Mazda Announces Breakthrough In Long-Coveted Engine Technology (reuters.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Mazda Motor Corp said it would become the world's first automaker to commercialize a much more efficient petrol engine using technology that deep-pocketed rivals have been trying to engineer for decades, a twist in an industry increasingly going electric. The new compression ignition engine is 20 percent to 30 percent more fuel efficient than the Japanese automaker's current engines and uses a technology that has eluded the likes of Daimler AG and General Motors Co. Mazda, with a research and development (R&D) budget a fraction of those of major peers, said it plans to sell cars with the new engine from 2019. A homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engine ignites petrol through compression, eliminating spark plugs. Its fuel economy potentially matches that of a diesel engine without high emissions of nitrogen oxides or sooty particulates. Mazda's engine employs spark plugs under certain conditions, such as at low temperatures, to overcome technical hurdles that have hampered commercialization of the technology.

Comments

I wanted to RFTA

[mykepredko]

But the link is for Tesla's junk bonds.

Somebody please fix.

Re:I wanted to RFTA

[Scarred Intellect]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mazda-strategy-idUSKBN1AO0E7

Or use the link in the title of the article

Re:I wanted to RFTA

[srmalloy]

Scroll down the page, and it's there.

Re:I wanted to RFTA

[arglebargle_xiv]

Can anyone explain what the difference is between an HCCI engine and a diesel engine, apart from the claimed particulate thing? Please use a car analogy in your explanation.

Re:I wanted to RFTA

[CustomSolvers2]

difference is between an HCCI engine and a diesel engine

There isn't such a thing as a HCCI engine. HCCI describes a specific way in which the combustion occurs. It isn't even a well-delimited situation which can always be reached by performing certain actions. It just refers to a quite abstract final result: having a very homogeneous fuel-air mixture allowing the combustion to start everywhere almost at the same time. In conventional gasoline/diesel engines, the combustion is firstly started in specific parts and then spread through the whole chamber. As far as this fact is quite influential on the pollutants being generated, HCCI is expected to deliver notably lower emissions.

Re:I wanted to RFTA

[rtb61]

What is missing in the story is the likely use of those new fangled infernal combustion engines. They sound pretty fussy and as such likely they will run best at set revolutions with a set load, so as the power supply for generators in hybrid vehicles. Probably what made those engines really difficult to develop, is they were fussy with regard to efficiency at different revolutions under different loads, becoming real inefficient outside of a specific range, but with fixed revolution and load, powering generators to charge batteries, they will work a lot better. So the motor is being specifically developed because of electric vehicles but the development might not be fast enough (although the military with desires for greater ranges might be the main market).

Re:I wanted to RFTA

[CustomSolvers2]

As said above, HCCI isn't associated with a specific engine and can be faced in many different ways. Basically, it means that your (compression-based) combustion approach is almost ideal. Some years ago, I was precisely working on trying to reach HCCI-like conditions in conventional diesel engines by just tuning certain operating conditions.

This article refers to two different innovative issues: compression ignition for gasoline engines (what they might be trying to reach with a Wankel engine; as per some of the comments below because I didn't read the article) and HCCI (a more or less abstract target which might be achieved in many different ways).

Re: I wanted to RFTA

[Anonymous Coward]

Mercedes F1 team made a Hemi like revolution with 30% less fuel usage 2 years ago, still not made it back to normal cars for some reason.

Too little, too late

[WillAffleckUW]

Read the draft form of the climate change report Trump is trying to bury.

All those floods, storms, heat waves, and other events are being caused by humans, using fossil fuels.

This is dead tech. Fossil fuel vehicles are phased out in three years worldwide, no matter where you go. Just run your current gas car into the ground, and then buy a cheaper all-electric car to replace it.

No amount of tech will change that.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

What if I want to drive more than 500 miles in a day?

Re:Too little, too late

[DontBeAMoran]

Buy an RV and don't look back.

Re: Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait a year or two and you'll probably be fine. If they've got 500 miles without seeing much ROI just wait until they actually start making money and the competition heats up!

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

This is dead tech. Fossil fuel vehicles are phased out in three years worldwide, no matter where you go.

2040 is more than 3 years away and plenty of time for administrations to change.

Re:Too little, too late

[denis-The-menace]

While I agree that burning fermented dino and fish carcasses is not a good idea, many people will still want or need such a motor.

And for people that have small minds and hands that don't believe in the coming climactic upheaval, they will cause less damage while still clinging to old tech.

Re:Too little, too late

[Jack9]

> Fossil fuel vehicles are phased out in three years worldwide, no matter where you go

What do you mean by phased out? How much do you want to bet that fossil fuel vehicles will not only still be produced, but used more than electric in 3 years worldwide? I will be happy to escrow a few thousand dollars on my prediction (that's all I can spare and I will use the winnings for financing an electric vehicle). We can use active US car registrations as a measure, if you really want to go forward.

How many US families (from a very wealthy nation) do you think have the economic capacity to buy new electric vehicles, much less 2 year depreciated ones? How many of those will there be? Where's the infrastructure to power these vehicles? I know where many electric stations are from San Diego, CA to the Oregon border but you drive right by a Tesla facility who made that happen. In the rest of the northwest US, not so much. India? Hah.

I don't think your statement is well considered. Perhaps you have a skewed idea of what humans will tolerate to maintain an illusion of normalcy (spoiler: almost anything short-term to avoid committing to change).

Re:Too little, too late

[rickb928]

"Fossil fuel vehicles are phased out in three years worldwide,"

Um, no. The used car market makes that unlikely.

And when my 80 mile a day commute doesn't require fast charging at work to make it home with a 5-10% margin, most likely impacted by unpredictable traffic, I'm in. Or, do the other, mch harder thing - make my work, job stability, and income possible closer to home. I'll fix the 'problem' with more efficient cars over the next 10-12 ears, then 'retire'. Maybe.

Or, alternatively, start using honest, accurate data to judge climate change and influences. Go where the honest data leads you.

Re:Too little, too late

[suutar]

I think they typoed "thirty"; there's a lot of places reported lately who are looking to ban sales of new fossil-fuel vehicles in that timeframe (after which the population of such vehicles will attrit over time until someone gets fed up and just bans them outright).

Re:Too little, too late

[JaredOfEuropa]

All those floods, storms, heat waves, and other events are being caused by humans, using fossil fuels

The contribution of modern personal vehicles to global warming, while not tiny, is a lot smaller than you might think. Cleaner cars and better fuel economy are great, but if you want to save the planet, don't get too hung up about cars. There are much bigger fish out there to fry.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

All those floods, storms, heat waves, and other events are being caused by humans, using fossil fuels.

...all the Category 3 or stronger hurricanes caused by global warming that have hit the continental US? Oh, wait... Despite predictions of an increased number and strength of hurricanes hitting the US, Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma in 2005 were the most recent major hurricanes to hit the continental US -- the longest period not to have a major hurricane landfall in NOAA's records back to 1851. Apparently Mother Earth didn't hear about Obama's declaration back in 2014 that hurricanes will become “more common and more devastating” because of climate change. Pity.

Re:Too little, too late

[WillAffleckUW]

What if I want to drive more than 500 miles in a day?

Get an electric truck. Pretty easy to get 2000 miles from enough battery packs, and you just offload them when you want to haul big loads

Re:Too little, too late

[Rei]

What if I want to drive more than 500 miles in a day?

Stop for lunch on the way?

I'm failing to see the problem.

Re:Too little, too late

[WillAffleckUW]

Lol, electrics are already cheaper than fossil fuel in most First World countries.

Re:Too little, too late

[Jack9]

I think you meant 30. In that timeframe, I am not confident that the world will be able to avoid change.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

You're such a fucking lying asshole.

The internal combustion engine is going fucking nowhere you lying faggot. Stop trying to convince people of your bullshit leftist commie utopia, and take the dildo out of your ass before you post. Prick.

Re:Too little, too late

[WillAffleckUW]

Not in the West.

If you live in the West, 40 percent of your contribution to climate change is from transportation.

Which is one of the reasons why we lead in electric and hybrid purchases.

Re:Too little, too late

[Jack9]

TY for pointing that out. Makes a lot more sense.

Re:Too little, too late

[WillAffleckUW]

Incorrect. We rescored the numbers.

You're soaking in it.

New Orleans is sinking and they don't know how to swim.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

"Fossil fuel vehicles are phased out in three years worldwide, no matter where you go." Fake News. Not in the USA, land of the Lords.

Re:Too little, too late

[ledow]

Generators still exist.
Petrol engines are in everyday tools.
Ships and boats still run on diesel or petrol, and it might not be sensible to have a water-soaked battery.
Hospitals and datacentres have backup generators

There is more of a market for engines than just cars. The tech is transferable. And while diesel is polluting worse than we thought, a new type of petrol engine isn't exactly a dead loss.

And you still have 10 years before anyone ditches the cars that are in the vast, vast, vast majority now. Then another 10 years after that at least. At that point, electric cars need to have moved on 20 years in tech (including range) to compete. If they don't, there's another 20 years of business up for grabs.

If anything I think that all the emissions controls have make car manufacturer eke more out of less. My car is a 1.5L and it performs admirably.

Petrol engines aren't going anywhere anytime soon. At best, we'll have hybrids for a long time yet. Because just on sheer range, electrics are losing badly. When a significant percentage of people have them and start plugging them in at peak periods forcing infrastructure change (at the moment charging is all very "just plug it in" at the moment, and that's not necessarily sustainable), you're going to hit their weaknesses more too.

I give petrol engines 20 years of commercial viability just in vehicles at least. That's more than enough of a future to get 4-5 models of car out, make money, and plough it into research while licensing out the patents on stuff like this.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol, electrics are already cheaper than fossil fuel in most First World countries.

On an end user cost, but the overall cost of producing the electricity, in terms of pollution aren't that far apart.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

With or without massive government incentives which sees taxpayers rebating high-end cars for people who can afford them but get the rebates anyhow?

Ontario's rebates on pricey electric cars draw fresh criticism
Progressive Conservatives question changes after top Liberal staffer joins Tesla

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Most large Ships run on bunker Oil (not Deisel or gas). http://www.viscopedia.com/visc...

Re:Too little, too late

[RingDev]

The US fleet is replaced at ~5% per year. So even if all new vehicles in 2020 are full electric, it would still be over 2 decades to "phase out" petro consumer road vehicles.

That said, I'm rebuilding my turbo diesel with the intent to get another 5+ years out of it (should be cracking 300,000 miles by then) with the hope that an affordable full electric with sufficient range capacity in the winters of Wisconsin is available. :)

-Rick

Re:Too little, too late

[oddaddresstrap]

Even if your commute is 80 miles each way (160 miles RT), the Chevy Bolt or the Tesla Model (any) will give you at least a 30% margin in real-world traffic.

Re:Too little, too late

[Bodhammer]

Maybe they should not live in a city that is below sea level or sinking... Just a thought. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Too little, too late

[CanHasDIY]

... and what if I need to regularly make trips of 500+ miles?

Things can get pretty spread out here in the Midwest.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

even if its -20 and I have to run the heater the whole way?

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idiot if you work 80 miles away...EACH way. You are literally wasting your life away driving to work.

Re:Too little, too late

[Nethead]

I thought we lead in Subaru purchases.

Re: Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

If we're going to move the goalposts then why not require intergalactic travel to make absolutely sure electric can't do the job...

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

You've never heard of having two drivers on a single trip? Quick bathroom breaks and one 10 minute break to gas up, I don't want to stop for 90 minutes to wait for my car to charge, I have places I actually want to be other than some shithole waiting for my car to charge.

Herp derp, stop for lunch. Great way to ignore a very specific problem that MANY people have with buying an electric auto, just dismiss them.

Re:Too little, too late

[Tough Love]

Ships and boats still run on diesel or petrol, and it might not be sensible to have a water-soaked battery.

Well, actually it's more about energy density. I'm thinking, I would like my next boat motor to be petrol/electric. At this point, the main obstacles would just be getting the necessary engineering talent on the problem for this specialty industry.

Re:Too little, too late

[JaredOfEuropa]

In my country: 33% CO2 emissions from transportation (and we do a lot of that). Almost half of that is ships, the other half road transportation (47% of transport, or 15% of total). About half that is transport of people, making up just over 8% of total CO2. Swapping every single car and bus for an electric model charged with 100% renewable electricity will net you an 8% savings on CO2 (2014 figures). The actual savings are likely to be a lot lower, and come at considerable cost to people. Better to focus on something else?

Cars are a popular "environmental" target here because of the common misconception about these figures; it makes the seriously high taxes on them easy to sell as both the left and the right still feel guilty about driving.

