 of work, so you can see why I took a loan instead of paying out of pocket). I'll pay that down in a few months, and then get another $10k loan to install a split heat pump system, insulate the rear wall (foam panel exterior), and rebuild the master bedroom (drafty, no insulation, gets hot and extremely humid during the summer).

Each cycle will end with more cash-on-hand, and the months I take to pay down those loans only holds me to a $250/mo obligation in case of financial trouble. I can take them down by $1000-$2000 each month otherwise. Same with my $450/mo mortgage that I dump $1200 on, when I'm not managing other loans. Flexibility.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[KGIII]

My council has stated that they will review the content of this group of messages, look into the area and land, and will let me know shortly how they think I should proceed or if I should proceed. I do not always listen.

They have also suggested that a public forum is not the appropriate place for this. Liability, interests, and other such gibberish that those folks tend to be on the alert for. So, especially with contact information, I would suggest further communication be via email.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[ExekielS]

Rents are already the maximum the market will bear, look up the Iron law of Rents. The rents can't go up, regardless of an LVT, which has both strong theoretical and strong historical precedent to prove it. The tax is strictly on land value, not on the property above it, or the services rendered, to there is 0 deadweight loss to any LVT. In few areas it does make sense to rent instead of buy, but those areas are extremely limited. In most of the US (for example where I live, St. Louis), rent will be 10-15x as much as a mortgage on the same space. If I could afford a down payment or had decent credit, I would be paying 1/4th as much as I pay for rent towards a 15 year mortgage for a space 6 times larger with my own yard and more freedom over my own life and how I live it.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[toddestan]

Uhh, no. My car loan is 0.9%, which is less than inflation, never mind my return on the money. I'd have to have rocks in my head to pay cash.

Actually, financing a new car can still be pretty dumb. Ever see those ads that say something like "0.9% financing or $2500 cash back!" That means if you pay cash, they'll knock $2500 (or whatever) off the price of the car right on the spot. That's how they manage to get their money while offering financing at below inflation rates, they get you to finance thousands more than if you just paid cash. Enjoy your car payments.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[toddestan]

From what I've seen younger people nowadays are lot more connected and social in the sense that if there are enough drivers with cars in their social circle that they can easily bum a ride when needed, then they don't "need" a car.

Back in my day we were a lot more independent and eager to get out on our own. Having a drivers' license and your very own car was the ultimate form of being independent.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Aighearach]

Yeah, but is just saying "you can't time the market." Everybody knows that. The price wouldn't be low during a fake-crash if everybody could just treat it like a fire sale. You have to be rich to do that. It is why the rich love cycles and hate those "liberal" economists and their boom-bust-breaking Keynsianisms.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Aighearach]

You apparently can't find the internet to check before making up numbers, but the US median income is $50,500. You're off by... a lot!

And yes, you can not only buy a new car for $8k, there are a few of them at that price. Spring for a full 3 months salary and the selection more than doubles.

If a person has even 6 months of savings, they can buy a used car with cash. That is true even for working class people making 15k. If you can't buy a used car without debt, you're flat broke already and should probably buy an electric-assist bicycle.

The funny part is that the poorest people I know are also the least likely to buy a used car on credit, because they know the value of money and are poor as a lifestyle choice. (eg, they don't want to chase money with their time) If you can't afford a used car, how can you afford to over-pay by giving the bankers a handout? Maybe buy less car, and save towards having a 6 month security layer. Entry level used cars are under $1000. If you're willing to drive something ugly, you can get something mechanically sound at that price.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Aighearach]

Right, TJ leaves out all the fancy European brands. They don't have the same selection, but they have a high quality offering for each product type. If you just want a high quality fair trade organic whatthewhat they will probably have it. If you want Fancy Brand X, they won't.

As far as moving to the NW, our culture and climate are different enough to the rest of the country that you probably either need to move here, or need not to. ;)

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Aighearach]

They're probably just in shock that they're not privileged angels, they're just regular humans like past generations, and start work at the bottom.

Statistics say the unemployment rate is low, and longterm unemployed are mostly disgruntled middle aged and older workers whose industries have automated.

If you don't know there are jobs available, you're simply not looking. Maybe you already have a job, and have a young relative who doesn't like to work who tells you there is nothing available. ;) If they can pass a drug test and have an IQ over 100 (average is 110) they can become a trade apprentice in a solid trade like HVAC repair. There is a shortage of workers who are not on drugs, can read, do basic math, and follow a checklist in order.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Aighearach]

The economy has recovered, according to all the above. Except you didn't get shit unless you're part of the 1%, who are now really the middle class.

The 99% are just working class schumcks, or worse off than that, living of table scraps.

"Same as it ever was," as they say.

Sounds like a recovery to me! Star Trek style post-scarcity socialism has not arrived. I'm not surprised, because we would have had to vote on changes that big. And here in the US we would have to change most of Congress and 75% of the State legislatures to have any chance at that sort of thing. So I can be confident that I'll know about it before it happens.

In defense of those living off of scraps, they're usually doing so as a lifestyle choice because they don't like the life of a schmuck. It is a valid choice IMO. They might be better off than the schmucks, if they know their scraps anyways. But anybody who desires the schmuck life can get a crap job now. People who don't should be happy; if they're still whining, maybe they should just get one of the jobs that is available? There are worker shortages right now, not high unemployment.

Re:quickly to be followed by self-driving cars

[Enigma2175]

You apparently can't find the internet to check before making up numbers, but the US median income is $50,500. You're off by... a lot!

No, the US median household income is around $50k, the median personal income (which I specified in my post) is just what I said it is. From Wikipedia: "The overall median personal income for all individuals over the age of 18 was $24,062"

And yes, you can not only buy a new car for $8k

[citation needed]. And it's not 8k, it's 4k (you specified 2 months of income at the median income level).

Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[Sir_Eptishous]

I have a relative who is a part owner of a truck stop. I have heard how low the profits/margins are for selling gas. He tells me all the profit at those places is from the junk food inside... Apparently the deals they make with the gasoline/diesel suppliers are so bad there is almost no profit in selling gas.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[BasilBrush]

I've heard similar. Likewise there won't be much to be made on EV charge points. But they will be more likely to sell food whilst an EV is being charged.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[DigiShaman]

Randomly, the pump will display "please see register for receipt" upon selecting the print option. I've see it being random as the person after me (a friend), had his receipt print just fine. It's a fucking scam to lure people into the store and buy shit.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[LifesABeach]

One can only imagine the cost of waiting for a big rig to recharge. But one does not need to be an oil company to create a Fuel Cell station. Which means any fuel profit goes to the station owner(s). Even driverless rigs will have to stop and refuel.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[Rei]

Now, for electric cars to put them out of business, they'd have to be a relevant percentage of total vehicles - and overall, that will certainly take time. But the case becomes different in specialty markets. Different states and localities will (and already do) offer different EV incentives, and the natural use case for EVs varies between locations (urban/suburban/rural, mild vs. hot vs. cold climate, terrain, geography (isolated islands or areas without good road connects to the outside world, for example), areas with different driver profiles, and so forth). So an overall EV adoption rate of 1% might actually be 10%, 20% or more in certain areas. That could well be enough to start driving gas stations out of business in such areas, creating a potential contageon effect.

That said, business owners aren't stupid, and one expects them to adapt. For example, where appropriate one would expect gas stations to respond to increasing EV penetration by adding rapid charge stations. Electricity is cheap, but if someone needs a rapid charge (for a road trip or whatnot), they'll pay the going rate, even if it's similar to the cost of gasoline per unit distance traveled. They're not just going to say "meh, I'll just plug into a wall socket and wait overnight". So if you have an existing gas station with all of its capital costs of installing tanks and pumps already paid for, one would expect them to keep selling gasoline even as an increasing percentage of their customers switch over to electricity. Maybe they'll find it cheaper to remove broken pumps than fix them. Maybe they'll eventually hit a point where it's no longer cost effective to maintain their fuel tanks and have to stop selling gasoline altogether. But neither of these things are a "suddenly going out of business because EVs just showed up" scenario.

(Of course, there's a counter to what I just wrote, which is that - given that only a small percentage of EV charging will ever be fast charging - you're looking at a smaller potential market)

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[BasilBrush]

They can recharge when they load, when the driver stops for breaks, overnight at truck stops, and when the truck is being unloaded.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[Guspaz]

I think the 5-10 years figure for a tipping point is correct, in that long-range electric cars will drop in price enough to enter the mass market within that timeframe (in under 5 years, more likely, and it'll rapidly grow from there), but I think there's zero chance of gas stations going away in the next decade. That'll take far longer.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[chispito]

I've heard similar. Likewise there won't be much to be made on EV charge points. But they will be more likely to sell food whilst an EV is being charged.

Go the other way: Denny's should invest immediately in charging tech and work out their marketing strategy: Free quick charge with the purchase of two entrees.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[TWX]

I expect a standard for big-rigs to be developed where there are modular battery compartments on the underside of the trailer for conventional van trailers, such that the truck pulls up, the batteries under the trailer and under the tractor are swapped, and they're on their way again.

Depending on how they're designed they might also make for good under-ride protection, so cars can't drive under the trailers and get trapped or crushed.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[CrimsonAvenger]

They can recharge when they load, when the driver stops for breaks, overnight at truck stops, and when the truck is being unloaded.

Current charge times make "recharge when the driver stops for breaks" impossible.

And frankly, current ranges on EV's make them pretty much useless for trucks. Who really wants to stop for a couple hours a couple times a day?

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[BasilBrush]

In the UK the vast majority of the traditional stations have already gone. They've been replaced by stations in the car parks of supermarkets. That's been due to price competition.

But as it happens that's a very good place for EV chargers. You can get a fair top up whilst doing your shopping. Or vice versa. And the charge may well be free so long as you spend enough in store.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[BasilBrush]

Current charge times make "recharge when the driver stops for breaks" impossible.

Of course they don't. You don't have to charge an EV from empty to full every time any more than you have to wait for an ICE vehicle to go empty then fill the tank to the top. With an EV the thing is to top it up at every opportunity. The batteries won't be empty, and you don't have to wait till they are full.

And frankly, current ranges on EV's make them pretty much useless for trucks.

EV trucks can carry a lot more batteries than an ICE. The range is whatever you want to make it.

Long distance trucking is probably something that'll come along later, but trucks for local business deliveries is an area that EVs particularly shine in. So much so that some local delivery vehicles have been electric powered for decades, even when the only battery technology available was lead acid.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[thedavidcathey]

I think it's been like that for quite a while. Beer and cigarettes (although cigs are likely in decline) are where the cash is. And probably lottery tickets.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[edawstwin]

Randomly, the pump will display "please see register for receipt" upon selecting the print option. I've see it being random as the person after me (a friend), had his receipt print just fine. It's a fucking scam to lure people into the store and buy shit.

Why waste paper getting a receipt? Your credit card company has a record of the transaction.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[The MAZZTer]

Interesting. I live in the "We don't trust you to pump your own gas" state, otherwise known as New Jersey, and I've never seen the attendant have to go inside to get my receipt. But I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[Kobun]

Except for when they don't - something went wrong in the transaction (and you don't know because you don't have a receipt), the end result will be the manager of the station calling in a drive-off theft and you get to explain why you thought you had paid.

Always get a receipt from Pay-at-the-Pump.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[jittles]

Except for when they don't - something went wrong in the transaction (and you don't know because you don't have a receipt), the end result will be the manager of the station calling in a drive-off theft and you get to explain why you thought you had paid. Always get a receipt from Pay-at-the-Pump.

What? Dude pass the crack pipe and take a break before taking another hit. The pumps don't even turn on until the payment card tendered is authorized for a transaction. What that means is that the card processor received a request and passed it along to your bank. You could stop the transaction there and you will still see it as a pending transaction on your credit card for up to 2-3 days. So no. No one is going to call the police on you because the payment wasn't properly captured. That is not your fault, or responsibility. At the absolute worst case, you'll have to authorize them running a new transaction. If they can't find a record of how much you pumped, that is the station's problem, not yours.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[Grishnakh]

Because the credit card company doesn't know how many gallons of fuel you purchased. If you're trying to track your vehicle's fuel economy, you need to know that number.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[bluefoxlucid]

Not necessarily. I imagine additional engineering may come into play, but you can realistically charge trucks fairly quickly. Rather than a battery, you'd use a bank of batteries with a high-flow fan for thermal protection; you'd use a high amount of voltage to charge them the first 80%, which can pull that off in as little as half an hour.

With that kind of power draw, you may need kinetic storage. Roller coasters can't fire off from a standing start because they'd blow the power grid; some roller coasters spend a full minute or so accelerating a flywheel, and then connect it to a generator or direct mechanical drive to launch. A truck stop may provide high-speed charging likewise, driving a dynamo from a flywheel. From that standpoint, you'd recharge your truck while waiting for food, since a 20-30 minute rest stop to eat twice per day is all but unavoidable.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[bws111]

Been like that pretty much forever. Before they had the stores they had service bays. And if that friendly guy who checked your oil just happened to notice that your hoses looked bad, well... But then the newer cars started needing less and less service, so the bays were replaced with stores.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[edtice1559]

As EVs get to the point where you can do a full day of driving between charges, I imagine what we will be seeing are charging stations at hotels and restaurants. People will stay in restaurants longer so they get a fuller charge. They probably won't be buying convenience store food items like coffee and candy bars. This will probably mean people spending longer sitting at restaurants so they'll need to have more tables and more parking. Hopefully they can buy the abandoned gas station next door for this purpose.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[riverat1]

One can only imagine the cost of waiting for a big rig to recharge. But one does not need to be an oil company to create a Fuel Cell station. Which means any fuel profit goes to the station owner(s). Even driverless rigs will have to stop and refuel.

I think once electric big rigs get going they will have standard battery packs that can be easily swapped in 15 minutes or so. Even now the fuel tanks on them are mostly hanging exposed on the outside of the frame so swapping should be relatively simple.

I also expect that will eventually become the standard for electric cars too, easily swappable battery packs, so range anxiety becomes a thing of the past.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[beelsebob]

Current charge times make "recharge when the driver stops for breaks" impossible.

Not really, no. Current charge rates mean you can get about 100 miles of range in 20 minutes on a standard DC charger. If you're a tesla owner that's more like 200 miles of range in 20 minutes.

Big rigs typically get in the range of 8-10mpg, so they're roughly 4 times less efficient than cars. That implies that you could get about 50 miles for 20 minutes of charging on a tech similar to tesla's. Big rig drivers are required to take 10 hours of break in every 21. That 10 hours is enough to add 1500 miles of range, 11 hours is enough to drive roughly 770 miles.

It seems like even with Tesla's current DC charging tech there's *more* than enough ability to charge a big rig for all its current driving time.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[TemporalBeing]

Randomly, the pump will display "please see register for receipt" upon selecting the print option. I've see it being random as the person after me (a friend), had his receipt print just fine. It's a fucking scam to lure people into the store and buy shit.

Why waste paper getting a receipt? Your credit card company has a record of the transaction.

Because if you need to dispute it saying "I always get my receipts and I don't have one for that" works really well. Otherwise, you're at the mercy of your bank/card company to accurate report what you are spending - not a good habit to be in.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Sounds about right. Having worked at a gas station while in highschool and college in the 90s the profit on a single gallon of gas was typically in the $0.00 to $0.03 range. It was all about the inside sales: pop, chips, overpriced milk, smokes, silly expensive 3.2 beer.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[NoOneInParticular]

Or, even simpler, use the age-old technique of "changing horses', or, in this case "changing batteries". At the appropriate station get the batteries replaced by charged ones in a few minutes and off you go again. Would also give a new purpose for gasoline stations and would even allow some local electricity generation to be efficiently used. And besides, why does a driver-less truck need to wait for food?

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[bluefoxlucid]

Changing batteries carries other engineering problems. How old are the batteries? Do you own your battery? What is a battery worth? Do you load your truck with aging, unreliable batteries to swap-off with other aging, unreliable batteries? As a service station manager, how do you test each of these batteries to ensure its safety and reliability (its level of aging), and swap them out? As a service station manager, how do you offset the cost of rotating out old batteries traded in by truckers?

Changing batteries in something like a truck is a labor-intensive process. Mounting the batteries affects balance, thus handling, thus safety; mounting may preclude a fast removal operation. Batteries are heavy, and large machinery is required to remove the batteries. Running a 200A cable to a truck is one thing; but if you want to swap batteries, you're going to have to get in line. The operation may take 40 minutes overall--so may an 80% charge. Even in an EV like the Leaf or Tesla Model S, swapping out those enormous batteries--they're the size of the whole god damn car--is akin to swapping engines, or at least oil pans or transaxles; expect to be there an hour or two.

Think about it as if you were going to swap an entire, pre-filled gas tank, rather than just fill the tank. Sure, it sounds good in theory; but that kind of mechanic work takes space, labor, and time. Filling a tank is faster. Filling a battery is slower than filling a tank, but not that damn slow.

besides, why does a driver-less truck need to wait for food?

A driverless truck would use the rail system as freight transport, and drive last-mile. Labor costs would be cheap enough to justify the longer driver-miles of such crude distribution. Driverless trucks can spend a lot more time just driving all the fuck around with no cargo, since it costs 1/5 as much for fuel, and the driver's wage is eliminated.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[Admiral_Grinder]

Because it may take a few days before the company reports to the credit card and a few more days before it shows up in your statement. With a receipt, I have it in my wallet, and I update my budget tracking when I get home. I can also look at them at any time to figure out how much I have really spent.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[NoOneInParticular]

You might want to read up on some 19th century technology where the problem was figured out. Replace horses with driverless trucks, and realize that it's the cargo that matters, not the horse.

But granted, I shifted goalposts from changing batteries to changing whole trucks. Same principle though. Issues around aging and quality are the same for horses as for trucks/batteries though.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[chispito]

Why waste paper getting a receipt? Your credit card company has a record of the transaction.

The most common reason? Employer reimbursement or tax write-offs.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you seriously rushing to the defense of this bullshit?
Just give a fucking receipt so I don't have to go into the store.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> How exactly is it a scam? It didn't lie to you. It didn't say it was broken, out of paper, etc. It just said "please see register for receipt".

Because there's no "fuck off, just print my fucking receipt" button, and the machine certainly advertises its ability to print receipts without going into TFS.

Now that we all have phones for directions, the only reason anyone should ever visit the store is to use the free restroom. For extra convenience-store stink-eye, I frequently drive through one on my way to work, buy NOTHING, and dump whatever garbage I'm carrying (usually stuff purchased elsewhere) in their trash cans.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[bluefoxlucid]

I'll accept that. I think personal ownership of trucks makes that untenable; however, commercial interests may lease truck transit time, such as how city goers lease car time from ZipCar. Wabash may in fact not own any trucks, having ZipTruck, and so being able to charter a truck and return their truck for charging, exchange trailers, and continue to deliver Wabash goods on a Wabash-branded freight trailer pulled by some random ZipTruck. ZipTruck won't handle logistics; you pay Wabash to get your freight from one end of the country to the next, and Wabash pays ZipTruck to provide an engine. These are separate tasks.

You, sir, are a man of vision; at least you needed less a nudge than I. This is why I would surround myself with smart people if I ever ran a business: I may be able to envision great things with broad-reaching implications, but I need prompting or I may as well just stare directly into the sun.

For that matter, I think I'd want a quality cabinet if I ever became a member of Congress.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[dj245]

I expect a standard for big-rigs to be developed where there are modular battery compartments on the underside of the trailer for conventional van trailers, such that the truck pulls up, the batteries under the trailer and under the tractor are swapped, and they're on their way again. Depending on how they're designed they might also make for good under-ride protection, so cars can't drive under the trailers and get trapped or crushed.

That will require changes to the load limits in every state, or it won't be accepted by any trucking company. I am not involved in the trucking industry, but I had to load a semi with a bunch of my company's equipment several times. There are laws for loading on each axle, and the truck axle limits are different than the trailer axle limits. And every US state and Canadian province is different. My company's stuff isn't especially heavy but juggling the axle loads is a big pain. Many companies that ship equipment frequently (like my company) have sized their equipment for the max truck loads, based on the weight of the average step-deck trailer and the average truck. If you add even 2000 lb of batteries onto either the truck or the trailer it is going to be a problem for lots of people.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[Grishnakh]

That's nice, but it doesn't help me keep track of it. Even cars which display some of this info to the driver don't help much; my car tells me the instantaneous mpg (which is somewhat useless as it varies so much), the "average mpg" (which is since the last time it was reset, even more useless), and then the trip mpg (since the car was last started, probably the most useful, but only displays for a few seconds when I turn the car off). It has no facility to track fuel economy over time or by the tank. (The trip mpg isn't even that useful, because a 3-minute trip with poor economy isn't comparable to a 3-hour trip on the highway; seeing the per-tank mileage gives you a better perspective of how your car is performing.)

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[LinuxIsGarbage]

Current charge times make "recharge when the driver stops for breaks" impossible.

Of course they don't. You don't have to charge an EV from empty to full every time any more than you have to wait for an ICE vehicle to go empty then fill the tank to the top. With an EV the thing is to top it up at every opportunity. The batteries won't be empty, and you don't have to wait till they are full.

My quick check of Google shows that while the $85,000 Tesla has a 240 mile range, most cars are 90 miles. That's an hour and a half on the freeway and you're completely out of juice. While you don't have to wait for an ICE car to be empty, it only takes a couple minutes to fill from 50 miles remaining to 450. For commuting electric cars are great. Very efficient in stop and go, and yes you can top up everywhere you stop (if they have a charger). However the range, and time to charge does put a big damper on long distance trips. Tesla is trying to address this (with over 2.5x the normal range, and Supercharger stations), hopefully it filters down to all models, but right now Tesla is priced out of reach of most consumers.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[Aighearach]

Yep. There is a gas station by the freeway where I can buy gas for 10 cents cheaper than anywhere else. I went there two times. Both times it was such a hassle, I don't even stop there when I'm going that way. I shop at the 2nd cheapest place, which thankfully has "traditional" service.

I don't blame them for wanting me to go into their store. But that said, I'm not going back.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[Aighearach]

Looking at current installs and technology, I think that fast charging will be most of the mobile charging, and slow charging is what you do at night to top it up and preserve battery life.

Fast charging is not inherently expensive, and patents don't last forever. Price differentiation will shrink in the future for charger tech.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[LinuxIsGarbage]

Interesting. I live in the "We don't trust you to pump your own gas" state, otherwise known as New Jersey, and I've never seen the attendant have to go inside to get my receipt. But I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

Most receipt paper has a green, pink, or some other stripe or mark all over the paper as it's getting low. Cashiers recognize the pattern and will swap rolls before completely running out. Customers being a combination of lazy and stupid will ignore it, grab their receipt and leave. Given that the full serve attendants are effectively cashiers, they probably recognize this and swap rolls before running out. I can't explain the other poster's claim that the friend behind them got a receipt.

I could be giving the attendants too much credit though. Any time I'm forced to go to one, they keep "topping up" the tank to even dollar amounts. WTF? I'm paying with a credit card, I don't care if it's $57.83. Besides, it's bad for the evaporative emissions system to flood it with raw gas. That and I'm usually left waiting at the end of the transaction as they go tend to other cars. I'm glad I'm paying for such "professional service" from someone half my age.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[Aighearach]

That's why we turned the lottery over to the State, and turned it into a Stupid Tax to support education.

My State did that with alcohol distribution, too. Organized crime can't penetrate the distribution layer that way. Too many bar codes and computerized inventory systems.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[Moof123]

Take my money and give me my receipt. If you put gimmicks around that process to up sell me, you are pretty far down a slippery slope.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[Rei]

I wouldn't count on really powerful fast chargers ever getting really cheap. Cheaper than they are now, sure, but just ignoring all of the communication and high power conversion hardware you still have to have:

1) A powerful cooling system in your charger (for a really powerful connection, you even need to liquid-cool the charging cable)
2) A huge amount of copper (or aluminum, but that comes with a number of additional challenges) in your charger
3) A high power feed installed to your location
4) A high capacity and high power battery buffer to even out your charges if you want really fast charges / fast charges for big packs (say, 250+ kW)
5) A professional electrician to do the installs (and remember, we're not talking about home wiring here, we're talking about huge-current high-voltage connections). ... and so forth. These things will always add up. So maybe we'd not be talking about $100k to add one.... but I'd be shocked if even in mass production they could be manufactured, delivered and installed for under $10k. Probably several tens of thousands of USD per unit.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[Rei]

Assuming an overall pack energy density of 200 Wh/kg, 1kWh would weigh 5kg. A typical truck may move around 1 tonne 120 miles per gallon of diesel. A gallon of diesel contains about 10kWh of energy. An electric motor will use it about 2,5 times more efficiently than a diesel ICE, so 120 miles per gallon of diesel equates to 300 miles per 10kWh of electricty, or 30 miles per kWh electric, or 30 miles per 5kg of battery pack. So every 30 miles of range you want takes up 0,5% of your cargo mass. If you want say 300 miles range then it would consume 5% of your payload.

On the other hand, the price difference in the cost of fuelling the truck (diesel vs. electricity) would be massive. For each tonne of cargo (assuming 300 miles vehicle range and an average haul distance per hour of say 60 miles), giving up 50kg of cargo to enable to you spend $0,30 on electricity ($0,10/kWh) instead of about $1,80 on diesel ($2,70/gal), or a savings of $1,5 for giving up 50kg of cargo. If we scale to say 50 tonnes of cargo then this equates to giving up 2,5 tonnes (5%) of your cargo to save $75 per hour.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[Rei]

How old are the batteries? Do you own your battery? What is a battery worth? Do you load your truck with aging, unreliable batteries to swap-off with other aging, unreliable batteries?

When it comes to a truck which will have a sizeable number of large batteries, you're pretty much statistically guaranteed to never have more than a dud or two so long as the battery management process is sound.

As a service station manager, how do you test each of these batteries to ensure its safety and reliability (its level of aging)

By, for example, any of the dozen or so methods already used for this purpose?

As a service station manager, how do you offset the cost of rotating out old batteries traded in by truckers?

By rolling that into the swapping cost?

Could you please ask questions a little harder than "What does 1+1 equal?" I'm seriously not getting why you don't already know the answer to these questions you're asking.

Changing batteries in something like a truck is a labor-intensive process.

Wait a minute, you think that when people talk about battery swap they're talking about someone going up and swapping batteries by hand?

mounting may preclude a fast removal operation.

Many companies have already demonstrated battery swap for cars, which is a far harder target than trucks. With trucks, my preferred mounting is on the trailers themselves (with the cab having its own, non-swappable batteries). You already have, today, stuff mounted to the underside of trailers. It's right where the structural strength is already located and you have tons of open space underneath for easy access and standard form factors. It's an order of magnitude easier challenge than for cars, which you practically have to have disassemble their frames to get their batteries out.

The operation may take 40 minutes overall

Battery swap in the much harder case of cars can be done in less than a tenth that time.

Mounting the batteries affects balance, thus handling, thus safety

And you're envisioning that one would load all of the batteries only on one side or something...?

Think about it as if you were going to swap an entire, pre-filled gas tank

And think about having the tank you plan to switch out be a standardized external tank mounted in a standard form factor on a standard trailer.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[marciot]

It's a fucking scam to lure people into the store and buy shit.

As I approach the register, I often get to see their smile morph into a frown as I hand them my receipt and frequent fueler card for stamps.

Re: Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[WindBourne]

No, trucks are not that sensitive. Bulk of loss is from aerodynamics , not rolling. That is why semis have cabins.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[DigiShaman]

For being a convenient store, it's pretty damn inconvenient to walk through 109 degree weather all the way and back for a damn receipt. I'd like to track fuel milage with paper, but I'm not going to sweat my balls off to get it either. Hey, it's my choice. So it's mutual between me and the store. But if you really want my attention to come inside, BE HONEST ABOUT YOUR INTENTIONS. I dunno, say, offer promo or discount for taking the receipt inside. But if you're not going to print my receipt when I asked it to do so.

