Battery based electric vehicles of today and tomorrow.

[Buggs67]

Sure! A few of my unvaccinated inlaws. Just ask em!

You sound like one of the Righteous now.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

I can just see the commercials in the future shaming the EV manufacturers for lithium, cobalt, etc. pollution and batteries polluting this or that water source or the amounts of petroleum spilled in making plastics for the cars and batteries.. It’s not going to be the utopia the EV pushers imagined.

Fossil Fuels’ Hidden Cost Is in Billions, Study Says (Published 2009)

Humans killing humans in the the name of progress is nothing new.

Do you think long term EVs will be as deadly health wise to humans as the ICE is today?

 

[Buggs67]

Interesting reading this Long thread, how it went from vehicles, to politics, to economics, a side trip into vaccinations and anti-vaxxers and the Righteous/Self-Righteous.

The Federal Gov't controls a lot of business/economic decision making with subsidies and tax credits (essentially the same thing. They made us put alcohol in our gasoline and subsidized corn farming to do so. We have windmills sitting stationary on ridges in Central PA because the tax credits/subsidies made they profitable, but they no longer turn. We have solar fields at schools and in backyards because the tax credit made it feasible and the Solar Company does a good song & dance. But this area of PA is not really suited to Solar.

My gas price is about $3.60 right now, up from $2.75ish last year. My electric generation cost is increasing from $0.066/kwh to $0.09+/kwh if I take a long term contract (best price for generation only; delivery and fees are separate). 50% increase in my energy costs. Now in 2012 when we toured the Austrian and Italian Alps by MC I paid over $9/gal for regular in Italy.

Now Americans are a different breed from Europeans or even Canadians. We want what we want, be it AR15s, Monster Trucks, 2-seater sports cars with 750 hp or Toyota Prius. Or 2002 Mazda Miatas. And we want to go from Central PA to northern Ct or NYS w/out a long stop to recharge our batteries. Maybe in out gas guzzling land yachts with our two designer dogs.

I was looking over the new electric vehicle pickup choices. All bragged about the HP. And 0-60 times. And towing capacity. But do I need 500-600 HP in my F250? Is 0-60 in under 5 sec important? And if I tow my 8,000 lb camper how many miles will I get?

I want to go visit my old friends who moved to NC. That's an 8 hr drive and will take about 17 gallons of gas, so I'll have to stop for a fill up if we take the WRX. Even if I want to visit the sister in NYS or in CT an EV would have to recharge, where the Subie will make it on one tank.

My retired dairy farmer neighbor/friend has two Prius. He loves them. I like their balance of electric and gas that allow him range and economy. They just don't suit my lifestyle.

But the new "Infrastructure" bill is pushing EV at taxpayer cost. While they call for increased oil exploration and drilling and production.

 

[Buggs67]

And when I did drive the WRX to visit CT in August the gas station on The Merritt had a Tesla charging station: I fond this about charging enroute:

Some Model S and X owners can use Superchargers for free, while others, including Model 3 owners, have to pay. Tesla says the cost to charge up is approximately $0.28 per kilowatt-hour, or $23 for 300 miles in a Model S.Dec 3, 2019.

Charging at a Supercharger typically takes 30 minutes to an hour, sometimes more depending on the vehicle and the charger. (the caveat was that that was to go from 40% to 80%. To get to 100% would take another hour).

BTW I'm not taking a position on the whole EV subject. More of a curious bystander. I figure my three cars and tractor will last the rest of my life. Unless they become obsolete.

 

[lman]

I have heard that this era of transitioning from ICE to EV is similar to the transition from Horse Power to ICE. I don't buy that theory as I have never heard that there were policies in place to drive the expenses(hay, grain, shelter,etc) of using horses during that transition. At that time it just made more sense to purchase one when the ICE vehicles were proven to function. The current transition is being driven by policies that give financial incentives to purchase one along with policies that drive the price of fuel up.
I guess back then consumers had more freedom to make their own choice.

 

[Buggs67]

I thought this was relevant to this discussion:

‘Delete It’: Elon Musk Once Again Opposes Biden’s Proposed Subsidies For Electric Vehicles Built By Union Workers

Under *****’s proposed bill, cars made by Tesla’s non-unionized workforce will not be subsidized for customers as much as those made in unionized factories in the U.S.

www.forbes.com

Partial quote re: more taxes on billionaires: “It does not make sense to take the job of capital allocation away from people who have demonstrated great skill ... and give it to, you know, an entity that has demonstrated very poor skill in capital allocation, which is the government.”

The inclusion of "Union Workers" is the bill is a hit to his company. He also decried that GM and Ford are making their EVs in Mexico. In my mind that makes it NOT a domestic car and should not qualify for the extra tax credit.

The tax credits in the BBB legislation (as well as the Gov't installing charging stations) would make EVs affordable/attractive to people who would not usually consider one. Again, subsiding an industry at the cost of the taxpayers.

 

[Rebeldad1]

They may get it right at some point - but EV is really not all they say. Mining the materials for these batteries is polluting. Disposing of all these massive dead batteries will be a disaster unto itself. The entire process (forcing green before its time) is ideology over logic.

Disposing of the batteries or recycling?
why dispose of the contents that can be reused?

