Munro on EV skeptics

i hope they do, but i'm not so sure. but they and their descendants are the ones who will have to live with their decisions.

 

Will made a real strong argument there.

 

Always interesting to hear different opinions - not necessary for everyone to march to the same drum

I love electric vehicles – and was an early adopter. But increasingly I feel duped | Rowan Atkinson | The Guardian

"Volvo released figures claiming that greenhouse gas emissions during production of an electric car are nearly 70% higher than when manufacturing a petrol one. How so? The problem lies with the lithium-ion batteries fitted currently to nearly all electric vehicles: they’re absurdly heavy, huge amounts of energy are required to make them, and they are estimated to last only upwards of 10 years. It seems a perverse choice of hardware with which to lead the automobile’s fight against the climate crisis."
Rowan Atkinson is the actor who played Mr. Bean , he also has some other credentials - "My first university degree was in electrical and electronic engineering, with a subsequent master’s in control systems."

I drive a PHEV but it doesn't bother me one bit to hear a different opinion- everyone doesn't have to think like me and a diversity of thought is quite healthy.

There has to be a better way to solve our transportation crisis other than the antiquated technology of electric cars.

 

I love electric vehicles – and was an early adopter. But increasingly I feel duped | PriusChat
We didn't go deep into Atkinson's(wonder if he is related to the inventor) points there. Well, because we have discussed them in the past. His main one was focused on production emissions, but he ignores that in the markets wheres EVs are sold, the lower use emissions quickly makes up for that.

Keeping an old car could be viable at the individual level. At the societal level, old cars are getting scrapped everyday. Keeping old ones doesn't replace them.

Will's opinion in the OP link is that EV sales won't reach two thirds, even with subsidies, because....they just won't. Claims people don't want them, despite all those Tesla's sold.

The engines burning hydrogen are just as antiquated. Then note the last two letters of FCEV. Like batteries, fuel cells produce electricity through a chemical reaction. The big difference is that fuel cells don't hold their reactants and products internally. FCEVs also need a battery to work as a product the public is willing to buy.

The main source of transportation emissions is from the fuel. Electricity production can be clean. So can hydrogen, but the inefficiencies of making green, and getting that quick fill time, makes it more costly than electricity for vehicles. Other renewable fuels are also costly more so to make than hydrogen, but those are balanced against distribution costs and their use in older cars.

The costs of any renewable fuel make them impractical for main stream use as the main energy source for a car. A plug is needed.

 

Mobility is a wonderful subject for diverse options and opinions - especially for those with open minds not locked into one way of doing things

The future of mobility in 2035 | McKinsey

"This legacy of private-car congestion does more than frustrate people. It also encourages developers to build garages and public officials to install more parking spaces, gobbling up scarce, valuable urban land that could otherwise be devoted to parks or other amenities."

"Within the next decade, however, the mobility ecosystem will most likely undergo a transformation not seen since the early days of the automobile—and one main shift will be the decline of private-car use."

Many enterprising young adults don't own a vehicle and don't want to drive. They see it as old people technology.

By not driving they have no insurance payments, no car registration no property taxes, no fueling bills, no huge car payments, are not contributing to commercial consumerism and fueling the fires of consumption.

I'm one of the old farts and own two vehicles but am young enough to remember a Bob Dylan song where he mentions "the times they are a-changing"

Bob Dylan – The Times They Are A-Changin' Lyrics | Genius Lyrics

"Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
And don't criticize what you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly aging
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand
For the times, they are a-changin'"

 

I really thought my kids wouldn’t have cars. They survived on public transportation for years, but eventually all succumbed by their mid thirties

 

Same with housing. It isn't that they don't want it. It is that the market and wages means they have to wait longer for it.

 

BYD and other new makers are using all the research old companies went through and paid for, for free. Suspension, steering, brakes, body, interior, lighting, everything. It’s pretty easy and cheap to make a running start using other peoples work to start from. Maybe that’s the way it goes in business and I’m not looking at it right. Ford, GM, and all the other old companies went from essentially wagons, developing at great cost all the technology to what we have now. Not sure what my point is except doesn’t seem quite fair to give credit to to newcomers so much.

 

but they all had the advantage of starting and competing from the same place

 

BYD Auto started up after BYD bought another auto company that started back in 1988. They've been making cars far longer than Tesla.

The reason why the safer, cheaper, longer lasting LFP batteries are available in volumes to support EVs is because of China. BYD is one of the big LFP makers.

 

It’s pretty easy to use others ideas and improve on them, and cheap. I believe lithium ion batteries were developed in university research labs funded probably mainly by various governments or companies in those countries. Or “wasting money.” That was the hard part. I see a Nobel Prize was won by three scientists. 1988 2008 all is relatively recent for my point. I don’t think BYD had any skin in that game, the iffy and hard part. Just using BYD as an example of whatever my point is.

 

Ford and GM didn't invented the 4-cycle engine. It was patented by a French guy in 1862. The first working commercial one was made 14 years later by a several German dudes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonse_Beau_de_Rochas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Otto

Neither was the Prius the first hybrid electric car. Those first appeared soon after the first ICE one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_electric_vehicle#History

We stand on the shoulders of giants.

So what if a Chinese company didn't invent the product. Taking an invention to mass production can take as much effort, maybe more, as making the first prototype.

 

what musk did with tesla is nothing short of miraculous.

for all the engineering prowess and r&d capabilities of the legacy mfg's, they are still struggling to catch up