"All I'm saying is that this map tool may be one of those products that do more harm than good."
All I'm saying is that it doesn't matter. Unless there's a case to be made that it does DRAMATICALLY more harm to a LOT of people (See whacking people in heads with hammers), people should be free to do what they want.
My freedom to look at maps in the backseat of a car should not be impaired by your inability to refrain from doing so while driving. Sorry.
"And if there were someone hanging out in a public place, making notes of what vehicles he sees, that would be one thing. Someone would be sure to call the cops to report a "possible terrorist" who is casing the place."
"I'll add to this that there's a compromise that needs to be done between need and safety"
I disagree with your fundamental thesis. You think you're smarter than the Average Joe (which may or may not be true), and you should be able to make judgements on what is and is not appropriate for Joe to do (which is utterly not true).
Liberty is more important than safety. People should be as free as possible to do whatever they want, so long as it doesn't cause direct harm to somebody else's interests. It's completely reasonable to hold people responsible for their foolish actions, but it is NOT reasonable to prevent them from doing anything that might in some circumstances be foolish.
More to the point, I don't trust YOU (or anybody else for that matter) to make that determination.
Just like they ban Formula 1 cars from the NASCAR competition, and don't let you ride a horse in a marathon.
What's the difference?
Why are there no recumbent races? Because you haven't started one. (Actually, there ARE recumbent races. Didn't you see the hour record set by Freddy Markham a few weeks ago? The guy is a MACHINE!)
"I'm not saying that you should run out and buy a Tesla, but at the same time it is unreasonable to compare the price of a brand-new product and technology still high on its learning curve with that of a technology that has been mass-produced for a century and has pretty much reached its technological limits."
Again, I disagree. The ONLY basis for MY decision is MY utility. There will be a time in the future that electric vehicles might well be attractive. But, now, TODAY, the numbers do not work for me. You might think that's short sighted, but I don't much care. You start picking up some of my bills, and then we'll talk.
They might work for you...you might be wealthy enough to pay to be on the bleeding edge. That's great! You can be farther along the technology curve than I am.
You say that apart from the battery, electric cars don't require any maintenance. That's a pretty big exception. I know I've had to replace the battery in my phone and my laptop after about a year of use on each. Let's say I somehow get three years out of my hypothetical Tesla pack. How much is a 1000 lb battery pack going to cost me? What do you suppose that your experience with NiMH and lead acid batteries has to do with this lithium ion formulation?
I can change my own oil, and replace my own brake pads, and refill my own radiator. I can NOT replace a 1000 lb battery pack.
"Do you personally benefit from the tax credits for 6,000+ pound SUVs?"
Do you seriously think that somebody who doesn't think that electric vehicles make economic sense are going to rush right out and buy an SUV? Come on. I've already told you that I'm interested in modest sized family cars and economical sports cars, and I ride the damn bus. Take your sanctimonious attitude and see if you can wire it up to your EV1.
You're splitting hairs. By what authority does the government even detain these people? They are not criminals. They are not enemy soldiers (which, since we've made this a War on Naughty Ideas, doesn't make much sense to me...). We've made up this notion of "enemy combatants", that until two weeks ago meant "We can do whatever we want to these assholes".
If it's not punishment, the Government doesn't have the authority to do ANYTHING. If it IS punishment, it may not be cruel and unusual. So, yeah, I still disagree with you.
Well, gee. As it turns out, I can't find the source where I got that 50% number. Frankly, when I read it, I thought it was pretty absurd, but somehow it stuck in my head. I did a little poking around last night, and found numbers much closer to yours, than to mine.
That absolutely changes a lot of stuff. I stand corrected!
Now all we need is a good way to store that juice, and we're in business.
We are talking about the $100,000 car in the article, right?
"Have you done the actual analysis, or is this just your seat-of-the-pants guess?"
It's an educated guess. There are lots of variables.
"What estimates did you use for the future price of gasoline "
Gasoline, or diesel. I like diesel a lot. You know how much I can buy for $50,000? I'm guessing rather a lot. (That $50,000 is the difference in price between a comparable Lotus Elise and the Tesla. There is, of course, no diesel Elise, but it does use a fairly economical four-cylinder gas motor).
Are you assuming that the electric car will never require service? Where am I going to get that service?
"Significant externalities"? I'm making an economic decision, not a political statement.
Say I want a small- to medium-sized family car, somewhere between a Mazda 3 and a Prius. There exist no electric cars that I can buy in that class. Say I want a sports car. I can't afford the electric cars in that class. If I want a one-person commuter vehicle, a motorcycle is far, far cheaper than the EVs available on the market.