Normally I shrug this stuff off as strange and an unusual intermittent issue. But i've seen this behavior happen all too often. It's a scam-o-ramma.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[bluefoxlucid]

When it comes to a truck which will have a sizeable number of large batteries, you're pretty much statistically guaranteed to never have more than a dud or two so long as the battery management process is sound.

In one truck, yes. The frequency of dead batteries, however, will be the same as passenger vehicles; who will dispose of those? The swap-off center will occasionally find a dud battery it can't reinstall in a customer's vehicle, which it then must replace with a new battery it purchases.

By, for example, any of the dozen or so methods already used for this purpose?

All of which are relatively involved. Testing a battery for charge capacity is one thing; testing and inspecting a battery for damage and danger conditions so you don't install it into someone's vehicle and get a lawsuit for "vehicle exploded in a giant flaming blaze" (or drive all your customers away with "we don't test our batteries for anything but charge, and damaged batteries may set your truck on fire") is wholly different. The amount of human labor required will make these inspections labor-intensive.

By rolling that into the swapping cost?

That may result in diesel being the cheaper fuel by far. You could take even odds on the batteries and lure people into your high-margin restaurant while the swap occurs, or try to tack on high-margin value-add services like general mechanical inspections and maintenance.

Battery swap in the much harder case of cars can be done in less than a tenth that time.

There are a lot more batteries on a truck.

You already have, today, stuff mounted to the underside of trailers. It's right where the structural strength is already located and you have tons of open space underneath for easy access and standard form factors.

Fortunately, if you mount batteries under there without a bunch of armored doors and other shit to hold it all together, the cargo container catches fire when the batteries become damaged.

It's also fortunate that most of the air and electronic braking lines are out of the way, instead of bolted all over the bottom of the truck. That doesn't mean mounting won't be a problem--especially mounting in some sane manner, with armored plating to protect the batteries--but it does mean you at least don't have to deal with drive shafts, exhaust systems, and all kinds of other shit, some of which fortunately doesn't even exist in electric cars.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[Rei]

In one truck, yes. The frequency of dead batteries, however, will be the same as passenger vehicles; who will dispose of those?

Seriously, you can't be this daft. The operator, of course, with the price rolled into the service cost.

All of which are relatively involved.

No, they're not. Even your laptop battery estimates its capacity, and that's about as simple as li-ion battery packs get. Coulomb counting, voltage measurements at start and end compared to the charge temperature, charge voltage curve shapes, direct measurement of pack heating over the course of charge to measure internal resistance, and about half a dozen other methods are all usable and widely used to estimate capacity remaining in a pack. Pretty much every modern EV and hybrid in existence checks its battery pack's performance at least at the pack level, if not the individual cell level (Tesla does it at the "brick" level), to see how it's aging and when components or the pack as the whole need to be replaced.

Measuring remaining battery capacity is a concept older than the light bulb.

testing and inspecting a battery for damage and danger conditions so you don't install it into someone's vehicle and get a lawsuit for "vehicle exploded in a giant flaming blaze" (or drive all your customers away with "we don't test our batteries for anything but charge, and damaged batteries may set your truck on fire") is wholly different.

Just like gas stations check their gas for impurities that can cause damage to an engine? No, it's the manufacturer's issue to ensure that the product meets its stated usage specs - in this case, the specs including safe handling of damage and X number of swap cycles. Meeting damage control specs is why Tesla isolates each cell in a canister to prevent failure propagation. And why packs always come with fuses/breakers that blow when the pack gets wet or there's otherwise a short.

(Just ignoring that many types of li-ions don't burn even when abused. Tesla uses standard cobalt-based 18660s, which is why they have to have a failure isolation system, but vehicles like the Volt and Leaf use more stable spinel chemistries)

That may result in diesel being the cheaper fuel by far

Tesla's battery packs have an 8 year, unlimited-mile warranty. Even if we assume that they're only good for 1000 full charge cycles (which should be well on the low end), at 30 tonne-miles per kWh of charge, times 1000 cycles, and $150/kWh for the pack, that's 200 tonne-miles per dollar of pack capital cost. A diesel truck will get about 120 tonne-miles per gallon of diesel, and diesel costs somewhere in the ballpark of 6x more than electricity per unit range (depends on your location), meaning that the electric version saves about 3-4$ per dollars of energy cost per dollar of pack capital cost.

There are a lot more batteries on a truck.

Wait, so you're picturing them being done individually, one after the next? Seriously? *smacks forehead*

Fortunately, if you mount batteries under there without a bunch of armored doors and other shit to hold it all together, the cargo container catches fire when the batteries become damaged.

In the parallel world where EVs are always catching on fire, and petroleum-fueled vehicles aren't - quite unlike our actual world.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[JimFive]

Shortly after pay at the pump became common, I was working with a guy who got pulled over after leaving a gas station because the attendant called the cops thinking he hadn't paid. Having a receipt meant that he just showed it to the cop and was on his way. Without the receipt it would have been a much worse experience.
--
JimFive

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[bluefoxlucid]

Seriously, you can't be this daft. The operator, of course, with the price rolled into the service cost.

You claimed that you're unlikely to have more than a dud or two in a truck, dismissing the idea that failure rate *per* *battery* would be the same as anything else, when I pointed out that the operator would have to manage the cost of rotating out end-of-life batteries.

Your answer to "how will the operator handle disposal costs of bad batteries?" was "Oh, that's not a real consideration." Then you call me daft for pointing out that it *is* a real thing.

No, they're not. Even your laptop battery estimates its capacity, and that's about as simple as li-ion battery packs get.

I said estimating capacity is easy, but estimating integrity is hard. Will the fucking battery EXPLODE UNDER YOUR TRUCK? A simple capacity measure won't tell you if it's dangerously damaged.

No, it's the manufacturer's issue to ensure that the product meets its stated usage specs - in this case, the specs including safe handling of damage and X number of swap cycles.

Unfortunately, the manufacturer doesn't have control of the batteries once they've been placed into a truck.

Just like gas stations check their gas for impurities that can cause damage to an engine?

No you miserable fucking idiot, more like how Blue Rhino inspects and tests every tank for safety defects at every exchange. The gas station doesn't swap your god damned fuel tank, so they don't have to inspect it for dangerous leaks and rust spots.

You may as well have said "they'll inspect the electricity they charge it with to make sure it's clean power" if you wanted to make a show of being that stupid.

Tesla's battery packs have an 8 year, unlimited-mile warranty

You still don't know how many 72-pound pieces of iron road debris have smashed into the battery, if the driver used a defective charger to charge the battery at extremely high voltages, if the battery's been damaged by *other*, less scrupulous stations mishandling it, if it's experienced flood damage somehow, and so forth. Determining the actual physical condition of the battery requires labor-intensive inspection, unless you want to just tell everyone those swapped-out batteries carry no warranty and may explode on them and it's not your fault if they do.

In the parallel world where EVs are always catching on fire, and petroleum-fueled vehicles aren't - quite unlike our actual world.

More like in the current world, where the crisis of a vehicle on fire either means the driver is getting roasted or his cargo is getting roasted. If it happens 1 in 10 million times, there's still about 150 million trucks on the road. 200 fatal hazmat incidents occur per year in the US, meaning fuel tanker trucks and (notably) oxygen tankers blowing up. Managing to keep defective, poorly-inspected, "Wull it dun held a chawj, Jeb" batteries from killing your driver is an important risk consideration.

Re: Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[Rei]

I called you daft for not understanding the concept that someone who runs a swapping service station covers all costs related to their business activities and rolls them into what they charge for service, just like every other business does. I fail to see what is hard about this for you to understand. The answer to "who pays for X cost" is *always* "the service provider, with the costs indirectly passed on to their customers via the rate charged".

Really, you think that bad fuel can't damage an engine? It can and does. And it's the supplier who ultimately bears the cost. No, "bad electricity" is not a proper analogy (although your sarcasm in this regard is funny given how many devices are damaged by surges every year); a gas station fuels vehicles by insertung fuel into them, while a swapping station fuels vehicles by inserting pre-charged batteries into them. Batteries correspond to fuel in this context.

In what world do you live where car parts are regularly inspected by the manufacturer after being installed into the vehicle? Cars have hundreds if not thousands of parts more safety critical than a battery pack, and yes, manufacturers *are* liable if their failure modes due to damage pose an unreasonable risk of injury. Think of a famous failure case - say, for example, the Ford Pinto fires. Were the gas tanks defective? Nope. But the cars had an unacceptably bad failure mode in certain types of crashes, and it fell on the manufacturer to fix it - as it always does. A part must meet its use case, and if its use case is "deliver electricity from a swappable system and not burn the vehicle down if damaged", it has to contain the necessary safety systems to do that.

Lastly, you're still stuck in bizarro world where ICE vehicles full of combustible fuel are incombustible, whereas EVs with no combustable fuel and more often than not with batteries less flammable than a block of cheese (once again: *not all li-ions are the same*!) burst into flames left and right. Meanwhile, in the reality that the rest of us live in, the opposite is true. Heck, last summer I saw a flaming hulk of a passenger car with fire crews trying to put it out to extract the burned bodies of the two tourists who had been driving it. Meanwhile, Teslas and Leafs have been in many wrecks - go to Google Images and search for "crash tesla" or "crash leaf". Where are the fires from these oh-so-flammable vehicles? Yes, they have happened, but at a much lower per-vehicle rate than gasoline cars according to NTSB stats. Sorry, but your fire conceptions are just not based in reality.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[uninformedLuddite]

Do they still wipe your windows and check your oil for you?

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[TWX]

Most likely, retrofits to existing trailers will require some form of fresh certification and documentation describing the new characteristics of the trailer. I don't know the industry terminology for heavy trucks, but for light vehicles that are modified from the original manufacturer specifications there are usually added door-jamb tags that indicate that it's a modified vehicle, when it was modified, and the new characteristics of the vehicle post-modification. Roadtrek and other Class-B RV conversion companies that retrofit RV chassis into full-sized cargo vans come to mind.

Just a guess, but retrofits will probably only be made as kits for extremely common trailer lines too, so that a given popular trailer from Hyundai or another manufacturer that exists in the tens of thousands can be easily retrofitted to a common standard, as opposed to random or haphazard retrofits each with its own characteristics. It'll obviously depend on what the shippers are using and how willing they'd be to buy electric trucks and how readily their trailers could be adapted, plus the lifespan of truck and trailer.

Re: Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[bluefoxlucid]

I called you daft for not understanding the concept that someone who runs a swapping service station covers all costs related to their business activities and rolls them into what they charge for service, just like every other business does.

I raised the question because it's a point you seemed to ignore. There are costs inherent in there, which means the cost of battery swap is significantly higher than the cost of charging your own batteries.

Really, you think that bad fuel can't damage an engine? It can and does. And it's the supplier who ultimately bears the cost. No, "bad electricity" is not a proper analogy (although your sarcasm in this regard is funny given how many devices are damaged by surges every year); a gas station fuels vehicles by insertung fuel into them, while a swapping station fuels vehicles by inserting pre-charged batteries into them. Batteries correspond to fuel in this context.

Nope, you're using the fallacy of whole body analogy: X has aspect similar to Y, therefor X is similar to Y in all aspects. The problem is fuel and electricity are most similar, although bad fuel can damage a car and bad electricity can't. Swapping a battery for a defective battery can also damage a car (much worse, if it catches fire), but so can swapping in a bad radiator.

The battery is a car part. It isn't simply fuel, and it can't be fully analogized to fuel. You're swapping in a car part which may be bad and may damage the car or kill the driver.

In what world do you live where car parts are regularly inspected by the manufacturer after being installed into the vehicle?

A battery is a type of fuel tank. It's a storage container holding an electron charge (energy). This is substantially similar to a propane tank swap, which, yes, every single tank is individually inspected in the industry. Batteries, of course, don't fully analogize to propane tanks; they do tend to EXPLODE WHEN DAMAGED, and they explode or burn with the energy they contain: a Tesla 80kWh battery has as much energy as 64kg of TNT. A stick of dynamite is equivalent to .216kg of TNT, so that battery is potentially 300 sticks of dynamite.

Do you think inspection regulations for damaged and dangerous batteries won't appear overnight?

Lastly, you're still stuck in bizarro world where ICE vehicles full of combustible fuel are incombustible,

We don't routinely swap critical fuel management components in gasoline and diesel cars for other components which came out of other, random cars. We tend to install new or refurbished parts, and even then in vary rare cases (every few hundred thousand miles). Gasoline and diesel also don't massively explode, although Li+ batteries tend to burn--more rapidly than gasoline and diesel would, but they still tend to not detonate (they can). Both failure modes are more likely and more dangerous than liquid fuel failures, and harder to cease (dry chemical or CO2 onto gasoline will put it out; that won't work with a battery, because it's an oxidizer and reducer in one package--it has its own oxygen source).

You can live in a delusion where people (and, subsequently, governments) won't demand safety inspections on every single battery swap, but reality will happily ignore you.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[toddestan]

It's kind of a prisoner's delimma situation for them. If none of them had pay at the pump, then they'd all be better off because people would be more likely to go in and buy some snacks. But any one station that puts in pay at the pump will see a huge increase in business over the others as people really, really like the convienence. So once one station puts it in, the others pretty much had to follow suit or go out of business. It's certainly one situation where the free market and competition ended up being a big win for the customers.

Re:Truck Stops, Gas Stations, etc

[Aighearach]

Spoiler alert: they already installed them every few miles in whole US regions. ;) Almost every strip mall already has one.

Maybe you have an unrealistic image of how much money $10k is?

Error 1

[Overzeetop]

Gasoline stations don't sell gasoline. The provide it as a service at near-zero margin as a way to lure you in for the high-margin food and sundries in their stores.

They'll find other ways to lure you in (like adding charging stations).

Re:Error 1

[Rei]

Indeed, the slower fill times on even 10-minute fast charging stations would probably give a much better rate on converting energy-customers into convenience store customers. It could even be a loss leader, so long as there's enough market penetration to justify the capital costs.

Re:Error 1

[rhazz]

They also fail to hit on the idea that gas stations might just become smaller to remain profitable, and they also might spring up as add-ons to existing businesses. Most hardware stores in my area have small propane service outlets. Likely we would see similar things for gas, tacked onto the sides of businesses, or even in the corners of a parking lot.

Re:Error 1

[Maxo-Texas]

On the flip side of this, there are many stations which have no conveniences and which have no operator 8 to 12 hours per day. I expect these are much more profitable than traditional stations.

Re:Error 1

[Guspaz]

Right now, the largest fast-charging network in the US (Tesla's) is free to use. If they extend free supercharging to the model 3, there may be significant pressure on other auto manufacturers or charging providers to also offer the charging for free (if all else is equal, people may pick the electric car that has a charging network that is both free and more extensive).

Re:Error 1

[TWX]

Consider this- gas stations associated with grocery stores are already starting to place merchandise shelves around the gas pumps to make it even more likely to tempt customers into buying soda and snacks. Electric cars remove one of the biggest hurdles to bringing a car indoors, the fumes. A convenience store of the future might have open doors on the ends, such that the driver literally pulls into the building among the merchandise to charge, making it even more tempting to buy stuff.

Obviously there will be theft issues, but there are theft issues already so I doubt that it would get worse.

Re:Error 1

[Macrat]

But why would I go to my local gas station in the middle of suburbia to charge my vehicle when I can just charge it at home?

Because "home" is an apartment or condo and there are no charging stations in the parking lot.

Re:Error 1

[es330td]

Tesla's charging network is free only because S owners are paying a significant premium for the vehicle allowing Tesla to build said network. When (not if) other mfrs have electric cars and everyone has to compete on cost a free charging network will come with a higher price tag.

Re:Error 1

[Rei]

Indeed - and they can sell people on the concept pretty easily. Rather than saying "We're going to have you charge inside our store to tempt you to buy things", they'd sell the concept as "Remember back in the day when you used to have to fill up your car with gasoline out in the cold / heat / wind / rain / etc? Now we're enabling you to charge your car in comfort indoors in our stores because we love the environment so much and want to support people like you - you're welcome!"

Re:Error 1

[mlts]

At the other end, there are Pacific Pride cardlock stations that are a set of pumps and card readers, and nothing else. One pulls up, swipes the card, fills up, and heads out. No attendant on duty. The advantage of these places is that you don't have to wait in line at a pump while someone goes in and grabs lunch.

I can see this being useful for a no-frills way of charging or swapping batteries, where someone wants to be on the road, and not pissing away time in line waiting for someone to stop looking at their phone long enough to pay for their bag of Doritos and their 160 ounce soft drink.

Re:Error 1

[Carewolf]

Gasoline stations don't sell gasoline. The provide it as a service at near-zero margin as a way to lure you in for the high-margin food and sundries in their stores.

They'll find other ways to lure you in (like adding charging stations).

Hardly. The cheapest are still the ones without a store.

Re:Error 1

[FranTaylor]

yeah that's why they make it so you can buy gas without setting foot in the store

Re:Error 1

[FranTaylor]

Because "home" is an apartment or condo and there are no charging stations in the parking lot.

yes indeed we live in a time when nothing ever changes, nobody does anything

Re:Error 1

[Guspaz]

There are 217 stations in the US, not 100. They're still rapidly expanding.

The numbers are also not comparable. Gas stations are required for all refuelling of gasoline-powered vehicles. Supercharger stations are only required for long-distance trips that are typically quite rare. There are often many gas stations in close proximity to eachother, sometimes two or three at the same intersection. That may be useful when there are different gas stations competing with eachother, but pointless when you're talking about a manufacturer-provided charging network that is free to use.

Re:Error 1

[Macrat]

yes indeed we live in a time when nothing ever changes, nobody does anything

I don't know what fantasy world you live in, but in the real world, very little changes. Even brand new housing developments have nothing for EV.

Re:Error 1

[Guspaz]

Whoever said that the electricity was free? It's the charging that's free, because they treat the cost of the estimated lifetime energy consumption of your car to be a sunk cost as part of the purchase. You've already paid for the electricity.

Tesla eventually intends to have their charging stations be completely solar powered. I'm not convinced that's actually feasible, but if it were, then the cost of electricity would be eliminated, and the remaining cost would be the construction and maintenance of the charging stations.

Re:Error 1

[Aighearach]

What they need is to set it up like a carnival ride; a car elevator takes it up and puts it into a slot in a vertical machine. This is great for high traffic areas like tourist traps, where land space is expensive. Then you're out of the car, waiting in a boring lobby with a loud television, next to the convenience store/gift shop with soothing thematic music.

This is why (if it wasn't for the TSA) flying is so much more convenient.

Doubtful

[Snotnose]

EVs cost significantly more than gas cars, don't have the range of gas cars, and apartment dwellers have no way to charge them overnight.

A friend has an electric, she loves it. She also drives 20 miles to work, charges the car in her garage overnight, and her road trips are with her kids and grandkids, who drive their gas vehicles.

Re:Doubtful

[BasilBrush]

There's no point listing the cons without listing the pros too. EVs are nicer to drive, cleaner (in all senses), often have a lower total cost of ownership, need far less servicing, and you can make it's fuel yourself at home.

Re:Doubtful

[Anonymous Coward]

EVs cost significantly more than gas cars, don't have the range of gas cars, and apartment dwellers have no way to charge them overnight.

That wont last long. You'll get a few apartments catering to would-be EV owners by offering charging stations in the parking lot. People will move there and buy/lease an EV. Once they fill up, the apartment will add more stations. Some nearby complexes will take notice, and they'll add a couple charging station to repeat. And then, gradually, charging stations will be an extremely common feature at apartment complexes, just like a swimming pool.

Re:Doubtful

[Drethon]

Not worth it yet next to my $15k one year old used Ford Taurus (yeah that was bought a few years back). Getting closer though.

Re:Doubtful

[WillAdams]

Replying to undo incorrect Redundant moderation.

Mea culpa.

Re:Doubtful

[dbialac]

> EVs are nicer to drive

On what basis do you make the claim that they are "nicer to drive?" I'll put a BMW M3 -- or if you prefer a soft ride a Rolls Royce -- up against a Nissan Leaf any day. Ride quality and handling are subjective parameters and these 'feel' parameters are based on the configuration of the suspension, wheels, brakes, etc. not the technology causing propulsion. Additionally, because you have a transmission, you can get less wheel spin in the winter in a conventional car by selecting an appropriate gear when you get stuck.

> cleaner (in all senses)

Done properly, biofuels can be carbon negative rather than carbon neutral. Boeing has found a plant that easily releases its sugars and grows in deserts watered with salt water. The end result is that land that is currently not arable such as the Sahara and the Arabian Peninsula can be utilized to grow these crops.

> and you can make it's fuel yourself at home

I can make E100 ethanol or biodiesel at home if I was so inclined, it's just easier to go to go to a gas station.

Remember that electric cars are an old technology and one we ditched years ago because it simply wasn't that good. Even today it still has the same exact problems it had back then.

Re:Doubtful

[Jason Levine]

I agree that, for most people, electric car don't make sense right now. The key words are "right now", though. Electric cars will come down in price until they are price-competitive with gas models. The range will also be increased and could one day match gas cars. As for apartment dwellers, that could be a different issue, but perhaps people will get creative on how they charge.

The ideal for electric vehicles would be to have a fast charge time (around the same amount of time it takes to fill a gas car from 1/4 tank to full), long range, and a price point around that of gas cars. If all three points are hit, people would flock to electric cars and gas stations could convert into "Recharge Stations" to stay in business. The closer we get to the ideal, the more electric vehicles that will be on the road.

Re:Doubtful

[dbialac]

And the conventional Spark starts at $12,170, so the EV is more than twice the price. His point holds. Additionally, there's not a comparable conventional Prius, so there's no way to make a comparison.

Re:Doubtful

[MobyDisk]

At present, the TCO is about the same because the lower maintenance and fuel costs are offset by the increased up-front cost. And that is with the government tax credits included. A search for electric car TCO gives dozens of articles that seem to corroborate this.

In the long-term, I believe the TCO of electric cars will probably become lower. I'm betting that electric cars will last longer, the maintenance curve will not increase as the engine ages, and that green electricity sources will widen the gap between gasoline and electricity costs. But at some point we will lose the tax credits.

Just so no one thinks I'm cherry picking my search results: Here are the first 6 Google hits (other than PDFs) and they all agree:
http://www.plugincars.com/tota...
http://www.pluginamerica.org/d...
http://tdworld.com/site-files/...
http://www.greentechmedia.com/...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/to...

Most of the results are tepid, arguing things like "hey, electric cars are NOT actually more expensive" or "well, it's about the same long term." but are hesitant to declare a clear winner.

Re:Doubtful

[TWX]

There are apartments in a shady part of town that replaced their decrepit metal carport canopies with new solar panels. So long as they included one additional conduit pathway per half-dozen cars when they trenched for the panels they could easily run power to all of the parking spots. They could even meter the electricity by requiring the tenant to enter a code corresponding to a parking spot at a control point similar to how many parking lots have drivers pay for their space. If there's communication between the car and the charging station, the station could stop charging if the charger cable is unhooked from the car and not plugged back into the same car within say, five minutes. Could even alert the apartment if their car is prematurely unhooked if that kind of problem is present.

Re:Doubtful

[BasilBrush]

OK, but in most countries gas is more expensive than the US. That makes a big difference. Robert Llewellyn reckoned his Nissan Leaf had passed the point at which it was cheaper than a petrol equivalent in 3 years. Although he's also generating his own power with solar cells.

Re:Doubtful

[toadlife]

Not worth it yet next to my $15k one year old used Ford Taurus

If we are comparing used, you can get a used electric car with plenty of battery warranty right now for the same price range. Due to state and federal tax rebates, they depreciate more quickly than ICE cars when you first drive them off the lot.

Re:Doubtful

[Sir_Eptishous]

need far less servicing

This is the big one.

Electric cars will be commodities like pc's and phones. Gone will be the days of thousand and thousands of dollars being drained away from car owners doing repairs, etc;

Mechanics, oil change places(Jiffy Lube, etc) will go out of business once the threshold is passed.

Re:Doubtful

[Overzeetop]

I'm generally on your side in this argument, but a manual or multi-geared transmission in an ICE is likely to fall short of the performance of a properly tuned electric drive train and control system in a wheel-spin condition. The control feedback will always be more responsive in a situation like this than an average human driver, just as a properly tuned anti-lock breaking system will always beat an average human driver in breaking performance.

Also, any type of fuel you can create for use in a compact, internal combustion engine can be burned with significantly higher efficiency in a multi-stage, regenerative fixed industrial power plant. The efficiency will more than compensate for line and battery/charging losses.

Re:Doubtful

[srmalloy]

My Prius Plug-in was $27,000 BEFORE tax rebates. The Chevy Spark EV is $25,000.

My previous car, an Accord wagon, could fit 22 banker's boxes in the back with the rear seat down, and I used it for three moves, filling it repeatedly when moving the items that weren't big enough to require a truck rental. How many times more trips would I have had to make with a Prius or Spark to get the same volume of cargo carried?

Re:Doubtful

[swillden]

What complicates this is that whether or not an electric car is cheaper depends heavily on your driving -- and whether or not an electric car is feasible depends on your driving. TOC also depends on the cost of fuel and electricity. When I ran the numbers for myself a few years ago my break-even for a Nissan LEAF was three years, with the federal and state tax credits, or eight years without. That was without taking into consideration the difference in maintenance costs since I didn't know how to estimate them. I did not, however, predict the drop in gas prices. I haven't re-run the numbers, but I expect the lower price of gasoline would push those break-even points out 2-3 years.

Re:Doubtful

[Nidi62]

Not worth it yet next to my $15k one year old used Ford Taurus (yeah that was bought a few years back). Getting closer though.

Nor my 2014 Focus I bought brand new with a 10K trade in, 2k down, and $125 a month payments for 3 years. With over 30mpg highway and gas prices as low as they are, the price difference in gas compared to the 2006 V8 Tundra I traded in more than makes the monthly payments, and wiht an 80 mile round trip work commute an EV is nowhere near practical for me anyway.

Re:Doubtful

[njnnja]

cleaner (in all senses)

Some PZEV ICE's have emissions that are cleaner than the outside air. A modern electric scores a lot of points against an 80's k car but the quality of an ICE is a moving target.

If past technological jumps can serve as a guide, the big switch to electric will occur, if at all, not because the new technology beats the old technology in things that the old technology is working on as well, because new technologies almost never can catch up to the benefits of an old technolody. But rather, it will occur when the new technology does something that the old technology doesn't do at all, not even poorly. I'm not sure what that is yet, but if electric car advocates are waiting for electric vehicles to catch up and surpass ICE, they might have a long wait

Re:Doubtful

[mlts]

Depends on area. Here in Austin where tenants actually are forced to bid for their rent price when their lease expires, just having an apartment for under $2000/month is a nice thing.

Until the economy tanks and apartments are extremely desperate to find renters, I really don't see EV charging stations going mainstream. Some "luxury" apartments, sure... it is a good way to have a reason to raise rent. However, there just isn't any incentive in this economy (which belongs to the landlord, especially with mortgages being so hard to come by for most people) for anything to be added to an apartment except more fees.

Re:Doubtful

[Rei]

And costs about a third as much to drive per unit distance.

The cost of a vehicle is not its raw purchase price.

Re:Doubtful

[Gavagai80]

Renting a u-haul three times isn't going to cost you much compared to $25,000 cars.

Re:Doubtful

[Nemyst]

There was a time where cars had similar disadvantages versus carriages with horses, and yet here we are. Hint: the present situation is not the end point of the EV.

Re:Doubtful

[BasilBrush]

On what basis do you make the claim that they are "nicer to drive?

On the basis that everyone that test drives one says the same thing.

I'll put a BMW M3 -- or if you prefer a soft ride a Rolls Royce -- up against a Nissan Leaf any day.

The fact that you have to compare cars from such different classes makes my point. A Tesla is nicer to drive tham an M3. A Nissan Leaf is nicer to drive than a Nissan Versa.

And you have it completely the wrong way around on snow handling. EVs are out in the snow when ICE cars are stuck. It's the low end torque and the extra weight. Don't bother arguing the point, you'll find out if you google.

