Problems if we all had Tesla cars - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 05:22:44 am
content: Yesterday we travelled in a high-end Telsa up to an Olinda restaurant in the picturesque Dandenong mountains. Fantastic trip, except for the attention it was attracting.The electronics (and the software) in this car is mind blowing. No need to use pedals to accelerate of brake. This car does most of the driving by itself. It warns you if you drift over painted lines. Choose your own instrument cluster. Connected to the internet. Listen to your own music via the web and drive. Software updates from the Internet. Fabulous user interface. Dead quiet when not moving or moving... no engine noise. No Windows "Where Do You Want To Go To Today" bloatware or iTunes crapware. No engine under the bonnet. No engine in the boot. Regenerative power control... recharges going downhill or braking. It goes about 500km between recharges. Fabulous acceleration. Awesome handling on the road. Loved the car.I see a two main issues with this car and electric cars in general...1. The more powerful model we were in costs $160K here.They won't sell well at this price. The rich here are not interested in saving a few grand on petrol each year. And those whose culture is to save face would buy a BMW or Merc for this price; a Tesla buys them no face. Petrol heads and cashed up bogans won't go for a Tesla. To sell well, the price has to drop significantly.2. Assuming electric cars do become the norm, our electricity grid would not support supplying massive amounts of current when people would tend to recharge (probably in the evening when they come home) unless there is a load sharing arrangement with the electricity suppliers. The grid can barely cope on extremely hot days when all the air-conditioners are running. Add electric cars to that load and we are stuffed.So how do you fix the load problem on the grid? Supplying a premium cost to electric car recharging at peak periods may work only when the car becomes affordable for the average motorist. Because the car is internet connected, maybe a solution is to ration the electricity for these cars. Hence the load is shared over time, either by current limiting or multiplexed charging, or by charging a premium for peak periods. Is this becoming a problem in the USA where electric cars are more popular? Anyone else got a solution to this problem?Other predictions according to Garp:1. In 20 years, people in cities won't need cars. Cars will become "pods" and work like taxis except there is no driver. Just enter a destination on your handheld data processor (they are called mobile phones and cell phones these days) and a pod arrives in under a minute to take you there. Meet George Jetson. Cops will have a device to move traffic on if directed.2. Drivers licenses will become a thing of the past. Not driving test needed. But governments will find other schemes to take your money.3. Passing cars will exchange data in GPS systems so traffic jams are avoided.4. New battery technology will drive the cost lower and have better capacity.

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 05:27:37 am
content: If graphene or carbon nanotubes or similar allows for cheap solar panel sheeting on everyone's roof combined with some energy storage device at every house it will take a huge load off the grid.

author: Ice-Tea
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 05:57:32 am
content: For fun and giggles, I once did a quick-and-dirty on how much more large nuclear power plants if we all drove electric cars.It was monstrous.

author: B.B.Bubby
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 06:08:10 am
content: Also - Car registration will cost $5,000 to $10,000 per year.The tax man is not going to cop the petrol tax loss.Feel sorry for Grandma who only uses the car to go to church on Sundays and the odd random visit to the doctor.The only way to win (financially speaking) with electric cars is to get in early - BEFORE the masses.

author: AG6QR
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 07:05:46 am
content: The problem of charge time has various possible solutions, but a simple one is just to use a timer, and start charging in the wee hours of the morning, after most people have gone to bed, turned off their TVs and lights, and cut their power consumption. The grid generally has excess capacity from midnight to dawn. Just because people get home at 6:30pm and maybe even plug their car in at that time, it doesn't mean the charging has to start right then. There's more than enough compute power in that car to support a timer. There's enough computer power to support a fairly sophisticated algorithm that takes into account the amount of charge required, as well as the time the driver normally starts the morning commute, and alters the charge rate and time to make sure the car is ready to go in the morning, while being as gentle as possible to the grid and the batteries, using off-peak electricity.Yes, the Teslas are fancy cars that are expensive. That was intentional. The early market research said that they wouldn't be able to compete at the low-end econobox market, so they adopted a strategy of starting with the high-margin performance car market, and working their way down to the economy car market as they built up experience and scale. Will they ever compete with something like the Honda Fit? We'll see.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 07:31:04 am
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on July 05, 2015, 05:22:44 amTrue enough, but that seems to be an "Australia tax". I don't think they cost quite that much in America.QuoteI'm not sure about that. Since the car is an outstanding vehicle on its own terms it makes an attractive purchase on its own merit. Here in California Teslas are seen so often they have become like BMWs: so common they are no longer special. I think the company has no problem selling every car they can make.

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 07:35:15 am
content: Quote from: B.B.Bubby on July 05, 2015, 06:08:10 amI cant see them ever doing that, it will have to be a distance thing.Based on your odometer reading between each vehicle inspection they will work out a monthly charge that you have to pay.Some/most countries already do distance based tax for diesel cars/trucks.

author: Tandy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 09:53:35 am
content: Quote from: Psi on July 05, 2015, 07:35:15 amOr they could go for the easy option of taxing electricity, that way they get to tax not motoring use of electricity as well, bonus for them.

author: ovnr
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 10:09:58 am
content: Quote from: Ice-Tea on July 05, 2015, 05:57:32 amYou misspelled "glorious". Youareaware that nuclear is safe, clean power, as opposed to middling ICEs burning fossil fuel? Every EV on the road means one less ICE, which is a good thing. Especially in polluted cities.

author: B.B.Bubby
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 10:33:51 am
content: re - overloading the grid problem..I can see swap in battery packs as a way to fix this. You could have multiple packs on a "connected" smart charger. tied in with the household smart metermaybe even installed and subsidized by wind farms as they could use your packs as storage. But you'd need a min of three packs for this to work.Car design will suffer, no fully integrated chassis level battery packs.Meh, trade offs.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 10:54:33 am
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on July 05, 2015, 05:22:44 amHere you answer the question to your problem. If you don't have a car you don't have to charge it so you don't need a big electricity connection. Autonomous cars will just drive themselves to a central charging station and will arive (almost) charged at your doorstep. Because it knows where you want to go a different car can be ready at a changeover point -if necessary due to the distance- where the depleted car will be recharged and ready for the next passenger. During charging the car will also need to be cleaned (most probably the inside).Then again: I don't really believe in electric vehicles. They add more problems than they solve. I see a much bigger future in bio-fuels. There are huge amounts of agricultural leftovers available which are currently just left to rot (=burned by bacteria). These amounts are big enough to provide enough fuel for the cars we already own. But the same car sharing scheme can be deployed.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 11:04:03 am
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on July 05, 2015, 05:22:44 amTesla's plans from Day 1 has been "top down". Expensive luxury car first, then mid range, then a cheap one for the masses.There is a reason why there is the government Luxury Car Tax on the Tesla.People (my included really) complain about the high price of the Tesla, well it's no surprise because it's a high endluxurycar. Yes, the electrics cost more, but it's still not a Toyota Corolla.QuoteDo you have any data to back this up?I saw a doco with someone who runs the (UK I think?) power grid, and they said that electric cars wouldn't have nearly a big an impact as everyone thinks.QuoteIf that becomes the dominate form of transport within the next 20 years I'll eat my hat.People are a lot more possessive than you think. The two big things you are own are your house and your car.Sure, the dynamics of city dwellers is changing and things like Uber and GoGet will certainly become more popular. As will electric bikes etc.QuoteDon't need one now if you take a taxi or get a lift everywhere.QuoteThat could have been done by now. And probably won't happen unless someones take it by the horns and sets a system standard.QuoteThat doesn't take a Nostradamus to figure that.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 11:07:04 am
content: Quote from: wilfred on July 05, 2015, 06:36:17 amI predict that big companies with roof space will latch onto this and provide solar recharging during the work day. Will be an extra company perk to attract people.The smart ones would already have solar to save on costs.QuoteAlready happening.

author: AutomationGuy
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 11:14:27 am
content: You can charge your car by photo voltaic. I have seen people having solar panels on their car port or roof just for that.There is just the price problem and battery endurance.You can get a BMW i3 for less than a Tessla but a diesel car is still cheaper.I will definitly buy an E-Car if they make at least 1000km with one battery charge. And of corse they need to be below 40K€.

author: Muttley Snickers
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 11:31:21 am
content: Yes but not all of us sit around on a computer or stuck in an office all day long, in my case and in the case of most of my friends we have a requirement to cart around ladders, power tools and a truck load of equipment to various locations, I also tow a bloody big boat up to the NSW south coast twice a year and although I'm all in favour of minimising carbon monoxide gases I just dont see how battery power will work in my case but am always open to something better.And a warning to those that have vans or wagons, get your rear door seals checked regularly. Many years ago I drove a diesel van for years with a company until I almost died and now cant go anywhere near diesel fumes, simply didn't realise until it was too late, I now suffer badly.Muttley

author: poorchava
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 11:41:37 am
content: I think Tesla should release a lower-end electric car. Ok, they have proven that they can build an EV that is on par with even expensive cars in terms of performance and looks. I'm sure they could build something lighter, to with less power and with less of the unnecessary shit inside. Just something simple and functional. I think this would really sell well.Sent from my HTC One M8s using Tapatalk

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 12:40:22 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on July 05, 2015, 11:07:04 amBut not in the way you expect. Amsterdam is already turning into a poor people's ghetto with all the associated (social) problems. People with money (and cars) move away to surrounding cities which have a good infrastructure.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 01:03:45 pm
content: 1) Tesla's are where large fromat plasma and lcd tv's were in the year 2000: 5000$ tv's only the really wealthy could afford. Now ? 50 inch 4k resolution for 700$...That is what tesla is doing. Next year at the international autoshow in february they will show the model 3. Target price 32000 us$ before govt incentives. 200+ mile range 8 year warranty. Free usage of supercharger network. Production launch for 2017 2018. Many a classic car company will suffer from bouts of explosive diarrhea... At that price point it is game over for everyone.2) power drain was anticipated when the car was still in concept. Gridload can be mitigated using large battery packs. That is why tesla released the powerwall / powerpack and stationary storage products. These will be installed in homes to charge from solar during day and run the home at night. They will also be installed at supercharger sites to charge during off hours and charge cars during peak hours to solve the grid problem. Basically averaging out the problem.3) this 'peak' charging does not happen. The superchargers are installed in locations convenient for long trips but inconvenient for daily charge. People should do daily chargig at home. Car is always topped off so range is never a problem. Costs pennies compared to dollars in fuel.4) go watch the tesla video when they introduced the powerwall : it shows how much space would be required for a solar installation to charge all vehicles (if all in US were electric) . It is insignificant. A speck in the desert somewhere.5) someone calculated that , if all current teslas on the road today were 'charging ' at the same time it would use 0.1% of the currently installed solar arrays from solarcity (twin company)These guys are tackling all these problems simultaneously. Contrary to other car makers that just sit and wait for so eone to make the first move and install chargers, powerlines and powerplants.Tesla has powerplants (solarcity), power storage (the powerwall and stationary storage. By the way : some really large electricity companies have already bought and or are already using megawatt scale storage systems... Same for amazon , google and others ). The storage products ahave a granularity from football field size to stick it on the wall in yer garage. This is done to solve the 'creaky powergrid' problem. Ulgrading the grid is near to impossible. So solve it locally by creating buffers and redistribute power intelligently where and when needed.All these things have been studied and thought of. They are way ahead of where you think they are (even if you include that you know they are ahead, they are further ahead than that)As one reviewer wrote : Tesla : the impossible car that made all others look stupid.Well, they're going after the power market now... And that's just the tip of the iceberg.For people not living in solar-friendly area's : no need to moan. you'll still stick a powerwall in your garage and we'll get you power through the classic grid. you don't complain now that there is not a nuclear powerplant in your garden , no need to complain you can't put solar. the existing grid will feed you power. the amount of people that have a solar array on their roof large enough to be off-grid is minute. there will still be large solar farms providing power to people who cant have their own solar ( apartment buildings , tall skyscrapers, people in 'sunlit-deficient' countries. Sure , people with their own solar will pay less for their power than people without , but that problem exists with everything. live in the big city and bread cost 4$ , live in south of tunesia and bread costs 5 cents. cars in norway cst double of anywhere else due to tax. everything in the world is geographically driven. Don't like it ? move !powerwall videoat 3:00 he gives the overview of what is needed to drop fossil fuel completely and switch to solar today with current panel technology ... most of it is rooftop , so you dont even need big installations.at 5:00 he shows how much backup batteries are needed to cover the nighttime use ...at 11:45 he shows the powerpack : that thing can scale to gigawatts and beyond ...at 12:30 he shows the entire building and the conference was running of an existing battery pack that was charged during the daytime using the buildings solar array.at 13:30 he shows what is needed to drop fossil fuel worldwide...notice the wording at 15:30 ... gigafactory 1to give you an idea of what the gigafactory is :and that's only half of it ...

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 01:43:06 pm
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on July 05, 2015, 05:22:44 amI get carsick easily if the car is too quiet and smooth, even in a petrol car with too much sound dampening and excessively soft suspension. I think electrics need to have some motor whine audible.I've driven a trolleybus before, that was fun... lots of torque.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 02:32:23 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on July 05, 2015, 01:03:45 pmHoly crap, seemed like on yesterday the location was announced

author: German_EE
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 02:42:52 pm
content: The more I learn about Mr Musk the more I reckon he's turning into the next James Bond supervillain. Anyway, I'll stick with what I originally said about electric cars, the day I can unplug my briefcase sized battery pack from my electric car and then carry the pack inside for an overnight charge I'll buy one of their vehicles. Until then, the technology isn't ready.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 03:28:04 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on July 05, 2015, 02:32:23 pmThese rectangular tin cookie-jars they call buildings nowadays can be build very quickly. Looks good at a shareholder meeting... look our factory is nearly finished! Everyone in construction knows pulling up the walls is the quickest part of a build. Getting the interior done and getting a factory up & running takes another couple of years.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 04:26:46 pm
content: Take average of 40 miles driving per day so the average person needs to replenish 40 miles. At 350Wh/mi (typ for a Tesla Model S 85) this is 14kWh or 5.1MWh per year. Average UK household uses 4.6MWh. So the Tesla will almost double household usage. There are ~25mn UK households, assume say one car per house (it's probably a little more), so this is an additional total grid load of 127 TWh. That's about 1/3rd more than we currently use (around 350TWh year) so it will certainly be a big load.However...... That's if everyone in the UK drove electric. Obviously this isn't going to happen overnight. If electric proves to be the dominant technology (personally I'm a skeptic of hydrogen fuel cell cars, and hybrids still use petrol) then it's going to take 20-30 years to get to say 50% market penetration. I can't see a problem with installing conventional technology to cover this. Renewable? Not going to happen. Most people will charge their cars at night, or late evening, when solar is at a minimum, and wind is too intermittent. So electric cars may lead to the construction of new natural gas plants. Not good. This is why nuclear is so damn important. It's the only vaguely clean technology out there which will allow us to get away from petrol powered cars. Nuclear waste isn't great, but it's fundamentally a minor issue to bury it in deep tanks of water then concrete in the ground and very little waste is produced per kWh. Unlike polluting the whole damn atmosphere with CO2.

author: woodchips
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 04:58:58 pm
content: There has to be a sensible intermediate stage with low energy vehicles.Why do none have simple regenerative braking with small batteries? It is quite an eyeopener measuring the current used by the latest engine management systems, I measured nearly 12A, all the time. Add to the electric ABS system and steering and if the alternator dies then you won't go far. Why not a small, 100-200Ah battery or supercapacitor etc to store braking energy. This can then be used to power the electrics, not the car, for the next mile or so.Next step is to have the regenerative braking generator to act as motor to drive the vehicle in slow traffic.Why not have modular batteries? If I am in the vehicle on my own then it can carry many batteries before the fuel consumption is affected. If passengers then fewer batteries? I am thinking here of lead acid batteries which seem vastly more robust that the Lithium batteries, power tools, I have had the misfortune to use.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 06:31:21 pm
content: Quote from: woodchips on July 05, 2015, 04:58:58 pmThis is exactly what hybrid vehicles like the Prius do. To say that "none" have regenerative braking and small batteries is inaccurate when all hybrid cars do in fact have this arrangement.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 06:34:05 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on July 05, 2015, 04:26:46 pmYou can drive your car to work and plug it in to charge during the day so it is charged and ready when you go home. My place of work has electric vehicle charging points, as does the local shopping center. As the number of electric vehicles grows, so will the number of public charging points.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 06:37:38 pm
content: Quote from: woodchips on July 05, 2015, 04:58:58 pmWhat you're talking about is a mild hybrid, and it's becoming more popular. I believe Fiat is making it standard on the next Fiat 500.One other thing I thought of, in manual gearbox cars I wonder how much power is dissipated when using the clutch and gearbox. I wonder when it will be more efficient to have the engine drive a generator and electric motor, completely bypassing the gearbox/clutch losses (esp low speed and start/stop stuff). Almost all hybrids still have a connection between the engine and wheels that is selectively engaged.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 06:50:44 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on July 05, 2015, 06:37:38 pmI think there are some buses that work this way, it's known as series hybrid. The bus is all electric when in the centre of town, but it runs the engine to charge the batteries when in less densely populated areas.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 06:53:38 pm
content: Quote from: Ice-Tea on July 05, 2015, 05:57:32 amBut for the US, trade deficit would drop dramatically.Stuff gets messy when you look at the big picture implications...

