Electric Car Challenges

[Erik Loza]

There are several types of Amish. Around here, they have heaters in their storm front carriages, even defrosters of a sort. I am only 20 miles from Lancaster PA and have Amish neighbors. And the way the boys "customize" theirs, with shag carpet, stereo's, etc. They even have hydraulic brakes. I get a magazine for "plain communities" and there are multiple ads for carriage heaters every issue. (The newly made wringer washers that operate on power tool batteries are another odd thing)

Not to jack this thread but I always found the Amish (and Mennonites?) really interesting to talk with from a woodworking machinery perspective. I don't really deal with them now that I'm with Felder but did quote often during my Italian days. I remember one gentleman asking if we could offer an edgebander without motors (we wouldn't). He bought it anyway and I guess, sold the motor? Anyhow, the interesting part was how the various groups ran their equipment. Some seemed to run machines normally, but their facilities were powered by diesel generators. Others gutted out the machines and ran them off some giant steam-powered mainshaft with pulleys. It seemed like every group had their own way of driving things, which was super-interesting.

Erik

[Mike Henderson]

Not to jack this thread but I always found the Amish (and Mennonites?) really interesting to talk with from a woodworking machinery perspective. I don't really deal with them now that I'm with Felder but did quote often during my Italian days. I remember one gentleman asking if we could offer an edgebander without motors (we wouldn't). He bought it anyway and I guess, sold the motor? Anyhow, the interesting part was how the various groups ran their equipment. Some seemed to run machines normally, but their facilities were powered by diesel generators. Others gutted out the machines and ran them off some giant steam-powered mainshaft with pulleys. It seemed like every group had their own way of driving things, which was super-interesting.

Erik

I had a chance to visit an Amish woodworker's shop. On first look, it looked like any other woodworking shop. All the machines were modern. On closer examination, I found that all the motors had been replaced by hydraulic motors. There was an engine (gas or diesel, don't know) at one end of the shop that pumped the hydraulic fluid and each tool had valve.

Hand tools, like sanders were more of a problem. He had long flexible shafts that were driven by a hydraulic motor and came down into the tool where the motor was. That seemed to make them awkward to handle but they managed. The shop had lots of skylights in the roof and they could be opened for exhausting heat in the summer.

But they were not beyond using modern things. He had a bunch of top chair rails (maybe for rocking chairs) in the shop. They had a design in the center of the rail. I said to him, "Do you carve these during the winter?" He replied "No, I buy them that way. The manufacturer uses a high pressure press and presses the design into the rails."

As long as it's not forbidden by their religion, they'll use it.

Same with combines (harvesting). The need power on the combine (to process the corn, for example) so they can have a diesel engine on the combine, but the combine has to be pulled by horses. Essentially all welding is arc type welding so they use electricity for that. But it has to be generated at the shop - can't connect to the grid. They can't have phones in their houses so they would have a "phone box" in front of their house with a land line in it. Now days, they need cell phones for their business and many seem to have them. I don't know about Internet access.

I visited an Amish store and it was illuminated with gas lights. Interesting things in the store, such as white gas powered clothes iron. You light it, just like the old Coleman gas lanterns, wait for it to get hot, and iron away.

The Amish run businesses and the bishops are aware that they have to compete with "The English" (non-Amish people) so many compromises are made. My first wife's family lived in Amish country and we used to visit. Took the opportunity to learn more about the Amish and the Mennonites, who also live in the area. The joke was that the difference between them was that the Mennonites would ride as a passenger in a car.

Mike

[Far as I know, the Amish sell the motors they take out of the big power tools.]

[Keith Outten]

The topic of this thread is Electric Car Challenges.

[Doug Garson]

When I lived back in Ontario a few decades ago we were near Mennonite country. The dairy farms needed to have refrigeration for the milk to meet health department rules. So the barns had electricity but the houses did not. Last time we were back east a few years ago we still saw horses and buggies. Guess they won't be adopting EV's real soon.

[Erik Loza]

The topic of this thread is Electric Car Challenges.

Sorry, Keith.

[Alex Zeller]

Perhaps you misunderstand what it means to have your vehicle connected to the Internet. You will connect your car to your in-home WiFi, just as you connect your smartphone to your in-home WiFi. The reason for doing this is so that you can receive software updates to your vehicle. Your vehicle will also report its maintenance status to the company so that they can inform you of problems that need service. I suspect they will collect a lot more data that they don't tell us about. When you drive away from your home, you will lose that Internet connection.

This connection to the Internet is not just for EVs. Ford, for example, does this for all of their new cars.

Regarding hacking the software in a car, there are ways to detect "foreign" software in a system, as your virus detection software does. I suspect that if they detect any "foreign" software they will treat it as a virus and shut down that part of the car, or even the whole car. It will likely also void the warrantee. Tesla has a pretty robust software protection system in their vehicles - I haven't heard of anyone hacking it yet.