Re:Too little, too late

[Strider-]

Yes, but they're still diesel engines. In theory, Diesel engines will burn pretty much anything flammable. Diesel himself originally tried to run his design on coal dust, before switching to peanut oil.

Diesel fuel as you buy it for road vehicles is basically No 2 fuel oil, which is pretty similar to heating oil and Jet-A/JP-5. There are subtle differences in the exact makeup, mostly related to lubricity (small diesels depend on the fuel to cool/lubricate the fuel pumps), and a few other specific properties.

Bunker fuel, aka No 6 aka Bunker C, is the crap left over after the lighter hydrocarbons have been distilled out of the crude. It's basically tar, and in order to be pumped around, and injected into the ship's engines, needs to be heated to some 100C to thin it out.

Re:Too little, too late

[angel'o'sphere]

Then you don't buy an electric car that only has a range of 160miles.
Wow, that was so simple again.
Sorry, that I had to put it so bluntly at you.

Re:Too little, too late

[WillAffleckUW]

Last time I checked, not a lot of sea-going vessels inside the continental US. Most of those emissions, according to the Paris Accords, are not assigned to any country at all, so they aren't measured in any of the stats, outside of internal waterways.

Most people replace their cars and trucks every 2-3 years. (Kelly Blue Book) Most business replaces their vehicles every 2-5 years (fleet depreciation).

If you're a collector, you're a miniscule impact on the emissions. Most of that is already being phased out. Just look at California fleet emissions - down dramatically since 2010.

The future isn't waiting for you to make up your mind. It's changing now.

Re:Too little, too late

[Strider-]

Or you know, there is this ancient art known as "Sailing." Modern sailing vessels tend to be extremely efficient machines at moving from point A to point B, whether under sail or under motor. I just came back from spending 5 days on a 35,000 lb 48' sailboat. My friend and I were able to handle her by ourselves, even in gale conditions. When we were becalmed, we fired up the engine and burned about 1gph, moving at 7 knots. When the wind came back up to about 12 knots, we were able to get back up to hull speed (7kt), without much trouble.

Obviously this isn't as practical when it comes to the huge container ships and so forth, but when fuel prices spiked several years ago, there were a couple of proposals to outfit large ships with giant computer-controlled kites that would be able to provide significant propulsion to the ship.

One of the constants on the ocean is that more often than not, there's wind. Harnessing it is an art that coudl come back.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

"Fossil fuel vehicles are phased out in three years worldwide, no matter where you go"

I'm a lefty lib lib and... lol wtf, are you joking? Internal combustion engines phased out in three years? Honey, there's still plenty cars on the road that are older than most of Slashdot's readership. What are you going to do, confiscate them? The idea of removing all ICEs from the road by 2020 is the sort of thing that Stalin's 5-year planners would laughingly dismiss as delusional. I'd buy that they'll be completely phased out by the mid 2030s... Maybe... If you offer big subsidies to entice people.

If you really wanna help the environment in terms of all pollution except CO2 for a minimum price, here's what to do: New govt program in which all cars predating 1995 get a free smog check, a free engine tune up, and (if practical) an emission reduction retrofit. That old piece of shit the next lane over that's farting blue smoke out the tailpipe? Yeah... that guy's putting out more pollution than the next ten thousand new cars that roll off the lot. Literally. A substantial number of 2017 model year cars have NOX, SOX and particulate emissions so low that they literally make big-city air cleaner by running.

I also recall seeing somewhere that cars are now clean enough that a substantial fraction of LA's smog is due to... lawn mowers. Especially old 2-stroke ones (see above re: blue-smoke-farting pieces of shit)

Re:Too little, too late

[avandesande]

Nobody has talked about the elasticity of gas pricing either. Suppose half the world switches to electric and then gas price drops to a dollar a gallon... then it makes less sense economically to buy electric.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

"Internal combustion engine vehicles will never take off, the horse will reign supreme forever. I mean, what if someone wants to go somewhere without roads?"

That's you. That's what you sound like.

Re:Too little, too late

[110010001000]

There is always one idiot that claims he "needs" to regularly make 500 mile trips. Where are you going?

Re:Too little, too late

[WillAffleckUW]

I stand by what I said. You're conflating internal combustion engines (and I worked on stirling engines and 2-8 cylinder gasoline and diesel engines back in the 70s) with new vehicle sales. You're conflating US purchases with worldwide purchases.

Nobody's taking away your old car. But it won't be cheaper than an electric version. Same with trucks.

Re:Too little, too late

[sexconker]

What if I want to drive more than 500 miles in a day?

Stop for lunch on the way?

I'm failing to see the problem.

The stopping is the problem.
It takes less than 8 hours to go 500 miles in most of the country. 7 hours with the way most people drive.

I'd rather keep driving and just have some jerky or other snacks while in the car. Even stopping for gas (or an imaginary battery swap) is an annoying time sink. When I'm on a drive that long my first priority is minimizing the overall duration of the trip.

Re:Too little, too late

[Ziest]

The wife and I have done Berkeley to Portland, about 600 miles, in 7.5 hours several times. Just pack sandwiches and a thermos of coffee and combine gas stops with bathroom breaks. Yeah, it's a long day but it can be done

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

so? Charge it. I will be leaving in 2 days to drive 800 miles in our tesla. No big deal.

Re:Too little, too late

[rogoshen1]

shhhhhhhh you're disturbing the echo-chamber.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

False.

Tesla has released figures that show the solar panels deployed by SolarCity (now Tesla Energy) has produced 3x the energy used by all Tesla cars, ever.

Nice FUD though.

Re:Too little, too late

[MachineShedFred]

Until the refiners see that there is a major glut of product available, and they start turning that oil into something else besides gasoline

Re:Too little, too late

[kwbauer]

Are you seriously trying to inject market theory into a discussion on slashdot? The only acceptable use of market theory on slashdot is when a "progressive" (meaning socialist/communist) is attempting to explain how the proper application of false pressures will aid in manipulating prices. If a freedom loving person uses it to explain why something just works, then all hell normally breaks loose trying to point out why capitalism is dead and market theory is just so much hocus pocus.

Re:Too little, too late

[kwbauer]

I have a friend who puts around 36,000 miles per year on his car because of work. He regularly drives 300 miles a day visiting various customers to keep them happy. The notion that he should pull up to a customer and have them put fuel in his car so he can drive down the road to their competitor is somewhat ludicrous.

Re: Too little, too late

[kwbauer]

Nobody is moving goalposts with that -20 below. That is the norm in a northern Midwest winter for about a month.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

The biggest electric proponents also seem to be of the belief that everyone owns their own home with a garage/carport when, at least here in a very dense metropolitan area, most of us rent shitty apartments with no parking, no garage, etc. Most of the people in my building could certainly afford to buy an electric car, but then what?

Re:Too little, too late

[kwbauer]

Kind of racist to claim that blacks (the majority of New Orleans residents) can't swim. Or is promoting racial stereotypes no longer considered racist. The rules change often enough that it is not really worth keeping up.

Re: Too little, too late

[ChrisMaple]

Cold weather is not moving the goalposts. If a Tesla isn't going to go even half its nominal distance during a cold snap (as happened in a well publicized recent event) then it is not only inadequate, it's dangerous to its owner and everyone else on the road.

Re:Too little, too late

[WillAffleckUW]

(it's a song lyric)

Re:Too little, too late

[jshackney]

OTR Sales people, LargeCorp(TM) Regional Managers, etc. These folks usually drive cars out of warranty within 12 months or less.

Re:Too little, too late

[Rei]

90 minutes? What year is this, 2005? Supercharging is half an hour to 80%. And herp, derp, humans have to eat at some point.

And I love how much you're willing to damn an EV for even the slightest increase in long-distance trip time (most people taking 500 mile trips rather rarely), but are perfectly content to need to at random intervals in your normal everyday life have to divert from your schedule and go out of your way to a gas station, stand outside in whatever weather there is and pump gasoline (which gives off carcinogenic fumes) in a "shithole". And FYI, gas stations are much more likely to be "shitholes" than superchargers. Here's a random list of supercharger photo pictures (flickr, so it should be by and large just random people's snapshots). How much of a "shithole" do they look like to you?

Re:Too little, too late

[Rei]

And people like you are the reason for the high rate of freeway accidents.

News flash: You're Not Supposed To Drive For 8 Hours Straight. You're supposed to take breaks every few hours. Stop endangering other drivers because you don't want to waste 15 minutes here and there to get out and stretch.

This post is independent of what you think of EVs. I don't care what sort of car you drive, but stop putting other people at risk because you're in a rush.

Re: Too little, too late

[karnal]

Was this a Rick and Morty reference lol

Re:Too little, too late

[Hylandr]

As much as I dislike the catastrophic environmental damage EV production causes even *I* have to admit driving more than 150 miles at a time is a major pain in the ass without a significant break.

There's rest areas every 40 miles where people are *supposed* to get out and rest. Forcing the issue by limiting the range would result in major improvements in safety by having less fatigued drivers on the road, and an overall speed reduction because of the reduced speed and cargo capacity of electric vehicles ( with some notable exotic exceptions ( Looking at Tesla )) doesn't hurt.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a friend who puts around 36,000 miles per year on his car because of work. He regularly drives 300 miles a day visiting various customers to keep them happy. The notion that he should pull up to a customer and have them put fuel in his car so he can drive down the road to their competitor is somewhat ludicrous.

Your friend is a dinosaur. They've invented these new gadgets that allow you to talk to people without having to drive to them. He should look into using one.

Re:Too little, too late

[Khyber]

I am guessing you don't know how oil is sold, do you? Supplies are quite often bought years and years in advance at a pre-negotiated and fixed price over those years. That glut already exists - it's been pumped out to meet their contractual obligations for the future.

Re: Too little, too late

[Crosshair84]

Work.

To customers sites to repair and replace equipment. 500 miles a day is a frequent occurrence and I have done 1,000 miles in 24 hours a couple times.

My work pickup, a 2010 Toyota, had 200 miles on it when we got it. It now has 345,000 and change.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

You are retarded.

Re:Too little, too late

[Rei]

As much as I dislike the catastrophic environmental damage EV production causes

Out of curiosity, what do you mean?

Here's what production from a lithium salar looks like. Pump brine up from underneath, dry on the surface in controlled conditions to concentrate the salts of interest, send for further refining. Most of the salars flood annually and reclaim the (salt) drying ponds, meaning you have to rebuild them annually.

Do you mean energy? I'll refer you to this study, and in particular, graph 5a. Blue + red at the bottom are energy used to propel the vehicle. Green + purple + cyan is energy used to produce the vehicle, if battery packs are not in mass production (aka, no Gigafactory). Green + purple (no cyan) is the energy used to produce the vehicle with mass-produced batteries (aka, with Gigafactor(y,ies). Note the difference vs. gasoline. Is there something about this you find objectionable?

The study also focuses on recycling of li-ion batteries. Again, mass production is key. In small-scale production, batteries are manufacturing cost limited, and it's not worth the expense to recycle old batteries to recover materials vs. sourcing virgin materials. In mass production, however, costs are primarily dictated by raw material costs, and so recovery of raw materials (likewise en masse) becomes quite economical.

Is there some other aspect to EVs that concerns you? If it's copper, it's worth noting that regular vehicles contain huge amounts of copper in their overgrown wiring harnesses. The average car today has a 4km-long wiring harness. Tesla has put a huge amount of effort into reducing this. The Model S's harness is 3km; the Model 3's is 1,5km; and the Model Y is targeting a staggeringly low 100m.

It's certainly not the anodes - I presume. They're graphite/amorphous carbon and sometimes silicon. The electrolytes and membranes are basic petroleum products, and if there's anything an EV does, it's reduce petroleum consumption overall. Is it the cathodes that you object to? Tesla's are nickel cobalt aluminum oxide. Nickel and cobalt come from the same ores; cobalt is usually recovered as a side product, as nickel is more desirable. We use nickel en masse every day, in the form of stainless steel, where it makes up 1-4% of the mass (also many non-stainless steels). People who cook with stainless steel cookware usually consume about 80 micrograms of nickel per day because of this. It's found in many copper alloys in significant concentrations, it's used in high concentrations in heat-resistant alloys, such as inconel, which you can find in many gasoline-driven cars (usually higher-end ones). Cobalt is also used in high-performance alloys, although it's more commonly used in catalysts (including those used to make synfuels for cars). It's also used in car airbags. Regardless, nickel and cobalt are only a fraction of the cathode, which is in turn only a fraction of a battery. It's hard to say where Tesla's cobalt is actually from, because over the past several years it's been being stockpiled by hedge funds betting on a price rise. However, there are big producers of nickel/cobalt around the world. In North America one of the biggest is from the Canadian Sudbury deposit, which is one of the great success stories in environmental remediation - to the point that they decided to deliberately not remediate one patch of

Re:Too little, too late

[Rei]

In case you're curious, there's about 20kg of cobalt in a typical Tesla vehicle, along with a dozen or so kilograms of lithium. A lot less than you'd probably expect.

