I've drafted commercial buildings before. I know electrical codes and fire safety are a pain in the ass, and sometimes seem inane.
But then you look at how many people die of fire and electric shock in America versus a place where there's no oversight, like India or China, and trust me, you're thankful that the regulations are in place.
So, is the problem the Federal Government or the laziness of contractors who don't want to learn or abide the regulations?
Alright - so you're correct that improving the efficiency of extremely inefficient vehicles saves more gas.
But question then is - why?
Why drive around a 5 liter V8 truck when you're hauling around yourself and perhaps a hundreds pounds of small cargo 90% of the time? Going from 12mpg to 15mpg beats going from 30mpg to 60mpg, but going from 12mpg to 120mpg is still the winner by far.
So, given the choice between saving thousands dollars a year on gasoline and maintenance, or renting a car for the entire week you get for vacation and the few weekends you can get out of town, you'll pick the more expensive option?
You said this car was "doomed" because it doesn't work for anyone, which is complete nonsense. For many people I know, who nearly always travel to their vacation via airplane, and who rarely leave town on the weekends, a cheap electric plus an occasional rental is the most economic option. And most people live in cities, not out in the sticks.
If you regularly leave on the weekends and you can only afford one car, then go with an ICE. If you live in the sticks, get an ICE. Otherwise, if you do the math, this is the way to go.
Seriously... is everyone in America a "can't do" blowhard these days?
An auto manufacturer from Japan just did what American companies said was impossible, and has built a 5 seater EV with a 100 mile range with today's technology.. and the problem will be running some goddamn conduit and 220V?
So, I'm 50% wrong, and out of the box we can only charge 90 million cars. Or I'm 75% wrong and it's 45 million. Or I'm 90% wrong, and we can only immediately put 22 million EVs on the road.
Can you give up on progress and go back to whittling wooden crucifixes where you don't have access to a computer? Jesus fucking Christ. I've never run into so many absolutely stupid and cynical naysayers. Just give up and die already, and at least leave more oxygen unmolested.
You assume that gas will remain at it's current price. This is wish thinking.
The battery is laminated lithion-ion, not from golf carts, slated to be at 80% after 7 years or 50k miles. Given that the car is going to cost 25-30k, I doubt it will cost more than 5k to recycle the batteries, and by then, you may get extended range as a nice bonus with new battery tech.
This car's range and charging time are suitable for 90% of commuters. You may think it's not, but your baseless opinions have nothing to do with reality.
The metered outlets will be installed by a third party and offered as an amenity. It's just like when internet started in apartments first. You install one EV Charge Parking Spot, and you have ten times as many potential customers driving by it every day.
Again, once there's an inexpensive, safe, reliable EV that goes 100 miles on a single charge, all other problems become trivial to solve.
Lets say my commute is 60 miles. You're saying that improving a 30mpg to a 60mpg vehicle, which halves the gas usage, is the same as a 12mpg to a 15mpg, which does nowhere near that kind of improvement?
60/12=5 60/15=4
60/30=2 60/60=1
And then you state:
180/12=12 to 180/18=10 is a greater improvement than 180/30=6 to 180/180=1
What kind of math is this?
The problem, of course, is moving freight around. Rail is insanely more efficient than any other method available. And no, your pickup truck is going to be used for commuting 95% of the time, so over it's lifetime, you will have the worst vehicle for your situation 19 out of every 20 times you use it.
You have posted elsewhere the same thing. What are you, the brain damaged step-child of an Exxon board member?
A DOT vehicle can easily carry the batteries to get you to a charging station or even back to your house.
The hurricane fear mongering is just sad.
And maintenance is far less expensive for an EV, because it's far less complicated mechanically. If you'd done any research on the GM vehicle, you'd know that they basically rotated the tires. There are Priuses with over a hundred thousand miles that haven't needed new batteries. And the batteries will be less expensive too replace than putting in an entirely new engine, so you could literally keep the same car for decades if you kept it rust free.
Honestly, who is paying you to repeat the same inane bullshit?
Why, these new cars only go 15 mph! The tires bust all of the time, and you have to put in gas and maintain them. Tell me, who is going to build all of these fueling stations! It's ridiculous! I'm sticking with my horse... reliable, inexpensive, trustworthy...
But seriously, 40 mile commutes are above average. You can plug it in at work if you really have to, and it's still going to be far cheaper than gas.
As I've said elsewhere, I imagine companies will be selling outlet metering devices within months of the sale of the first mass produced EV. As soon as they reach critical mass, charging stations will be more ubiquitous than gas stations. But you can stick with the horse and buggy as long as you like.
