It's a standard SUV that gets 20/26mpg (automatic FWD)
A Ford fusion specifies 20/28 if you get the five speed automatic transmission.
Yes, I'm picking on ford. Average the two milages together, you only lose 1 mpg going to the non-hybrid escape, vs gaining 8 mpg going from the car to the SUV hybrid.
SUV's do serve the needs of a VERY small percentage of the population. I am referring here to people with large families or real needs to carry huge amounts of cargo everyday, that live in places with unpaved roads.
It's not that bad. Are they instantly disqualified if they only 'need' to haul huge amounts of cargo once a week? How about if they travel on paved roads - but there's severe winters? They travel around trails for business but don't need a lot of cargo?
The way I look at it - there's many reasons why people buy SUVs. My mother, for example, ended up trading in her small car for a SUV for a medical condition - She is no longer able to get out of low seats after sitting in one for a while. For example, she needs assistance getting out of a movie seat after the show. She looked at a number of vehicles - but only SUVs and trucks were built high enough for her to be able to get out of one without assistance after a moderate drive - to and from home, for example. My grandfather drives a small truck for much the same reason - of course, doctors are pretty amazed that he can walk at all given his medical injury(spinal damage and polio).
Most SUV owners are soccer moms or suburban dads with 2 kids that would be much better served by a wagon, sedan or mini-van.
Maybe, but they picked the SUV, and a least in the USA 'I want one(and have the money to buy it)' is a valid reason for purchasing something.
How different are SUVs from minivans today? Other than frequently having 4WD? How many true wagons are offered today? A hatchback might work - but maybe they
you'll likely see that most of them have between 1 and 4 people in the car, and are not currently navigating the Rubicon trail.:-)
Here's the way I look at it - you get a vehicle that meets at least 95% of your needs. What's that mean? 2 and a half weeks out of the year you'd need a different vehicle. That would be 18 days a year. We figure a subcompact rental won't work, so let's say $50/day for an appropriate vehicle or delivery service. $900/year for replacement vehicle rental. Plus the hassle of renting vs increased utility.
For ~$75 extra a month you can get a bigger vehicle and eliminate much of that expense in the first place.
It's one of the things for economics that even if it's mostly underutilized, it doesn't take much renting to make a bigger vehicle worth it, and you using said larger vehicle rather than buying an alternate commuter is often cheaper than having the 'once a week' vehicle sit for the rest of the week.
Knowing what you're doing, how long would it take for you to diagnose a bad smt chip, dismount it without killing the board, then remount it? How much will the chip likely cost?
Is it worth it in a appliance that cost $200 new, and is now three years old?
Now, for that $2k bigscreen HDTV, it'd make more sense - but what if replacing the whole board is only $200?
Lots of milk delivery vehicles in the UK are electric (and they have been for many years), I'd forgotten about them. Not many people have milk delivered any more, but I saw one this morning (in London).
People might not have milk delivered - but it would still need to get from the railhead to stores in a refridgerated vehicle.
Commercial ventures can afford things expensive enough to make the standard middle class individual shudder. Especially if you add in a 'EV credit' for making those vehicles electric, eliminating a polluting engine in the city center that never leaves it. It also gives convienent stop-start efficiency, as you don't have to ponder between shutting the engine off to save gas or leaving it running to save time.
For ~$20, you can get your own phone recording system.
Just read up on wiretapping laws before you hook it up. BTW, I think that it's been determined that if they have a disclaimer 'This call may be recorded' disclaimer counts for both sides.
Rules might be different if you're recording commercial traffic, a recording, or recording to catch a criminal in the act(like harrasing/threatening phone calls).
Of course, I'm not a lawyer, but it'd be interesting to hear from one.
My standard response is 'I don't respond to telephone solicitations. Period. You call me, I don't donate to you or buy your product/service. Don not call me again'.
Keep track of the information; I'm not a lawyer, but I remember reading at some time that while Charities/Politics/surveys don't have to follow the DNCL, they do have to respect individual DNC requests.
Their whole judiciary is a gigantic joke, the concept of rule of law does not apply in that country, except when the ruling party wants to apply it towards their own ends.
