Who Killed the Electric Car?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(AnOldHouse @ Jul 11 2006, 01:55 PM) [snapback]284597[/snapback]</div>

Right you are. NIMBY is huge of course. Would be interesting to suggest that every gasoline-car driver install a small gasoline refinery on their own property. Folks typically want what is "fair," so pay up (with visual blight)! I already have my EV fuel-maker right here on my house.

 

I'm getting tired of this whole thing, but I will try one more time.

Right now, the real oil is coming from the middle East. And, if you account for inflation, it's almost on it's cheapest point in a whole century (according to a recent article in the Economist). It's so cheap that it prevents the economic interest of virtually any alternative, because it is so flexible. That includes nuclear power if you count the real price. This party won't last too long anymore, but for the moment this is the situation.

That's fundamentally wrong, because you can build reserves of it. You can't do this with electricity. You can build reserves of it to fuel a war against anybody who threatens your energy inflow, and keep your economy flowing for a couple of months. That's one of the cornerstones of modern defence.

And do you think that there is no reason why they are doing this? Do you really think that there is some kind of big conspiracy of big oil companies that want to keep on digging oil at all cost? There is only one reason: oil is still overall the most interesting source of energy, economically spoken. That includes both price and flexibility.

Of course. So what? Electricity is not a source of energy, its a way to distribute and apply it.

Yes, it's amazing. We can fly to the moon and build nuclear bombs. But what we can't do is create an efficient civilisation that doesn't exhaust it's environment. Why? Because there is no short-term interest in doing this. Environmentalism requires long-term priorities: you have to give up something now in the interest of unknown people at an unknown point in the future. That is simply against the nature of human beings. Capitalism is totally blind. It's a machine running full speed towards the wall. And yes, it's running on oil because that's the easiest way to run it. Anything else would require too much long-term planning.

I will tell you why. Because we are even failing on this one. Oil is a commodity under very sharp price pressure, and everyone wants to increase their profit margins with 0.1%. No one is willing to invest the appropriate amount of money in new infrastructure. Everybody stretches the existing infrastructure to the limit. The same problem holds with electricity, but much more because it lacks buffering capacity.

This is where you make your mistake: you think about this in logical and rational terms. Rationally, there is an elegant solution to all our current problems: EV to grid, swap-out batteries, etc... But it won't happen. Why? Because civilisations don't evolve rationally or logically. Why do we have something as silly and waisteful as wars? Can't we all live in peace next to each other? It sounds logical, doesn't it? But it doesn't happen. Why do we need enough atomic bombing power to destroy the Earth 1000 times? Is that logical? In the present case: there is no market mechanism that will cause us to evolve in this direction as long as oil is available. Only when the supply stops, we will need to adapt in a disruptive way. But it's totally against the nature of human civilisation to anticipate a problem that will only arise in 50 years. For the moment, oil motors our economy and nobody will change that.

[/quote]
You call V2G "SF" (science fiction I assume). Turns out that I'm currently using a SF computer. I drive two SF cars, and I'm about to fly on a SF airplane. I'm glad that none of the dreamers who came up with this stuff just rolled over and played dead - assuming that innovation will never work in the real world. I just bought a $100 GPS unit that wears on my wrist and tells me where I am anywhere in the world. Nothing more science fiction than that!
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Read my words. I'm calling a civilisation that runs on EV's that dynamically exchange electric power science fiction.

I think I will stop the discussion now. The problem you folks have is that you see a (theoretically valid) solution for our problems, and think this is going to happen. You look at it from a rational perspective. But you totally ignore the fact that a (capitalistic or any other) civilisation don't evolve in a rational way. I call you idealistic and dreamers. That's meant in a positive way, but it also means that it doesn't correspond to reality.

The problem of running out of oil is known for decades. People are talking about solutions for a long time. And yet we see the opposite movement: the average consumption of cars in the U.S has increased the last decades. The industry creates a demand for SUV's, people start to buy them, and we create our so-needed 2% economical growth. Everybody knows that this party is ending, but we just keep rolling towards the wall.
Every alternative that needs to be elaborated now will hurt economically because of the upfront costs. Nobody will do it because nobody has any interest in doing it.

