[vtsnowedin]

I have a feeling gas has a long future.

So you don't see "peak oil" caused by supply shortages by 2040?

I don't know when peak oil will be. I think nobody knows.

But even if peak oil is next year, that doesn't mean oil is gone.
Every EV driven reduces oil consumption, reducing price, allowing somebody somewhere to gobble up the oil instead.

The question is, can electricity generation/cost be decoupled from oil/coal?
I don't know if it can. And if it can't then EV is no solution to an oil shortage.

Maybe we should try LESS CONSUMPTION as a real solution to our problems?

Consider the present mix of electric generation energy sources.

What is U.S. electricity generation by energy source?

In 2018, about 4,171 billion kilowatthours (kWh) (or 4.17 trillion kWh) of electricity were generated at utility-scale electricity generation facilities in the United States.1 About 64% of this electricity generation was from fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, petroleum, and other gases). About 19% was from nuclear energy, and about 17% was from renewable energy sources. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that an additional 30 billion kWh of electricity generation was from small-scale solar photovoltaic systems in 2018.2

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3
So 36 percent is already decoupled from fossil fuel and we can certainly increase the amount of solar generation from it's now minor role.

[vtsnowedin]

Back to the math!!
A Tesla model 3 uses 30 KWH of charger input (85% efficiency)to go 100 miles. So if that became the industry average and EVs got 50% fleet share we would need---
50,000,000X15000/100X 30=225,000,000,000 KWHs from the grid or roof top panels each year.
That would be just a five percent increase in the 4.17 Trillion KWHs we generate now.
To do it all solar would take eight times the panels we have in use now but at the rate they are installing them that will not take long.

[mousepad]

So 36 percent is already decoupled from fossil fuel and we can certainly increase the amount of solar generation from it's now minor role.

That's not what I mean. I mean truly decoupled.
In order to manufacture solar panels (and required inverters) there's a enormous high tech supply chain needed. Similar machines that are used to make solar panel wafers are used to make micro-chip wafers. Clearly the solar industry benefits from the availability of know-how and scale of the consumer micro-chip industry. This cross-dependence is not well understood.

It's one thing to calculate the energy cost of producing panels/inverters/solar installations (to find an EROEI number).
But it's another thing to understand the hidden benefit received in form of cheap parts because of a humongous consumer economy running on fossil fuels.

Or to wrap it up in an example, it's easy to run a profitable lemonade stand as a kid, when you get table, chair, lemons, sugar and water for free from your parents.

[mousepad]

To do it all solar would take eight times the panels

That's the problem with solar, right, it don't shine at night when i want to charge the tesla in the garage to avoid supercharger fees.

[asg70]

Or to wrap it up in an example, it's easy to run a profitable lemonade stand as a kid, when you get table, chair, lemons, sugar and water for free from your parents.

That's called bootstrapping and it's what the legacy manufacturers are ALREADY doing, financing the transition with their gas car sales. I don't like it, but it's a necessary evil unless you want to leverage yourself to the insane point Tesla has.

What happens further and further down the road when the last of the recoverable fossil fuels are running out and we have no choice but to subsist purely on renewables (and maybe nukes) isn't that important to any of us making our short to medium-term plans.

[asg70]

That's the problem with solar, right, it don't shine at night when i want to charge the tesla in the garage to avoid supercharger fees.

Hence stationary storage like powerwalls. Every time I do the math on solar I can't really make it work even though the panels keep coming down in price. But it's not like you HAVE to use rooftop solar. The grid is still there and it's cheaper than the supercharger network.

[vtsnowedin]

To do it all solar would take eight times the panels

That's the problem with solar, right, it don't shine at night when i want to charge the Tesla in the garage to avoid supercharger fees.

Yes a problem. That might be solved by power walls that take in all the solar panels can do in the day time and transfer it to the EV when it is parked at home after work. Or there could be solar panels over the parking lots at work that charge the cars while people work.
I noticed Smith and Wesson in Springfield Mass now has several acres of solar panels mounted above their employee parking lots.
Yes there are problems to solve but I think we can solve them.

