Electric vehicles achievable? Reality check?
 

Do to limited electric vehicles on road plus the power problem will the even replace majority of fossil fueled vehicles in this century? Or at least by 2050?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8FHgwgQhCw

So, is this guy wrong?

This just production problems which don’t include the extra power and distribution of power to make dent in reduction of fossil fueled vehicles.

Then, there they cost involved manufacturing EVs due to rising cost rare earth minerals (majority can’t afford 40K plus cost of EV vehicles for around town. Sure small amount EVs helps, but got real problems and distribution to solve IMO before make dent is vehicles on the road.

I wonder what ever happened to hydrogen fuel cell technology. Not enough profit in it? The byproduct of burning hydrogen is water, I believe. Too simple or too difficult?
Like you said, the materials for making decent batteries is obtained mostly overseas. Until they can make a battery that will fuel a motor vehicle for a 500 mile trip, who wants one? Sitting in line to charge your batteries for hours, makes a distance trip take a long time. Are they planning to build hotels around the charging stations?

A wholesale replacement of petroleum-powered vehicles with electric vehicles is in large part an environmentalist's pipe dream.

It is more than going out and shelling out big bucks for, say, a Porshe Taycan, or slightly fewer bucks for a Cooper electric, Toyota, etc. The fact is that America's industry, and thus America's economy, runs on hydrocarbon fuels. Goods move by two major ways; rail and semi truck on land and by ship on the water. All three burn hydrocarbon fuels, and it is a pretty safe bet that none of us, nor our grandchildren, will see electric semis, locomotives or container ships in our lifetime.

Then there is air transportation (goods and people). Jet-A (Kerosene, actually) accounts for nearly 10% of all the hydrocarbon fuel burned for transportation in America. And don't forget industry. American industry actually burns MORE hydrocarbon fuels (petroleum, natural gas, coal) than does the entire transportation sector; 36% of the total for industry compared to 35% for transportation.

Here's the kicker. We can go out and buy a Toyota Prius or something and feel all warm and fuzzy, but replacing a petroleum-burning automobile for an electric one is less than a very small drop in a very big bucket. WE, as individuals, might "run" on electricity, but our ECONOMY doesn't. And won't. Not for a very long time, if ever.

Good Video

China owns us, not just this but everything.
Talking about destruction of earth! Mining destruction and pollution?

We are a long way from moving away from hydrocarbons. Technology will have to improve substantially.

In the meantime focus on fuel economy.

Not in our lifetime...considering most of us are over 65.

why does no one mention the very salient fact that the production and replacement of the vehicles and batteries all use either hydro, coal, nuclear, petroleum or natural gas to power the factories and that their carbon footprint is much larger than all the vehicles on the road today. Disposal of these "green" products also has a mega huge impact for those looking to replace their so-called "green" vehicle. are people just stupid or ignorant? does keeping ones head in the sand make all these issues go away? or is the bigger issue that if you go electric you are somehow contributing to the longevity of the planet?

face it...if you want renewable energy you have to solve these problems FIRST and yet it is rarely mentioned because that would actually require a completely new energy source than sol and wind.

now please go plug in your electric vehicle and ignore all the issues....you'll feel better...like giving the homeless person begging for money(and has a dog)who may make more than you do.

Very true and amazing these issues are ignored. Yet GM plans to go to 100% electric perhaps they know something we do not but honestly do not think so.

Excellent points.

Worthy of mention also is the fact that "going electric", does NOT mean going without hydrocarbon fuels. Nearly 60% of electricity in America is produced by--you got it--HYDROCARBON fuels (Natural Gas 40%, Coal 19%). Of the remaining 40% fully half of that comes from nuclear (ironic, considering that it is even more virtuous to hate nuclear than it is to hate hydrocarbon power). Only 20% comes from "renewables". (Energy in the United States, U.S. Energy Information Administration website).

Electrical energy--that stuff that you use to push your little electrical buggy down the road--is far from the clean energy people seem to think it is.

Yes, he is sort of right. EVs, Computers, Phones, etc, etc, etc. need lots of are earth minerals. And China has been aggressively acquiring rights to rare earth minerals around the world for the past few decades, by cuddling up to poor countries building infrastructure in exchange for those rights. We on the other hand haven't been building those relationships, and will find it hard to move forward with out them. I will suggest (and I am sure it will start a political war here), but... the fossil fuel companies have spent a LOT of money lobbying to keep us addicted to fossil fuel and not allowing the government to build an alternative source of energy. it makes sense, it is in their interest to keep us tied to them for energy.

