why so much hate towards electric cars?

[kerneldrop]

Farmer's Almanac about be the most read book

 

[kaichu dento]

We've had our "positive incentives" before to get people to buy more fuel efficient cars. Remember Cash for Clunkers? Turn in a working car to scrap for a rebate check. Took a good chunk out of the used car market for people that couldn't afford anything else and drove up demand for all other cars increasing prices. China got cheap metal at pennies on the dollar, and the program costed taxpayers billions.

Yes, the real elephant in the room is that all the "positive incentives" that they give, are taken directly out of our pockets.

"Hey, I found a few thousand dollars in your pocket and you should thank me for letting you have 10 dollars of it back, that is, if you allow me to run your life for you. By the way, keep working hard, because this is really tiring for me and I need more of your money so I can keep helping you like this."

 

[Chauncey Gardiner]

Say what you will about the future and all that stuff, but EVs aren't going to solve any of that, it'll just cause more of this instead in more places until the power production is made stable.

Tim, The Tool Man, knew of that which he spoke.

 

[jtr1962]

Lithium–air battery - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Here's something to geek out on.

Any American gubment $ going towards this tech? It seems the answer is no at this point.
Bummer.

Not here but in Japan they made prototypes with 500 Wh/kg energy density:

NIMS researchers report 500 Wh/kg+ Li-air battery

Researchers at Japan’s National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) and the NIMS-SoftBank Advanced Technologies Development Center have developed a lithium-air battery with an energy density of more than 500 Wh/kg—significantly higher than currently lithium ion batteries. The research team...

www.greencarcongress.com

MIT is doing some R&D also:

Lithium air batteries

Every experiment is like a discovery for us because there’s no previous experimental data to reference or to look at. Yang Shao-Horn, professor If electric cars are to provide the range that drivers demand, they need batteries that can deliver lots more energy, pound for pound, than today’s best...

energy.mit.edu

You also have iron-air:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/07/27/iron-air-batteries-huge-green-energy-breakthrough-or-just-lot-hype/

Iron-Air Batteries Promise Higher Energy Density Than Lithium-Ion Batteries

Iron-air batteries promise considerably higher energy density than present-day lithium-ion batteries and iron is an abundant and therefore cheap material.

scitechdaily.com

Government should be putting R&D towards lots of things, including better batteries. Unfortunately, we don't because R&D without immediate benefits is often touted as wasteful spending, even though long-term the spending often more than pays for itself as new products get bought to market. It's similar to the "next quarter" mentality most CEOs have these days. They gut their R&D for more profits short-term, at the expense of the long-term. A great example of this is freight railroads. Long-term electrification of heavily-used mainlines will more than pay for itself in lower operating costs, but the payback period exceeds the typical CEO tenure. No CEO wants to preside over a loss while they're in charge.

The National Interest: Blog

nationalinterest.org

I don't know if you've been following quantum computing but that has great potential to advance R&D. In computer simulations you can try out endless combinations until you hit on something that looks promising. The problem is even today's supercomputers often lack the power to run simulations on more than a few scenarios. Scientists pick they ones they think are most likely to work but that could miss a lot of better candidates. With quantum computing you could test endless combinations. For example, we could try different electrode and cathode materials for batteries, while also seeing which are most likely to stand up to repeated charge/discharge cycles. This saves lots of time because you don't end up physically building and testing batteries which don't pan out in the real world.

If the entire world went all electric for automobiles tomorrow the carbon footprint would shrink from a size 11 to a 10.5. Maybe a 10. Lots and lots and lots of life as we know it depends on fossil fuels, which btw does not result from every dinasaur on planet earth being herded to Saudi Arabia or the middle east, dying and becoming oil. But that's another story.

I know the media and government both hype carbon footprint but that's not the primary advantage of electric cars if you ask me. Sure, long term as we clean up the grid EVs allow us to go carbon-neutral, whereas ICEs inherently can't. Anyway, the main benefits for EVs are eliminating tailpipe exhaust, and engine noise. In population centers especially these are the worst effects of motor vehicles. Long-term reducing illnesses caused by air pollution will also help reduce carbon footprints. Hospitals have huge carbon footprints once you count all the medical supplies, and the energy they consume.

 

[raggie33]

it amazes me how powerful a electric motor can be, check out some of the high end electric skateboards

 

[jtr1962]

it amazes me how powerful a electric motor can be, check out some of the high end electric skateboards

Or watch this:



Keep in mind the locomotive is accelerating an 8 coach train weighing about 550 tons total. And also it's traction-limited, not power-limited, until about 55 mph.