[Outcast_Searcher]

To do it all solar would take eight times the panels

That's the problem with solar, right, it don't shine at night when i want to charge the tesla in the garage to avoid supercharger fees.

But the wind does blow at night, and generate more power than during the day. And the total electricity demand at night goes WAY down because of so many businesses being closed. So let's not pretend charging EV's is some big problem in a couple/few decades once the market matures, given how much new solar and wind is coming online, plus how much NG we'll have access to for several decades at a minimum.
And of course, that's without even talking about geothermal or using coal if needed.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Or to wrap it up in an example, it's easy to run a profitable lemonade stand as a kid, when you get table, chair, lemons, sugar and water for free from your parents.

That's called bootstrapping and it's what the legacy manufacturers are ALREADY doing, financing the transition with their gas car sales. I don't like it, but it's a necessary evil unless you want to leverage yourself to the insane point Tesla has.

What happens further and further down the road when the last of the recoverable fossil fuels are running out and we have no choice but to subsist purely on renewables (and maybe nukes) isn't that important to any of us making our short to medium-term plans.

And it's what a huge proportion of industries have done over time as they've evolved. For example, huge modern electronic fab plants aren't built by large electronics firms to the tune of $10's of billions of dollars by begging or hopes and dreams or giant government grants. They're built on the back of the profits and revenues and cash flows of previous generations of chips which are in demand UNTIL the newest generation is cheap enough and plentiful enough to supplant them.

I don't even see why it's an evil. The world isn't made anew every day because we learn new things. A transition from old to new is required and can take years to decades. Same as it ever was.

And OF COURSE, doomers will proclaim it means doom since to them any facts that don't fit with their convenient doomer distortion field don't count, but it doesn't change the facts on the ground re the financing of such change overall one bit.

[mousepad]

I don't even see why it's an evil. The world isn't made anew every day because we learn new things. A transition from old to new is required and can take years to decades. Same as it ever was.

I don't see why it's an evil either.
But I wonder if it can be done. We have to contemplate that the scale of BAU must continue as is, to be able to provide cheap solar and cheap teslas. Can all this be powered by solar et al?
Maybe for you this is obvious. For me it's not.

And OF COURSE, doomers will proclaim it means doom since to them any facts that don't fit with their convenient doomer distortion field don't count, but it doesn't change the facts on the ground re the financing of such change overall one bit.

That is true. But I hope I can still question certain assumption of cornucopians on this board, can't I?

[mousepad]

let's not pretend charging EV's is some big problem in a couple/few decades

That's exactly my point. We simply don't know at the moment and shouldn't pretend to know.
But we shouldn't despair, we do what we always do, we stumble and fumble forward.

[Armageddon]

Is this what the auto industry thinks of EV’s?



GM, doubling down on big SUVs, unveils longer Chevy Tahoe, Suburban reut.rs/35cm1lB


I’ve said it before, as long as Americans have a choice, they won’t be choosing EV’s anytime soon. GM knows this too

[vtsnowedin]

Is this what the auto industry thinks of EV’s?



GM, doubling down on big SUVs, unveils longer Chevy Tahoe, Suburban reut.rs/35cm1lB


I’ve said it before, as long as Americans have a choice, they won’t be choosing EV’s anytime soon. GM knows this too

That is just the result of current gas prices and will change as fast as the price changes.

[asg70]

GM, doubling down on big SUV

Um, the autoworkers were striking because they were concerned about EVs. What GM does now is not indicative of what it's going to do in the next few years.

Seriously, this thread is full of worthless uninformed trolls.

[The_Toecutter]

Outcast Searcher's analysis fails to include maintenance costs of EV and ICE. While the battery cost of the EV was factored in, ignored was the disparate maintenance costs between the two platforms(which would greatly narrow the gap between the two and depending on location/fuel costs, possibly make the EV favorable). Then there's the life of the platform itself. The EV quite possibly could outlast the ICEV by a factor of 2 or more, which judging by the number of miles fleet uses of Teslas are racking up, seems a reasonable proposition:

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-s-quality-durability-on-display-in-450k-mile-car-still-going-strong/

With current battery tech, the Model S linked above now loses 2.4 miles of range per 10,000 miles of fleet use. It's getting roughly 150,000 miles life out of a battery pack. That's impressive considering that those packs have been subject to abusive fast-charge-only charging regimens, which are greatly detrimental to battery life when compared to slow-charging at a home wall outlet.