There's actually a fairly easy way to solve this problem.
A boycott big enough to dent their exports to the USA. That'll get the attention of the ruling party and they'll crack down to fix the problem.
Personally, I'm not buying any food/clothing related product produced in China. It's been a pain in the butt so far, but I figure I'm safer and get better products even if I have to pay more.
So far they've lost out on the sale of a coat(Walmart, Target, Sears, and Menards), all of theirs I was interested were made in china, ended up getting it at a tractor supply store, better quality ~50% more in cost, food processor(haven't found one I like yet that's not made in China. Sears, Target, and Walmart checked), and hunting knife, Walmart lost out, found a US made knife in Scheels, cost ~ double the cost of chinese ones, but better quality.
If someone could squeeze 400 miles into a charge, then I have no doubts electrics would be completely viable. I still believe 300 would be ok for most.
I agree.
30 miles is ok for a few. 60 miles would give you an order of magnitude more (from something like.1% to 1%). It could be used as a second commuter car for most families. It'd have to be cheap though, as 'commuter car' has to compete with the honda civic/geo metro vehicles.
200 miles is getting into serious territory. 300 miles per charge should be enough for 90% of people. They can simply take a plane when they travel, or rent a vehicle. 400 miles range would be icing on the cake.
Yeah, you could just charge it at home, but a lot of people live in apartments, or otherwise have to park a distance away. For example, at my last abode, I had to park my car about 150 feet from the door. It's not just a question of running an extension lead out to the car.
I almost wish I could post pictures here. I'd send you a picture of the local parking lots - complete with poles sticking up from the pavement with electrical sockets. I'll admit they're intended for block heaters - but they're 20amp circuits.
Ironoically enough, my area is more ready for 110V chargeable EVs than California.
He didn't mention that it would be for everybody - just that they'd sell like hotcakes. The ford F150 is a popular truck, by certain standards could be said to 'sell like hotcakes', yet it's less than 10% of the vehicle market. I'd be surprised if it's 25% of truck sales.
The 30 minute figure would be for the 'restaurant charge'. I used an hour recently. IE if you're on a trip, you should stop to rest every so often. 300 mile range gives you about 4 hours at highway speeds. This happens to coincide closely with eating. So you park at a restaurant that offers charging stations, go in and have a nice meal and have a charged car when you're done. No need to visit a dedicated fuel station. IE you eat breakfast at 7, start at 8, drive until noon, eat lunch until 1, drive until 5, have dinner, drive until 9 when you get a room. That's ~900 miles in a day, with 12 hours of driving.
And to extract, transform, transport the nuclear fuel.
Newer technologies make the extraction and transformation more efficient, and there's a number of possibilities that haven't been explored much due to lack of demand.
As for transportation - a gigawatt nuclear plant needs about one train car of fuel a year. A coal plant of the same wattage can go through 2 or more 100 car trains per day.
We shouldn't be trying to find a 'perfectly clean' system; because it doesn't exist. We should be looking for the best practical options; with a healthy dose of diversity for competition and reliability.
In situations where co-generation is also possible (a rarity, since most homes and buildings aren't powered by utility steam), that efficiency can be raised closer to 70%.
The local coal plant is adjusting to be a cogeneration heat source for ethanol production*. It doesn't have to be used to heat homes and buildings, industrial usages might be better - centralized management and smaller installation base.
*I'd prefer it to be a celluose plant, but oh well...
Much of that was scare tactics. IE nuclear plants are using it to try to get the.gov off their asses and finish Yucca or some alternate. Or get money from their own funds for casket storage sytems.
So far, despite having to pay a fee per kwh produced to the.gov for disposal, they've managed to economically store the waste on site just fine. Given that all the government is considering is storage and internment, I'd say that it's the same thing. Given enough time, it'd be pretty easy to break open those casks and reprocess - much of the short term radioactivity has degraded, meaning that it's nowhere near as nasty to equipment as when it first came out of the reactor. IE you age the waste like some exclusive wines/liquers and reprocess it after 40-50 years of cooldown.
It has to do that the waste produced by a conventional plant in a year is around a single railcar - including shielding. There might have been some transfers from particularly congested plants to ones with more room.