Biofuels are irrelevant (except for pork barrelling). Virtually all ICE cars run fossil fuels. But when I said in all ways, I clearly didn't just mean the global warming effect. I meant more generally that ICE cars are oily, sooty things.

Re:Doubtful

[MobyDisk]

Yeah. I didn't look at what countries the reports were based on. I wonder what car prices are in those countries? What the subsidies are there? And electricity prices?

Anyone generating their own power probably tips the scales quite a bit. That ties into my "green electricity sources will widen the gap" scenario. Mr. Llewellyn is just making that happen today.

Personally, I work 6.1 miles from my home. So from one standpoint, an electric car would work great: I wouldn't even need to charge at work to make it home. But on the other hand, I gas up once a month (and I still have 1/4 tank at that point) and the car has very little maintenance. So it would never pay-off financially.

Re:Doubtful

[BosstonesOwn]

Also what about the cities where parking isn't owned by the building owner ? There are plenty of cities in the US , heck most of them, do not have a parking spot per unit and they are forced to park on city streets... Who covers the bill then ?

EV's are not going to dominate until a city bites the ball gag and starts supplying meters and power to every parking spot.

Also what about cold area's like here in the northeast during snow ev vehicles are very tough to get around in and their range becomes questionable in very cold temperatures. This is all stuff that gets solved with evolution... 5 to 10 years... I doubt highly.

Re:Doubtful

[FuegoFuerte]

And my Civic coupe (gas) was $13k after all taxes and licensing were paid, and for my style of driving (>90% highway, most trips 40+ miles) I get nearly equivalent fuel mileage (35-42mpg). On top of that, it's WAY more fun than driving a Prius, I can work on it myself, and it'll probably go at least 400k miles before I decide to replace it, and though I may have to replace the battery a couple times, I'll never have to replace the entire battery pack.

So yeah, EVs cost significantly more than gas cars.

Re:Doubtful

[barc0001]

EVs cost more *up front*. Where I live in Canada it's not unusual for people to spend upwards of $300-$400 a month on just gas commuting. Saving $3-4K a year on gas alone dramatically shifts the scales when it comes to 5 year costs on such a vehicle. Add to that the cost of maintenance, and then subtract the EV incentive rebates (up to $8K) the government up here hands out and a $33K EV ends up costing $5-10K over 5 years compared to a $25K gasoline vehicle that there are no fuel and maintenance savings or rebates on.

As for the apartment dwellers, your reasoning is also postulated on the idea that the car landscape is going to remain the same over the next few years. It's not. Self driving cars are starting to be a thing, and in 5 years they're going to be more of a thing. Your apartment friends will probably find it cheaper to belong to car co-op like Modo, Car2Go or similar. The co-op will buy the cars and maintain them, and when someone needs a car they pull out their smartphone and ask for one and the nearest available self-driving car comes and stops right in front of them where they asked for it. They drive wherever they want to go, get out and the car goes back into the pool and someone else uses it. They repeat the process to go home. People are already doing this with coops in large cities and find it's cheaper than owning a car. The self driving aspect will make using such a service an order of magnitude easier as you don't need to go find a pool car, it comes to you and goes away by itself when you don't need it any more. Range will be solved for the coop owners by the coop maintaining a small stable of gas vehicles for long trips.

The idea of a coop sounds expensive but really it's not. Think what you spend on your car each month. Personally I spend about $800/month between payments, insurance, gas and maintenance. Most city dwellers who use these coops currently have access to a car whenever they feel they need it and only spend a couple hundred per month on the service.

Re:Doubtful

[dywolf]

EVs cost significantly more than gas cars

Only if you only compare upfront costs and costs over the life of the vehicle.

don't have the range of gas cars

Depends on model, but as a blanket statement it's patently false.

apartment dwellers have no way to charge them overnight

Depends on your complex, but as demand increases it's not at all unreasonable to think that charging hookups will become more common in parking areas, particularly of residences like apartment complexes.

Re:Doubtful

[dywolf]

**Only if you only compare upfront costs and ignorecosts over the life of the vehicle.

(stupid lack of an edit button)

Re:Doubtful

[NekSnappa]

The (in all senses) brings in things like having to deal with all of the other fluids besides the fuel that have to be monitored, maintained, and disposed of when they're replace like coolant and engine oil.

Re:Doubtful

[Drethon]

Results for used Chevy Spark EV near my area:

No cars found
Try changing your search criteria or start over

For Toyota Prius Plug-in, one three year old with 37k miles located 50 miles away, call for price.

For Ford Fusion, 87 results.

I want an EV some day but for many reasons it isn't that day yet.

Re:Doubtful

[dywolf]

The breakeven point for that 12k price difference between you and the GP (assuming for a rate of 10k miles/year and fuel economy of 30mpg) from the cost of gas is between 8 and 14 years (includes the cost of electricity to charge the car).

The average ownership length across all cars is 10.5 years, and creeping up.
The average ownership length of new cars is 6 years, and increasing even faster.

Costs of EVs are coming down, rebates and tax credits increasing, range increasing.

The economics of it just keep getting better and better every year.
I expect parity within 5 more years, and an EV surge following that.

Re:Doubtful

[fustakrakich]

The price of fuel does not reflect its cost. Let's simply add up the total man hours/human effort from rock to finished product it takes to propel the vehicle. And remember, the sky's the limit for producing electricity. I would contend that the effort needed to extract it is far less than mining for coal and drilling for oil and gas. There is a big problem though. The market absolutely hates abundance... The oil industry is in a minor panic over it right now. Farmers are plowing under their crops and throwing milk into the ditch, to prevent a price collapse. Electricity can already be made to cheap to meter whenever we want, and we could pay a fixed price for infrastructure, but a commodity is a commodity...

We will let our friends on Wall Street determine when electric cars become ubiquitous. The tipping point is the margins, not price, not demand.

Re:Doubtful

[Drethon]

Unfortunately my average is closer to 5-6k miles a year. Though I'm a tad of an outlier...

Re:Doubtful

[fustakrakich]

Some PZEV ICE's have emissions that are cleaner than the outside air.

That's okay, we make up for it at the refinery and drilling platforms.

The only thing impeding electrics is politics

Re:Doubtful

[FranTaylor]

what is wrong with you? real people rent trucks to move

Re:Doubtful

[bluefoxlucid]

The Model S has a 320 mile range; my Mazda 3 ranges 260-315 miles on a full 12-gallon tank.

Re:Doubtful

[dywolf]

They do still have moving parts, and therefore mechanics and lube will still be needed.

Re:Doubtful

[jfengel]

Indeed. There was an article floating around a few months ago with a hypothetical review of a gasoline-powered car if electric cars dominated. A lot of the downsides of ICEs that we take for granted would be really aggravating if we hadn't grown up with them.

Gasoline Car Test Drive: Noisy, Wasteful, Polluting, Fast But Pricey Refueling

Re:Doubtful

[toadlife]

Understood.

You pretty much need to be near the metro areas of CA or be willing to drive there. I live in central CA and ended up driving down to L.A. to buy my Volt as the demand for hydrids and EVs in Redneckistan, CA is pretty low.

Re:Doubtful

[R3d M3rcury]

1) Studies that have looked at the whole picture of how the electricity is generated and transported have concluded that while there are some "green" zones that have relatively clean electrical generation infrastructure (such as California) looking at the nation-wide average, EVs actually have a *higher* carbon footprint than traditional internal combustion engines.

True. On the other hand, as has been said, you could probably manage to reduce power-station pollution in about 5-10 years. So if you start replacing gasoline with electric now and updating those power plants over time, things get gradually better over the 10 years. If you go with higher MPG cars, things stay the same as they are now over the 10 years.

2) EVs do not have the range necessary to replace internal combustion vehicles. This is not only a matter of battery life but also the time required to recharge the batteries as compared to the time to refill a gas tank.

This is always an interesting argument and, to me, the basis is more sociological than anything else.

I grew up in a fairly rural area. So when I turned 16 and got my driver's license, it unlocked lots of opportunities. The mobility of Americans is pretty impressive and it's really ingrained into our culture. The car represents "freedom" for hundreds of millions of Americans. Today, I could get into my car and drive clear across the whole United States of America on a whim! I could drive to visit my sister in Colorado. It takes a couple of days, but it's kind of fun! I could get a job a hundred miles away from home and drive there once a week--or every day if I was so inclined!

And you're telling me I have to give that up to "save the planet"?! I don't think so!

The thing is, I could do all those things. But I probably won't. I don't usually do road trips--maybe once every couple of years. The vast majority of my driving is to work and back. The furthest I've ever worked was 90 miles, round-trip, which is within the range of most EVs. Electric cars are cheaper to operate and can produce less pollution. The expensive ones can be "fun" to drive.

But I'm sacrificing my "freedom" to go anywhere I want at the drop of a hat. If I wanted to visit my sister in Colorado, I'd probably have to rent a gasoline powered car or hop on a train or a plane--driving up those mountains is going to hurt my efficiency and there may not be charging stations close enough together. At the very least, I'd have to figure all that out before I left or end up stranded in the mountains.

To me, it's a reasonable trade-off. If I could find a used Tesla roadster that I could afford, I'd buy it in a New York minute.

I've seen plenty of people who immediately discount electric cars because of the range or some other reason. When most people would get by just fine with an EV, I figure that it has to be something else. My theory is it's that "freedom." The car represented freedom when we were kids and we want to hold onto that freedom.

Re:Doubtful

[edtice1559]

The current Tesla goes almost 300 miles on a single charge. So they are getting pretty close to gas cars. Maybe not yet good enough for fleet vehicles like a taxi that runs 24 hours a day. But I don't *want* to drive more than 300 miles in one day. My body will be tired and sore. So for *most* of us the range is plenty. To your other point, yeah, we can't afford one. But if the Model Three really comes in at $35k, that may be the tipping point.

Re:Doubtful

[njnnja]

That's okay, we make up for it at the refinery and drilling platforms.
Only if you know that the charging station isn't getting its electricity from coal or gas, like almost 70% of electricity generated in the US.

The only thing impeding electrics is politics

The two things impeding electrics are politics and battery size/weight to storage ratio. No wait...
The three things impeding electrics are politics, battery size/weight to storage ratio, and the high cost of solar power. Umm...
The four things impeding electrics are politics, battery size/weight to storage ratio, the high cost of solar power, and the fear of nuclear power
Amongst the things impeding electrics...

It's like the original iPod. The original slashdot review was right - No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame. Where it was wrong, and why the iPod won, was because you could buy music in iTunes and you couldn't do that with other mp3 players. In the same way, the technology that beats ICE will not necessarily be faster, or cheaper, but rather, will have some other benefit that ICE can't compete with. Lots of people here are saying they can't wait for autonomous vehicles - I would agree that is a game breaker that will disrupt individual car ownership/commuting.

If you ask me, soon all cars will become basically plug-in hybrids, to take advantage of regenerative braking and high torque of electric, with petrol to deal with range anxiety (even more than actual range problems).

Re:Doubtful

[pipingguy]

Lots of low end torque is NOT what's needed in slippery road conditions, it makes things worse.

Re:Doubtful

[Drethon]

(mutters lucky bastard) ;)

My coworker drove something like 2k miles round trip to get his Chevy Volt (at a significant discount). I'm more motivated by saving money than he is so I await the better priced local EVs before I make my move.

Re:Doubtful

[fustakrakich]

The fear of nuclear power is political and of course irrational. It obviously can be done safely. But it's still a lot of work. Solar? Please, you don't need a lot of square footage of panels to charge your car overnight... oh wait... ah, well, just shine some floodlights on them. I can assure you that the people who make these things are doing their best not to "saturate" the market and cause a price collapse. We needn't look upon incumbent interests so favorably. They need the illusion of scarcity to stay in business. Politics...

Re:Doubtful

[im_thatoneguy]

But rather, it will occur when the new technology does something that the old technology doesn't do at all, not even poorly.

Fuel up in your garage? Personally I find the idea of charging off of any electricity source enormously appealing as well. I'm not saying I would charge up off of a solar panel on a mountain top, but it's a cool feature to know that you could theoretically setup a small hydro generator on your property and drive pretty much indefinitely without needing a massive global petroleum infrastructure to keep driving. That notion has green appeal, it has libertarian appeal, it has national security appeal and it has zombie apocalypse aficionado appeal. All the major demographics.

Re:Doubtful

[TomGreenhaw]

PZEV ICE assumes CO2 is not considered a pollutant. As renewable energy (probably wind and solar) grows, all electric cars without modification will get friendlier to the environment. By paying an additional small fee, most people can purchase their power from renewable sources today - for me its about $5 per month. Nearly all arguments that electric cars are polluters have real world existing options for mitigation.

> ...it will occur when the new technology does something that the old technology doesn't do at all...
In my view, that is true right now. Its unclear how ICE cars will ever truly be CO2 neutral. Although renewable fuels are a possibility, its unrealistic to expect that they will be nonpolluting and cheaper than dirty alternatives.

Re:Doubtful

[squiggleslash]

I bought my iPod long before the iTMS was announced. The thing succeeded because it was easy to use, manage, and it could store your entire music collection (well, most people's entire music collection.) There were other MP3 players with one or two of those features, but not all three. The iPod needed to be a success for Apple to be able to sell the iTMS (the concept that is), to the music industry.

Electric cars I suspect could have the same selling point (well, minus the storage of all music. On the other hand, I don't know, you could put a big SSD in each one I guess) - part of the point is that this tremendously complex confusing device should be a hell of a lot easier to maintain and - until self driving becomes standard - drive.

Re:Doubtful

[BasilBrush]

It absolutely is what's needed. As long as it's in control. And with electric it is.

The advice to go google EV performance in the snow before trying to argue the toss applies to you too.

Re:Doubtful

[BasilBrush]

The common operations are stuff like tyres, brakes, clutch exhaust, oil change, air & oil filters, and windscreen wipers.

Still need tyre changes. Brake changes much less frequently, due to regenerative breaking. And clutch exhaust, oil change and filters are not needed at all.

In addition there is the need for the occasional battery swap. But probably no more often than the transmission needs swapping in an ICE. And changing the battery is going to be a relatively easy task, given shop lifting gear.

Body work hasn't changed.

It's not that we won't need any mechanics at all. It's just that the work will be much less, so there will be far fewer of them.

Re:Doubtful

[lefthand2776]

Reminds me of this video of a Tesla passing serveral stuck SUVs on an icy hill. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Doubtful

[skaralic]

A Tesla is nicer to drive than an M3.

Ha! Ha! Ha! You can't compare a Tesla to what is the benchmark to automotive excellence that is the M3...

The Tesla has exactly 2 things going for it: torque and the fact that it's an EV. This makes it popular and gives it a party trick (insane mode) but doesn't do much for driving enjoyment.

People who actually know and enjoy cars care about things like engine sound, steering feedback, torque delivery, shifter feel (yes, manual transmissions still exist) and a zillion little things that make some cars special and others not so much. I'm sure the Tesla is a fine ride but it sounds very boring to trot around in silence with nothing to do (no transmission) other than play with the iPad glued to the dashboard.

No wonder EV proponents naturally gravitate towards the self-driving car argument. EV cars are boring as hell....

And you have it completely the wrong way around on snow handling. EVs are out in the snow when ICE cars are stuck. It's the low end torque and the extra weight.

Actually, no. Snow and ice tend to be slippery so you don't actually want a lot of torque going to the wheels because that makes them slip. In general, you want weight over the driving wheels, good winter tires and the ability to control your cars gear, throttle and clutch precisely. For most of these things the EVs are not a good fit...

A Nissan Leaf is nicer to drive than a Nissan Versa.

And you have it completely the wrong way around on snow handling. EVs are out in the snow when ICE cars are stuck. It's the low end torque and the extra weight. Don't bother arguing the point, you'll find out if you google.

Biofuels are irrelevant (except for pork barrelling). Virtually all ICE cars run fossil fuels. But when I said in all ways, I clearly didn't just mean the global warming effect. I meant more generally that ICE cars are oily, sooty things.

Re:Doubtful

[skaralic]

Reminds me of this video of a Tesla passing serveral stuck SUVs on an icy hill. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

I'm not going to defend SUVs because I find them mostly useless but that P85D is AWD and has snow tires. So an apt comparison would be an Audi A4 with snow tires.

Re:Doubtful

[pipingguy]

I pasted 'EV performance in the snow' directly from your post into Google and the #1 listing was:

http://www.triplepundit.com/20...

"The purpose of the system is to prevent wheel slip and loss of traction, but because electric motors provide maximum torque from 0 rpm, on slippery roads the wheels spin easily–whereupon the traction control promptly brakes the spinning wheel."

Starting off in a higher gear to avoid wheelspin in the snow/ice isn't an option in an electric car.

Re:Doubtful

[pipingguy]

The SUVs could be AWD as well but we also know that very many people who drive SUVs don't use their capabilities properly and possibly barely even know how to drive in the first place.

Re:Doubtful

[Aighearach]

Most cities in high density urban neighborhoods already provide charging stations at metered parking spots, and the parking time limit is only business hours. Also most urban municipality-owned parking garages have charging stations.

Those urban libraaals are already building this stuff and living in the future. Even in small cities.

Re:Doubtful

[BasilBrush]

This makes it popular and gives it a party trick (insane mode) but doesn't do much for driving enjoyment.

Party trick? You could say that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Get back to me when anyone ever has that much fun with an M3. :-)

Re:Doubtful

[skaralic]

This makes it popular and gives it a party trick (insane mode) but doesn't do much for driving enjoyment.

Party trick? You could say that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Get back to me when anyone ever has that much fun with an M3. :-)

Yeah, like that never gets old. I've had fast cars and slow cars and it was always the car that communicated with you the most that was the most rewarding to drive. There is so much more to driving then acceleration...

Re:Doubtful

[goose-incarnated]

There's no point listing the cons without listing the pros too. EVs are nicer to drive,

Subjective, so this point isn't a "pro".

cleaner (in all senses),

True.

often have a lower total cost of ownership,

Depends. Not always. Not everywhere. Not for everyone. For the vast majority of the population, EV isn't cheaper.

need far less servicing,

Definitely not. Maybe *slightly* less, but even that is doubtful too. Current IC engines *will* last for hundreds of thousands of miles with nothing more than filters/plugs/oil being changed. The electric motor + battery will *definitely* not last as long as current IC engines. They (battery, mostly) will need replacement much sooner than my IC engine, and my IC engine is damn cheap to rebuild - around $2500 gives me an engine that will last yet another few hundred thousand miles.

I've got three cars, the newest of which is 10 years old this year and has completed 180000km. My total cost for plugs/filters/oil for the newest over the last 9 years has been (less than 2 services per year @ avg $50/service), comes to around $1k. The ICE has never broken down, but I did spend $2k on renewing the cooling system (water-pump, thermostat, anti-freeze) which the EV won't have (or need).

My oldest car is 15 years old and has over 300000km on the clock, and cost over that time for plugs/filters/oil and cooling system renewal and a single engine failure (coil-pack) is under $2k. It's my daily driver right now.

So now I'm wondering how you figure that EV's need less servicing/cost less/etc - replacing batteries will happen every five - seven years, at a cost that is around $5k - $7k, won't they?

I, together with many of the other people who don't have an ideology to speak off, will jump on the EV bandwagon the minute it becomes cheaper to do so. We've been waiting now for a decade for the prices to fall; if we're that patient you just *know* that we'll wait a little while longer.

Seriously, for EV to take off it needs to be cheaper. A poster upthread pointed out that second-hand cars are no longer a fraction of the new price - they are closely priced, and this results in people who buy a car believing that they can get 50% of their money back in 5 years when they sell it. For an EV, in five years the cost of the battery might be more than the cost of the car, so these people (like me) know we won't get anything back. So it's not cheaper to go with EV.

When it gets cheaper, we'll buy it.

and you can make it's fuel yourself at home.

Re:Doubtful

[BasilBrush]

"often have a lower total cost of ownership,"

Depends. Not always. Not everywhere. Not for everyone.

Hence "often".

For the vast majority of the population, EV isn't cheaper.

I'd say the exact opposite.

Current IC engines *will* last for hundreds of thousands of miles with nothing more than filters/plugs/oil being changed.

Where "hundreds" equals 2, at best. EVs should easily outdo that - they don't have nearly so many moving parts.

replacing batteries will happen every five - seven years, at a cost that is around $5k - $7k, won't they?

No they won't. Prius has been around for about 15 years, and many of the early models still haven't needed a battery replacement. You're over estimating the longevity of ICE components and underestimating EVs.

Re:Doubtful

[BasilBrush]

As far as I can see owners of EVs find them fun, as does everyone that test drives them. Your assumption is that fun is about a roaring (gas) engine. Or some magic property of them that means that EVs can't be fun.

It's silly. The fact is people that try EVs love them.

Re:Doubtful

[BasilBrush]

Starting off in a higher gear to avoid wheelspin in the snow/ice isn't an option in an electric car.

Your 20th century kludges are not required. Nor is slipping the clutch or other workarounds for the limitations of ICE cars. Press the accelerator gradually, and an EV will start moving gradually.

Re:Doubtful

[pipingguy]

You're right, a 21st century kludge is required; constant wheel slip monitoring and management.

Re:Doubtful

[BasilBrush]

The problem in slow is wheels losing traction, and spinning.

All a high gear does in this scenario is make the car less powerful. When you have nothing else, it might make it less likely a heavy foot will spin the wheels. But it doesn't actually address the issue. Worst of all when one wheel has traction and the other doesn't all you'll get is wheel spin. (In the common case of no limited slip diff.)

Traction control addresses the issue of wheel spin directly, allowing you to apply enough torque to lift the car out of the snow hole it may be in, without one or both of the wheels spinning.

That's not a kludge, that is specifically designed technology doing it's job.

Re:Doubtful

[MooseMiester]

You ignore that much of the cost of many products is marketing because people buy them for emotional egotistical reasons not practical ones. While many males people blather on about how they want to live in a homogenized society and how "efficient" it would all be if we all wore the same clothes every day, all personal items were "commoditized", etc. this fantasy only works in Hollywood movies. You need to ask a woman about this. She can explain it to you.

Re:Doubtful

[MooseMiester]

I agree, and if we could just legislate and talk those pesky laws of physics into doing what we want them to, we could live in the Star Trek Universe.

Electric is Evolution. Driverless is Revolution

[Schezar]

The move to electric is a natural evolution, and will have a significant impact. The economies of scale in terms of pollution mitigation at power plants will utterly dwarf anything cars have ever been able to do themselves, transmission losses nonwithstanding.

Even if they only displace urban drivers (fewer per-trip miles, more population density facilitating more charging stations), the impact will be transformative. Watch the AQI loop around New York, and you can see air pollution rising and falling along the commuter roads into the City in lock step with the morning commute. I can't even imagine a New York with 50-80% fewer gas-powered cars on the road.

But that's still just evolution. Electric is just a natural step.

Driverless cars are the revolution. Electric makes existing car use patterns better. Driverless makes an entirely new paradigm. It may eliminate mass car ownership. It might eliminate parking lots. It might eliminate light rail in suburban areas. Taxis. Deliveries. Shipping. Police reponses.

Electric makes things better in well-projected ways. Driverless changes everything forever in ways we can't yet even imagine.

Re:Electric is Evolution. Driverless is Revolution

[outlander]

Light rail will still make sense even in the context of driverless cars, because it can be used in areas where vehicular traffic is heavily restricted.

Re:Electric is Evolution. Driverless is Revolution

[LifesABeach]

Has anyone ever done a study on the impact of pollution if instead it were water vapor from fuel cells? Also, what if that much tonnage of water were constanly being emitted into the atomsphere to the surrrounding Ag' envionrment?

Re:Electric is Evolution. Driverless is Revolution

[ahodgson]

The hydrogen in fuel cells has to be created somewhere. Using electricity. Now at a double (or triple) conversion loss.

Re:Electric is Evolution. Driverless is Revolution

[Jason Levine]

There have been incredible advances in technology (especially in battery technology) since the late 1800's/early 1900's (when ICE cars took over).

Re:Electric is Evolution. Driverless is Revolution

[Overzeetop]

The difference is that a gallon of gasoline really isn't getting you much further these days than, say, 40 years ago at the efficient end of the scale whereas batteries have seen quite a large increase in energy density and overall vehicular efficiency in the same time frame and have a good deal of room left to grow.

For most drivers, and electric car in 10 years will be ideal - though there will still be outliers. Saying that electric cars are bad for most people is like saying that wireless cell coverage is bad in most of the US. That may be technically true (even the best network has far less than 50% of the landmass covered), but in a practical sense most of the population has coverage. Similarly most of the miles driven may still be ICE, but the majority of people will be fine with an electric car.

Re:Electric is Evolution. Driverless is Revolution

[mlts]

Light rail does make sense, but the problem (especially here in the US) is getting right of way and having it be placed where it is the must usable. For example, Austin has light rail proposed every few years... but it would only connects the most affluent communities to each other, doing no benefit where it is truly needed. The places where it could do the most good to alleviate congestion, it never gets proposed, just because there are not the lobbyists to drive it forward.

Re:Electric is Evolution. Driverless is Revolution

[Anonymous Coward]

I am all for self driving cars. But I want my own self driving car and not one that I share with other people. I want to continue to use my car like my personal space and not like a taxi.

Re:Electric is Evolution. Driverless is Revolution

[ChrisMaple]

In the 1950s and 1960s a typical family car struggled to get 13 mpg on the highway. In the 1970s it got worse, as environmental regulations crippled IC engine performance. Now, a typical family car gets 35 mpg on the highway because the cars are lighter, smaller, and more streamlined, engine technology has caught up with regulations, and tires are better.

This has resulted in the number of US filling stations falling 30% since 1980 and (I'd guess) 50% since 1950. Also, unattended filling stations reduces the number of stations needed. I'd expect the number continue to fall with or without electric cars.

Re:Electric is Evolution. Driverless is Revolution

[Ravaldy]

Electric cars only suck because of their current cost. The range satisfies 95% of most commuters requirements and even that can be overcome by the many potential solutions that have been presented. Electric cars have a lower ongoing ownership cost due to the limited amount of maintenance required. The largest cost of the vehicle maintenance will be tires. Brakes will last 3+ times longer, no transmission, engine or cooling system fluid changes, no belts, chains, pulleys. Electric motors are much simpler than combustion engines hence the limited number of failure points.

Re:Electric is Evolution. Driverless is Revolution

[es330td]

The problem with battery power is that as a mobile storage device it absolutely sucks compared to liquid hydrocarbons. Diesel has an energy density of 35 MJ/L. A rechargeable lithium ion battery has a density that ranges from 0.9-2.63 MJ/L. If advances in technology doubled capacity and then double it again it would still only be 1/3 as good as diesel as a storage medium. Making matters worse, the individual batteries used in a Tesla weigh 2.64 kg/L, where Diesel weighs 0.899 kg/L. Even if the battery had the same energy density it would weigh three times as much. (Yes, I know the diesel engine has mass for which I didn't account. I am only pointing out the energy sources themselves.) Musk's plant may be able to bring down the cost to make a battery but scale doesn't make the battery itself better. I can also say with a high degree of confidence that if this much money is being sunk into a lithium ion plant then no significant alternative is on the horizon, unless the whole point of the factory is home batteries, not car batteries.

Proponents keep saying that advances in battery technology will make them competitive with hydrocarbons. What they don't say is that in a world wherein a 5% improvement is a big deal the advances required exist in the realm of science fiction.

Re:Electric is Evolution. Driverless is Revolution

[es330td]

The most efficient input source for hydrogen is methane. CH4 + O2 -> 2H2 + CO2 So now we will use hydrocarbons to make hydrogen. Alternately we could use hydrocarbons to first make solar cells but at the end of the day, CO2 is coming out somewhere.

Re:Electric is Evolution. Driverless is Revolution

[Anubis IV]

Not only that, but if we introduce the idea of eliminating mass ownership, it also has the potential to mitigate some of the concerns regarding the range of EVs. Namely, if you don't own the EV, then "recharging" it is as simple as swapping the entire car out for a fresh one. A fresh, driverless car could even meet you en route to your destination to make things even simpler.