Re: Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe 17.5 hours.

Re:Too little, too late

[Phydeaux]

As to the high rate of accidents, I'd propose it is distracted drivers or drivers who miscalculate their position/skills versus those who are tired, but who am I to know.

Just because you either don't own a car or live in a city where everything is next door, your "You're Not Supposed To Drive For 8 Hours Straight" is rather provincial. Members of my family drive for a living and many of us cover *way* more than 500 miles and 8 hours at a time. We're careful drivers with places to go (and either need a specific vehicle or can't fly there), and your assumption we put people at risk is your projection.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Posted like someone who exists solely in mommy's basement and doesn't have to worry about the cost of housing. Consider working folks in Silicon Valley and various Left Coast cities, they cannot afford to live within 50 miles radius of the workplace, quite a lot of them have to live in far flung suburbs where the cost of rent and mortgage is less than 75% of their take home pay.

Re:Too little, too late

[Hylandr]

It's interesting to note that your rebuttal only address the minerals extracted while trivializing the environmental destruction digging massive pits causes. Just for starters. Sure, you can dig pits for steel and other things too, but as you mentioned, the minerals required for batteries are spread out. Also Iron Ore won't explode when it gets wet. Lithium will.

Recycling batteries is a joke. It's not nearly cost effective enough to happen. The best we can hope is to bury them all in the same place so the next sentient species to come along after us will have new resources to repeat the cycle in the next million or billion years.

While we are on the subject of end of life of batteries lets consider the environmental effects of disposing carbon fiber. As an example, have you ever tried to get rid of a boat or jacuzzi? Have you ever been nearby when something made of carbon fiber burned?

How about a car accident where a lithium ion battery was critically punctured? Also nothing like turning automobiles into easily hackable IEDs that produce noxious fumes after the initial bang.

ICE Cars catch fire, (Hollywood blows them up with dynamite) but won't explode like a giant lithium battery will. Musk want's to put one or more in every home. We need a safer battery solution before these things are on the road. Seriously.

tl;dr
There's no consensus on the environmental impact of producing lithium batteries despite your cherry picked sources. The dangers of using and disposing of the batteries are known and real. Poke a hole in your laptop battery if you don't believe me. Just don't do it near anyone or anything you don't want to see destroyed.

Re:Too little, too late

[Hylandr]

Google Cobalt Poisoning.

What happens when these cars start sitting in junkyards, leaching into the water supply? Or the ones that are submerged in water for extended periods of time?

Re:Too little, too late

[Tough Love]

Or you know, there is this ancient art known as "Sailing"...

How do you suppose a sailboat gets in and out of harbor, or gets anywhere when the wind dies?

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you do for fossil fuel vehicles, with no parking? I still don't understand why city folk haven't started traveling by zip line or intricate water slides.

Re:Too little, too late

[larryjoe]

90 minutes? What year is this, 2005? Supercharging is half an hour to 80%. And herp, derp, humans have to eat at some point.

Have you every seen a Costco on a Saturday afternoon or some highway truck stops during busy times? The lines are long, and that's with a 3-5 minute fill-up time. Imagine a 30-minute or even 15-minute service time. 30 minutes is a long time to wait for a fill-up, but it would be nothing compared to the much longer wait time just to get to a charging plug. If the majority of cars were electric, the only way to avoid long service station lines would be to offer a huge number of simultaneously usable charging stations. Currently we get around this problem by having only a relatively few electric cars on the road and giving those cars exclusive use of home chargers, which works because these electric cars are still mostly commute cars.

Re:Too little, too late

[Barsteward]

stop and fill up...

Re: Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, this tech combined with batteries would likely produce one of the best hybrids on the market. Electrics cost a shitton of money in the EU and if you live in the city, there's only a handful of charging stations available. None on my home street, btw.

Re:Too little, too late

[Barsteward]

batteries will be recycled so if its sitting in a junk yard, it'll just be the body

Re:Too little, too late

[Barsteward]

With most issues raised about lithium for EV batteries, no-one seems to care about it relating to their phone/laptop, they will quite happily take them everywhere.

"Almost all that lithium—greater than 95 percent of it— is produced through a process of pumping underground brine to the surface and allowing it to evaporate in big pans. It’s separated from the brine using electrolysis." quote from https://cleantechnica.com/2016...
The photos circulating the net pretending to be open lithium mines are actually copper or tar sands http://www.snopes.com/lithium-...

Recycling is already happening and they can be recycled into new storage systems like home solar batteries as they don't need to be powerful as an EV requires.They make their money at the moment from extracting the other elements like cobalt.

Carbon fibre recycling is being worked on and getting better: http://www.compositesworld.com...

There are risks with all forms of transport and power generation, you just have to mitigate it in some way. ICE did explode (google Ford Pinto) before better design happened.

Yes, the dangers of not disposing of batteries correctly is known as are the dangers of lighting a match next to petrol/gas are also known - you take a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

Re:Too little, too late

[Barsteward]

It doesn;t matter that distracted drivers cause more, tiredness/falling asleep at the wheel still causes accidents and driving tired is not being careful.

Re: Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Never tell the snowflakes what's wrong with their ideas. Let them cling to their fantasy of everything they don't promote being obsolete in a ridiculous amount of tome. Just makes laughing at them that much more fun.

Re: Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

So gee, Tesla says something Tesla does proves a point that Tesla's stuff is good?

You still don't see why pushing that absent some verification is stupid, do you?

Re: Too little, too late

[Rei]

I'm not sure what you mean. The LD50 of *soluble* cobalt salts (cathodes are by definition resistant to dissolution) is 150-500mg/kg, which is not particularly toxic at all.

Re: Too little, too late

[Rei]

To elaborate further on the above:

A cathode must by definition be resistant to dissolution because it's sitting in a solution (the electrolyte) which must be excellent at dissolving intercalated metallic ions (specifically, lithium). The cathode must undergo no meaningful dissolution in this environment for many years. While this is an organic solvent, rather than water, it still requires great cathode stability. In practice, what this means is that cathodes are oxides. As you probably remember from chemistry (or everyday life experience), metal oxides are highly resistant to dissolution; for the most part only alkali metal oxides will dissolve in water, and they have to do so by first forming hydroxides (if I recall correctly, there's only two exceptions to this rule - calcium and barium).

Concerning the LD50 of soluble cobalt salts (which cathodes distinctly are not): that slots them in-between caffeine and ibuprofen.

This is all a moot point, of course, beyond the lack of solubility issue, because in mass production the economics strongly favours battery recycling, since raw material costs are the limiting factor on pricing.

Re: Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

A ten minute quick charge doesn't sound bad if the charging station is open. What happens if there is a line of just 5 cars ahead of you? The delay can multiply very quickly. It's cool to own a Tesla now because there aren't many on the roads and stations are accessible. Be careful what you wish for when every "Joe sweat sock"from Raleigh Durham owns one.

Re:Too little, too late

[Rei]

It's funny when you get a response that's like the person didn't even read your post or just skimmed over it.

While there is some lithium produced from hard rock mining, as I distinctly pointed out to you, most lithium is produced from salars, which is probably the most environmentally-nondestructive means of "mining" imaginable. I showed you pictures, but it appears you never clicked the link. By contrast, while you write that you "can" dig pits for steel, that's not accurate - you must dig pits to get at iron ore. They look like this. Perhaps worse is the effect of smelting.

Recycling batteries is not a "joke" - I literally just gave you research showing that in mass production, precisely the opposite is true. Asserting that it's wrong doesn't make it so. In mass production, battery prices are limited by raw materials costs; producers are raw materials constrained. Recycling becomes an important part of the supply chain. And in case you're curious how recycling works: batteries are crushed in controlled conditions. The electrolyte is extracted with supercritical CO2 and distilled. The crushed batteries are ground, then gravimetrically separated. The recovered material can then be recycled directly, or more commonly, sent off for re-smelting (the cathodes are quite similar to natural nickel-cobalt ores). The quantity to be smelted is vastly less than the quantity of steel smelted for a car.

While we are on the subject of end of life of batteries lets consider the environmental effects of disposing carbon fiber.

I'm not sure why we should because not many EVs use carbon fiber - but if you want to. Carbon fibre is disposed of like plastic - either landfills or incineration. All cars make extensive use of plastic parts, so this shouldn't be particularly shocking. Additionally, CF is sometimes ground up and used as fill in new plastics - it only slightly increases their mechanical properties, but some manufacturers like using it because it increases their sales value to say that they have carbon fibre in their part (for example, laptops with "carbon fibre" moulding).

Concerning fire, you don't need to resort to hyperbole - here's what happens if you try to burn one of Tesla's battery packs (that's a powerwall, but it's the same basic technology). They're quite resistant to fire - certainly much more than gasoline. There have only been two Tesla battery packs to catch fire by "puncture", and it wasn't so much "puncture" as being deeply gashed down their length by metal road debris. Since Tesla responded by installing a debris shield, there have been no more such incidents.

Far more of the (few) fires that have occured in Teslas have been from other areas of the vehicle, not the battery pack. And they often don't even manage to burn the battery pack - even if the rest of the vehicle is gutted. As of 2014, there had been well over a billion electric miles driven. For gasoline cars, there is an average of 90 fires per billion miles driven. For the EVs, passing their first billion? Six fires. Zero deaths. Zero injuries.

Re:Too little, too late

[Stuarticus]

Some idiot was making the same argument about petrol stations at some point as well "why these gasoline cars will require a filling station on every major thoroughfare, that will never compare to the efficiency of feeding one's horse on the grass at the roadside"...

Re:Too little, too late

[nukenerd]

And FYI, gas stations are much more likely to be "shitholes" than superchargers. Here's a random list of supercharger photo pictures .. How much of a "shithole" do they look like to you?

The original point is that you suggested having lunch while your EV charged. Someone replied that he did not want to eat lunch at a shithole.

"Shithole" might be an exageration, but I don't want to eat lunch or hang around at either a gas station or an EV charging station (likely the same place anyway). Eateries at such places are the type of busy, noisy places I hate. I stop to eat at roadside inns which are likely never to have charging points, or just pull off the road miles from anywhere and eat my own sandwiches.

Like many who announce brave new ways of living, you assume that everyone else has a lifestyle similar to your own, and your Brave New World by amazing co-incidence happens to be pretty similar to the one you have around yourself already.

Re:Too little, too late

[Stuarticus]

How long do you think those will remain economical once economies of scale are removed from the gasoline industry?

Re:Too little, too late

[nukenerd]

"Internal combustion engine vehicles will never take off, the horse will reign supreme forever. I mean, what if someone wants to go somewhere without roads?" That's you. That's what you sound like.

This replies to a question (way back - been easier if he had quoted it) which was was "What if I want to drive more than 500 miles in a day?. It is actually the biggest question hanging over to EVs right now and the car makers and others are putting massive efforts into trying to address it.

So care to have a go at answering this key question yourself instead of being smart-arsed? Please come up with something less pathetic than the usual "Stop for a coffee while it charges".

Re:Too little, too late

[nukenerd]

Lol, electrics are already cheaper than fossil fuel in most First World countries.

Only because (in the UK) fossil fuel for IC vehicles is massively taxed, and EV usage is massively subsidised (in terms of the licence fee). Government will not be able to afford that loss of taxation if EVs replace ICs on a large scale, so the taxation will be placed on EVs too, probably by road tolls.

Re:Too little, too late

[nukenerd]

Until the refiners see that there is a major glut of product available, and they start turning that oil into something else besides gasoline

Yes, I'm sure that we can all be persuaded by clever advertising to buy blocks of plastic equivalent to the amount of fuel we use now.

Re:Too little, too late

[nukenerd]

Your friend is a dinosaur. They've invented these new gadgets that allow you to talk to people without having to drive to them. He should look into using one.

Lot of dinosaurs around; a long way from extinction. Have you been asleep for a century? - the invention you refer to is not new yet the amount of travelling "to see people" has increased massively in that time. I regularly need to visit sites (power stations) up to 300 miles away to inspect the plant.

Re: Too little, too late

[rickb928]

Telling you it's an 80 mile commute, 40 miles each way, isn't changing you response is it...