Now, on to predictions,

The fuel for the majority of power plants, factories, gas ovens, furnaces, etc etc etc will probably NOT happen in 30 years.

In talking about EVs, there are a couple issues to be resolved -

1. Batteries. Higher density, faster charging, faster production - the batteries we have now are ALMOST good enough. But, we certainly need higher production rates - more factories etc. Tesla is building new battery plants trying to catch up, but it will help when GM, Ford, Mercedes, VW, et all start making batteries too. This is just developing better tech, and that will happen if there is demand. Right now Tesla can't make enough batteries, and the demand is very high, so there is motivation to develop battery tech. If the other auto companies join the EV push, they will need batteries, that will help since GM, Ford et al, have the cash (or credit) to build massive battery factories.

2. We need a startup (maybe) that provides a cost effective mechanism to covert "gas stations" into recharging stations. That has logistic problems like getting Electricity to the gas stations with high enough current rating to super/fast charge. One alternative to that is the industry comes to a standard battery pack that can be swapped by a "robot"/automatic battery swapping station. So, you drive in, pull up on the platform, robot arms come out, remove the battery pack from your EV and insert a new one. Lots of design considerations, like to you "own" the batteries, or are you renting them. Etc etc.

3. Distributed electrical generation is a MUST have. When I was working at Palo Verdre Nuke plant in AZ there was a lot of debate over distributed generation, where every house, or at most every neighborhood has it's own power generation. The way we do it today is very vulnerable to outages (and sabotage) and expensive. Unfortunately, power companies kind of lose control if everyone (or every neighborhood) has it's own generation - be it Solar, geothermal, wind, hydro, etc, etc.

The big thing we need to understand is that no one thing is a silver bullet to solve our energy problems. Every location needs to customize the solution to what works best for them.

So, with all that in mind, I say, the majority of Automobiles sold in the US will be EVs within 20 years (maybe 10 if there is a lot of government support, but I don't see that happening).

I see private ownership of automobiles going away within 20 to 30 years. With FSD we will see "timeshare" cars. Where you pay a flat rate per month for use a a car - high subscription, more miles. When you want to go someplace you can schedule a car to arrive at a fixed time every day (good for commuting to work) or you can call a car and it will arrive in 5 to 10 minutes. The car takes you where you are going and then returns itself to the "pool". If you go on a shopping trip, there will be cars waiting to be summoned in the parking lots, so you shop, call the car while checking out, and walk outside and it is waiting to take you home. ETC. This will result in no more insurance, no more maintenance, no more drunk drivers, no more driver caused accidents, and much improved traffic flow both in town and on highways since the cars will all communicate and coordinate with each other.

Oh, and commercial truck drivers will cease to exist as FSD replaces them, making lower insurance, higher efficiency (truck on the move 24/7). etc.

That is my vision of 20 years or so (Maybe 30 for the truckers to be replaced).

Now, for the rest, power plants, factories, air flights, international cargo shipping etc. We will be hard pressed to replace all of they with electric of some other non-fossil fuel alternative in less than 50 years, maybe longer. If we simply ran out of oil, it would happen MUCH sooner. But, oil is too cheap (despite todays high prices) too easy to transport, and too high of an energy density to be replaced any sooner.

Sadly all that is the majority of pollution generated by Fossil fuels. But, we will NEVER get there is we don't start. For example, there are not going to be charging stations every where until there are EVs and there are not going to be enough EVs to support charging stations everywhere until there are charging everywhere. Catch 22. This is where government incentives come in to play, by making it more desirable it will happen sooner. Whether we see those and whether they are enough - I dunno.

All of that assumes we remain with the same battery chemistry - we won't. All of that assumes new sources (space) of rare earth minerals don't become available and financially practical to mine - they will.

So, there are a LOT of connections, like a spider web that will begin wiggling as we begin transitioning and those wiggles will result is massive changes in technology.

One of the difficulties in predicting technology changes, is that historically tech advances at an exponential rate, while we think about it in a linear rate. So, it "seems" like things are changing slowly, while in reality they are changing faster every year. AI is going to be play a BIG role in the design of new batteries and chemistries, and new power generation systems, etc etc.

