Author Topic: Electric cars  (Read 693472 times)

culzean

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #60 on: August 01, 2017, 08:35:22 AM »
The danger of centralising your fuel supply is evident,  if the electric grid goes down no-one gets to work - and what happened in Canada a few years ago where a solar flare can put your whole electrical system out of action for a long time may get more common if the sun gets 'angrier'.  If we had been reliant on electrified cars and trains in WW2 we would have lost the war very quickly, the Germans would have just bombed power stations (as any other enemy could today, including terrorists),  the whole country would have ground to a halt in a couple of weeks.  The only thing that kept UK going was the fact that fuel was de-centralised and easy to store,  steam trains ran on plentiful, easily available coal and road vehicles ran on  petrol which was scarce during the war but there was enough,  and it was so randomly stored that Jerry couldn't knock it all out with a couple of bombs.

I bet the military will never use EV (it is called putting all your eggs in one basket) it would make them too vulnerable to losing electrical power, and when you invade a country the first think that goes out is the electricity supply - and if you use big generators I guess they will be fossil powered,  as wind and solar farms stick out like a sore thumb and easily put out of action - also vehicles immobilised at charging stations would make easy pickings.   

Planes could not fly without fossil fuel,  the energy to weight ratio of fossil fuels makes powered flight possible on a commercial scale (there have been electric aircraft,  but they can just about carry themselves,  let alone any useful cargo or passengers). 

Fossil fuel will be around for a long time yet,  with new commercially viable sources being discovered regularly.

No car maker can afford not to be on the EV 'bandwagon'  and until a lot of the hype has died down and we can see the wood through the trees there will be claims and counterclaims of great innovations and progress, polls suggest that 50% of people don't want EV, Tesla has not made a cent in profit in 10 years, and the initial cost of EV and rapid depreciation make buying a new one out of the question for a lot of people,  and for cheap second hand ones to be available someone has to buy new and take a hit (or lease and take a hit)  at present time battery lease cost for a eg. a Nissan leaf is £70 per month and upwards some people don't even buy that much fuel a month,  to buy the battery is expensive and if it fails you pay to replace it I guess.

Chemicals and metals needed for batteries, magnets for motors, and conductors etc are trashing the environment big time,  so where is the gain for humanity.
« Last Edit: August 01, 2017, 08:49:42 AM by culzean »
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Jocko

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #61 on: August 01, 2017, 10:13:22 AM »
I know this thread was originally about "electric" cars but as we have also strayed into autonomous vehicles it is worth mentioning that autonomous vehicles do not need to be powered by electricity. It is quite feasible to have an autonomous vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine, or indeed by hybrid power. Modern commercial airliners are pretty much autonomous, or at least, can be, and they continue to burn hydrocarbons and will do for quite some time. I can see a time in the not too distant future when pilot-less aircraft will fly all over the world, still burning the fuel they do now.

guest5079

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #62 on: August 01, 2017, 01:39:44 PM »
Sent from Canada, about an article July 29th in the Daily Mail, I will try to get the link, it explains a lot but gives cause for concern. 
http://www,dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-4734028/Electric-cars-numbering-9m-need-powered-someview.html
Sorry if not a direct link as a I am computer illiterate but it is an interesting perspective.

culzean

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #63 on: August 01, 2017, 04:27:56 PM »
Sent from Canada, about an article July 29th in the Daily Mail, I will try to get the link, it explains a lot but gives cause for concern. 
http://www,dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-4734028/Electric-cars-numbering-9m-need-powered-someview.html
Sorry if not a direct link as a I am computer illiterate but it is an interesting perspective.

Found it by chopping bits out of your link,  it is what I said,  we are not ready with anywhere near enough generating capacity for EV,  wind turbines are a white elephant that has cost taxpayers loads of money for no return except to make controlling the grid a lot harder,  we have still not got any nuclear properly planned,  and as the article says new fossil fuel supplies are being found almost daily and oil is cheaper than it has been in a long time,  so it seems that if the answer is electric vehicles someone has asked the wrong question.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-4734028/Electric-cars-numbering-9m-need-powered-somehow.html
« Last Edit: August 01, 2017, 04:32:47 PM by culzean »
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guest1372

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #64 on: August 01, 2017, 04:57:29 PM »
.... Tesla has not made a cent in profit in 10 years,
As an investor I'm quite happy about that, this is the time for growth and investment.  If you put £5k of TSLA in your ISA or SIPP in 2013 it's now worth £50k, again quite happy about that. Mkt Cap is greater than Ford, GM and BMW.