Re:Too little, too late

[ledow]

A generator engine, a nautical engine, any other type of engine is generally an entirely different design, size, criteria, specification from a car engine. Economies of scale are small when every design is different (even year-to-year, model-to-model, let alone industry-industry).

And it will be 10 years before there's any decline whatsoever.

To be honest, by your reasoning, we should have thrown out all HDD's back when SSD's were only 100Mb maximum. There's been MILLIONS of them sold since then, and they're still going strong.

Re:Too little, too late

[Rei]

. Members of my family drive for a living and many of us cover *way* more than 500 miles and 8 hours at a time.

I don't know about the US, but in the EU you'd be stripped of your license for that. The legal minimum is one or more breaks totaling at least 45 minutes per every 4 1/2 hours driving.

Re:Too little, too late

[Rei]

Have you every seen a Costco on a Saturday afternoon or some highway truck stops during busy times? The lines are long, and that's with a 3-5 minute fill-up time.

Did you ever bother to check whether that ever happens with Superchargers? (Answer: very rarely, and for most superchargers, never). Tesla maintains market forecasts to ensure that it doesn't.

The reason that gas stations fill up is - and I can't believe I have to make this point yet again - gas cars have to detour from their everyday lives at regular intervals to go to them; EVs don't. For EVs, superchargers are only for trips.

Re:Too little, too late

[danbert8]

Yes, but driving for 8 hours straight is not a guarantee of being tired or falling asleep at the wheel. Hell, if you have multiple drivers in the car, it's possible to have quick driver tradeoffs and drive continuously without falling asleep at the wheel being an issue. I know me and 4 buddies drove 12 hours straight through the middle of the night for an NCAA game and then did the same trip back. No one did an excessive stint and people were able to sleep in the back when they weren't driving.

Re:Too little, too late

[Rei]

"Shithole" might be an exageration, but I don't want to eat lunch or hang around at either a gas station or an EV charging station (likely the same place anyway).

They're not "likely the same place", and that's a key part of your misunderstanding. Superchargers are not sited based on "is there a gas station here", they're sited based on "what is there to do and eat around here".

Here, let's pick a stereotypical boring "drive through" state and check out superchargers in it - say, Nebraska. Lets examine all of the superchargers along I-80, from west to east:

Sidney Supercharger
Best Western Plus Sidney Lodge
Charging: 8 Superchargers, available 24/7
Wifi: Best Western Plus Sidney Lodge
Restrooms: Best Western Plus Sidney Lodge, Perkins Restaurant & Bakery, Applebee's
Restaurants: Perkins Restaurant & Bakery, Applebee's
Lodging: Best Western Plus Sidney Lodge

Ogallala Supercharger
Lonesome Dove Lodge and Cabins
Charging: 8 Superchargers, available 24/7
Wifi: Lonesome Dove Lodge and Cabins, McDonald's
Restrooms: Lonesome Dove Lodge and Cabins, Margarita's
Restaurants: Margarita's, McDonald's, Golden Spur Steakhouse-Saloon
Lodging: Lonesome Dove Lodge and Cabins

Gothenburg Supercharger
Nebraska Barn and Grill
Charging: 8 Superchargers, available 24/7
Wifi: Comfort Suites
Restrooms: Nebraska Barn and Grill
Restaurants: Nebraska Barn and Grill, Pizza Hut
Lodging: Comfort Suites

Grand Island Supercharger
Bosselman Travel Center
Charging: 8 Superchargers, available 24/7
Wifi: Bosselman Travel Center
Restrooms: Bosselman Travel Center
Restaurants: Max's Thunder Road Grill, Little Caesars, Subway
Shopping: Bosselman Travel Center

Lincoln, NE Supercharger
Lincoln #3 Hy-Vee
Charging: 8 Superchargers, available 24/7
Wifi: Hy-Vee, Sleep Inn & Suites University
Restrooms: Hy-Vee
Restaurants: Hy-Vee Market Grille, Hy-Vee Chinese Express, Hy-Vee Bakery, Starbucks Coffee
Shopping: Hy-Vee
Lodging: Sleep Inn & Suites University

My, what shitholes. And this is in Nebraska of all places, not exactly luxurious territory. You don't need to stop at all of them of course - they averag

Re:Too little, too late

[Rei]

And indeed, that was a huge issue early on. Gas stations were random and poorly spaced. They were generally not really "stations", but rather shops, often where gasoline was not their primary business (just a product that they happened to carry). Usually they'd have a hand pump to dispense it, but sometimes they'd pour it straight from bottles through a hose. The fuel that they carried could vary widely in composition, and you never knew if it would work in your car until you tried it. Gas infrastructure was, in short, a real mess.

But because of interest in and adoption of the automobile by a small but meaningful fraction of the population, it steadily spread, standardized, and became easy.

Re:Too little, too late

[bluefoxlucid]

When I was 19, I used to eat while driving on 695. I would swerve all over the road now and then, and would have probably been a safer driver with free hands and 3-4 beers in me, but I pulled it off.

Going more than about 4 hours without a solid meal (or some modafinil) in you will mess with your reaction time. You don't look like a danger to others, but you're well into sub-optimal, and your mistakes are more-surprising when they happen. Call it 1-2 beers. We're not talking Duvel here.

Your brain runs on ATP, glucose, and acetone. It burns out its fuel supplies eventually, and needs time to consolidate new memories, produce more neurotransmitters, and regenerate supplies of ATP from glucose. It requires one hell of a lot of fuel. The "stop to let your brain un-fuck itself a bit" argument is akin to "your brake line is leaking slightly and you need to stop every 4-5 hours to top up some fluid": I've also let my brake lines get way low, d00d, and had the car complain at me that brakes were starting to fail, and continued to drive for another thousand miles, and nothing bad happened; I don't do that anymore, and would you want to be on the same road with me if I did?

Basically, you're facing an argument like "you shouldn't drive when drunk," and your answer is "I'm only slightly drunk, so it's fine!" Of course it's fine. Usually. Hopefully. Hell we can all probably make it home smashed most of the time, as long as the roads are wide and there's not much traffic. There's a reason we arrest you for this shit.

Re:Too little, too late

[bluefoxlucid]

Unsubsidized utility-scale PV solar electricity production has a cost range spanning the lower third of the cost range of combined gas cycle electricity production, which is by far the cheapest method of electricity production from fossil fuel. That incorporates cap-ex and op-ex into the TCO.

Re:Too little, too late

[bluefoxlucid]

Then your life is wasted driving all over the place. Next question.

I am, unfortunately, an east-coast politician and thus see transportation as an issue of congested cities and poverty reduction. When you get out west, it's an issue of enormous loss of labor and quality-of-life just ... driving around a lot. With a one-hour one-way commute, a five-day work week incurs an extra day and a quarter of unpaid time just getting to and from work; this is unsavory.

Hopefully that hyperloop thing pans out and you all get a way to make your commute 1/4 as long. It's too new a technology for me to validate commercial viability; Elon Musk can figure that part out, and the senators from the midwest can argue over if we should give national taxpayer money to speed this technology along. I will say that making all distances shorter does nice things for the economy, but might eventually lead to a world of grey people.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Disclaimer: I have a job which sometimes requires long solo drives. .

I am curious about this EU regulation: does one have to fill out a log book? I see enforcement would be a real problem unless, of course, it is mandated that individual drivers log into the car's computer. I wonder how that would play with data privacy laws.

    I mention logging onto the car computer because there is that multiple driver problem....

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

stop putting other people at risk because you're in a rush.

Fundamentally, that's a trade-off society has decided to accept as reasonable. Driving a car, at its core, is the act of putting other people at risk because you're in a rush.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people replace their cars and trucks every 2-3 years. (Kelly Blue Book) Most business replaces their vehicles every 2-5 years (fleet depreciation).

The most recent data I could find from Kelly Blue Book is from 2012, but that had the average length of ownership at 6 years for new cars and more than 4 years for used cars, with those numbers trending up (some other reports from 2015 had the new car average up to 6.5 years). Unless something changed dramatically in the last 2 years (not sure how that could even be possible), your 2-3 year number is flat-out "pants on fire" wrong. Couple this with the increasing longevity of cars on the road (the median age is approaching 12 years) and you're looking at about 20 years to whittle down the current vehicle fleet to just collector pieces.

Re:Too little, too late

[dak664]

What if I want to drive more than 500 miles in a day?

You can't always get what you want.

Re:Too little, too late

[RavenLrD20k]

The differences between the efficiency gains of using gas/diesel over using a horse were staggering and the arguments you quoted hypothetically would be idiotic. That said moving to electric is a not-negligible efficiency loss.

184 horses in 10 days to go coast to coast (1900 miles) carrying a single pouch required 184 changing stations on the route: Pony Express

1 Ford model T running the same trip would have a tank range of almost 145 miles (est 18mpg * 10 gallon tank with an 8 gallon draw). This makes a need for 14 fuel stations on the route, about 8 days or less travel time assuming 12 hr driving days and capacity for 50 or more travel pouches equivalent to what the pony express had.

A clear efficiency gain using early affordable automobiles. Compare that to the current transition we're facing:

1 Semi in roughly 3 days (assuming average 55 mph speed and 11 hrs of service per day after every 10 consecutive hrs off-duty) on a similar route with a gross weight between 30-40 tons, required stopping only once on the way to fill up 225 - 300 gallons of fuel and 30 minute breaks after 8 hrs of active driving.

1 Electric semi going the same distance with a presumed 400 mile range (information on google is sparse as far as the range of a pure battery powered Semi truck) will mean a required 90 minute (or more depending on number of chargers vs chargers in use) stop every 6 - 7 hours of drive time at least 5 times during the trip to recharge. Oh...and with trucking, 30 minutes for an 80% charge is not going to cut it, the battery needs to go 100% to get the max range they can between stops

Since the 11 hrs of service max is read from the end point of the 10 consecutive hours off-duty, recharge/break time does not figure into it, so in reality a Diesel Semi is going to have 10.5 hours active drive time (577.5 miles) and the Electric Semi is going to have 9.5 hours active drive time (522.5 miles) or significantly less as the more ubiquitous electric freight gets, the more wait time there is to get a bay. Losing half a day's drive time on waiting to recharge and actually recharging would not be an unreasonable estimation. That means the 1900 mile trip would take about 3.29 days using Diesel and 3.63 days at absolute best using Electric. In trucking, losing over 1/3 of a day in the course of a haul is a major setback as it can mean the difference between getting the next load that day and getting a head start on the next haul, or having to wait until the next day (or more) for a hookup.

This shows that there's a clear efficiency loss in going with mass produced electric. I'll grant you that the loss is not as drastic as the gain from going from Pony Express to mass produced auto; but the parent's argument of excessive charge times being a real problem is a valid one that needs to have a "good enough" solution before we start pushing forward with electric vehicles everywhere. We're not there yet. We're not even close to satisfactorily solving that problem for mass scale use.

Re:Too little, too late

[Green Mountain Bot]

It is, but you got it wrong. "I don't wanna swim", not "I don't know how to swim".

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

That's in the Mountain West, not the West in general. Not a lot (relatively) of Subarus in TX, but they're everywhere in CO.

Re:Too little, too late

[larryjoe]

Have you every seen a Costco on a Saturday afternoon or some highway truck stops during busy times? The lines are long, and that's with a 3-5 minute fill-up time.

Did you ever bother to check whether that ever happens with Superchargers? (Answer: very rarely, and for most superchargers, never). Tesla maintains market forecasts to ensure that it doesn't.

The reason that gas stations fill up is - and I can't believe I have to make this point yet again - gas cars have to detour from their everyday lives at regular intervals to go to them; EVs don't. For EVs, superchargers are only for trips.

The only reason superchargers currently work for long trips is that there are very few electric cars that need them. Take a look at truck stops on busy highways. There are often lines at those gas stations. If all cars on highways were electric, there would be huge lines at those stations. The only solutions would be to either install a huge number of superchargers (an order of magnitude more than current gas pumps) or increase the fueling efficiency of superchargers (by an order of magnitude).

Re:Too little, too late

[larryjoe]

Some idiot was making the same argument about petrol stations at some point as well "why these gasoline cars will require a filling station on every major thoroughfare, that will never compare to the efficiency of feeding one's horse on the grass at the roadside"...

Well, a huge number of horses can generally eat grass in parallel. The relevant analogy for electric car fueling would be setting up a very large number of superchargers so that all electric cars could charge in parallel. That would actually be one of the ways to make superchargers practical. Either the number of available stations needs to dramatically increase or the efficiency of each charger needs to dramatically increase. The third solution is to simply keep the status quo of allowing only a limited number of electric cars on the road that need superchargers.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

that figure includes airline travel which in the west is 95% of transportation emissions (by distance traveled)

so the earlier point stands. personal vehicles account for very little of the overall environmental impact

shipping & power generation are still the top offenders

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really. We lead in electric and hybrid purchases due to a combination of status-seeking, delusion, HOV privilege, and subsidies.