I encourage you to be an early adopter for this technology. I'll let other people beta test it for me. My next car will be an IC vehicle. Perhaps, after I drive the wheels of of that one, the numbers will have changed.
Before you conclude that I'm some sort of anti-environmental terrorist, I am very very happy to ride the bus to work every day. My household has one car, and two people. That works great for us. An electric car COULD NOT replace that vehicle for our usage patterns.
"I have done my research on transmission losses. The losses are less than the losses of running an alternator off of a piston engine in the first place
Kay. You're talking about the more-than-50% transmission losses on the current power grid? Are you sure we're talking about the same thing? I won't debate that electric cars are probably slightly more efficient than IC cars. However, they're still expensive, heavy, ugly, take a long time to recharge, have a great big battery pack you'll have to replace more frequently than you replace your IC engine, and have zero installed base of maintenance facilities.
None of those facts, in their own right, kill electric cars. Together, they DESTROY the cost-benefit analysis of electric vs. IC cars. This will not be true for all times, but it is true today.
"That said, nobody seems to be mentioning the prior slashdot articles about carbon nanotube capacitors"
That's because nobody's built a commercial iteration of that technology. It looks like it will be revolutionary. So does cold fusion. I am eager for both.
"EVs cannot possibly be useful to anyone unless they have the same range as a gasoline car."
You make a fair point. However, EVs do not currently provide a sufficient cost-benefit advantage to convince me to buy one. I would MUCH rather have two Lotus Elises than one of these Tesla things.
"Slashdot.. where people join together in deliberate ignorance."
Particularly if you consider ignorance in its manifestation as uselessly overbroad generalizations.
You make me think of the old joke about the guy who frequents the lunch buffet at the crappy strip club, who says "Look over there. I see that loser here every day. He needs to get a life!"
It was mostly a "Make you go hmmm..." sort of question, I'm not actually trying to compare Hitler to Roosevelt. Roosevelt made decisions ranging from the "I don't agree with his philosophy" to "He deliberately drew a foul in the Pacific, and the only surprise was that the Japanese kicked the US in the balls rather than giving a sportsmanlike jab to, say, the Phillipines", but he was nowhere near the unvarnished evil of Herr Hitler.
"And what do you get when you add a peak to a valley? Depending on how much you add, you either get a shallower valley, a flat line, or a shallower peak than you would have had otherwise."
Or you get an utterly ginormous peak, which totally dwarfs the current (HAH! Pun!) peak usage of the State of California. If any substantial number of Californians and/or commercial vehicles plug into the grid, that's what you're going to get.
It's not my ridiculous scenario. It's this thread's. "if everyone in California had electric cars that there would be a 67% decrease in greenhouse gas emmisions." Of course it's a ridiculous scenario. It's also a ridiculous idea, to suppose that somehow electric cars are magic energy pills.
" giving the power utilities plenty of time to adapt to the extra load."
Yeah. You try to build a power plant in California. Let me know how that works out for you.
"You'd be more likely to learn if you listened to people"
I do listen to people. Smart people. I just don't trouble myself with people who can't think through the consequences of their stupid notions.
"instead of just arrogantly assuming they are idiots unworthy of your intellect."
It's not an assumption when it's demonstrated. 100% electric cars in Cali + current battery tech + nighttime valley in electrical consumption = you just WISH there were rolling blackouts, in stead of all night long everybody blackouts. That's a pretty stupid notion. It's like those morons who wanted to do electrical power generators with see-saw tippyplates in the street. It doesn't matter how fancy your bad idea is, if it's still a bad idea.
"In addition most electrical vehicles would be recharged during "Off-Peak" times"
You're kidding, right? You don't think that every single Californian plugging their car into the grid would maybe make a little bit of a peak all by itself?
I really wish the people who disagreed with me were smarter. Then I might be able to really learn something.
Slashdot Mirror
What are your due process rights worth when they can put you on a list that prevents you from flying, and there's no way to get off?
"All I'm saying is that this map tool may be one of those products that do more harm than good."
All I'm saying is that it doesn't matter. Unless there's a case to be made that it does DRAMATICALLY more harm to a LOT of people (See whacking people in heads with hammers), people should be free to do what they want.
My freedom to look at maps in the backseat of a car should not be impaired by your inability to refrain from doing so while driving. Sorry.
"And if there were someone hanging out in a public place, making notes of what vehicles he sees, that would be one thing. Someone would be sure to call the cops to report a "possible terrorist" who is casing the place."