One thing to consider would be the reduction in noise pollution - with cars making less noise, the need for 'loud' cars would be reduced, as eventually a kid with good hearing would potentially be able to hear the road noise from the car from further away than they can tell the engine noise of an approaching car today. You get used to road noise.
I know it'd make many people living along busy roads happy...
The area you live in must have some really posh and expensive cars with super-quiet engines
Not necessarily, when I said 'low speeds' I was thinking 20-25 mph, and not accellerating. When I said 'modern cars' I meant < 3 years old. There are a lot of older cars in the area, and I can generally hear them a lot easier. But you get the occasional new one(or expensive well maintained old one) that surprises me as to how quiet it is.
Cars are much quieter* today than they were a couple decades ago.
As for the moderation, I think that not everybody agrees on the definition of flamebait. I've been modded insightful/informational and flamebait for the same post. While my views are not always popular, I try to be polite and provide evidence.
You're far from the first to suggest that electric vehicles might end up having to have noisemaking devices to warn people. Heck, back in the 80-90s washing maching manufacturers went and increased the efficiency of their machines, reducing the noise they made significantly along the way. They ended up having to add buzzers to signal end of wash - people used to use the end of the 'washing' noise as the signal to add softener or remove the load. The new ones were so quiet people didn't get the signal.
*Excepting asses installing aftermarket unmufflers and other noisemakers.
Even Ford has been able to show a profit occasionally.
Though I do agree with your points - I mean, I go car shopping and end up looking at imports. I know I'm somewhat unusual, but why do I end up looking at German and Japanese manufacturers? At the time I was looking for a all wheel drive car with a manual transmission, preferably a hatchback. I'd also like a diesel(hybrid wouldn't help me much, I drive 90% highway). I don't like how high SUVs sit, so that's not a good option for me.
Less bling, more practicality, more affordability!
The only solution is to put speakers into the outside of cars that play the appropriate noise for a petrol engine.
Hate to break it to you, but many modern cars are nearly as silent at low speeds as an electric could be. At higher speed wind noise is the significant contributer to noise levels.
Still, I think I've heard of UPS using hybrids and at least looking at electrics.
An in city delivery vehicle shouldn't actually have to pile that many miles on at high speed, and can be charged at night with a dedicated service to hand the extra demand of a vehicle massing, loaded, 5-10X that of a commuter car.
I seem to remember some early ice delivery vehicles and milk trucks being electric.
Even now, a number of small electrical car companies are springing up all over the world.
The only problem I see with this is that small electric car companies have always been springing up. This increases anytime there's an oil crisis. They just have had a 100% failure rate for the past 50*. By failure I mean never making a profit.
*some early electric car companies did make profits.
Now about that GM electric, would that be the one that they haven't been able to get right in 20 years?
Electric cars developed around the same time as IC cars did. Both competed against each other in the very beginning. So I'd say 100 years, not 20. Even earlier: The first 'practical' electric vehicles were produced in 1842. That's 165 years. Otto didn't patent his four stroke until 1876. Before that, cars were either electric or steam powered. Please note that I tried to select dates for commercial deployment, not one offs or unsuccessful ventures.
IC has been winning due to the little problem: IC is a lousy engine; fantastic energy source: 30% efficiency@1000 'units' of power per pound of fuel. Electric has a great engine; extremely lousy power source: 90% efficiency@10-20 units of power per pound of battery.
Other than the range problem*, electric vehicles have been perfectly practical for most purposes from an engineering standpoint for decades.
The killer was financial - battery depreciation costs exceeded fuel costs for decades. More expensive fuel and cheaper more efficient longer lasting batteries has narrowed the gap quite a bit.
*Hard to surmount, as more batteries add weight, more weight means more energy needed to move the vehicle, requiring more batteries... After a point you can't extend the range of the vehicle by adding more batteries. LiIon is a real help here. Even NiCad and NiMH help quite a bit over lead acid(of common rechargable battery types, has the lowest energy density by mass).
I think that it's going to end up being like many computer innovations - Initially done by a bunch of small startups, of which the more successful eventually are bought out by the big boys.