Re: Too little, too late

[baristabrian]

"Trump is trying to bury ..." Because you heard that from the ladies on "The View?" MSNBC? Good luck in your echo chambers.

Re:Too little, too late

[Rei]

The differences between the efficiency gains of using gas/diesel over using a horse were staggering

It really was not, and it would benefit you to read about the early history of the automobile before discussing it.

At the turn of the century there were 27000 miles of roads in the US. Almost virtually all unpaved. Ever wonder why early "horseless carriages" had those giant wagon wheels? It was to try to stop them from bogging down. Guess what? They still bogged down almost all the time. Early gas "stations" were sporadic, and weren't really "stations", just shops that happened to carry petrol. Sometimes they had a hand pump to dispense it; sometimes just bottles. You never knew what exactly you were putting into your car and whether it would be compatible. The cars were constantly breaking down. An important part of owning an early car was also learning to disassemble and fix it; if you wanted to be a car owner, you also needed to be a car mechanic.

Early cars were seen as a luxury toy for wealthy city dwellers, serving mainly as an annoyance and hazard to "normal" people. Lots of places passed anti-car ordinances as a consequence - widely supported by the local populace. These included things like having to have people with flags march alongside cars to make sure that the way was safe for pedestrians. Some places required cars to pull off the road if a horse was nearby and cover it up until the horse was past. For a couple decades, cars were really disdained by a large segment of the populace. It took nearly fifty years for cars to fully dislodge the horse. Half a century for your supposed "staggering" difference.

You bring up the Model T, as if it was the start of the automotive industry. It was an important step in it, but anything but the start. Wealthy people began buying horseless carriages and making "road trips" with them in the 1880s, two decades earlier. And it was really a miserable car to drive (ask anyone who's ever driven one). It came out only five years after the first cross-country drive in the US, by Horatio Nelson Jackson. Jackson's first breakdown was only 15 miles into the trip. He paid the equivalent of $130 per gallon for fuel at times. He was constantly having to ship parts across the country to replace things that broke or outright fell off, and to bike, horse ride, or walk dozens of miles to buy fuel when the car couldn't make it. At one point he was stranded for 36 hours without food until a shepherd found him and fed him. The whole trip took 63 1/2 days.

Your math for how fast an early car driver could hypothetically travel doesn't even remotely match the reality. The only reason he made it is because of the constant resupply lines by horse and train. It wasn't until the first cross-country highways in the 1920s like Route 66 that cross-country car travel really became practical.

1 Electric semi going the same distance with a presumed 400 mile range (information on google is sparse as far as the range of a pure battery powered Semi truck) will mean a required 90 minute (or more depending on number of chargers vs chargers in use) stop

Yeah, try again.

The reason you can't find specs for Tesla's Semi is because it hasn't had its public debut yet. However, Tesla's other cars' ranges of 220-335mi, increased slightly due to advances over time, are probably reasonable. Say, 300 mi.

Tesla's current charging standard is 30 minutes to 80%. This is with internal cooling. Tesla has been patenting external cooling of battery packs and charger cables, which offers significant potential for faster heat withdrawal from battery packs (the main limiting factor for battery life in fast charging). It also allows for much higher powers without increasing charging cable thickness.

Simultaneous with Semi, Tesla is working on Supercharger V3. Not many details have been leaked out on it yet, except that when asked if it would be 350kW, Mus

Re:Too little, too late

[Rei]

The only reason superchargers currently work for long trips is that there are very few electric cars that need them.

What part of "Tesla maintains market forecasts to ensure that they don't" didn't you understand? Tesla builds more when superchargers start to get busy. Look at the density of superchargers in, say, Hong Kong. Each of those stations in turn has many chargers.

Superchargers are budgeted such that they're profitable once utilization levels become significant, without requiring constant utilization. Only those in remote areas are loss leaders.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to allow for leasing, renting, and non-car households. A rookie mistake. Always check your n value before doing stats.

Re: Too little, too late

[Rei]

What happens if there is a line of just 5 cars ahead of you?

You ask Gandalf for a charge, because you're clearly stepped into a fantasy world by that point.

Superchargers being full at all is very rare because Tesla monitors usage and builds new chargers corresponding to demand in each area to prevent it. It does happen, but it's not common - and when it does, it's generally in places that have lots of other chargers. Furthermore, your vehicle can tell you how busy each station is before you get there.

Re:Too little, too late

[WillAffleckUW]

Not in the most populous counties. For example, the major cities like LA SF Seattle all have two-hour commutes if you don't actually live near where you work (article: Seattle Times, yesterday)

Re:Too little, too late

[Rei]

All commercial driving in the EU must be logged on a tachograph.

Re:Too little, too late

[Shinobi]

Commercially operated vehicles have automated loggers, modern ones also tie into satnav etc(GPS, GLONASS etc are treated as supplementary data, not primary data for this).

The ones I've seen, you basically slot your card, and it's logged as you. If you let someone else drive, with your user still logged in, you naturally get fined(if you work for a company, you most likely will be fired, if you work independently, you will have a harder time finding new hauls, because the news about people being morons travels quite fast...)

As for the privacy issues, there's always tradeoffs, but most drivers actually like the logging now, especially with the modern systems that can also log some of the traffic info sent via DAB. Quite a few drivers have been able to protect themselves from accusations of fraud when they've driven longer routes around traffic jams etc.

Re:Too little, too late

[Rei]

Ugh, poor phrasing in my first paragraph:

"Almost all unpaved" or "Virtually all unpaved", not both.
"still bogged down almost every trip" or "still bogged down all the time", not both.

When one has two separate phrasings in their head, it's best to write down only one of them, not mash the two together ;)

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey DOUCHE BAG I used to do field service on servers and EASILY could do 500+ miles in a day

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Climate changes get over it.

Re:Too little, too late

[dddux]

You regularly make 500+ miles? Are you a taxi driver? Do you actually get outside of your car at all?

Re:Too little, too late

[Shotgun]

And how available will those chargers be when more than a few virtue signaling yuppies need to use them? You can't get but so much power to the restaurant at one time. What would your local gas station wait line look like if a fill-up took 30 minutes?

And how clean will those charge stations be once they are in constant use for several years by the typical knuckle-dragger?

Re: Too little, too late

[Shotgun]

Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance.
Tesla is selling more cars.

Re: Too little, too late

[Rei]

And building more superchargers simultaneously. They're doubling over the course of this year. On the Tesla forums people watch them one by one pop into usage. At the M3 launch event a couple weeks ago they announced tripling by the end of next year. At the rate they've been going, that would not be at all surprising. Meanwhile, many other players are making their own network. VW will be making their own supercharging network nearly as big as Tesla's over the course of the next two years - and they're already starting on permitting.

Re: Too little, too late

[KGIII]

Slight addendum... I bet a good portion of those who take 500 mile trips, do so fairly frequently.

Hear me out...

We do it often, for a variety of reasons. I will hop in a car and go. I don't even need to take the RV. I'm retired. I enjoy meandering. There are a lot of us.

This, in no way, suggests we couldn't do it with an EV. But, there's a surprising number of us. I even see people do it on motorcycles. I'm pretty sure we can figure out how to reasonably do so in an EV.

Re: Too little, too late

[KGIII]

Some of the first automobile trips, across the US, were completed by going to the nearest pharmacy. The pharmacy had a chemist. The chemist either had, or could order, kerosene. He then had the ability to refine it to gasoline. This would be lugged out to where the automobile had run out of fuel.

They planned and improved. Regular routes were discovered. It's a pretty neat history.

No point, really. I just figured I'd share. EVs won't be the first thing humans have pioneered.

Re: Too little, too late

[KGIII]

To use this as a comparative, I live in the US. If I want, I can install a charger, throw up a small solar array - I already have one, and charge that bitch from the Sun. I don't even have to ask permission. I can pretty much plop that thing anywhere I'd want to and not a fuck will be given.

Meh... We do have some good things.

If it doesn't touch the grid, I can wire it with any wire I want. Insurance may choose to not cover this, of course. But, in theory, I could wire it with electric fence wire.

Re: Too little, too late

[Nocturna81]

I don't know about the US but most vehicles in Europe won't do 500 miles without a refill. Isn't that the same thing for both types: Above a certain mileage you'll have to refill either gasoline or electricity? And with both I take a few minutes to stretch my legs so both will be the same amount of break regardless of actual time refilling.

Re: Too little, too late

[Nocturna81]

No mod points, but thank you for the eloquent explanation!

Re:Too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Last I checked, there is no shortage of demand for plastic bullshit.

Re:Too little, too late

[PlaynBass]

Thanks for doing the research to present this relevant informative material in such a dispassionate manner! Such a rarity among the usual /. claptrap of mindless criticism.

Fantastic

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds similar to diesel, and I'd wondered for a long if or when anyone would ever use compression ignition with gasoline. This is fantastic news.

Re:Fantastic

[arth1]

Sounds similar to diesel, and I'd wondered for a long if or when anyone would ever use compression ignition with gasoline. This is fantastic news.

Mazda's experience with rotary/Wankel engines might have something to do with this.

Re:Fantastic

[Rei]

Well... sort of. At least in general HCCI engines - while having gasoline-like low PM and NOx - tend to have problems with VOCs and CO.

Re:Fantastic

[CustomSolvers2]

The properties of the fuels (e.g., how easily the f/a mixture might be ignited under certain conditions) explain the differences between both types of engines. So, there are very good reasons why compression-based ignition has been mostly focused on Diesel engines.

It is unclear what Mazda is planning to do to compensate the intrinsic limitations of gasoline on this front. Also HCCI is a pretty theoretical idea whose ambitious ultimate goal is to start the combustion almost simultaneously throughout the whole chamber. I don't think that close-to-100% HCCI has ever been reached even in Diesel.

Link to the actual article

[denbesten]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mazda-strategy-idUSKBN1AO0E7

It appears that the editor *actually read* the article, causing Reuters to scroll to the next story and change the URL. Will wonders never cease.

Magnetic Tape Storage

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey everybody, look at this sweet technology we've got...we'll call it mini-disc!

~Sony (right before the ipod destroyed it)

Re:Magnetic Tape Storage

[rickb928]

I still use my MiniDisc, you intolerant clod!

Re: Magnetic Tape Storage

[Anonymous Coward]

Minidisc came out before the ipod but good try

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters

[Anonymous Coward]

And Slashdot brings me news I read on Reuters this morning. Yay!

I'll Be Amazed

[segedunum]

I'll be astonished if Mazda have created a HCCI engine, commercialise it and make it reliable. Petrol is simply too volatile a fuel to control this with.

Re:I'll Be Amazed

[freeze128]

Maybe it could be adapted to work with hydrogen... Or is that also too volatile?

Re:I'll Be Amazed

[RingDev]

They make it work by being dual-mode. It only switches to compression ignition when it determines the appropriate conditions. A fair bit of the time, it'll be on standard spark ignition. Basically, they manage to control the intake and exhaust flow at a higher compression ratio that they can predict predet and control it.

The bigger problem I would expect, is getting it to pass emissions. I would guess that it'll do great on CO2, but it'll blow NOX worse than a Diesel.

At which point, your sentiment rings true. If you're going to have Diesel emissions, why not just have a Diesel engine and enjoy the perks that go with it?

-Rick

Re:I'll Be Amazed

[Strider-]

The bigger problem I would expect, is getting it to pass emissions. I would guess that it'll do great on CO2, but it'll blow NOX worse than a Diesel.

If they get their fuel/air mix right, there won't be a NOx issue as there won't be enough left over oxygen to produce NOx in significant quantities. Modern diesels produce it due to the high flame temperatures, and because by definition they run extremely lean. If they're running it like a gasoline engine, where the goal is to completely consume the oxygen in the charge air, then the NOx issues should be relatively well controlled.

Re:I'll Be Amazed

[CanHasDIY]

Petrol is simply too volatile a fuel to control this with.

Not in liquid form. Hell, I know old mechanics who use cans of gasoline to put out cigarettes.

Re:I'll Be Amazed

[hord]

Hydrogen is far less volatile than gasoline. People have a fear of Hydrogen but it has a low energy density and dissipates very rapidly by floating away. Gasoline vapor is explosive with a very high energy content and the liquid itself adheres to surfaces easily and will burn on the surface of water. The biggest issue with using hydrogen as a fuel is simply that it takes too much energy to make a decent quantity of it. It sticks to everything and you have to input energy to unstick it.

