Battery based electric vehicles of today and tomorrow.

[Gale Hawkins]

Your LEAF has motor oil. Tesla specifies 4 year drain intervals.

You do not waste 7-8 gallons of every 10 gallons of gasoline unless your trip was for naught. One chooses to use gasoline because gasoline gets the job done for less cost and effort than the alternative, of say, a horse. You could have made the effort to drive your LEAF home, researching charge stations every 60 miles or so, but you chose to bring truck and trailer. The gasoline consumed was not wasted, it was a conscious decision the gasoline was worth less than your time and effort. It doesn't matter how much "waste" heat was generated. The labor and resources used to produce the gasoline was less than your labor and resources (effort to drive the LEAF) which were conserved by burning the gasoline.

Speaking of waste heat, every kWh you put in your LEAF is converted to heat. What do you think happens to air the vehicle has to push out of the way? It gets heated. All motion eventually becomes heat. The resistance that requires power to move a vehicle is generating heat by friction.

OK if you do not like the usage of the word "waste". I could have said to use the energy to move my car 250 miles (assuming 25 miles per gallon) I had to pay the costs associated with the production and distribution of 10 gallons of gas to get the work of 2-3 gallons of gas because the ICE puts 65-80% of the 10 gallons of the energy from the gas back into the environment as heat and tail pipe emissions.

I understand there is a loss of useful energy in most any conversion process. I understand I will be using ICE's for many years to come but that does not mean working to hurt humans less is not a good goal.

I think EV's are more than just cool technology and assume someday they will to be replaced with newer technology like the ICE inefficiency is starting to remove it from the market place of one reason or another in favor of the EV technology that is still very crude like the ICE of 100 years ago.

 

[Snobdds]

I understand I will be using ICE's for many years to come but that does not mean working to hurt humans less is not a good goal.

It finally comes out.

 

[FarmerPhilip]

To be clear, I see pros and cons to EVs depending on the use. Most of what I'm reading here though, are a lot of "what ifs" and "what could be"s but not many arguments based on the reality of where we actually are.

The facts are (1) US energy policies are not changing any time soon, regardless if it makes sense, is safer, cheaper, etc.and (2) >60% of our energy is created by coal and natural gas.

Given this, every EV is putting more pressure on coal and natural gas, neither of which are good alternatives. People can come up with straw man arguments and what ifs all day, but the bottom line is, trading one piece or poo for another, well, you still have a piece of poo.

Energy consumption and pollution control are not pros for EVs. It's a straw man argument used against uneducated and/or short sighted people. If you look beyond "it's electric" and think about how that electricity is created, the argument falls apart. It's not a safer, cleaner alternative, that's an outright lie.

The comment about it being good enough for our houses and other things, that's crazy short sighted to put all of your energy consumption into one or two resources, which are both not renewable.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Just curious what they do nowadays with waste engine oil. And filters. It's also absent in a EV.

 

[Jstpssng]

Just curious what they do nowadays with waste engine oil. And filters. It's also absent in a EV.

My waste engine oil goes to the local saw shop, where they burn it in their waste oil furnace. Thank you for reminding me, I need to call and see if they can use some right now.

 

[Grumpycat]

OK if you do not like the usage of the word "waste". I could have said to use the energy to move my car 250 miles (assuming 25 miles per gallon) I had to pay the costs associated with the production and distribution of 10 gallons of gas to get the work of 2-3 gallons of gas because the ICE puts 65-80% of the 10 gallons of the energy from the gas back into the environment as heat and tail pipe emissions.

You don't understand thermodynamics. 100% of the energy in gasoline goes to heat. Where do you think the energy of mechanical motion ends up? Answer: heat. Wind resistance is heat. Tire resistance is heat. It is all heat. If emitting heat is bad then how do you justify any heat-emitting activity?