If there is a hole in the software security, they will send out an update to patch the hole, as Microsoft does with Windows today. Hacking a vehicle's software is something that a lot of people have spent a lot of time thinking about. If your vehicle's software could be hacked, a lot of dangerous things could be done. For example, your brakes might not work, or your car might accelerate to 70 miles per hour and you wouldn't be able to slow down. Keeping foreign software out of the vehicle system is a very high priority to the companies.

Regarding subscriptions for various features, we'll just have to wait and see. But the financial advantage to the company is so great that I don't see any way to stop it.

Mike

Tesla uses AT&T cellular service as well as wifi. I'm not talking about your car connecting through your house or cell phone wifi. What I'm talking about is a vehicle that has it's own wireless connection. With Tesla the car can connect to AT&T's cell service for information that Tesla wants. Tesla charges $10/ month for anyone who wants to do things like stream music directly through their car's cellular service vs connecting their car to their cell phone.

[Mike Henderson]

Tesla uses AT&T cellular service as well as wifi. I'm not talking about your car connecting through your house or cell phone wifi. What I'm talking about is a vehicle that has it's own wireless connection. With Tesla the car can connect to AT&T's cell service for information that Tesla wants. Tesla charges $10/ month for anyone who wants to do things like stream music directly through their car's cellular service vs connecting their car to their cell phone.

Certainly, if you don't want Internet access on the go, don't subscribe to it.

Mike

[Ron Selzer]

Was in Amish area in Ohio a week ago, think I saw 1 regular bicycle the rest were electric, lot of solar panels around also at houses. Interesting how fast the Amish have adopted the electric bike not certain how they feel about electric cars.

[Rick Potter]

The Green Car site just reported that plug in cars of all types are almost at 10% of new car sales in California. Makes sense here, not everywhere.

Seems like most local high schools now have parking lots full of solar carports. I assume there must be some State and Federal grants involved. In local industrial areas, many warehouses have their roofs covered with panels, and some even have vacant lots with solar farms.

Things are changing swiftly around here.

[Bill Dufour]

15. years ago in the high dessert there were a lot of billboards with solar powered lights for night. made good sense rather then paying to run a power line for miles.
Bill D

[Aiden Pettengill]

Not so sure about charging issues but they're weird to jumpstart. You only use the positives when I was asked to jump my bosses car it was quite the head scratcher! Thank god for YouTube!

[Lee DeRaud]

Not so sure about charging issues but they're weird to jumpstart. You only use the positives when I was asked to jump my bosses car it was quite the head scratcher! Thank god for YouTube!

Ok, you'll have to parse that one a bit for me: it looks like English, it sounds like English, but I'm not understanding it.

[Aiden Pettengill]

Ok, you'll have to parse that one a bit for me: it looks like English, it sounds like English, but I'm not understanding it.

On a Prius (which is hybrid and not fully electric), to jump start the car, you done use the negative at all and instead, there is only a place to hook on the positive to the battery. To top it off, the battery prong is hidden under a cap that blends in with the rest of the engine. I messed up typing it the last time! It should have been: "You only use the positive so when" instead of "positives when".

[Lee DeRaud]

On a Prius (which is hybrid and not fully electric), to jump start the car, you done use the negative at all and instead, there is only a place to hook on the positive to the battery. To top it off, the battery prong is hidden under a cap that blends in with the rest of the engine. I messed up typing it the last time! It should have been: "You only use the positive so when" instead of "positives when".

Ok, hybrid, not EV: different animal.

Not having access to the ground side of the battery isn't that unusual...in fact, my GF's car has the battery under the back seat and (only) a positive connector in the engine bay. In any case, it's usually easier/safer to hook the negative jump cable to an unpainted engine bolt or other ground source.

I still seriously doubt that the positive-only hookup works: it's pretty much the definition of "open circuit". Hint: if hooking up only the positive jumper cable worked, it implies that the regular battery (if it had a charge) would work with its negative cable detached...good luck with that.

[Aiden Pettengill]

Ok, hybrid, not EV: different animal.

Not having access to the ground side of the battery isn't that unusual...in fact, my GF's car has the battery under the back seat and (only) a positive connector in the engine bay. In any case, it's usually easier/safer to hook the negative jump cable to an unpainted engine bolt or other ground source.

I still seriously doubt that the positive-only hookup works: it's pretty much the definition of "open circuit". Hint: if hooking up only the positive jumper cable worked, it implies that the regular battery (if it had a charge) would work with its negative cable detached...good luck with that.

You are absolutely right. I did ground it, its just that when you're used to jumping dump trucks and loaders, it is quite a shock at first. Living in Maine, the majority of us have larger vehicles like SUVs, wagons, or trucks with four wheel drive and not so much small cars and hybrids (one word: snow) so its rare to have a hook up like that anyways here.