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 07:03:42 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on July 05, 2015, 04:26:46 pmOnly on this point, in Belgium, the windmills are "throttled" to match power demand:You might pass a field where three are still, and come back one hour later and only one is still and another turning slower than the others.But that's the modern ones, not sure that the older "boxier" models can do this.Offshore is pretty good, wind does not go strike nor is supplied by Wahabis or Putin.

author: suicidaleggroll
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 11:14:22 pm
content: Quote from: Psi on July 05, 2015, 07:35:15 amHAH! Our registration is nearly that high in Colorado already. It's about 2% of the car's value every year. My measly $33k car costs ~$700/year in registration fees. A $160k car would be over $3k/year as-is, without any adjustment to the system. There is no mileage check, whether you drive your car 20k miles a year or 0 miles a year, the registration fee is the same. With a drop in gas sales I could easily see them upping the registration fee a bit and hitting those numbers.

author: GreyWoolfe
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 06, 2015, 12:10:30 am
content: Boy, do I feel bad for you. Here in Florida, registration fees are based on weight of the vehicle. Actually, last year the prices across the board went down. Our registration went from $56 to $36. It would have been $35 but I pay an extra dollar a year for my Amateur Radio license plate.

author: ivan747
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2015, 03:59:55 am
content: Ugh. Dominican republic is so far behind in this matter. What countries like this need for uncongested traffic DECENT, reliable public transportation. Don't even get me started. (the Metro was a good step, still we're far behind).After you sort out every single public transportation problem, the energy used to move people around is less, and congestion is waaay less. Then you can start thinking about electric cars with their grid implications and self driving transport (and the specialized roads some of these concepts need).That last paragraph applies everywhere in the world. In my perception, Japan is quite far ahead with their trains. I haven't checked Europe close enough. The USA is far behind on public transportation because of their suburbial city planning and being a country where everything is flat, one storey high and has 5 times more land area for parking than it does for buildings. A handful of cities centers are the exception. Even Puerto Rico suffers from this a little bit, so I saw.

author: Corporate666
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 06, 2015, 04:48:10 am
content: Quote from: German_EE on July 05, 2015, 02:42:52 pmBut that is a *really* high metric you're setting... sort of like saying that LCD TV's aren't ready until you can't see the pixels even inches away. It's a much higher bar you're setting than with gas cars (you couldn't remove a tank of gas and carry it with you - even if you could carry a gallon or two, it's not so much).

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2015, 08:18:35 am
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on July 06, 2015, 08:07:37 amThe nuclear age haven't even started yet. We only scratched the surface of possibilities (yet some moronic governments shut down perfectly working reactors and don't start building new ones). Thorium has a potential to power us for the next 1000 years. Fusion to forever, if we can get rid of the side effect of boiling the planet. Not because of temperature of the reactor itself, the used electricity's waste heat.We should steer away of using dead dinosaurs to fuel of our economy. It will only lead to wars and destruction if we don't.BTW most people would buy a sensible electric car. Now all of them are built like a spaceship form a 90 science fiction movie or a luxury car.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2015, 08:50:24 am
content: Quote from: NANDBlog on July 06, 2015, 08:18:35 amI bought a diesel hybrid last year, I truly think my next car (in 3/5 years) will be a plug in hybrid (where diesel makes more sense) or a full electric.I don't use the car during most days (more for school runs etc) and I have a big roof in the right orientation, that Tesla garage brick looks neat... So I look forward to day where I don't have to go to a petrol station or use the grid for 11 months of the year.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2015, 01:41:34 pm
content: Quote from: NANDBlog on July 06, 2015, 08:18:35 amThe amount of energy the sun dumps on the earth is way more than we use (IIRC 1 million to 1).

author: Deathwish
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 06, 2015, 02:03:27 pm
content: Quote from: German_EE on July 05, 2015, 02:42:52 pmJust remember the old Motorola brick mobile phone, things change rapidly in short time.

author: daqq
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2015, 02:05:32 pm
content: QuoteI for one welcome our new Overlord - he seems much better than our current Overlords.QuoteAny specific reason to have this metric of readiness? Do you often tear out your cars gas tank, bring it home and fill it there? What exactly is bad about hooking it up either to your garage, or if a garage is not available to a publicly available paid power outlet? By certain metrics EVs are more practical than the standard car - you don't need an additional massive gas distribution system, you can literally produce the "fuel" at home with some minimal equipment (solar panels)... to a degree ofcourse.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2015, 03:54:29 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 06, 2015, 01:41:34 pmWell, for a Kardashev 1. type civilization maybe. I expect the power requirements to increase with the same rate, so double every 30 years or so, and solar power has it's practical limits.

author: Ice-Tea
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2015, 04:06:56 pm
content: Folks still seem to think the only problem with all haveing a Tesla or equivalent cards is with batteries or "some solar panels". So, here's some ballpark figures. Every single one probably has a 2x error factor, but hey, they're freeI go through about 2 tanks of diesel per month. That's about 1200 litres per year. Diesel is about 40 000 000 J/kg. Density? Say, 0.9kg/l. So total yearly is about 12MWh. Let's put an IC engine's efficiency at about 50% (generous, I know) So you're looking at 6MWh/year for a single car. Assuming no grid losses, conversion losses or any other losses (again: generous) and assuming an electric motor is 100 efficient (yes, generous...).A large nuclear reactor puts out 1GW at full toss. Assuming no downtime, maintenance, the grid that can handle 100% at all times, no peak loads, perfectly balanced etc etc and you end up with about 1 nuclear reactor for some 800 000 cars. That is of course, fairly optimistic given all the above optimistic assumptions, so it's probably more like half of that.Doesn't sound too bad? Of course, personal transportion is only a relatively small portion of it all. Trucking, trains, busses,... All could be EV, so you need to add a lot more power to your shopping list.Still sounds good? The odd thing for me is that EV vehicles don't make any sense. Or actually, they do. Butifthere was an abundance of relatively cheap, clean electricity there would besomuch things that could be transitionedbeforeyou would try to fit a elementary non-mobile technology on a mobile thing such as a car. Per example, those heating their houses on fosil fuels burnmorefuel annualy than their cars do. And to heat something like a house on electricity is a walk in the park, technically, compared to get a car of fosil fuels. Same goes for a million industrial processes.Solar? Just put some panels on the roof? Let's take the 6MWh again. Around these parts I believe that you can expect about 1kWh per installed Wp. So, about 6kW is required. Or, say, some 60m² well oriented roof. Or 120m² if you have two cars. More roof than most folks have.

author: EEMarc
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2015, 05:15:37 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on July 05, 2015, 01:03:45 pmI thought that the gigafactory 1 pilot program was 1/4 of the full sized plant.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2015, 05:37:11 pm
content: Quote from: Ice-Tea on July 06, 2015, 04:06:56 pmAn IC motor in a car is at most 25% efficient etc etc etc. To get 50%, look at power plants or ship engines.

author: German_EE
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2015, 06:30:17 pm
content: "Anyway, I'll stick with what I originally said about electric cars, the day I can unplug my briefcase sized battery pack from my electric car and then carry the pack inside for an overnight charge I'll buy one of their vehicles. Until then, the technology isn't ready."There are a number of reasons for that statement:1) We live in a 4th floor apartment and our car is parked 75m away from our building in an assigned parking space. There is zero chance of getting a charging point installed without substantial work including 30m of underground cabling.2) A battery pack the size and weight of a briefcase means that I can carry it upstairs to be charged, something which is not possible in existing electric vehicles.3) I confirm that I do not carry fuel tanks up and down stairs BUT there are thousands of opportunities throughout Europe to fill that tank, there are far fewer charging points so charging needs to be much more convenient.4) An empty battery pack the size and weight of a briefcase can be exchanged for a charged one within minutes, about as much time as it takes to fill my tank with diesel.As for technology improving, I did not get my first mobile phone until a) I could fit it in my pocket and b) the price fell below 100 Euro. I also stayed with CRT monitors until LED backlights were established technology as I didn't like the yellowing of the screen as cold cathode displays aged. In other words, I'm prepared to wait until technology meets my needs.

author: suicidaleggroll
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2015, 06:37:22 pm
content: Quote from: German_EE on July 06, 2015, 06:30:17 pm"Until then, the technology isn't ready" and "Until then, the technology doesn't meet my needs" are two entirely different statements. Had you said the latter, I doubt anybody would have questioned you on it, but you said the former, which is rather ridiculous.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2015, 08:04:40 pm
content: Quote from: German_EE on July 06, 2015, 06:30:17 pmCharging an EV at home is a big misconception especially if the car has to stay outdoors. You don't fuel your car at home but go to a gas station...

author: B.B.Bubby
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2015, 10:47:03 pm
content: Quote from: German_EE on July 06, 2015, 06:30:17 pmIt's funny most people in Australia, USA, Canada etc live in houses on 1/4 acre blocks. Not such a big deal to set up a home charging station. But yeah Europe and such places it's not really an option.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2015, 11:33:36 pm
content: Quote from: German_EE on July 06, 2015, 06:30:17 pmThat is why there will be charger stations also at work , at shopping malls, at restaurants, in parking lots of the town and why there are superchargers for long distance runs or we can have battery swap stations (less time to swap than filling a regular petrol tank ) .. you don't necessarily need to charge at home. not when you have a pack that holds 500 km range ...your situation has been anticipated and is understood and there is a solution. the problem you perceive is not a problem at all. there is no incentive for you to drag out that heavy pack , up the stairs and plug it in as your apartment block has not enough roof space to have solar to feed all occupants of the apartment block anyway. you would need to load the grid. we don't want to load the grid. you use public infrastructure when shopping , errands, parked at a station or parked at work. and don't say 'charging at work is impossible as it would require a plug per parking space. parkings in scandinavian countries have electrical outlets per stall to keep the motorblock warm in winter. has bene done for 50 years. can be done everywhere. existing and proven technology. it will give several tens kilometer per hour. spend an hour at a supermarket and you recharged the trip to and from ... net charge consumption zero.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2015, 11:44:42 pm
content: Quote from: IanB on July 05, 2015, 07:31:04 amWe don't have any rebates, tax advantages, or reductions in operating costs for electric vehicles so the cost to buy and run an electric car is much higher than in other comparable countries such as the US or UK. Further there isn't the network of supercharging stations (one at each of the two dealers and one standalone in Sydney city) so you don't get that benefit yet.Quote from: free_electron on July 05, 2015, 01:03:45 pmIf you're going to jump in you really need to disclose your commercial relationship with the Telsa products. Driving a Telsa in Melbourne Australia would cost a similar amount in dollars of electricity when compared to fuel in an efficient Mercedes, and a Tesla running on the current mix of Victorian power would emit roughly the same CO2 emissions as a conventional IC engined car (you can buy clean power just as you can buy carbon offsets for the IC engine, and some of the "green power" is actually just regular power with carbon offsets applied). As above there is no network of superchargers and it would require 3 or more carefully positioned just between Sydney and Melbourne to make that trip possible along the major highway, and the IC engined cars would make the trip quicker.Quote from: tom66 on July 05, 2015, 06:37:38 pmA mild hybrid is close to the optimum point for energy efficiency with current technology, just enough batteries to drive several km and a IC engine which comes on periodically to maintain the battery charge as required. While impressive the hybrid synergy drive of the Prius cannot compete with the low losses of a conventional transmission, and the marketing department weighed in and added "Gears" that the car surges in acceleration to make the CVT feel more like a conventional vehicle. There are efficiencies to be found in clever transmissions, but the peak efficiencies are still found with the IC engine coupled mechanically through to the drive wheels when needed.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2015, 12:43:56 am
content: Quote from: Someone on July 06, 2015, 11:44:42 pmWhat i write here is from the perspective of a Tesla owner. I have one , had it for over a year. i did not have to adapt. range is not an issue.QuoteNot Tesla's problem. If aussie electricity is really that expensive you need to rally the power companies there. Australia is a prime candidate for cheap solar. You are the perfect location.Quotei have not touched on this topic. i purely look at it from a usage perspective. if you wanna play this game : the moment Tesla has enough batteries filled by solarcity panels then this game stops and you will lose. The production of panels and batteries does produce co , but the longer they are in use the smaller this ratio becomes. your ice cars keep on spewing a constant stream of crap ( not counting the amount of crap created during transport, distillation and drilling the fossil fuel. And the billions of dollars in subsidy big oil gets ... but let's not go there. this is a technical discussion.As above there is no network of superchargers rolling out right now. US is 60% covered , europe same. Given that Australia only has had Tesla;s for 6 months there are already some superchargers and more are cominghttp://www.teslamotors.com/en_AU/superchargerQuotehow about 7 , no need for 'carefull' , plenty will do.QuoteIf you drive non stop, maybeAfter two hours of non stop driving i need a pee and a cup of coffee ... 20 minutes. enough to put 150 miles back in the pack and have another 2 hour run.. and you will need fuel for that run also... if i use swapping technology i will win as i can swap the pack in half the time it takes you to fill up.Your points are moot. i speak of experience. i've done San Jose to LA and beyond. not a problem. I charge at work , i charged at home before i could charge at work. I get in the car in the morning or evening and the 'tank' is always completely full. i can go the whole weekend without having to charge at home. There is no ' shit i still need fuel' moment. Range anxiety doesn't exist once the supercharger grid is complete ( the grid in cali is almost complete , it is complete within a 5 hour radius from where i live, they are adding a few 'convenience spots' and tourist attraction spots ). i can use regular ev charging grid as well to cover small gaps. there is also 'destination charging'. Any hotel willing to donate a parking stall can get HPWC charger installed for free. Tesla will come and install the equipment. hotels love it as it brings in customers.This IS a problem with cars having small packs and long charge times on those idiotic underpowered j1772 plugs. Chademo is also laughable. Those 'standards' are made by commitees of car builders that do not understand EV technology. IF you want to make EV work you need to throw power at it. 400 volts 330 amps. none of these 80 and 120 amp jokes. you need to charge in 20 minutes for a 'hopping' (charger to charger 2 hour runs, basically the 'pee interval') range and 1 hour max for 300 mile range.I;ve had my car over a year, not a single range anxiety moment , not a single inconvenient moment. actually it is more convenient. it holds more cargo , handles better, is more fun , has more creature comfort , a great infotainment / telematics system . it puts the fun back in taking the car out for a sunday roadtrip through the mountains. for daily usage it's always full , for long runs charging concides with pee stops. just like with a traditionally fueled car.

author: Delta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2015, 01:02:31 am
content: If everyone drove an electric car, we'd have to mine a lot more coal...

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2015, 01:53:45 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on July 07, 2015, 12:43:56 amNot anyones problem in particular, but you propagate the myth that electric cars are cheap to run. Energy prices vary wildly worldwide and electricity (a very highly refined form of energy) is more expensive per unit of energy delivered in some countries, such as Australia:http://www.aemc.gov.au/getattachment/ae5d0665-7300-4a0d-b3b2-bd42d82cf737/2014-Residential-Electricity-Price-Trends-report.aspxhttps://motormouth.com.au/news/mediadata.aspxWhich puts the Mercedes Benz C220 CDI @ 4.5l/100km combined cycle at $5.76/100km and a Tesla @ 22kwh/100km (the ambitious EPA rating, yet to see the Australian sticker rating) would be $6.30. Which is a far cry from your:Quote from: free_electron on July 05, 2015, 01:03:45 pmEven changing the electricity price to a marginal price of selling your solar instead of charging your car its still not even a factor of 10 cheaper or approaching your 100x magnitude comparison, and the EPA rating is unlikely to match real world costs.Quote from: free_electron on July 07, 2015, 12:43:56 amAdding hours to a journey is a cost, you look at Australian customs and dismiss them which is rather rude, many people routinely drive 6 and 8 hour lengths without a second though and would stop as little as possible. I've driven Melbourne <> Sydney without stopping in either direction and have completed the round trip on a single tank of fuel I know how to manage range. Vehicles with multiple auxiliary fuel tanks are still common enough in Australia for people travelling the centre or northwest. The Hume Highway is one of several routes and until the super charging stations are widely distributed at least around the eastern states the cars will remain an excellent choice for city travel only.Also note you charge not exclusively at superchargers but at a range of locations.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2015, 03:25:23 am
content: Quote from: Someone on July 07, 2015, 01:53:45 amThey are where i live ( and in many other places as well ). I had a simple 2 litre Chrysler sebring with 23 miles to the gallon. The roundtrip from home to work at 4.xx $ per gallon set me back almost 4.5$ a day. Same trip in electricity here in california ( which is not exactly a cheap state ) charging purely at home ( so out of my pocket , no free power) : 90 CENTS ! do the math ... that's 1/4 approaching 1/5.Unfortunately not everywhere in the world there is access to such cheap power. I'm baffled power is so expensive in australia. what causes that ? transportation costs due to the large distances ? surely not production. or is it taxed extremely high ? That can be overcome by installing your own solar array combined with a powerwall and go completely off-grid. Use of the Supercharger network is free as in -gratis-. In europe fuel is even more expensive. Countries like denmark have a near zero cost when it comes to electricity as they produce it using huge windmill farms.Not a myth that it's cheap to run. Same reports from almost all Tesla owners. Unfortunately Oz seems to be the odd one out. Bummer.QuoteThat is a non-standard car. You need to compare apples to apples. My comparison is based on a traditional car like audi a6 , BMW7 Merc S class ( same price bracket as Model S ). There is no difference in operating. The Tesla costs more but that is with all new stuff. 50 inch Plasma and LCD TV's were 5K , now are 700$ ...QuoteTrue. like i said. Tesla has only been in Australia 6 months. Building a supercharger network takes time. There is a map that shows what is in place and what is coming. Every single day , somewhere in the world, a new supercharger opens each having between 8 and 14 stalls to charge. Give it time. For now it may not be practical to do that run you describe. 2 or 3 years form now ? things may look a lot different. By then Model 3 will be out with a target price of 32K$ and 200+ mile range ...QuoteJust like you not only have petrol stations on highways , but also in towns and villages. With electricity you have your own pump at home as well.I understand that there are certain scenario's where the EV does not work , but in case of the Model S , over the available territory (where it is sold) , this is a minority and are outliers on the bell curve of 'traditional car usage'. THe other EV's are a narrow band on the bell curve due to their small battery packs. The Tesla grabs most of the bell.

author: Delta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2015, 03:47:41 am
content: " a simple 2 litre Chrysler sebring with 23 miles to the gallon"I think this is why Yanks think that EVs are so cheap to run - They are so used to cars which do literally half the MPG to those that the rest of the world drive.

author: edavid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2015, 04:04:33 am
content: Quote from: Delta on July 07, 2015, 03:47:41 amOur gasoline also costs half as much, so it evens out.

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2015, 04:11:23 am
content: Quote from: Delta on July 07, 2015, 03:47:41 amThat's city miles, it's more about 30 miles to a gallon on the highway, compared to current 40 MPG cars is really not that bad for 10 year old tech.But if you can find me a non hybrid 46 MPG in the city please shareBtw to free_electron, gas at $4 per gallon was a while back. Might get back to that? maybe, current average is $2.765 for regular.Source:http://www.fuelgaugereport.com/Edit: but sucks for California with the average being: $3.439 per gallon. More taxes, more regulation, less freedom state. Too bad you are trend setters

author: BradC
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2015, 04:37:54 am
content: Quote from: miguelvp on July 07, 2015, 04:11:23 am46mpg -> 5.1l/100km. My wifes 10 year old 2L turbo diesel golf does that routinely and often gets 58mpg in the country (4l/100km).My record was 3.6L/100km, over 300km but I was trying pretty hard. Those last couple of 10ths wind up in diminishing returns quite quickly.