Apartments were one of the first spots with internet access, because you could run a few lines and connect up a few hundred people.
Likewise, some company will be offering a cut of metered electric service to the apartment complexes, and they'll be able to list "EV Charging Spots" as an amenity to the apartment.
Really, once an electric car is mass produced, inexpensive, and safe, the rest of the problems that come up are completely trivial.
However, if their employer allows them to plug in their car, problem solved. I'm sure some companies will be offering outlet metering devices within months of the release of the first batch of mass manufactured electric cars.
As electric vehicles become more commonplace, your local DOT will probably have a few hundred pounds of batteries on board and charge up your car enough to get home or to the nearest charging station.
Sure, the first adopters may have some weird problems. But they don't have to change the oil, they probably won't have a transmission to worry about, and they are going to save a ton of money on fuel costs, not counting tax credits. But being stranded? Come on, man. You're really grasping at straws there.
1) There is already enough juice in the grid at night to power 80% of the 220 million cars without any further need for more power plants. (According to the DoE).
2) The average commute for people is far less than 100 miles, which means the only thing you could be missing out on is a truck for hauling or a car for road trip vacations.
Now, the price hasn't been released. If it's under 30K, it's a winner. As the summary said, there's no details on the charge, but as long as I can plug it in at night and it's charged in the morning, it will not only save me gas, but I don't have to bother with filling up.
You know, you might be on to something here. Up in Canada we have far fewer police, and our crime rate is about half per capita.
That's because you can't buy assault weapons at gun shows and there is a much more subdued attitude towards the war on drugs. Additionally, you have socialized medicine, which prevents the leading cause of all bankruptcies, which is loss of income due to health issues.
Of course, if you regulate an industry, you make it slow and impede business and you're a socialist. Everyone knows that self regulation leads to utopia, much as disbanding our police departments would lead to a lower crime rate.
I'm not saying that advanced civilizations are all subject to doomsday scenarios. I'm saying if they have the capability of space travel, their incentive to spread out to different solar systems and galaxies would be to ensure that some unknown and rare cataclysm wouldn't destroy their entire race.
Humans aren't at this stage yet. We haven't even made it past superstition and wish thinking. Yet, if it really came down to it, I do believe we would pull together in your scenario to try and preserve our history and race.
At some point, you want to avoid a single point of failure. A very advanced civilization is probably aware that they cannot predict every type of violent action in the universe, so the more spread out they are, the more likely they are to survive, even if they've found a way to keep their energy source in stasis and blow up asteroids reliably.
This is assuming some type of humanoid life form that can't live on the sun or function just fine without atmosphere. Perhaps we are surrounded by aliens who are on different timescales.
This addresses a larger moral issue completely missing from modern discussion about the subject.
In the past, charging interest rates above 5%, if at all, was considered immoral and known as usury. It was so frowned upon because people recognized that making money without working is immoral and unethical in and of itself. Likewise, Adam Smith recognized that a high interest rate would cause capital to flood out of every industry into finance, since you can't hope to build a factory and have the same return as you would simply lending the same money for 10%.
The problem is that distribution of goods is now virtually free and worldwide compared to even a hundred years ago. Digital content even more so. It's understandable that patents and copyrights emerged as mechanisms to reward people for work, but the expiration of these rights is central to progress and promoting competition. Otherwise huge corporations will simply grow larger as they acquire the rights to human knowledge and creativity, and stifle any competition with their largesse and legal abuse.
Organic means that shit loads of chemicals that damage soil, groundwater supply, and cause dead zones hundreds of square miles in size in the Gulf of Mexico are not used. This is a good idea, because it takes into account the fact that you probably want to eat in ten years as well as today, and you'll need soil that supports vegetable life in order to do so.
Organic means you don't stuff a cow full of antibiotics that cause it to be ill, infecting it's milk production with blood and puss, just so Monsanto can sell a product that's completely worthless to everyone but Monsanto.
I buy organic for the same reason I buy everything consciously, because I like going to sleep at night knowing that I have done my best not to contribute to this. That's why I don't eat at Chik-Fil-A, because the founder is a huge contributor to a hate-filled religious university in Rome, Georgia, as well as someone who buys chickens that are crammed together in their own shit for 6 weeks until they're boiled alive. It's called being an informed consumer. It's how the market is supposed to work.