Re: I'll Be Amazed

[Crosshair84]

No they don't. Not with Gasoline.

Re: I'll Be Amazed

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, with gasoline. Gasoline in open container cans are very different from the pressurized gasoline (that is still fuming) that you're considering.

Re:I'll Be Amazed

[thesupraman]

However (and I have worked on fuel injection systems) if they do not run it lean, they will be running inefficient.
Pretty much all of these engineers run lean, it helps efficiency a lot.
There is pretty much no way around the efficiency/NOx tradeoff.
Claiming this should have low NOx is simply not possible, more likely they are running a diesel style post infection system.

Re:I'll Be Amazed

[Anonymous Coward]

"There is pretty much no way around the efficiency/NOx tradeoff."
Studies disagree. (eg: http://scihub.org/AJSIR/PDF/2010/2/AJSIR-1-2-293-302.pdf)

HCCI involves lower average and peak temperatures. The homogeneous nature of the charge, and the compression ignition means you no longer have a significant flame front activity which reduces temperature variation during combustion, leading to significantly less primary (air near the flame front, but not currently involved in the combustion, that is exposed to high temperatures) NOx generation.

HCCI doesn't require lean AFR, it's just that HCCI is typically intended for low load operation where lean AFR is desirable. There's been a lot of work done to use swirl and heat transfer rates to optimise the charge to largely occupy the area near the cylinder wall (with other areas typically primarily containing EGR), where heat transfer can be further optimised to reduce secondary (air exposed to latent heat in the cylinder after combustion) NOx generation to extremely small amounts. (See: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544215014516)

Re: I'll Be Amazed

[Anonymous Coward]

There's plenty of scientific studies that say otherwise. NOx production requires available air and high temperatures. Under ultra lean burn conditions the temperature is significantly reduced compared to existing engine designs.

Re: I'll Be Amazed

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Gasoline's flash temperature is ~ - 14C. A lit cigarette will cause an open container to ignite (but not explode). It is always vaporising. Can put a cigarette out in diesel no problem though.

Re:I'll Be Amazed

[mr.mctibbs]

Hydrogen, which boils at twenty degrees *Kelvin,* is less volatile than gasoline? I'll have whatever you're smoking.

Re:I'll Be Amazed

[Thelasko]

TFA mentions HCCI technology, which would be an incredible development if true. That technology has been under development for decades.

Diesel engines run lean, so there is a lot of oxygen left over that can bond with the nitrogen in the air to make NOx. Diesels have been working towards running richer in order to reduce NOx. However, this creates particulate matter since there isn't adequate time for the fuel to mix evenly with the air.

Gasoline engines historically run stoichiometric, but have to control airflow to maintain that condition at various loads. This throttling of the airflow creates pumping losses. Gasoline engines have recently been running lean through gasoline direct injection. These engines stratify the charge in order to achieve a localized zone in the cylinder that is close to stoichiometric. However, since the gasoline is injected into the cylinder late in the cycle, there isn't sufficient time for the fuel to mix with the air. This causes issues with particulate matter like a diesel.

HCCI is supposed to run lean like a diesel to provide good fuel economy, yet have good mixing (homogeneous charge) like a port injected gasoline engine to reduce particulate emissions. This method of combustion is low temperature, which reduces NOx formation. The struggle has been controlling the air and fuel precisely enough to get the air and fuel to ignite efficiently without the use of a spark.

A better buggy whip?

[Freischutz]

Colour me cynical but with the long term future of automotive propulsion increasingly looking as if it lies in various kinds of electric car, isn't pouring lots of resources into a 30% more efficient petrol engine in 2017 somewhat akin to inventing 'a better buggy whip' in 1888 (the year Mrs. Benz made her famous 106 km 'automobil' journey in case you slept through history class)?

Re:A better buggy whip?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes because as we all know horses no longer exist.

Re:A better buggy whip?

[ickleberry]

Even before 1888 buggy whips were known to be pretty much useless; people had long figured out it was more effective to whip the horse rather than the buggy

Re:A better buggy whip?

[suutar]

Nah. Gasoline cars will not stop selling before 2019, and until they do, increasing efficiency for gas vehicles and reducing NO emissions from traditionally diesel form factors are both worthwhile enhancements. So if they're on schedule, this could be a big win for Mazda in terms of carving out a good chunk of the (assumed to be) tail years of the fossil fuel vehicle.

Re:A better buggy whip?

[The Grim Reefer]

Possibly. A lot can change though. People who live in rural areas in the US, Australia, etc are probably a very long way from electric. Some countries are looking to phase out new gasoline powered cars in 23 years. But the majority of the planet is not yet committed to this. I don't think this is something that the engineers at Mazda just started working on last week either. I'm sure it's been in the refinement stages for some time.

Re:A better buggy whip?

[denbesten]

Think of its use as an on-board generator in an otherwise electric car. This would be the key for owning one car that works both as a daily commuter and for long-distance vacations.

Re:A better buggy whip?

[EndlessNameless]

isn't pouring lots of resources into a 30% more efficient petrol engine in 2017 somewhat akin to inventing 'a better buggy whip' in 1888

Not entirely.

There are some heavy-use cases where electric will not be a viable replacement for a long time. E.g., the batteries required for industrial equipment and commercial trucks would be enormous in many cases.

Getting diesel-level efficiency without those nasty diesel emissions is a plus.

That said, I expect this will be a nice improvement until regular passenger vehicles convert to electric. The conversion to electric is somewhat dependent on improvements to battery capacity and charger availability, both of which are outside the direct control of the auto makers (Tesla being the notable exception).

Re:A better buggy whip?

[barc0001]

Color me cynical to your cynicsm... There will be applications for ICE for decades to come. Better fuel efficiency for gasoline engines is not a bad thing to pursue. A couple of Euro countries have passed bold legislation to stop selling gasoline cars by 2040. That's still 23 years away, and I personally don't have much faith that when we hit 2040 they won't backpedal a bit and soften the legislation. And even if it does come to pass, we're supposed to toss away 2 decades of better fuel efficiency because it's a segment that will begin to shrink?

And finally, with the current percentages of electric cars on the road compared to gasoline cars, your statement is akin to saying "Well I don't really see why people are still honing their skills to do development for that Windows thing when Linux on the Desktop is finally coming". I'd wait until electric vehicle sales reached 10% of total sales before snarking like that. For reference, in 2016 electric vehicles were 0.86% of the total passenger vehicle sales worldwide. Just a little ways to go yet.

Re:A better buggy whip?

[cheesybagel]

Not, it's like inventing a better incandescent light bulb when people are switching to LED lights:
http://news.mit.edu/2016/nanop...

Re:A better buggy whip?

[hord]

I don't see enough EVs on the market or on the roads to push a convincing argument that they are going to dominate any time soon. That being said what is on the radar of every IC-based manufacturer are the ever-increasing environmental standards that they must comply to. This might go a long way in being able to meet those goals along with maybe increasing safety or adding features that are stripped in preference to emissions controls.

IC engine efficiency is hardly 20%

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

80% of the energy in the gasoline, goes out as heat in the tail pipe. Diesel engines use compression ignition (no spark plugs) already. The much "coveted" technology, if it works, would bring diesel engine efficiency to gasoline engines. That is all. The claimed benefit is reduction in pollution, not any improvement in efficiency over existing IC engines.

Now that we know how difficult it is to cut the emissions on diesel engines during start up and some driving conditions, it is probably a good thing. But it is not going to slow the long march towards hybrid and electric cars. It is more along the lines of streamlining steam locomotives.

Re:IC engine efficiency is hardly 20%

[Strider-]

The issue is that the NOx pollution from the Diesels is due to its thermal efficiency. In a properly running diesel, the flame in the cylinder is so hot that it causes the N2 from the atmosphere to momentarily disassociate, which in turn combines with the left over oxygen, producing oxides of nitrogen. By definition, diesels run extremely lean, so there's plenty of oxygen for this to happen, and 80% of the charge is nitrogen. Anyhow, the net result is that diesels tend to produce the most NOx at the most efficient point, which is right around their torque curve.

Gasoline engines, on the other hand, ideally operate at the stochiometric ratio; the oxygen in the charge air is completely consumed by the combustion. It sounds like Mazda has achieved diesel-like efficiency while maintaining the gasoline ratios, meaning that there is no left over oxygen to produce NOx. It'll be interesting to see if it works out and is reliable.

Re:IC engine efficiency is hardly 20%

[Anonymous Coward]

long march towards hybrid

You are aware that hybrids have an ICE inside, correct?

Re:IC engine efficiency is hardly 20%

[fnj]

ALL internal combustion engines produce NOx, sparky. Diesel exhaust is just more difficult and expensive to aftertreat to remove the last vestiges.

Re:IC engine efficiency is hardly 20%

[drinkypoo]

Gasoline engines don't run ideally. They run rich-lean-rich-lean. Then the catalyst averages it out, more or less.

Re:IC engine efficiency is hardly 20%

[hackertourist]

I'd be surprised if that were true. Running rich would soon ruin the catalytic converter.

Re:IC engine efficiency is hardly 20%

[Anonymous Coward]

The catalyst is downstream of the combustion, burning carbon that the power stroke missed. How does it "average out" the upstream mixture?

Re:IC engine efficiency is hardly 20%

[drinkypoo]

I'd be surprised if that were true. Running rich would soon ruin the catalytic converter.

Well, prepared to be surprised with knowledge, the same knowledge you could have got from Wikipedia but which I knew before they even taught me in school in the prep class for the ASE A-6 because I care about how vehicles work. It's called "closed loop" operation, and it's how gasoline vehicles have worked since they got O2 sensors and electronic mixture control, which predates ubiquitous fuel injection substantially. In short, a reading is taken from the O2 sensor, and the mixture is adjusted... over and over again. When the computer detects that the mixture is rich, by O2 sensor voltage going down (because when it's heated, oxygen ions cause electrons to migrate across the metal junction in the sensor) then it adjusts mixture control on the carburetor with a little geared motor, or it adjusts the pulse width of the fuel injectors, and less fuel is delivered. This makes the mixture go lean. When an excessively lean mixture is detected, the mixture is enriched and then the mixture goes rich. Lather, rinse, repeat. This causes the mixture to yaw back and forth between rich and lean. This happens a certain number of times per second, which we call cross counts. As the sensor ages, it not only produces a lower maximum voltage, but it also reacts more slowly, and the cross counts go down. The cross counts are a factor of the sensor's health, the sampling rate of the PCM, and the adjustment speed of the mixture control. At the same time, the computer is continually building a table which tells it how much maximum fuel and timing advance it can deliver at a given RPM and load demand (throttle position) and this figure (with some correction based on coolant temperature sensor and other sensors) is used to determine how much fuel the PCM will choose to deliver at any given time.

Unburned hydrocarbons (aka raw fuel) are the single worst automotive emission, but from an emissions standpoint they are only a big problem when the vehicle is first started, and the catalyst is cold. At that time, it cannot burn off the excess HC. After that, the catalyst is hot, and burning off excess HC from the time when the engine is running rich is its primary job in life. It won't be too long before we get electrically heated catalysts, which start doing their job #1 sooner. A massive percentage of gasoline vehicle emissions are at startup time; these days, virtually all the HC that a vehicle will emit occurs then, and that's all thanks to the catalyst.

Man, I miss the days when Slashdot was peopled mostly with users who knew things.

Re:IC engine efficiency is hardly 20%

[danomac]

That's why it sweeps from rich to lean. I have an air/fuel gauge in one of my cars and you can see this sweeping action happen in real time.

Passengers in my car for the first time see that gauge sweeping back and forth and usually ask what it's for.

Re:IC engine efficiency is hardly 20%

[Shotgun]

Bullshit!

Operate at stoichiometric and you'll burn the valves out of your engine in very short order. Amateur built airplane driver that is constantly playing with the mixture control to get more efficiency here. Best power is around 11.5:1 and runs pretty cool. A well tuned engine will run (barely) up to 18:1, and is practically cold. Stoichiometric, about 14:1, will give you peak EGT, about 1400F, and is a very costly place to run.

Convenience of electric - except in winter

[FeelGood314]

Electric cars are just more convenient. Once their range is close enough to gas no one will want to buy a new fossil fuel car. A few years after that gas stations will start disappearing. Once the stations and infrastructure start to die out the end of gasoline cars will be fairly quick. The one area where the internal combustion engine has a huge advantage is winter driving. Heating a car with an electric battery kills your distance and there aren't many good solutions. Insulation only gets you so far because you also have to dry the air in the car out or else the moisture will condense on the windows (try driving a car on a -20C morning with 3 kids in the back)

Re:Convenience of electric - except in winter

[Anonymous Coward]

Hydrogen fuel cell. Problem solved.