IE Tesla* succeeds, becomes a small but successful company with a factory selling 5k cars a year. GM, Ford, even Toyota or Volkswagon might buy them out.
Sure, some customers of Tesla might call this selling out, decrying any changes to the vehicles - but it flows both ways, as they come out with an EV SUV*
Silicon Valley isn't a good place though, maybe they can make circuit boards but the actual design and construction of cars would have to be elsewhere. Land value is just too high to make a profitable auto plant.
Wages are probably the true killer; that's partially due to the land value. Heck, slap a plant down in ND or something; skilled workers, cheap wages and land. Sure, the winter sucks, but you just insulate the buildings better.
*Easy example, their usage of the lotus frame and preexisting partnerships might limit their choices. **SUVs serve a need; decry SUVs all you like, I'll simply point out that a hybrid or EV SUV is still get better milage than many non-hybrid cars(no, you're not allowed to compare them against sub-compacts), and definitly better than traditionally powered SUVs.
So it's tough. Preferably the computer would be programmed to recognize things like bleeders and react accordingly.
We're working on machines that can operate on an unrestrained eyeball - lids are clamped out of the way, but the eye is free to move. That's pretty awesome right there.
I think that the best bet would be to have both - a human surgeon and an 'autodoc'. As long as the disaster doesn't take out both, you can still have surgury done by a trained professional.
If it does take out both, odds are you're in deep, deep trouble. Oh yeah, in general keep the human doc away from the machine, or have two machines, one on either end of the ship/installation.
Slashdot Mirror
Ford Escape Hybrid: 34/30 FWD, 29/27
It's a standard SUV that gets 20/26mpg (automatic FWD)
A Ford fusion specifies 20/28 if you get the five speed automatic transmission.
Yes, I'm picking on ford. Average the two milages together, you only lose 1 mpg going to the non-hybrid escape, vs gaining 8 mpg going from the car to the SUV hybrid.
Figures that people pick on my disclaimer.
:-)
SUV's do serve the needs of a VERY small percentage of the population. I am referring here to people with large families or real needs to carry huge amounts of cargo everyday, that live in places with unpaved roads.
It's not that bad. Are they instantly disqualified if they only 'need' to haul huge amounts of cargo once a week? How about if they travel on paved roads - but there's severe winters? They travel around trails for business but don't need a lot of cargo?
The way I look at it - there's many reasons why people buy SUVs. My mother, for example, ended up trading in her small car for a SUV for a medical condition - She is no longer able to get out of low seats after sitting in one for a while. For example, she needs assistance getting out of a movie seat after the show. She looked at a number of vehicles - but only SUVs and trucks were built high enough for her to be able to get out of one without assistance after a moderate drive - to and from home, for example. My grandfather drives a small truck for much the same reason - of course, doctors are pretty amazed that he can walk at all given his medical injury(spinal damage and polio).
Most SUV owners are soccer moms or suburban dads with 2 kids that would be much better served by a wagon, sedan or mini-van.
Maybe, but they picked the SUV, and a least in the USA 'I want one(and have the money to buy it)' is a valid reason for purchasing something.
How different are SUVs from minivans today? Other than frequently having 4WD? How many true wagons are offered today? A hatchback might work - but maybe they
you'll likely see that most of them have between 1 and 4 people in the car, and are not currently navigating the Rubicon trail.
Here's the way I look at it - you get a vehicle that meets at least 95% of your needs. What's that mean? 2 and a half weeks out of the year you'd need a different vehicle. That would be 18 days a year. We figure a subcompact rental won't work, so let's say $50/day for an appropriate vehicle or delivery service. $900/year for replacement vehicle rental. Plus the hassle of renting vs increased utility.
For ~$75 extra a month you can get a bigger vehicle and eliminate much of that expense in the first place.
It's one of the things for economics that even if it's mostly underutilized, it doesn't take much renting to make a bigger vehicle worth it, and you using said larger vehicle rather than buying an alternate commuter is often cheaper than having the 'once a week' vehicle sit for the rest of the week.
How much do you make an hour?
Knowing what you're doing, how long would it take for you to diagnose a bad smt chip, dismount it without killing the board, then remount it? How much will the chip likely cost?