 

[raggie33]

 

[Hooked on Fenix]

Well that sure was CAThartic.

 

[orbital]

+

Think Gary Numan was driving an electric car nearly 45 years ago - - - -

 

[raggie33]

was just reading about a bmw gas engine with 600 hp!!!!! out of a 2.0 litter engine thats crazy

 

[Hooked on Fenix]

But but but electricity comes from a wall plug, right?

Your post reminded me of this video:

 

[Lynx_Arc]

It just occurred to me that while firewood-powered steam cars were impractical 100 years ago because of difficulty with fine control of the burner to maintain boiler pressure it would probably be possible to make a steam-electric hybrid with a battery pack between the steam turbine and the electric motors that could deal with a firewood-powered boiler.

Then again I suppose as long as the burner was electrically controlled with fan-forced air you could probably get pretty fine control of temperature and pressure even without a hybrid solution.

Hmm...

You do know the reason folks want us to go EV is because of CO2 emissions don't you? Burning firewood releases stored carbon making CO2.... so it won't be allowed for a production vehicle. I'm surprised they allow wood burning stoves in stores any more

 

[Lynx_Arc]

was just reading about a bmw gas engine with 600 hp!!!!! out of a 2.0 litter engine thats crazy

Back in the 80s I read about a porche with a 1.5L motor putting out in excess of 500HP. They had to weld the heads on it the compression was insanely high I think it was a turbo. The racing Merkur XR4TI had a 2.3L motor putting out 600HP back then also.

 

[raggie33]

crazy i think the reason i hated gas motors was the 70s and 80s dang big ole 454 inch engines making like 130 hp lol

 

[bridgman]

You do know the reason folks want us to go EV is because of CO2 emissions don't you? Burning firewood releases stored carbon making CO2.... so it won't be allowed for a production vehicle. I'm surprised they allow wood burning stoves in stores any more

Sure, but growing the trees for more firewood absorbs CO2 and sequesters it. Biomass is generally considered renewable as far as I know, and firewood is the original biomass.

EVs are often indirectly powered by coal or natural gas anyways, although I think we all expect the proportion to go down over time.

 

[bridgman]

Back in the 80s I read about a porche with a 1.5L motor putting out in excess of 500HP. They had to weld the heads on it the compression was insanely high I think it was a turbo. The racing Merkur XR4TI had a 2.3L motor putting out 600HP back then also.

380 BHP/Liter...40 years ago

The amazing Suzuki RP 68 50cc Grand Prix Triple [IMG] Rotary Valve two-stroke with 3-cylinders in a V configuration (2 horizontal...1...

www.advrider.com

1968 - 50cc, 3 cylinder, 19hp, 14 speed gearbox. The previous year's 2 cylinder bikes were running at almost 120 MPh on ~16 horsepower.

Watch: When Honda Made A 50cc Race Bike That Would Do 115 MPH @ Top Speed

at one time. honda made a crazy racing bike that has just 16 horsepower but displaced just 55 ccs, and could do well over 100 mph.

www.topspeed.com

IIRC the rules changed in 1968 limiting 50cc race bikes to 1 cylinder and 6 speeds. Kinda took the fun out of it I guess.

 

[orbital]

was just reading about a bmw gas engine with 600 hp!!!!! out of a 2.0 litter engine thats crazy

+

Listen how chill these engineers are talking about bleeding edge turbocharging in the 80s'
Basic 4 cylinder road car block was the base...

 

[zespectre]

If you think people hate on EV, you should hang around with an eBike for a while. When a hater comes along they are literally pathologically obsessive about it.

 

[zespectre]

Where is the power coming from? Power plants are having to dump more oil and coal just to keep up with electricity to run it it's actually probably doing worse for the environment right now. But I like them myself.

If you are going to think about the "long tailpipe" issue with an EV, you also need to consider it for an ICE.

That gas in an ICE fuel tank doesn't just "appear out of thin air". It's drilled, shipped, refined, shipped again, (consuming huge amounts of energy, releasing huge amounts of pollution, and causing wear and tear all over the infrastructure at every step) and then put into an ICE car... where it pollutes again every time, and for the entire time, the vehicle is operated.

 

[Lynx_Arc]

Sure, but growing the trees for more firewood absorbs CO2 and sequesters it. Biomass is generally considered renewable as far as I know, and firewood is the original biomass.

EVs are often indirectly powered by coal or natural gas anyways, although I think we all expect the proportion to go down over time

Where do you think coal comes from?