It seems you either didn't read my post or don't understand math. My post is to show that the current electrical grid can support charging EVs because it can support everyone running air conditioners.
Reality check on electric cars
- Thread starter Stringfellow Hawk
- Start date
When will anyone force you to buy an EV? No one will be forced to buy anything. You are free to keep your ICE vehicle and keep repairing it until gas stations disappear.I go places like this:
That's like a nearly 200 mile round trip from where I live and about 30 miles of it is up and back this road:
One of many places I like to go in the quite literally, Middle of Nowhere. I can carry extra gasoline, I can't charge an EV along something like 98% of the route.
So, maybe if you live in a city, never or rarely venture deep into the countryside, you can make an EV work for you. My biggest issue is that the government is forcing them on us, rather than letting the market decide. Yet, the market has decided, and in the US maybe 10% of the population is fine with an EV.
Interestingly, EV's were no more popular over 100 years ago, and in places like New York City there were thousands of charging stations for them! Yep, cars like the Baker Electric were available and they got trounced in the market by ICE vehicles.
Nordie, you drive a friggin golf car. Nobody cares
Bullshit.
Back up your claim the current electrical grid can support everyone owning an EV.
I already supported the claim I made. If you want to dispute it, then make an actual argument that references my post and my actual claim.
Bullshit! You showed no proof, just claims. With EV's being a fraction of the vehicles sold we already have rolling brownouts and states telling people to refrain from charging their EV's .
T. A. Gardner
Thread Killer
You haven't been paying attention. When government mandates that ALL vehicles sold in a state, or even the US, must be zero-emissions, that pretty much says you are going to have to buy an EV if you want a vehicle. That is de facto forcing you to buy one. Even your own statement says the same thing. If people won't switch, then government will simply make more mandates--just like they always do.
The worst part of it is, it is likely to fail in the primary reason it's being forced on the public and that is 'fixing' Gorebal Warming. So, we end up stuck with cars we don't want, don't like, and don't work all so some Leftists can break their arms patting themselves on the back about how much good they're doing for the planet or some such nonsense.
Daylight63
Verified User
Low-Energy Fridays: Will plugging in your electric vehicle cause a blackout? - R Street Institute
A question I am asked surprisingly often is if electric vehicles (EVs) will cause blackouts. The short answer is no, there’s no reason to think the electric grid won’t be able to adapt to the changing makeup of what’s on the road. But the question reflects what I think is an understandable...
www.rstreet.org
So it's not actually happening now.
It is true that if we divert more of our transportation load to direct electrical charging the grid will have to be improved I suspect but that's probably a VERY long way off.
EV's may never wholly supplant ICE vehicles, there's use case scenarios where it simply doesn't work. But that's kind of how America got to be the great country it is: we invent. We innovate. We learn, we grow, we advance.
Besides: having a vehicle that is AMAZINGLY more efficient at its energy use than an ICE vehicle is something to shoot for, no?
People have been trying to squeeze out a few more fractions of a percent of efficiency from gas powered engines for nearly a century maybe more. The EV jumps you up a crazy high amount.
Plus if we diversify our energy infrastructure to use more renewables we are helping the climate! It seems win-win to me.
ok.Low-Energy Fridays: Will plugging in your electric vehicle cause a blackout? - R Street Institute
A question I am asked surprisingly often is if electric vehicles (EVs) will cause blackouts. The short answer is no, there’s no reason to think the electric grid won’t be able to adapt to the changing makeup of what’s on the road. But the question reflects what I think is an understandable...
So it's not actually happening now.
It is true that if we divert more of our transportation load to direct electrical charging the grid will have to be improved I suspect but that's probably a VERY long way off.
EV's may never wholly supplant ICE vehicles, there's use case scenarios where it simply doesn't work. But that's kind of how America got to be the great country it is: we invent. We innovate. We learn, we grow, we advance.
Besides: having a vehicle that is AMAZINGLY more efficient at its energy use than an ICE vehicle is something to shoot for, no?
People have been trying to squeeze out a few more fractions of a percent of efficiency from gas powered engines for nearly a century maybe more. The EV jumps you up a crazy high amount.
Plus if we diversify our energy infrastructure to use more renewables we are helping the climate! It seems win-win to me.
T. A. Gardner
Thread Killer
Low-Energy Fridays: Will plugging in your electric vehicle cause a blackout? - R Street Institute
A question I am asked surprisingly often is if electric vehicles (EVs) will cause blackouts. The short answer is no, there’s no reason to think the electric grid won’t be able to adapt to the changing makeup of what’s on the road. But the question reflects what I think is an understandable...
So it's not actually happening now.
It is true that if we divert more of our transportation load to direct electrical charging the grid will have to be improved I suspect but that's probably a VERY long way off.