We eat fruit that is been flying in oil-consuming jets for 10.000 km. That's normal day-to-day routine. Why does everybody find this normal? It's the silliest thing to do if you watch it from a distance. Technology and science is a marvelous thing (I'm a scientist myself). I can bring us miracles like GPS. But it can't solve the world problems. As a matter of fact, it's extremely good in creating world problems. If we are destroying our environment, consuming our resources and sitting on a pile of nuclear weapons, it's all thanks to technology and science. And why is that? Because humans being have a wonderful talent for corrupting things and finding the worst in everything and have no long-term vision as a society. I don't believe that future technology will solve our problems. Actually, I strongly believe that it will bring us more. That's a conclusion that can be drawn by simply extrapolating the past.

That's it, I will stop here. Fire away with your answers, destroy my vision, I won't reply anymore. I think this thread has passed to a point of saturation. You're a bunch of nice guys and gals and I definetely believe that the world would be a better place if there would be more of you. But that's the whole problem: there are not enough people of your kind.

I'm sorry, but your smooth intelligent EV society won't be there in 20 years. We can only hope that we won't have a post-nuclear desert.

 

Wow, am I glad I am not you. Sorry 'bout all that. And this type of persona is EXACTLY the type I avoid. All debbie downer (from SNL).

Just a suggestion, but maybe it's time to find a different (positive) set of support group friends. There's room for improvement...

Oh well, the rest of us will keep dreaming up all this science fiction, at least trying to improve upon all the naysayers.

It'll come, it'll happen. Better to help the cause than hinder I say.

Cheers,

Curt.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(vtie @ Jul 11 2006, 03:47 PM) [snapback]284632[/snapback]</div>

No, I didn't say anything about a conspiracy. I'm just pointing out that to develop the Canadian oil sands the interested parties are building a great many power plants. You seem to thing that expanding capacity is impractical, yet the oil companies are doing just that. I'm just using that as perhaps the most absurd example of capacity expansion. I'd didn't say anything about a conspiracy. And of course, they're doing it because they expect a profit. They are also doing it because they expect that the days of cheap crude are over and that they'll recoup their costs. While oil may be comparatively cheap, there appears to be a lot of upward pressure on the price. I think that that's more telling than the instantaneous price of oil It's going to get more expensive because most of the cheap, easy to reach oil has been exploited. The Saudis' are working their fields hard to keep up with demand. Their fields are showing signs of maturity. The same goes for the Kuwaitis. The Burgan field has peaked according to a public statement they made back in November of last year. That's the second largest oil field in the world. As the economies of India and China (and the rest of Asia for that matter) continue to expand the problem will steadily get worse. We're already seeing changes in consumer purchasing here in the US from the steadily higher prices for gasoline. LDV sales are down and the SUV portion of sails are down pretty sharply year on year over the past two years. While hybrid sales are still only a fraction of total sales (about 1.5% in June of this year) sales of fuel efficient vehicles are brisk. Trucks are still selling well, but they're sales more likely driven by need than emotion. So, it would appear that economics are having a good effect (despite the fact that oil is "cheap", according to the economist).

Let's face it. Gasoline fueled transportation is effective, but it's frought with a variety of problems. Those problems are only going to get worse. EV based transportation has some substantial limitations at present. Those problems are definitely a barrier to mainstream acceptence. That's fairly obvious. However, the EV solution is only getting more viable. The fossil fuel end game is approaching. How fast is anybody's guess.

Yeah, you can build reserves but that isn't going to help much. We have reserves but that didn't stop the price of gasoline for spiking when refineries were offline. Oil by itself is really pretty worthless. Furthermore, our reserves are pointless from an economic perspective. The cost of oil would be stratospheric is we had to really rely on our reserves. This country uses 7.3 billion barrels of oil a year (and climbing). Please, that isn't even an argument. To create meaningful reserves you'd have to sock away tremendous amounts of oil and that would send the price of oil soaring.