Granted, it doesn't cover every use case (e.g. family road trips with lots of luggage would be a hassle still, since you'd be transferring that luggage as well), but it would cover a number of them, such as overnight trips to places that are cheaper to drive to than fly to.

Re:Electric is Evolution. Driverless is Revolution

[thinkwaitfast]

And what are those advances other than LiPo batteries (~1990) and computer controlled alternators (brushless motors)?

Re:Electric is Evolution. Driverless is Revolution

[david_thornley]

Actually, gas is getting people further today. My current Civic is a nicer car than my first car, and gets about double the number of miles per gallon.

Re:Electric is Evolution. Driverless is Revolution

[Moof123]

"Driverless cars are the revolution. Electric makes existing car use patterns better. Driverless makes an entirely new paradigm. It may eliminate mass car ownership. It might eliminate parking lots. It might eliminate light rail in suburban areas. Taxis. Deliveries. Shipping. Police reponses."

Huh?

Autonomous cars won't need to park? Do they warp to a distant land when you don't need them? Even Taxis have parking lots, though usually private ones, for when they are not operating. Similarly you see a lot of taxis sitting on the side of the road waiting to be assigned, the same would be necessary for a Johny Cab fleet. The fleet has to be big enough to handle peak usage, which is likely >10x what you need on the road at 3 AM.

Why would light rail go away in suburban areas? Often these are people taking the train because it is less of a headache than driving into the city center during rush hour (right, your idea is that autonomous cars somehow vanish when not in use...).

Deliveries and shipping will disappear?! How would that work? I buy my widget and it never comes? Thanks a lot for nothing.

Police responses go away? Anarchy here I come, HAL has eliminated the police! Do you expect machine gun turrets on top of autonomous cars, maybe automated stop and frisk bots too?

We need a Godwin's law for people who use "paradigm" in a sentence in place of "Effing miracle happens here".

Re:Electric is Evolution. Driverless is Revolution

[Moof123]

Or you could just rent a gasser for the few times a year you take a road trip.

Seriously, we drive our crappy little Leaf more than our other two cars combined, and by a large margin. We take the crappy Ford Escape for longer local trips, and the Tundra truck for hauling our camping kit, or a load of crap from Home Despot. It is not a stretch to expect that we could readily get to 20-25% electric market share even without road trip capability, but the range does need to be more like 150 real EPA miles minimum for folks stop feeling like they are taking a big risk.

Re:Electric is Evolution. Driverless is Revolution

[LifesABeach]

I was thinking of something that doesn't perpetuate the status quo. Consider sea water, wind mills, solar, wave energy. I think most H1B-Heads would be confussingly voiding themselves at this point. The real engineer would have more than enough to connect the dots.

Re:Electric is Evolution. Driverless is Revolution

[ahodgson]

If you're going to use stranded power to create liquid fuels, at least create something useful, like ammonia. Hydrogen is just way too hard to transport and handle, and just doesn't have the energy density.

Re:Electric is Evolution. Driverless is Revolution

[babybird]

How much difference does the energy density of the battery make when the car itself is vastly more energy efficient? If a diesel car is 35% efficient but an EV is 95% efficient, then the EV already enjoys an advantage over the diesel, and as energy density grows, that advantage grows right along with it.

Put in other terms, if a diesel car gets 50 MPG, then it's using 264.6MJ per 100 miles, whereas an EV is using 108MJ (at 300wH/mi) to cover that same 100 miles. That's already a significant advantage.

How do they fare in colder climates?

[gaudior]

How reliable are they in winter driving conditions? How is the battery efficiency affected by temperature? What about cabin heating? I'm having a hard time seeing any of the current crop being adopted for year-round use in areas that get more than a smattering of snow, or a few days below freezing per year.

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[SpeedBump0619]

They lose some range in extreme cold and hot temperature ranges. In cold weather much of that difference is purely in keeping the temperature of the cabin and battery heated to optimal levels. It is suggested that you preheat your vehicle from grid electricity before driving to maximize range (implying plugging it in while you're at work I guess). It is also recommended that you use seat and steering wheel heaters because they more directly reach the passengers, allowing the cabin air to be maintained at a slightly lower temperature.

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[PIBM]

For the cars I've inquired about, heating is provided by an heat pump (which makes it much less costly than a simple resistor -- for the battery at least). Also, direct heating of the seat & steering wheel provides great value for a low kwh cost.

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[bledri]

How reliable are they in winter driving conditions? How is the battery efficiency affected by temperature? What about cabin heating? I'm having a hard time seeing any of the current crop being adopted for year-round use in areas that get more than a smattering of snow, or a few days below freezing per year.

Does Norway count as an area that has a few days below freezing per year?.

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[swv3752]

On the coldest day last year (sub 0F), my Volt had about 25 miles range. In the spring, with mild temperatures, I can get 40 miles. In the summer, with temps up to 100F, I get about 35-37 miles. It drives fantastic on the snow, as the batteries provide even weight distribution and a low center of gravity.

I am never concerned about range, as I have a tank of gas as backup. I try to avoid using gas, not only to be green, but I am a cheap bastard and do not want to spend 3 the fuel cost for gas.

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[LifesABeach]

Any warm-up would be in the cock pit. Making heated seats; nice.

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[ripvlan]

While the batteries do lose some range - they work quite well. I'm in VT (USA) where winter "gets real." - and a local person purchased a Leaf a few years ago (2013). She reported on using it over the first year. It had impressive range - even with access to 120V chargers during the day. For those of you unfamiliar with local landmarks - some of the distanced she drove were impressive. A few routes are rather, remote. She attempted trips on a low charge that I'd make sure of having 1/2 tank of gas. Very brave - but necessary due to lack of charging stations. Still the car did it. Her fear of running out of juice slowly dissipated.

And just yesterday I saw a blue Info sign pointing to an EV charging station in the middle of town. So the infrastructure is coming. Until now charging stations have been in key areas - in front of City Hall etc. While I see dozens of Tesla's & Leafs in this area - hybrids are most common.

http://archive.burlingtonfreep...

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[Guspaz]

Tesla has been very successful in very cold climates. They'll sell you the cold-weather version. Range suffers a bit, but not dramatically. Anecdotal evidence indicates 10-20% range reduction for very cold temperatures. The batteries aren't a problem because they would get very hot if they weren't actively cooled, so they simply need to be cooled less, and they need a bit of heating when you start.

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[iONiUM]

What the hell are you talking about? I live in Canada, and where I am our winters average between -15 to -30, sometimes -40 on a bad day. Last winter, on all of those days, I saw Tesla's out in full force, including my friend's. It's already proven to be fine. Stop spreading FUD.

Is the battery life not as good as it is in "nominal" (it has problems with very hot temperatures as well)? For sure. Is it unusable? Absolutely not. You can even tell it to start heating from your iWhatever device before you ever get in (or A/C, for that matter).

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[iONiUM]

Sorry, I forgot this is an american site. Those temperatures are in Celsius.

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[swillden]

Range suffers a bit, not so much because the batteries are affected by cold, but because you use some juice to heat the cabin. As far as performance on snow, they're great. Their center of gravity is low, front wheel drive and the power applied to the wheels is finely controllable.

I drive my Nissan LEAF to the ski resort almost every morning during the winter.

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[sribe]

Heat Pump? That sucks. It will be worthless to anyone in cold areas, then, as most heat pumps don't work in freezing temperatures.

Old, out-of-date info. Of course they get less efficient as temp drops, but... 40ish years ago they were essentially worthless at 20F, now there are some that work decently to -15F.

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[swv3752]

The Volt has a pressurized fuel compartment, so the gas is good for up to a year, and the computer in the car alerts you when the gas has not been used and to turn on the engine.

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[ChrisMaple]

Your sarcasm notwithstanding, heat pumps have problems with icing when operating in cold air.

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[Nemyst]

Electric cars also have a few convenient unintended consequences for winter: since you're not using the waste heat from the engine to heat the cabin, you can instead have high efficiency fast heaters generate the heat. No more waiting around in a frigid car for five minutes while the engine slooooowly heats up!

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[TJ_Phazerhacki]

You should come to Denver. We have (arguably) one of the worst environments for electric cars (Snow, many cold days, rapid temp fluctuation, and driving patterns that often include hills if you like the mountains,) and we are something like Tesla's 2nd or 3rd most popular region per capita.

Sure, many people also have a 2nd or 3rd car (typically an SUV) to drive, but I know quite a few people who just own a Tesla, or a Volt, or an i3, or a Leaf, and they are all pretty happy with their choices.

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[Carewolf]

After the succes of Tesla in Norway they fixed that by adding a heater around the battery that runs if it gets too cold for the battery. If you leave the car in the cold for months without charging it, it will drain, and the battery might need replacing.

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[bluefoxlucid]

My heat pump works to -15F at 80% of its full efficiency.

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[bluefoxlucid]

I'm sure you meant -40 in Farenheit.

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[dywolf]

"implying plugging it in while you're at work I guess"

Old news for folks used to plugging in block heaters.

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[iONiUM]

No, I didn't. We get -40c days here with the wind chill.

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[Stickybombs]

At -40 it doesn't matter. F and C are the same!

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[Mab_Mass]

I work with a guy who drives a Nissan Leaf in Wisconsin winters.

Asking him these same questions, it is true that the leaf takes a hit on range during winter, but it still works enough for him to commute to/from work without a problem.

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[iONiUM]

Did not know that!

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[robi5]

non est disputandum

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[fluffernutter]

Except most parking lots give you the minimum electricity for a block heater to work. Something like on for five minutes off for ten. They forbid you from plugging in an interior car warmer. They won't absorb the cost of this. You will have to pay for a fill every time you park your car.

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[fluffernutter]

Where I am, it gets down to -30C (-22F) for at least 25% of the year. I can't use an electric car until they can drive at that temperature with heat reliably.

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[sackbut]

The actual battery lifetime of service is extended in cold weather climates compared to hot climates. Running a battery 'hot' is much worse for it's life cycle than just getting less range in the cold.

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[riverat1]

If I had a Volt I might use Sta-bil to extend the gas lifetime.

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[LinuxIsGarbage]

How well do the seat and steering wheel heaters melt frost off the windshield?

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[Kohath]

But -40C feels colder than -40F

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ones made for southern climates do, however they have ones that work way below zero. See http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/article/0,,20229877-2,00.html for one example

Re:How do they fare in colder climates?

[samwichse]

Where are my mod points when I need them :)

In the US.

[lorinc]

Again, this works in the US with big suburbs where everyone has a parking lot with an electric outlet. In other countries (like good old Europe), where most people live in apartments and there is just no way you can plug your car at night, it doesn't work. It is just impossible until you can refill your car in 5 minutes like with gasoline...

Oh, and many Europeans travel 1000+km on a single streak with their cars on holidays. Again, if the cars you want to sell have to wait 2 times 4 hours to refill in such travel, you're not going to sell many of them.

Ecars are good for commuters that live in houses. There are not many of them outside the US.

Re:In the US.

[Khashishi]

Apartment developers could install outside outlets. And Europeans can take the train if they want to travel.

Re:In the US.

[bledri]

Again, this works in the US with big suburbs where everyone has a parking lot with an electric outlet. In other countries (like good old Europe), where most people live in apartments and there is just no way you can plug your car at night, it doesn't work. It is just impossible until you can refill your car in 5 minutes like with gasoline...

That's not a long term issue. See (pdf): Electric vehicles in Europe: - McKinsey & Company

The EU’s Clean Fuel Directive, as proposed in January 2013 and being discussed in EU Parliament in March 2014, sets a target of 800,000 publicly accessible EV charging stations to be installed throughout Europe by 2020 – with individual targets being set for each member state. This requirement for publicly available charging infrastructure recognizes that many EV owners, especially in cities, will need to rely on access to charging stations in collective parking lots, at apartment blocks, offices, or business locations, and suggests that member states focus on charging station density in urban areas.

Oh, and many Europeans travel 1000+km on a single streak with their cars on holidays. Again, if the cars you want to sell have to wait 2 times 4 hours to refill in such travel, you're not going to sell many of them.

Ecars are good for commuters that live in houses. There are not many of them outside the US.

Auto ownership has probably hit it's peak, self-driving cars will make the expense of individual ownership less and less appealing in general. And owning an ICE for road trips is ridiculous. Just rent the car.

Re:In the US.

[Overzeetop]

When I went on vacations with my extended family (7 of us), we didn't have a car that would fit all of us and luggage. So we rented a van. Cost me $350 for the week. I saved more than that in gasoline alone by driving a smaller car regularly. I also lived for years without a pickup truck. I borrowed or rented one if I really needed it. It's not that hard here; it might be a different story in Europe.

Re:In the US.

[MtHuurne]

Again, this works in the US with big suburbs where everyone has a parking lot with an electric outlet. In other countries (like good old Europe), where most people live in apartments and there is just no way you can plug your car at night, it doesn't work. It is just impossible until you can refill your car in 5 minutes like with gasoline...

There is no requirement to have a garage or driveway next to the house: charging stations can be built next to residential parking spots. And in some countries that is subsidized. I've seen several in the city I live in.

Oh, and many Europeans travel 1000+km on a single streak with their cars on holidays. Again, if the cars you want to sell have to wait 2 times 4 hours to refill in such travel, you're not going to sell many of them.

Some people do, but others always take a flight to their holiday destination. There are also families with two cars, they could have one gasoline car for long trips and one electric car for short distance travel.

Someone I know made a long holiday trip with a limited range electric car by spreading the travel out over a few days. It allows for some sight seeing along the way and it is less stressful than a long trip on a single day. It's a different way of travelling but it's not inferior if you're not in a hurry. It does require more planning, but with the internet at your fingertips that is easier than ever before.

In any case, the question is not whether the electric car will be the best choice for everyone. The question is how many people will pick an electric car and how that will affect the availability of infrastructure for both electric and gas.

Re:In the US.

[Kjella]

Again, this works in the US with big suburbs where everyone has a parking lot with an electric outlet. In other countries (like good old Europe), where most people live in apartments and there is just no way you can plug your car at night, it doesn't work.

Apartment buildings and fixed parking spots are far from mutually exclusive, either through a parking cellar or dedicated garages/parking spots. Granted, Norway is a cold country where a garage may be more useful than down south but by household:

58% have a garage or carport
25% have a private parking spot
17% have no parking

Of the last 17% only 38% have a car, so in practice it's only 6.5% that don't have a fixed spot for their car. And that probably includes people that have rented a parking spot nearby, in practice few wants to be nomads trying to find free street parking every day. Of course you would have to get an electrician to mount an outlet, but beyond that it's not really a problem.

Re:In the US.

[Pascal Sartoretti]

Again, this works in the US with big suburbs where everyone has a parking lot with an electric outlet. In other countries (like good old Europe), where most people live in apartments and there is just no way you can plug your car at night, it doesn't work.

I live in Europe, in an apartment, with my car in an underground garage 20 meters below. There is an electric plug to charge my electric bike, and I look forward to also charge my Tesla XYZ in a few years...

Re:In the US.

[Megane]

And Europeans can take the train if they want to travel.

Sounds good to me. They certainly enjoy laughing at Americans for not having any kind of decent passenger rail service. If theirs is so much better, then they should use it or shut up.

Re:In the US.

[Wraithlyn]

I feel like all critics of electric cars are missing the massive allure of "refueling" FOR FREE.

You can drive from New York to LA for FREE in a Tesla thanks to their Supercharger network. Is that worth stopping every few hours to recharge for 20-30 minutes? Versus what, stopping every 5-6 hours to refuel for 5 minutes that costs you $50+ each time? YES, a thousand times yes, the cost tradeoff makes that absolutely worth it.

Why is this fact always missing from the "range anxiety" crowd?

Re:In the US.

[bluefoxlucid]

It takes like 40 minutes to charge a Tesla 80% of the way. That's a stop-off at KFC to eat while you use the charger in the car park.

Re:In the US.

[dywolf]

If it were 4 hours, twice, you might have a point.

But again, the Tesla is 30 minutes every 3 hours.

Is it 5 minutes? No, but it's a lot closer to 5 minutes than it is to 4 hours.
Your fears are unfounded. And parking lots can be wired pretty easily.

Re:In the US.

[Grishnakh]

Ecars are good for commuters that live in houses. There are not many of them outside the US.

I guess Norway isn't in Europe....

Re:In the US.

[tompaulco]

Auto ownership has probably hit it's peak, self-driving cars will make the expense of individual ownership less and less appealing in general. And owning an ICE for road trips is ridiculous. Just rent the car.

When did we reach the conclusion that self driving cars is some sort of given fact?

Re:In the US.

[trawg]

Again, this works in the US with big suburbs where everyone has a parking lot with an electric outlet. In other countries (like good old Europe), where most people live in apartments and there is just no way you can plug your car at night, it doesn't work. It is just impossible until you can refill your car in 5 minutes like with gasoline...

FWIW I was in Norway several years ago and saw an EV charging point just on the sidewalk in the middle of the city (photo - I think it was Oslo).

My recollection is this was an early experimental programme and they were free to use for the presumably very few people that had EVs at the time.

This was the first time I'd seen anything like this (I'm Australian) and I was struck by the simplicity of it - literally just a random pole stuck into the street. I've not looked into it but I'm guessing building those things is not significantly expensive because most of the important infrastructure they need to deliver the electricity is already in place.

I've since been to France a couple times and seen similar things there, although I believe they were dedicated ones for a car sharing scheme that happened to use electric cars. But again, these things were just plonked into the middle of the city with seemingly little effort or disruption.

Re:In the US.

[bledri]

Auto ownership has probably hit it's peak, self-driving cars will make the expense of individual ownership less and less appealing in general. And owning an ICE for road trips is ridiculous. Just rent the car.

When did we reach the conclusion that self driving cars is some sort of given fact?

There are so many forces at play in favor of self-driving cars, it is as close as inevitable as it can be. Independence for the elderly, lower insurance rates, convenience, improved safety, cost saving by sharing cars (imagine uber without drivers), etc. Some people will resist, some will be very vocal and insist on their "right" to drive. Maybe they'll keep that right. It won't matter, science is the only human endeavor that advances one funeral at a time.

Re:In the US.

[IgnitusBoyone]

I just have this feeling that the "FREE" energy is a bait and switch once we reach this "Tipping Point"

Re:In the US.

[Locke2005]

Heck, my daughter takes longer than that just to use the restroom...

Re:In the US.

[Locke2005]

You know, people used to be able to put their cars on trains or boats for long trips... perhaps we could bring back that old tradition for holiday travel. It would be a lot more energy efficient as well.

Re:In the US.

[marciot]

Oh, and many Europeans travel 1000+km on a single streak with their cars on holidays.

How many laps around Europe is that?

Sorry, I couldn't resist ;)

Re:In the US.

[lorinc]

It takes like 40 minutes to charge a Tesla 80% of the way. That's a stop-off at KFC to eat while you use the charger in the car park.

You would really stop 3 times at KFC during a 1000km travel? I mean, It's not a joke about Americans, but...

Plus, there is no charger in the car park right now, and there won't be before sufficient numbers of ecars are on the road. But they won't be that many ecars on the road before you can charge them in the car park. Chicken and egg problem, you see.

Re:In the US.

[bluefoxlucid]

Passenger cars have 482km range on batteries alone; do you honestly think a truck would have a 300km range?

Batteries

[willoughby]

Some folks believe the key to Electric car adoption is better batteries. The Powerhouse by Steve Levine follows the quest for better battery technology. It's not written as well as it might be, but it's still an interesting read...

http://www.goodreads.com/book/...

Re:Batteries

[Solandri]

The key isn't the batteries. The Tesla battery pack is over a thousand pounds, making the Tesla S weigh as much as a SUV. That hasn't hindered it. The key is recharging the battery. The current 30-minute minimum charge time is the primary hindrance to wide-scale adoption (purchase price is too, but I'm pretty sure the government would offer incentives to get us off of oil imports). If you can get the recharge time down to 5 minutes (whether by better charging technology or simply swapping battery packs), then most people's apprehension over having an electric as their only car disappears. Right now, unless you drive very little or are incredibly conscientious about the environment, only people who can afford 2+ cars are getting EVs.

The other problem is going to be operating cost. EV advocates are doing rosy predictions based on current electricity prices, or even current overnight electricity prices. If EVs become mass-market, the huge number of them being charged overnight will flatten out the electrical consumption curve and the overnight prices will no longer be much lower than daytime prices. And if it leaks over into higher consumption during the day, overall electricity prices are going to increase as well. This is going to impact the price of everything that uses electricity, not just operating EVs. Normally the market would simply build more power plants in response, but the same people advocating EVs are blocking the most effective ways to generate power. They insist that new power generation be wind whose inconsistency would require a massive overhaul of our electrical system, or solar whose price would make the EV about the same cost to operate as a gas vehicle.

Re:Batteries

[Megane]

Actually, more batteries is probably more important than better batteries. You can only make so many cars per year until you exceed battery manufacture quantity. Hence the battery factory that Tesla is building.

Re:Batteries

[somename]

Why are people so fixated on rechargeable batteries? However much batteries improve, the charging times for batteries would be substantially longer than refueling any way. Why not put more substantial effort into perfecting non rechargeable metal air batteries and have people just swap batteries at depots. It would require a least amount of investment into infrastructure since existing gas stations can simply add storage to distribute batteries, and the most expensive component-battery recycling plants- can be constructed as needed at strategic locations without having to be numerous. The battery cells would be standardized cell size that all cars can use, and cars can have small rechargeable batteries to recapture energy. Metal-air batteries have the energy density to make this a workable solution making electric vehicles for most people. I just don't see why this option isn't explored more.

Re:Batteries

[bgarcia]

Batteries are the key. Everything about an electric car is infinitely better than a gasoline car, save the batteries. Electric motors are smaller, more powerful, have only a single moving part, require zero maintenance, and are a very mature, understood technology.

Tesla has been making incredible strides in getting every last bit of performance out of modern batteries. But compared to a gasoline tank, it still has a lot of problems

• As you say, it still weighs a lot, adding significantly to the weight of a vehicle
• It takes much longer to charge a battery than to fill a tank
• There are limits to the rate at which power can be delivered to the motor. No such limit for gasoline. I will say, however, that Tesla appears to have completely solved this particular problem, at least at passenger car scale.
• Batteries are much larger compared to a gasoline tank that provides the same range.
• Battery capacity degrades over time. A gasoline tank's capacity does not.
• Battery capacity is lower in cold weather. Gas tank capacity doesn't change appreciably with temperature. You can heat the battery to combat this, but then you're lowering effective capacity by using up the energy.

Full disclosure - I've owned a Nissan Leaf for the last three years. I love it and it works for many of my uses, but widespread EV adoption is going to require additional strides in battery technology.

I see Prius everywhere...

[__aaclcg7560]

Seems like a new Prius shows up in the parking spaces of my apartment complex every other day. Especially in the DayGlo color paint. Could be a Silicon Valley thing.

Re:I see Prius everywhere...

[LifesABeach]

If the Smartcar offered a "motor assist" for its plug in version; I'd buy it.

Batteries in Cold Weather?

[gti_guy]

I'm not driving an EV during a snow storm at night..... The draw from the headlights, defroster and wipers and the batteries being weakened by the cold? EVs are fine for warmer climates, but nor the cold.

Re:Batteries in Cold Weather?

[bledri]

I'm not driving an EV during a snow storm at night..... The draw from the headlights, defroster and wipers and the batteries being weakened by the cold? EVs are fine for warmer climates, but nor the cold.

I guess the Norwegians didn't get the memo.

Re:Batteries in Cold Weather?

[hey!]

If you add up all the auxiliary stuff you need to power with electricity and round up generously, it's maybe 2000 watts load. The very best commercially available technology of today can run that load for 45 hours. So the impact of the auxiliary system load is marginal. That means it's only a concern if you're contemplating using close to the maximum range of your car. If you're traveling 15 miles each way in an 84 mile range Leaf, or 80 miles each way in a 250 mile range Tesla S, you don't really need to worry about running the heater and lights, even counting diminished battery capacity.

The average American spends 25 minutes each way commuting; even in NYC the average figure is 34.6. Even double or tripling that commute time due to bad weather and halfing the range due to cold, that's still easy for the Tesla. It's a bit of challenge for the Leaf with its 24 kwh battery and 84 mile range.

If the typical electric cars of ten years from now perform close to the high end of today, then the vast majority of people won't have to worry about cold weather's effect on range. But a sizable minority of Americans are what the US Census characterizes as "extreme commuters": people whose commute takes more than 90 minutes or fifty miles each way. Even at the low end of that spectrum cold weather range won't be an issue, but if you commute from Fargo to Bismarck ND every day it's safe to say you aren't going to be going electric any time soon.

Many gas stations to close?

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the article, many gas stations will close once 10% of cars are electric, to the point of inconvenience.

Bullshit. I drove a vehicle with one of the most damn inconvenient fuels out there: Propane. In my province, 0.2% of vehicles run on Propane. In my city are alone (population: ~500,000), there's still 4 fueling stations and I'm never more than 15 km away from one. As I said, it is inconvenient because if you're not somewhere populous, it's rare to find somewhere to fuel up, especially in the US. But it was far from "sell it right now!" levels.

And that's with just 0.2% of vehicles using a particular fuel. At 90% I would expect my average drive to refuel for my gas powered vehicle would go from perhaps 2 km to 2.1 km. Wake me when we hit 30% of cars on the road being gasoline powered, which would make the amount of gas sold equal to the amount of diesel sold right now. Those with diesel cars *STILL* don't worry about being able to fill up, despite being at that level of popularity. I figure when gasoline cars hit 5% it will actually require some small amount of planning to refuel. That's a LONG way away.

Re:Many gas stations to close?

[istartedi]

You would have had a much harder time if a large percentage of grills were not powered by propane. The grill and home heating infrastructure was indirectly supporting your vehicle.

Re:Many gas stations to close?

[Kohath]

An article with this level of simple insight would never get published on Slashdot.

You need to add a conspiracy:

Diesel is only available because ... big oil pushes diesel and bribes politicians to keep it available. Refining oil into gasoline without also producing diesel creates a byproduct with infinite energy per liter. If they stopped making diesel fuel, the oil companies would all go out of business.

Re:Many gas stations to close?

[DerekLyons]

According to the article, many gas stations will close once 10% of cars are electric, to the point of inconvenience.

Bullshit. I drove a vehicle with one of the most damn inconvenient fuels out there: Propane. In my province, 0.2% of vehicles run on Propane. In my city are alone (population: ~500,000), there's still 4 fueling stations and I'm never more than 15 km away from one.

Apples and oranges - you have [propane] fueling stations because they piggyback on the infrastructure that distributes propane for other uses. Gasoline infrastructure is unique to gasoline powered cars - and when the demand on that infrastructure drops, eventually even still active stations will find it hard to obtain stocks as the infrastructure starts to shut down.

Re:Many gas stations to close?

[babybird]

Propane is used in a lot of things that aren't vehicles though. People use it to heat their homes and power BBQs for instance. For gasoline, that's only true for weed trimmers and lawn mowers and snow blowers, but nobody burns gasoline to do all of those other things that require a propane infrastructure. Remember to factor that into the equation.

I also don't think gasoline is going to go the way of the dodo anytime soon, but in 30-50 years, it probably will be a much more serious inconvenience (and far more major expense) if you're still trying to drive a gas car.

Quite a few obstacles remain.

[nimbius]

Living in Los Angeles, the age of the electric car has been upon us for quite some time. everyone from BMW to nissan makes popular electric cars and sells them for a reasonable price here. The problem comes when you aren't in the second largest city in america.