Is it worth it in a appliance that cost $200 new, and is now three years old?
Now, for that $2k bigscreen HDTV, it'd make more sense - but what if replacing the whole board is only $200?
surface mount chips can be another problem - tiny connections requiring special equipment to fix.
The biggest problem is that stuff off a manufacturing line is cheaper than one installed by hand -
Especially when the manufacturing labor is in China and the repair labor is in the USA.
Lots of milk delivery vehicles in the UK are electric (and they have been for many years), I'd forgotten about them. Not many people have milk delivered any more, but I saw one this morning (in London).
People might not have milk delivered - but it would still need to get from the railhead to stores in a refridgerated vehicle.
Commercial ventures can afford things expensive enough to make the standard middle class individual shudder. Especially if you add in a 'EV credit' for making those vehicles electric, eliminating a polluting engine in the city center that never leaves it. It also gives convienent stop-start efficiency, as you don't have to ponder between shutting the engine off to save gas or leaving it running to save time.
For ~$20, you can get your own phone recording system.
Just read up on wiretapping laws before you hook it up. BTW, I think that it's been determined that if they have a disclaimer 'This call may be recorded' disclaimer counts for both sides.
Rules might be different if you're recording commercial traffic, a recording, or recording to catch a criminal in the act(like harrasing/threatening phone calls).
Of course, I'm not a lawyer, but it'd be interesting to hear from one.
My standard response is 'I don't respond to telephone solicitations. Period. You call me, I don't donate to you or buy your product/service. Don not call me again'.
Keep track of the information; I'm not a lawyer, but I remember reading at some time that while Charities/Politics/surveys don't have to follow the DNCL, they do have to respect individual DNC requests.
Their whole judiciary is a gigantic joke, the concept of rule of law does not apply in that country, except when the ruling party wants to apply it towards their own ends.
There's actually a fairly easy way to solve this problem.
A boycott big enough to dent their exports to the USA. That'll get the attention of the ruling party and they'll crack down to fix the problem.
Personally, I'm not buying any food/clothing related product produced in China. It's been a pain in the butt so far, but I figure I'm safer and get better products even if I have to pay more.
So far they've lost out on the sale of a coat(Walmart, Target, Sears, and Menards), all of theirs I was interested were made in china, ended up getting it at a tractor supply store, better quality ~50% more in cost, food processor(haven't found one I like yet that's not made in China. Sears, Target, and Walmart checked), and hunting knife, Walmart lost out, found a US made knife in Scheels, cost ~ double the cost of chinese ones, but better quality.
If someone could squeeze 400 miles into a charge, then I have no doubts electrics would be completely viable. I still believe 300 would be ok for most.
.1% to 1%). It could be used as a second commuter car for most families. It'd have to be cheap though, as 'commuter car' has to compete with the honda civic/geo metro vehicles.
I agree.
30 miles is ok for a few. 60 miles would give you an order of magnitude more (from something like
200 miles is getting into serious territory. 300 miles per charge should be enough for 90% of people. They can simply take a plane when they travel, or rent a vehicle. 400 miles range would be icing on the cake.
Yeah, you could just charge it at home, but a lot of people live in apartments, or otherwise have to park a distance away. For example, at my last abode, I had to park my car about 150 feet from the door. It's not just a question of running an extension lead out to the car.
I almost wish I could post pictures here. I'd send you a picture of the local parking lots - complete with poles sticking up from the pavement with electrical sockets. I'll admit they're intended for block heaters - but they're 20amp circuits.
Ironoically enough, my area is more ready for 110V chargeable EVs than California.
He didn't mention that it would be for everybody - just that they'd sell like hotcakes. The ford F150 is a popular truck, by certain standards could be said to 'sell like hotcakes', yet it's less than 10% of the vehicle market. I'd be surprised if it's 25% of truck sales.