You can be a cynical little bitch all you like. That doesn't change the fact that you're stupid for believing that organic lobbies have more evil designs than any other lobbyists in DC. And I'll bet dollars to donuts that people who buy organic are far more knowledgeable about food as a whole than people who eat Twinkies and regularly drive through McDonalds.
Hey you fucking wanker. Nice contribution to the conversation, you big arsed twat. How's that for a little English?
On a more serious note, you'll notice the poster said "If they are the most profitable business.. then they aren't dinosaurs." This is a fairly simple logical construction, which was also flatly a non-corollary. In fact, huge profits are a warning sign that something is probably amiss, since a healthy, competitive market tends to drive prices and margins down and not up, using that magic phrase that makes economics somewhat futile, "all else being equal."
I'll give you time to look up what those words mean, and then you can get back to me, okay?
If they are the most profitable businesses in the world then they aren't dinosaurs.
By that logic you would have no problem with Steve Jobs owning 60% of the wealth of the country. I mean, if he's rich, he's obviously doing something correctly. There's no way he's corrupt or engaging in anti-competitive business practices. His profit margin proves his innocence!
And you don't think part of investing in your own future is buying and destroying any competing technology? Plus, you're ignoring the reality that every business on earth can only operate because sustainability is not a requirement for existence. Essentially, the cost for bringing the earth a little closer to disaster is zero, since the unborn generations to come have no vote in a market system tuned entirely for short term vision.
I do not believe in secret meetings where evil businessmen plot to destroy the earth. But I do know that they have been convicted of abusing newcomers to any business through price fixing, buying up patents and burying them, and other "business practices" that are the antithesis of true market economics.
In order for technology to evolve and improve, the dinosaurs must die. But while the dinosaurs are the most profitable businesses in the world, and have several countries entirely dependent on them for their existence, they will die a slow death without some sensible economic reforms. And while they are dying, everyone is suffering for it.
Did you even bother to read the rest of that paragraph?
Two had been publishing anti-Russian books for years, and the other had no noticeable political colour. One publisher actually started by accepting the book, but after making the preliminary arrangements he decided to consult the Ministry of Information, who appear to have warned him, or at any rate strongly advised him, against publishing it.
You should perhaps consider reading the entire preface. It may be enlightening for you.
Slashdot Mirror
I've drafted commercial buildings before. I know electrical codes and fire safety are a pain in the ass, and sometimes seem inane.
But then you look at how many people die of fire and electric shock in America versus a place where there's no oversight, like India or China, and trust me, you're thankful that the regulations are in place.
So, is the problem the Federal Government or the laziness of contractors who don't want to learn or abide the regulations?
Alright - so you're correct that improving the efficiency of extremely inefficient vehicles saves more gas.
But question then is - why?
Why drive around a 5 liter V8 truck when you're hauling around yourself and perhaps a hundreds pounds of small cargo 90% of the time? Going from 12mpg to 15mpg beats going from 30mpg to 60mpg, but going from 12mpg to 120mpg is still the winner by far.
Yeah, my math was wrong, and so were my assumptions.
So, given the choice between saving thousands dollars a year on gasoline and maintenance, or renting a car for the entire week you get for vacation and the few weekends you can get out of town, you'll pick the more expensive option?
You said this car was "doomed" because it doesn't work for anyone, which is complete nonsense. For many people I know, who nearly always travel to their vacation via airplane, and who rarely leave town on the weekends, a cheap electric plus an occasional rental is the most economic option. And most people live in cities, not out in the sticks.
If you regularly leave on the weekends and you can only afford one car, then go with an ICE. If you live in the sticks, get an ICE. Otherwise, if you do the math, this is the way to go.
Seriously... is everyone in America a "can't do" blowhard these days?
An auto manufacturer from Japan just did what American companies said was impossible, and has built a 5 seater EV with a 100 mile range with today's technology.. and the problem will be running some goddamn conduit and 220V?
ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?
So, I'm 50% wrong, and out of the box we can only charge 90 million cars. Or I'm 75% wrong and it's 45 million. Or I'm 90% wrong, and we can only immediately put 22 million EVs on the road.
Can you give up on progress and go back to whittling wooden crucifixes where you don't have access to a computer? Jesus fucking Christ. I've never run into so many absolutely stupid and cynical naysayers. Just give up and die already, and at least leave more oxygen unmolested.
You assume that gas will remain at it's current price. This is wish thinking.
