Thread: EV general discussion

Originally Posted by Tombie

Your car used 5kwh. Local example a guy uses his full battery capacity in his Tesla 3 daily. Bit more than 5kwh.

What none of the ICE engines do is run the risk of 'starving? someone of energy.

But that's moot?


EVs aren't our developing crisis, that is base load energy - energy prices and distribution.

You should see how many towers are going up over here to join all these ?green energy? sites to the ever strained grid. There's 20 just north of my current location - all being built (subsidised btw) to feed some wind and solar power to the grid.

There are no rotating mass generators to be seen, all we have is Elons battery a few 100km away which is good for about 13 seconds! It's already suffered a few fires.

Another ship is due here soon, loaded with blades etc for more turbines. Loads of bunker oil burned to get them here, unloaded using diesel, trucked using diesel, assembled using diesel, mounted in concrete made using diesel plant.

The once pristine horizons now look awful. Bloody white sticks with tri-blades everywhere. And below them, great swathes of land cleared and covered in glass and metal. Poisons sprayed regularly to prevent the regrowth from interfering with the kit.


And what did my vehicle cost me today?
About $1.50 in fuel, not a single vehicle repayment, a few cents in tyre wear etc.

It won't get home before dark, it'll leave before first light every day this week.

It will then hitch up the van on Thursday, drive 430km without stopping whilst towing 3.3t.

It will then sit there (in a place with no available power) before staring again Monday and driving 430km back home (not needing to refuel in that time).

The van will self sustain on solar the entire time.

Yes, the fuel bill will be $275.00 but again, not a single vehicle payment will be needed. I won't need to sit idly by waiting for some ?clean? killa watts get pumped in. I won't have to wait for others at the only chargers on the route home.

If I was to try and do this in an EV I'd be stopped to charge 3-4 times, I'd need full charge, so would need to take more time off work - that extra time if factored into my journey would add over $600 in lost pay hours. Given time also has value - hanging around a charger is time not spent with friends, family or pursuits.

It's not just about running costs - else none of us would travel.

Even if say a hybrid like the BYD Shark could tow my van (it cannot), it uses over 15l/100km of petrol to keep its hybrid set up running when *not* towing at 110km/h. Its only value proposition is when it's in its urban environment and used under 70km range (as my good mate uses it for).

EVs have a great purpose - metro/inner city - reducing *localised* emissions. Thats a perfect use case. It's not green, it's only locally green.

Anyone who has a life beyond the domestic triangle though tends to have a second ICE vehicle at hand.

I can say I know of one exception to that here, he is 100% Tesla. Has the long range model. It can do a run to Adelaide in 1 charge.
He is a tech geek, has no ?external? social life - no outdoor pursuits or need to deviate from his 2 point travel. He will never attempt a trip beyond that distance without an overnight stop.
Any long distance travel for him comes with motel costs and carefully planned travel routes.

He purchased this vehicle to reduce his running costs, trading in a frugal and very well maintained VW Golf.

Now he pays his monthly payment to Tesla finance all whilst 'saving? money on running costs and sounds like the Electric version of a Vegan all day around the office.

You know I've got one of those mystical ICE 4x4 that seems to perform much as yours does? I've said time and again the best environmental outcome is to drive what you have.. and consider an EV when you need to replace..

Why do I need two large 4x4? Why not one ev for when I'm not hitching the van up? For when i'm just going to the shops?

I've never said EV's are good for everything. Or good for everyone. Just that they are good at some things.

In the city we have whole families buying SUV's that can hook the van up and do a big lap. One for Dad, one for Mum, and one for one or both of the kids. But for the most part hardly any of them even have a van, or venture anywhere other than the city. It's madness. So everyone is breathing in diesel particulate for no good reason I can see.

BTW we are having our ducted AC replaced today which got killed in the cyclone. At full capacity it used more than our EV does a day in one hour. The new one a bit less.