The 30 minute figure would be for the 'restaurant charge'. I used an hour recently. IE if you're on a trip, you should stop to rest every so often. 300 mile range gives you about 4 hours at highway speeds. This happens to coincide closely with eating. So you park at a restaurant that offers charging stations, go in and have a nice meal and have a charged car when you're done. No need to visit a dedicated fuel station. IE you eat breakfast at 7, start at 8, drive until noon, eat lunch until 1, drive until 5, have dinner, drive until 9 when you get a room. That's ~900 miles in a day, with 12 hours of driving.
And to extract, transform, transport the nuclear fuel.
Newer technologies make the extraction and transformation more efficient, and there's a number of possibilities that haven't been explored much due to lack of demand.
As for transportation - a gigawatt nuclear plant needs about one train car of fuel a year. A coal plant of the same wattage can go through 2 or more 100 car trains per day.
We shouldn't be trying to find a 'perfectly clean' system; because it doesn't exist. We should be looking for the best practical options; with a healthy dose of diversity for competition and reliability.
In situations where co-generation is also possible (a rarity, since most homes and buildings aren't powered by utility steam), that efficiency can be raised closer to 70%.
The local coal plant is adjusting to be a cogeneration heat source for ethanol production*. It doesn't have to be used to heat homes and buildings, industrial usages might be better - centralized management and smaller installation base.
*I'd prefer it to be a celluose plant, but oh well...
Much of that was scare tactics. IE nuclear plants are using it to try to get the .gov off their asses and finish Yucca or some alternate. Or get money from their own funds for casket storage sytems.
.gov for disposal, they've managed to economically store the waste on site just fine.
So far, despite having to pay a fee per kwh produced to the
Given that all the government is considering is storage and internment, I'd say that it's the same thing. Given enough time, it'd be pretty easy to break open those casks and reprocess - much of the short term radioactivity has degraded, meaning that it's nowhere near as nasty to equipment as when it first came out of the reactor. IE you age the waste like some exclusive wines/liquers and reprocess it after 40-50 years of cooldown.
It has to do that the waste produced by a conventional plant in a year is around a single railcar - including shielding. There might have been some transfers from particularly congested plants to ones with more room.
Should of waited a minute...
One thing to consider would be the reduction in noise pollution - with cars making less noise, the need for 'loud' cars would be reduced, as eventually a kid with good hearing would potentially be able to hear the road noise from the car from further away than they can tell the engine noise of an approaching car today. You get used to road noise.
I know it'd make many people living along busy roads happy...
The area you live in must have some really posh and expensive cars with super-quiet engines
Not necessarily, when I said 'low speeds' I was thinking 20-25 mph, and not accellerating. When I said 'modern cars' I meant < 3 years old. There are a lot of older cars in the area, and I can generally hear them a lot easier. But you get the occasional new one(or expensive well maintained old one) that surprises me as to how quiet it is.
Cars are much quieter* today than they were a couple decades ago.
As for the moderation, I think that not everybody agrees on the definition of flamebait. I've been modded insightful/informational and flamebait for the same post. While my views are not always popular, I try to be polite and provide evidence.
You're far from the first to suggest that electric vehicles might end up having to have noisemaking devices to warn people. Heck, back in the 80-90s washing maching manufacturers went and increased the efficiency of their machines, reducing the noise they made significantly along the way. They ended up having to add buzzers to signal end of wash - people used to use the end of the 'washing' noise as the signal to add softener or remove the load. The new ones were so quiet people didn't get the signal.
*Excepting asses installing aftermarket unmufflers and other noisemakers.
So if GM and Ford were right and people really wanted what they say they want why aren't they making money?
Because they have enourmous legacy costs in the form of retirement benefits for former workers?
Besides, GM has managed to turn a profit recently, though it's going to be a while before they've made up what they've lost.
Even Ford has been able to show a profit occasionally.
Though I do agree with your points - I mean, I go car shopping and end up looking at imports. I know I'm somewhat unusual, but why do I end up looking at German and Japanese manufacturers? At the time I was looking for a all wheel drive car with a manual transmission, preferably a hatchback. I'd also like a diesel(hybrid wouldn't help me much, I drive 90% highway). I don't like how high SUVs sit, so that's not a good option for me.
Less bling, more practicality, more affordability!
The only solution is to put speakers into the outside of cars that play the appropriate noise for a petrol engine.
