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China, Europe Drive Shift To Electric Cars as US Lags (reuters.com)
Electric cars will pick up critical momentum in 2017, many in the auto industry believe - just not in North America. Tighter emissions rules in China and Europe leave global carmakers and some consumers with little choice but to embrace plug-in vehicles, fuelling an investment surge, said industry executives gathered in Detroit this past week for the city's annual auto show. From a report: "Car electrification is an irreversible trend," said Jacques Aschenbroich, chief executive of auto supplier Valeo, which has expanded sales by 50 percent in five years with a focus on electric, hybrid, connected and self-driving cars. In Europe, green cars benefit increasingly from subsidies, tax breaks and other perks, while combustion engines face mounting penalties including driving and parking restrictions. China, struggling with catastrophic pollution levels in major cities, is aggressively pushing plug-in vehicles. Its carrot-and-stick approach combines tens of billions in investment and research funding with subsidies, and regulations designed to discourage driving fossil-fueled cars in big cities. The road ahead for electric vehicles (EVs) in the United States, however, could have more hairpin curves.
Don't worry, Trump will introduce tax rebates for muscle cars in order to secure a market.
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
That's a fallacy, what difference does it make how far you need to travel? Unless you are driving 10 hours a day, an electric car will get you as far as you can possibly drive without stopping. And the best part about electricity is that the infrastructure for electricity is massive compared to gasoline.
How can you possibly drive far enough to get to a gas station and not far enough to get to an electrical outlet? Doesn't make sense, cause that gas pump is electric.
Certainly the technology needs to advance, but this seems like one of those arguments that can be summarized with "same argument was had about the horse and buggy"
We still don't have batteries! I'm serious I forgot to buy some at Safeway the other day.
No well seriously, we don't have batteries that can enable us to replace gasoline. We need to improve capacity at least 4x, if not 10x.
Some say the answer is Lithium-Air batteries .. but then hardly anyone is doing any research on order-of-magnitude battery technology improvement .. let alone Lithium Air. Whoever is doing research on new battery concept has virtually no funding. The ones getting slight funding are the people working on incremental updates.
We need companies like Tesla, Google, Apple, Samsung, Panasonic to get serious in funding a foundation or institute that researches advanced battery concepts. Battery research funding budget should be in the billions not thousand.
If you switch to electric, though, you can change the back end. improve the battery technology, replace coal with solar, but with ICE you pollute 24/7 .
You want me to connect dots for you? Adding a half hour for charging for every couple hours of driving is not a small time sink.
I've owned a Chevy Volt for over 3 years now. In the warmer summer months, (I'm in Canada), the small battery supplies pretty much 100% of all my power needs. In the winter or if I decide to go long distance once a year, it switches to gas usage seamlessly. It's really too bad folks see it only as EV or only as gas. It's essentially both without compromise. So you charge it when you don't want to use gas and you can use gas when you need the distance or heat.
an electric car will get you as far as you can possibly drive without stopping
What range do you think EVs have on a single charge, anyway? I can drive upwards of 3 hours without a break. With an average-priced EV, that's not even near possible.
If you regularly need to travel 2-3 hours away from home, the time loss from long mid-trip recharges is not small.
That's only logical if there isn't some other reason to switch from fossil fuels. As it turns out, the overwhelming majority of experts in atmospheric and oceanic sciences happen to have a reason why we should encourage the transition to vehicles powered renewables sooner rather than later.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I posted the links above. The US's urbanization is largely the same as Europe's larger countries, and in fact, China hasn't even reached 60% urbanization yet. The only real exceptions are relatively small countries like Belgium and Luxembourg. Heck, Germany has a higher rural population per capita than the US.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
They also tend to be far more polluting that a gas powered car. From the production of the batteries to the coal fired power plant that generates the electricity.
Every time you say this I will shock you through your keyboard, but with a minimum of CO2. From the Wikipedia:
Even when the power is generated using fossil fuels, electric vehicles usually, compared to gasoline vehicles, show significant reductions in overall well-wheel global carbon emissions due to the highly carbon-intensive production in mining, pumping, refining, transportation and the efficiencies obtained with gasoline.