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2015, 04:57:16 am
content: 46mpg in the city? maybe your city has no stop signs, semaphores or pedestriansBut a 2005 TDI Golf (1.9L) can do 32 mpg in the city and that is pretty impressive!

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2015, 05:19:23 am
content: a few myth-busters...Electricity in Denmark is VERY expensive despite green production is high - the base cost is okay - but the taxes on top are not... - prices are about 0.302 Euro / kWh followed closely by Germany at about 0.290 Euro/kWh - making Denmark and Germany the absolute most expensive places to buy Electricity for consumers. (Add about 10% today to convert that to $/kWh). And indecently both Denmark and Germany have very high "Green" power production.Denmark sell a lot of Tesla's (in proportion to citizens) - but one of the biggest reasons is you save the 180% car tax when buying electric cars. That does seem like it will change soon. But right now you can get Tesla "BMW@ kind of Luxury car for about 2/5 (44% ) of the price of the BMW 6 series.A 2 year old BMW 650i with 70.000 km on the clock is advertised in Denmark for about $205.000! (New price $290.500)To compare - a BRAND NEW Tesla S P85D would set you back $129.385,- including VAT. Just because you save the 180% car tax.So what will happen if and when car taxes in Denmark will be equalized? Tesla sales will drop like a stone. And with the new conservative government - there will most likely be changes in how EV's are taxed.On top of that you save on road taxes as well (yes there are road taxes on top)But for me - while I live in the UAE - a Tesla would not be in the cards. With 50c+ outside temperatures during the summer - Air Condition would take the range down - and charge time would go through the roof. The battery cooling system would run in overdrive and non-stop while charging. And I guess battery lifetime would decrease a lot.But since I'm relocating to the UK/London area soon - I'm considering a Tesla S or X. Why - because in London you do not need to drive a lot. You save the "Congestion Tax" (For now anyway) - and I can squeeze 7 seats in a Tesla S - with 2 child seats in the boot. There are not a lot of Supercharger stations yet - but enough to get around. And there is one on the way to the in-laws - (a 4 1/2 hour drive away). The weather is awful - but great for the batteries(Not too cold - not too hot) - and I can save on maintenance and fuel is darn expensive (about GBP 1.15 / litre)But I'm reaching towards independence from the energy grid as energy will only get more and more expensive over time. So I will get solar water heaters for my house and try to get solar EV panels & " home energy storage " with backup generators to future proof my residence. Just because I want to be as independent as possible.The day I can say I'm 100% 3rd party energy delivery independent will be a great day. I might spend money in the wrong direction - invest wrong a few times - but getting the ability to say "no thank you" to energy suppliers will make up for it in pure happiness. It is not about the money - it is about the freedom.So Free_Electroncan you help me get on the top of the UK list for the X model ? *G*/rant over

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2015, 05:23:34 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on July 07, 2015, 03:25:23 amYet you compare a current model luxury coupe to your hilarious car that sucks fuel, the Mercedes Benz C 220 CDI seems a very fair comparison.Quote from: free_electron on July 07, 2015, 03:25:23 amAddressing your nod to the "free" electricity you can get from the supercharging stations, its free but you have to wait around at one since its unlikely they'll let you leave your car parked there and unlikely that it will be near enough to where you park for it to be the usual way to recharge. EV has its place but not in Australia at this time.Here is a plot of the energy prices of many nations worldwide, the minority sit above the line plotted which is the point where electricity in a Tesla @ 22kwh/100km crosses over with the cost of Diesel in a Mercedes Benz C 220 CDI.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2015, 05:33:51 am
content: Quote from: miguelvp on July 07, 2015, 04:57:16 amDepends which "MPG" unit you use, can we stick to metic units that everyone understands and don't vary from country to country? My mother in a 10 year old car gets 5l/100km in predominantly city driving so its not hard to get into the range you suggest, with effort I keep under 4.5l/100km in congested traffic in the city.

author: BradC
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2015, 05:58:43 am
content: Quote from: Someone on July 07, 2015, 05:33:51 amActually, I used US MPG because that's generally what they (those from the US that continue to use outdated and archaic measurement units) understand. My figures also come from 5 years of ownership whereas his likely come from a quick google search. To counter the confusion when dealing with someone from the US I always give measurements in dual units so people know where I'm coming from.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2015, 05:59:19 am
content: Quote from: Someone on July 07, 2015, 05:23:34 amI compare to the market where i live. ( and also back to my home country )- diesel in the USA ? 1) good luck finding such a car 2) diesel is more expensive than petrol, so why would you buy one ?- in europe they are now also trying to ban diesels due to 'fine dust pollution'. In belgium there is no more advantage ( out of pocket operating cost) to run a diesel.I drove a golf diesel for years while i was living there because it was cheaper to operate.QuoteSupercharging is not meant for daily charging . It is meant to enable long distance runs. Daily charging is to be done at home, overnight ( you can fill an empty battery in 5 hours on a 240 volt 80 amps circuit if you have the HPWC and twin charger in the car. ) plug the car in at 10 pm and it is ready to go 300+ miles by 4 AM ...Supercharging is meant to :plug it in , go pee and grab a coffee , and drive off. you don't park your car at the petrol pump either. The other type of charging ( the example i gave in norway with the block heaters ) that could be a situation where you can leave it a long term. Superchargers are strategically placed to discourage people form going there every day and drink for free.Quoteagree , based on the stuff you posted, but that does not mean other countries should not do it . The world is larger than Oz. In some countries it works , in some it won't ,. just like it works for some people and doesn't for others ( for whatever reason , becasue they like exhaust noise, because they must have a ford , because they live in an apartment and don't have access to solar etc etc etc ). point is : the Tesla is , currently, the only CAR , that happens to use electric propulsion. As opposed to being an intermediate in-between ,'not even usable beyond 35 miles one way trip' car like the Leaf is. With a Leaf i couldn't even drive someone to the local airport and make it back... ( airport is 45 miles away . leaf pack is 70 miles tops and needs hours to top off. As opposed to tens of minutes.As the infrastructure is being deployed ( when the first cars came on the market you couldn't get petrol easily. they needed to install petrol stations in the early 1900's when cars were first around ) it will become more and more usable.combine the rollout of different technologies : solar , local storage to unblock the grid , long distance supercharging and EV becomes a viable solution. For large area's of the population it already is ( barring the price of the car , which in the next years will come down drastically due to economies of scale ) , for others it will become avaialble in the next few years. some will need to wait longer than others. That is life.When i bought mine i looked at the Leaf, Volt , Plug in hybrids and lots of others. The end solution was always : get two cars , an EV and a petrol one to compensate for the lacking capabilities of the EV. In the end the total purchase price ( two cars ) was higher than the Tesla. ( A Leaf is not exactly cheap... 28K$ , throw in some creature comforts and a maxed out leaf climbs to 38K$ ... add a second car ( another 38K ) and you just blew past the base Tesla ...and you don't have 8 years unlimited miles warranty, zero maintenance , no supercharging , depending on a mediocre third party operated charger grid , you can only fit 4 eople, have the cargo space to hold an umbrella , it's a little dinky toy that takes 9 seconds to climb to 60 MPh , and ... wait for it : be prepared to lose 25% of your batteries' capacity in the FIRST YEAR !!! Nissan had a class action lawsuit on that one. their batteries failed massively because apparently they are not cooled correctly and get damaged ... The solved this partially and offered early buyers a new battery . Don't know what the state of their technology is now.With the tesla i do not have to adapt to driving 'EV' in terms of range, charge times and planning around do long trips. It's always topped off and i do not need to alter my behavior because it does not have the shortcomings of other EV's. Ok, it costs more in purchase, but the 8 year warranty and zero maintence... i added the fuel, oilchanges, brakes, rotors, fuel and everything else ( a few repairs ) to my sebring and ended up at 90K$ over its 9 year i had it. So the additional 20K i paid over that amount gives me basically the upgrade form the 30K car to a 50K car spread over 9 years. ( operating cost + spread of the purchase price totals 10K a year , just like with the chrysler ) , but the car sits in a totally different bracket when it comes to creature comforts, handling , size etc. It fits me , and plenty other buyers very well.

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2015, 06:09:51 am
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on July 05, 2015, 05:22:44 amFor over 20 years now, traffic jams in my area exist on the very same locations, every weekday.Nobody needs a GPS to show or predict them, no electronic solution is gonna avoid or solve them.

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2015, 06:54:36 am
content: Quote from: BradC on July 07, 2015, 05:58:43 amAnd I did double checked your figures and noticed that you were not talking about city driving. Hey I grew up in Spain so I know Km/L, as for archaic well, whatever, it really doesn't matter for engineers because at least some of us can do some simple math and maybe dealing with more than one volume and distance measurements makes one more agile in general computations.In any event @Someone, what 10 year old car does your Mom drive that gets 47.043 MPG in the city? that you can get up to 52.27 MPG in a congested city with effort?Myself I'm waiting for the Elio with 84 MPG (on the Highway of course) that would be 35.71 Km/L, or 2.8L for 100 Km for the volume per distance inclined folk, but that's really a three cylinder motorcycle with 3 wheels, still can reach 100 MPH (160.934 Km/h) but for the city (Chicago) it should be way better than any other vehicle out there (well if you don't want to be exposed to the weather). But if they ever come out to fruition for just $6,800. I'll take a couple, maybe even 4 for my two kids my wife and myselfBut one thing is different, we do stop for pedestrians instead of accelerating like they do in Europe (well, maybe not in England) so you can get faster to the place you want to go but then spend 30 minutes finding a parking spot wasting more gas than what took you to get there in the first place.But at the end it doesn't really matter, I live just 1.5 miles (2.414 km) from work and I do come home for lunch which it will be common in Europe, but I do have parking when I get there or back home. I might fill my very inefficient 24 MPG city 2004 VW Jetta 1.8T about once every 4 weeks at under $3 per gallon. So it really don't matter much to me, the bus is more expensive and I get back and forth in around 5 minutes per leg.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2015, 09:38:42 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on July 07, 2015, 12:43:56 amEven with CO2 friendly electricity you have to drive an EV for more than 150000km before you actually start to reduce CO2 output (based on lifecycle analyses). Electricity from solar panels still emits 30gr of CO2 per kWh (IPCC numbers) due to production. If you look at the total lifecycle of an EV the numbers don't look good. Because very few people drive their cars for many miles/kilometers before they sell it the first owner (and likely the second one as well) of an EV won't actually reduce the CO2 output but increase it.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2015, 10:24:48 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 07, 2015, 09:38:42 amDoes that take into account the IC car construction too? How much more Co2 does it take to manufacture an electric? Are there any studies? How much Co2 does it cost to extract, transport and distribute gasoline (putting it at the same level of scrutiny as solar panels)?

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2015, 10:35:56 am
content: Quote from: gildasd on July 07, 2015, 10:24:48 amYes ofcourse. Otherwise they would not have been able to make a proper comparison.

author: ElectroIrradiator
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2015, 03:35:42 pm
content: Quote from: kaz911 on July 07, 2015, 05:19:23 amThe new government has not said they will increase the taxation on EVs. What theyhavesaid, is that they will not by default fullfill the previous government's promise not to do so. Specifically, they want to look at the taxation issue of cars (and associated road/fuel taxes) as a whole before deciding what to do. No-one will know anything until later this year.The reason why they won't say anything one way or the other seems to be twofold.First, many of the people, who today buy Teslas, belong to their core supporters. Not many people buy ~ 100'000 EUR cars here, taxes or no taxes.Secondly, I hear a little bird singing that there is a*huge*political pressure behind the scenes from the Danish power industry, asking for political initiatives to increase the number of EVs. The reason is the massively succesful windpower industry here, and all the spinoff benefits the industry brings. You read that right. The Danish power industry would like to massively increase the number of EVs, this to get a higher base load on the power grid, particularly at night.Some numbers for your entertainment:Danish wind power generation capacity is now at 4.9 GW (2015 numbers since february). Totalt peak power consumption for the whole country was 6.3 GW measured in january this past winter, a number expected to increase to 7.2 GW by 2035 (absolute worst case in a 10 year winter).A whopping 42.1% of the total Danish Wh consumption for the first 6 months of 2015 was covered by our own wind energy production, and we are still building new wind power farms like mad.Currently, at off peak hours, Denmark export any excess wind power to Germany, Sweden and - in particular - Norway. Norway use any excess Danish wind power to run some of their hydroelectric power dams in reverse, pumping water uphill, thus using the dams as potential energy storage facilities on an industrial scale.The traditional coal powered electric power plants are being modified to run on anything flammable, biofuels in particular. They will be retained as generators of hot water for our centralized heating systems (which are extremely common here), and as electricity producers in case of no wind combined with no water behind the Norwegian hydroelectric dams.Additionally Noway and Sweden are working like busy beavers behind the scene to independently develop a Thorium powered nuclear plant. They have a mixed fuel prototype reactor up and running already. The background: Norway literally has a mountain made of solid Thorium ore, and Sweden would like to develop an independent nuclear industry. Sweden already has and uses traditional nuclear power plants. They both see G$ at the end of the rainbow, when fossil fuels becomes more scarce.EV power crunch?

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2015, 07:13:27 pm
content: @ElectroIrradiator: You are talking about several countries which have an extremely small population compared to the size of the country. In such countries it is easy to fulfill the energy needs with alternative sources. Last Friday the NL used 14GW peak and we don't use electricity to heat water or our homes.

author: ElectroIrradiator
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2015, 07:54:07 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 07, 2015, 07:13:27 pmI'm well aware of this. By coincidence Norway, Sweden and Denmark are among the best located countries in the world when it comes to the potential amount of green/renewable energy available per person (when you exclude direct solar power). Denmark in particular, along with some parts of the southern half of Sweden, is the best place in the world for wind power turbines due to a fortuituous combination of climate and geography. Norway on their part has a pretty good amount of hydroelectric power plant locations, plus more snow and rain than they know what to do with. Hello Bergen!The Netherlands are quite a bit worse off here, both due to less potential windpower being available for harvesting, and due to a much higher population density. However, your industrious neighbours directly to your east are even worse off than the Netherlands, when we talk about potential amount of green energy being available per capita. So they are eyeing our excess of renewable energy, among other potential energy sources. They areverybusily working on a piece of new technology, which they expect will make it economically viable to export the excess energy from the Scandinavian countries over large distances to the rest of north-western Europe, at least. I'm not sure how much of their work is in the public literature, but I believe I can tell you that they currently have a neat semi-industrial quantity tech demonstrator working as I type this. You are likely to hear more about their little hobby project in the years to come and no, we are not talking about a superconducting power grid.That is one reason why Sweden and us here in Denmark are mad at work extending our wind turbine capacity, despite already being pushed into local negative electricity prices during some winter nights (when the Norwegian hydroelectric reservoirs are already at full capacity). In the years to come we plan on pumping our excess energy down your way, to power *your* EVs as well.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2015, 08:29:21 pm
content: Apropos of nothing much, but it just turned up in my feed:https://youtu.be/EwQdK4Y1PkgThe comments underneath arguing with professors of physics are hilarious!

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2015, 10:40:47 pm
content: Quote from: miguelvp on July 07, 2015, 06:54:36 amThere are many VAG and PSA group vehicles from the last 15 years that can get these sorts of figures, interestingly the larger body shapes are often more efficient than the smaller boxy cars. But in all cases a light weight vehicle (under 1500kg) and a small displacement Diesel engine are the steps to getting low fuel/distance measures partly because of the higher energy density per unit of volume that Diesel has and partly because the engines were more efficient. Since the 2000's tightening emissions standards have reduced the fuel efficiency of the Diesel engines more than the matching petrol engines, so there was an anomaly of efficient cars before those tighter standards came in.As you note the next round of fuel efficiency improvements will come from greatly reducing the mass and drag of vehicles, room for seating 2 people side by side is a little excessive in a commuter vehicle normally occupied by only a single person.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2015, 10:57:30 pm
content: Not just that. Downsizing + turbo also makes petrol engines way more efficient. Current versions of the car I drive now have a 1.0 litre engine which performs much better than the 1.6 litre engine my car has AND has those newer engines have a much better mileage (10% more efficient according to EPA realistic driving tests).

author: Delta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2015, 11:01:09 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on July 07, 2015, 08:14:27 amThat electric car is certainly going to cost you more to own and operate over your period of ownership than a sensibly purchased IC engined car.But I do hope you enjoy your smug false economy.

author: kingofkya
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2015, 11:16:10 pm
content: For point number 2 about energy storageNot a bad idea here.At 6:52 He talks about basicly a giant piston that is raised durrign the day(solar)and lowered at night to use energy, as well as deal with fluxes of energy during the day,

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2015, 09:23:21 am
content: You did get a big tax cut when you got the car so basically your neighbours are paying for the loss.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2015, 12:02:07 pm
content: You can lease a Leaf in the UK for £159 pcm with about £1,000 deposit. 2 years but no ownership of vehicle at end (or option - but pricey.) It works out to around £4k-£5k for 2 years depending on what model you buy.Electricity costs about a fifth of what petrol does per mile traveled. £5,000 at £1.35/litre of diesel or petrol would go about 40,000 miles in a sensible 50 mpg vehicle -- or 20,000 miles per year. Given the lease only lets you drive 8,000/year, it's tricky to see the cost advantage here. Most 2-year old cars would be still covered by the warranty, so maintenance/parts wear out doesn't factor into it.For all but corner cases, EVs don't *yet* save money. Of course if you drive a lot, costs will vary. This will certainly change.It's definitely a lot nicer to drive an EV. It's smoother and quieter, plus the instant torque feels really good in city driving. 0-30 is pretty powerful in the Leaf; 0-60 is insane in a Tesla. Obviously, in the Leaf at least, the higher speeds have lower acceleration (stronger than an ordinary engine), as it's only got an 80kW motor.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2015, 12:16:18 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 08, 2015, 09:23:21 amthat is bullshit.if you did not pay any taxes you did not get a return. this is money I paid ( not my neighbours ).