During a business trip to an office in Ohio I learned firsthhand how awkward it must be to own one of these vehicles. In Blue Ash, Ohio I saw one or two teslas, but Ohio doesn't have a tax incentive like Los Angeles gives people to buy them. So, owners in Ohio aren't exactly the average joe. It seemed a status symbol, as though they mostly buy the car out of a desire to be perceived as 'elite' and progressive. Charging also seemed cumbersome. In LA we charge at parking garages for low cost, or free. most employers offer ChaDeMO charger stations as a perk in their garage. taking your car into the shop? its charged when you get out. Finally dedicated charging ports at some gas stations are also prevalent. None of this infrastructure existed in the cities I visited in Ohio because none of it had to. Gas was $3 a gallon, or less. Traffic was smooth flowing and quick, and mileage largely adherent to highway driving conditions above 50 miles per hour. There is also no public transit, no park and ride to charge the car at while you commute the rest of the way in by light rail.

Ohio also has winter weather to contend with. Most people owned larger SUV's or cars with all-wheel-drive in anticipation of snowy or icy roads, and temperatures well below those we're accustomed to in southern California. The car has to warm and cool much more actively, which im not sure is something electric cars can handle.

Disclaimer: I own a tesla. owning it in the midwest would seem to be a chore.

Re:Quite a few obstacles remain.

[pipingguy]

"...as though they mostly buy the car out of a desire to be perceived as 'elite' and progressive."

I think this is the primary reason for many, many people. "Yes, I have the financial wherewithal to spend over $100,000 on a car, but please don't hate me for that or key my vehicle because I'm saving the planet."

Re:Quite a few obstacles remain.

[trawg]

I'm an Australian currently spending a lot of time in Ohio (Columbus); I worked here last year and am now holidaying here for a few months before moving on.

I don't own a car but almost everyone I know does, so it's been interesting observing how cars work here. Certainly Teslas are rare - I've seen three unique ones in the wild here, one of which I was pretty sure was a demo one from the Tesla store being out on a test drive. (The third one I saw literally yesterday, so until then it would have just been two.)

One thing I've noticed in Ohio is there are a lot of people that drive Hondas. Like, way more than I expected to see in the US, assuming many people would be driving US-made cars. I was surprised by this - until I discovered there's a Honda factory nearby. This seems to be a Big Deal for many locals.

Coming from Australia I've also been interested in how people deal with the weather. We live close to downtown in apartments; almost everyone in this area seems to be stuck with an outside carpark largely exposed to the elements. No idea how hard it would be to convince our landlords to put in an external charging point but suspect it would be tricky.

A bit further out though, many people seem to have proper garages attached to their houses. I would imagine for these people an EV is a much more realistic proposition; the garages are usually all wired anyway (for light and/or heat). I've read batteries don't work as efficiently in the cold so there is that to deal with too, especially if you don't have covered parking at the other end (many of the car parks around here are not covered).

There is a dedicated Tesla EV charging bay at Easton (the big local megamall thing). Looking at the Tesla map there are some supercharger stations here already and a few more planned. I imagine things will change a bit once the charging infrastructure becomes a bit more common.

Re:Quite a few obstacles remain.

[robi5]

> It seemed a status symbol [Tesla, in Ohio]

Why, in Los Angeles, at 70k a pop, is it more of a meh car?

Re:Quite a few obstacles remain.

[swillden]

I own a LEAF in a similarly spread-out area, with little charging infrastructure. What do I care? The car is a commuter and I have a charger at home. It's always full whenever I go anywhere. Charging isn't cumbersome, it's practically zero-effort.

Re:Trucking

[LifesABeach]

Just like horses were.

Re:Jeremy clarkson does not approve

[the_skywise]

Speeeeeeeeeeeeddddddd!!!

Re:Trucking

[Rei]

Big rigs don't stop at your average corner gas station.

AYFKM?

[Overzeetop]

The ICE Spark is under $15k, similarly equipped, with a range of 360 miles. The base Spark EV is $26,000 and has a range of 82 miles. You're paying over $10,000 extra for the EV. On a $15,000 car. For a car with 1/4 the range. That's a pretty big difference.

Re:AYFKM?

[danbert8]

It also takes hours to recharge the EV vs a few minutes at most to refill the gasoline version. That being said, the Spark EV also has 5x the torque of the gas powered version. It would be fantastic to drive...

Re:AYFKM?

[ChrisMaple]

Torque in most electric motors is maximum at stall, when it's producing no power. Maximum torque in IC engines is often at about 70% of the redline, just below the maximum power point. EVs should be good at laying rubber off the line, but 0-60 times and maximum horsepower are more important.

Re:AYFKM?

[fustakrakich]

It would be fantastic to drive...

It's always a race... to the next stop light... Yes, electrics are fun. So are Jet Skis.. Outside of Venice, Italy Jet Skis aren't really that practical. Of course when the sea levels rise up sufficiently, that will all change.

Re:AYFKM?

[sl3xd]

The important question is: How often do you actually drive far enough in one day to drain the battery and need to recharge away from home.

I know in my own life & commute, the answer is "not at all" - being able to gas up on a long trip just isn't a use case. On the other hand, with an Electric, never having to stop at a gas station is a big advantage/selling point.

Batteries are becoming cheaper very quickly with cost parity expected in less than a decade. The ability to charge faster is also improving dramatically, so those disadvantages of electric cars are rapidly vanishing. It's already a lower cost per mile to drive electric, and maintenance costs are lower on electric cars compared to cars powered by ICE's.

I suspect for an increasing number of people (especially those living in cities or suburbia), the advantages of electric cars will soon be more than sufficiently compelling to warrant a switch to electric.

"Green" has little to do with it. Convenience and cost per mile are big advantages of electric vehicles.

Re:AYFKM?

[danbert8]

Well recently I've been commuting ~150 miles each way every weekend to my in-laws as my mother in law just passed away from brain cancer. Maybe doable in a Tesla, but I don't have $90k to spend on a car... And at ~$2.30/gallon and 28ish MPG, the cost per mile is pretty darn convincing considering it's a car I bought for $4k 4 years ago.

Re:AYFKM?

[Aighearach]

Most of driving is to get out of town, often up in the mountains way off the beaten path... I can't imagine needing more than 250 miles range. A fast charge just means I'd need a 30 minute meal break every 250 miles. For people who aren't professional drivers, that's a good idea anyways. But it is very unlikely I would go that far and not fly.

We are only a handful of years away from $6k EVs with 250 miles range. The future is coming. And those cars will be the dinosaurs of the self-driving age because they'll never lose the ability to home fuel.

Tipping?

[MagickalMyst]

Electric cars are sooooo quiet!

Perfect for discreetly driving out the farms for some good ol' fashioned cow tipping.

Re:Tipping?

[lhowaf]

I'm fairly sure that electric car tipping is illegal...and I'm positive electric car penetration is forbidden.

Re:Tipping?

[Tukz]

Or drive by's.

Re:Tipping?

[serviscope_minor]

This is the first time in a long time I'ev heard a genuinely new thing to add to the list of pros and cons for electric cars. I'm addind it to pros.

Re:Tipping?

[spaceyhackerlady]

Or drive by's.

A few years ago the U.S. military were evaluating a new hybrid vehicle to replace the Hummer. Their main interest was logistics, since Hummers aren't the most economical vehicles to operate. They couldn't help but notice that in electric mode their new vehicle was quiet.

Around here the Toyotas are positively noisy. The Teslas, on the other hand, only make a faint whirr from their tires.

...laura

What?

[OverlordQ]

Rapidly a tipping point will be reached, at which point finding a convenient gas station will be nearly impossible and owning a gasoline powered car will positively suck.

Kinda like how finding a convenient electric charging station is nearly impossible to find?

Re:What?

[FranTaylor]

Rapidly a tipping point will be reached, at which point finding a convenient gas station will be nearly impossible and owning a gasoline powered car will positively suck.

Kinda like how finding a convenient electric charging station is nearly impossible to find?

It's very easy to not see things when you are not looking for them.

Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

There are 254 million registered vehicles in the USA.
At an estimated cost of $20k per vehicle to replace (currently below almost all electric vehicles), that's $5 trillion.
At a realistic cost of $35k per vehicle to replace (Model 3 and other options), that's $9 trillion.

The 2014 USA GDP is $16 trillion.

16 million cars total are expected to be sold in 2014. At that rate (which is a high water mark), it would take 8 years just to replace half of the gas cars on the road if every single car sold from today forward were an electric car.

It's hard to get real numbers, but it seems like somewhere between 200k and 1.2 million electric + plug-in hybrids were sold in the USA in 2014. Even if we say it's 1 million/year and the number goes up by 50% every year (incredible sustained growth), it will take 5 years to reach 11.4 million electric vehicles sold per year. At that rate (a more realistic maximum for electric vehicles year sales considering all the reasons why people wouldn't choose electric), it will take another
9 years to reach the 50% mark of all cars.

So that would be 9 + 5 = 14 years for a "best case" realistic scenario for us to have 50% of all registered vehicles being electric. And that's assuming we'll still have 254 million cars on the road in 2030... estimating 350 million would probably be more accurate so it would STILL be only 36% of all registered cars (granted, miles driven may start to favor electric at that point).

So while the % of sales for electric vehicles will likely accelerate exponentially, it's a long, long time until gas stations start getting inconvenient. More likely in the 10-15 year timeframe, instead of having 2 gas stations right next to each other as seems to be very common, they'll start spreading out more. Maybe by 25 years, they'll be reduced in number enough to actually be inconvenient for daily use. It definitely won't be in 10 years.

Revolutions do happen (how many people carried a cell phone in 1990 vs. 2005? That took 10-15 years for a $300-600 item, this is something that costs 100x more), but it takes time and money.

Re:Trucking

[Mr D from 63]

Electric cars will be better than any alternative, including the loud, inconvenient, gas-powered jalopy,"

Lets look at this in the frame of the next few years. As of now, pure EV's have their own inconveniences and restrictions. HEVs less so, but they are not much quieter than many quality ICE cars. In fact, tire and wind noise become significant in either case. As for "jalopy", well, a very subjective term that could be applied to any old vehicle, be it gas or electric. There are some very nice ICE cars that would be hard to see as being described as a jalopy any time soon.

He may be right, he may be hopeful, but he's not apparently that objective.

Easy Conclusion If Perceived Costs & Range Ign

[mykepredko]

Nice to see that electric cars are seen as a viable alternative but I think we're a long way away from the "tipping point" which won't change until consumers attitudes change.

I can't see electric cars being at the same or less purchase price than gasoline powered cars for some time. Don't forget there is also the cost of the charger installation and this could be a very significant cost for people who live in (rented and owned) apartments.

Maybe this will change with the $35k Tesla in 2016/2017 but even that is significantly more expensive than a basic Corolla - if the cost difference is $10k and the car is driven 10k miles/year and gets 25 miles/gallon and gas costs $4/gallon and electricity was free, it would take 6.25 years to make up the difference. That extra $10k seems to be hard to justify.

When I talk to friends/family about electric cars, the issue that always comes up is range. These are people who maybe drive more than 100 miles in a day once or twice a year and this is a huge concern. I don't know what happened with Tesla's robotic replacement for battery packs, but until it is common place or cars can travel 1,000 miles on a charge (and can be charged in less than five minutes) or "Mr. Fusion" becomes a reality, I don't see this not being an issue with the public at large.

Maybe we could see the tipping point if the price of an electric car was comparable to a gas powered car but I think it will take lower costs and essentially infinite range for it to happen.

"expect that future to be here soon."...

[nult]

"expect that future to be here soon."... Soon.. like 50 years?

No, gas stations will not go extinct soon

[dlenmn]

the tipping point will come when gas stations, not a massively profitable business, start to go out of business as many more electric cars are sold,

This idea is simply bogus. Here's a good analysis of the argument, but a choice quote sums up the problem with the argument:

Consider that in 2009 there were 246 million motor vehicles registered in the United States. A 10% reduction would be 221 million vehicles but that is how many vehicles there were in 2000.

Gas stations didn't go extinct in 2000 because there were fewer gas vehicles, and they won't do so now. In fact, there are already fewer gas stations now, mostly because gas-powered cars are more efficient. However, no one started yelling tipping point because gas-powered cars became more efficient, an effect which is probably more important than electric vehicles in the foreseeable future. There still so many that the gas-station-tipping-point hypothesis is BS.

Re:No, gas stations will not go extinct soon

[dlenmn]

Edit for missing words:

There still so many gas stations that the gas-station-tipping-point hypothesis is BS.

Re:No, gas stations will not go extinct soon

[Gavagai80]

Indeed. In the future, intersections may only have a gas station on 2 corners instead of 3.

Re:No, gas stations will not go extinct soon

[Locke2005]

That's a silly argument. Wouldn't most gas station simply convert to electric charging stations as gasoline sales wane?

Re:No, gas stations will not go extinct soon

[dlenmn]

In 2000, there may be less vehicles. But there were also less gas stations.

False. They were more gas stations then than there are now.

http://www.nacsonline.com/your...

There were 156,065 total retail fueling sites in the United States in 2012. This is a steep and steady decline since 1994, when the station count topped 202,800 sites. (Source: National Petroleum News' MarketFacts 2012)

If gas stations get rare

[Deadstick]

...there's gonna be a market for places to take a piss.

Re:If gas stations get rare

[Lynchenstein]

There'll be an app and mobile piss drones. If you gotta go, just push a button and in a minute you'll have a nice hovering tinkle drone (that's a great name for the service "Tinkle") at your command. You'll get charged extra for #2, perhaps by the ounce? ugh.

Re:If gas stations get rare

[neminem]

There was an April Fools thing like that last year - i.e. Uber of outhouses. I thought it actually sounded like a pretty great idea. I agree, if they could send it to you by drone, that'd be even more useful, would get there faster and not worry about traffic. :D

Added bonus: nobody is going to be shooting down *that* drone.

Re:If gas stations get rare

[Locke2005]

I'm pretty sure that problem was solved a long time ago by the fancy contraption called a "bush"...

Re:Trucking

[Guspaz]

I still see horses on the streets of my city. They may be very limited in number, and very limited in use (police and tourist carriages), but they're still there.

Public transport is nothing new

[sjbe]

I look forward to the offloading all the associated penalty costs of car ownership in favour of a service model.

You can do that today but you'll have to move to someplace like Manhattan.

it'll be bittersweet

[shadowrat]

There's a lot to like about EVs, If i owned a house and could get a charger, i'd consider a tesla, and if there were an electric jeep wrangler, i'd be all over that thing. massive torque and the ability to roll over indefinitely seems pretty darn cool to me. There's one thing i'd really miss though: Manual Transmission

After a decade of owning an xterra with automatic transmission, i bought a used 6 speed miata. shifting gears is just so much fun. yeah, it's more work, but there's something really rewarding about nailing the perfect down shift, powering out of a turn, and shifting back. it doesn't matter that a modern automatic could do it better than me. it doesn't matter that an electric roadster would perform better. There's just something about knowing I did it.

Re:it'll be bittersweet

[FranTaylor]

There's just something about knowing I did it.

the car manufacturers have this whole brainwashing thing down to a science

Yeah whatever

[mrun4982]

I can get a brand new, gasoline powered car for under $20k that goes 400 miles on a tank and gets 40 miles per gallon. I don't see an electric car coming anytime soon that would be a better alternative to that considering that gas prices are reasonable (where I live at least). Create an electric car that can go at least 300 miles, is under 20K and can be charged in a few minutes and maybe we'll talk.

Re:restaurants

[TWX]

I expect a hybrid sort, which is more like a Flying-J travel center. Restaurant(s), convenience store, a couple of service bays, and the refuelling stations. Sometimes there are some stores like a small shopping mall, usually with supplies that someone might have neglected to remember to bring, like beach supplies if on the way to California, or heavier jackets and boots if on the way North.

The restaurants are acceptable even if not great. The convenience stores and retailers are overpriced but can be useful in a pinch. The service area can deal with tires and other things that need to be fixed quickly.

Battery vs. Fuel Cell

[LifesABeach]

Why not just combine both? Large population centers would benefit from it. Ag areas could buy less water. A win-win for the both communities.

Re:Jeremy clarkson does not approve

[alex67500]

In other news, they apparently signed a deal with Amazon Prime :-) First episodes in 2016.

A concession stand that sells gasoline

[sjbe]

Apparently the deals they make with the gasoline/diesel suppliers are so bad there is almost no profit in selling gas.

That is correct. The business model is basically that it is a concession stand that uses fuel as the means to lure people to the store. Kind of similar to how a movie theater makes all their money on concessions because the revenues for the movie (around 80%) go back to the company distributing the movie. Pretty much all the profits in the oil and gas industry are made by the big oil and gas companies. They might have service stations (like ExxonMobil) to vertically integrate the entire supply chain but independent fuel stations really don't make any money on the fuel itself.

Re:A concession stand that sells gasoline

[Aighearach]

We threatened the cinemas with a law requiring them to allow customers to bring their own bottled water, and the companies all decided to agree to allow it without the law. But they just don't earn enough of the movie pie to be more important than soccer moms, so we can have water again.

No thanks. I'll watch at home.

Too much incentive to hype this stuff up....

[King_TJ]

I have no doubt that electric car sales will keep increasing as the technology gets cheaper and better. That's true for everything.

But just like the "OMG ... solar panels are exploding onto the scene, and soon, EVERYONE will have them and pay nothing for electricity!" commenters, you've got a group trying to convince us that electric cars are going to take over in just a few more years.

Both groups have ulterior motives to keep hawking these technologies and come up pretty short when you look at all of the facts.

For one thing, even if electric chargers were everywhere and "range anxiety" was rendered a complete non-issue, AND costs came down so electric cars cost you no premium whatsoever over a gas powered counterpart? You'd have the problem that most electrics are still your generic 4 door sedan or economy car form-factor. The last vehicle I bought was a Jeep Wrangler, and I love it -- but I doubt you'll see one of these sold in an electric version for a LONG time, if ever. Not much available in all electric full size pickup trucks either, or in large cargo/conversion vans, or even full size SUVs.

Another problem which the industry is really downplaying right now is your resale value as these vehicles age. Sure, right now, it seems like a non-issue because so few used electrics are even for sale, the ones out there get sold at prices sellers are happy with. What I'm saying, though, is that given enough time -- electric motors wear out. Even simple devices like ceiling fans develop bad motor bearings or brushes wear out inside them and they start making ticking/clicking noises and eventually burn out. Electric cars may not have near the complexity of gas powered vehicles, but that means that instead, they rely on relatively few, expensive parts that make up the car as a whole. If you've got an old battery that doesn't hold much charge anymore, combined with a failing electric motor -- are you at the point where the car is essentially scrap, vs. the cost of repairing it?

I think with traditional vehicles, you're far more likely to have random, smaller components fail over time, here and there. So someone gets tired of spending a lot of money on the "money pit" of replacing dry rotted hoses and belts and other wear items like brakes and they decide to sell the car off -- but the next owner finds he/she got a pretty good deal out of it because then it goes for a long time again with relatively little breaking down. Even a total engine rebuild, while a several thousand dollar expense, means the main part of the car is good for another couple hundred thousand miles of driving again.

Re:Too much incentive to hype this stuff up....

[riverat1]

What I'm saying, though, is that given enough time -- electric motors wear out.

I think it's pretty silly to worry about the electric motor in a vehicle wearing out. Most well made electric motors run a long time without breaking down. The compressor motor in my freezer's been going for over 30 years now.

There's only one leg on his chair

[lquam]

His argument is that EV adoption will be like iPhone. The iPhone was so superior to flip phones people had to gave it. So his argument goes that EVs are so 'superior' to internal combustion vehicles that they'll see the same adoption rate. What a crock. The iPhone didn't require you to adopt a new charging paradigm; you already had 120V (or 220V) electric socket in your abode that you used for your flip phone. Fine if you have a house, install your charger in your garage or in your driveway, but do we really think chargers are going to appear in apartment parking lots? Will renters want to pay for them. Or will Uncle Sam force property owners to install them?

EVs remind me of CFL light bulbs. Daft, inconvenient (see how long it takes for one to come on at night in Minnesota in January), stupid things that were shoved down our throats by the government while LED bulbs that are vastly superior were still in development. Somebody just needed to take a timeout and wait a few more years for the correct technology to arrive. When they get FCVs right, then we'll have our vehicle of the future. New battery technology? We might as well be waiting on cold fusion. A fill up with hydrogen or CNG will take about as long as a fill-up with gasoline. I don't see you ever recharging a battery that fast without blowing it up.

And what's the range of a Tesla S with a boat trailer, anyway?

Re:There's only one leg on his chair

[rch7]

And I don't care about boat trailer, why should I?

Problems can be solved

[sjbe]

EVs cost significantly more than gas cars, don't have the range of gas cars, and apartment dwellers have no way to charge them overnight.

All of which are solvable problems. With scale EVs eventually could be cheaper than gas cars since they have fewer parts. There already are EVs with range competitive with gas cars (see the Model S) and they are only getting better. As for apartment dwellers, eventually apartments will end up providing charging infrastructure though I fully expect this to happen late in the game because the cost isn't trivial.

Electric vehicles will probably reach a tipping point when either A) recharge times get to less than 15 minutes with a 200 mile range or B) EVs with a 500+ mile range are developed and economically feasible. Until that happens we'll see hybrids serving as a technology test platform until such time as the battery technology matures sufficiently. I fully expect most luxury cars to be plug-in hybrids within the next 10-15 years. I think you'll start to see semi trucks and long haul vehicles becoming hybrids with a power train similar to locomotives (diesel with electric motors driving the wheels).

EVs won't reach the tipping point tomorrow or even probably 5 years from now but I do think they are the likely future with hybrids being a stepping stone to get there.

Re:Problems can be solved

[dywolf]

My ICE car has effectively unlimited range as long as I stop to refuel

FTFY.

And you're conflating range and convenience. that's a no-no.

So while it takes several hours for a model S to get 100% charge, it reaches 80% charge (and therefore range) in only 30 minutes at station with a Supercharger station. And I don't know about you, but I need to stretch my legs and rest a bit after driving 180ish miles. so stopping every 3 hours is still roughly in line with typical driving practices, especially if you have the family (and kids!!) along.

Re:Problems can be solved

[cascadingstylesheet]

All of which are solvable problems. With scale EVs eventually could be cheaper than gas cars since they have fewer parts. There already are EVs with range competitive with gas cars (see the Model S) and they are only getting better. As for apartment dwellers, eventually apartments will end up providing charging infrastructure though I fully expect this to happen late in the game because the cost isn't trivial.

Electric vehicles will probably reach a tipping point when either A) recharge times get to less than 15 minutes with a 200 mile range or B) EVs with a 500+ mile range are developed and economically feasible.

So in other words, when the problems are solved, there won't be problems. I see.

No.

[Lumpy]

No sub $11,000 electric car that has 100 mile range.
No electric car that can charge in 6 hours at home without spending thousands on a fat charger and an electrician and permits to install it.
No apartments with electric charging stations.

So nope.

Resale value?

[Lynchenstein]

If I were to buy a new EV today, with the pace of improvements, in 5 years what would the resale value be compared to a IC vehicle? Battery lifespan, new technologies (faster charge, better range) and one would assume lower prices for new vehicles...I can't see EV user prices being very good after 5 years, and virtually nothing after 10.

Trucks will be hybrids, not pure EV

[sjbe]

And frankly, current ranges on EV's make them pretty much useless for trucks. Who really wants to stop for a couple hours a couple times a day?

You won't see pure EV trucks for a long time. What you'll see is a power train similar to that on locomotives. Diesel engine charging electric motors with a battery bank to deal with the excess. It's very efficient, huge torque and the technology is well understood. I'm kind of surprised we aren't seeing it already.

Re:Trucks will be hybrids, not pure EV

[chilenexus]

That's very likely (not sarcastic). The biggest reason diesel engines are used in large trucks is the high torque they need to move those loads, and electric can do torque as well. And there'll be some weight savings from not needing a transmission. Would the weight of the batteries be much more than the diesel fuel they carry now? Each of those tanks holds ~150 gallons. At 7.5 lbs per gallon, that's 1125 lbs per fuel tank when full. For long, steep hills like Tejon and Cajon pass in CA, I'm picturing a solution being overhead wires like what's used in LA's light rail being installed over a truck lane. They can charge them a fee for the boost based on their weight at the last weigh station have have a transponder in the truck like is used in Orange county's toll roads. It'll get them up the hills and even let them recharge the batteries a bit while they do it, so they can go further before needing to charge once they're off the hill.

Re:Trucks will be hybrids, not pure EV

[Taxman415a]

I've wondered about that too. The technology is well understood and has been in place for a substantial amount of time on locomotives. My guess is there is something about the trucking industry or routes that make the advantage not as big. Otherwise trucking fleets would have converted already.

Re:Trucks will be hybrids, not pure EV

[s122604]

It makes great sense on trains, because you it allows you to get power to wheels on various points on the train, which is highly advantageous and impossibly difficult to accomplish mechanically.

When you scale down to car or truck size, mechanical transmissions work reasonably well, and are very efficient these days.
There is a significant loss, compared to a purely mechanical setup, that occurs when you turn mechanical energy into electrical energy in a generator, just to send it over the wire and convert it right back to mechanical energy at the wheel.

If the bulk of the electricity stored in the batteries comes from a cheap source (i.e. an outlet), it still makes sense, but if you are talking about a high endurance application where the vast majority of electricity is generated locally it doesn't.

Re:Trucks will be hybrids, not pure EV

[TemporalBeing]

And frankly, current ranges on EV's make them pretty much useless for trucks. Who really wants to stop for a couple hours a couple times a day?

You won't see pure EV trucks for a long time. What you'll see is a power train similar to that on locomotives. Diesel engine charging electric motors with a battery bank to deal with the excess. It's very efficient, huge torque and the technology is well understood. I'm kind of surprised we aren't seeing it already.

We're starting to, but not in the big rigs; FedEx was reportedly doing a test on their delivery vehicles with a start up from South Carolina at a cost of $100k/vehicle upgrade. A few more players in the market, and the cost will drop significantly.

Re:Trucks will be hybrids, not pure EV

[robi5]

The weight station will be obsolete as they gauge the weight by the amount of current drawn :-)

Re:Trucks will be hybrids, not pure EV

[CanadianMacFan]

Isn't that how the hybrid buses work?

Re:Trucks will be hybrids, not pure EV

[Rei]

There have been electric delivery trucks for a long time - for example, Smith Electric Vehicles has been making li-ion trucks almost as long as Tesla has been around. And they follow up on a long history of electric delivery vehicles on a continuous line dating back to the early lead-acid days. But "existing" doesn't mean "having blown the market wide open". The big question is when that could happen.

You know, though, as ridiculous as it sounds, I almost wonder Tesla's efforts could evolve into a killer delivery vehicle. The Model S / Model X drivetrain is already starting to get into the power range of a big rig, and big rig budgets can afford their high prices. Combine that this potential solution to charging over long distances and you really could have a winner.

Re: Trucks will be hybrids, not pure EV

[WindBourne]

That is because series hybrids are done wrong. They can be far more efficient than a mechanical system by using multiple small engine/gens.

Re:Trucks will be hybrids, not pure EV

[TemporalBeing]

There have been electric delivery trucks for a long time - for example, Smith Electric Vehicles has been making li-ion trucks almost as long as Tesla has been around. And they follow up on a long history of electric delivery vehicles on a continuous line dating back to the early lead-acid days. But "existing" doesn't mean "having blown the market wide open". The big question is when that could happen.

You know, though, as ridiculous as it sounds, I almost wonder Tesla's efforts could evolve into a killer delivery vehicle. The Model S / Model X drivetrain is already starting to get into the power range of a big rig, and big rig budgets can afford their high prices. Combine that this potential solution to charging over long distances and you really could have a winner.

So the primary issue for Big Rig trucking is distance.

Drivers often fill up 100-200 gallon tanks, and cover large distances between stops. They might stop for fuel once a day, may be twice while covering 500-1000 miles. Can we build a big rig that has the torque capacity AND the distance requirements? May be.

But then, you also need to be able to manage the batteries well enough too, and be able to recharge quickly.

Battery swapping won't really work. Why? Who owns the batteries? Who's responsible for them? What places are going to swap out batteries?