They even have a dandy little chart with Tailpipe and total CO2 produced for electric and gasoline cars.
Even if you are using coal-power to generate electricity, said power plant is stationary, and because it is generating very large amounts of power, the amount of pollution you would be producing at such plants would be substantially less than the total amount of pollution produced by millions of moving vehicle. It is comparatively easier for governments to legislate environmental controls on companies that produce power in that way than it is on private individually owned vehicles as well. Plus, if there is already a good electric vehicle infrastructure. cleaner energy production measures can always be employed as they become more cost efficient, and the heavier polluting systems phased out, resulting in a *far* greener and more sustainable vehicle technology.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I live on Vancouver Island. The distance to the nearest large urban center is an hour's drive, and it's a drive I make maybe every three or four weeks. In fact, to get to Vancouver, in actual "driving" terms (ie. not riding a ferry) is about an hour and a half. Yes, if you live in Prairies, the drive between, say, Edmonton and Calgary is pretty long, but really, what percentage of the Canadian population do you imagine makes that trip on a regular basis?
Once again we see people trying to argue against EV's based on driving patterns that only a pretty small fraction of the population actually partake of.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I don't understand people. I can't drive to the middle of a mountain range, and charge an electric car. There's no electric grid there. I can easily fill up on fuel wherever a fuel truck can drop some off -- which is basically the very same places that my car can go.
North America is very different than Europe. Paris and London are how many hours away? A European train can take you through ten countries in a single day. In North America, you'd be lucky to hit five major cities in 24 hours of driving.
There's a lot more middle-of-nowhere around here. It's not about electric vs gasolene. It's about portable fuel vs transmission-over-infrastructure. We don't have any infrastructure -- that's why we have roads to get between places.
You're going to need to have something to eat and a bathroom break anyway - and that's only if you're in a mode of a very long trip. Most people don't drive several hours each day in a continuous trip - they go somewhere because they're going to do something there, so their car can charge while they do whatever they need to do. There's a few people who don't fall into that category, it's true - I guess for that small amount of people, electric cars aren't the answer. They are also fairly expensive at the moment, but prices will come down and there will be more and more places to charge.
How many suburbs are so far away that newer EVs can't make the drive without a charge? Seriously, you're reaching very hard to try to justify continuing use of gasoline-burning vehicles where that justification is shrinking rapidly.
And no one says that all uses of gasoline or diesel vehicles are out, or that EVs are for everyone, but if urbanization is your argument, it's absurd. According to this site, average commute times in the United States are 25.4 minutes.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Most of you live in cities, more densely populated than in Europe. So the size of that country is really extremely unimportant.
Hire a petrol car for long journeys. Given your pitiful excuse for holiday allowance over there, you can't afford the time to drive long distances anyway, so you fly internal. Where you can't take your car on in the overhead locker.
Use cases like yours and mine where I have a lake property 2.25 hours away where I have to tow stuff to and there isn't electricity on site are not something EVs can meet now in the future maybe but then we are a limited few. That said you have people like my wife who 90% of the time drives 5 miles a day and the rest of the time drives at most 60 miles a day can get by with an EV without issue. My mother, step dad, step mom, sister, mother-in-law, and father-in-law could have their entire driving needs met by just about any EV available now (maybe not the volt without it going to gas mode). So in my immediate family only myself, my father, and my brother-in-law who can't meet all our vehicle needs with an EV. Even then my father would only need a non EV to tow his race car to tracks as he doesn't have a long commute and everything he needs is close by otherwise. So that leaves myself with my 64 mile daily commute plus what ever else I have do that day, and my brother-in-law who fixes commercial restaurant equipment and drives from job to job in a big ass van all day.
Time to offend someone
Some only go 30. Others go at least 200. I don't claim they can replace ALL internal combustion cars, but don't exaggerate. Let's keep it real.