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2015, 02:12:43 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on July 08, 2015, 12:16:18 pmIt is not. You clearly don't understand how tax works. If less people pay tax they each have to pay more tax to cover government spending. So an EV tax cut gets payed by other people one way or another.

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2015, 02:29:29 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 08, 2015, 09:23:21 amIt's the only reason why these toys are around. Pushed, subsidized on many occasions.Company owners don't have to pay 5K tax on a new car, but they even get extra money.A plain battery for my tesla only costs 12 euro, said the guy.I can fill my petrol car for 12 euro, just have to add 50 euro taxes.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2015, 02:50:35 pm
content: Right, but we're also subsidising petrol vehicles. They cause health problems due to pollution, which is reflected in increases in medical costs. They also reduce quality of life and can cause smog problems inside cities. Oh and don't forget the Iraq war was, at least in part, influenced by the demand for oil, and that cost hundreds of billions of $. Directly, you can attribute approximately $4bn per year in oil subsidies:http://www.forbes.com/sites/energysource/2012/04/25/the-surprising-reason-that-oil-subsidies-persist-even-liberals-love-them/Fun fact, the US federal tax credit on EVs - about $7,500 off your tax bill - is limited to 200,000 cars per manufacturer. That's about $1.5bn total. Tesla has sold around 75,000 cars. They're likely to be the first company to exceed this limit, probably in another 3-4 years, although Nissan will be close (at which point the tax credit no longer applies.) During that time, oil will have received $16bn in *direct* subsidies!It's a case of pick your evil - government is doing a good job here by encouraging the development of nascent technology which might replace the status quo in the future.

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2015, 03:01:58 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on July 08, 2015, 02:50:35 pmMy country is not. Not that I'm proud of it, they fuck up in other ways.Quote from: tom66 on July 08, 2015, 02:50:35 pmSo do the nuclear cars with battery tanks.But both also improve health. Before them life expectancy was much lower, and ambulances and rescue helicopters run on oil.Quote from: tom66 on July 08, 2015, 02:50:35 pmNo it's not. Goverment is only pushing consumption and population explosion, both bad for the environment.Banks in my country invite business owners and people with multiple 100K on their acount to some Tesla roadshow where new models are shown.Are these car transported from country to country by kerosine planes?

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2015, 03:07:37 pm
content: Quote from: IanB on July 05, 2015, 06:50:44 pmThis is how WWII submarines used to work. Each shaft had a diesel engine and a DC electric motor/generator. Batteries where a few hundreds tons of lead acid batteries (the heavier the better since submarines need to be heave, each 2V cell was a few hundreds kgs). You could propel with diesel and charge at the same time or run electric only. The direct drive was simple, reliable and reduced the noise signature. They also had a way to charge the batteries at the base using a think and heavy cable. The lead acid batteries emitted hydrogen so it was monitored and condensers on the wall that looked like small heaters reduced the hydrogen level.Basically they had all the elements of modern electrical/hybrid cars but with 1940's technology.

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2015, 03:18:16 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on July 08, 2015, 03:07:37 pmBasically there is nothing new in those so-called modern electrical cars.If any, the "new" will be a standardisation and rolloutbusinessdevelopment of the charge stations.Like in any other development like cellular towers, gas stations and AM radio.They also used hybrid since the 80ies and 90ies in forklifts and bucket lifts.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2015, 09:29:59 pm
content: Quote from: Galenbo on July 08, 2015, 03:01:58 pmProbably by diesel carrier trucks or trains, that will move many at a time. Not emission free, just one step closer to being lower emissions.We need to act fast, as the problem is only getting worse. There's consensus now that irreparable damage has been done to the climate. People aren't going to stop driving, so we need to minimise the damage caused by it instead. That's why I think subsidising technology now is a good idea, even if it encourages continued growth. I'd rather we had an advanced and technical society, but one that also minimises harm. We can't do zero harm to the environment, but we might be able to minimise it to a low enough level that the planet can adjust.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2015, 10:38:45 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on July 08, 2015, 02:50:35 pmAs if heavy industries and power plants close to cities (people need to work somewhere) don't emit fumes which then get spread of the cityActually the emission limits for cars are so strict nowadays I wouldn't be surprised when all things considered an EV produces more polution (NOx, etc) than a euro-6 car running on petrol. Yes, even when running from solar panels (or do we not care about the people in China living next to the solar panel factory?).

author: Corporate666
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 09, 2015, 12:54:20 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 08, 2015, 02:12:43 pmNo need to be a dick to the guy - he obviously understands how taxes work. But actually, they don't work like you suggest. The gov't doesn't sit around doing their year and accounting and say "crap! We came up a few million short... what are we gonna do?" and then they decide to send out a bill to everyone. Nor do they raise tax rates the following year. It just doesn't work that way.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2015, 01:52:25 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on July 08, 2015, 12:16:18 pmLiving off government subsidies requires amazing intellectual gymnastic to justify one's actions. Bravo.Tesla's business model is based on a variety of benefits and subsidies with other people' money.http://www.marketplace.org/topics/sustainability/teslas-secret-success-selling-emissions-credits

author: HP-ILnerd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2015, 06:18:48 am
content: Quote from: zapta on July 09, 2015, 01:52:25 amWhat are you arguing here? That pollution is preferable to subsidies that encourage not polluting? Selling tax credits makes Tesla money (so what?) andreducesthe amount of taxes (i.e., fines) that are payed to the government because of failing to meet carbon quotas. If it cost less to pay the fine than buy the credit, obviously people would do that.

author: Corporate666
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 09, 2015, 06:36:13 am
content: Quote from: zapta on July 09, 2015, 01:52:25 amKeeping more of your own money is hardly "living off government subsidies". One of the big problems we have in this country is the presumption and claim by some that wealth is community property and people get to keep what they have by the grace of the masses.Everyone's effective tax rates are different based on hundreds of factors. Pointing to one specific line item and saying "I am paying for your <X>" is like claiming you're paying for someone else's kid, or mortgage, or health, or education, or car or anything else that has a taxable or tax deduction component to it.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2015, 07:46:02 am
content: Quote from: Corporate666 on July 09, 2015, 12:54:20 amSensible countries work that way. Just wait and see what happens with taxes in the US when it can't borrow any money (just like Greece at the moment) and worse: may have to pay the money you guys borrowed back.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2015, 10:38:08 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 08, 2015, 10:38:45 pmI disagree. If you include the emissions that use to create electricity, it's only right to include the emissions created during the refining of oil into petroleum products for a fair comparison. That is a far dirtier process than natural gas burning, which is the preferred type of non-renewable fossil fuel energy that can be used. Honestly I would prefer nuclear, wind or bio/waste burning but even 100% powered from coal EVs are cleaner by about a factor of two on CO2 and about break even on NOx etc. Coal plants tend to be far from populated areas due to smog restrictions but since coal is pretty horrible and most countries are not building new coal plants. And, it takes around 5-6kWh of electrical energy to make a gallon of petrol. That alone is 15~20 miles in a good EV.

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2015, 02:14:57 pm
content: Quote from: HP-ILnerd on July 09, 2015, 06:18:48 amYou got the data wrong, your conclusions wrong and you introduce a false dilemma.You fail to see that electric cars is no garantee for "cleaner" transportation.You fail to see that there are ways to a better environment without subsidies.

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2015, 02:18:51 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on July 09, 2015, 07:55:57 amYes it is. Minimum one of my 7 goverments literally gives extra money.Quote from: mojo-chan on July 09, 2015, 07:55:57 amThis guy refuses to see that there is some minimum tax volume to be made for a state, to not going bankrupt.Quote from: mojo-chan on July 09, 2015, 07:55:57 amThis guy refuses to see that every transportation is polluting.

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2015, 02:32:04 pm
content: Quote from: Galenbo on July 09, 2015, 02:18:51 pmEVs have two massive advantages you refuse to see. 1) any pollution they produce isn't dumped in your neighbourhood, you and your children don't have to breath it and 2) the pollutionisoptional. Not only are fuel burning power plants much more efficient and therefore cleaner per mile travelled than mobile ICEs, there are plenty of non polluting power sources to boot.And TBH I don't see why subsidising EVs is evil but all the other subsidies are A OK.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2015, 02:32:29 pm
content: Quote from: Corporate666 on July 09, 2015, 06:36:13 amTax breaks for their product purchasers is only one of the government freebies that fuels Tesla's business. See the link in post.

author: electrolux
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2015, 03:23:19 pm
content: I'm hoping to develop a good performance EV when I'm older.

author: HP-ILnerd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2015, 03:28:03 pm
content: Quote from: Galenbo on July 09, 2015, 02:14:57 pmYou're making a lot of assumptions about what I see and don't. If you expect a guarantee, you are arguing via absolutism, which is just contrarianism. There are no guarantees. Anything can be done wrong. So what?The subsidies are an incentive. That's all. Encouragement for the activity. The fines are a negative incentive. The subsidies are probably not a requirement, but the fines certainly are. Both speed things up. Teslas are attractive enough to sell even without them. Other EVs are rather less so.As for introducing a false dilemma, this was certainly not intentional. There are EV cars, and there are ICE cars. Fuel cells are not a serious alternative, so (short of abandoning powered personal transportation altogether) what is the alternative I'm unaware of?EV cars are part of the equation, not all of it.Alltranportation, even heavy mining machinery can be electric. All power generation can be zero emissions. If done, the total carbon production of your civilization's transportation infrastructure falls to what people exhale.If you have a better alternative, let's hear your plan.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2015, 04:17:43 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on July 09, 2015, 04:03:50 pmMore environmental propaganda to get other people money for your pet cause.Life expectancy keeps rising as we increase the consumption of fossil fuel.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2015, 04:18:54 pm
content: Just about electric motor longevity...I worked today on a 135Hp electric motor. Built in1930and still used daily in a factory...Since it was made, this was it's only third bearing and exiting circuit adjustment, the only part that will need changing is the fan, in 20 or 30 years

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2015, 04:38:37 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on July 09, 2015, 04:17:43 pmFaulty logic.It's availability of cheap energy consumption that has allowed lifespan and population to increase. Yes, oil, primarily with its use in chemical fetillizers, pesticides and pharmaceuticals has allowed this expansiondespitethe ill effects of burning fossil fuels on human and environmental health.It's allowed human population to expand way beyond the long term carrying capacity of a finite planet and the eventual population crash will not be pretty (spare me the the fairy dust unicorn - cold fusion, thorium, etc, etc will save us).As far as the EV hate goes, it's the same old, same old, political biases giving rise to arguments that completely ignore the orders of magnitude larger subsidies given to the oil and traditional ICE auto manufactures both presently and even more important, throughout their history - especially when they were nascent industries (as the EV and RE industries are now).EVs are no panacea but they do have the potential to ease the transition to a world that no longer can afford the profligate burning of oil.The transition is a done deal. But of course the political idealogues will be kicking and screaming (and whining about subsidies) the whole way.

author: Bob F.
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2015, 05:41:19 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on July 09, 2015, 04:17:43 pmHe copies... carefully avoiding to copy the following sentence: "Of course I don't think that, I'm just pointing out the absurdity of trying to simplify the situation to that level."All the graph shows is life expectancy over time, it does not even correlate it against fossil fuel usage. So what on Earth do you think your graph shows other than lifespan has increased over time? You could add a data line for banana consumption in northern Denmark over the same period and get good correlation because all are related to increased technological advance. Even then of course, correlation does not imply causation - I'm sure you have heard that many times before.Nothing you have written makes any sense - leaving aside socio-political affiliations, it is just technically and logically nonsense.You misquote people and post graphs that show nothing of what you assert they show. Have you considered starting an Indiegogo campaign?

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2015, 07:43:39 pm
content: Quote from: Bob F. on July 09, 2015, 05:41:19 pmIt's you who refuses to see or investigate a correlation, stating there isn't one.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2015, 08:05:43 pm
content: Advances in medical science probably have more influence than CO2...

author: Bob F.
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2015, 08:16:24 pm
content: Quote from: Galenbo on July 09, 2015, 07:43:39 pm<sigh> That is not what I said: I said there isn't any correlationin the graph. Do you see anything in that graph that describes fossil-fuel consumption over time? No, you don't, and neither does anyone else, because it's not there. Sorry, but my education and my nature tells me that you need data - not ideology.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2015, 08:56:30 pm
content: I also foud a graph.And because field trips generate more CO2, then CO2 is "Better". Yeah!Comes from:http://smallpondscience.com/Has links to statistics in science - but needs reading and an open mind

author: Lightages
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 09, 2015, 09:09:19 pm
content: It is simple. Electric cars will cause more pollution than normal fossil fuel cars. I have posted about this before. It is getting very boring to restate it all the time. No it is not an assertion, it is an engineering fact. That is until the world does not depend on fossil fuels for majority for electrical production. Until then, you buy an electric car, you are polluting more and killing the environment faster than a fossil fueled car. Go nuclear or kill the environment for humans.Notice I did not say we are killing the planet. This is such a ridiculous saying. The Earth has been here for billions of years and will be for a few more, with us or without us. What we need to do is protect the environment that make it possible for us to live.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2015, 09:34:30 pm
content: Oh?I humbly disagree, I have NEVER seen a serious study to that effect (as in not funded by big oil).An electric car and IC car are about 70% the same by weight, so how could the last 30 % cause as much pollution in it's lifespan as gas and the associated extraction/refining/transport and use/misuse? Is is pure Pullotionuim?Ok, lithium production is not great, but oil, gas and tar sands are not good either.Lithium is also going to be used again and again, it's getting easier to recycle (but will never be easy as steel).Making an IC engine is WAY more energy and material intensive than a making a electric engine of the same class.So is a gear box.And the metals you need in both.And the oil you need to put in both every 30 to 50 000k.And in many cases people have solar panels to offset the use of their electric car.Apart form the battery, a electric power-pack can be made to last longer than the potential lifespan of the driver.I'm not a pro electric nutcase.I find that ICE has it's uses, but more as a long distance/sustained load application or making a lot of noise giong fast on weekends. It's wasted being put in SUV's to drive 30km to work.But saying driving a Telsa is more polluting than a Silverado is not serious.

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2015, 09:37:08 pm
content: Quote from: Lightages on July 09, 2015, 09:09:19 pmJust stating that does not make it a "fact" There are millions of people whose electricity production is NOT primarily from fossil fuels. Hydro, wind, solar and yes nuclear are the primary source of electricity production for many millions of people.No one has done a definitive life-cycle analysis to quantify the environmental cost of producing and maintaining an electric vehicle relative to an ICE vehicle - even when using electricity that is 100% produced by burning fossil fuels. But regardless of how that comparison might turn out now, as EVs and their production become more refined and efficient with greater adoption, their environmental impact on a per vehicle basis will drop, just as it does with any emerging technology.Again, EVs are no panacea and are not totally benign - far from it- but they are the way forward.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2015, 09:56:59 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 08, 2015, 02:12:43 pmNonsense. Tax is the government saying : we want x percentage of your income. Whatever taxes I pay come out of MY income. If i buy an EV the government tells me : we will deduct x amount of the total sum you owe.If i only pay 5000$ in taxes i cannot get 10K in rebate. i canonly get 5k in rebate. So no money ever comes out of other peoples pockets if i buy an EV.The government also does not raise taxes on other people for NOt buying an EV .The fact that the government is spending the collected sum of all people is a different story. It is up to the government to decide what they want to do with the collected money. If they want to subsidise big oil with a portion of that , that is therir prerogative. Just like it is their prerogative to to give a portion of it back to people buying an EV.This stuff has been debunked over and over.All these moaners are just a fat bunch of big cry-babies becasue they don't get a big fat checque from the government and that you can't zip around in super cool car that makes everything else look stupid. . There, I said it. Flame On !

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 12:27:53 am
content: Quote from: mtdoc on July 09, 2015, 09:37:08 pmNo, but there are billions of people whose electricity comes from coal. Look at China, India, Australia, etc. For starters: driving an EV over there produces twice as much CO2 compared to an efficient ICE based car.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 12:35:47 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on July 09, 2015, 09:56:59 pmOfcourse it does and it is basic math. The government needs a certain amount of money to function. Say 1 billion and if 1 million people need to provide that sum then every person pays 1000. Now if the government decides to give 10000 people a tax discount of 500 (=5 million) then 990000 people need to pony up that missing 5 million so each pays 5.05 extra. Keep telling yourself tax deducations don't come from other peoples pocket but it's like saying 1+1 does not equal 2. Government isn't a bunch of people sitting on fancy couches and shitting money into a bucket. The money a government spends has to be paid by the people!

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 12:36:29 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 10, 2015, 12:27:53 amI'll use your method to elaborate my reply:"Sticks finger in mouth, put wet finger in the warm night breeze, estimates finger entropy"My answer is "nope".

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 12:38:07 am
content: If you cared to look up CO2 production per kWh for those countries it is easy to verify my numbers.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 01:23:14 am
content: Quote from: gildasd on July 09, 2015, 08:05:43 pmIt's fossil fuel energy that enabled those advances and many others. Without them mojo chan would be dead now, of old age at age of 40.

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 02:27:05 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 10, 2015, 12:35:47 amThis is getting rather far off the topic, but that description is not at all accurate. Most national governments control the supply of their official currency (the Euro-zone is an outlier in that sense). When the government spends money, it effectively creates it. The function of taxes is actually to prevent devaluation of the currency, since taxpayers are forced to hold the currency to satisfy their tax obligations. This is also the reason that cash reserves are an asset to a corporation, but not to a government. When the government holds a reserve of its own currency, it has zero value; that is simply a stack of paper that could have been printed at a later time.This was all understood 300 years ago by John Law, the founder of modern monetary policy.

author: HP-ILnerd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 02:59:18 am
content: Quote from: zapta on July 10, 2015, 01:23:14 amSure, and the horse collar enabled many later advancements in civilization, that doesn't mean the technology won't become obsolete eventually. Canned food was a massive gain in nutritional value relative to what they used to have to do. You don't see many people extolling canned food now that fresh is available year-round.More importantly (wandering back on topic), we will run out of oil eventually. It's an unsustainable technology. So why not quit now while we still have something to make plastic out of, and a clean sustainable alternative is getting cheaper by the day?