If the owner of the vehicle owns the batteries, then swapping doesn't work. Someone that just bought the batteries isn't going to swap them for a set of used batteries - that's too expensive.

A network of battery renters could work, but then you have to be able to get to one of their approved locations for a battery swap, so it's not really feasible, though this solution could bring the cost of the big rigs down considerably since they wouldn't have to buy the extremely expensive battery packs with the big rig, just sign up to a renter network.

Even then, who's responsible for batteries when there are problems? Who pays the bill when the battery overheats and blows up? Or who sends out another vehicle to swap batteries when the drain too quickly and the vehicle is stranded?

Yes, lawyers can solve many of the questions, but until that happens in a manner acceptable to the industry then there are problems.

Also, realize that many big rigs are owned by their drivers. Independent truckers are quite common and many trucking companies prefer to use independent truckers over buying their own equipment; often paying barely enough for the guys to be able to maintain the vehicles - it's a very cut throat business. So those buying the big rigs don't necessary have budgets for expensive technology; they just want something that is going to work, work well, be easy to maintain, and be highly reliable - it's very expensive for them to get a tow (loss work, plus the cost of tow and maintenance). So it'll be a very up-hill battle to get them to accept electric vehicles.

For truckers to accept electric trucks, companies will have to get into it first. So FedEx proving that this vendor is reliable with their fleet will go a long way to bringing hybrids to trucking at all levels.

As to the transition of the technology from trains - the really big difference is that for the trains it's generally easy for them to know exactly how much fuel they need for the trip and how much to have in reserve. The fuel tanks are in the thousands of gallons, and they don't have to deal with traffic much. When they do, they'll know how long the wait will generally be and can handle the situation accordingly. It's also relatively easy for them to just fill up the tanks again. Just saying - the two industries are extremely different in many respects; so what one finds acceptable won't necessarily be so for the other.

Re:Trucks will be hybrids, not pure EV

[chilenexus]

Wouldn't that limit them to only having one truck on the hill at a time?

..inconvenient, gas-powered jalopy"

[pablo_max]

Is that guy serious?
Does he think that if he just starts calling petrol powered vehicles inconvenient that it becomes true?

As several others have pointed out, electric cars are massively inconvenient for those that drive a long commute and/or live in an apartment complex where no charging is possible.

There is simply no means of travel which is more convenient that petrol powered cars. I would love to have an electric car, but for where I live, it simply is out of the question given the massive limitations of today's battery and charging tech.

Re:..inconvenient, gas-powered jalopy"

[MitchDev]

How fast is even the fastest charge?

In a real car, if fule runs low, I pull over to a gas station for a few minutes and I'm at full fuel and off and running.

Although gas stations with lots of pay-amentities will love bored people hanging out waiting for their car to charge...

Re:..inconvenient, gas-powered jalopy"

[FranTaylor]

I would love to have an electric car, but for where I live, it simply is out of the question given the massive limitations of today's battery and charging tech.

yes, precisely, you are the one true human, the only one the counts, the only one we worry about when we make plans

Re:..inconvenient, gas-powered jalopy"

[NoOneInParticular]

In a real car(riage), when the horse gets tired, I can get to the horse station and get a fresh horse in a few minutes, and I can continue my trip. These new-fangled "auto"-mobiles need to bring all their fuel along. Less range, noisy, and much more cumbersome. It's just a fad for rich people.

Re:..inconvenient, gas-powered jalopy"

[Kohath]

No. Earnest? Maybe. Serious? No.

Re:..inconvenient, gas-powered jalopy"

[Locke2005]

On long trips, horses can eat the grass growing along the side of the road... where the hell am I going to find petroleum products on a long trip? (The supply generally tends to expand to meet the demand. If enough people are willing to pay to quick-charge their electrics away from home, some entrepreneur will build the charging stations. Most will simply take over some of the space in existing gas stations.

Re:..inconvenient, gas-powered jalopy"

[MitchDev]

Wow, you are amazingly stupid and gullible...

Re:Trucking

[Rei]

While in general I think battery swapping is a stupid idea for cars (there's way too much need for different form factors, capacities, performance capabilities, etc, and it makes up such an integral part of the structure due to its size and mass and represents such a great amount of capital one would have to stockpile), I think it could actually work incredibly well for trucks. Rather than having them in the cab, I picture them slotting under the trailers (where various hardware is already often slotted), with a power connection to the cab. It would in such a situation be very easy to have a single form factor for the batteries and very easy to remove and reinstall them - you already have a standardized shape, easy undercarriage access, and the structural strength is already right where you need it. And whenever a truck picks up a new trailer that's been sitting around for a while, it could be already charged and ready to go. The cab would of course need its own batteries to haul itself around a good distance when not towing a load, but the trailers could basically hold the power for their own towing needs. And it would have little effect on an empty trailer's cost - it just needs the mounts for the batteries installed and the wiring to feed the cab, but would otherwise be a normal trailer haulable by any vehicle.

Fueling Stations Have Electricity Right?

[lazarus]

All of this speculation that "gas stations" will start closing is complete BS. They will just put in charging stations so they still have the traffic that gets people to buy higher margin items like snacks. And the last time I checked every fueling station has electricity. Demands change. Businesses change to adapt.

Re:Fueling Stations Have Electricity Right?

[Khashishi]

Charging stations have to compete with home charging. Gas stations don't.

Re:Jeremy clarkson does not approve

[ThatsDrDangerToYou]

Speeeeeeeeeeeeddddddd!!!

Is that you Spritle?

Re:Jeremy clarkson does not approve

[fustakrakich]

Say, how much electricity can you carry in a 2 gallon container?

Probably enough to transmit a signal to somebody with a generator, and the jumper cables.

Can't drive to Florida in an electric car

[Theovon]

Now, MAYBE, we'll have rapid-charging technology and much more energy-dense batteries soon enough. But currently, I (living in New York) would be unable to drive to visit my parents in Florida in an electric car.

I'm not the only one with the problem. Ground-based shipping is what will keep the petrol stations alive, at least along the highways, at least for diesel. Does this mean that in the US, people are going to be forced to buy diesel cars to drive long distances?

Re:Easy Conclusion If Perceived Costs & Range

[ProzacPatient]

I can't see electric cars being at the same or less purchase price than gasoline powered cars for some time. Don't forget there is also the cost of the charger installation and this could be a very significant cost for people who live in (rented and owned) apartments.

I don't think we'll see significant adoption of electric cars until they start reaching a significant portion of the sub-$10,000 used car market because most people cannot, or are unwilling, to drop $50,000 on a brand new car especially given how plight things look for the middle class in the past few years. I'm somewhat basing this on when Japanese 4 cylinder engines started hitting the US market around the late 1970's and only relatively wealthy people could afford them but now that it has been some 40 years these cars have had time to saturate the used car market so now everyone is driving a 4 cylinder Honda Accord or similar.

Re:Jeremy clarkson does not approve

[NatasRevol]

Say, how often does your car work better after an automatic update from the manufacturer?

Re:The tipping point will be

[EmagGeek]

What you are talking about already exists, and has existed for decades, and is in use on tens of thousands of households across the fruited plains.

Re:Efficiency

[don depresor]

I Allways wondered why everyone who thinks that flywheels are viable for vehicles forget about the giroscopic effect, a flywheel with a inertial mass huge enough to power a vehicle would present a huge new set of problems to think about. Keep in mind that even if you mount it horizontally to avoid the effect when turning, any lateral force, like when making turns at high speed, or hitting a speed bump would create a very noticeable backlash from the flywheel.

Re:Efficiency

[TheDarkMaster]

At night? Of course. Better yet, at some time between midnight to 7 am. Why do you ask? The power grid capacity is sized for peak hours as there is usually no way to store the electricity generated by big power plants for later use. These peak times occur as people leave home and when they return from work. When everyone is sleeping that generation capacity becomes idle, and then It can easily be put to other uses.

Disclosure: I am a developer, but also a power plant technician.

Re:Trucking

[Mr D from 63]

I also have though through the battery swapping thing and have concluded that it is problematic and would just be a workaround solution...much better for cars to not need to swap.

But you bring up a good point about trucks. That might make sense, although I'm not sure having it an integral part of the trailer makes sense because the load might need to keep moving even if the batteries are not. But battery swaps seem to make more sense where there are limited, repeatable, planned routes. That applies to city buses and similar. For general cars, it just seems like we'd need to many batteries moving around, a waste in its own sense.

Re:Trucking

[fustakrakich]

The internal combustion shall always be a jalopy, or contraption. All still based on 18th century steam power. Pure Rube Goldberg, the monkey motion that goes on in these machines. When considering total cost of operation, in terms of the only thing that matters, human effort, the electric comes out way ahead. And unlike petroleum, it can be produced anywhere, and much more cleanly. But, internal combustion sounds so much cooler at the drag strip.

Power Outages...

[ewhenn]

Yeah, that's great and all, but does it store 2 weeks worth of power? Where I live I've had power outages that have gone on for 7-12 days multiple times in the past 5 years. I still need to be able to get back and forth to work, drop off the kids at daycare, etc. I can't be stranded because my vehicle won't hold enough travel capacity.

Re:Power Outages...

[Locke2005]

No problem! You can always buy a gasoline-powered generator and charge those batteries right up!

Sounds more like...

[MitchDev]

...marketing hype from someone who wants people to buy electric cars....

Re:Sounds more like...

[chuckugly]

Pretty much. I was amused that the reduced profitability of gas stations due to marginally reduced demand would create a massive gas station die off rather than just cause the existing stations to minimally all adjust their pricing to stay in business. If the price of gas was that brittle I would have thought the Prius would have put stations out of business already.

Re:Efficiency

[VernonNemitz]

Have you not heard of "gimbals"?

Re:Range

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're not alone. Also, if you're refusing to listen to digital music because it doesn't sound as "warm" as your LP's, you again have some company. But you should notice that the world didn't exactly wait until your particular criteria were fulfilled before digital music took over. That is the nature of tipping points: There comes a time when a new technology is good enough to work for most people, and most people drive rather short, predictable distances with their primary commute car.

Re:Efficiency

[Aighearach]

Yes.

As far as efficiency, you fell on your face. Sorry man. The 35% for the car is the engine. That's the max possible, real IC engines in consumer cars are closer to 25%. Your novel idea that that is higher than electric cars get is funny, but no. Also, battery charging using the battery technologies already used in cars is closer to 85% in the worst case, and over 90% average. Nobody is building cars with lead acid. And "battery discharge" is not 75%, the average is over 90%. 75% is the lowest efficiency, which you get briefly at the end of the cycle when the battery is already charged and you're only using a tiny bit of current to top it off. The main part of the charge that uses most of the power is at the higher end of the efficiency range for the battery. You're whacking battery efficiency down twice with made-up numbers and pretending to be science-y.

Battery charging efficiency is actually near 100% below 70% charge. Remember, you're not doing much work here, physically. There is no reason to desire there to be an extra loss here. ;) Discharge loss is also normally only a few percent, not 25%. Almost all the losses in your "equation" are from made-up numbers that are nowhere close to reality.

Fuel cell storage efficiency is only 20-60%. No surprise, because hydrogen atoms are larger than electrons, and so filling up the cell requires vastly more physical work.

Flywheels are super-heavy. The funny part about what you say there is that small flywheels used the same way as electric regenerative braking can increase fuel efficiency in a city, with frequent start/stop, but the mass of flywheel you'd need to be useful at a 50+ mile range would be really heavy, and have huge friction losses. It can be done, it has been done, but you get a slow tank that is inefficient, not a fuel-saver.

Not having better numbers is no excuse for just making them up as if a guess what you use when you can't be bothered to look any of it up, and don't already know about the technologies.

Re:Efficiency

[VernonNemitz]

I wasn't sure, but thought the question had to be asked. There are about as many cars as people in the USA, and if all the cars were electric, getting charged at night....

Re:Efficiency

[Smidge204]

Consider replacing the electric commuter-car battery with a flywheel. We have the tech to do this for ranges of 50 miles or so.

Why would you, though? Flywheels have atrocious energy densities.

We should be thinking about replacing batteries with "fuel cells", because, like hydrocarbon engines, only fuel (most agree hydrogen is best) needs to be carried around, and the waste (H2O) can be dumped.

Wrong. A fuel cell car also needs a sizable battery, because a fuel cell capable of providing sufficient output for acceptable performance would be massive and expensive. A battery needs to be included to provide the peak power and the fuel cell basically acts as an on board generator to keep it topped off.

And given that, it's a waste. For all the solar energy you collected to make and process the hydrogen, you could have put that directly into an EV's battery and come out way ahead.
=Smidge=

Victory for "Soft" Socialism

[Tablizer]

Subsidizing the cost of nascent "green" technology is needed to prod the industry to produce and learn how to make a better green mouse-trap through experience and R&D.

It's paying off now as electric cars are getting competitive. Gasoline engines have been the dominant car technology for a century, and thus have had a lot of R&D behind them. Thanks to subsidies to induce sales and R&D, electric cars have evolved to be competitive with gasoline.

Private companies rarely look more than 5 to 10 years ahead. It's why they have to be prodded via subsidies, etc. Finance theory on ROI teaches one to generally focus on the short-term. Whether this is entirely rational or not makes an interesting debate, but it's the ruling view of the current business world.

By the way, I consider "soft" socialism to be incentive-based. "Hard" socialism would be outright banning products. I'm generally against outright banning for products, such as incandescent bulbs and sugar-loaded Big Gulps. Tax them heavily as a disincentive, but don't ban them.

IPv6, round 2...

[geekmux]

"The future of automotive transportation is an electric one and you can expect that future to be here soon."

Soon, eh?

I remember the last time something was supposed to be here "soon". It was IPv6 about fifteen years ago.

I haven't smelled this level of FUD since Y2K.

Re:Efficiency

[don depresor]

And then you have to create a transmision to get the energy out of the damn flywheel without fucking up the gimball wich seems to be not so trivial considering the movement that the flywheel would have inside said gimball.

Re:Efficiency

[Aighearach]

Not a problem really. With a small flywheel for in-town, it does pull to the side a bit when you engage, but not worse than wind, and people adjust to it easily.

The real problem regarding the forces are the accident danger. If you crash it can really tear your car apart.

My friend had flywheel assist before he went electric. That was in the early 90s. Trust me, the reason you don't see it around very often isn't because of viability concerns; mostly cost/result/accident danger. It is expensive to install, uses up limited space, and isn't a miracle at all.

Re:Efficiency

[TheDarkMaster]

The trick is that it is almost impossible for all your consumers to use all the capacity available to them at the same time (the same thing happens during normal daytime).

Re:Efficiency

[don depresor]

And how do you get the energy out of such an arrangement, because a mechanic transmission to a flywheel rotating freely inside a gimball sounds dificult to me.

Re:Jeremy clarkson does not approve

[sycodon]

Ha! I suspect it would more likely be bricked.

Uh....not quite

[flarb936]

I don't know where the tipping point is, but having owned an EV (well, a Volt) for a year I can say it's not any time soon. Here in California, electricity is as expensive (if not more so) than gas. There's still sparse charging infrastructure, and even if there wasn't--until you can get at least 50% of a charge in the same amount of time it takes to fill a gas car's tank up, I don't think we'll see this tipping point. It still takes 30 minutes to "quick charge" a Leaf. Otherwise, EV use will still require owning a home to have your own high-speed charger, and the concept home ownership is a relic of the past for most people aside from the extremely rich (for whom a Tesla is the equivalent of a Toyota Corolla).

Re:restaurants

[Grishnakh]

It's already going that way. "Service stations" are completely dead, and regular gas stations are being replaced by upscale, fancy places like Sheetz in the south where there's tons of food (both packaged and cooked on the spot) and drinks for sale. You can go to one of these places and get a pretty decent lunch. They probably make all their profit on the food and drinks. The clean, nice facilities help draw people in, both for the food and also the restrooms (which used to be a bad joke--2 decades ago no one wanted to use a gas station bathroom unless their life depended on it).

Call me when a Model S costs $25-$30K.

[Dputiger]

This won't happen until electric cars with Model S-like capabilities cost $20,000 - $35,000. The Volt and its various competitors don't really count as Model S equivalents, and few would compare them directly. While it's true that you can save a huge amount on gas compared to electricity if you drive a great deal, that's money people are used to budgeting per month and it's not typically enough to compare to the up-front price of the car.

Now, if Elon and Co intended to deliver a Model S at even $35,000 in the next year or two, than I might agree with this claim. Until that happens, I don't see electric cars cresting some enormous tipping point.

Prices need to come down, range needs to go up

[mark-t]

The money you can save each month on gas doesn't mean squat when the difference in monthly payments on the cost of an electric car vs a conventional vehicle of similar size can often be more than what you'd spend on gasoline. You can mitigate the issue by extending the duration of the car loan to lower monthly payments, but long-period loans on something like a car doesn't tend to make a whole lot of financial sense.

Also, the effective daily range really needs to go up on most EV's.... (that is, how far you could reasonably expect to be able to go in one day, including any time spent recharging, travelling in absolutely any direction that there are roads in the first place). Sure the range on EV's right now is practical for about 90% of all driving, but when that bloody 10% is going to be a recurring problem, you still feel like you need to have a regular car at your disposal too. But not everyone has the luxury of being able to have two cars... one for commuting and the other for longer trips, especially if they are paying more money for the electric car in the first place.

When EV makers can make a vehicle that is actually priced on parity with what you'd spend on a conventional engine car of similar size plus the cost of gasoline, I will start to consider it... when they can allow me to go absolutely anywhere I want to, and drive a thousand km in a day if I want to, including time spent stopping for a recharge, and not charge me a premium of more than double what I could spend on a conventional engine car of similar size and otherwise comparable style (I'm looking at you, Tesla), then sign me up.

Re:Efficiency

[tompaulco]

Can the electric grid handle charging that many cars every night?

In 2014, the United States produced 4,093 billion kilowatthours of electricity. There are 254 million cars in the United States. It takes about 30 kilowatthoursto charge a completely drained small electric vehicle. Assuming that a car needs to be charged only every other day, this represents 3.75 billion kilowatt hours of electricity every night, or over the year, about 334 times our current electrical usage.

Not Everyone Owns a Garage

[Stormy Dragon]

always "full" every morning

Ever notice how electric car backers seem to assume everyone owns a garage for their car where a charging station can be installed?

With charge times measured in hours, what are all the people who rent or park on a street going to do?

Re:Not Everyone Owns a Garage

[PPH]

This.

Seattle is going on an absolute battle against garage parking in new apartment/condo construction. It's hard enough to find nearby on-street parking. Good luck stringing an extension cord to your car*.

*Moreso when the meth addicts realize there's copper in them.

Re:Not Everyone Owns a Garage

[Radical Moderate]

According to the 2009 census, there are about 80 million occupied single-family homes in the US. That seems like a pretty significant market, even if electrics currently won't work for everybody.

Re:Not Everyone Owns a Garage

[hankwang]

"With charge times measured in hours, what are all the people who rent or park on a street going to do?"

In Netherlands, many municipalities offer to install a charging station (about the size of an old, coin-operated parking meter), on the street, close to your home, along with two parking spots that are reserved for electrical cars. Together with the tax breaks, this makes e-cars quite popular. You don't get a personal spot, but this way the risk of not being able to recharge is limited.

Note that the electricity isn't free: you have to use a smart card to activate the charging pole. I'm not sure what they charge per kWh. Probably a bit more than the residential rate (0.21 EUR/kWh).

Re:Not Everyone Owns a Garage

[Cro Magnon]

Yes, but how many of those homes have a garage? And how many of those garages are used for parking vehicles? How many garages are capable of fitting all vehicles owned by building residents?

^This! My current house has a driveway, but no garage. My previous house had no garage, no driveway, and no place to build one. The last house I lived in with a garage didn't have electricity to the garage. An electric car wouldn't have worked for any of them.

Re:Efficiency

[kheldan]

Flywheels.. fuel cells.. 'charging efficiency'.. never mind all that. Where's my all-electric small pickup truck? Where's my electric motorcycle? Not everyone needs or wants just a two- or four-door sedan, or a minivan, or (LOL) an SUV. The day that I can get a fully electric light pickup truck with at minimum 400 mile range, then we'll have a discussion about leaving the internal-combustion engine behind. Likewise motorcycles: My current bike (7th I've owned) gets about 180 miles per tank. When you can come up with a fully electric replacement for it, then we'll talk about retiring gasoline-powered motorcycles, too, but not before. Also there has to be infrastructure for rapid charging that's at least as ubiquitos as gas stations are now, and that's the hard part.

Re:Efficiency

[VernonNemitz]

Thanks, but you are sounding somewhat like a zealot. I first researched the data quite a few years ago, but hadn't known what recent improvements have done for electric battery charging/discharging. I DO know that electrical resistance inside batteries can be a source of significant energy loss; in the old days efficiency was only about 2/3, not the 3/4 I estimated in the prior post --and that is why I asked for better numbers! What I didn't know was how much those resistance losses have been overcome, and if the overall efficiency is more like 90% than 75%, that's cool. Next, you ignored the fact that a lot of cars have Diesel engines, which are more efficient than gasoline engines, even if the production-car efficiency numbers are less than the ideal numbers. NEXT, I "whacked it down twice" because you have to charge the battery, and then you have to discharge the battery to use it. Both ways have internal-electrical-resistance energy losses!
Your talk about "fuel cell storage efficiency" is meaningless. A fuel cell works very much like a battery, converting chemical energy to electrical energy. So if a battery can be 90% efficient, a fuel cell should be able to have that efficiency, too. There is no "storage" inside a fuel cell; the fuel is stored in a separate tank. I do know that hydrogen fuel-storage tanks are bulky, but electric-car batteries are bulky too, and weigh more (because of also storing the oxidizer). You do know that overall automobile weight is a factor relating to how big/powerful its drive system has to be?
Flywheels are NOT necessarily super-heavy, especially when they don't have to store energy for a long travel range. Kinetic energy stored goes up with the square of the rotation speed. So if flywheel A spins twice as fast as B, and both weigh the same, A will be storing 4 times the energy. Modern use of carbon fiber can allow construction of flywheels that spin many times faster than ordinary heavy steel flywheels, for greater energy storage with less weight. This was known back in 1970. Do some research! (Not to mention, you appeared to ignore what I wrote about only using a flywheel for rapid acceleration, no 50-mile range needed).

someone trying to unload lackluster tesla stocks?

[argStyopa]

Ridiculous. Yet another "world changing vision" brought to you by an entitled, elitist cadre of the Bay Area who fail to understand that the rest of the world doesn't live like they do.

The opening premise "well, a lot of people adopted smartphones rapidly, so they'll adopt this too" already smells like snake oil: people adopted smartphones because they were BETTER in almost every conceivable way to the previous generation of phones.*
*would they have done so, if one had to charge the phone for 12 minutes for every 1 you talked? I doubt it.

Let me debunk the list of putative "improvements" individually: (I apologize to /. users for the stupid format characters, but /. still doesn't understand pasted quotes/apostrophes.)

"It's more fun to drive, with smooth, transmission-less acceleration. For most of us it is the fastest car we have ever owned."
- Maybe it's more fun to drive. A vanishingly tiny % of people in this world buy cars primarily based on their "fun". Nobody gives a flying hoot about 'transmissionless' acceleration, nor does 'fastest' really matter in a world with speed limits.

"Itâ(TM)s quieter at all times and nearly silent at low speeds."
- I've never once heard someone buying a new car based on how quiet it is. Never. (OK, I *have* heard of motorheads not buying a car because it's not loud enough.) Considering some of the instant off/on tech in the newest cars, they're exactly as quiet as the Magical Tesla while idling, ie silent/off. And aside from older cars which will naturally phase out of the system, the bulk of noise from a highway is tires, not engines.

"It is always âoefullâ every morning one drives it and you never need to go to a gas station."
- Simply, completely, thoroughly wrong. Well, unless you sleep 3 days at a stretch.Further, I don't know about you, but I drive more than once just in the morning.
According to (https://www.cars.com/articles/2013/11/how-quickly-does-the-tesla-model-s-battery-charge/) the nominal charge for a non-special installation (ie a normal outlet) is FIVE MILES PER HOUR OF CHARGE. That's ridiculous - 60 hours to "fill the tank" to the full range, or (roughly) needing to charge 5x the driving duration.
The average commute in the US is 25 minutes. Assuming highway speeds, that's 25 miles. That means to stay 'level' in terms of range, the car will need to charge 5 hours for each leg of the commute. Go to visit a friend in a city 250 miles away? Sorry, we can't go to a movie, my car needs to charge *four hours* for us to get to the cinema and back.

"It has a user interface - including, notably, its navigation system - as superior to that of other cars as the iPhone was to earlier phones."
- I can't really refute iphone-zealotry, that's religion, not fact. It probably does have a better UI than most other firms, as they really made the most of the newest touch-screens and systems (and had no aesthetic legacy to maintain), but this is likely to be adopted relatively soon by other automakers. Nothing particularly special here, except indeed being a little ahead of the likely curve.

"It is connected to the Internet."
Christ. You know that you should really be paying attention to the road, right? 4g works well enough for map updates, which is really all the driver should care about. And personally I find the modern paradigm of everyone sitting in the car watching their own movies, playing their own games, reading their own narcissistic social media addiction reprehensible. We already suffer from an atomized society generally, you're saying it's laudable to encourage this? I have an alternative entertainment that is perfect for trips in the car with your kids or friends: "conversation".

"It continuously gets better with automatic updates and software improvements."
The Tesla is comparable to a fixed-hardware console. Ever bricked your Xbox360? In any case, electronic systems in petro-cars also get better with updates and software.

Re:Efficiency

[Aighearach]

You're right of course, but another combination that works with a fuel cell instead of a battery is a small flywheel for acceleration. Assuming that you charge the flywheel to slow down, instead of braking, it is nearly free. It won't give you a sportscar, but it can be enough to overcome the steadiness of the fuel cell output to allow normal driving.

Even if you also assume that the near future will have more efficient hydrogen generation, it still sucks; if there was a hydrogen sea to pump it out of, you'd still be stuck under 60% efficiency to get the ions into the tank. You can't just pour it in like gas, it takes energy to encourage the chemical reaction that gets the ions into the metal.

When the size and weight come down, I do expect them to be a good choice for long-haul shipping. They will probably beat batteries for electric aircraft eventually, too. The fuel cell itself can be designed as a functional part of the frame. If you don't have to count the metal in the cell, or at least you can subtract the aluminum it displaces, then the density improves a lot. For a passenger car that isn't a benefit nearly as soon, because there is limited weight going towards strength; weight and safety are from crumple zones and that is not a good candidate for replacement because there would be different performance when full or empty. The frame itself is not all that heavy.

Re:Efficiency

[shess]

It is known that hydrocarbon powered cars typically turn chemical energy into mechanical motion at about 35% efficiency (45% for Diesels). It is known that large power plants generate electricity from fuel at about 50% efficiency. The process of charging a battery is about 75% efficient, turning electrical energy into chemical energy. The reverse is also true, for battery discharge (75%), and the electric motors of an electric car are about 95% efficient. We multiply these numbers to get the overall efficiency of conversion of original fuel energy into mechanical motion for the car: about 27%. Even allowing for regenerative braking energy-recovery, it looks like ordinary cars win the efficiency thing here. We need better than that!

Traditional cars and power plants don't use the same inputs. Even if electric cars are less efficient, they can potentially be powered by renewable energy sources rather than hydrocarbons.

Re:Efficiency

[Wycliffe]

You could easily counter any effect of a flywheel by having multiple flywheels turning in opposite directions.

Definition of competitive

[sjbe]

I don't understand your statement

Didn't think it was all that complicated. Your ICE car can go 200-500 miles between refueling. The Tesla Model S can go 200+ miles between refueling stops. That is good enough for plenty of people and hence it is competitive.

My ICE car has effectively unlimited range.