Elon Musk "If something is important enough, even if the odds are against you, you should still do it."
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TG

madasafish

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #65 on: August 01, 2017, 05:01:54 PM »
I live in an area subject to infrequent but lengthy blackouts (hours)

Anyone depending on electricity in cold weather in winter gets very cold. Anyone depending on electricity for transport is a muppet.

And when it does get cold, you can take all the theoretical sums on grid capacity and range and throw them in the bin...Ranges halve and demand doubles...  a recipe for more blackouts.


Jocko

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #66 on: August 01, 2017, 05:02:41 PM »
I truly believe that electric cars will never become "big" during my lifetime. For a start, the UK doesn't have enough electricity capacity to charge huge fleets of electric vehicles. We are on the verge of brownouts now. And where do you charge them? Most motorists don't have off street parking near their house.
They just built a new hospital wing here in Kirkcaldy and put in charging bays in the car park. Two of them!
Tesla's Supercharger supposedly gives 80% charge in 45 minutes, but even Tesla takes overnight to charge from a home charger.
As I said right back at the beginning of the thread, the UK does not have the power generating or distribution capacity.
If you thought installing cable TV to our streets was a nightmare, can you imagine the problems installing charger points. Edinburgh city centre was brought to its knees while they did preparatory work for the trams. That sort of work would have to take place all over the country.
There will be a steady uptake of people who have the ability to charge their vehicles and as technology improves charging will become easier, but we still lack the power generating capacity. Some counties will manage the change.

I don't know about others here, but my life seems to be governed by battery charging at the moment. If it is not the laptop its my razor, toothbrush, Fitbit, tablet, phone, wife's phone or some of the many AA and AAA rechargeable batteries we have all round the house!

culzean

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #67 on: August 01, 2017, 05:30:07 PM »
.... Tesla has not made a cent in profit in 10 years,
As an investor I'm quite happy about that, this is the time for growth and investment.  If you put £5k of TSLA in your ISA or SIPP in 2013 it's now worth £50k, again quite happy about that. Mkt Cap is greater than Ford, GM and BMW.

Elon Musk "If something is important enough, even if the odds are against you, you should still do it."
--
TG

I remember the dot com boom,  where companies were over capitalised on 'future growth potential' and investors were firstly taken in,  and then taken to the cleaners.   A company that is over-capitalised has another name,  'a bubble'.   I wish Musk Well for sticking his neck out,  but there is grave concern whether his buying of solar city (which was started by members of his family, basically he has bailed his family out of debt and transferred their debts to the investors in Tesla motors pockets LOL) has put a millstone round his companies neck,  and also grave concern if Tesla can ever make enough cars at the right price to make a profit,  and pretty soon all the established vehicle makers will be moving in on the territory that he has had to himself up to now.

Tesla owners taking out a class action against the company due to its 'dangerous autopilot 2' system - which operates in an erratic and dangerous manner.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-20/tesla-tumbles-after-recalling-over-50000-cars-suvs

http://suremoneyinvestor.com/2016/06/heres-why-tesla-is-a-giant-ponzi-scheme/
« Last Edit: August 02, 2017, 09:48:25 PM by culzean »
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Jocko

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #68 on: August 02, 2017, 07:27:06 AM »
I was directed to this excellent presentation. Well worth 40 minutes of anyone's time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eOFokM3lUI

culzean

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #69 on: August 02, 2017, 10:11:15 AM »
I was directed to this excellent presentation. Well worth 40 minutes of anyone's time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eOFokM3lUI

He is flying in the face of other scientists and statistics that have been available to date after 10+ years of NOT getting power from wind,  people talk about the 'amount of wind power installed' ie they just add up the total power of all installed turbines in the world and ignore the fact they are only 15 to 20% efficient.  Sure taller ones will get more wind but they are also harder to build,  take more resource and have more impact on birds and the local environment.  When these people talk about wind supplying 6% of power,  they are talking about installed capacity rather than what these things actually produce.  You could cover the whole land area of the planet with wind turbines and still not meet demand,  but the cost to the planet in energy (to make concrete and steel etc.) and resource would be immense.