Personally, I think economics and a desire for security will drive this. Environmental concerns (sadly) probably won't but they'll be the icing on the cake if nothing else. <understatement>Vtie, you've got a pretty bleak world view.</understatement> :lol: Human nature is a mixed bag, it ain't completely devoid of merit. Without nuclear science we wouldn't have MRIs either. It's pandora's box. You take the good with the bad and we end up somewhere in the middle.

 

Believe it or not, we all really do seem to be mostly in agreement here.

We all believe that EV's and renewable energy make much more sense than oil and ICE's. We all believe that the time will come when oil will become prohibitively expensive (peak-oil).

The disagreement:
Some of us believe that we can/will adapt new technologies to help soften the blow of peak oil, while others believe that we are doomed.

The truth is that none of us here knows when peak oil is coming, the impact it will have or how we as a human race wil respond. So there is a lot of arguing of opinions here. And they're not going to change.

The reality of peak oil has been known for decades but it is not very well known/accepted. I like to think that I am a relatively inteligent and informed guy (33yrs old, BSEE, somewhat politically active), but the first I heard/thought about peak oil was only about a year ago. I always knew that our oil supply was not unlimited, but never considered that we were anywhere near being affected by worldwide supply, nor had I given much thought to the impact it would have. I don't think its just me, because only one person (outside of interent forums) I have spoken with this about since then had heard about it either. And many of them think I'm nuts(perhaps unrelated). I guess they don't teach this stuff in college. People don't talk about it, especially our leaders. The problem is that as it becomes accepted, we will likely begin seeing the effects through worldwide slowdown/recession. Nobody wants to be responsible for that. Our capitalistic society keeps chugging along with the ignorant assumption of unlimited cheap energy.

As for you doomsday peak-oilers, if you truly believe that we are all doomed, then there is a moral argument to be made against energy conservation. After all, the longer we put it off, the more people it will affect, right? Perhaps that is why you try to crush our hopes

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(vtie @ Jul 11 2006, 02:47 PM) [snapback]284632[/snapback]</div>

That makes two of us.

I read it right the first time. And my answer is the same. All of our great inventions that we take for granted today were once science fiction.

Me too, but for very practical reasons. I'll be taking my optimism on vacation where I likely won't have any internet connectivity (that bit of science fiction hasn't quite made it everywhere yet).

Been fun. Be good.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(vtie @ Jul 11 2006, 05:47 PM) [snapback]284632[/snapback]</div>

Yes, this has been exhausting, indeed, but very insightful and educational and therefore, worthwhile.

There's always something to be learned from a mature, honest debate and while there have certainly been starkly different points of view and outlook on the future, this debate has been without personal or political attacks or mudslinging.

I'm glad I come down on the side of the optimists. I'm doing what I can now (driving a Prius), and I've adjusted my desires and planning for the future to allow me to do as much as I can as the opportunities arise.

From this interaction, I have come to realize something new and form an opinion on road taxes as they relate to future wide spread EV use, which I had never given consideration to before. I've always been a proponent of consumption-based taxes on transportation fuel because of the inherent built-in mechanism for conservation. I want to be sure that this type of road tax for EV's is ultimately implemented in a similar fashion.

I have come to realize that high oil prices are unfortunately necessary to drive change. I do hope that we can withstand increasing prices so as not to crush the national and global economies so as to allow for affordable alternatives to emerge as quickly as possible.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(AnOldHouse @ Jul 11 2006, 08:52 PM) [snapback]284755[/snapback]</div>

Amen. Always a good time exploring these sorts of issues.

That's why I avoid FOP. Just a lot of pointless bickering about inane (and usually) political subjects.

 

Have you guys heard of the newly announced electric Smart car?

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/09/hy..._technolo_1.php

I'd buy one as a second car, in an instant.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Jul 12 2006, 03:21 AM) [snapback]284713[/snapback]</div>

Sorry, but I'm calling BS now. I wasn't going to respond, but the way you twist and bend someone else's words is getting beyond acceptable levels. To refresh your memory, this was the exact piece of conversation:

YOU: OK... I'm actually going to inject a bit of NEW information into this thread - a system called "vehicle to grid" (V2G) charging. This system (developed by AC Propulsions) would (in a perfect world) use millions of battery electric cars as the grid's storage system that you say does not and cannot exist. You drive to work, and plug your car into the V2G charger. Your car begins to charge, and eventually fills up. At 3pm, peak electrical usage in your area begins, and instead of firing up a peak generator, the V2G system sucks off a tiny bit of charge from thousands of EVs in the area that are plugged in...