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 03:05:17 am
content: Quote from: HP-ILnerd on July 10, 2015, 02:59:18 amFeel free to quit if this is your personal choice.

author: Lightages
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 03:12:06 am
content: The math behind the efficiency of burning fuel for motion vs burning fuel to generate electricity, transform it to a transmissible form, transmit it, re- transform it to a useable form, charge a battery, recover the energy from the battery and then use the energy in a motor, is easy stuff to do. With the balance of energy production in theWORLDbeing the vast majority from fossil fuels the next calculation easily shows that electric cars cause more pollution than properly designed direct fueled cars.Forget small populations with clean renewable energy. Their effect is nullified by the billions doing otherwise.Like I said, until we all or the vast majority have nuclear or solar or other viable and sustainable non-polluting energy sources, electric cars are bigger polluters than fossil fueled cars.My ideal world would be all electric with fusion reactors, or even fission and fusion and solar.

author: HP-ILnerd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 03:12:55 am
content: Quote from: zapta on July 10, 2015, 03:05:17 amThat's the plan! Just nursing the ol' Saturn along until the Model III comes out.Sadly, Solar City does not yet do business in my state. Only a matter of time, though.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 03:34:40 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 10, 2015, 12:38:07 amif we all keep looking at each other to take the first step , and we all go ' but nobody else is doing it, why should we ' then we will all go to snot...

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 03:43:18 am
content: Quote from: HP-ILnerd on July 10, 2015, 03:12:55 amI meant on your own dime

author: suicidaleggroll
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 03:50:12 am
content: Quote from: zapta on July 09, 2015, 01:52:25 amLiving off government subsidies...:rolleyes:I suppose the housing industry is based on mortgage interest tax deductions too?Speaking of which, do you own a house? Do you claim the mortgage interest on your taxes?If so, quit living off of government subsidies, you're a burden on the rest of our society! We have to pay extra to cover your handouts.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 04:19:18 am
content: i think we all should do like the greeks banks and big industry : hop in bed with Goldman Sachs , hide the losses and then walk off with filled pockets.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 09:57:21 am
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on July 10, 2015, 09:49:22 amSorry but that is plain wrong. Look up the numbers and you'll see that getting petrol & diesel from crude oil is a process with a very high (around 90%) efficiency. Don't forget a lot of other products are made in the same process!

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 10:47:20 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 10, 2015, 09:57:21 amLots of other products aren't made, some isn't wasted. Using oil for fuel is a terrible waste of chemical feedstock.

author: ElectroIrradiator
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 10:59:30 am
content: ERoEI: Energy Returned on Energy Invested.A net ERoEI of, say, 5, means it costs 1 unit of energy to get 5 units back, providing a surplus for consumption of 4 units of energy. At an ERoEI of 1, an energy source provides zero energy surplus.Very crude number off the top of my head:Traditional nuclear (Uranium): 60.Hydroelectric dams: 40.Coal: 30.Wind (with reasonable choice of location, assuming direct consumption): 20.Natural gas: 20.Thermal solar (solar concentrators, updraft generators): 20.Oil (rough current world average): 20.Canadian tar sands: 5Direct solar power (PV cells): 5.Biofuel when growing for energy (hotly debated): 5.Fracking: 1.5.Thorium nuclear: Unknown.Hydrogen fusion nuclear: Science fiction.Storing energy from unpredictable sources like solar and wind iscurrentlyalmost not worth it, unless you can reuse existing infrastructure to do so. (Strong emphasis on 'currently'. Keep an eye out for the German hobby project I mentioned earlier.) Ie. Norway won't be building more dams just to store excess Danish wind power.Biofuels grown only for energy is highly questionable, yet there exist in many places 'free' resources from farming and forestry, which would otherwise go to waste if they weren't burned for power.Carry on.

author: HP-ILnerd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 11:02:23 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 10, 2015, 09:57:21 amOkay. I did. You're wrong. A paper from the Union of Concerned Scientists in 2012:http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/clean_vehicles/electric-car-global-warming-emissions-report.pdfAnd for funhttp://www.greencarreports.com/news/1084440_does-the-tesla-model-s-electric-car-pollute-more-than-an-suvRemember, while electric motors are in excess of 90% efficient, remember that ICE engines are only about 20% efficient. A good coal generator in a power plant is in excess of 50% efficient. Even with transmission losses over the grid, you still come out ahead with an EV. If you have nuclear power or hydro as part of your grid, the improvements from an emissions standpoint jump rapidly.But this is beside the point. NO ONE is suggesting we deliberately use dirty power generation, so why is this even being brought up? The object of the exercise is to stop using unsustainable polluting technologies on both ends of the equation. There are already 18 states in the US where you can get solar installed for free, significantly reducing your carbon production (and dropping your electricity bill while you are at it.There's no denying there is going to be a sub-optimal transition period moving to electric. But then there's also no denying we will eventually run out of oil. Is anyone actually suggesting we wait until that happens before attempting to transition?To be polite, that would not go well.

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 11:10:05 am
content: Quote from: Bob F. on July 09, 2015, 08:16:24 pmThe guy doesn't see a prearranged correlation in the graph, refuses to investigate if there is one, and states there isn't one.

author: Lightages
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 11:10:42 am
content: The point is that we are using dirty power, and the fastest growing users are probably going to use dirty power. One document I found shows 68% of world electrical production comes from fossil fuels. This was the first and only I have looked at. It was not mined for my opinion. It is difficult to find world generation by type information, at least with my google fu this time.

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 11:17:02 am
content: Quote from: suicidaleggroll on July 10, 2015, 03:50:12 amYes, and filling in those numbers reduces the tax I have to pay on what I own from 67% to 62%

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 11:19:07 am
content: Quote from: Lightages on July 10, 2015, 11:10:42 amAnother point is that all the power we use is dirty, and most of the greenwashed power (the one with most exhibitions, folders, representants, publicity..) is even more dirty.

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 11:24:33 am
content: The question at hand I think is:What is the average carbon footprint of electricity?Electric motors might be 90% efficient (haven't looked so taking what is said here at face value), but the conversion to electricity is no where near that efficiency or is it?Here is a nice wiki link for those that have the time to look at all that information:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse-gas_emissions_of_energy_sources

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 11:24:46 am
content: Quote from: HP-ILnerd on July 10, 2015, 11:02:23 amWell if that's the little game you want to play, start building your polyester windmills in a solarpowered factory, transport the parts to the mountains with a Tesla and make an electric mobile crane on solar power to install it. Curious about the solar diggers for the concrete foundations and underground cable trays.I don't know where to find sustainable polyester and sustainable oil for the transformators, but also give a Tesla to all the guys that maintain the installations with their Van now.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 11:28:42 am
content: Quote from: Galenbo on July 10, 2015, 11:24:46 amIf we follow your logic, we will never get anything done because progress is unacceptable unless it is complete and total.Why don't we all go back to living a lovely luddite lifestyle in caves, living purely off the land. We won't have to worry about climate change then. But funny thing is, you'll have difficulty convincing others to do that. So it's necessary to provide alternatives. Progression. That's EVs and renewables. Not perfect by any means, but a step in the right direction.

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 11:31:31 am
content: Quote from: tom66 on July 10, 2015, 11:28:42 amYou generalise too much. "we" will never get anything done: that pollutes more and is covered in a fraud marketing plan.Quote from: tom66 on July 10, 2015, 11:28:42 amdo as you please. Not my preference, althrough for me, personally, your idea looks more attracting than the pure citylife existance.Quote from: tom66 on July 10, 2015, 11:28:42 amStrange use of the word "funny" hereIt's your idea, why would I need to "convince" others?Quote from: tom66 on July 10, 2015, 11:28:42 amDecided by the big allways-right comittee. All criticists will be hung.

author: HP-ILnerd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 11:34:24 am
content: Quote from: Galenbo on July 10, 2015, 11:24:46 amLittle game? Youtrulydon't see the peril we are in? Even if C02 were good for the atmosphere and oceans (it's not), we're eventually going to run out of oil! The technology is unsustainable.I'm hearing a lot of criticism from you, but no solution.What is your preferred course of action?

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 11:37:29 am
content: Quote from: Galenbo on July 10, 2015, 11:24:46 amBy that argument if we can't get something 100% perfect first go we shouldn't bother at all, even if the solution only has to be an improvement on what we have now to make a difference. So according to you we shouldn't use or develop any healthcare until we've cured dying. Or grow any food until we can do it cheaply and greenly enough to feed everyone on earth and they all can afford and have easy access to it. You going to give up first, or is there a reason for fixing what parts of a problem we can improving things at each step that applies to them but not energy production and transportation?

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 11:43:18 am
content: Quote from: HP-ILnerd on July 10, 2015, 11:34:24 amSorry, I hear that since 1977.But then, why waste more oil on technologies and installations that bring less than they cost?And don't try to debunk my last statement with some reports or PDF's made on subsidies. I was there to install and maintain them, I know what I saw, and I know the way it was fraudulised afterwards in the merketing brochures.Quote from: HP-ILnerd on July 10, 2015, 11:34:24 amAs is the most of what is called "green" except hydro of course.Quote from: HP-ILnerd on July 10, 2015, 11:34:24 am1) Look back at the fraudulous installations from 1995 till now, put the guys who organised and signed the paperwork in prison, disown them.2) Get all subsidies and goverment give-take cinema out of the energy sector3) Stop govt subsidies to so called investigation and research like solar roadways3) Let real working green energy live, let it come from under the tonnes of fraudulous ballast.

author: ElectroIrradiator
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 11:46:35 am
content: Given enough electric power it is trivially possible (though currently inefficient and thus expensive) to create synthetic oil and other hydrocarbons.

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 11:48:51 am
content: Quote from: Mechanical Menace on July 10, 2015, 11:37:29 amQuote from: Mechanical Menace on July 10, 2015, 11:37:29 amAs you know, inverting the logic always gives strange effects. You demonstrated that concept very well here.But what I could state is: If you can 100% be sure that it won't work, why starting to manipulate the numbers and facts so it seem there is a possibility?Quote from: Mechanical Menace on July 10, 2015, 11:37:29 amI see some limitation in your thinking capabilities here. Or maybe you have the abilities but chose to not use them, to prove some "point"You enter in a time-dependent situation here. Described mathematically in differential equitations and in game theory.Some un-math explanation: If at situation 1 there is food enough to feed everyone easyly, population will increase till this is no longer the case on situation 2, so population goes down again till it's low enough to be again at situation 1,...But there comes the big-govt guy with his laboratorium plans again: Let's limit this, let's influence that, let's subsidize this, let's invent free-food,...

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 12:00:47 pm
content: Quote from: Galenbo on July 10, 2015, 11:48:51 amI wasn't inverting anything, I simply applied (what seems to me to be*) your reasoning to other similar if not directly related problems.QuoteWhat do we know 100% won't work? Energy sources that aren't fossil fuels or electric cars? They may not be perfect, they still need development, but the same can be said of fossil fuel burning power plants and transportation**. They may fall short in some areas where ICEs etc excel but they also do better in others.*And through the looks of things I'm not the only one to get that impression so while I may have misunderstood your actual thought process I don't think I've misrepresented what you've said.**EDIT: I think I should also add that as big of a fan zero emission vehicles and of renewables and nuclear power as I am I neither call for nor think it's possible to totally turn our backs on just burning shit for energy even if we can and should reduce that to a practical minimum that's much below current levels.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 12:53:31 pm
content: Quote from: Galenbo on July 10, 2015, 11:43:18 amEh, oil isn't ever going to run out, but it will get to the point at which the price of extraction becomes so high it is no longer economically viable to extract for most energy applications.I have several friends who work in the oil and gas industry and they personally think that this transition will occur within the next 40-50 years, given current estimates of available supply and viable fields. Luckily they will be retired by then... as it will not be a good time to be in that industry. It will be economically self-sustaining, for at least some time. As the price of oil rises, people will have to be more selective about their use, although the drop in production will significantly affect that industry and similar other industries.Fracking, as an example, is one further step that oil companies have to take to extract oil. However, that is not viable below about $100 per barrel. As more exotic technologies are necessary to extract even more, oil will simply get priced out of the market.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 12:57:48 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on July 10, 2015, 09:42:38 amThe link to abundance low cost energy on demand is demonstrable and obvious.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 01:09:14 pm
content: Quote from: Mechanical Menace on July 10, 2015, 10:47:20 amBurning carbon fibre super things in inefficient and troublesome engines.... Have you seen the latest version of the Airbus pilot training plane? Gorgeous. And being burnt in GM's...

author: suicidaleggroll
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 01:55:06 pm
content: Quote from: Galenbo on July 10, 2015, 11:17:02 amSo you admit to being a burden on society and living on government handouts? After all, that's what you lot are accusing EV owners of doing, and you're taking FAR more money from the government with your mortgage interest tax deductions than their EV purchase is.

author: suicidaleggroll
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 01:58:57 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 10, 2015, 09:57:21 amAnd don't forget that using that fuel to propel your vehicle with an ICE has an average efficiency of less than 20%. All in all you have about a 15-18% efficiency when you go all the way from refining crude oil (ignoring its extraction) to propelling your vehicle with an ICE. Even if dirty power plants run with an efficiency of 50% and EVs 80-90%, that's still double the efficiency of petroleum and an ICE.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 02:12:27 pm
content: Quote from: suicidaleggroll on July 10, 2015, 01:55:06 pmYou are trying to distract the discussion away from Tesla and EVs.Nobody said that heavily subsidizing Tesla at al is the only unjust thing our government does.

author: suicidaleggroll
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 02:37:31 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on July 10, 2015, 02:12:27 pmNo, I'm simply pointing out the absurdity and hypocrisy in your argument. If you own a house and claim your mortgage interest as a tax deduction, then you're already taking nearly an order of magnitude more money from the government than an EV purchase does, so why are you getting all up in arms about EV subsidies? If you really feel it's a burden on the government and your fellow man, then stop claiming your mortgage interest on your tax deduction and stop living off of everybody else's tax dollar, as you claim EV owners are doing. Until you do that and start trying to convince others to do the same, you're nothing more than a hypocrite.http://reason.org/files/mortgage_interest_deduction.pdfMortgage interest deduction (MID) accounted for 5% of AGI, or roughly 420billiondollars in 2009. Compare that to $5k per EV and ~50k yearly sales, or ~$250 million in 2013. Over three orders of magnitude difference, not even accounting for growth in the housing market in those 4 years. If you feel government subsidies are wasteful and a burden on society, then you are looking in theWRONGplace to fix it. You and other homeowners are grabbing $1,000 out of the government's pocket and then you're turning around and pointing the finger at EV owners for being a burden on society for taking $0.50.If you want to limit the comparison to apples-to-apples, then how about the 16 billion dollars in subsidies being given to the fossil fuel industry per year:http://www.taxpayer.net/library/article/green-scissors-report-2012Those subsidies turn into lower fuel prices. So if you drive an ICE car, you're paying lower prices for your fuel due to government subsidies given to the oil companies. It's no different than an EV owner paying less for his car due to a government subsidy, except that the fossil fuel subsidies are again, over an order of magnitude larger than for EVs.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 03:27:49 pm
content: Quote from: suicidaleggroll on July 10, 2015, 02:37:31 pmYou keep distracting the thread. Mortgage tax breaks are wrong because it causes renters and cache buyers to subsidize other home owners and inflates home prices. As I said, heavy EV subsidies are not the only unjust thing our government does but two wrongs don't make right.Back to Tesla, it's a company whose economic viability depends on subsidies, preferential treatment by the government and over taxing of it's competitors.

author: Bob F.
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 04:06:59 pm
content: Quote from: Galenbo on July 10, 2015, 11:10:05 am... and points out that even if there was one (and you just saying there is one does not make it true), it would matter not a jot as correlation does not imply causation (depressing that there seems to be a need to repeat that so often on an engineering forum).Stop making vague, one-line statements like every other troll on the planet. You are the one making extraordinary claims - show us the extraordinary evidence. When you do that perhaps there will be something to discuss.

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 04:37:13 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on July 10, 2015, 03:27:49 pmCompetitors and their customers get exactly the same subsidies, tax cuts, and treatment from the government for their competing products. And less scrutiny for bailouts they received and Tesla didn't and receiving government loans like Tesla paid back they either haven't yet or most probably won't have to.Sorry Zapta, I honestly could understand and even support your anti subsidies and tax cuts stance if it didn't only apply to Elon Musk's companies. If Musk was the only one to jump on what's offered then fair enough, but I've seen you actively support other companies who take advantage of exactly the same schemes as a way of having a go at say SpaceX for doing the same.

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 04:58:05 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on July 10, 2015, 12:53:31 pmWe're at that point now. We're in an energy trap. Oil prices need to be high to justify extraction in all but a few middle eastern countries. BUT - when oil prices are too high economies cannot grow and demand destruction occurs resulting in a drop in oil prices as is occurring now. The only reason it has taken so long for this to occur is that cheap money provided by central banks has propped up unprofitable production (ie shale oil, etc). That ponzi scheme is also ending though.http://knoema.com/vyronoe/cost-of-oil-production-by-country

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 05:39:04 pm
content: Nissan has sold more EVs than Tesla (over 150,000 LEAFs vs about 70,000 Model S); the tax credit of $7,500 still applies. I definitely don't see as many complaints about Leafs as Teslas. The only major difference is the MSRP... but that doesn't affect the amount of credit.

author: HP-ILnerd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 08:32:26 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on July 10, 2015, 12:53:31 pmCurrent estimates of known reserves are about 1.65 Trillion Barrels. As your friends say, about 50 years worth. The number of known reserves goes up every year because some of the unknown reserves go into the known column. However, while it is true we will likely never "run out" in the sense that we will have used up every drop, because some is not economically recoverable, it's dangerous to say "we will never run out" that because the ICE types will use that statement to say we can burn it forever at current rates. The Earth's mass is a known finite quantity. The mass of the oil, must therefore be some lower finite quantity that's a tiny fraction of that. Whether you mean literally or practically, it cannot be a resource forever. If we use up what we can get to practically, we have "run out."The question then becomes (even ignoring the ecological consequences of burning it), do we start the transitionbeforeit's an economic disaster, or wait to pick up the pieces after running out ends civilization as we know it?Notignoring the ecological consequences, I would vote we avoid trying to win the Darwin Award and build EVs and other renewable/sustainable technologies.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 10:41:23 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on July 10, 2015, 05:39:04 pmwell put. also Chevy volts get a rebate...I guess it's because it's perceived as a rich kids toy and not an alternative lifestyle car.The moaners should be backing Tesla instead. 90% of the car (excluding battery) is built in California from US parts by american workers. Only the Glass and tires are bought. The Battery packs will also be built on US soil by american workers once the Gigafactory comes online.To qualify for 'Made in Usa' you only need 55% of the parts made in usa... Even the Boeing Dreamliner fails to meet that criteria. So do almost all cars built on US soil as their consisting parts come form elsewhere ...I guess they'd rather see the profits flow to Japan and other countries.

author: Corporate666
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 10:56:26 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 09, 2015, 07:46:02 amNo, there are no countries that work that way. A fractional reserve banking system using a fiat currency is how all first world countries work. People can debate what is fair until they are blue in the face, but the things people usually call for (like a gold standard) have been tried and don't work for a modern first world economy.

author: Corporate666
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 11:01:33 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on July 09, 2015, 02:32:29 pmBut as with most statistics, people can 'drill down' and adjust them to say whatever they like. Some people call our military spending an oil subsidy, because security in the middle east is critical to our national (oil) interests. Some people call covering the costs of wear and tear on the roadways a subsidy, because it's something electric transmission/delivery doesn't require compared to fossil fuels. Some people call health care a subsidy because of smog and the like causing respiratory problems or worse.The numbers can be fudged to say whatever one wants, because it's a complicated industry. But on the cost issue, even in areas where governments are literally cutting checks to private companies, it's generally an advanced payment on some future income. It's just not as simple as complaining that Bob is paying for Sue's new car.

author: Corporate666
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 11:06:00 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on July 09, 2015, 04:03:50 pmLOL! See what I mean. There's always someone who will expand the context.Quote from: zaptaCorrelation does not imply causation. Of course, what the other side won't admit is that there *is* a level of correlation there too (ambulances to get us to hospitals, delivery of medical supplies, etc). But there's some correlation in the other direction too - sucking on exhaust gases is generally not good for one's health.

