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We're looking into building a row of wind turbines facing south powered by hydro to blow all the contaminated air back across the border. We considered a giant N95 mask stretching from coast to coast but decided it was impractical.Originally Posted by Jim Matthews
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It's not a bug, it's a feature.
Yoga class makes me feel like a total stud, mostly because I'm about as flexible as a 2x4.
"Design"? Possibly. "Intelligent"? Sure doesn't look like it from this angle.
We used to be hunter gatherers. Now we're shopper borrowers.
The three most important words in the English language: "Front Towards Enemy".
The world makes a lot more sense when you remember that Butthead was the smart one.
You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much ammo.
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A few years ago the comedian Lewis Black suggested building a wall on the Canadian border to keep the extreme winter cold out of New York. Given "global warming/climate change" I've wondered if Canada is considering a wall to keep the cool air from escaping.We're looking into building a row of wind turbines facing south powered by hydro to blow all the contaminated air back across the border. We considered a giant N95 mask stretching from coast to coast but decided it was impractical.
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The problem I have with electric cars is not range. More charging stations are showing up every day. The problem I have is refueling time. A fill up takes an hour or more even using the Tesla "Super charger" stations. Off brand charging stations charge at the rate of 5 or 10 miles of range per hour of charge. Building more charge stations won't fix that problem. I am waiting for another technological breakthrough to solve the slow charge problem.
On another subject, what do you suppose the price of electricity is going to do when the overwhelming majority of drivers depend on it? My prediction is that it will cost the same per mile as gasoline does today. Unfortunately, that dramatic increase in price will also apply to electricity for your home. Electricity prices in California are already 3 times what they are where I live.
Last edited by Art Mann; 10-05-2020 at 4:26 PM.
[OP]
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Tesla has some megawatt? super duper chargers for the semitrucks but I think a car battery would explode at those rates.
Bil lD
1.6 megawatt / 13 times the power of a super charger. Probably be increased in newer models
Last edited by Bill Dufour; 10-05-2020 at 5:13 PM.
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Not sure what that translates to in recharge time for a battery the size a semi requires, but I would have thought that swapping in precharged battery packs was still easier/faster. It's an aggressively time-is-money industry, and will get more so as autonomous trucks remove the need for driver food/sleep breaks.
I'm also wondering if those multi-acre truck-stops in the middle of nowhere have access to the megawattage required to "refuel" 10-20 trucks at a time the way they do now.
Yoga class makes me feel like a total stud, mostly because I'm about as flexible as a 2x4.
"Design"? Possibly. "Intelligent"? Sure doesn't look like it from this angle.
We used to be hunter gatherers. Now we're shopper borrowers.
The three most important words in the English language: "Front Towards Enemy".
The world makes a lot more sense when you remember that Butthead was the smart one.
You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much ammo.
Contributor
Excellent points, no doubt the charging time may turn out to be a greater challenge than the range. Methinks there are some pretty good engineering minds out there working on that issue, only time will tell what they will come up with in the next 10 years or so. Think back 10 years and what cell phone battery performance was then vs now.
A quick google search suggests the causes of high electricity rates in California have more to do with corporate profits than the cost of production. According to this source, wind and solar are the cheapest sources of power so as we transition away from fossil fuels the cost of electricity could go down. https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Wind-Solar-Are-Now-The-Cheapest-Sources-Of-Power-
Generation.html#:~:text=Wind%2C%20Solar%20Are%20No w%20The,Of%20Power%20Generation%20%7C%20OilPrice.c om
And according to this source the lifetime cost to operate and maintain an electric vehicle is less than a ice vehicle.
https://www.corporateknights.com/cha...about%20equal.
Add to that, it is unlikely ice vehicles will get much more efficient than they are today while battery powered cars are getting exponentially better every year. From this same article "The cost of batteries – the main reason for EVs’ higher price – keeps falling. When the first Leaf hit the streets, it was about $1,000 per kilowatt-hour of capacity. It’s now around $200, and further drops will change the cost equation."