No it does not because you still have to refuel it no different than an EV. The only difference right now is that it for long distance trips it is much quicker to refuel a ICE vehicle. If you drive less than the full range of the vehicle on a given day (most people drive 50 miles per day) then the EV is actually more convenient since you can refuel it at home when the car is not in use. For local driving I'd MUCH rather have an EV in most cases. For long distance driving you want a ICE or a hybrid right now. In time that may change.

Re:Definition of competitive

[avandesande]

Where are you getting these numbers? What gas passenger car goes less than 350 miles?

Re:Easy Conclusion If Perceived Costs & Range

[Smidge204]

In 2013, the average price for a new car was $32K. Many EVs available right now are below that even *before* any state or federal incentives, and many more hit that point after incentives.

Meanwhile, the average price for a used car was $16.8K. I don't know where you'd get a sub-$10K used vehicle from a reputable source (versus a cash transaction in someone's driveway...)
=Smidge=

Re:Easy Conclusion If Perceived Costs & Range

[Grishnakh]

The range thing is a red herring, and the people who complain about it are short-sighted and stupid. Even right now, EVs are perfectly adequate for most families, since most families have multiple vehicles. It's very simple: one vehicle is electric, and the other is gas. When you need to drive far, you take the gas-burner. For daily commuting, take the EV. For a dual-earner household, obviously this means that one of the spouses will be driving the noisy gas car, but it's better than both driving them. Right now, there's only so many people doing this because EVs are relatively expensive, but that's changing and before long they'll be much more common, even if used mainly for commuter vehicles.

These short-sighted idiots were the same people who said they'd never use a smartphone, and now they all have one. They were the same morons who said they'd never have a computer at home, and now they all have one. They were the same morons who said that 3 TV channels was all they needed, and now they all have cable, and pretty soon even though they're saying they'll never give up cable, they'll be cutting the cord with the rest of us Netflix users. These people are sheep: they follow trends after enough early adopters do it and prove that it works, even though not long before they were loudly proclaiming that "this will never happen".

EVs don't need any more range than current models to be completely viable replacements for at least half of the US's personal automobile fleet. Their main problem is cost: nice ones (Model S) are really expensive, and cheaper ones are $10k more expensive than similarly-appointed gas cars. Hybrids are a decent middle ground, and honestly I'm surprised those haven't done better, but I guess having an ICE plus an electric drivetrain ends up inflating the cost too much, but the Priuses have been doing very well.

Re:restaurants

[TemporalBeing]

what's to stop a Waffle House, IHOP, or similar just having a charging stations outside? I think these "gas" stations or any future derivatives are dead, especially if commercial or environmental regulations are lifted/ nonexistent for electric charging stations.

Nothing; it's actually a perfect business for hotels, restaurants and entertainment venues to get into - put chargers in the parking lots to encourage people to stop in, add a small portion to the bill if they use the charge. They'll very quickly replace the gas stations, which no one really wants to stop at or go inside of.

Re:Efficiency

[PatientZero]

In addition to this, people will be plugging in to recharge at different times. Some nine-to-five people get home at 6pm and stay home with their families while others go out with friends and plug in later in the evening. And then there are the people on night and graveyard shifts. Add to that those with short commutes who will recharge minimally each day and others that will recharge at work.

Eventually, by exploiting a smart grid and your schedule, your car could delay charging for a few hours when it knows usage will be lower and prices cheaper.

Re:Efficiency

[VernonNemitz]

You are sounding like a zealot. I did do significant research quite a few years ago, and back then the energy efficiency for charging/discharging electric batteries was only about 2/3, not the 3/4 I estimated in the prior post. I was aware that there have been improvements over the years, but there are still efficiency losses due to electrical resistance inside batteries. Why else do laptop batteries overheat!? If today's battery efficiency is about 90% instead of the 75% I estimated, GOOD. But you still have to "whack it down twice" because you have to charge the battery to make it usable, and you have to discharge the battery to actually use it, and there are internal resistance losses both ways. SO: 50% power-plant efficiency, and 90% twice for the batteries, and 95% for the electric drive motor get us to about 38% (add some for regenerative braking).
Next, you ignored the fact that there are a lot of Diesel cars on the road, that run at greater efficiency than gasoline engines, even if the production-car efficiency is less than the ideal. But that's why the cost of Diesel fuel is no longer less than the cost of ordinary gasoline, like it was before all those cars hit the road (and with turbocharging, they are as quick to accelerate as most ordinary cars). The cost of Diesel fuel, relative to gasoline, has prevented wider adoption. You can expect Diesel-car owners to be among the last to switch to electrics, if the efficiency isn't improved. Not to mention one other factor: as more people do switch to electrics, the demand for gasoline will drop, and its cost will also drop (has famously dropped months ago because of an increase in supply, but the Law of Supply and Demand isn't done with it yet). Cheap gas will keep those cars on the road longer.
Next, you are not making sense, talking about "Fuel cell storage efficiency", because fuel cells don't do storage; fuel is stored separately from the cells (and I specified that with sunlight production, the efficiency of fuel generation can be ignored). Since internally they work basically like batteries, if batteries can work with 10% internal electric-resistance losses, fuel cells should be able to do the same. It is just a matter of design. That's why I estimated 75% for fuel cells, just like I did for batteries. I am aware that hydrogen fuel tanks are bulky, but electric-car batteries are bulky, too, and weigh more, because of the oxidizer they store along with the fuel.
Finally you need to do some research about flywheels. They are NOT necessarily heavy, because the energy they can store goes up as the square of the rotation speed; if Flywheel A rotates twice as fast as B, then A stores 4 times the energy of B. Modern use of carbon fiber can allow the construction of flywheels that spin many times faster than heavy steel, so weigh considerably less while storing more energy. This was known back in 1970! Not to mention, you ignored what I wrote about only using flywheel energy-storage for rapid car-acceleration, no need for even a 50-mile range.

Re:Jeremy clarkson does not approve

[NatasRevol]

Depends on the manufacturer.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/...

Re:Efficiency

[VernonNemitz]

I specified "motor/generator" --that's how you spin up the flywheel, and that's how you get energy out of it (95% efficiency both ways). Are you deliberately ignoring things I wrote? Do you think there is a problem running wires along gimbal-frames and through holes in gimbal-axes?

Re:Efficiency

[laie_techie]

Consider replacing the electric commuter-car battery with a flywheel. We have the tech to do this for ranges of 50 miles or so.

That "50 miles or so" limit is holding me back. I commute almost 30 miles each way (housing near my office is prohibitively expensive), so I need a longer range. I need even longer range for road tripping or weekend outings. I'm not saying everyone has the same needs, just that this solution doesn't (yet) work for me.

Re:Efficiency

[VernonNemitz]

Yes, the danger of a broken flywheel has always been a concern. The recommended solution was to put it inside a shell that can "take it" --which is much easier to do if the flywheel is made of carbon fiber instead of steel. Also, the shell can be somewhat evacuated, to reduce air-resistance losses.

Not until they're truly self-driving

[j2.718ff]

I don't mean this because self-driving is cool. Rather, it will make electric vehicles practical in ways they can't be today, particularly in cities.

If you live in suburbia and have a garage, charging your electric car is no problem. If you live in a condo or apartment, you may not have such easy access to electricity. The solution would be to have charging stations available in cities. But then you'd have to walk from the station to your destination to wait for the car to charge. But if the car can drop you off, and then drive itself to the charging station, there's no longer a problem.

Come to think of it, if this sort of system existed, car share / rental programs would instantly become a lot more convenient.

Re:Not until they're truly self-driving

[rch7]

There is no any fundamental problems that make an outlet in condo parking place impossible. It costs very little money to install it, and even add a meter. You don't see outlets because there are very few EVs and homeowners don't care. As soon as ESs become more popular, you will get outlets in condo parking too.

Re:Not until they're truly self-driving

[j2.718ff]

There is no any fundamental problems that make an outlet in condo parking place impossible. It costs very little money to install it, and even add a meter. You don't see outlets because there are very few EVs and homeowners don't care. As soon as ESs become more popular, you will get outlets in condo parking too.

This implies that the condo provides parking - some do, but some require car-owning residents to use street parking. Even in complexes that do provide parking, not all of it is easy or cheap to install charging stations.

I agree that as EVs become more popular, so will charging stations. However, this is something of a chicken and egg issue - someone who rents an apartment may be interested in an EV, but have no way to charge it while at home. He might even try moving, and find it difficult to find an apartment that does offer charging. But if EVs become truly popular, the day may come when a landlord has a much harder time renting an apartment that does not include charging stations, and is thus motivated to upgrade his properties.

Re:Efficiency

[VernonNemitz]

Apparently the other guy didn't read all of what I wrote. I DID end up talking about using a flywheel in conjunction with a fuel cell. The fuel cell would provide steady low-level power (20 HP or less); the flywheel would accommodate rapid acceleration (and store energy from regenerative braking). There is no need for the flywheel to be so big/dangerous as one which is built to provide for significant-distance driving. And the main reason for using a flywheel instead of a battery is that 95% energy-conversion efficiency of motor-generators.

Re:Efficiency

[VernonNemitz]

Color me slightly embarrassed. After posting the first of the two very-similar messages, it disappeared, and I thought maybe I hadn't actually posted it, but I most certainly had done a full-page-refresh. I didn't notice that the page had more than 250 comments, and that comment was one of the later ones, and therefore not part of the default display. So I ended up writing the message all over again...

I know about me

[SuperKendall]

but I need to stretch my legs and rest a bit after driving 180ish miles. so stopping every 3 hours is still roughly in line with typical driving practices

I enjoy the five minute stop to get gas every 300 miles or so in my own car on road trips. I do NOT enjoy a 30 minute stop every 200 miles... That's called a "breakdown".

That's the kind of thing that turns a 10 hour one-day drive into a 17 hour mandatory two-day trip.

It's not like that is so uncommon either, lots of families I know only really stop for lunch, otherwise they are driving very long distances per day with short refueling stops.

Something else no-one seems to consider is the vastly larger number of "refueling" stations required if most cars are electric, each car has to stop for 10x longer, at shorter intervals...

Gas stations are not going to go away

[TwoEyedJack]

Sure electric vehicles might replace commuter vehicles at some point. But what about all the tractor trailers, delivery vehicles, construction vehicles, pickups pulling boats or horse trailers or camping trailers, landscapers, etc. These kinds of vehicles will need to buy liquid fuel for quite some time. Also, the average age of cars in the US is around 12 years. People aren't going to get rid of perfectly good cars just because. Gas stations are going to be around for quite some time.

Re:Jeremy clarkson does not approve

[The-Ixian]

I guess I don't have a problem with the "throaty growl of a well tuned engine" as long as you keep the heavy acceleration to the freeway or rural (no houses around) roads.

It just seems like there is a direct relationship between cars with a "throaty growl" and car owners with heavy right feet.

I live on the 3rd floor of an apartment complex off of an, otherwise quiet residential street, and I can't keep my windows open in the summer due to people (I can only assume) flooring their accelerators as they start off from a stop sign on the corner...

This phenomenon also happens when I am out walking or biking. The "throaty growl" cars seem to accelerate more heavily when there is an audience present.

Batteries...

[poemtree]

EVs are not necessarily cleaner or better because they need batteries. Mining of the rare earth metals required for the batteries is mostly monopolized by China, and is an unregulated ecologically damaging industry. A shift to electric will move the US from a being energy independent with fossil fuels to being dependent on Chinese rare earths. At any point, China could make our lives miserable by cutting off exports of rare earths, making it very expensive to make or buy batteries. The cost to restart rare earth mining in the US is in the tens of billions, and a decade or more away after all the lawsuits by the eco-lobby.

Re:Batteries...

[rch7]

This is grossly exaggerated or complete lie. Cobalt, most expensive part of batteries, is produced in many countries. 40% in Congo and less than 10% in China. Sure China imports a lot of it as China is world factory. The US isn't energy independent and will never be, global trade doesn't allow it.

You have that backwards

[SuperKendall]

Self-Driving cars are what will drive mass sales of electric cars. Electric cars will always be a novelty until that time.

Self driving means cheap taxis

[erice]

Auto ownership has probably hit it's peak, self-driving cars will make the expense of individual ownership less and less appealing in general. And owning an ICE for road trips is ridiculous. Just rent the car.

When did we reach the conclusion that self driving cars is some sort of given fact?

I think it is pretty straight forward that private ownership will decrease though it is not often presented well.

1) Self drive will make taxi's much cheaper by removing the cost of paying the driver.
2) Convenience will increase too, partly through better allocating the available vehicles. This is made easier with self drive since it does not have to link up with an available driver but it is also through better information technology predicting where cars need to be.
3) With cheaper and more convenient taxi's more people will use them. Those that can only marginally justify owning a car will give up their cars. The increased use will also make taxi's more convenient creating a bit of a feedback cycle.

However, I am not convinced that, outside of dense urban areas, the ratio of people who can practically give up their cars even with cheap taxis is high enough to produce the "almost no-one owns a car" utopia. I think most suburban dwellers will still own cars. They just won't drive them. The last driven as much by the cost of insuring a manual drive car as the convenience of autonomous drive.

Re:Efficiency

[Stickybombs]

3.75 billion kwh/night * 365 nights = 1369 billion kwh/year, or almost exactly 1/3 of our yearly energy production of 4093 billion kwh.

One third of our energy budget going into automobiles is certainly a significant portion of yearly production, but not nearly as impossible as the above math made it sound.

Add solar and wind power, new generating stations, etc., plus not everyone will switch over to electric immediately.

Re:Efficiency

[don depresor]

So, let me get this right:

You want to substitute a heavy battery pack with an efficency that's around 80-90% and with a single electrical motor.

And you want to use something that will be heavy too unless you have magical weightless flywheels, with a pair of electrical motors (one in the flywheel and one to drive the wheels) that also add to the wheight and since you apply the electrical motors twice, kills some of the efficency advantage you propose because that extra motor has an efficency that's around 90-95%, without considering aditional mechanical loses.

Ever heard of overcomplicated solutions?

The gains for your idea are minimal:
The flywheel is a mechanicall solution, and as such it's WAY more prone to breakdowns.
Modern electrical motors require rare earths ,and considering you now need 2 instead of one you're diminishing the enviromental advantage of not having to manufacture a battery.
The safety doesn't improve either, because flywheels are just a different kind of danger vs Li-ion.

Nobody in 2005 could imagine a smartphone!?

[im_thatoneguy]

75% of US consumers and over 85% of US millennials own smartphones. In fact, in 2005 few if any of the futurists would have even been able to imagine the kind of device most of us now depend upon.

Really? I guess that handful of futurists who could forsee it must have been rocking Palm Treos in 2002. Or maybe they had a pocketPC in 2000.

I was browsing the internet (through my PCMCIA dial up modem) on a PocketPC and running apps and playing games on the touchscreen in 2001. Obviously a cellular connection would have been desirable but at the time bandwidth was terribly constrained however it wasn't like anybody had any trouble thinking "Well if cellular internet is slow today, eventually we'll get at least dial up or DSL speeds."

If futurists didn't see Smartphones coming they were stone dead blind.
 

Zombie Apocalypse

[DarthVain]

Yes well the electric car will eventually make the Zombie Apocalypse a lot less fun... I mean at least you could scrounge, steal, and fight for conventional fuel to keep on running.... What are you going to do now? Use a hand crank dynamo for 12 hours to get 5min of drive time?

Then again, if you chain a bunch of zombies to a treadmill and stand at the other end, you basically just solved all your renewable energy needs! Then some warlord is going to take over a fitness gym and convert it into a power plant... oh the possibilities!

Re:Zombie Apocalypse

[Locke2005]

"How many miles per brain are you gettin'?"

Re: Efficiency

[VernonNemitz]

That 95-99% efficiency is really good, and if accurate I would be glad to replace the suggested flywheel with a higher-energy-efficient battery, for quick acceleration. I would still want a fuel cell though, for long range, and less total weight (because of not carrying lots of oxidizer around inside the batteries).
Regarding "well to wheel" efficiency, thanks for the extra data to consider. Note that when ordinary coal-fired power plants generate the electricity for electric cars, we still have energy invested in digging and transporting coal. Charging batteries (or making fuel-cell fuel) from renewable resources is the best long-term way to go.

Re:restaurants

[The-Ixian]

Good riddance too. Gas stations have been the toilets of America for too long.

Re:Efficiency

[VernonNemitz]

One other advantage of a flywheel over a battery is that it can be "charged" very rapidly. If you could get it charged near your workplace, a 50-mile range flywheel car could work for you. But I only brought up the subject because flywheels with motor-generators were so much more energy-efficient than any batteries I knew about, and wanted to work toward using them only for rapid acceleration and regenerative-braking storage.

Re:Efficiency

[lgw]

They can potentially be powered by unicorn giggles, but there's still a lot of coal power in the US, and coal-powered cars aren't great by any measure. Worse, the only "renewable" (what a BS buzzword) power that scales is solar, and that's a poor choice for the mostly-nighttime load of charging cars.

There's no energy shortage in the first place to be worried about: the only good reason to buy an electric car is if it's a better car for the price. The Tesla Model S still isn't really, at the price, unless you're buying for 0-60 times (which I might well do), but for the first time it's close. The real test will be the Model 3 - potentially revolutionary, but so are a lot of things you can't actually buy.

Re:Efficiency

[VernonNemitz]

Both the heavy battery pack and the motor-generator-plus-flywheel (I never called it magical or weightless, but this data suggests it can weigh a lot less than a battery pack) need at least one electric motor to drive the car wheels (did you know one electric motor can drive a pair of wheels without a mechanical differential?). If the battery charges/discharges at 90% efficiency, while the flywheel does it at 95% efficiency, guess which is superior? (And "rare earth" metals are not actually all that rare; the problem has been chemically separating them from each other, to get the particular ones we actually want to use, and the pollution associated with the process. Obviously that technology needs to be improved.)
Another poster has claimed that modern lithium batteries can have better-than-95% efficiency, making them better than a motor-generator-flywheel. If accurate, the only advantage a flywheel would have is a very fast charging time.

Re:Efficiency

[Smidge204]

But for the cost and weight, a battery is better than a flywheel in essentially every aspect. For however much you reduce the required size of a flywheel, you can reduce the battery size as well.

Battery systems are damn close to 100% efficient if you're not too close to fully charged or fully discharged, or not diving the current much higher than 1.0C.

There is no advantage to using a flywheel at all. None.
=Smidge=

Solar Flares

[recharged95]

I like electric cars for basic transport. Truly no nonsense.

Gas cars are actually more fun in the end imo.

But wait until that X class solar flare hits and knocks the power grid out for a day or two. Doesn't matter if you have a garage at that point. Then we'll see if electric makes sense.

Re:Solar Flares

[Areyoukiddingme]

But wait until that X class solar flare hits and knocks the power grid out for a day or two. Doesn't matter if you have a garage at that point. Then we'll see if electric makes sense.

Right now, if I can afford the only fully capable electric car available (the Tesla Model S), I can also afford all the solar panels and Tesla Powerwalls I need to go off the grid entirely, saving not only my electric car from the X class solar flare but also every other electrical thing in my house.

Re:Solar Flares

[rch7]

It is funny, why just for a day? Do you think martians will come next day to the rescue and produce all that failed grid equipment that takes months to manufacture? Do you really think gas stations will continue to operate without electricity? Or can you get gas by just digging deep enough in your backyard?

Solar panels however may survive just fine.

Re:Jeremy clarkson does not approve

[Anonymous Coward]

have you read that most of these cars have fake engine noise injected in the stereo to make it sound better to the owner? kind of sad.
http://2paragraphs.com/2015/01/fake-engine-noise-now-added-to-make-drivers-feel-powerful/

Re:How will I cut my grass?

[NoOneInParticular]

Try a solar powered lawn mower. Roomba style. Just have it out on the lawn and let it mow continuously.

Oh boy, I can't wait!

[bistromath007]

Since electrics are likely still going to remain toys for middle class people, this will mean that people like me who are too poor to buy one are going to find leaving town even less possible! Thanks, Elon Musk!

Re:Jeremy clarkson does not approve

[lgw]

Most cars get "automatic updates" from the dealer whenever you bring it into service. There's usually a long list of non-critical recalls that neither the manufacturer nor he dealer is keen to tell you about, but if you get service at the dealer all the fixes will be quietly applied. More and more, these are firmware patches.

So, to answer your question "so commonly that most people never realize there was an update". Tesla is somewhat unique in adding new features this way, but fixes are quite common.

Re:Efficiency

[VernonNemitz]

Flywheels can be charged up lots faster than batteries. But actually, my personal preference is for supercapacitors, with almost perfect charge/discharge efficiency, rapid charging rates, AND they never wear out. But so far as I know, nobody offers supercapacitors potent enough to be used in cars, even if only for acceleration-power and regenerative-braking energy storage (while a fuel cell is still superior to batteries for long range). That's why I never mentioned them in any of my prior posts here. Does anyone know if the supercapacitor total-capacity situation is likely to change soon?

Bike culture

[GPS Pilot]

The car lobby and car culture in the US has been successful at limiting the options for biking.

My observation is that Europe developed a "bike culture" out of necessity because it was economically devastated by two world wars. The resources just weren't available to effect the same high rates of car ownership as in the U.S. The pressure continues to this day, with fuel prices of $6 - $10 per gallon (after converting from Euros and liters).

Re:Efficiency

[VernonNemitz]

A coal-powered car could work if it had a Stirling engine (about 45% efficiency). Stirling engines are external-combustion, like steam engines.

Re:Efficiency

[kaiser423]

What I've seen are two horizontal flywheels spinning in different directions. Theoretically nulls out the force -- there's always a bit left, but usually manageable and a mere fraction of just the one rotating.

Re:Efficiency

[Script Cat]

Flywheels are great for theoretical physicists not so great for material engineers.

Re:Jeremy clarkson does not approve

[AuMatar]

No, we don't. Most people are not car people. A car is a tool. We don't care about it specs, and I don't want it to make any more noise than it has to. It adds nothing to the experience and annoys anyone else around you.

Hell, i even enjoy a nice ride in low traffic- but the sound isn't part of the fun, it just detracts from the radio or the sounds of nature around me.

You're a very tiny minority.

The tipping point is economy.

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

From what it seems, electricity costs less to travel, especially if you have cheap solar panels. However, you can get 100,000 miles of gasoline buying a 10,000$ car over a $20,000 electric plugin hybrid. $10,000 /(3$gallon)=3,333 gallons of gasoline * 32 miles to a gallon = 100,000 miles of travel. If an electric plugin hybrid car can get around $15,000 or less, then it will be a game changer for people who care about economy.

Price difference more that the lifetimes gas.

[Script Cat]

When I was shopping for a car last year, I looked at the electrics available.
The Tesla costs more than a house so it was right out.
The price difference of the cheapest electric cars was larger that a lifetimes worth of gas for the the comparable gas vehicle. That is even neglecting the cost of electricity. This needs to be fixed or it doesn't matter what tipping points are posted in the blogs.
Electric cars price most people right out of the market.

Hybrids make sense for trucks

[sjbe]

When you scale down to car or truck size, mechanical transmissions work reasonably well, and are very efficient these days.

True but...

There is a significant loss, compared to a purely mechanical setup, that occurs when you turn mechanical energy into electrical energy in a generator, just to send it over the wire and convert it right back to mechanical energy at the wheel.

By that logic hybrids in cars wouldn't make any sense either but they do. They are demonstrably more efficient at comparable horsepower even in the face of the conversion losses. Doesn't matter if they are plug in hybrids or not. Plug-in technology helps but it isn't a necessity.

If the bulk of the electricity stored in the batteries comes from a cheap source (i.e. an outlet), it still makes sense, but if you are talking about a high endurance application where the vast majority of electricity is generated locally it doesn't.

Being able to plug in helps but hybrids without plug-in tech still make sense economically. I think for something like a semi or a UPS truck it would be almost a no brainer. Honestly unless there is something huge I'm overlooking I think hybrids make WAY more sense for commercial trucks than they do for passenger cars.

Re:Hybrids make sense for trucks

[s122604]

By that logic hybrids in cars wouldn't make any sense either but they do. They are demonstrably more efficient at comparable horsepower even in the face of the conversion losses.

hybrid cars do well because the electric motor and regenerative brakes help them out greatly in city driving..

BUT, you are overgeneralizing: A hybrid setup, be it a series hybrid, or a parallel hybrid is NOT demonstrably more efficient in high endurance constant speed operation..

Energy transfer is not free. A generator that puts out X watts of electric energy has to have X + {some number} of watts of mechanical put into it by an internal combustion engine. And likewise an electric motor that has to supply Y number of watts to a wheel hub has to have itself Y + {some number} of watts of electric energy put into it. Mechanical transmissions are not lossless either, but modern ones do quite good, especially when they lock into their highest gear and the IC engine driving them stays at a constant RPM in the RPM range where they are most efficient. A internal combustion engine, chugging along at a constant 1800 RPM into a good modern tranny at high gear is going to do better than if it was running a generator that was charging a battery, that was hooked up to a wire, that ran to a motor, which turns a wheel. This is precisely why the first generation of chevy volts locked in to a purely mechanical mode at highway speeds, it doesn't make sense to hybridize in that use case.

Re:someone trying to unload lackluster tesla stock

[k6mfw]

A vanishingly tiny % of people in this world buy cars primarily based on their "fun".

Occasionally I see articles about "how fun it is to drive cars" which I think the last time I had fun driving a car was way back in 20th century as a young dude going "cruising and looking for chicks." I second your comment and I don't give a hoot about how fun it is. Traffic is slow, congested, PITA when I have spare time it is not about going "cruising," it will be going places to meet and interact with people, or viewing nature. Exception would be dealing with chores and repairs at home. I sure not going to spend time in the damn car!

Good comments you wrote and yes, probably someone trying to boost stocks or sales. Reminds me when wine sales are down, articles appear from physicians about benefits of a glass of wine now and then.

Re:Jeremy clarkson does not approve

[NatasRevol]

Not buying that.

Most dealers would charge you for that, as a line item or an upsell.

Re:Jeremy clarkson does not approve

[dj245]

This quote got me:

"Electric cars will be better than any alternative, including the loud, inconvenient, gas-powered jalopy,"

Seriously, do people not like the throaty growl of a well tuned engine? Heck, even kids today put the coffee can mufflers for at least that type sound (I don't find it as pleasant as better, large engine sound, but to each his own.)

I've never driven an actual car, but I bought the Voltic in GTA5 without knowing it was an electric vehicle. Despite the speed and good looks, I hated it. Without the engine sound it just seemed... wrong somehow. I think I ran it out of battery also which didn't help my impression.

Re:Efficiency

[toadlife]

I don't have the inclination to provide data for everything (s)he said, but I have personal experience with charging efficiency and this study coincides with it...

https://www.veic.org/docs/Tran...

TL/DR:

* 80%-90+% efficiency when charging at a rate higher than 2kW (L2/240V) depending on rate of charge and climate.

70%-85% efficiency when charging below 2kW (L1/120V charging)

My Chevy Volt has 10.7 kWh usable battery and based on OnStar data it takes roughly 12-13kWh to recharge. That's 82-89% efficiency, which perfectly matches the study's findings. Unfortunately the Volt only charges at a maximum rate of 3.3kW. A 6.6kW charger would get efficiency well into the 90s.

Tipping point is model 3 in 2 years

[WindBourne]

Most ICE vehicles in 25-50k range are fairly slow. They will run 0-60 in 5-10 seconds. Model 3 will no doubt start in the 5s and go to 3s based on options. In addition, the vehicle will be considered superior to all other ICE vehicles in that range. My guess is that is when customers will insist that car makers quit focusing on masdive profits and focus on great vehicles.

Ahh. AFM speaking

[WindBourne]

I get so tired of fucking MBA types that BS without understanding what they are talking about. Numerous studies have shown that the grid and generators in america do just fine with 100% of vehicles moved over, as long as less than 25% charge in the daytime. In addition, if less than 15% charge in the daytime, there is a MAJOR savings to utilities. And as to the rest of your tripe, others have already addressed the fact that not a thing was true.

Listen to the Orc

[waspleg]

he's only concerned for your safety...