You can drive 250 miles in two hours?
It must really suck when reality just completely fucks over your moronic claim. I'm going to be generous and assume you're just a fucking idiot ignorant of just about every fact on climate change, and not in fact a dishonorable immoral liar.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Sure it is as long as your average priced EV is a Chevy Bolt.
but with ICE you pollute 24/7 .
You need to get out of your car more.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
It's probably a daily drive for some people, a weekly drive for others, a monthly drive for a few, etc.
I'm not anti-electric by any mean, but we do have to admit that we have to drive a lot between major cities.
Me? I could probably charge an electric car with a small 50km range only once a week and be more than okay. But I'm not going to pay 20K$+ for such a car.
And somehow, those five people always have enough time to be available to poo-poo on any Internet thread discussing EVs :-)
I suppose if other countries want to be suckers, pay extra buy a substandard product, and have their citizens pay a tax to make Americans wealthy then I'm fine with that. In the meantime, the U.S. should definitely cancel all subsidies and let economics work its magic. Without subsidies, it's about as "irreversible" as flying cars, the population bomb, or the global cooling predictions of the 1970s.
I was thinking of the distance between, say, Montréal and Québec city, or Montréal and Ottawa, etc.
Will Quebecois electricity even work with electric cars from other provinces?
...I need to see faster charging, longer range, and better battery management.
I have wanted an electric vehicle for some time. Almost bought a Volt when then Gen II came out, but the thing is a small 2+2. With me at 6'4" (190cm) and my two 6' tall teenagers, there's no way to fit in the vehicle. (I had the same issue in my Jetta TDI.) Recently bought a Malibu hybrid, which contains the Voltec engine albeit with a much smaller battery. At least I can fit by young boys, though still can't take four passengers comfortably, like in my Avalanche.
Now - if an electric can have the midsize of my 2006 Avalanche and the range (500+ miles) with the ability to recharge in 10 minutes, and the guarantee that the battery won't be sitting in a landfill after losing charge ability in five years, I'm sold.
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Have you actually calculated the amount of CO2 released per distance traveled for a car powered by gasoline, versus one powered by electricity from a coal plant? If so, I'd be genuinely interested in comparing notes. If not, please sit down and do a quick calculation before claiming electric cars "tend to be far more polluting."
Here's my (admittedly rough) calculation:
Gasoline:
Approximately 9.5 L/100km (average for 2015 model year)
times 2.31 kg CO2 emitted per L gasoline burned
= 21.9 kg CO2 per 100 km traveled
Electric:
17.9 kWh/100km (for the 70 kWh Tesla Model S)
divided by 80% wall charger efficiency (Tesla claims 95%, some users report 80%)
times 0.527 kg CO2 per kWh (EPA average, includes line losses)
= 11.8 kg CO2 per 100 km traveled
Mind you, we're unfairly penalizing the electric car here because we're counting transmission losses over the power grid, whereas we're only counting the emissions from the gasoline already in the tank. A fairer comparison would take into account the carbon involved with gasoline distribution, but that goes beyond something I can easily estimate.
I'll admit I'm not factoring in the environmental impact of battery manufacturing. (I suspect it isn't as bad as the anti-EV crowd claim, since lithium isn't a heavy metal.) Perhaps someone more informed than me can speak to the overall impact of manufacturing an electric versus gasoline car... I'd be interested in reading their insights.
Procrastination Man strikes again!
A Leaf is a realistic 120 (30kWh battery). Tesla is a really solid 300 (100kWh battery).
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I live in Calgary, I drive a Tesla.
I regularly make trips to Vancouver, Kelowna, Merritt, etc. all of which are hundreds of km away and require recharging.
If you don't think an EV can be used in Canada you're living in the past.
As someone who drives an EV, it is better in every single way than my previous internal combustion vehicles. EVERY way.
EVs will win eventually with or without government intervention (which, by the way, I'm against) because they are far superior to internal combustion vehicles.
