Electric cars?

It's not ready for prim time, even Elon Musk can see that.

Meanwhile somewhere in California, and other parts of the world... you see this sort of stupidity.

 

This is from Australia in the outback (remote, desolate place with no infrastructure, not the meme-quality restaurant). You don’t seriously believe this stupid crap you post, do you? California has a comprehensive electrical grid.

 

Neither was the president? Didn't he campaign on electrifying all government vehicles?

 

Perhaps you missed that the USPS is run by a Trump appointee and the Board of the USPS decides when he gets fired, not the President.

 

I guess I did miss that. I thought the idiot was riffed.

 

Unfortunately, he is still around although as Biden replaces members of the Postal Board of Governors eventually there will be enough rational members of the Board to replace DeJoy. Hopefully, full implementation of the contract can be stopped or at least delayed until DeJoy is gone.

 

My thought as well. Can we sue to delay implementation?

 

Wow, are you going to have shuttles for road trips to the beach or do you not care?

 

For those that doubt the technology adoption chart I posted earlier, this example alone shows what is coming. If a single automaker is planning bring 25 EVs to the US market by 2030 what do you think the combined efforts across manufacturers will yield?

VW Group commits $7.1 billion to North America, plans 25 EVs for U.S. by 2030

 

It shouldn't be hard to do, but it shouldn't be hard for traditional automakers to implement things like OTA updates, or build EVs in general either, yet they've been moving slow as molasses. It really befuddles me why that is. Can't they just partner with some tech company to make it happen?

Just a caveat, miles driven is not as good a metric to use for evaluating Li-ion batteries. They don't really degrade with use, they degrade with extremes of charge/dishcarge speed, charge/discharge state, as well as the operating environment. Tesla does a great job at battery management, but still, if you're supercharging all the time or accelerating quickly all the time (fast charge/discharge speed), maintain it at full charge or empty charge very often, or operate in extreme heat/cold often, then the battery can degrade much faster.

Again, Tesla does an excellent job of battery management by limiting these extreme states, so with normal driving battery reliability shouldn't be an issue for most people.

Completely agreed. You don't need 5-minute charging stations everywhere for EVs as most people will charge at home. Even if you can't charge at home, since most owner will, you still won't need as many EV charging stations as gas charging stations. Now if you can't charge at home or at work, then EVs are probably not the best option, since not only is a 30 min charging runs each week/2 weeks is a lot more hassle than filling up the gas tank, charging exclusively with supercharging is also not great for battery life over the long run.

EVs are not for everyone yet, but they're undoubtedly the future.

 

Because money and interests. West Virginia is trying to outlaw OTA updates and require people to physically bring cars into service centers to update the software.

 

Just rode in a BMW X1 this weekend while taking a Lyft. The driver told me she had to pay $200 just for installing an update. That’s absurd.

 

I do not doubt the graph you showed. I also do not doubt that alt fuel/alt engine vehicles will make up an increasing percentage of vehicles on the road. However, by 2030, the nature of those fuels or engines could have changed significantly.

I am still just very dubious of creating a huge reliance on something like lithium vs petroleum. Petroleum seems far more readily available and in fact safer than lithium based systems. So, maybe the energy storage systems need to evolve or even advanced continous kinetic capture systems, etc.....

In short, I believe change is upon us. I am just not sure we are seeing the change that we ultimately need or end up with.

 

The example I use in Sears and Amazon. Sears had the catalog. Couldn't they have just ported the catalog to the web? They were aware change was coming. Didn't they have something to do with prodigy? I think tesla will produce 2 million electric cars in 2022. They want to make 10 million a year in 2030. I wonder how many of the ice automakers will be around in 2030? My guess is Ford, VW and Toyota but it wouldn't surprise me if none survived.

 

Yes, it's very hard for large bureaucracies to change course, particularly when multiple levels of management are tied to the status quo.

If, and it's a really small if, EVs become the passenger vehicle of tomorrow, the only old breed OEMs that will survive are the ones that fully commit to wholesale change now. They have to Teslacize themselves immediately.

 

Why do you believe petro fuels are safer than lithium batteries?

 

Did I say that? Smh

 

Increase rate of global EV adoption.

https://www.policyschool.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/EPT-Electric-Vehicles-March.pdf

 

Read today that USPS has upped its order from 10% of its fleet to 20% of its fleet being EVs. Well below the 75% some lawmakers have pushed for, but a step in the right direction.

 

An article from Y@h00 actually discusses some of the massive challenges to the power grid that will/may result from expanding EV adoption. California is already experiencing some impacts. I thought the quote from the BCG was eye-opening:

"A study from Boston Consulting Group estimated utility companies with two to three million customers will need to invest between $1,700 and $5,800 in grid upgrades per EV through 2030 in order to reliably meet the surge in energy demand."

California's electrical grid has an EV problem