ME: (precise reply on that very quote) Sorry, but that's simply SF

Can it be more clear? I'm sorry that this discussion had to degrade down to the "you said" and "I said" level, and I apologise to the other readers. But I can't let this one pass.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(vtie @ Jul 11 2006, 02:20 PM) [snapback]284518[/snapback]</div>

WRONG!!

For exactly the reasons you suggest we will still be addicted to coal and oil in the future.

Market forces and entrepeneurial activity are getting very close to the tipping point of EVs and renewable energy being cheaper than fossil-fuel economy alternatives. At the end of the day, people vote with their wallets, and the most competitive system wins.

Solar-stirling engines just now being commissioned can produce electricity cheaper than even coal.

Off-shore wind turbines are closing in on producing electricity at 2p per kWh.

A barrel of crude oil is $70. A barrel of palm-oil is $50.

Batteries for EVs are improving at a staggering rate, while the price of storage continues to plummet and it is only a matter of time before they outgun primitive fossil-fuel powered vehicles on everything including cost of manufacture.

Coal and oil use will come to an end, but NOT because of a lack of oil in the ground. Fossil-fuel will just become too expensive to be able to compete in a free market economy with renewable energy and EVs in the near future.

So, capitalism and the free market will not destroy the environment as you suggest, but will ironically be the things that save it.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Jul 11 2006, 04:18 PM) [snapback]284570[/snapback]</div>

Not too sure about this one. There would have to be one standard configuration. Or maybe "Regular, Super and Premium" grade/sonfiguration batteries, but not much more than that or run the risk of not having your battery type available at all stations. I'm afraid that system would stifle new innovations and that incrementally improved battery designs in size, shape, weight and capacity, speed of charge capability, heat properties, etc. would not be made readily available. Maybe it would be work, but would seem to drive the design of the vehicle too much to force the batteries into an easiest possible swappable configuration first. Batteries are heavy (at least they are now) and from a weight distribution standpoint it would seem that they should be mounted as low in the vehicle as possible (the Tango test track video comes to mind) and therefore probably not readily accessible for exchange. I would think that battery technology would have to have evolved to the theoretical upper end of capacity per cubic liter and/or kilogram in order to adopt such standardization and it appears that the recent advances in battery technology demonstrate that we don't even know what those theoretical limits are yet.

I would tend to think that fixed vehicle battery arrays ideally mounted for the design of the specific vehicle and the capacity for commercial fast charge stations (using supercapacitors, but admittedly, this is something I'm really not familiar with) would make for a better system and one that would also be more "acceptable" to the mass market as it would be a familiar parallel to pumping gasoline.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(AnOldHouse @ Jul 12 2006, 03:59 AM) [snapback]284871[/snapback]</div>

actually small portable modules make sense. granted the scenario presented needs a lot of inventing before it can happen. but i read a book several years ago, the author might have been bradbury, but not sure. it was SF. but it had electric cars that had modules that could go say 50 miles each. a module was a battery pack that could be removed and replaced in a few seconds. your vehicle was scanned for a payment method (you programmed this before you pulled in) as you removed and inserted modules into the dispenser, the charge level was determined (in case you wanted to "top off") a fresh module was dispensed and you were charged accordingly based on the amount of charge you gained. your vehicle only used two modules at a time, so you always had spare unused modules in a ready state that would be automatically switched over when needed. having modules reduced in weight to something along the size and weight of a gallon of milk would be nice. granted, we are not quite that far yet, but i believe we will be there in less than half the time that hydrogen could be implemented

 

The switching out of the plug in modules might be something for way down the line granted both improvement in battery technology and a standardization of the industry. That would take way more cooperation than what is going on right now with DVD/HDTV. At least for a while DVDs were standard. Now there's a format fight again. Anyone remember VHS and Betamax? While the module thing may eventually happen, I think we'll all be long dead by the time it does.