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Interesting reading this Long thread, how it went from vehicles, to politics, to economics, a side trip into vaccinations and anti-vaxxers and the Righteous/Self-Righteous.

The Federal Gov't controls a lot of business/economic decision making with subsidies and tax credits (essentially the same thing. They made us put alcohol in our gasoline and subsidized corn farming to do so. We have windmills sitting stationary on ridges in Central PA because the tax credits/subsidies made they profitable, but they no longer turn. We have solar fields at schools and in backyards because the tax credit made it feasible and the Solar Company does a good song & dance. But this area of PA is not really suited to Solar.

My gas price is about $3.60 right now, up from $2.75ish last year. My electric generation cost is increasing from $0.066/kwh to $0.09+/kwh if I take a long term contract (best price for generation only; delivery and fees are separate). 50% increase in my energy costs. Now in 2012 when we toured the Austrian and Italian Alps by MC I paid over $9/gal for regular in Italy.

Now Americans are a different breed from Europeans or even Canadians. We want what we want, be it AR15s, Monster Trucks, 2-seater sports cars with 750 hp or Toyota Prius. Or 2002 Mazda Miatas. And we want to go from Central PA to northern Ct or NYS w/out a long stop to recharge our batteries. Maybe in out gas guzzling land yachts with our two designer dogs.

I was looking over the new electric vehicle pickup choices. All bragged about the HP. And 0-60 times. And towing capacity. But do I need 500-600 HP in my F250? Is 0-60 in under 5 sec important? And if I tow my 8,000 lb camper how many miles will I get?

I want to go visit my old friends who moved to NC. That's an 8 hr drive and will take about 17 gallons of gas, so I'll have to stop for a fill up if we take the WRX. Even if I want to visit the sister in NYS or in CT an EV would have to recharge, where the Subie will make it on one tank.

My retired dairy farmer neighbor/friend has two Prius. He loves them. I like their balance of electric and gas that allow him range and economy. They just don't suit my lifestyle.

But the new "Infrastructure" bill is pushing EV at taxpayer cost. While they call for increased oil exploration and drilling and production.

[Paragraph about politics written and deleted. You may thank me for my virtue.]

It's interesting how many people are concerned about the pollution from batteries, when our entire economy depends on not cleaning up our messes. We remove mountain tops to mine coal, and then don't put the mountain top back. Large areas of Alberta have become hostile to animal and plant life of any kind, so what do we talk about? Pipelines. People complain about ethanol in gasoline. It's like they have never heard of smog or oxygenated fuels.

I'm not concerned about battery life of the F-150. Wait until the gearheads get their hands on them. Add a 1000 lb. auxiliary battery in the bed and you will have plenty of range. If the 5th wheel hitch takes up too much bed, tear those silly rear seats out and pack a battery in back. As for towing an 8000 lb. camper, it may be possible to tow that much with a weeniemobile F-150, but I've never seen it. The minimum towing rig for that much trailer is a F-250, and I would prefer a F-350 with duallies. The AWD with computerized traction control would be handy for getting a boat up a steep ramp, though. I suspect you will still be able to buy a diesel F-350 in 2050.

I'm more in favor of moving transportation funding away from taxes and toward user fees. If we eliminate all the petro industry tax breaks and impose vehicle fees to fund road construction and maintenance, market forces would make more rational decisions. The only reason we're in the transportation mess we're in is because people got away with only paying $2.75/gallon for gas. If people want to drive on freeways, drivers should foot the bill, not the general fund.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Funding the sales of EVS in the United States only causes harm. There is no shortage of demand for EVS just the shortage of batteries to build more EVs.

The last time around this was tried a lot of people got electric golf carts basically free by putting headlights and turn signals on them.

Most people will move to ev's when it personally makes financial sense in their situation.

A refund policy that will trigger people that can't afford them which will be the low end EVS that gets the largest amount of refunds and discounts.

In my case an EV fueling is $4 daily to do the same thing with the gas is $12 a day. That is $160 a month that I'm passing over to OPEC for no gain of benefits.

 

[Cat385B]

I thought this was relevant to this discussion:

‘Delete It’: Elon Musk Once Again Opposes Biden’s Proposed Subsidies For Electric Vehicles Built By Union Workers

Under *****’s proposed bill, cars made by Tesla’s non-unionized workforce will not be subsidized for customers as much as those made in unionized factories in the U.S.

www.forbes.com

Partial quote re: more taxes on billionaires: “It does not make sense to take the job of capital allocation away from people who have demonstrated great skill ... and give it to, you know, an entity that has demonstrated very poor skill in capital allocation, which is the government.”

The inclusion of "Union Workers" is the bill is a hit to his company. He also decried that GM and Ford are making their EVs in Mexico. In my mind that makes it NOT a domestic car and should not qualify for the extra tax credit.

The tax credits in the BBB legislation (as well as the Gov't installing charging stations) would make EVs affordable/attractive to people who would not usually consider one. Again, subsiding an industry at the cost of the taxpayers.

Weird, I don’t remember him forming that opinion back when they started out, or anytime up until now. What changed? Tesla has competition, and gov’t subsidies no longer benefit Tesla disproportionately.

Tesla has received an estimated $4.9B in subsidies since they started. If they don’t need subsidies, how about paying back the previous ones?