The Model S is quite bloated and doesn't interest me much though. Most people commute alone, and it would be nice if there was a hyper-efficient vehicle available to reflect that. Given Newton's laws, designing such a vehicle would also play into performance well. There exist velomobiles that are able to be pedaled(no motor) to 60 mph using roughly 2/3 of a horsepower, such as the Milan SL, and were a one-seater or tandem-two-seater car designed with a similar philosophy in mind, and given an over-powered drive system, it is quite plausible that one could put together a 200+ mile range EV that uses a battery pack smaller than 5 kWh while being capable of out-accelerating and out-cornering anything else on the road. AND the parts cost, relative to something bloated like a Tesla Model S, would go waaaay down. In a power-down scenario, I think there is still a future for the automobile, and it might look like something that I'm describing. If 8 billion people(projected to become 10 billion mid century) all want to participate in happy motoring without regard to the consequences, such a vehicle may even be necessary to prevent personal transportation from killing the planet, as well as prevent clogging up the infrastructure too severely.

Too bad industry lacks imagination and foresight. But the fact that EVs are now entering the market is cause for celebration, even if it's 20 years too late. Tesla started it all, and without them, I'm doubtful the other automakers would have even tried it at all. We have Alan Cocconi's AC inverter design to thank for it all as well.

[asg70]

it is quite plausible that one could put together a 200+ mile range EV that uses a battery pack smaller than 5 kWh while being capable of out-accelerating and out-cornering anything else on the road. AND the parts cost, relative to something bloated like a Tesla Model S, would go waaaay down. In a power-down scenario, I think there is still a future for the automobile, and it might look like something that I'm describing.

It seems like every time a company tries to bring a super-light vehicle to market (i.e. 3 wheel, like Aptera) it just stalls as vaporware. I really don't see a commercial case to be made for something like this while traditional form-factors keep getting cheaper and offer better safety and creature-comforts. For instance, what kind of climate-control would a vehicle like you're describing have? How well would it fare driving through slushy winter roads? Velomobile class vehicles work OK in conditions that are amenable to bicycles but they are a pain to operate in harsh weather conditions. I understand that in a "powerdown" future, beggars can't be choosers, but I think by the time we get there that there will be a robust and affordable used car market for previous gen EVs, and all else fails, transport-as-a-service. Yes, there will be Velomobiles and NEVs, but I doubt they'll ever really become much more popular than they are now as long as other options are available.

BTW, if you watch the Tony Seba presentation, he explains that TAAS means you need far fewer total vehicles since most people's cars spend all their time sitting parked, whereas TAAS fleet vehicles can be constantly moving people around. So the embodied energy required to move 8-10 billion around doesn't have to be as high as you think. And if you really want to reduce energy usage all you really need to do is allow anybody who could telecommute to do so. Move bits and bytes around, not people.

[The_Toecutter]

It seems like every time a company tries to bring a super-light vehicle to market (i.e. 3 wheel, like Aptera) it just stalls as vaporware.

The Aptera is still of a similar form factor to a car. It may be much lower drag and weight than a normal car overall, but it is still closer to a normal car in terms of size/efficiency than it is to a human powered vehicle.

We have different ideas of what "super-light" means. You can't pick up an Aptera and bring it through a doorway or fit three of them in a parking space.

I really don't see a commercial case to be made for something like this while traditional form-factors keep getting cheaper and offer better safety and creature-comforts.

What if the cost was well below $5k? Theoretically, this is possible, but not without mass production nor will profitability be possible without a sizable enough market to justify it. 3D printing technology may nullify the need for mass production in the medium term future.

For instance, what kind of climate-control would a vehicle like you're describing have?