The EV is more powerful, more comfortable, has better driving performance, less maintenance. The Internal combustion vehicle has... an established user base, and more fuelling stations.
So really the ONLY advantage an internal combustion vehicle has is more charging stations, and that "advantage" is being eroded quickly as more charging stations are being built every day, and even without them they aren't needed as much as you wake up every morning to a "full tank"
1. Range (as noted)
2. Refuelling time (as glossed-over)
3. Energy carrying mass and volume density
4. Safety. Not interested in riding on about a quarter ton of fuel and oxidizer packed close together, thank you.
5. (Not that I care, but) "icky-ness" of manufacturing process. An engine block is just aluminum. Batteries and high-current semi-conductor devices use some pretty nasty chemicals.
There's an extensive 50kW fast charging network in Quebec. (Circuit Electrique, associated with Hydro Quebec) Getting from Montreal to Quebec City is no problem. Hell, you can get up to Alma, Val D'Or, Gaspe and even Manac-5.
The rest of North America could take a lesson from Quebec on charging infrastructure.
i'm glad you feel comfortable speaking for the 90% of the population that lives in urban and suburban areas, drives a (american) standard 15-30 miles to work, and doesn't go offroad.
does it ever make you curious why americans are the only ones preoccupied with owning pickup trucks and SUVs the size of pickup trucks, despite having 2 kids and carrying at most 6 or 7 bags of groceries, or perhaps luggage? why is it that the rest of the developed world is perfectly content driving normal sized wagons, hatchbacks, and sedans, and doesn't feel an impetus for 50,000lbs of towing capacity and a solid 12mpg?
No one is actively taking your gasoline driven car away. If you really need it, keep it. But for the largest part of the population, it might make sense to drive an electric car most of the year, and only for the few long trips into sparsely populated regions, they can rent a gasoline powered one.
Your argument is akin to arguing that cars are not usable for anybody, because there are some people living on small islands who need a boat to get somewhere else, or because once in a while, you need to go by airplane, because it would take too long to drive from New York City to Seattle. Yes, there are special cases, when a car is not a good solution. For those cases, we have other solutions. But that doesn't mean that we have to abandon cars. People living on small islands will not be frequent car customers. So what?
The same can be said for electric cars. Yes, there are special cases where they aren't a good solution. But for most people in most cases, they are. And for special needs, there are special transportation means you can use -- be it a gasoline powered car, a train, an airplane, a boat or a bicycle. It doesn't mean that you have to own all of them.
Fine - cancel all oil subsidies first please. They outstrip EV subsidies by a large margin. Add in the cost of pollution and damage done to people, and determine the new price at the pump. Then see how much you like paying for gas.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
The existence of people who have that driving pattern was never a question. The issue is whether the percentage of people who rarely if ever commute beyond their own metropolitan areas is great enough that a shift to the majority of the population driving electric cars is economically and practically feasible. Pointing out that counterexamples exist to a trend in an attempt to question the existence or magnitude of the trend is fallacious and dishonest.
What range do you think EVs have on a single charge, anyway?
Between 100km and 150km per 20kWh worth of battery charge.
Exact mileage depends on car model.
(e.g.: Tesla use lighter than average material and are designed from the ground up for longer ranges.
Other cars are simply "an electric motor replacing the ICE under the bonnet and batteries bolted wherever there's free place" quick conversion like the VW e-Golf and VW e-Up that VW hastily released in the wake of the diesel scandal, and might have lower mileages).
Also depends on the driver (driving like an aggressive idiot at high speed on the highway, and you'll get a lower range than driving conservatively maybe a bit under the maximum speed limit).
I can drive upwards of 3 hours without a break.
Which is *definitely* not recommanded.
Current recommendations here around in continental Europe is a break each 1 or 2 hours max.
(e.g.: There are big public service campaigns to advise drivers to have at least a quick "turbo-nap" every once in a while when driving long distance)
But let's make the assumption that you are 2 drivers sharing the load, and that you'll switch midway (without charging the car, nor making any break longer than required to change seat - no the best experience, but hey).