Naysayers love to pose questions as an "everything vs nothing" proposition. Also seem to be extremely concerned about where the "evil" EV's, batteries, PV's, wind turbines and associated resources come from and how it will all be recycled, but seem unconcerned about these resources when it comes to their phones, tablets, computers, x boxes, building materials, etc. Hopefully that concern is starting them thinking "think global, act local".

The current US administration is concerned about China's monopoly on critical minerals not because they are lovers of EV's, wind and solar (far from it), but because they are in just about all electronics and electronically controlled devices.

The "reduce, re-use, recycle" saying can be applied to travel as well. I think a lot of travel is due to poor planning, I've been on days off and leave and only driven the Discoverys once a week. It actually feels wobbly at first sitting so high up. Farmer's actually even go to town less than once a week so it can be done.

I think we both agree an urban/metro application is the prime case for EVs.

Less exhaust in congested/built up environs is a good thing.



Beyond that? they are not a solution to the woes of our leaders who believe it will save the planet - they will be, if pushed to be the prime mode of propulsion, quite the opposite.

Watching the tech evolution is interesting as each company races to cash in (and that's the key drivers - industry and economic).

Either way, you cannot reduce emissions overall by wrecking areas of the planet, all whilst allowing ongoing population growth?


TLDR;

Even a very very simple example based on predicted human population growth shows we're on the wrong path:-

Assuming each human emits an average of 10% ?carbons?

Currently:
10% of 8.1 billion is 800 million ?carbons?

Back in 1985 when this sort of started
10% of 4.8 billion was 480 million ?carbons?

Based on predictions of 2050 population
9.7 billion we have 970 million ?carbons? to deal with.

That would require each human to reduce their footprint by 2% to 8%

Even then we still wouldn't reach parity as those extra 1.6 billion people will consume more industries and resources.

The proposed plan is a lot bigger than stifling industry all whilst increasing cost of living exponentially.

EVs cannot prevent this.


Any Person on the land will tell you, you don't over stock your resources. Else you decimate your land. The Earth is just a large ball of land, without attempts to manage it in a similar manner - the result of metaphorical over grazing - is inevitable.

Yikes!!!

You're halfway there Tombie, you're thinking global now what can you do to "act local"?

I'm a big fan of the Jevons Paradox.

The Jevons paradox, named after economist William Stanley Jevons,describes the phenomenon where increased efficiency in resource use can lead to increased overall consumption of that resource rather than a decrease. This counterintuitive outcome occurs because increased efficiency often lowers the cost of using the resource, which can then stimulate higher demand, potentially offsetting any initial efficiency gains.

IMHO a good example is how the modern turbo diesel has increased economy of vehicles. So rather than drive the same size vehicles we've always driven - we have chosen to drive much bigger vehicles which has offset any economy improvements.

Would 4x4 have been as popular if we had to drive petrol rangies, using close to 20l/100? Probably not. Instead we've adopted diesel prados as school run cars, which probably use at least as much fuel as the car mum used to drive a while back.

I'm conscious that some people who buy EV's may well make life choices which result in them driving more. This is not helping.

The main reason young families get SUV's is so they don't have to bend over to pick up babies in capsules or toddlers to get them out of the car.

DL

Originally Posted by RANDLOVER

You're halfway there Tombie, you're thinking global now what can you do to "act local"?

You've got the terminology correct, at least. "Act"!

Originally Posted by RANDLOVER

You're halfway there Tombie, you're thinking global now what can you do to "act local"?

I can tell you right now, I won't be doing anything different.


But for a laugh; Locally we could reduce emissions:
- taking a Bolt gun to the skull of all Junkies - that's a 10-15% reduction in carbon emitting space wasters
- Stop hand outs that promote serial breeding without thought or contribution to society
- Bring back Castle Law, that'll cull a few vermin
- Bring back death penalty - no further emissions from them

Ban all imports from companies that aren't environmentally ?exceptional? - well there goes almost everything

Ban any travel for non-essential needs?

Bring in the policy from the movie ?Humane?