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 11:31:26 pm
content: Quote from: suicidaleggroll on July 10, 2015, 02:37:31 pmAh, the old "have you stopped beating your wife" chestnut. Never goes out of style.Most of the so-called "fossil fuel subsidies" are standard business expense deductions, and the rest are aid programs that keep poor people from freezing to death.http://www.forbes.com/sites/energysource/2012/04/25/the-surprising-reason-that-oil-subsidies-persist-even-liberals-love-them/

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 11:34:35 pm
content: Either way EVs are not the answer and I'll try to explain why and show which path we are already walking on. What people don't seem to notice is that bio-fuels are steadily becoming more and more available and in many countries biofuels get mixed in with regular fuel at increasing amounts. In France and Germany the regular petrol/gasoline already contains 10% ethanol. The same seems to be the case in the US. When I look at an EV I see a lot of new problems like range, weight and charge time which are not going to get fixed in the very near future. A future where electricity is also becoming a scarser commodity due to fossil fuel reduction and decommissioning of nuclear fission reactors. Global warming also reduces the cooling capacity of power plants during hot days. The amount of energy which can be stored in fuel dwarfs the amount of energy stored in a battery. And there are also economic issues in less developed countries; people over there have even less to spend on mobility so paying for the expensive batteries an EV needs is a no go. After all going for renewable energy is a global problem which needs a global solution and not toys for the 'happy few'. Bio fuels allow a gradual switchover because bio fuel (blends) are compatible with the vehicles people already own or buy (second hand). Just look at Brazil for example. Even though Brazil can be considered a poor country they did manage to use over 40% renewable bio fuel for transportation. An added advantage is that ethanol burns much cleaner so the pollution caused by combustion engines is also greatly reduced.I ran some numbers on a process (see poet-dsm.com) which turns agricultural leftovers (so no impact on food production!) to ethanol and based on those (extrapolated by the amount or arable land in the US) it seems possible to get close to switching to 100% bio fuels made from agricultural leftovers in the US in the next 2 decades. This will need the people to switch to much more efficient vehicles (not hard in the US) but the estimation is based on technology which actually exists today. The Arabs see it (they are suddenly keeping the oil prices low) and I'm pretty sure Mr Musk sees this as well and therefore has decided to build a lifeboat for Tesla: stationary batteries to store electricity from solar and wind. IMHO a much more sensible use for batteries because weight and charge time are no issues for such applications.Maybe we'll see EVs after another 100 years when nuclear fusion works and batteries have a capacity/weight ratio which is 100 times better than today's batteries you can buy in the shops.

author: HP-ILnerd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2015, 11:50:49 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 10, 2015, 11:34:35 pmElon Musk said of Biofuels:"I'm not the biggest fan of biofuels because I try to look at things and just calculate the basic physics of it, really elementary stuff, and say, okay, well, what percentage of the incident sunlight is bound up in usable chemical energy and then once you have that chemical energy, how much of that is then translated into electricity? You have to compare that total efficiency with just having solar panels. Unless I've made some really dumb mistake, which is possible, you're about a hundred times off with biofuels. I mean, at least two orders of magnitude. What it boils down to is what's square meter per electricity generated? With the best case biofuel - take every assumption and maximize it, so don't say, don't worry, maybe somebody could invent something better, say what is the best - just envelope the whole thing. Say you had unbelievably efficient plants. I mean, you can't violate any laws of thermodynamics, but assuming that you're at the limits of thermodynamics in all those cases, then biofuels - at least your land-based biofuels - there's no way this makes sense. You end up being around, maybe, 0.2% efficient in turning sunlight into electrical energy, whereas commercial solar panels are 20% efficient. So why would you ever do biofuels? It's not as though there are large swaths of arable land unused. You have to say, well, if you go with biofuels, it's going to either result in wilderness being cultivated or an increase in food prices. You can also say, is it possible, if you stopped all food production in the world, to generate enough energy to meet the world's needs? Like, yeah, you could probably - it's about right, actually, if you stopped all food production you could just about meet the world's energy needs. Now, there is a possibility of ocean-based, because Earth's surface is mostly ocean. So, if you could find a way to - maybe some sort of ocean algae-based solution where you're unconstrained by surface area, although I still think you'd have to compare that to a bunch of floating solar panels and I think you still lose on floating solar panels. I don't see how it would make sense."

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2015, 12:04:24 am
content: The error in Musk's assesment is that he wants to create electricity from plants (why?) and he wants to grow crops specifically for bio-fuel production. That is old thinking. The reality is that there is a large amount of agricultural waste which currently is now left to rot (turned back into CO2 and water by bacteria). We are sitting on a huge mountain of potential fuel without realising it! From most plants we only eat the seeds and the rest gets discarded. He is also way off about the conversion efficiency. Plants have an efficiency between 1% and 8% (sugar cane) for converting solar energy in to hydrocarbon chains and since plants are cheap they easely beat solar panels for price per Joule (energy unit). Especially if you consider a plant is already grown for food production (it's seeds) using the rest is just gravy on top.

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2015, 12:25:58 am
content: The future is toilets. Not my words but actually Bill Gate's from a little while back.But I always thought on why not turn the energy in our poo into usable energy? well, I guess that is a thing now.One person's daily poo can light up a 60 watt bulb for 9 hours and maybe it can become more efficient over time.Sewage companies are sitting on a gold mine.Just wait for a poop roadways crowd funded campaign, where you not only pledge money but also turds

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2015, 01:05:43 am
content: I thought it was customary to "pledge" them to former employers and ex-girlfriends? Usually in a bio-degradable brown paper bag.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2015, 01:26:48 am
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on July 10, 2015, 11:07:44 pmWell, if the subsidies and benefits don't make a difference let's stop them now.BTW, it's much more than just the tax return to buyers. Here is one examplehttp://money.cnn.com/2013/05/21/news/companies/tesla-windfall/

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2015, 02:33:15 am
content: Quote from: suicidaleggroll on July 10, 2015, 01:58:57 pmThere are a lot of losses in the power generation system from fuel to spinning the wheels of an electric car, transmission losses of the electric grid are 5-10% alone, house loads of power stations often get excluded from their nameplate fuel efficiency, and I'm yet to see good data on the charge/discharge efficiency of EV packs.An ICE can be much higher than 20% efficient, I drive a car getting over 33% energy efficiency from the fuel (the engine peaks just on 40% which would be achievable if coupled to a hybrid drive) that average delivers under 100g/km of CO2 emissions. Which is very competitive against fossil fuel power stations after counting their electrical only efficiencies and losses in delivering that power to the road.Its all regional, across Europe district heating recovers large amounts of the efficiency of fossil fuel power stations. Changing the mix of generation can swing the mix substantially, which is where the following links come in:http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/electric-car-emissionshttp://shrinkthatfootprint.com/electric-cars-greenand an optimistic US based assessment which still shows large areas where EVs are less efficient than ICE vehicles purely on fuel (before considering lifecycle costs):http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/clean_vehicles/electric-car-global-warming-emissions-report.pdfEVs are great cars for some situations and uses, but they are part of a mixture of transport and energy options. Claims of huge savings in any respect of their operation fail to stand up to analysis.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2015, 05:31:55 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 10, 2015, 11:34:35 pmHow many acres of forest are you going to destroy to grow the crops for your bio fuel ? how much energy is wasted to produce these fuels ? How much fertilizer and 'Roundup' are you going to throw at it to make em grow ?That doesnt happen with solar. : slap it onto existing buildings. only pollutes once when it is being built. after that : power is clean . no exhausts. Biofuel keeps polluting both when being produced ( those tractors and harvesting machines don't run on water )France already has a law on the books that says : roof ? either plant trees on it or put solar panels on it.And, do you really want to keep paying your lifelong for a liquid to burn ? I'd prefer to do a one shot investment in a solar array and get it over with.

author: HP-ILnerd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2015, 06:11:06 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 11, 2015, 12:04:24 amHe'd want to generate electricity with it because a stationary generator charging batteries for EV's is more efficient than an ICE.How are you calculating cost per joule? You can burn a kilo of sugar processed into alcohol one time before you need more. Solar cells have very expensive power if you only used it for just one day, but taking one day as a unit, after ten days the price/energy has fallen by an order, and after 10,000 days (Just past the MTBF) it's fallen byfiveorders. This is also ignoring that the price of solar cells has yet to bottom out, plus 20% "commercial cells" are not close to as good as they are likely to get.I also think Musk was being generous when he said you'd need 100% of the arable land for the neccessary the crop space. I've seen estimates as high as 150%.On the upside, at least biofuels (iffarmed with alcohol-fueled tractors, etc.) can be carbon-neutral.If anybody invents manufacturable supercaps that don't self-discharge and have sufficient power density, the show's over for everything but EV.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2015, 07:39:36 am
content: Quote from: zapta on July 11, 2015, 01:26:48 amZapta, you're clearly an intelligent person. Why would you suggest a company should not take benefits offered to it by the government? A company would be foolish (and acting against the desire of its shareholders) to not accept subsidies where offered. Companies don't operate on moral compasses! (For the record, I support these credits. I support the UK £5,000 plugin grant, even though I am a taxpayer.)Tesla receive about $7,500 per car. They also receive about $100mn per year in ZEV credits. That is a lot, but if you're concerned about your taxes being misused, then you should focus elsewhere, because it really is a drop in the ocean.Tesla aren't currently profitable, so it would be foolish to say they would be profitable without the subsidies. However if you look at their Capex spending (which is service centres, superchargers, Fremont expansion, Gigafactory, R&D) you can see why. If you took this away and just looked at it on a car-by-car basis, Tesla make around $20k per car. So $7,500 doesn't affect them, insofar as they would still be profitable.FWIW, I would not personally consider the Nevada gigafactory incentives to be a taxpayer subsidy, because they are commonly offered by states to attract other companies to build in their area. This is common practice. Nevada is making a bet on a $20bn windfall over 20 years. You can look it at another way: No incentives, no Tesla GF, and also no tax gain/loss. Offered incentives, small area of land lost (sold by private owner no less), possible $20bn tax windfall after 20 years. You can't lose!

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2015, 07:51:20 am
content: The farm next to me is building a Bio gas plant at the moment, it will inject methane into the gas supply pipeline. The waste crop and manure from the chicken sheds and cattle will be fed into the digester, so no extra land or crops will be required for the gas production the upside is no more smelly manure and better fertilizer as a by-product.The sewage works in Milton near Cambridge UK have been producing methane since the 1970's and producing enough electricity to run a large chunk of Cambridge as well as the sewage works, before the methane plant was installed Milton was just about uninhabitable due to the smell when the wind was in the wrong direction during the summer.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2015, 08:01:52 am
content: Biodiesel does have one great use: produced by the farmer to run his machinery.Farming is one of the too power intensive for electric (with current and near future tech) so it makes perfect sense.This has been, shortsightedly, banned in France...

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2015, 08:03:41 am
content: Quote from: tom66 on July 11, 2015, 07:39:36 amMore than that, they would not be meeting their fiduciary responsibilities and would be subject to shareholder lawsuits.QuoteCorrection: A Tesla buyer is entitlled to a $7500 tax cut. Tesla does not recieve that money. This tax credit will, by law, be phased out once they have sold 200,000 cars.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2015, 09:07:19 am
content: Quote from: HP-ILnerd on July 11, 2015, 06:11:06 amAlso @free_electron: growing crops specifically for bio fuel is old thinking. Forget about that! There is enough agricultural leftovers and other bio mass available to make bio-fuel. Using agricultural leftovers to make fuel also creates an additional revenue stream for the farmers and could make growing food on less suitable land economically viable and/or make food cheaper.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2015, 09:31:16 am
content: Less viable land equals more intensive use of fertilisers, pesticides and fuel to move large masses of plant material to and from the farm to the fuel plant. If the volume of fuel is more than the biomass can produce as fuel then you are on a quick trip to either a massive subsidy ( already there for biofuels in some cases) or an even shorter trip to chapter 11 bankruptcy.Growing a crop is easy if you are only looking for low density subsistence agriculture. If you want high density crop production you will need appreciable fuel for pumps, a lot of irrigation water, massive amounts of high grade heat to run a Haber process plant to fix nitrogen from the air for fertiliser base stock, and fuel for tractors to work the ground, plant the crop, water it, harvest it and then transport it.You know the old adage of the farmer who goes to the flea market, where on a Sunday he sells tools for $2. His friend sees him ,and asks where he buys the stock. He replies at the Co Op. His friend says that there they are $3, how come he is selling at a loss. He replies it is still more profitable than farming.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2015, 09:55:43 am
content: Quote from: suicidaleggroll on July 10, 2015, 01:58:57 pmPerhaps a big V8 in a standard car performs that poor but nowadays you can buy decent sized cars which give EVs a run for their money if you compare the CO2 footprint. And yes the engines in those cars are more like 40% to 50% efficient.

author: HP-ILnerd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2015, 09:58:12 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 11, 2015, 09:07:19 amForgive me, but that's kinda arm-wavy. I have no doubt you can make some bio-fuels and manage waste more effectively, but we're talking about base-load power or covering the whole transportation sector. Without adding arable land, this suggests that there is at least an equal amount of energy in crop residue (after necessary tillage) as there is in the primary crop.EROI was mentioned up-thread. Here's an interesting paper on the EROI of Solar PV from Brookhaven National Laboratory:http://www0.bnl.gov/pv/files/pdf/241_Raugei_EROI_EP_revised_II_2012-03_VMF.pdfNot nearly so bad as we were led to believe.Those old low estimates did seem suspicious. If PV had an EROI of 5, and you built an off-grid factory completely powered by PV (like the Tesla Gigafactory), this presumes that the factory PV over its 25 year life could only build 5 times the array space as what they had on the roof, and would take them 5 years to replicate their own roof. That seems like a really bad factory.

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2015, 10:03:56 am
content: Quote from: HP-ILnerd on July 11, 2015, 09:58:12 amIgnoring the energy used to extract and refine the raw materials...The whole supply chain is external to the factory and its power supply.

author: HP-ILnerd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2015, 10:20:04 am
content: Quote from: helius on July 11, 2015, 10:03:56 amEROI would include that quantity in the "I" part of the figure. Where it comes from though...In the Brookhaven Labs paper I linked to, they point out that the going forward would require an initial investment of power from existing (i.e., fossil fuel) sources. There were doubtless horses involved in building the first ICE vehicle factory.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2015, 12:18:10 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 11, 2015, 09:55:43 amwhen pushing a small ice engine towards 25% there begins to be thermodynamic limits that are only easily solved by increasing the swept volume by orders of magnitude.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2015, 01:26:09 pm
content: Not according to people who know engines:Fromhttp://large.stanford.edu/courses/2011/ph240/goldenstein2/For example, advanced internal combustion engines found in modern automobiles have peak thermal efficiencies around 35-40% for gasoline and 40-45% for diesel.A small engine (1 litre) with turbo charger has a very wide optimal operating range.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2015, 02:19:07 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 11, 2015, 01:26:09 pmThe important part is "peak" that is probably 2% of the load to rpm to pressures possibilities.If you accelerate from a stabilised constant speed to another, you will have an efficiency curve in between the two. This curve might or not hit peak but the average will be less than 20%!When we set up the design parameters we do it so that the engine is constantly loaded at it's optimal rpm/pressure (and that range is narrow).A modern ship engine in the 60 000hp class will have a peak of 56%, a low of 20% (acceleration and port operations) and will average 48/50% on a 2000 Nm journey with 80% constant speed (imponderables lower average).This is with turbos the size of Mini's, 90cm diam pistons and a steam plant on the exhaust (IC efficiency scales with size).So permit me a healthy dose of skepticism that a 1L engine will get anything close to 25% averaged efficiency. Anything above 20% is already amazing in a car.(And if you are right, and I am wrong, I have just wasted 3 years a the HZS Antwerp learning about engine management)

author: suicidaleggroll
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2015, 02:19:44 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 11, 2015, 01:26:09 pmPeak efficiency is irrelevant as soon as you stick it on a road in a city. Like I said, anaverageefficiency of <20% is pretty typical. The thermal efficiency plateau for an ICE, even with a turbo, is not nearly as wide as you apparently think it is. It can't come close to a system that's designed for power generation operating at its peak 24/7, like you get from a power plant. It's simply due to the dynamic conditions an ICE has to face. You cannot get peak efficiency over as wide a temperature, throttle, and RPM range as is required when driving on a road with other cars. A power plant can.

author: Deathwish
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 11, 2015, 05:32:57 pm
content: I shouldnt worry, looks like Uber is going to buy them all.http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3156441/The-end-taxi-drivers-Uber-wants-buy-Tesla-s-self-driving-cars-rumours-suggest.html

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2015, 07:19:03 pm
content: Denmark was producing 140% of it's power by wind on an exceptional day and exporting the excess.Maybee plugging a load of Telsas while at work/home to absorb excess spot wind generation capacity?http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/10/denmark-wind-windfarm-power-exceed-electricity-demandLowering it's trade balance by lowering imports of hydrocarbons AND exporting.Might be environmental benefits too, but being nice to the planet is offensive to some, so I'll steer away from commenting about that.In other news; the new Belgian coast to the interior high powerline is being finished.This and other links are needed to allow more power to be generated offshore and actually being used.Belgium needs to lower it's hydrocarbons imports, we are for too dependant on Russia for gas.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2015, 08:07:42 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 11, 2015, 09:07:19 amwow hold your horses. we're jumping from bio-fuels to gasoline alternate.since when can you use rotting plants to make a gasoline substitute ? Methane yes , gasoline ? no. to get ethanol you need specific crops.you can;t just take leftovers from agriculture , throw it on a pile and and expect fuel to com out. you will need additional energy to produce this stuff.Someone mentioned sugarcane. go talk to the people of hawaii what they think of sugarcane... you may end up with a few pineapples forcefully stuffed up your behind...Solar is much much cleaner. produce a panel , install it and it's free power for 20+ years. during that time it does not consume anything , doesn't produce any waste doesn't produce any exhaust.If you spread out the energy and materials used, and pollution involved in that, to build these panels and spread that over the lifespan , and look at the power output the picture becomes very clear. you don't need additional room. just put it on existing roofs.

author: ElectroIrradiator
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2015, 08:47:44 pm
content: Regarding biofuels: It is much *much* more efficient to throw your flammable waste/biofuel into a properly scaled up powerplant and make electricity on an industrial scale, and then use the electricity generated to charge your EVs. Waste heat goes into your city centralized heating system.From en energy perspective making liquid biofuels is completely bonkers for most applications. Exceptions are machines, which doesn't scale nicely when converted to electricity: Trucks, heavy construction equipment (away from a reliable source of grid electricity) and airplanes.Trucks can in part be supplanted by electric train engines and lots of steel rail.Oh, and the article about Denmark mentioned previously is a fluff piece. By now we regularly produce more wind power than we consume at any given point in time, particularly in the middle of the night. The only unusual detail about earlier this week was that it happened during daytime in the summer, as the weather was more like our regular autumn (quite windy, overcast and with heavy rain).