And that's OK with you?
Sure. They promise. And it'll never ever be extended any further than that, not no how.
Right.
"I'll add to this that there's a compromise that needs to be done between need and safety"
I disagree with your fundamental thesis. You think you're smarter than the Average Joe (which may or may not be true), and you should be able to make judgements on what is and is not appropriate for Joe to do (which is utterly not true).
Liberty is more important than safety. People should be as free as possible to do whatever they want, so long as it doesn't cause direct harm to somebody else's interests. It's completely reasonable to hold people responsible for their foolish actions, but it is NOT reasonable to prevent them from doing anything that might in some circumstances be foolish.
More to the point, I don't trust YOU (or anybody else for that matter) to make that determination.
OK. So hammer designers have to design hammers that can't be used by carpenters to whack people in the head. Same principle.
"developers have the responsibility of creating tools that don't facilitate potentially damaging uses"
So hammer developers need to come up with hammers that can't be used to whack the crap out of my thumbnail?
No, no they don't.
Just like they ban Formula 1 cars from the NASCAR competition, and don't let you ride a horse in a marathon.
What's the difference?
Why are there no recumbent races? Because you haven't started one. (Actually, there ARE recumbent races. Didn't you see the hour record set by Freddy Markham a few weeks ago? The guy is a MACHINE!)
Captain Non-Sequitur to the rescue!
I would be delighted to dismantle the public school system. What's your point?
Or, perhaps, they have an undergraduate degree in chemistry/physics/whatever, and a graduate degree in an engineering discipline.
Please tell me that you're not actually asserting that there is a right to not get blown up...
I'm not hostile towards your EV1. I am hostile towards your sanctimonious attitude.
"I'm not saying that you should run out and buy a Tesla, but at the same time it is unreasonable to compare the price of a brand-new product and technology still high on its learning curve with that of a technology that has been mass-produced for a century and has pretty much reached its technological limits."
Again, I disagree. The ONLY basis for MY decision is MY utility. There will be a time in the future that electric vehicles might well be attractive. But, now, TODAY, the numbers do not work for me. You might think that's short sighted, but I don't much care. You start picking up some of my bills, and then we'll talk.
They might work for you...you might be wealthy enough to pay to be on the bleeding edge. That's great! You can be farther along the technology curve than I am.
You say that apart from the battery, electric cars don't require any maintenance. That's a pretty big exception. I know I've had to replace the battery in my phone and my laptop after about a year of use on each. Let's say I somehow get three years out of my hypothetical Tesla pack. How much is a 1000 lb battery pack going to cost me? What do you suppose that your experience with NiMH and lead acid batteries has to do with this lithium ion formulation?
I can change my own oil, and replace my own brake pads, and refill my own radiator. I can NOT replace a 1000 lb battery pack.
"Do you personally benefit from the tax credits for 6,000+ pound SUVs?"
Do you seriously think that somebody who doesn't think that electric vehicles make economic sense are going to rush right out and buy an SUV? Come on. I've already told you that I'm interested in modest sized family cars and economical sports cars, and I ride the damn bus. Take your sanctimonious attitude and see if you can wire it up to your EV1.
(Which you weren't allowed to keep.)
If you think a 0-60 time is what sports cars are all about, you don't have a competent opinion on the subject.
Let's look at lap times. Around, say, the Nurburgring or Laguna Seca. Then your thousand pounds o' batteries are going to make themselves known.
You're splitting hairs. By what authority does the government even detain these people? They are not criminals. They are not enemy soldiers (which, since we've made this a War on Naughty Ideas, doesn't make much sense to me...). We've made up this notion of "enemy combatants", that until two weeks ago meant "We can do whatever we want to these assholes".
If it's not punishment, the Government doesn't have the authority to do ANYTHING. If it IS punishment, it may not be cruel and unusual. So, yeah, I still disagree with you.
Well, gee. As it turns out, I can't find the source where I got that 50% number. Frankly, when I read it, I thought it was pretty absurd, but somehow it stuck in my head. I did a little poking around last night, and found numbers much closer to yours, than to mine.
That absolutely changes a lot of stuff. I stand corrected!
Now all we need is a good way to store that juice, and we're in business.
We are talking about the $100,000 car in the article, right?
"Have you done the actual analysis, or is this just your seat-of-the-pants guess?"
It's an educated guess. There are lots of variables.
"What estimates did you use for the future price of gasoline "
Gasoline, or diesel. I like diesel a lot. You know how much I can buy for $50,000? I'm guessing rather a lot. (That $50,000 is the difference in price between a comparable Lotus Elise and the Tesla. There is, of course, no diesel Elise, but it does use a fairly economical four-cylinder gas motor).