Re:Listen to the Orc

[Grishnakh]

Orcs are moral and trustworthy beings, who have been unfairly cast as ugly, evil monsters by warmongering imperialists led by the tyrannical Gandalf the Grey and the elves. Read about the true story here.

Re: Jeremy clarkson does not approve

[WindBourne]

Many of the cars today actually put speakers outside to make more noise.

in fact, car makers would be smart to allow adf-ons for such things.

When they're American-sized & priced, maybe...

[sethstorm]

If you want adoption to increase, make them like the cars that environmentalists want to kill off - large & inexpensive.

Re:Jeremy clarkson does not approve

[lgw]

Not, dealers don't charge you for recalls - ever. That's why they're recalls. They charge the manufacturer, and usually make a bit of money in the process. Some things they won't fix unless you complain, but there's a list of things they'll fix the next time they see your car, if it needs them (because they're fast and the dealer makes a little money doing them). There's often a non-descriptive line buried in the invoice somewhere that lists some recall numbers or just mentions them obliquely, with no charge associated, so most people never notice.

How much this varies by brand, I don't know, but certainly the luxury dealers do this, and for safety-related recall everyone does (for the safety ones you'll probably get a postcard about the recall, but the dealer will still just do it automatically). It's not like they hide all this, they just don't call attention to it.

Not so fast

[Locke2005]

The tipping point will come when a usable battery pack costs less than $30,000 (more than a low-end entire car). Sure, the Model S is nice, but at $70,000 to $120,000, it's beyond most people's means. People can keep claiming they are going to come out with and affordable electric with great range "any day real soon now", but until I drive out of a dealership in an electric car with the 200 mile range of a Model S for less than the cost of Honda Civic, I'm going to keep insisting they are full of shit. (Yeah, the Bolt sounds cool, but again, I'll believe it when I can actually purchase it.)

Re:Efficiency

[lgw]

I'm actually a huge fan of the idea of an electric car with an external-combustion range extender under the hood. High-efficiency turbines (of the sort they use in industrial power generation, not the sort in aircraft and the M1 Abrams) are very durable, but also quite heavy. However, if we're talking about a 40 HP generator in a 400 HP car, it can afford to be 3x as heavy per HP as a normal car engine. Doubling the efficiency is worth something.

Re:How will I cut my grass?

[Locke2005]

Right... cause the neighbors cat, small children, and various other small animals will NEVER be out on your lawn..

Re:Quite the opposite

[Locke2005]

You forgot: road maintenance currently financed by a tax on gasoline and diesel, not electricity...

personal experience

[enigmatichmachine]

I live in california.
either diesel Golf or e-golf.

Got the e-golf and never looking back. instant torque, full tank every day, and after tax rebates/ fuel/bridge/maintenance savings, the car is costing us $30-50/mo.
Less than my cell phone for a car.
Also have a nice big truck for weekends/road trips. but it's painful to drive an ICE after driving an electric. the power delivery is just so much better in the e-golf it's laughable.

Re:Efficiency

[Blaskowicz]

Stirling engines have their fans but if you're burning stuff anyway, why not just make a steam engine? No doubt you can make a small, powerful enough and strong one. Stirling engines were promising but lost to steam 150 years ago because they broke down.
It's an engineering problem whichever you chose, Stirling or steam. With late-20th-century or early-21st-century tech, you can probably make a very good steam engine and on the cheap (simplicity, low cost). Weight, cost, power density and practical efficiency all matter. Perhaps it's down to particular implementations and needs.

Re:Efficiency

[Blaskowicz]

Fast charging is nice but can be limited by the charging cable or power supply. Very nice though if you can top off your low energy/high power system on the cheap and for not much time (the small flywheel, or perhaps supercapacitors, or even some lowish battery capacity)

You still need at least a high energy/low power system on the side. External combustion engines seem great (can burn any fuel, somewhat cleanly) but free-piston engine is another possibility there.
I'll also stress that total cost absolutely can't be overlooked, and that it is a good proxy for the environmental costs. If you have a $10000 car that runs an ICE on gasoline and gets 50mpg, and the alternative is a $30000 hybrid car that gets 60mpg, sorry but I would take the first one, even as a hard-line environmentalist.

Car shmar.

[Charcharodon]

The tipping point for me won't be an electric car, but an electric 4x4 truck. Then there won't be much of an incentive to come into town except to restock the beer and ammo once in a while.

Not as much progress in New York?

[GPS Pilot]

Watch the AQI loop around New York, and you can see air pollution rising and falling along the commuter roads into the City in lock step with the morning commute. I can't even imagine a New York with 50-80% fewer gas-powered cars on the road.

I've been watching air quality around Denver for 20 years. The used to be thick smog over the city every day. Now, thanks to cleaner-burning engines, it takes a rare, severe weather inversion for that to happen. So I can easily imagine a Denver with no internal combustion engines, because pollution-wise, we've effectively made it 95% of the way to that destination.

I can imagine...

[GPS Pilot]

Driverless changes everything forever in ways we can't yet even imagine.

Something you didn't touch upon: I'm guessing the average privately-owned car is in motion 40 minutes per day; that means it sits around doing nothing 97% of the time. Not good to have so much of society's capital tied up in idle assets! If we could quickly summon driverless cars to get us around, those cars would have much higher utilization rates -- maybe they would be in motion for 13 - 16 hours per day -- in theory, driving the cost of personal transportation way down, with none of the drawbacks of mass transit (like having to walk a mile to a bus stop, and being tied to its fixed schedule).

Sure, that could happen

[roc97007]

...but I think the "tipping point" assumes breakthroughs in technology that aren't quite here yet. And to this degree, it's still speculation. Moreover, the electricity needs to come from somewhere, and I'm not sure that solar by itself scales up sufficiently. Hydrogen fusion for electricity generation might *really* provide the tipping point, but it's been "just a few years from now" for decades.

Moreover, huge new usages for electricity make me a little nervous, considering our aging electricity infrastructure.

Heck, I'd like a fast, silent car that I could refuel at home. But I don't see a personal use case for it yet.

No

[ShieldW0lf]

Betteridge's law of headlines says "No", and that's good enough for me.

Re:How will I cut my grass?

[Dereck1701]

I don't know how practical a solar powered lawn mower would be. Putting a 100 watt panel on a modified push mower would probably be pushing it, and unless you live in an area with no obstructions (trees, houses, etc) the best you can probably hope for is 18% capacitance (8 hours generation, blocked half the time, no weather considerations). If my back of the napkin calculations are right that would only be about 2 kwh every two weeks. I think your average battery powered mower has a battery pack somewhere north of 3kwh. Assuming all of these quick stats are correct its only going to be able to mow your lawn once every 3 weeks or more. Its possible that you could tweak a few things (lighter construction, lightweight blades, etc) but there are going to be some significant limitations.

Re:Trucking

[marciot]

Speaking of horses... Electric cars have not yet reached the Tipping point of surpassing horses in the US.

That's because horses are far greener than electric cars. You put in a biofuel in one end and compost comes out the other. And they have excellent self-driving abilities. So electric cars don't stand a chance against horses.

Re:Efficiency

[Smidge204]

Flywheels can be charged up lots faster than batteries.

That depends entirely on the design of the flywheel/battery. But you know what flywheels do better than batteries? Leak. An idle flywheel will lose energy much faster than an idle battery.

Supercapacitors are neat but have the worst volumetric energy efficiency of then all.
=Smidge=

Re:Efficiency

[VernonNemitz]

Steam cars lost out to gasoline engines because of the water problem --they couldn't build radiators good enough to condense all the water that had been turned to steam (after the steam had expanded in the engine). So they had to frequently fill a water tank, in addition to filling a fuel tank. Today, we might be able to build efficient-enough radiators, especially if we go the route of making only 20 HP steam engines in conjunction with something that allows rapid acceleration and storage of regenerative-braking energy, as described in prior posts. You make a 150 HP steam engine for a car even today, and you, too, will probably have to add water at regular intervals. And then there is the efficiency problem, in that car-sized steam engines are probably only/roughly 40% efficient (the steam engines in large power plants manage 50% efficiency partly because of size-scaling). Better things are available, for cars.

Re: Efficiency

[MrL0G1C]

There should be municipal chargers, you park your car, you charge it, regardless of where you live. If you have your own garage then you use your own charger. If you park on the street then you use a municipal charger.

In the future there should be incentives to use car charging systems that monitor supply and charge when grid output is high particularly from solar.

Re:Efficiency

[MrL0G1C]

What is required is smart car chargers that charge the car when grid output is high, people could have the option between charge ASAP and smart-charge with the default being smart charge.

The solution is just waiting to be implemented.

Re: Efficiency

[avatar avatar]

It's probably also worth considering the energy that goes into getting your energy into the "tank". Oil has to be drilled, refined, shipped and pumped, which is no small feat. I imagine natural gas or renewables would be far less energy intensive, source to tank.

Re:Efficiency

[Blaskowicz]

Incidentally 15 kilowatts is the legal limit here for vehicles called "heavy motorized quadricycles", and that's about 20 HP.
Such a vehicle must be 400 kg maximum + 200 kg payload for transport of passenger, or 550 Kg + 1000 kg for transporting stuff.

My other idea is to simply make a steam engined version of that, and to rely on the high torque. In fact, perhaps a two-gear transmission is useful, the high gear being to lower the amount of torque.

But, truck hybrids are done wrong.

[WindBourne]

All of the hybrids are done wrong. Parallel hybrid is just plain foolish. You inherit everything bad of each system, and it does not give a way out.
Likewise, the current series approach is equally wrong. You take a large regular engine , hook up a generator, and then run a motor with it. Way too much lose.

The right way is for a company to develop a SMALL 30 hp engine that hooks directly to a matching generator. Together, these will be around 100 lbs. Then put 2+ into a vehicle. For a f150 size commercial truck, do 2. For a semi, do 4 or 5. The only place where real loads occur is during acceleration. For cruising at say 70 mph, a semi will only use 50 kw assuming better aerodynamics. As such 3 engines would run to provide the electricity for the motors AND running the cabin.
This is cheaper to make, and cheaper to maintain.

Re:Jeremy clarkson does not approve

[KGIII]

Considering the quality of power from your average consumer generator, I am going to recommend against that. Seriously.... That is an unwise option - you have been warned. I do not know how well the cars, themselves, clean power but I suspect it is not designed for such. Your best choice is to get towed home. You'll get cleaner power from a 100' extension cord than you will with a generator designed for portability and home use. I have read no schematics nor taken one apart but I suspect they are a bit more delicate than your average stove. I'd really suggest ensuring that you use power with very little fluctuation. Scope a generator sometime. Even Honda is not immune and they make some fine generators.

Re:Jeremy clarkson does not approve

[KGIII]

I drive a BMW (most of the time, I suppose) so they tend to get it right the first time. ;-) Any 'updates' have not, thus far, changed a damned thing important or even fixed a bug that I'd noticed. I have not, yet, noticed a bug of any type. In three more weeks my new one will be ready (custom 640Li) and I expect it to be the same as my two year old 740Li. I am not trading in my old one, I already have someone to buy it at a very fair price. The reason for the 640 instead of the 740? Well... ~650 ponies under the hood is why. For every dead dinosaur you do not burn, I am going to burn two.

When the oil runs out? I am going to set up my own factory squishing babies for more oil. I am not even going to waste money with pain relief or euthanasia. I will finally find out if the racist jokes about Mexicans or Italians is true - if so I will pay to import them into my baby squishing factory for a better ROI. Then I am going to strap three extra engines on the outside of my car. They will not serve any function other than burning dead baby oil. They won't let me go faster but they will show the world that I mean business.

Why? Umm... Other than the fact that I am talking sheer nonsense (other than the new car which actually gets pretty decent mileage and the updates) I am Republican (I am not) and that is the way of our kind.

Re:Efficiency

[Joce640k]

It's almost as you heard about gyroscopes but completely missed the bit where you can mount two in parallel (rotating in opposite directions) before you went on the Internet to let everybody know what an expert you are on gyroscopes.

Re:Efficiency

[samwichse]

A fuel cell works very much like a battery, converting chemical energy to electrical energy. So if a battery can be 90% efficient, a fuel cell should be able to have that efficiency, too.

Nope. You need to educate yourself a bit. The theoretical maximum efficiency for a fuel cell running on pure hydrogen and oxygen is 83%. Note: that's the theoretical-you're-not-getting-anywhere-close-to-that-good efficiency, not real-world efficiency.

Re:someone trying to unload lackluster tesla stock

[argStyopa]

I posted the exact same comment in reply to that actual blog post and predictably, the zealots are going nuts.
It probably makes me a bad person, because I knew that they'd get upset, and I knew that not one mind (there) would be changed. That's pretty much the definition of trolling.

Re:Jeremy clarkson does not approve

[NatasRevol]

That was a wild ride. Not sure if I liked it.

Gotta go on it again.

And with it plumes of coal smoke over the country.

[brainchill]

It makes me laugh that no one bothers to look past their facade of green. From the chemicals in the batteries to what it takes to manufacture them to the short life between charges to the fact that 99% of the "Zero Emission Vehicles" in this country are powered by shovel loads of burning coal most people don't want to understand that they haven't even begin to get off of fossil fuels yet.

Cow tipping?

[carbonates]

Is this like cow tipping?

Delusional

[superdave80]

Are We Reaching the Electric Car Tipping Point?

Nope. Next obvious 'no' question, please.

"Electric cars will be better than any alternative, including the loud, inconvenient, gas-powered jalopy,

Loud? Inconvenient? This guy seems to have no clue how a modern gas-powered car works (I have no idea what a jalopy is. Maybe a French word for 'car'?) Another person who thinks people don't like their gas-powered car, even though we gladly buy them by the millions.

The Tesla Model S has demonstrated that a well made, well designed electric car is far superior to anything else on the road. This has changed everything."

I can buy a pretty awesome gas-powered car for $100k. Tesla keeps promising something under $50k, but until I see them out on the road, it is just vaporware. The next person who brings up the Tesla as some type of viable alternative to a $20k gas-powered car gets a timeout in the corner.

Support structure is not yet in place

[TetsuwanPenguin]

I don't think that gasoline stations will go out of business. Some will, but many will convert over to electric charging stations. If electric cars are to become mainstream we'll need plenty of charging stations along every interstate route. Even with a 200-300 mile range, how are you going to handle a 400-500 mile long trip? For average commuting, and short range vacation trips this range may be enough, but what happens when we want to go cross country?

Trucks should just go away

[TheBilgeRat]

Trucks are the main reason why we need to overbuild roads, and also the huge contributor to their constant need for replacement. Building roads for light weight vehicles is much cheaper and easier.

It is connected to the Internet.

[rch7]

"It is connected to the Internet." - sure, what a great idea! Now every hacker from Chinese Army will be able to operate your car ;) And self-driving cars are just around the corner, Internet connected car should be mandatory.
I perfectly understand that Tesla, as any for profit corporation, may be dreaming about some kind of monopoly, when they can remotely disable your car, only they can decide if they want to sell you spare part or not, if you are allowed to fix something on your own car or go to their "authorized" facility that may quote something like $11,000 for bent fender replacement to recoup authorization fees. What a great corporate dream! But no, thanks, I don't want it, I would better stay free from their corporate control.

the concept home ownership is a relic of the past

[rch7]

"the concept home ownership is a relic of the past for most people aside from the extremely rich".
Wow!!! You must be true Californian. The land that taxed and regulated itself to death ;)

Re:Quite the opposite

[rch7]

And it is just small fraction of gas price

Cheap hydrogen

[foreverdisillusioned]

No. The most efficient source of hydrogen is thermal electrolysis powered by a breeder nuclear reactor, or (if the local geology permits) perhaps geothermal power. No CO2 required.

We'd have to get over the initial tech investment first though, and (in the case of nuclear) convince the general public not to go apeshit.

Re:Efficiency

[Aighearach]

AC/DC and DC/DC are way over 90% for the whole conversion from input AC voltage to output DC voltage. The actual AC/DC step is 98%+ efficient.

Just converting the AC to DC, the efficiency is higher the higher the voltage, using a simple diode bridge rectifier. You lose about a volt from the diodes. And now you have pulsed DC. If you use a capacitor to smooth that out, there is little loss. But actually there will be a high frequency switch-mode flyback converter that will take the pulsed DC and convert it to the load voltage with low ripple. This will be way over 90% for any fixed application where you know the input and output voltages at design time. If you need input below ~ 85V then efficiency will be lower. Car battery chargers will always have a known load voltage, so the efficiency will be high.

OTOH converting the 6V AC output of a bicycle bottle generator to AC, the efficiency drops to about 80% because of the fixed voltage drop of the diodes. And if you pedal slowly and that generator only puts out 4V, you're down under 75%, depending on the diodes.

"Some folks" ?

[foreverdisillusioned]

Errr, what else would it be? Electric engines are already fantastic: they offer great performance, don't have to deal with nearly as much heat stress, and there's no need to screw around with a delicate transmission.

OTOH, batteries are currently very expensive, bulky, can't recharge quickly (nor do we yet have the infrastructure to allow swapping at gas stations) and have a limited lifespan. The cheap, energy dense, durable, fast-charging battery has always been the holy grail here.

Flexibility is a feature

[tjstork]

Electric car advocates continually make the flawed argument that because an electric car can have a daily range of 200 miles or so, it can replace the gasoline car for most users. This isn't true at all. People pay for gas cars not just to be commuter appliances, but to have transportation flexibility. Flexibility matters to a lot of people, even if they don't use it, it matters. It's nice to know that if I wanted to, I could drive my gas car the 790 miles to my in-laws house, or 200 miles to my brothers, or 500 miles to my aunts and uncles. It my cheaper for me to take a plane to go by myself, but, add a wife and a couple of kids, then my transportation cost for each trip is about $100-$150 in fuel and my time in driving.

So, with that in mind, I think the real tipping point for electric vehicles will be total operating time on a charge. That means, I want to be reasonably able to drive 10-12 hours on a long road trip with perhaps an hour time for charging. Once that happens, then electric cars will take over for everyone.

With that said, in a married family, having two vehicles, one for road trips, an SUV, and a daily commuter that is electric, makes a great deal of sense. But most families are going to have that "one" vehicle.

Re:Flexibility is a feature

[Ravaldy]

Electric car advocates continually make the flawed argument that because an electric car can have a daily range of 200 miles or so

This means families with 2 cars could easily replace one of their gasoline vehicles with an EV.

Extending the range will be done through battery replacement or fast charging stations. The fast charging stations are a bit of a challenge but it can be done. Proof exists in big cities.

I strongly believe we are at the tipping point. The cost of EVs has dropped significantly and the more users get on board the more options will become available.

Gasoline cars won't go extinct overnight but you will see a gradual decline in their existence.

Result of Technology

[Roger W Moore]

The whole system is designed for people having stuff "they only sometimes need".

That is the result of technology which has massively reduced the cost to produce items. Once the cost to purchase and store the item becomes less than the cost to rent the item (factoring in something extra for the convenience of ownership) people will buy it rather than rent it. However it is not clear to me that the rental model is more efficient: there is an energy cost to moving the device around as well as the cost of the people to manage everything.

Even if you think of massively advanced technology which might let you 3d-print tools, use them, and then break them down and reuse the raw material to build your next item it is still not a given that the energy cost of that would be less than just storing different objects for occasional use.

In a word, no

[kuzb]

Electric cars will never become the mainstay until they can completely replace a gas powered car. Presently there are a number of problems:

1) lack of infrastructure. With charge times being very long on most electrics it takes too long to refuel on the go. Having home users install charging hardware at home is often an added cost, and only solves the problem for one location.

2) up front cost. Most EVs have shit range, and if you want one with good range you're headed in to the luxury car market.

3) very little in the way of used cars. People who buy new cars are suckers who are essentially throwing away 50% of what they paid in the first year of ownership. Used EVs that do show up in this market are often there because they have subpar range or performance.

4) EVs are priced to be a toy for the rich. You'd think that with fewer moving parts and simpler gearboxes that these cars would be cheaper, but this often isn't the case. One can argue that the cost savings over time justifies the higher sticker price, but a lot of people won't take the long term view.

5) Range anxiety. Yes, I get that a lot of people just need a commuter vehicle and that a 100 - 150km range is probably sufficient for those. However, what happens when the edge case comes up where you have to go further, or move to a new city? In a gas powered car this isn't a problem. In an electric this is a major inconvenience.

In order for EVs to really take off public infrastructure has to improve DRASTICALLY. There has to be an EV priced to sell - this means 500km range for ~$20,000 - $25,000 new. People like Musk aren't doing the world many favors by trying to build the most tricked out EV ever for rich people instead of focusing on the majority. This will not drive adoption, it will hurt it.

Re:Efficiency

[Aighearach]

Yeah, but considering the cost and weight of an armored flywheel shell, you're not going to save money; part of what people usually want from the thing. If you only want efficiency, you're not using a flywheel, you're going full electric with an AC motor and regenerative braking. Air resistance should be low though, even with no case. Shaft friction is going to be high enough that air resistance won't have time to become a problem. You could install giant magnets to avoid bearings, but you're not saving power. ;)

The only practicable solution is to accept the (very small) increase in risk and try to place the flywheel well.

Re:Efficiency

[Aighearach]

But for the cost and weight, a battery is better than a flywheel in essentially every aspect. For however much you reduce the required size of a flywheel, you can reduce the battery size as well.

Battery systems are damn close to 100% efficient if you're not too close to fully charged or fully discharged, or not diving the current much higher than 1.0C.

There is no advantage to using a flywheel at all. None.
=Smidge=

The advantage to using a flywheel is that the voltage needed for a battery system is very high, so you need a large number of cells to do anything useful. With a fuel cell setup you don't already have a big battery pack. Often an EV battery pack is 500V. A small flywheel to replace regenerative braking can be useful in that setup, because it is displacing a minimum size full battery pack. They don't really make tiny high voltage battery modules, you'd have to use the minimum size one from a hybrid with a matching motor voltage. If you just boost the voltage using normal means like a switch mode boost power supply, you won't have enough current for it to make sense. The internal resistance of batteries combined with the acceleration use case, you just have to have a module with a lot of cells, since each cell has a fixed (low) voltage.

You're right in that it isn't a good choice; battery technology has moved forwards faster than fuel cells. I thought fuel cells would get there first, but they didn't. That's how non-optimal fuel cells are for cars; they make a flywheel make sense! lol

Re:Efficiency

[Smidge204]

Voltage is only half the equation; the other half is current. What you really care about is POWER.

You can absolutely build an electric car on a 12-volt battery system using exactly the same number of cells as an electric car using a 400-volt battery system. The tradeoff is the 12-volt system will need to deliver just over 33 times as many amps. That's actually not a huge problem for modern batteries, but it makes your conductors and other components huge. So ultimately a balance is struck between voltage and current.

In the end a 12-volt, 400 Amp-Hour battery will have exactly the same energy storage as a 400-volt, 12 Amp-Hour battery.
=Smidge=

Re:Efficiency

[Aighearach]

You're forgetting the practicalities of real parts. Ohm's law is not the main thing you should be using here. You may only care about "total power," but you have to actually deliver the power at the motor voltage. There are very few devices where you can just use a different voltage, and expect it to draw the same total power. Boosting the voltage that much is going to have large switching losses and require a lot of factory-grade power supply parts. The response time won't be very good, either. Plus, leaning on the upper end of the battery current capability will lower the life of the battery. Even batteries rated for higher current levels will have their main endurance specs listed for optimal use; the high current lifespan will be much much shorter.

You will not save money or weight by using that technology, compared to a full lithium battery module. If you were going to use an under-sized battery pack, you'd still use whatever lithium module you could scrape together, not 12V car batteries. How many lithium cells can you fit into a box the size of a 12V battery, limiting yourself to the same total weight? 200V or so, with way more total power, and not only triple the rated life, but operating in the middle part of the performance capability where life is extended.

Remember, internal resistance is a real thing. And voltage conversion is not free. An expensive full-featured motor controller that is efficient under more than one exact setup is going to cost over $5000. A regular controller is going to cost around $2000.

A flywheel can provide direct mechanical force using any of a variety of standard coupling methods.

It is at least true that when buying a device you care about power. Because the design is finished and you can also compare price. But designing a device using real parts, there are a whole bunch of extra terms in the real equations because of the internal resistances and other physical properties of things. It is not actually symmetrical and perfect as you imply.

Re:Efficiency

[Smidge204]

You may only care about "total power," but you have to actually deliver the power at the motor voltage.

And you design the motor for whatever voltage you want.

Boosting the voltage that much is going to have large switching losses and require a lot of factory-grade power supply parts.

Are you at all familiar with how modern electric vehicles work? Because that's essentially how they work... that take DC from the battery and convert it into AC. That requires "a lot of power supply parts."

How many lithium cells can you fit into a box the size of a 12V battery, limiting yourself to the same total weight? 200V or so, with way more total power,

You missed the point of the mental exercise. It doesn't matter what kind of battery you use - you can configure it to favor voltage or current. What matters is the total energy stored because that's going to drive the weight and volume of the pack.

How many lithium cells can I fit in the volume of a 12V car battery? A hell of a lot more than 200V! For the same weight I can replace a 20KG lead acid battery with 5,000 4-gram CR2032 lithium cells and get either 18,000 volts at 15mA or 3.6 volts at 75 amps. (And yes, that will just about be the same physical size too, based on rough calculations)

Switch you prismatic lithium cells and I'm sure you can do even better!

A flywheel can provide direct mechanical force using any of a variety of standard coupling methods.

Wrong. At least wrong for any energy storage flywheel worth a damn. These things are spun at 60K+ RPM in vacuum flasks on magnetic bearings - that's the only way you'll get the energy density needed to not get laughed out of the design department. You're not going to extract energy from that using "standard coupling methods." You're going to use magnetic coupling.

You do know that on-board flywheel storage has actually been tried, right? Manufacturers abandon the idea at the prototype stage because it always ends up being more trouble than it's worth compared to batteries.
=Smidge=

Re:Efficiency

[Aighearach]

Right, once you're designing a custom motor instead of using one made for electric cars, then you can avoid or refute all arguments that are based on practical situations using retail equipment.

If you have magnetic bearings, then yes, magnetic coupling is a standard coupling method. And you can use standard parts, designed to work with your flywheel.

If magnetic coupling is exotic, how the heck are you going to build the custom motor?

The funny part about your "has actually been tried" comment is that yeah, it is actually in use and I probably know people that own the lemons. No, manufacturers didn't abandon it, at the prototype stage or ever. Passenger cars are just not a good use case in any common configuration. There is at least one guy in town using compressed air to power a flywheel, and the flywheel provides starting torque. He charges up with a compressor at home, and gets over 15 miles of range. Based on a French prototype. Lots of gearheads have flywheels in their garages somewhere. Not all have fancy things like vacuum packing or magnetic bearings. You actually don't need that for many use cases.

Re:Efficiency

[Smidge204]

Right, once you're designing a custom motor instead of using one made for electric cars, then you can avoid or refute all arguments that are based on practical situations using retail equipment.

Why the hell would any auto manufacturer NOT use a custom motor? To try and use an off-the-shelf part would be a serious compromise in your design.

If magnetic coupling is exotic, how the heck are you going to build the custom motor?

Why would you use a magnetic bearing on a motor? Energy storage flywheels need active magnetic bearings in order to maintain their stored energy as long as possible. Motors do not need anything that fancy.

Lots of gearheads have flywheels in their garages somewhere. Not all have fancy things like vacuum packing or magnetic bearings. You actually don't need that for many use cases.

What the fuck? You DO realize there's a distinction here between a flywheel as a general concept and a flywheel specifically designed to store energy specifically as an alternative to electrochemical cells, right? When you're trying to cram kilowatt-hours or energy into a flywheel you're dealing with some serious engineering hurdles.

You really do not seem to have this concept straight in your head. We're talking about flywheel storage specifically as it pertains to automotive use as a prime mover and/or bulk energy storage. In that respect, not a single vehicle manufacturer has developed one past the prototype stage because it's a shitty way to go about it.
=Smidge=