The battery is laminated lithion-ion, not from golf carts, slated to be at 80% after 7 years or 50k miles. Given that the car is going to cost 25-30k, I doubt it will cost more than 5k to recycle the batteries, and by then, you may get extended range as a nice bonus with new battery tech.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/05/aesc-lithium-io.html
http://www.ecoworld.com/fuels/electric-car-cost-per-mile.html
This car's range and charging time are suitable for 90% of commuters. You may think it's not, but your baseless opinions have nothing to do with reality.
The metered outlets will be installed by a third party and offered as an amenity. It's just like when internet started in apartments first. You install one EV Charge Parking Spot, and you have ten times as many potential customers driving by it every day.
Again, once there's an inexpensive, safe, reliable EV that goes 100 miles on a single charge, all other problems become trivial to solve.
Lets say my commute is 60 miles. You're saying that improving a 30mpg to a 60mpg vehicle, which halves the gas usage, is the same as a 12mpg to a 15mpg, which does nowhere near that kind of improvement?
60/12=5
60/15=4
60/30=2
60/60=1
And then you state:
180/12=12 to 180/18=10
is a greater improvement than
180/30=6 to 180/180=1
What kind of math is this?
The problem, of course, is moving freight around. Rail is insanely more efficient than any other method available. And no, your pickup truck is going to be used for commuting 95% of the time, so over it's lifetime, you will have the worst vehicle for your situation 19 out of every 20 times you use it.
You have posted elsewhere the same thing. What are you, the brain damaged step-child of an Exxon board member?
A DOT vehicle can easily carry the batteries to get you to a charging station or even back to your house.
The hurricane fear mongering is just sad.
And maintenance is far less expensive for an EV, because it's far less complicated mechanically. If you'd done any research on the GM vehicle, you'd know that they basically rotated the tires. There are Priuses with over a hundred thousand miles that haven't needed new batteries. And the batteries will be less expensive too replace than putting in an entirely new engine, so you could literally keep the same car for decades if you kept it rust free.
Honestly, who is paying you to repeat the same inane bullshit?
Why, these new cars only go 15 mph! The tires bust all of the time, and you have to put in gas and maintain them. Tell me, who is going to build all of these fueling stations! It's ridiculous! I'm sticking with my horse... reliable, inexpensive, trustworthy...
But seriously, 40 mile commutes are above average. You can plug it in at work if you really have to, and it's still going to be far cheaper than gas.
As I've said elsewhere, I imagine companies will be selling outlet metering devices within months of the sale of the first mass produced EV. As soon as they reach critical mass, charging stations will be more ubiquitous than gas stations. But you can stick with the horse and buggy as long as you like.
Apartments were one of the first spots with internet access, because you could run a few lines and connect up a few hundred people.
Likewise, some company will be offering a cut of metered electric service to the apartment complexes, and they'll be able to list "EV Charging Spots" as an amenity to the apartment.
Really, once an electric car is mass produced, inexpensive, and safe, the rest of the problems that come up are completely trivial.
Nice FUD.
However, if their employer allows them to plug in their car, problem solved. I'm sure some companies will be offering outlet metering devices within months of the release of the first batch of mass manufactured electric cars.
As electric vehicles become more commonplace, your local DOT will probably have a few hundred pounds of batteries on board and charge up your car enough to get home or to the nearest charging station.
Sure, the first adopters may have some weird problems. But they don't have to change the oil, they probably won't have a transmission to worry about, and they are going to save a ton of money on fuel costs, not counting tax credits. But being stranded? Come on, man. You're really grasping at straws there.
1) There is already enough juice in the grid at night to power 80% of the 220 million cars without any further need for more power plants. (According to the DoE).
2) The average commute for people is far less than 100 miles, which means the only thing you could be missing out on is a truck for hauling or a car for road trip vacations.
Now, the price hasn't been released. If it's under 30K, it's a winner. As the summary said, there's no details on the charge, but as long as I can plug it in at night and it's charged in the morning, it will not only save me gas, but I don't have to bother with filling up.
You know, you might be on to something here. Up in Canada we have far fewer police, and our crime rate is about half per capita.
That's because you can't buy assault weapons at gun shows and there is a much more subdued attitude towards the war on drugs. Additionally, you have socialized medicine, which prevents the leading cause of all bankruptcies, which is loss of income due to health issues.
Of course, if you regulate an industry, you make it slow and impede business and you're a socialist. Everyone knows that self regulation leads to utopia, much as disbanding our police departments would lead to a lower crime rate.
I'm not saying that advanced civilizations are all subject to doomsday scenarios. I'm saying if they have the capability of space travel, their incentive to spread out to different solar systems and galaxies would be to ensure that some unknown and rare cataclysm wouldn't destroy their entire race.