Are you assuming that the electric car will never require service? Where am I going to get that service?
"Significant externalities"? I'm making an economic decision, not a political statement.
Say I want a small- to medium-sized family car, somewhere between a Mazda 3 and a Prius. There exist no electric cars that I can buy in that class. Say I want a sports car. I can't afford the electric cars in that class. If I want a one-person commuter vehicle, a motorcycle is far, far cheaper than the EVs available on the market.
I encourage you to be an early adopter for this technology. I'll let other people beta test it for me. My next car will be an IC vehicle. Perhaps, after I drive the wheels of of that one, the numbers will have changed.
Before you conclude that I'm some sort of anti-environmental terrorist, I am very very happy to ride the bus to work every day. My household has one car, and two people. That works great for us. An electric car COULD NOT replace that vehicle for our usage patterns.
"I have done my research on transmission losses. The losses are less than the losses of running an alternator off of a piston engine in the first place
Kay. You're talking about the more-than-50% transmission losses on the current power grid? Are you sure we're talking about the same thing? I won't debate that electric cars are probably slightly more efficient than IC cars. However, they're still expensive, heavy, ugly, take a long time to recharge, have a great big battery pack you'll have to replace more frequently than you replace your IC engine, and have zero installed base of maintenance facilities.
None of those facts, in their own right, kill electric cars. Together, they DESTROY the cost-benefit analysis of electric vs. IC cars. This will not be true for all times, but it is true today.
"That said, nobody seems to be mentioning the prior slashdot articles about carbon nanotube capacitors"
That's because nobody's built a commercial iteration of that technology. It looks like it will be revolutionary. So does cold fusion. I am eager for both.
Anytime somebody says "free energy", it pegs my skeptic-o-meter.
"EVs cannot possibly be useful to anyone unless they have the same range as a gasoline car."
You make a fair point. However, EVs do not currently provide a sufficient cost-benefit advantage to convince me to buy one. I would MUCH rather have two Lotus Elises than one of these Tesla things.
"Slashdot.. where people join together in deliberate ignorance."
Particularly if you consider ignorance in its manifestation as uselessly overbroad generalizations.
You make me think of the old joke about the guy who frequents the lunch buffet at the crappy strip club, who says "Look over there. I see that loser here every day. He needs to get a life!"
It was mostly a "Make you go hmmm..." sort of question, I'm not actually trying to compare Hitler to Roosevelt. Roosevelt made decisions ranging from the "I don't agree with his philosophy" to "He deliberately drew a foul in the Pacific, and the only surprise was that the Japanese kicked the US in the balls rather than giving a sportsmanlike jab to, say, the Phillipines", but he was nowhere near the unvarnished evil of Herr Hitler.
But it is an interesting parallel. : )
"And what do you get when you add a peak to a valley? Depending on how much you add, you either get a shallower valley, a flat line, or a shallower peak than you would have had otherwise."
Or you get an utterly ginormous peak, which totally dwarfs the current (HAH! Pun!) peak usage of the State of California. If any substantial number of Californians and/or commercial vehicles plug into the grid, that's what you're going to get.
It's not my ridiculous scenario. It's this thread's. "if everyone in California had electric cars that there would be a 67% decrease in greenhouse gas emmisions." Of course it's a ridiculous scenario. It's also a ridiculous idea, to suppose that somehow electric cars are magic energy pills.
" giving the power utilities plenty of time to adapt to the extra load."
Yeah. You try to build a power plant in California. Let me know how that works out for you.
"You'd be more likely to learn if you listened to people"
I do listen to people. Smart people. I just don't trouble myself with people who can't think through the consequences of their stupid notions.
"instead of just arrogantly assuming they are idiots unworthy of your intellect."
It's not an assumption when it's demonstrated. 100% electric cars in Cali + current battery tech + nighttime valley in electrical consumption = you just WISH there were rolling blackouts, in stead of all night long everybody blackouts. That's a pretty stupid notion. It's like those morons who wanted to do electrical power generators with see-saw tippyplates in the street. It doesn't matter how fancy your bad idea is, if it's still a bad idea.
How much does a gallon of glass-enclosed palladium spheres cost?
"In addition most electrical vehicles would be recharged during "Off-Peak" times"
You're kidding, right? You don't think that every single Californian plugging their car into the grid would maybe make a little bit of a peak all by itself?
I really wish the people who disagreed with me were smarter. Then I might be able to really learn something.