Re:Convenience of electric - except in winter

[Anonymous Coward]

Electric cars are just more convenient. Once their range is close enough to gas no one will want to buy a new fossil fuel car. A few years after that gas stations will start disappearing. Once the stations and infrastructure start to die out the end of gasoline cars will be fairly quick. The one area where the internal combustion engine has a huge advantage is winter driving. Heating a car with an electric battery kills your distance and there aren't many good solutions. Insulation only gets you so far because you also have to dry the air in the car out or else the moisture will condense on the windows (try driving a car on a -20C morning with 3 kids in the back)

I'm 56 and I doubt that fuel (gas or diesel) will be gone in my children's lifetime (youngest are 30) and only 50/50 chance that it will gone in my grandchildren's lifetime. While they might become very hard and/or expensive in the G20 countries, that just makes it more available for the rest of the world.

Re:Convenience of electric - except in winter

[Anonymous Coward]

heated seats are much less energy intensive than heating all the air in the car, and you get warm much sooner than waiting for the engine to heatup the antifreeze. But a plug-in hybrid gets you the best of both worlds (though maybe also the worst of both worlds too).

Re:Convenience of electric - except in winter

[Anonymous Coward]

The range of a internal combustion engine is essentially unlimited. You can refill the fuel tank in minutes. Until you can fast charge an electric vehicle to full in a few minutes or swap battery packs to achieve a range of greater than 1000 miles a day there will be internal combustion engines in places with large sparsely populated areas like the united states and Russia.

Re:Convenience of electric - except in winter

[caseih]

This is wishful thinking. It may be true in very dense urban centers, but it is less and less likely to be true anytime soon out in suburbia, and even less likely in rural areas where farms operate and grow food that everyone in the urban centers is dependent on.

Personally I'd love to see a day when I can have a fully-electric, battery-operated tractor, combine, or semi truck that can operate at high power output ranges for 12 hours or more at a stretch (and recharge very quickly). But realistically I don't expect to see this in my lifetime.

Re:Convenience of electric - except in winter

[brunes69]

Tesla is working on a semi truck right now. It is going to be announced before the end of the year.

https://electrek.co/2017/05/25...

Re:Convenience of electric - except in winter

[mjwx]

This is wishful thinking. It may be true in very dense urban centers, but it is less and less likely to be true anytime soon out in suburbia, and even less likely in rural areas where farms operate and grow food that everyone in the urban centers is dependent on.

This,

Its just people who have no knowledge of the engineering jumping on the Tesla hype bandwagon.

The problem Tesla has is that it's using the same battery technology as a laptop and as anyone who has half a brain and uses a laptop on battery regularly will have noticed is that battery power degrades with each charge cycle. It's not noticable over a few... but try doing 300. Batteries are consumable, up until now when the battery pack in your Prius goes, you've still got the gasoline engine to cover you. The problem Tesla will have in a few years is that the batteries wont be doing anywhere near a 300 mile range.

Also thats 300 miles under laboratory conditions. Not when Tailgater McOnThePhone is in charge.

Sure there's a lot of talk about banning the sale of new ICE vehicles in Europe at some point in the distant future... but that's just talking and handwringing from governments that barely even know what's going to happen in 2 years time, let alone 20.

Re:Convenience of electric - except in winter

[R3d M3rcury]

Once their range is close enough to gas no one will want to buy a new fossil fuel car.

Well, that all depends.

Right now, I get a bit over 300 miles with my car. Very expensive electric cars can come pretty close.

So, in a couple of years, my choice is between a $35,000 electric car that gets 300 miles on a charge or a $35,000 Mazda which gets 50 MPG and, therefore, gets over 500 miles on a tank of gasoline.

Re:Convenience of electric - except in winter

[thesupraman]

You find hour long regular times convenient? That's... Special.

Electric cars are still waiting for battery tech.. It will probably come, however it is not there yet.

Then of course there is the requirement to triple the residential electricity grid.. How hard could that be, right?
And I'm sure power process won't go up... No sir.

Re:Convenience of electric - except in winter

[TheLongshot]

Not more convenient when my parking space is on the opposite side of the parking lot from my townhouse. Until they put in charging stations in my townhouse complex, or they find a way to quick charge these cars in 5 minutes, electric cars just won't be practical for me.

Re:Convenience of electric - except in winter

[Anonymous Coward]

"Once their range is close enough to gas"

If. It would require significant battery density improvements. You can't just keep adding batteries to get longer range without significant downsides.

Re:Convenience of electric - except in winter

[AmiMoJo]

AC is better for keeping windows mist free than heat. My Leaf has a heat pump and AC system, so I normally blast both for maybe 20 seconds to fully de-mist the car when setting off (often automatically on a timer while it's still plugged in, so doesn't even touch the battery) and then just keep heat and AC on the minimum setting to maintain.

It ends up reducing range by 5-10%, depending on conditions and driving style.

Re:Convenience of electric - except in winter

[AmiMoJo]

Commercial vehicles like trucks and tractors don't need to operate for 12 hours at a stretch. Even the current EU laws don't allow humans to drive them continuously for that long without a break, and they will be some of the first vehicles to get fully antonymous driving (and charging) anyway.

300 miles range at 70 MPH is already available and already more than enough for human beings. If you are driving for more than 4 hours straight without a break, you are not driving safely.

Re:Convenience of electric - except in winter

[Anonymous Coward]

Tractors very much do need to run for long periods of time. Have you been on a broadacre farm in the last 30 years?

When seeding and harvesting are on, tractors run 24/7 until the job is done. Seeding is done as close as possible to rain to maximise germination rates and minimise losses from predation. Similarly, harvesting is done as quickly as possible to ensure correct and consistent moisture levels.

Farmers spend a lot of time in the lead up to seeding and harvesting on maintenance on tractors and ensure that they are running reliably and have vital spare parts like hydraulic hoses on hand as they can't afford the downtime involved in waiting hours or days for a mechanic to come.

Although since you mention the EU, you probably have no concept of the size of cropping operations in countries like Australia, Canada or the USA.

Re:Convenience of electric - except in winter

[jabuzz]

What's better than AC is an electrically heated front windscreen. Now that Ford's patent's are out they should be a lot more common place.

Re:Convenience of electric - except in winter

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the Tesla batteries show very little sign of degradation. Normally you don't "cycle" you battery. It stays in the 30% - 80% SOC and is only outside this level when on long drives. A have had my Tesla for two years, used it quite extensively and have noticed 0, nil, zero degradation.

Re:Convenience of electric - except in winter

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't wait around for the battery to charge. You plug your car in when you get home and it is charged in the morning. That is it. And it infinitely more convenient than driving to a gas station. Batteries are just fine as they are. The only problem is the prices, which fortunately is dropping by 8 - 15% per year.

The power consumption will not triple. Far from it. Double at the very worst. Charging an EV uses about the same power that you use at the evening cooking and watching TV. If people schedule their charging to occur at night, the requirements to the residential electricity grid will be unchanged.

Re:Convenience of electric - except in winter

[Anonymous Coward]

Range is just of less importance on EV. Normally you just charge your EV at home. It takes 5 seconds to plug it in when you get home and is sufficiently charged in the morning. Unless you exhaust you 300 miles in a single day, you have no problems and EV's will be a more convenient solution for you.

Re:Convenience of electric - except in winter

[AmiMoJo]

I don't know... AC clear it in a few seconds, electrically heated windows take much longer. I don't really want to wait ages for the windscreen to clear.

I imagine the AC is more efficient than resistive heating too.

Re:Convenience of electric - except in winter

[Anonymous Coward]

The human truck driver will be gone long before the trucks are run on batteries.

Re:Convenience of electric - except in winter

[Anonymous Coward]

> Hydrogen fuel cell. Countless new problems created.

FTFY.

Re:Convenience of electric - except in winter

[Anonymous Coward]

Commercial vehicles like trucks and tractors don't need to operate for 12 hours at a stretch. Even the current EU laws don't allow humans to drive them continuously for that long without a break

That is making the assumption that only one driver is in a truck ( which isn't a terrible assumption for a long-haul scenario ), trucking operations are moving towards operating in shift-sized delivery zones, so that another driver can slip-seat into a tractor so that a truck can remain operational for nearly an entire day. The company I work for has client fleets that run 23 hour a day, stopping only for fueling and driver changes, maintenance cycles are the only time that a tractor is off for an extended period of time.

Margins are becoming so thin in trucking that fleets are trying to get by with minimal equipment, and multiple shifts, instead of the older dedicated truck / driver pairings.

Re:Convenience of electric - except in winter

[Anonymous Coward]

A few years after that gas stations will start disappearing.

There are lots of challenges to charging infrastructure: street parking and renters are most likely to not have easy access to such capabilities at home.

Gas stations will transition and survive for some time.

Re:Convenience of electric - except in winter

[Anonymous Coward]

I have something called a "girlfriend" who takes over when I'm tired. Ok not as good as an autopilot but works well enough for things like highway driving.

Re:Convenience of electric - except in winter

[Anonymous Coward]

Well in the real world where your food is grown and harvested people regularly operate their tractor over 12+hour stretches. I know where I live in the United States that the local farmers have and do pull 24+ hour days every year. When a hurricane or another large prolong destructive weather pattern is forecasted to occur and your crop is basically ready to harvest you do not let some pencil pusher in a government office stop you from making your livelihood. You get in your tractor and drive until the crops are in or the ground gets so wet that the tractor gets stuck and you finish harvesting by hand.

Re:Convenience of electric - except in winter

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing you don't actually work on a farm. Tractors are very expensive and planting/harvesting season is short. We keep the tractors running 24 hours a day when we have to. The drivers operate on shifts. My neighbor has a small (400 acre) farm he and his son work alone. I often see them run their tractors 16-20 hours or more in a day, for two or three weeks straight.

Also, it's a lot easier to drive a 5 mph tractor "safely" all day than a 70 mph 18-wheeler.

Re:Convenience of electric - except in winter

[G00F]

In modern cars, when you turn on the defrosters or air on the windshield options the AC runs to draw out moisture before being heated so the air is dryer and will do a much better job of defogging the windows.

Re:Convenience of electric - except in winter

[Anonymous Coward]

I am just crying my eyes out for you mr. whiney-edge-case-loser.

Get over yourself. You are not a special snowflake. If you do not fall into the 95% of people who's needs can be met by an electric vehicle.. NOBODY FUCKING CARES.

Re:Convenience of electric - except in winter

[Anonymous Coward]

Graphene supercaps will soon be exceeding the energy density of LiIon batteries. This Will revolutionize the EV market because it will allow a full charge of your EV in about 30s, they do not lose capacity over time so never need to be replaced, and only slightly vary capacity regardless of heat or cold due to thermal expansion/contraction.

Worst trend in webdesign

[Optic7]

The never-ending single page is the worst trend in webdesign today, or perhaps ever. I was trying to reach the footer of some website the other day to get to info like "about", "contact us", or whatever, and it was absolutely impossible.

Re:Worst trend in webdesign

[Anonymous Coward]

The never-ending single page is the worst trend in webdesign today, or perhaps ever. I was trying to reach the footer of some website the other day to get to info like "about", "contact us", or whatever, and it was absolutely impossible.

That's bad, but still not as bad as when you wish to go to a particular results page. With there being no pagination, you have practically no choice but to trigger the load-more-event by scrolling down 20 times. Fuck that shit.

Re:Worst trend in webdesign

[PhrostyMcByte]

The worst is when they don't properly virtualize the scroll bar, so it's impossible to get back to the top without loading all the pages again as you page back through them. Lookin at you, Thingiverse.

Re:Worst trend in webdesign

[PsychoSlashDot]

The never-ending single page is the worst trend in webdesign today, or perhaps ever. I was trying to reach the footer of some website the other day to get to info like "about", "contact us", or whatever, and it was absolutely impossible.

I'm guessing the "End" key on your keyboard was broken?

Re:Worst trend in webdesign

[Khyber]

That just triggers the infinite page refresh to continue on, dragging the link (f it exists) back to the bottom, where you can't click on it.

Whomever figured out one could do that (or whomever implemented the capabilities to do so) should be shot.

Re:Worst trend in webdesign

[HornWumpus]

Still better than /. beta was, but 'shootin''s too good for them...'

Confession...i once showed a dev how to 'automate' and 'reuse' his Access application from VB classic. 'new Access.Application'....I'll go to hell for it, I deserve it. My cats will eat my liver, every day.