EV's may never wholly supplant ICE vehicles, there's use case scenarios where it simply doesn't work. But that's kind of how America got to be the great country it is: we invent. We innovate. We learn, we grow, we advance.
EV's have been around for nearly 150 years. In the first two decades of the 20th century, they were quite popular in urban areas of the US. They went pretty much unused outside of them. There was considerable charging infrastructure for them too.
All that has disappeared, and it wasn't "energy companies" that made that happen. It was consumer choice. ICE vehicles were more practical and had far wider appeal. EV's have limited appeal and utility. If that weren't true, they'd already dominate the vehicle market. But they don't. They've competed directly with ICE vehicles for over a century now and have never won in the marketplace until government stepped in and forced them on buyers. They aren't innovative. They're reinventing the wheel and introducing it as a triangle because it eliminates one bump.
No, EV's are energy inefficient. That's why they have range issues and weigh far more than ICE vehicles.
Not true. Battery technology is limited, and the energy density of batteries is very low.
If you are a faithful member of the Church of Gorebal Warming that might be important to you...
Daylight63
Verified User
You are correct that EV's were among the first cars. But they were also llimited to Pb Acid batteries so that's a limitation. But if I understand correctly the mass produced Model T actually put gasoline cars into easy reach of more people so it won out on price. Then Texas had their oil boom and gasoline became easy to get and cheaper to make.
So it was because of the times and technology. Things are very, very different today.
that isn't how the market works. An established type of product like the ICE vehicle which we've built our entire economy around (complete with gasoline infrastructure etc.) will always enjoy a market benefit over newer technologies (today's EV's are nothing like the ones of 1900)
Leaded gasoline is a good example. Unfortunately it was poisoning people and we as a society agreed that we needed to "bias" the market against it and mandate the acceptance of unleaded gasoline.
Whether you believe in science or not, enough people do that we all agree that climate change is real and this is one way of improving our return on the use of fuels by increasing the efficiency of the cars. Plus, unlike gasoline, we can find non-carbon alternatives to provide the "fuel" for Ev's
That's not true. EV's disappeared very quickly in the early 20th century. Then in the late 20th century we revisited the idea and we have massively improved the systems. We are currently seeing how this NEW type of EV competes and it isn't doing bad right now.
So you disagree with the folks who look at the auto industry?
That's what R&D is for.
If yo mean I believe in science? Well, yeah. Kinda do.
Litmus
Verified User
There you go. You are not understanding the difference between being forced to buy something and your choices being restricted.
Then you resort to, if it doesn't happen like I said then the government will just change the rules to make it happen.
Just so you know, zero emission vehicles are not restricted to EVs. In 10 years you will be able to buy yourself a hydrogen car and if you can't the government will just force you to buy one because that is the way you think government works.
I do and it was wrong. It is equivalent to me saying you have to pay 80 bucks every day to fill your car. that cost is over 29,000 bucks a year. How can you justify spending that? The grid is not failing. Places without Trumpys, like Norway, are over 5o percent EV. I guess they keep the blackouts a secret from the world.
T. A. Gardner
Thread Killer
Wrong! There was the Edison Iron-Nickel battery too. The problem then, and now, is that batteries are limited by the laws of chemistry and physics and can NEVER, EVER, exceed those limits, no matter how efficient they may be. Any single battery cell is limited to about a maximum of 3 VDC. Cell size determines ampacity. You CANNOT get around that! Not then, not now, not 100 years from now.
Because of those limits, batteries will always be heavy and low density for the energy they produce.
Gasoline is far more energy dense. That is what makes it a good portable energy source and batteries a poor choice.
Sure it is. The market chose ICE over EV technology and the latter died off. EV's simply couldn't compete in the market. EV's were an established product before ICE vehicles were. They lost out because they were impractical by comparison. It's that simple.
Leaded gasoline was done to improve the energy output of it as well as provide "anti-knock" lubrication of then soft valves in engines. Ending lead tetroxide as an additive was simple to do and actually reduced the cost of gasoline at a particular octane rating. Vehicle manufacturers adjusted their new production to use lower octane fuel and get equal performance.
This was purely a pollution thing, and had nothing to do per se with vehicle performance. You can get equal performance with or without adding lead tetroxide to gasoline.
Irrelevant appeal to popularity. As for EV's... There isn't enough recoverable minerals on the planet to feed the need for batteries. EV's still need a source of electrical power to charge them and solar and wind aren't going to do that at a reasonable cost. That leaves either the use of oil or coal or you go to nuclear.
Even today, EV's are unpopular. Short of heavy-handed government mandates and subsidies, they are uncompetitive. In the US only about 5% of the market is willing to purchase one. The other 95% are going to have to be forced into it. That's playing out right now.
Only in the sense that electric motors are more efficient at using energy than ICE engines.
As Toyota already did, they found ICE and Hybrid vehicles blow EV's away on cost and efficiency.