However there *is* a Solar Grove in San Diego, CA at the Kyocera Corp. office. What you'll have before you have the modules is a lot of Solar Groves over Malls, Government parking lots and Corporation parking lots and a lot of panels on roofs. Because *that* technology is going to improve too. (But it needs to improve faster and it needs more subsidies than the oil industry is getting.) When that happens you'll plug in your car when you go to work or go shopping. Whether they'll be used as storage by the grid or not, well, I'm thinking not. If there are that many solar groves out there the peak hour strain will be significantly reduced so the grid won't need the cars for storage.

Anyone heard of the $100 laptop project? They're working on making a laptop that uses so much less energy that it will work off a hand crank AND cost less than $100 to make. It's for third world countries. I think it's supposed to be wireless as all. Well, if they can get the energy use of a laptop down that far, that technology will trickle in to other appliances. That will also reduce use.

So you'll have stuff that uses less electricity and you'll have more electricity from solar (and wind and probably something else too. Yes. I'm intentionally leaving off nuclear.)

As to the movie, it's too bad Oshinsky can't live forever. He's working on batteries and solar. And batteries was the only suspect that was deemed "innocent" of killing the electric car. (Although I think the consumer should at least have had a hung jury.)

 

Change will happen, it almost always does. It's the pace and rate of change that varies along with the pressures that affect it. This may not be a good example but it still makes me laugh. Years ago, a buddy of mine said he would never wear those sissy flared jeans. Almost overnight, everybody started wearing them. About the time they were going out of style 15-20 years ago, he was searching thrift shops for his size. He changed, it just took him years t do so.
One of my favorite sayings is, "it's all relative". When gas goes up to $5-6 a gallon you will see change happen quickly.
The movie (isn't that why this thread was started?) was an enjoyable watch. My wife and I saw it today and both of us picked up on a subtle point. After CA. set the efficiency mandates and the electric engineers hit the drawing boards, the Middle East got worried and started knocking the price of oil down. Do you think they saw a shift coming and got us re-hooked on cheap oil? Once you get that many thirsty SUV's on the road you can start bumping prices again. Also, they saw the demand rising in China and India so whatever the US did didn't scare them.
Please go see this movie, you will learn a lot.
Tony M

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(vtie @ Jul 12 2006, 01:30 AM) [snapback]284856[/snapback]</div>

Message from the garden island of Kaua'i: Good news! You win. Not only am I full of BS, it has also become quite clear that I do NOT know what the hell you're talking about, so I'm gonna stop trying.

For the next ten days I really don't give a damn about much! Aloha.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Jul 12 2006, 08:24 AM) [snapback]284962[/snapback]</div>

I know you were talking about solar groves in public places... and I'd like to add that V2G stuff can and will be used at home. Even if widespread use is considered Sci Fi, using it at home is a no-brainer. How many people across the country have generators for backup household power? With your car plugged in, you have instant backup power with no noise, no fuss and no liquid fuel storage. The Tesla - released this week - will have that capability built in. Many EV owners have already converted their non V2G vehicles to act the same way (in a far clunkier fashion!). My Rav4EV could run the essentials in my home for several days. Add my solar array, and it can power the essentials indefinitely for at least nine months out of the year.

I loved his final, uplifting quote in the movie. He's quite the character.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Jul 19 2006, 02:12 AM) [snapback]288572[/snapback]</div>

Damn it. Darell can do everything. He can make electricity from his roof and drive a car that requires no gasoline. And now we find out he can levitate himself over water. What other magic is this guy capable of?!?!?!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Jul 19 2006, 08:12 AM) [snapback]288572[/snapback]</div>

That's it indeed. You fly to Hawai in a kerozene-fuelled plane, and in a couple of weeks I will drive with my diesel-powered XC70 to the Alps to do a bit more of this:



No way you or I could make it to our holiday destination without oil, and we refuse to compromise on that. As long as the oil flows, we don't give a damn about much. It the mean time, we may as well amuse ourselves a bit with EV's or pulse and glide and think that this will save the world