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What if.... We all drove EVs

9K views 16 replies 13 participants last post by  ampera_jed 
#1 ·
#5 ·
Saw that one too, but it's very subjective and opinion based, it does convey very important points though. He also has good videos on autonomous vehicles, batteries and solar that go with the same speech.
 
#6 ·
I think that if everyone owned/drove EV, that the charging systems would be "reversible" so that the car(s) would also act as a whole house UPS in the event of power failures or brownout events.

Ideally such a system would dramatically reduce the impact of severe weather events and so forth as well as smoothing out the spikes in draw on the grid. (but hey, I'm a dreamer and a bit of a tech optimist on this sort of thing).
 
#7 ·
I really don't like this idea. The Volt isn't really big enough to supply a house with power for more than a couple of hours, and for any vehicle with a bigger battery, every hour you're powering your house, you're losing evacuation capacity. If you want backup power, a 8 kw generator, transfer switch and the electrical work to manage your furnace/heat pump, fridge, freezer, and a couple of essential outlets will set you back rather less than $5k, and you can still drive away if you have to.
 
#14 ·
What if.... We all drove EVs.....

.... every town would need its own nuclear power station?

At the hub of this is commercial transport. A rig would need 50 tonnes of battery to replace its fuel tank, but if that's impossible they are still selling fuel for commercial transport then there will still be fuel processing and therefore a market for ICE passenger cars with similar long distance needs. Ergo, until someone can make a 1,000kWh pack that weights a ton or less, plus millions of recharging points that can simultaneously deliver 1MW for a 50% top up to go with them, then there will always be a market for liquid fuels and therefore a market for ICE passenger cars.
 
#15 ·
Instead of making a band-aid to fit the current norm ("because that's how we've always done it"), you would instead improve the process.
The current model of millions of trucks everywhere is highly inefficient. It should be rail or other structured distribution that can be electrified from a grid, and short range trucking to distribute from there. If you're super attached to the individual truck from start to end, there have also been experiments with electric highways in that trucks are connected to overhead wires like electric streetcars - no need for battery when on that highway. Once you arrive at the local delivery area, a small battery is all that's needed to get you to deliver your payload and return to the powered highway on to the next stop (recharging any discharge of battery at the same time).

There are so many better options out there, but people are resistant to change. Mimicking an old/existing process gives the worst of both worlds as you try to appease stubborn humans. Electrification of all automobiles should be used as an excuse to improve the system, not an excuse to hold it back!
 
#17 ·
(clip)The current model of millions of trucks everywhere is highly inefficient. It should be rail or other structured distribution that can be electrified from a grid, and short range trucking to distribute from there.
I'm not hugely persuaded by this argument. This might have been possible a hundred years ago before the current voracious appetite for consumer goods and excess food consumption, but as those things burgeoned in the mid to late 20th century, things move to road distribution precisely because the alternatives were not efficient.

Because of the dominance of the oil industry, the cost of transport really comes down to the cost of fuel and energy. Not only traction energy, but the whole edifice of the industrial infrastructure supporting manufacturing and maintenance, all those components are priced according to the fuel energy they burn up in making them.

Competitive mass production ultimately boils down to a price which is just very slightly higher than the raw materials, and raw materials are basically priced just slightly above the energy cost for producing them.

Our western economies are pretty 'dumb-stupid' (that is, the economy itself I am talking about) in response to their costs and pricing, it simply boils down to energy cost. As more energy equals more CO2, it follows that the cheapest way to do something is the lowest CO2 solution too.

Capitalisms is actually on the side of CO2 emissions reductions.... less of it and you can sell your goods more competitively and cheaper.

So I disagree with you in that unless these alternative forms are cheaper than road transport then they will be more polluting. Obviously there will be variations above and below that standard of criteria, but the basic underlying profit margin also favours cutting back on the consumption of energy and raw materials.

Let the market decide. If businesses can find a reduction in costs shipping by rail or barge or whatever, fine, there is nothing stopping them. There is no disincentive here that needs to be corrected by some form of positive tax discrimination in their favour.
 
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