It would NOT surprise me if 20 years from now Fossil fuel burning is outlawed. But, I can't tell you how we will get there. But it wouldn't surprise me. We made it to the moon in a decade, when everyone said it was impossible. SpaceX is up to 12 reuses of recovered launch vehicles and 10 years ago everyone laughed at the idea. Things can change fast - if we don't prevent it. And Fossil fuel companies have a very big incentive to prevent change.

So, you are saying some guy on the internet is smarter than GM engineers. That GM is plunging blindly forward into EVs without understand the issues?

That is really strange, one thing US automakers have NEVER been accused of (well, at least since the Edsel) is being rash in making decisions. One of the reasons Japan did so much damage to our auto industry is we wouldn't change production techniques and Japan was very innovative with statistical process control/engineering.

And even if GM is "smoking dope" and being stupid, then I guess every auto manufacturer in the world is too.

Well, there is a chicken and egg issue. But, I would say you have to have demand for EVs BEFORE you can afford to solve the issues you brought up.

Who do you think is going to invest the trillions of dollars to convert to an all electric economy if there are no customers?

Both have to happen - more or less at the same time.

And I don't know why you think no one is "aware" of the elephant in. the room (those problems). Every single company I have looked at are seriously working on those problems.

Chicken and Egg.

China has been playing the long game for decades. They DON"T own us, but they certainly are working on controlling our drugs (fuel, rare earth minerals, AI, etc, etc, etc). And they are very good at getting third world countries to "like them" and give them the right to resources in exchange for infrastructure development.

We won't even put money into our own infrastructure, much less using that to acquire rights to resources we need. I will say fore the past 50 or so years, we have been in naval focusing mode, and not playing the long game. This is seriously evident in our major corporations on a short term profits binge.

I'm not planning on buying an electric car. But I do understand that any change of major type takes time.
For example, once we lit our caves with fires and torches. Along came candles. Then oil lamps. Gas lights were common before electric lighting. Imagine the difficulties in converting a city from gas lighting to electric lighting. There were plenty of folks that found reasons why that was a waste of time and resources, too. Yet, it is what we all use today. Not every advance in technology is easy or universally accepted in its infancy, but, with persistence and improvements changes, progress takes place.
Again, I am not planning on buying an electric. It doesn't make sense in my life. But, in time, with advancements, electric vehicles of all sorts may become the norm, someday.

Didn’t we Liberate and occupy a country (Iraq) that produces roughly 4.4 million barrels a day ? So why can’t we buy or take their surplus…

Agree, and remember, fire to candles took millions of years, candles to electric lights took thousands of years, incandescent electric lights to LED lights took a hundred years. Technology advances at an exponential rate.

It appears linear to us, but if you take any aspect of technology and trace it from it's origin to today, you will see this exponential nature

Take speed of transportation - walking on all fours, to walking and running upright (3mph average) Millions of years and we start riding horses. Tens of thousands of years and we get boats and wagons. Thousands of years and we get steam. Hundreds of year(s) and we get gas engines. How long for electric? Who knows.

There is abnormal obvious reason for this. Each step along the way uses the previous tech to help the next step. Once we got computers (and computer aided design) things really picked up the pace. Now, with AI design birthing, we can expect the computers to being making faster smarter, and better computers, which will then increase the advance of technology even faster.

We will see where this goes, but 15 years ago, cell phones were HUGE and dumb, now I wear one on my wrist, that is more powerful than the computers used to get us to the moon and back.

I think there is a chance if we don't destroy ourselves first, that we could switch to an electric based economy in 10 to 20 years.

Hmm, maybe because it is not ours? But, we never let a little like that stop us. I mean, why not, isn't that what Putin is doing?

While I am not a believer in mass electric cars
 

This podcast with Barry Ritholtz and the Executive Director of Ford Electric Vehicles is very interesting as to why they are putting large efforts, or dollars, into that market.

Masters in Business: Darren Palmer on the EV Revolution (Podcast) on Apple Podcasts

The interesting point is the opinion of the current EV owners and how they are shaping what Ford believes currently as the future of EVs

skeptical but open minded guy

So, you are saying they are listening to the market?

The Government Relations department at GM are telling upper level management that “like it or not” they will be forced to move to EV’s in the future. GM engineers are then being told by upper level management to focus on EV’s. The engineers aren’t focusing on EV’s because it’s superior technology, it’s because they are doing what their bosses tell them to do.