A small ceramic heater for heat/defrost, and NACA ducts/windows for cooling. No AC. The idea is to keep the vehicle light enough for a strong person to pick up and carry into an apartment.

How well would it fare driving through slushy winter roads?

If my current prototype is any indication with just rear wheel drive, probably more than adequately if it ends up having all wheel drive via hub motors.

My current pedal vehicle is rideable in the winter but not quite the safest or most stable thing. That's because it is a 3-wheeled tadpole layout with rear wheel drive. If care is not taken, it can become uncontrollable. Still, I've ridden it on slushy roads at 30 mph in traffic, but I really have to be careful how I operate it, especially with cable pull brakes and no ABS. Joe Sixpack would kill himself in this thing.

A variant with all-wheel drive hub motors, brake by wire with ABS, and increased ground clearance would probably be adequate, a 4-wheeled variant even better still. Making such a thing safe and stable in inclement weather, even in the event of a tire failure, is not rocket science.

Velomobile class vehicles work OK in conditions that are amenable to bicycles but they are a pain to operate in harsh weather conditions.

Depends on the design, more than anything. Velomobiles are much more pleasant to operate in the winter or in the rain than a normal bicycle, and is closer to a car in terms of practicality. What I'm describing isn't a velomobile though, but a single-person car built like a velomobile, with the bicycle drivetrain parts either removed altogether or to serve as a secondary propulsion mechanism(given that it would be light enough and aerodynamic enough to be pedaled, given adequate gearing).

I understand that in a "powerdown" future, beggars can't be choosers, but I think by the time we get there that there will be a robust and affordable used car market for previous gen EVs,

But will there be hundreds of millions of them to meet vehicle demand? That depends on what the collapse or powerdown scenario looks like and when it happens.

and all else fails, transport-as-a-service.

I could see this growing exponentially. In fact, it is.

Yes, there will be Velomobiles and NEVs, but I doubt they'll ever really become much more popular than they are now as long as other options are available.

I could easily see velomobiles taking off and increasing their numbers by factors of thousands. This would still make them less than 1% of vehicles on the road, but it is definitely unexplored potential. The embodied energy in a car sized and shaped like a velomobile would be orders of magnitude less than a conventional automobile, while allowing a similar level of function, at least regarding the transportation of a single person, and then there's the possibility of an order of magnitude improvement in energy consumption versus a conventional electric car.

Those other options may not be available in the future. People take everything they see around them for granted. Then again, the future is not known.

[vtsnowedin]

How far we have come from the days of the Tour de sol (late1980s) where they had solar powered cars with just 450 watts of solar cells on them and just 4.8KWh of battery. I remember the American version coming through New Hampshire. They would have to park some of the cars faced into the sun for a while to get enough charge to go up the next hill.
Looking ahead I see a car with 1000 watts or more of cells built into the skin of the vehicle that would gain enough charge parked in your office parking lot for eight hours to take you more then twenty miles home at the end of the day without ever being plugged in. Not likely in Vermont but Southern California should be viable shortly.

[Cog]

We should just execute everyone driving an ICE vehicle or anyone ever associated with the oil and gas industry. After all, they are guilty of destroying the planet, aren't they? It's for the children like Greta.

[mousepad]

BTW, if you watch the Tony Seba presentation, he explains that TAAS means you need far fewer total vehicles since most people's cars spend all their time sitting parked, whereas TAAS fleet vehicles can be constantly moving people around. So the embodied energy required to move 8-10 billion around doesn't have to be as high as you think. And if you really want to reduce energy usage all you really need to do is allow anybody who could telecommute to do so. Move bits and bytes around, not people.

I read a university study about this, but unfortunately I don't remember where.
It was an experiment, they provided a couple of families with full self driving cars. The cars were regular cars driven by drivers, but the families were told to assume and treat them as self driving.
The interesting part was the results of the study. For each family the miles driven increased badly.

The assumption that self-driving cars reduce traffic might be wrong. Self-driving cars might result in more traffic and more energy consumed. Ain't that funny?