Humans aren't at this stage yet. We haven't even made it past superstition and wish thinking. Yet, if it really came down to it, I do believe we would pull together in your scenario to try and preserve our history and race.
At some point, you want to avoid a single point of failure. A very advanced civilization is probably aware that they cannot predict every type of violent action in the universe, so the more spread out they are, the more likely they are to survive, even if they've found a way to keep their energy source in stasis and blow up asteroids reliably.
This is assuming some type of humanoid life form that can't live on the sun or function just fine without atmosphere. Perhaps we are surrounded by aliens who are on different timescales.
This addresses a larger moral issue completely missing from modern discussion about the subject.
In the past, charging interest rates above 5%, if at all, was considered immoral and known as usury. It was so frowned upon because people recognized that making money without working is immoral and unethical in and of itself. Likewise, Adam Smith recognized that a high interest rate would cause capital to flood out of every industry into finance, since you can't hope to build a factory and have the same return as you would simply lending the same money for 10%.
The problem is that distribution of goods is now virtually free and worldwide compared to even a hundred years ago. Digital content even more so. It's understandable that patents and copyrights emerged as mechanisms to reward people for work, but the expiration of these rights is central to progress and promoting competition. Otherwise huge corporations will simply grow larger as they acquire the rights to human knowledge and creativity, and stifle any competition with their largesse and legal abuse.
Organic means that shit loads of chemicals that damage soil, groundwater supply, and cause dead zones hundreds of square miles in size in the Gulf of Mexico are not used. This is a good idea, because it takes into account the fact that you probably want to eat in ten years as well as today, and you'll need soil that supports vegetable life in order to do so.
Organic means you don't stuff a cow full of antibiotics that cause it to be ill, infecting it's milk production with blood and puss, just so Monsanto can sell a product that's completely worthless to everyone but Monsanto.
I buy organic for the same reason I buy everything consciously, because I like going to sleep at night knowing that I have done my best not to contribute to this. That's why I don't eat at Chik-Fil-A, because the founder is a huge contributor to a hate-filled religious university in Rome, Georgia, as well as someone who buys chickens that are crammed together in their own shit for 6 weeks until they're boiled alive. It's called being an informed consumer. It's how the market is supposed to work.
You can be a cynical little bitch all you like. That doesn't change the fact that you're stupid for believing that organic lobbies have more evil designs than any other lobbyists in DC. And I'll bet dollars to donuts that people who buy organic are far more knowledgeable about food as a whole than people who eat Twinkies and regularly drive through McDonalds.
Hey you fucking wanker. Nice contribution to the conversation, you big arsed twat. How's that for a little English?
On a more serious note, you'll notice the poster said "If they are the most profitable business.. then they aren't dinosaurs." This is a fairly simple logical construction, which was also flatly a non-corollary. In fact, huge profits are a warning sign that something is probably amiss, since a healthy, competitive market tends to drive prices and margins down and not up, using that magic phrase that makes economics somewhat futile, "all else being equal."
I'll give you time to look up what those words mean, and then you can get back to me, okay?
You're a diamond.
If they are the most profitable businesses in the world then they aren't dinosaurs.
By that logic you would have no problem with Steve Jobs owning 60% of the wealth of the country. I mean, if he's rich, he's obviously doing something correctly. There's no way he's corrupt or engaging in anti-competitive business practices. His profit margin proves his innocence!
What a brilliant idea!
And you don't think part of investing in your own future is buying and destroying any competing technology? Plus, you're ignoring the reality that every business on earth can only operate because sustainability is not a requirement for existence. Essentially, the cost for bringing the earth a little closer to disaster is zero, since the unborn generations to come have no vote in a market system tuned entirely for short term vision.
I do not believe in secret meetings where evil businessmen plot to destroy the earth. But I do know that they have been convicted of abusing newcomers to any business through price fixing, buying up patents and burying them, and other "business practices" that are the antithesis of true market economics.
In order for technology to evolve and improve, the dinosaurs must die. But while the dinosaurs are the most profitable businesses in the world, and have several countries entirely dependent on them for their existence, they will die a slow death without some sensible economic reforms. And while they are dying, everyone is suffering for it.
Did you even bother to read the rest of that paragraph?
Two had been publishing anti-Russian books for years, and the other had no noticeable political colour. One publisher actually started by accepting the book, but after making the preliminary arrangements he decided to consult the Ministry of Information, who appear to have warned him, or at any rate strongly advised him, against publishing it.
You should perhaps consider reading the entire preface. It may be enlightening for you.