Re:Worst trend in webdesign

[aberglas]

JavaScript is cool. The more of it you use the better. Especially if you can bring in the latest fancy package. And it needs to do something. Hence AJAX riddled infinite scroll.

Re:Worst trend in webdesign

[Anonymous Coward]

The never-ending single page is the worst trend in webdesign today, or perhaps ever.

Second worst. The pop-up ad is the worst.

Re:Worst trend in webdesign

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had the same problem as him.
I press the End key to get to the bottom, I see the last line with the "About us" link and in the time it takes for me to move my mouse onto that link the page has extended itself by another article, requiring me to seek the end again.
Sometimes it has taken me many minutes to click on that link fast enough and sometimes I gave up.

Re:Worst trend in webdesign

[Dagger2]

For what it's worth, if you have a Thingiverse account you can turn infinite scrolling off in the preferences. Unfortunately they only show 12 entries per page so it takes forever to go through them all, but at least there's no infinite scroll involved.

Re:Worst trend in webdesign

[qaz123]

I agree. I liked youtube's comment system with pagination much better

Re:Worst trend in webdesign

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing the "End" key on your keyboard was broken?

Yes, I do have a Mac you insensitive clod!

Dieselgate...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now gasolinegate. Because of course gasoline engines don't fake on emissions testing results, or do they?

Wankel Engine making another show?

[Trax3001BBS]

Only a RX7 fan would go this route.

Mazda new wankel engine patent (Mar 16)
http://pdfaiw.uspto.gov/.aiw?P...

Story on patent
http://blog.caranddriver.com/n...

Animation of Wankel engine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Bicycles are great

[execthis]

Bicycles are great. Traffic is so shitty where I live though I stopped riding mine.

Re:Bicycles are great

[fahrbot-bot]

Bicycles are great.

And, as Steven Wright said, "Anywhere is walking distance if you have the time."

Show Me

[Anonymous Coward]

I've lost track of all of the breakthrough technologies and game changers that have been announced in the news and here on Slashdot that I've never seen come to fruition. IBM made a major announcement re:quantum computing just before sharing that their profits were down and their stock took a plunge. Does anyone remember the story about a guy who came up with a new way to make steel stronger and lighter (no, not the MIT story from earlier this year or the nanotech one from a couple of years back)? Six years later and we are still talking about possibilities.

I hope this new perpetual motion invention makes it to retail soon. OTOH, I'm really more interested in the hydrogen powered car anyway.

Yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

So... dinosaurs have announced one one of them has figured out how to be 20 to 30% more efficient?

What a lovely historical footnote that will make.

The transition to electric vehicles is at a classic inflection point. Anyone with half a brain knew this was coming, it was all a matter when batteries would get cheap enough to trigger it, and we're just about there. The Bolt, the Tesla 3, and the Leaf 2 will all be far more appealing to mainstream consumers than were earlier vehicles. (I've been driving a Leaf for over 4 years, and I love it. But I plan to replace it with a Leaf 2 next Spring.)

The advantages of EVs (vastly lower fueling and maintenance costs, quiet, great driving experience, no stops at smelly gas stations, etc.) will overwhelm liquid fueled vehicles as soon as people can buy one for roughly the same price that carries no fear (rational or otherwise) related to range and recharging time.

Re:Yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

The announced breakthrough is an engine that automatically cheats on emissions tests!

In other news

[fyngyrz]

Dateline Alabama, August 2017:

This reporter is delighted to deliver the scoop that finally, buggy whips will now be available with carbon fiber handles and artificial spider-silk lashes. Order early to be sure to get yours in time for school!

Sounds like an urban legend

[Anonymous Coward]

There was a tale about how an inventor claimed that he could get higher fuel mileage by premixing and heating the fuel with oxygen in the carburretor at high pressure then injecting it into the pistons. But he was bought out by the oil companies.

Re:Sounds like an urban legend

[ChrisMaple]

Gee, a supercharger. High tech in 1920.

Re:Sounds like an urban legend

[HornWumpus]

Pure compressed oxygen, in every vehicle's carburetor. You first...

They aren't even crazy enough to run oxygen injection in the NHRA. Somebody tries every 20 or 30 years, once the memory of the last explosion has faded away. Pretty sure they don't do it at NHRA or IHRA events though. Steal catches fire as it explodes, fun for the crowd.

Oh please

[fyngyrz]

the overall cost of producing the electricity, in terms of pollution aren't that far apart [for fossil fuel ICEV and charging current for EV].

Yeah, actually the absolute pollution levels for these are quite far apart, and getting further apart every day. That's without even counting systems specifically designed to supply short-ride vehicles locally via solar. The efficiency of power production for vehicle charging at a fossil-fuel power plant, even after transmission losses to the charging point, is far better than an ICE can do on a per-vehicle basis. But don't let the facts stop you from spreading your fud. It seems to be the new normal anyway.

rent a gas/diesel vehicle for long trips

[Chirs]

Seriously, if you drive mostly shorter trips and have occasional need for a long-range vehicle, it may very well make more sense to rent it than drive it all the time.

Personally I drive a smallish car and own an a covered cargo trailer. The odd time that I need a minivan or pickup truck I rent one.

Re: rent a gas/diesel vehicle for long trips

[Anonymous Coward]

That assumes that ICE vehicles will continue to be prevalent (along with gas stations). We need to find a solution that allows all vehicles to be electric.

It's like suggesting that travelers use a pay phone because roaming costs are too high. Luckily we got past roaming fees because pay phones aren't prevalent anymore.

HCCI engine torque and other benefits

[Guppy]

The much "coveted" technology, if it works, would bring diesel engine efficiency to gasoline engines. That is all.

Mazda's presentation also had an example output curve for their SkyActiv-X engine, apparently it also produces diesel-like torque as well. It also does quite well with low-octane gasoline, as octane rating is irrelevant to a compression-ignition engine.

for long trips crunch the numbers on gas/electric

[Chirs]

Depending on how frequently you need to make long trips it may make sense to buy a gas car. It may also make sense to buy an electric car for local trips and rent a gas car for longer trips.

The tradeoff between the two depends on the relative prices of the cars and their "fuel", as well as how frequently you make long trips.

hydrofoil sailboats

[Chirs]

The current Americas Cup boats are dual-hull hydrofoil boats with semi-rigid sails. Depending on what direction they're travelling relative to the wind they can reach speeds of 3-4x the wind speed.

Re:hydrofoil sailboats

[kwbauer]

And how much cargo are they moving in those America's Cup races and on that 48 footer? Consider for a moment that Panamax can have a displacement almost 6,000 times that little 48-footer and tell me how big the sails are going to be get a Panamax moving at 12-14 knots which is the current target. Modern cargo ships are generally capable of 25 kt. Also, bear in mind that Panamax are considered medium sized container vessels.

We won't even discuss the Mississippi and Ohio River barge traffic and how wide those rivers are for tacking a set of barges back and forth.

Does this mean

[SCVonSteroids]

I get to have a jake brake on my car?!?!
Maybe I just don't understand engines well enough :(

Compression Ignition?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, like my Diesel car? Yes, compression ignition engines are more efficient. I get upwards of 50MPG in my 2003 Passat TDI.

This would have been awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

30 years ago.

Mazda is awesome

[F34nor]

1, Wankel Rotary
2. Miller cycle
3. Compression

Re:Mazda is awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

4. HCCI

Re:Mazda is awesome

[jet_silver]

Exactly. Mazda seems to get thermo. I'd bet on them, this breakthrough sounds really promising.

Re:Mazda is awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

That's nothing. Toyota were working on an adiabatic Diesel engine with ceramic cylinder liners and plastic exhaust parts.

How good a hybrid charging engine could this be?

[Applehu Akbar]

Imagine a single drive train hybrid using this tech as the charging engine, running only at its most efficient speed. This could be the low-cost transition to electric that the industry has been waiting for.

Video on HCCI engines

[NotSoHeavyD3]

From Engineering Explained https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Congratulations Mazda.

[Anonymous Coward]

You just invented the Diesel engine!

Re:How good a hybrid charging engine could this be

[John.Banister]

HCCI engines really like constant load. Skyactiv-X might well be best employed in a car that also has a battery. If they run it in a car without a battery, they might have more success going camshaftless, like the engine Koenigsegg is building for Qoros. That way a computer could instantly compensate for the changing conditions.

20-30% more efficient = ?

[DirkDaring]

I noticed it doesn't say 20-30% better MPG, just more efficient than current engines. But what does that mean for actual MPG? I have a 2010 Mazda 3, it gets 23mpg around town (ie, daily traffic).

Re:20-30% more efficient = ?

[jeff4747]

MPG depends on a lot of other factors, such as vehicle weight, shape and transmission. So they can't really give an MPG estimate without also having a car to put it in.

At this point, you can assume the best they could do is 20-30% higher MPG, and expect an actual vehicle to be below that.

Charge points are relatively simple installs

[Paul Fernhout]

"I stop to eat at roadside inns which are likely never to have charging points,"

It's much easier for a business to put in a charging point connected to their existing electric lines than to install a gas pump and underground gas tanks. So why would a roadside inn not install charge points to increase (or maintain) business?

With EVs, any roadside business can now be a gas station -- but without dealing with the costs or regulations.

Re:Charge points are relatively simple installs

[apoc.famine]

This is something I never considered. Thanks!
 
Interesting that if you're one of two B&Bs in a town, the supercharger investment might be a business draw, and potentially something you could write off on your taxes. I can see this mentality adding to a rapid increase in deployment once a certain threshold of electric cars are on the road. It might not make sense this year, but within a few years, it might well be another way to entice customers, like free wifi is now.

Re:Charge points are relatively simple installs

[Rei]

If you're a B&B, you don't even need a supercharger - if someone is going to be at your business overnight, or even just a few hours, all you need is a destination charger. And Tesla literally gives those away for free.

Re:Charge points are relatively simple installs

[Shotgun]

This restaurant likely has 100 amp service. The charger will be a load on top of that. The carrying capacity of electric lines is limited.

Re: Charge points are relatively simple installs

[KGIII]

And, to bug you one more time, tonight...

Way back when Tesla was $24/share, I invested ~$20,000.

I still have not sold my shares of Tesla. I absolutely love it, when you talk about Musk. Note: I still trust him with my money. He's done alright so far. Still, you explain it much better than I have patience for.

Re:Charge points are relatively simple installs

[Paul Fernhout]

All true -- but it is probably easier to get permits for changing electrical service than for installing a large gasoline tank and pumps.I would think neighbors are going to object a lot more to adding gasoline pumps and a tank versus upgrading breaker boxes and maybe replacing a power line.

Surprisingly, it looks like raw costs may be roughly comparable (many thousands of dollars) for improved electrical service (especially if you have to run an additional phase etc.) vs. gasoline pumps and a tank -- except the risk of a leaking tank and related environmental impact makes that approach more problematical., as does the need to allocate a lot of space for a tank.
https://www.fixr.com/costs/ins...
http://costowl.com/home-improv...

Makes me think becoming an electrician is probably a great career choice for the next decade or so!

Stop calling it fossil fuel

[Anonymous Coward]

Oil isn't created by dead trees, this fact is well known in some scientific communities.

We know this because we've drilled deep into area of earth that we know never had any plants or animals, and there were large amount of oil.

Oil is created deep within the planet then oozed towards the crust.

Finally

[NorthWay]

I have been waiting for this to happen, but I expected it later and then in some kind of rotational motor (not Wankel) where knock doesn't really exist and you can boost compression until self ignition.

Re:Too little, too late Straw Man FAIL!

[PlaynBass]

When more cars are EV, parking lots in shopping malls or at workplaces will be outfitted with Universal Chargers which will charge a vehicle as it sits while the driver is off doing whatever...

Your straw man objection is sopping wet, like your besotted lack of imagination.

New technologies require new thinking

[PlaynBass]

Thank you for your calculations. They are very informative and show us where we need some new ideas to match the new technologies.

Just on the face of it, rather than use the same electric tractor for the entire trip, a cargo company could set up the equivalent of Pony Express stations and merely swap out a fully charged tractor for the depleted tractor. Probably could be done in the time the driver would need for a bathroom break or to grab some lunch.

There might even be third-party companies that do nothing but recharge the EV tractor units for a number of cargo haulers. Or this would be accomplished by vertical integrating a network of service yards at convenient distances apart. Or some combination of the logistical models, some of which have not even been thought of yet.

I shouldn't be so surprised at the reactionary lack of imagination of so many commenters on /.

I blame their lack of imagination on the planned destruction of our once excellent public school system by reactionary and self-serving Luddites in business and government, who consistently sabotage progressive ideas in order to protect their own sinecured policies of paternalistic and privileged tradition.