With an average-priced EV, that's not even near possible.
Renault Zoe are currently the cheapest e-cars with a decent battery.
(You can even get them for the price of an average priced ICE-car if you decide to rent the battery instead of buying it).
(They are definitely after the same market as Tesla's upcoming model 3, except that Zoes have been on the street for quite some time, and Renault chose the opposite progression from Tesla, release progressively longer range vehicle while staying affordable - instead of long range vehicles while progressively releasing cheaper models)
The latest model has upgraded the battery to 45kWh, which should give you between 200km and 300km of range. (depending on the speed/aggressiveness of driving 130km vs 100km on highway vs. 80km on streets between cities).
That's definitely in near the 3 hours of your example (and by now, both drivers of our assumption should get a nap, or at least make a long break - enough to put quite some additionnal range back into the battery using standard 50kW chargers)
For a car that cost in the general ballpark figure of ~30k USD (not some 100k+ USD Tesla Model S super car).
And all of the above aren't made up numbers, but my actual experience with Zoes.
They are available at the local car-sharing company (though not the more recent 45kWh battery), and I've already driven quite a lot of trip with them.
I can easy get 100km when I drive aggressively or 150km when much more conservative.
The current drawback I see, is that Renault doesn't have collision avoidances option available on their smaller cars like the Zoe.
(unlike VW where - like lots of european constructors - for the last several years even the lowest entry-level model like Up comes with a LIDAR [a.k.a. "City Safety"] in standard configurations,
or unlike all the noise that Tesla is making around their "Autopilot" since a couple of years ago).
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The problem is that the fossil fuel industry is the most heavily subsidised industry going. A nuclear plant for example is always going to be made to be responsible for complete costs of waste disposal, and yet fossil fuel plants, and cars are allowed to just spew their waste into the environment at no cost.
If you were to make the fossil fuel industry pay it's actual costs - i.e. impact on people's health for example, rather than expect people to subsidise them by paying for their own health issues caused by fossil fuel users then the cost of petrol cars, of power via fossil fuels and so forth would be untenable and the market would change overnight but with massive economic and social disruption as people fail to afford to adjust to paying what they actually should, rather than to continue using their fossil fuel based power source or car at the expense of others.
So given the difficulty in trying to just completely alter the entire economic model of most countries overnight by making it illegal for fossil fuel users and power plants to continue to be subsidised by, say, doubling the price of petrol and electricity from non-renewable sources it's easier to just give at least some kind of counter-subsidy to renewables.
The problem is that the "natural" rate of change you're referring to isn't the natural rate of change, it's a rate of change crippled by the fact that fossil fuel power plants and so forth receive massive indirect subsidies through the fact they're not faced to pay for the actual costs they incur on society.
If you want to learn more search for "fossil fuel externalities". You'll find no end of articles and papers trying to estimate the hidden costs of fossil fuels, and whilst estimates vary it's to the degree of hundreds of billions every year in the US alone. The problem is that the system has been manipulated so long by the fossil fuel industries due to the power of big oil et. al. that they're not even close to playing on a level playing field even with renewable subsidies - they're at a massive subsidised advantage over renewables even when renewables have the subsidies they do.
Just one thing to consider - it's false to compare the TOC based only on gas savings. You have to factor in maintenance savings too - EVs need massively less maintenance than ICE cars, there are just so much less than break. Even the brakediscs last (much) longer because they only work for the last tiny bit of stopping - the rest is done with regenerative braking to extend their range.
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Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Good point... you could have charged your EV three times in the time you've spent telling me you don't have time to charge EVs.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
I am reading lots of arguments where people go "Well what about THIS random edge case? and THAT one?" You won't win against these people. These are the same people who willingly drop $20,000 on a new truck because they might get 2 inches of snow in the winter, rather than simply $1,000 on a set of good winter tires and wheels. Or $20,000 on a truck because there is the rare occasion they may need to haul something, rather than renting a truck from the local Home Depot or UHaul for a hundred bucks or two.