Hate to break it to you, but many modern cars are nearly as silent at low speeds as an electric could be. At higher speed wind noise is the significant contributer to noise levels.
From the freight depot to the point-of-use is a different matter though...
Cargo PRT pods?
Still, I think I've heard of UPS using hybrids and at least looking at electrics.
An in city delivery vehicle shouldn't actually have to pile that many miles on at high speed, and can be charged at night with a dedicated service to hand the extra demand of a vehicle massing, loaded, 5-10X that of a commuter car.
I seem to remember some early ice delivery vehicles and milk trucks being electric.
Even now, a number of small electrical car companies are springing up all over the world.
The only problem I see with this is that small electric car companies have always been springing up. This increases anytime there's an oil crisis. They just have had a 100% failure rate for the past 50*. By failure I mean never making a profit.
*some early electric car companies did make profits.
Now about that GM electric, would that be the one that they haven't been able to get right in 20 years?
Electric cars developed around the same time as IC cars did. Both competed against each other in the very beginning. So I'd say 100 years, not 20. Even earlier: The first 'practical' electric vehicles were produced in 1842. That's 165 years. Otto didn't patent his four stroke until 1876. Before that, cars were either electric or steam powered. Please note that I tried to select dates for commercial deployment, not one offs or unsuccessful ventures.
IC has been winning due to the little problem:
IC is a lousy engine; fantastic energy source: 30% efficiency@1000 'units' of power per pound of fuel.
Electric has a great engine; extremely lousy power source: 90% efficiency@10-20 units of power per pound of battery.
Other than the range problem*, electric vehicles have been perfectly practical for most purposes from an engineering standpoint for decades.
The killer was financial - battery depreciation costs exceeded fuel costs for decades. More expensive fuel and cheaper more efficient longer lasting batteries has narrowed the gap quite a bit.
*Hard to surmount, as more batteries add weight, more weight means more energy needed to move the vehicle, requiring more batteries... After a point you can't extend the range of the vehicle by adding more batteries. LiIon is a real help here. Even NiCad and NiMH help quite a bit over lead acid(of common rechargable battery types, has the lowest energy density by mass).
I think that it's going to end up being like many computer innovations - Initially done by a bunch of small startups, of which the more successful eventually are bought out by the big boys.
IE Tesla* succeeds, becomes a small but successful company with a factory selling 5k cars a year. GM, Ford, even Toyota or Volkswagon might buy them out.
Sure, some customers of Tesla might call this selling out, decrying any changes to the vehicles - but it flows both ways, as they come out with an EV SUV*
Silicon Valley isn't a good place though, maybe they can make circuit boards but the actual design and construction of cars would have to be elsewhere. Land value is just too high to make a profitable auto plant.
Wages are probably the true killer; that's partially due to the land value. Heck, slap a plant down in ND or something; skilled workers, cheap wages and land. Sure, the winter sucks, but you just insulate the buildings better.
*Easy example, their usage of the lotus frame and preexisting partnerships might limit their choices.
**SUVs serve a need; decry SUVs all you like, I'll simply point out that a hybrid or EV SUV is still get better milage than many non-hybrid cars(no, you're not allowed to compare them against sub-compacts), and definitly better than traditionally powered SUVs.
Which is why I specified on earth operations. It'd quickly become untenable for space work. You need a much more capable robot for that.
So it's tough. Preferably the computer would be programmed to recognize things like bleeders and react accordingly.
We're working on machines that can operate on an unrestrained eyeball - lids are clamped out of the way, but the eye is free to move. That's pretty awesome right there.
oops, didn't preview enough, I simply copied and pasted your euro. € € €
my rent is 1300/month for a 80sq metre apartment (861 square feet according to google).
Youch. My house payment is $240/month. For something like 1200 sq ft, not including the attached 2 car garage or unfinished basement.
I remember reading about her.
I think that the best bet would be to have both - a human surgeon and an 'autodoc'. As long as the disaster doesn't take out both, you can still have surgury done by a trained professional.
If it does take out both, odds are you're in deep, deep trouble. Oh yeah, in general keep the human doc away from the machine, or have two machines, one on either end of the ship/installation.