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If your daily commute is less than the capacity of the battery, charging time isn't really a concern.
Most of us Americans travel 16 miles each way to work.
The speed at which we travel (even on major highways) is often well below posted limits during peak rush hours. This implies idling in stop and go traffic.
The two overlooked, superior characteristics of EVs in this application are power consumption at idle (near zero) and cleaner air on the route.
There's some speculative talk about passenger vehicles with near 600 mile range on a single charge within this decade. The truth is that few of us drive that far on a regular basis.
EVs today are built to handle what people really do with their cars - mostly within 100 miles of their homes.
https://www.thedrive.com/tech/27288/...miles-of-range
My current lease has a claimed 239 mile range that I've bested in our first three weeks - 310 miles of mixed highway and local road driving before the "charge needed" alert chimed.
This is a second generation EV, at $250 a month that gets this range TODAY.
I can't imagine what it will buy in 2030.
Last edited by Jim Matthews; 10-06-2020 at 6:35 AM.
[OP]
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I think the semi truck full fill up is 30 minutes for 400 mile range. So a 30 minute meal break seems okay after 400 miles to me. Of course a truck load of potato chips is about as light a load as I can think of. As they say your millage may vary.
Bil lD
Contributor
I'm curious what EV you have that leases for $250 a month? Does Massachusetts have state incentives for EVs? You live in a CARB state and thus have more EVs available to you.
I almost leased a Hyundai Ioniq electric when Hyundai was leasing them for $99 per month. The Ioniq electric was only sold in CARB states so I would have had to buy it in New York and drive it back to Minnesota. I eventually decided the hassle to get it home and the high cost of yearly registration wasn't worth it. The 130 mile range meant something like ten stops to recharge. I had mapped out all the places I would have needed to stop for a charge.
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Yes, and the country to the south will pay for itA few years ago the comedian Lewis Black suggested building a wall on the Canadian border to keep the extreme winter cold out of New York. Given "global warming/climate change" I've wondered if Canada is considering a wall to keep the cool air from escaping.
Regards, Rod.
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One additional thing is the regenerative charging when you slow down. Now that I'm aware of EVs and how they work, I think of the energy wasted whenever I see an ICE car come to a stop at a stop sign or light. That "braking" could be returning energy to the battery.
Mike
Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.
Member
It's a left over 2019 Niro EV from Georgia.
Huge KIA incentives drove down cost cap.
I did not qualify for the Mass "MOREV" program because the lease is too short.
The Federal rebate was rolled into the lease cash incentive.
2020 models have nearly $10,000 lease bonus cash until 26NOV2020. That works out to $279/month.
https://www.carsdirect.com/2020/kia/...lease-specials
No way it's worth retail - that's as pricey as the Tesla 3.
Last edited by Jim Matthews; 10-06-2020 at 11:53 AM.
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I'm still baffled by this - my first plug in hybrid only applied regen from the brake pedal. This 'un has some sort of logic built in to apply regen when another car is close, and has multiple tiers.
It's capable of "one pedal" driving.
The wildest thing is to watch the projected range grow larger while I'm driving. That's down to elevation drop to the office, on local roads.
If this was your first car, you wouldn't notice these quirks.
Considering I just retired a 1996 SAAB manual, it still feels odd.
Last edited by Jim Matthews; 10-06-2020 at 11:55 AM.
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My friend, who owns a Tesla Model 3, tells me that it's all in the accelerator. That is, when you let up on the accelerator, the car starts to regen (brake). So you have to learn how to feather the accelerator. I asked him how long it took him to learn to drive that way and he said it was no problem. He learned quickly. I suppose it's like when you had to learn how to drive a stick shift. Just took some practice and then it became second nature.
For a quicker stop you use the brake. That means that the brakes on the Tesla last a long time because they're not used as heavily as an ICE car.
Mike
Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.
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