T. A. Gardner
Thread Killer
That's just dissembling. If you are restricted, it's the same thing as forced.
Well, if in 10 years there are hydrogen powered cars available, we should skip the EV's and work towards those as they make sense. (Or ammonia powered vehicles). Government is the worst way to get things done. It should be a last resort, not the first.
Daylight63
Verified User
You are quite wrong. Yes there are limits on batteries but we are far from solving he battery issue. I should know, I worked with a chemist who was working on battery technology. It's a VERY hot research topic. As in super hot. If you want to get into some cool (but pretty difficult science...I never much liked electrochemistry) research, go become a battery researcher. It's not just a matter of how much charge they can carry it's weight, number charge-discharge cycles, and safety that also factor into the research.
The weight issue is exactly what some research is getting into.
Not going to disagree with gasoline's energy density, but that isn't the only factor in the whole complex system. It's also a matter of efficiency of use of that energy and the knock-on effects of burning gasoline as a fuel source in individual cars.
You sound like you are pretty tech savvy overall, so presumably you understand the issues around climate impact as well.
But that isn't why it was mandated. Besides, if you are OK with mandating energy efficiency you should be for EV research.
You mentioned the Edison Ni Fe battery earlier. Surely you also are familiar with the Pb Acid battery in your car currently. And the Li Ion battery in your watch and the Zn C battery in your TV remote. Not all batteries are the same in terms of materials. Which is EXACTLY part of the research currently ongoing.
I'm a firm believer in America's tech know how. We built the atomic bomb in 4 years, we put a man on the moon, we've sent little autonomous robots to Mars. We got this.
Agreed. Nuclear is great because it scales well, we know how to use it and it is zero carbon (except for mining). Obviously that's going to be a tough nut to swallow for some folks...but there are options.
Just because we've built our economy to fit with fossil fuels doesn't mean it has to be ever thus.
Again, I believe in America's technologists and engineers and scientists. They've done a lot to change the world.
Which is really the point.
T. A. Gardner
Thread Killer
No, we're not. Battery technology is pretty much a dead end thing. The only thing we can do for the most part is incremental improvements. We can't get around that ALL batteries work on chemistry principles. You cannot ever get more than about 3 VDC out of a battery cell. That's, roughly, the maximum difference in electrical potential between any two elements on the periodic table.
Again, you can't get around battery chemistry. The amount of anode, cathode, and electrolyte determine ampacity. Bigger the cell, the bigger the ampacity. In fact, if anything, the small batteries used in EV's these days is a net weight gain over using fewer, larger cells.
Gasoline is a very efficient, for its weight and availability, energy source. That's why we use it. Except for the complexity of such vehicles, one way to increase its efficiency is to go to steam power heated by something like gasoline.
A 1925 car that can drive down the freeway at 70 mph, accelerates well, and meets current California emissions standards. You have to fill the gas tank and the water tank each time you go like 300 or 400 miles. I guess today, you could build a much more user-friendly version.
EV's are a dead end. Hydrogen or anhydrous ammonia make far more sense.
I am something of a battery expert. I had lots of training and classes on them with the Navy. In nuclear power, most is used in submarines, so they make all the electricians (me) learn all about batteries and how they work.
Politics gets in the way of nuclear power big time. Solar and wind are also less environmentally friendly. Nuclear backed by natural gas is the way forward with hydrogen or anhydrous ammonia (or both) as portable fuels. Near zero carbon and the best combination for low pollution in general.
It says that NEW vehicles must be EVs. Buying and selling ICEs will go on your whole far-right Trumpian life.
Daylight63
Verified User
With the exception of the many R&D groups right now working on any number of advances in the field. This is just a reality. I've seen it with my own eyes. I've read the articles as well. It's real.
I'm not an electrochemist so I'm going to have to ask for a reference on that claim. Not that I don't believe you, I just don't know for certain. According to Wikipedia the max voltage output of an electrochemical cell is up to 6V so that right there is 2X higher than the max you suggest.
Hydrogen doesn't. Not only is it difficult as a fuel when in a compressed gas state but solid-state storage as in a metal hydride is pretty low. The only versions of a H2 fuel cell car is one in which the H2 is generated from things like methanol. And that's a HORRIBLE fuel. Super dangerous to fuel your car with.
So I definitely need your references for the hard limit to an electrochemical cell. That was NOT my area. (Hydrogen storage, on the other hand, WAS my area briefly.)
AGreed.
Have to disagree on this. When a windmill catches fire and burns to the ground you don't have to abandon the state. Also, mining for uranium is not necessarily an environmentally friendly thing.
Natural gas, while less CO2 output for the amount of energy generated through burning than gasoline is STILL going to generate CO2. It can't do anything else. That's how it creates the energy from the exothermic oxidation of carbon.