When hydrocarbons are formed the process requires heat. Takes heat out. When the energy stored in hydrocarbons is released, the heat is released. It is a cycle. You are suffering from myopic self-serving rhetoric which willful or ignorant ignores the whole picture. Would have one believe the release of any heat is bad and never countered by any other natural process. "Your EV is powered by coal" people have the exact same problem. Nothing wrong with using coal to power an EV, and if you think "greenhouse gasses" are bad then a LEAF on coal is about the same as a 40 MPG gasoline or diesel car (which they seem to think is great).

There is nothing wrong with burning hydrocarbons to do something useful.
There is nothing wrong with driving an EV, unless one believes one is "saving the Earth."
Driving an EV is fun. But sometimes driving a loud, smoking, vibrating ICE is fun too.

What matters is The Almighty Dollar. No metric more accurately represents the consumption of resources than the dollar. A used LEAF for $10k that can be driven for 3¢/mile of electricity! Great! Fantastic utilization of resources! However the supply of $10k LEAFs is limited. As you have demonstrated its utility is also limited, was too difficult to drive home so it was trailered.

A real example of my use many years ago: My F-250 loaded with (4) adults towing toy hauler with (4) dirtbikes got about 10 MPG and weighed 15,000 pounds. (5) Prii (thats Prius plural) getting 50 MPG weigh about the same and consume about the same gallons of fuel. However the Prii can not do the job the F-250 was doing. Could not carry the dirtbikes (at least at that MPG). No place to sleep or shower. And would require everyone to drive vs just 1 driver (at a time) in the F-250. Yet some sitting in their high chair (never doing anything themselves) looking down on the lowly masses would declare the F-250 to be wasteful.

 

[Grumpycat]

Energy consumption and pollution control are not pros for EVs. It's a straw man argument used against uneducated and/or short sighted people. If you look beyond "it's electric" and think about how that electricity is created, the argument falls apart. It's not a safer, cleaner alternative, that's an outright lie.

The comment about it being good enough for our houses and other things, that's crazy short sighted to put all of your energy consumption into one or two resources, which are both not renewable.

"Renewable" is an arbitrary definition. Coal and oil did not just appear on the day of creation. And besides, so what? If we don't use them then what good are they?

Hey, what about the sun? Its burning itself up. Its not renewable. We are all doomed!

There is nothing wrong with an EV running on coal, its still much better than the average ICE vehicle. But unlike the ICE which is terribly difficult to get to run off 10% ethanol diluting the gasoline, the EV effortlessly uses electricity from a dozen different sources. Diversity is good. Lets the marketplace sort out coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, etc. EV opens the door to options where an ICE is limited to a very precisely formulated (for emissions) gasoline and diesel, and difficult to dilute those with ethanol or biodiesel.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

It finally comes out.

Why you say that?

 

[FarmerPhilip]

"Renewable" is an arbitrary definition. Coal and oil did not just appear on the day of creation. And besides, so what? If we don't use them then what good are they?

Hey, what about the sun? Its burning itself up. Its not renewable. We are all doomed!

There is nothing wrong with an EV running on coal, its still much better than the average ICE vehicle. But unlike the ICE which is terribly difficult to get to run off 10% ethanol diluting the gasoline, the EV effortlessly uses electricity from a dozen different sources. Diversity is good. Lets the marketplace sort out coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, etc. EV opens the door to options where an ICE is limited to a very precisely formulated (for emissions) gasoline and diesel, and difficult to dilute those with ethanol or biodiesel.

Agreed to an extent. Yes, diversity is good and yes we are all doomed! My opinion is we should not recklessly deplete resources and that an EV is no better for the earth than any other vehicle, they all have their purposes as well stated in your previous post. I understand the marketplace and interchangable recharging source points, am also not here to defend gas engines.

There has been little attempt to take advantage of new tech and non-fossil fuel based methods by energy creators/providers. I suppose once enough big business and politician's friends have invested in those methods, then the "marketplace" will include more of them. Excel Energy will surely make the "right" decision...ahem Enron :laughing: :laughing:

 

[Industrial Toys]

I always say, that if you want a fight, just threaten someones livlihood.

I remember a documentary about GMs first (Great) EV, was it the EV1? Suddenly they realized, their Service Departments would be put out of business. Then they destroyed every last one of those great cars.