There is also a growing body of opinion that solar panels actually add to climate change,  they are a very dark colour, are not very efficient - only converting a small fraction of the absorbed energy into electrical power and reflect / radiate the rest as heat (typically less than 10% , more efficient ones are available but at the moment prohibitively expensive ).   Also all energy ends up as heat (yes even the energy that runs your fridge) so any electricity produced by anything is going to end up as heat.

The bloke who coined the phrase 'there is no such thing as a free lunch' never dreamed that one day it would apply to electrical energy LOL.

The problem is that both wind and solar do not produce electricity continuously, solar does not produce much power in our winter (when we need it most) and as for wind, well it does not produce much anytime but still needs external electric supply to function.   Storage of power will involve chemically nasty batteries which take resource and power both to produce and dispose of / recycle.  This means that you still need to back up these power supplies with other more reliable sources,  so we come back to nuclear or fossil fuels (or geo-thermal heat pumps which means for every 1KW you put in you may get 4 KW back, but which still needs external power to run pumps etc.)
« Last Edit: August 02, 2017, 10:46:10 AM by culzean »
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guest5079

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #70 on: August 02, 2017, 11:24:19 AM »
Going back to the late 60's early 70's my in laws had a small business in North Cornwall, a small farmer
customer used to come in a chat to pa in law.
Because his holding was not big enough to support him and his family, he had a job 'down west near Falmouth', where they were drilling into the granite. The object was thermal energy, ie using the heat of the rocks to heat water for steam.
I have no idea what happened to that, I do know they had reached the hot rocks. I am not aware if the scheme progressed
Apart from the mess of the drilling that surely is clean energy..

John Ratsey

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #71 on: August 02, 2017, 01:51:40 PM »
Going back to the late 60's early 70's my in laws had a small business in North Cornwall, a small farmer
customer used to come in a chat to pa in law.
Because his holding was not big enough to support him and his family, he had a job 'down west near Falmouth', where they were drilling into the granite. The object was thermal energy, ie using the heat of the rocks to heat water for steam.
I have no idea what happened to that, I do know they had reached the hot rocks. I am not aware if the scheme progressed
Apart from the mess of the drilling that surely is clean energy..
Geothermal energy is well established in some parts of the world but is only now arriving in Cornwall http://www.cornwalllive.com/geothermal-power-plant-could-be-built-near-redruth-in-cornish-energy-revolution/story-30404776-detail/story.html. It was probably necessary for costs to come down to make it worthwhile using whatever the Cornish rock temperature is.

Tidal and wave energy are both relatively reliable sources but the UK hasn't yet put much effort in their utilisation.
2022 HR-V Elegance, previously 2020 Jazz Crosstar

VicW

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #72 on: August 02, 2017, 02:35:05 PM »
Remaining off topic but still about electricity consumption, allegedly the planet is getting warmer so the use and installation of home air conditioning is on the increase. Domestic aircon units consume electricity so will be a further drain on our already marginal supplies.

Vic.



Jocko

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #73 on: August 02, 2017, 02:36:33 PM »
France built the worlds first tidal power station in 1966, but tidal power has been used since the Middle Ages.

The worlds first large tidal farm was launched in Scotland last September.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/sep/12/worlds-first-large-scale-tidal-energy-farm-launches-scotland

culzean

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #74 on: August 02, 2017, 03:58:48 PM »
http://www.cornwalllive.com/cornwall-could-be-on-the-verge-of-a-mining-revolution-as-vast-reserves-of-precious-lithium-found/story-30068912-detail/story.html

Apparently Cornwall is the only place in Europe with large deposits of Lithium.  Looks like we will be selling Lithium to the  EU.   Oh how sweet that is -  economists describe Lithium as 'white petroleum' - we could become the Saudi Arabia of Europe LOL
Some people will only consider you an expert if they agree with your point of view or advice,  when you give them advice they don't like they consider you an idiot

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