Okay, I understand. And maybe you can clarify who maintains EVs are "superior" technology? Just asking, because I know I never said that. There are a LOT Of reasons I think we should change to EVs - being superior is not one of them.

The rest of the World is adopting renewable energy and electric vehicles

A shame that the USA, which used to be at the forefront of new technologies, is now dragging its heels and using whatever excuses it can to remain in the clutches of the oil and coal industries

I agree with the above. Unlike others, I believe that transition to Electric Vehicles can happen rather quickly. Government mandate and incentives can speed the conversion.

But that is the easy part. Battery technology will improve and support longer rides. But that neglects the requirement to generate the electricity to charge the EV batteries which is still highly dependent on fossil fuels.

Yeah, around the 70's somehow the US decided it no longer wanted to be the leader in innovation... Sad.

Hopefully there are other technologies that will come along in the near future that will be superior to electric.

BTW does not seem the coal industry has all that much power these days.

Yup, not too long ago the government mandated seat belts. There was a LOT of heated disagreement and endless debates over all sorts of nonsense about them. Now 50 years later they have saved an estimated 500,000 lives and are averaging saving about 20,000 per year now, with having only reached 90% usage compliance. But, auto manufacturers spent(d) a lot of money lobbying and fighting the change.

The government mandating things, in my not so humble opinion, is the only way to get the predatory capitalists to change things so that their products are better for the people instead of better for their bank accounts.

Our auto industry is steeped in being very conservative when it comes to changes - they do not like to make any changes that are not necessary - Edsel was a learning experience.

listen to the podcast yourself and make your own interpretation.

its just another information point for whatever you want to believe.

behavioral bias guy

You're right - for generating electricity, it has dropped from around 40% in 2014 to 20% today, largely as a result of being replaced by natural gas

Don’t you mean no power??. Few fully electric vehicles are enjoying the not crowed charging points right now. add 10 or even hundreds of thousands and you just cant fill up in 10 minutes or so, you have to wait till there open charging point to even start the regeneration. Hybrid makes good sense IMO right now until there will be enough power generated and enough fast charging to satisfy demands when number explode?

Lots of them around…:)

We supposedly don’t do that, communist countries do. :)

Well. Maybe a a shift in thinking. If you're driving around town is the issue, I expect charging at night while you sleep is the answer. The charging stations are for when you go more than 400 miles in a day (current range of Tesla's - sort of). Most people's local driving is not over 300 miles a day, so lots of buffer there.

And honestly I don't mind if they would make it illegal to drive more than 6 to 8 hours without a break, at some point in there the driver becomes a hazard. A 15 to 30 minute potty and snack break can be refreshing.

Everyone I know that has a Tesla says that it's range is not a serious limitation on cross country driving.

I guess if someone is used to having two 50 gal side thanks on the pickem'up truck, that could be simulated with a UHaul like trailer full of batteries, although that might get a little expensive - LOL!

Actually went to steam and electricity vehicles first. Original Henry ford vehicles was supposed to run on renewable alcohol. Then found use for waste highly combustible by product fuel that kerosene produced.

:bigbow:

They were tried but found not to be practical - basically, they could not compete with th energy density of fossil fuels. So, they were relegated to the back burner until now, and even now, we are just beginning to be able to use electric for that reason (energy density).

But, I am sure you saw my point - thing usually seem to take forever, until they happen then all of a sudden we look around and ask, how did that happen so fast. :)

Those trucks are for specific use, most never owned them or thought about owning them.

Driving already a hazard. Tesla enjoy the low volume of fully electric vehicles on road right now. Not so much when that number explodes. As far as driving around town, yes electric way go. Most of population can’t afford 40 to 100K vehicles to just drive around town.

Unfortunately it was one of the biggest mid truths. President fired his economic adviser, Lawrence Lindsey, for saying that the total cost of invading Iraq might come to as much as $200 billion. President instead stood by such advisers as Paul Wolfowitz, who said that the invasion would be largely "self-financing" via Iraq's oil, and Andrew Natsios, who told an incredulous Ted Koppel that the war's total cost to the American taxpayer would be no more than $1.7 billion.

I don't think the narrator breathed once during the whole film!

Next time you are impatiently waiting in line for gasoline and that guy in front of you seems to be taking more than ten minutes to fill up and wash his window, think about how long you would have to wait for him to charge his battery powered vehicle. Think about two or three in front of you. Better off thinking of the old city street cars that had power hanging over the top of them as they road down the street.