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2015, 10:56:10 pm
content: Quote from: gildasd on July 11, 2015, 02:19:07 pmI'm guessing you've missed the revolution in forced induction over the past 10 years. There are a set of BSFC plots from multiple sources against the same (15 year old mass manufactured design and still on sale today) turbo diesel engine in front of me including those from the manufacturer, and 30% efficiency is reached from 50nm and upwards almost dead flat across rpm with a dip into more efficient running at the low rpm edge. And increasing the torque as in accelerating improves the efficiency which is how pulse and glide driving or a hybrid drive would be able to keep the engine running up closer to 40%.1l engines too efficient for you? Here is some obfuscated data from a PSA 1.2l engine:http://www.psa-peugeot-citroen.com/en/media/press-kits/download/24447Keeping up into 25-33% for the majority of one of the standard test cycles.Quote from: suicidaleggroll on July 11, 2015, 02:19:44 pmYou're thinking older cars, engine efficiency has come a long way in the past 20 years but is only starting to trickle down into worldwide distribution/production. The Detroit giants had quite a hand in suppressing the technology reaching Australia or the US until they fell apart and couldnt keep up the lobbying.And late to the party some VAG data:http://cordis.europa.eu/docs/results/234/234032/final1-powerful-final-report-v4.pdfhttps://fahrzeugtechnik.fh-joanneum.at/veranstaltungen/2014-2015/2014-10-15.pdf

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2015, 11:50:33 pm
content: Quote from: Someone on July 11, 2015, 10:56:10 pm1st doc, page 11.Torque is flat from 1750 to 3000, is that even it's peak efficiency? Maybe? Maybe not.Do you honestly think that the exact same amount per time is being injected at 1750 and at 3000? No it's not going to be the same....Maths:If this engine needs 237g of gasoline a peak efficiency to produce 1kW how does it compare to 100% efficient combustion?Well gasoline contains 4.44Mj per Kg, that's about 12.3 kW/h.So if you get 12.3kW/h per Kg of gasoline, at 100%, how much gasoline do you need to burn to get 1kW/h?About 81 grams...That means that this engine is peaking quite high, but much less than 50% (too bloody tired to calculate the percentages)But you will notice that this is PER kW/h, and those rise with RPM making the total efficiency go down etc.And we are not even taking load into account...The same exact acceleration with different loads is going to have massive impact on the fuel burn.Please go consult "Diesel Engines" By Kees Kuiten, starting page 40 there is a large section about engine efficiency and how it scales to size.I am too bloody lazy to quote it verbatim.Edit:Page 18; balancing shaft: between 3 and 5% efficiency loss...Page 19: DMF, also losses.Page 23: Very nice inlet tract.Page 24: That's pretty crap, pretty sure they will go twin injector (hemispheric or prime with secondary). This also means that they are running a full Otto/Atkinson cycle and not post TDC galoline injection as the best engines are. Probably due to the form factor.

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2015, 02:11:32 am
content: I think Biofuels will have a role, if we are to have any sort of future with a level of technology near what we have now. Liquid fuels are a necessity for large scale planes and ships (excluding nuclear powered naval vessels and sailing vessels).That said, their role will be limited IMHO. Solar PV is available on a large scale now ( and the only obstacles to wider scale adoption are political). Biofuels of the sort being promoted by ntnico is not.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2015, 09:43:37 am
content: Quote from: gildasd on July 11, 2015, 02:19:07 pmQuote from: gildasd on July 11, 2015, 11:50:33 pmAll 3 of the links have BSFC data sprinkled through them so you can see how broad the efficient operating area is, 25% average efficiency is entirely feasible with todays engines and the improvements on the way could push that up towards 40% average in hybrids. Your maths comes out at 34% with VAG putting almost the entire operating envelope (everything above 20km/h in 1st gear) of their forced induction petrol GDI at that or better.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2015, 10:15:51 am
content: Quote from: Someone on July 12, 2015, 09:43:37 amYou are ignoring the RPM, load and subsequent pressures in your interpretation and you take the numbers as an absolute not levelled to IS (engine is 1.2L not 1L)This means the engine it's peak efficiency is about 34 %, we don't have it's low but it's probably in the mid 10's. Making for a probable average around a 18 to 20%.These numbers might be low for you - I find them nothing short of amazing for a "budget" engine of this capacity - before hybridisation. A normal "budget" 1.2L engine probably only get 12 to 15% average.This 1.2L engine is getting numbers I would associate with a pretty expensive 2L+ 4 pot. That's nuts.The choice to go 3 cylinder thus increasing the bore and to go long stroke might explain a lot. But the exhaust stack to the turbo and the injector are big compromises, so a higher priced version could probably peak in the high 30's.Hybridisation wont increase the IC's efficiency, but could push the whole power-pack to a max of 45%idh thus porbably breaking the 20% barrier. Again AMAZING.Ok, we choose to disagree on how to interpret the figures, but 'ill show your post to my Diesel engine professor, and he will probably fire himself.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2015, 11:07:35 am
content: Check into the VAG links for the petrols running below 240g/kWh, I know how to plot a load line across the rpm vs torque BSFC charts and they have bueatifully designed maps to keep the efficiency up across the working range of the engine, it doesn't precipitously drop off the peak as old NA engines do.

author: Delta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2015, 12:33:02 pm
content: Can people PLEASE stop writing "ICE engine" and "EV vehicle"? It makes my eyes hurt...Almost as bad as CPU unit or the old favourite PIN number....! 😣

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2015, 12:59:56 pm
content: Quote from: Someone on July 12, 2015, 11:07:35 amYes I know!But the kWh go up with revs thus changing total efficiency (more fuel for same torque if you will).If the torque is the same at 1500 and 3000rpm, the kW/h will go up (maths again), there will be a increase in fuel burn, if only to be somewhat realistically stoichiometric.This is hard for me to explain offhand because my speciality lies more in constant speed Diesels than in variable speed gasoline Otto/Atkinsons.I'll have to stop here, I've got a ship stability exam to prepare.As a side note:We don't even study NA engines beyond the purely theoretic anymore in my branch, they are considered as totally obsolete.

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2015, 04:31:40 pm
content: I'm no engine expert but it seems to me that the efficiency of an ICE run in isolation is very different than the efficiency in real world situations.Engines on ships and planes can run near peak efficiency since they can cruise at the optimal point on the power curve for hours at a time. This situation is entirely different for most automobiles. EVs have an advantage in that regard.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2015, 04:43:33 pm
content: Quote from: gildasd on July 11, 2015, 11:50:33 pmA gram is a unit of mass. A kilowatt is a rate. You cannot use a mass to produce a rate, the dimensions are inconsistent.QuoteWhat is a "kW/h"? A kilowatt is a kilojoule per second, so what is a kilojoule per second per hour? The unit is meaningless. (And by the way, it's MJ and kg, not Mj or Kg)QuoteIf you are going to quote "maths" and do technical calculations, please get your details straight.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2015, 04:47:40 pm
content: Quote from: mtdoc on July 12, 2015, 04:31:40 pmHybrids kinda sorta emulate that by reducing the load at the worst zones in the injection chart. Having an electric boost on the turbo is also great to reduce having to burn combustible simply to increase boost (it's all very chicken and egg).On boats or on power generation, the engine runs at a constant optimal RPM that's designed to be the screw's best speed or a multiple of 50 or 60Hz...Constant RPM also removes a lot of the complexity of running engines optimally.It's easier to conceptualise (in my little head) as an air pump where extra heat is added after top dead centre.EV are very easy: their kW/h is normally a straight line between 35 and 60 degs.(but I'm still a the very basic stuff on electrics, and most of that is asynchronous motors)

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2015, 05:01:03 pm
content: Quote from: IanB on July 12, 2015, 04:43:33 pm1) I used the grams per kW/h given on the PDF, brought it down to 1L capacity from 1.2L and compared it to kW/h per kilo of gasoline - that is usually simplified as 4.44MJ (sorry about the capitals). These are just rule of 3 conversions.2) These are standard engineering conversions, we don't do molar chemistry at this level. kW per hour is a standard power unit, you can go buy a Wartsila, MAN, Mitsubishi or ABC (etc) engine tomorrow by giving them your kW/h needs. SI is kW/s but that's rarely used.THere's a lot of stuff that is just "experience" that does not have a simple explanation, if we used the best chemistry case, the engine would not work as well.3) Doing my best. It's actually hard to explain stuff in simplified terms, I'm really sorry if I typo'd units, I was concentrating on the general concepts.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2015, 05:21:56 pm
content: Quote from: gildasd on July 12, 2015, 05:01:03 pmI think you are muddling up multiplication with division. "per" means divided by, so "kW/h" means kilowatts divided by hours (that's why "/" is used to mean division).Since 1 kW = 1 kJ/s (one unit of energy per unit of time), then 1 kW/h would mean "one unit of energy per unit of time per unit of time". It doesn't make sense.A kilowatt is a unit of power, so if you want an engine with a particular power output you could ask for an engine that can produce, say 150 kW. In more traditional units that would be about 200 hp.If you want to evaluate the fuel efficiency of an engine, you can consider the ratio of power output (a rate of doing work) to fuel consumption (a rate of consuming fuel). So for instance, for the engine to produce 150 kW at maximum efficiency it might require 14 g/s of gasoline. Both measures are rates (divided by time), so you have 150 kJ/s against 14 g/s. Alternately you could cancel out time and have 150 kJ against 14 g. This would be saying the engine requires 14 g of gasoline to do 150 kJ of work.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2015, 05:56:10 pm
content: Quote from: gildasd on July 12, 2015, 05:01:03 pmI went and looked at the PSA slide presentation linked above (this one:http://www.psa-peugeot-citroen.com/en/media/press-kits/download/24447). It doesn't anywhere indicate "grams per kW/h".On slide 4 there are emissions targets measured in grams of CO2 emitted per kilometre travelled (g CO2/km)On slide 9 there is a specific power output measured as kilowatts of output per litre of displacement (kW/l)On slide 11 there a graph showing maximum power output (kW) against engine speedAh: on slide 15 there is a chart showing g/kWh. This is grams of fuel consumed per kWh of work performed. Note that this unit is "kilowatts times hours". 1 kWh = 3600 kJ. So, for instance 237 g/kWh = 0.0658 g/kJ. Comparing to my 150 kJ example above it would require 0.0658 x 150 = 9.88 g of fuel. This is much better than the 14 g I used in my example.From this we can estimate the engine efficiency. Let's say gasoline has an energy density of 45 kJ/g. So to do work of 1 kJ requires 0.0658 g of gasoline, which would be an energy input of 0.0658 g x 45 kJ/g = 2.96 kJ. Therefore:engine efficiency = 1 / 2.96 = 33%That's not bad.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2015, 05:57:42 pm
content: Quote from: IanB on July 12, 2015, 05:21:56 pm1) Sorry kW per hour is what we use in my trade - Engineering watch officer - I'll have to live with that.2) 1kW/h is obviously 3600kW/s - or I'm not getting what you want to enlighten me about.3a) This is units finger pointing. Choose your flavour, it's a free country. For me, when talking injectors it's kg/s, pumps are kg/min (combustible) or ton/hour (for cargo or bunkering). These units have been selected over the last hundred or so years for practical reasons that are sometimes lost to me, but I don't get to choose (even if I find that using BTU's is silly).3b) You don't talk HP in my trade, it gets people angry, too many HP's around that can ruin everybody's day, so everything is kW and kW/h depending if you are talking point or per unit of time. If you talk kJ or even MkJ, you will be laughed out of the room - but I would probably suffer the same if I was to use my units in your trade.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2015, 05:59:27 pm
content: Quote from: IanB on July 12, 2015, 05:56:10 pmFor peak for an engine that size and for the "value" market, it's amazing.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2015, 06:09:16 pm
content: Quote from: gildasd on July 12, 2015, 05:57:42 pmI understand about customary units. It's perfectly fine to use kWh instead of kJ if kWh are the customary units in a given area. Industry is full of preferred customary units in different businesses. It's normal, and I'm not finger pointing at all.What I'm trying to explain to you is that kW per hour is not,absolutely not, what you use in your trade. What you use is kilowatt-hours, which is kilowatts times hours. Not kilowatts divided by hours. If you divide when you should multiply you will get all your answers wrong and you will have great trouble with people complaining that you messed things up.That's all I'm trying to explain to you. I hope you can understand.Maybe an example will help:Suppose an engine produces 80 kW for 4 hours. What is that in kilowatt-hours?Total output = 80 x 4 = 320 kWhWe have to multiply 80 by 4 to get 320. kilowatts times hours = kilowatt-hours (not kilowatts per hour).If we were to divide, 80 / 4 = 20 kW/h (?), we would get quite the wrong answer. Things would not go well for us.

author: Delta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2015, 06:17:38 pm
content: I'm guessing Popeye means kilowatt hours - kWh, not kilowatts per hour kW/h.Shurely sum mistake?

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2015, 06:31:06 pm
content: Quote from: IanB on July 12, 2015, 06:09:16 pmYou are right. Bad habit.As a side note, found some details of the MAN K80MC-C, this is a 80cm bore with 2200cm stroke engine: It needs 163gr of diesel to get 1kWh.That's at 3410kW per cylinder running at 104 rpm. The stroke has since gone up to 2300 to lower NOx but fuel burn is very similar.http://www.mandieselturbo.com/download/project_guides_tier1/printed/k80mcc6.pdf(P19 for the cool stuff).There are slightly better engines, this is just to give you an idea.

author: suicidaleggroll
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2015, 06:32:43 pm
content: Quote from: gildasd on July 12, 2015, 05:57:42 pmWhat he's saying is that a watt is a joule of energy per second (W=J/s), so a watt isalreadya rate. W/h would J/s/h, which would be an energyacceleration(like acceleration due to gravity, 9.81 m/s/s or m/s^2), which is surely not what you mean. You probably mean kWh, which is a pretty standard unit for energy.Wh = energy, like JouleW = power, or energy rate (energy per unit time)W/h = energy acceleration, which is mostly nonsense

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2015, 06:35:53 pm
content: Quote from: suicidaleggroll on July 12, 2015, 06:32:43 pmI wrote down the wrong unit, I'm sorry, should I commit ritual seppuku with a soldering iron?

author: Delta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2015, 06:44:13 pm
content: Quote from: gildasd on July 12, 2015, 06:35:53 pmI don't think that anyone is having a go at you, just pointing out that in engineering it is essential to use exactly the right terms. At work I'm often slagged off for being pedantic, but the "well you knew what I meant to say" attitude is guaranteed to cause problems eventually.Best of luck with your studies mate. 😀

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2015, 07:05:23 pm
content: Quote from: gildasd on July 12, 2015, 06:31:06 pmGreat, I'm glad you got it!Details really do matter in engineering and technical subjects. Get a detail wrong and there can be expensive consequences.Quote from: gildasd on July 12, 2015, 06:31:06 pmOK, let's do a similar efficiency calculation for that one.If we assume industrial diesel fuel has an energy density of 45 GJ/tonne (= 45 kJ/g), then the energy of 163 g in kWh would be:Input = (163 g) x (45 kJ/g) / (3600 kJ/kWh) = 2.0 kWhOutput = 1.0 kWhEfficiency = Output / Input = 1.0 / 2.0 = 50%That is right up there at the limits of what is possible.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2015, 07:21:11 pm
content: Quote from: IanB on July 12, 2015, 07:05:23 pmI get the same with my method, but I'll note yours down because you go to percentages faster.The very best engines get 56% but then they produce too much NOx and have to run at about 52%.A combined gas/steam cycle can get a bit over 60% but is very maintenance intensive compared to a HFO engine (but great for a power plant).Right now the limit is combustion chamber materials: the obvious way to get higher efficiency is to get higher pressures, thus heat, thus reaching the limits of steel...But entropy being entropy, the limit will be between 65 and 70%, it's not possible to get higher without breaking fundamental rules of thermodynamics.Erm, aren't we a bit off-course from Telsas and how they are going to kill polar bears?

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2015, 08:29:33 pm
content: Quote from: gildasd on July 12, 2015, 07:21:11 pmNot entirely. If a good small gasoline engine is 30% efficient and a combined cycle power plant is 60% efficient, then the power plant uses half as much fuel for the same power output (and therefore produces half as much CO2).Even allowing for losses in electricity distribution and battery storage the electric vehicle will come out ahead in terms of reduced CO2 emissions. Especially since there is a move towards carbon capture in power plants to reduce emissions even further.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2015, 08:46:15 pm
content: Quote from: IanB on July 12, 2015, 08:29:33 pmThe problem with comparing single efficiencies in a large chain of devices is that you will get the wrong picture. Better compare the resulting carbon footprint. That gives you a number which is easy to obtain and not debatable. Because EVs have a large number of links between the power plant and the wheels the total efficiency drops dramatically. The carbon footprint shows that. For example: in the NL a kWh of electricity produces 475grams of CO2 (which is very low compared to other countries). A common EV needs about 225Wh per km (EPA driving cycle). This results in about 104 grams of CO2 per km for the EV. Efficient ICE cars match even when not taking into account the 5 to 10% bio fuel they run on. Ofcourse you can run your EV from real solar or wind power (IOW not the kind that is greened by buying emission certificates) but you can also take the trouble to run your ICE on a blend which contains much more ethanol.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2015, 08:57:05 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 12, 2015, 08:46:15 pmAppart from the ecological aspects - that we can agree to fight about on another day - the financials are interesting (but I'm a noob at this):In the case of the NL, doesn't producing and using locally sourced electricity from renewable (from wind to poop wind - doesn't matter) reduce your imports of hydrocarbons and augment the amount of NL gas and oil that can be exported? Thus improving your trade balance?A what point does this become more interesting than importing gas or oil from smiling happy Salafists or Putin Henchmen?

author: suicidaleggroll
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2015, 09:11:36 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 12, 2015, 08:46:15 pmThis link contains a much more thorough analysis of carbon footprints of EVs compared to ICEs:http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Electric%20Cars%20and%20CO2.htmlEven with 50% of the US grid running off of coal, EVs are still better than the efficient European cars used in the analysis, though not by much. US ICEs aren't as good as the Europeans either, and as the national grid moves toward renewables the situation for EVs will continue to improve.In other words, even with dirty power plants running EVs, they're still comparable to or better than the current ICEs in Europe. As time marches on, the scales will tilt further and further toward EVs.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2015, 10:26:59 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 12, 2015, 08:46:15 pmYou can make this comparison, but to put the comparison on a good foundation you have to crunch some numbers. Here is such a calculation:Gasoline VehicleThermal efficiency: 30% (state of the art, see above)Specific energy of gasoline: 45 kJ/gCarbon content of gasoline: 86 wt% (typical, it varies)Molar weight of carbon: 12Molar weight of CO2: 44Compute grams of CO2 emitted per kJ output from the vehicle:grams of CO2 per kJ = (1 kJ out) x (1 kJ in / 0.3 kJ out) / (45 kJ/g) x (0.86 g C / g fuel) x (44/12 g CO2 / g C) = 0.23 g CO2 per kJ outputElectric VehicleAssume electricity produced by natural gas in a combined cycle power plant (typical modern plant)Thermal efficiency of plant = 60%Transmission efficiency = 95% (roughly)Battery power efficiency = 80% (roughly)Combined end-to-end efficiency = 0.6 x 0.95 x 0.8 = 45%Specific energy of natural gas: 50 kJ/gCarbon content of natural gas: 75 wt%Compute grams of CO2 emitted per kJ output from the vehicle:grams of CO2 per kJ = (1 kJ out) x (1 kJ in / 0.45 kJ out) / (50 kJ/g) x (0.75 g C / g fuel) x (44/12) g CO2 / g C) = 0.12 g CO2 per kJ outputComparisonTherefore we are comparing 0.23 g CO2 / kJ for the gasoline vehicle with 0.12 g CO2 / kJ for the electric vehicle. The electric vehicle has about half the emission rate of CO2.Also, this does not allow for any use of renewable energy, or nuclear, which would reduce the CO2 load further.With such a ratio, even a few uncertainties in the numbers are not going to change the conclusion.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2015, 10:44:24 pm
content: Quote from: Delta on July 12, 2015, 12:33:02 pmATM MAchine

author: EEMarc
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2015, 11:00:12 pm
content: Quote from: Delta on July 12, 2015, 12:33:02 pmI thought an ICE engine was a variation on the Sterling engine.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2015, 03:56:45 am
content: Ianb, you forgot the extraction, transformation and transport losses that vary wildly from light sweet crude to tar sands...

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2015, 08:51:29 am
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on July 13, 2015, 08:35:36 amAnti green? Increased CO2 actually makes the planet greenerhttp://www.treehugger.com/climate-change/co2-making-deserts-bloom.htmlAs for 'winning' this argument, you are right, it's futile to debate with religious people but there is no need to argue, reality will eventually catch up with the alarmists.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2015, 10:01:35 am
content: Quote from: zapta on July 13, 2015, 08:51:29 amYou remind me of the guy who booms, "if this is global warming, bring it on!" in the pub every time the weather is hot. A false dichotomy. You can't make one change to the climate without making hundreds of others. The planet may well get greener (plants love CO2) but at the expense of increasing floods (like in Bangladesh), droughts (like in California) and extreme weather.Quote from: zapta on July 13, 2015, 08:51:29 amI'm pretty sure humans will survive it, but at what cost. We might see famine and water shortage across the whole planet, so there could be mass starvation and death due to disease. It could, all considered, be pretty mild, depending on how the climate changes and how humans react to the problem facing them. It is very hard to predict with any significant certainty. But it is somewhat dangerous to do this experiment on our one, and only home. So perhaps it is best to be somewhat "alarmist" rather than not.The evidence is there if you were to look into the massive body of independent research papers published since 1960. The planet is warming at a rate faster than seen in the last 10,000 years, and there is a significant body of evidence which points to human caused climate change. Other causes have, so far, been ruled out. Volcanoes, the sun, the moon, random chaotic weather patterns, el Nino, other ocean currents, etc. None of them can account for the change that is happening to the climate.Reality will, eventually, catch up with you, but perhaps you will not be around to see the final result.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2015, 03:11:41 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on July 13, 2015, 10:01:35 amAs I said, it's futile to debate with the believers. Time will tell who is right, the alarmists or skeptics. So far the alarmists' predictions and models do not match the data.Here is some food for thoughts for you

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2015, 03:55:33 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on July 13, 2015, 03:11:41 pmIvar Giaever is not now, nor has he ever been a climate scientist.He works for the fossil fuel industry funded, far right political "think tank",Heartland Institutewhich is the preeminent organization devoted to spreading disinformation about climate change.Yes, food for thought indeed....Looks like someone is determined to turn this into one of those threads

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2015, 04:09:05 pm
content: I've only watched half the video so far. I've an open mind on this, but so far, his argument appears to be:-It's hard to measure temperature to 0.1C.Well, no, it's not. Especially with precision instrumentation and a large statistical sample. Accurate measurements down to 0.01C have been possible for over a century, using simple mercury thermometers.-A 0.8C degree change doesn't matter when average temperature varies 80C.Confusing weather and average temperature? The local weather varies far more than normal climate. Not sure what point he's making here(?)-There's only 8 stations in the south pole, and they're all near research bases.Most of these are probably manually checked - so this is by necessity. Maybe some use satellite radio - but I'm not sure - they will still need to be regularly calibrated, cleaned, monitored etc. There are only a few viable places you can place these measurement instruments given this restriction. Satellite measurement can assist in certain areas of poor data.-Land and Ocean, vs Land only. The graphs appear to agree with each other if you look at the same timescale. It's hard with the poor gridlines, but the temperature change does indeed appear to flatten out from 2000 to 2010 on *both* graphs. (This could the "GW pause" everyone harps on about - but can also be down to solar changes, or random variation. I'm not well versed in this area. But the point is, the data does seem to agree.)

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2015, 04:25:43 pm
content: "I'm a Nobel laureate so my opinion is final on everything"...Funny how people reject or accepts science according to their whim of the moment.Science is not the 10 commandments, you can't drop a few because it's Friday night and you're feelin' fine.Science is not religion, it's not a belief, its not a way of thinking, it's science.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2015, 04:34:38 pm
content: Quote from: gildasd on July 13, 2015, 04:25:43 pmIt's not science, it's political activism for some and religious to others.Reality will catch with us eventually, as it happened with the Mayan and other prophecies.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2015, 04:48:18 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on July 13, 2015, 04:34:38 pmMayan? Prophecies? Do you really put Carnot, Kelvin, Hess, Joule, Ohm, Watt (and others who worked on thermodynamics) on the same page as crackpots who can't choose what band of Al foil to use for their hats?Do you think your space heater works on magic?

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2015, 04:51:41 pm
content: Quote from: gildasd on July 13, 2015, 04:48:18 pmI don't think Mr Ohm predicted false catastrophes.Let's meet here again in 25 years.

author: ElectroIrradiator
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2015, 05:02:05 pm
content: In the hope of avoiding too much confusion:In the early aughts it was estimated that about 200'000 scientists with a relevant degree was working on research, the results from which could be influenced by or used to draw conclusion about the global climate and the future of same. Back then a percentage of somewhere in the nineties of all research results indicated that A) global warming is happening and B) it is caused by the activities of mankind, specifically the emission of vast quantities of greenhouse gasses.Despite this you could and can still find literally thousands of relevant research results, which goes counter to these conclusions. This is simple statistics. Yet if you apply the same statistical methods to the whole body of research done all over the world, then it becomes exceptionally, extremely likely that the results A) and B) holds. The percentage of results, which supports A) and/or B) has increased since then.Full disclosure:At the time I worked in a group of scientists on a research project under and funded by the Danish Ministry of the Environment. This was back whenthis guycame to prominence with a certain work of fiction of his. His 'results', which were published in that stupid book of his, were basically due to the cherrypicking of any science results, which aligned with the conclusion he wanted to draw.We actually had an informal survey among the 'local' scientists, several dozen from the hard sciences of all political observations, and the overall result was a giant facepalm. Every expert in a given field basically said that Mr. Lomborg had cherrypicked the results he liked, and that he couldn't possibly be an expert in the given field of science.So just because Mr. Joe. R. Andomguy, Nobel laurate in solid state physics, doesn't believe X doesn't make it so.Throw a few hundred thousand peer reviewed scientific articles on the table, which support the global warming naysayers, and I will rethink my position. Until then: Happy global warming!Remember: Science is that which remain, once you stop believing in it.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2015, 05:09:04 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on July 13, 2015, 04:51:41 pmDon't me give that.I work on ships, we see acidity rise on our corrosion measurement.We see sea temps rise on our cooling systems (leading to extra fuel burn to turn the pumps faster) and older vessels often have 25 year logs on the the same course.The latest vessels even detect the CO2 rise.Do you really think that a multi hundred billion industry that historically had not really given a hoot about the environment would be investing in reducing it's footprint to please tree huggers and assorted hippies that are not at all their client base?FOR THE LAST 30 YEARS? Do you think that the Chinese are finally installing record amounts of PV and Wind for fun?These people are pragmatics.The north passage above Russia fully opened commercially for the first time EVER last year for effin' sake.Was that because the earth got colder? Had a pause? Or whatever FOXpundetery passes for science these days.We are seeing fundamental change, catastrophes might happen, but that's not the object, (this is not a "we got to have super storm to sell this program" channel).We are terraforming in a way we do not know the outcome of.And if the outcome is something like Venus, even if I don't like it, I'm going to try to do something about it.

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2015, 05:13:27 pm
content: Quote from: gildasd on July 13, 2015, 04:25:43 pmYep, Ivan Giaever has been spouting the same nonsense for years and it has beenthoroughly debunkedApologies to the physicists here - it's just a funny cartoon....

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2015, 05:14:53 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on July 13, 2015, 04:34:38 pmExactly.

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2015, 05:33:46 pm
content: Quote from: gildasd on July 13, 2015, 05:09:04 pmThe same people who're bribing all of the worlds climate scientists are bribing them to push their religion

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2015, 05:35:33 pm
content: Hey religion brings research grants, the more alarmist the better.

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2015, 05:50:44 pm
content: Quote from: gildasd on July 13, 2015, 05:09:04 pmIt may turn out that ocean acidification will be the more immediate emergency caused by rising atmospheric CO2.If the plankton and marine calcifiers go, we're screwed.

author: apis
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2015, 06:35:53 pm
content: Quote from: mtdoc on July 13, 2015, 03:55:33 pmYeah. I've spent too much time entertaining climate change contrarians already, I think I'll pass on this one.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2015, 06:46:40 pm
content: Quote from: apis on July 13, 2015, 06:35:53 pmTrolls with a msision...

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2015, 08:05:36 pm
content: I do not mind if research keeps on going, that's actually a good thing to understand our planet better, so I don't think it's a waste of money.Also I don't mind electric cars that much either, since regardless of climate change or not, they will reduce city pollution when there is a weather inversion. That's a big problem in a lot of big cities that EV will help with regardless of the carbon footprint of the required electricity.Things will continue back and forth, the economy and jobs based on "dirty" energy will have to migrate towards other jobs. It's not like the world can just flip a switch and ban a whole industry that will put the economy in further danger.But no matter, we will adapt because that's how nature works, and economies are not much different than populations. It will balance itself out.Anyways I do welcome EVs in the cities they will make their inhabitants healthier, at a price, sure there is always a price to pay.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2015, 08:40:12 pm
content: Try to find some uncorrected data sets maintained by local or national organizations for any coastal weather station, doesn't matter where at all ... and do a regression test for the last century, if you don't find heating you should have bought a lottery ticket instead because you are way out on the long tail. The reason oceans are included in modern global temperature averages is not because it's easier to fake, but because the earth is mostly covered by them.Yes temperatures have been mostly flat for the last decade or so, yes anthropogenic causes can not be proven beyond reasonable doubt, yes the hockeystick depends on models which can be even less easily be proven ... but NO your couple of cherry picked regions and central US weather stations don't prove there is some global conspiracy. Denialism is moronic (ie. denying global warming over the last century). The readiness with which denialists resort to using good data to attack some of the conclusions drawn from that data is telling IMO.Back on topic. Regardless of our current economic downturn and regardless of global warming, peak oil is going to screw us pretty soon. Peak oil got the US off the gold standard, peak oil combined with overpopulation and crashing water tables played a huge part in Syria's demise ... denying peak oil and the disastrous effects it can have is sillier than denying global warming. The US could hang on longer than most with coal liquefaction, but the energy reserves are only around twice that of oil so not that much longer.Electricity is the future and even we don't let the precautionary principle push us to it faster it's not that far removed, we'll get there within the century. Whether the bulk comes from nuclear or solar if we can find some cost effective storage method (everything else is screwing in the margins, might be money in it but they can't provide the bulk) we'll need some way to make that electricity usable in cars. The problems along the way will simply have to be solved.

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2015, 09:48:44 pm
content: Quote from: AcHmed99 on July 13, 2015, 08:53:41 pmhttps://youtu.be/MTJQPyTVtNA?t=13m21sYeah, "new term..."

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2015, 10:29:12 pm
content: Quote from: AcHmed99 on July 13, 2015, 08:53:41 pmYou might want to refer to "The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climatic Change", G.N. Plass, published 1956:http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar_url?url=http://journals.co-action.net/index.php/tellusa/article/download/8969/10431&hl=en&sa=X&scisig=AAGBfm3JCx0EyuRNl5lMo9XVtfrAnpcb3A&nossl=1&oi=scholarr&ved=0CB8QgAMoADAAahUKEwje0rjpktnGAhVRBNsKHfF9APgConsidered the "seminal paper" on antroprogenic global warming by many, discusses the influence of CO2. (Remarkably accurate too - the 3.6C estimate from CO2 has been revised to 3C - and the general hypothesis is accurate and fits observations made today.)Global warming is the cause of climate change, but the weather will not exclusively warm. Some areas could get colder. The *average* temperature will still rise. And CO2 concentration may cause other effects, including as mentioned previously an increase in ocean acidification.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2015, 10:46:09 pm
content: Quote from: IanB on July 12, 2015, 10:26:59 pmReally forget about comparing efficiencies. Only the resulting carbon footprint is what counts. Look at the link posted earlier:http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Electric%20Cars%20and%20CO2.htmlOne could even argue that the EVs should get a penalty for needing more energy to construct (especially the materials and production of the battery) and ICE based cars should get bonus points for running partly on bio-fuel nowadays.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2015, 10:51:09 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on July 13, 2015, 08:35:36 amI prefer nuclear to carbon capture. Nuclear waste gets less radioactive over time and is solid so it doesn't spread itself easely. CO2 however is a very toxic gas and a CO2 storage therefore remains dangerous forever (until the end of the planet or human kind -whatever comes first-). Imagine what happens if a CO2 storage bursts open? Read and shiver:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos

author: dr.diesel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2015, 01:24:11 pm
content: Rev the conservation back up shall we?http://arstechnica.com/cars/2015/07/how-much-do-electric-cars-actually-pollute/

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2015, 07:46:17 pm
content: Electricity power plants which are not next to a city are a rare exception because transporting electricity is expensive and cumbersome (takes space and power lines). For a correct comparison you need to include the amount of pollution a power plant is allowed to produce. And yes this number will also depend on the age of the power plant. Cars are replaced much faster than power plants and because cars drive around inside a city instead of next to it the pollution limits are much lower (stricter) than the power plant a few km away from the city center. Out of sight out of mind?

author: Corporate666
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 16, 2015, 10:21:02 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 12, 2015, 08:46:15 pmYou are doing what you have been called out for doing before - cherry picking numbers.You're comparing an extremely efficient combustion vehicle with a mid-range EV. You can't compare cars that aren't in the same class.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2015, 10:54:53 pm
content: The Model S has the performance of a supercar (0-60 in 3.1s, 500hp+ at the wheels), yet does something like 85 mpg-e going on energy efficiency alone.There really is no comparison. Unadulterated ICEs are already a dying breed for high-end supercars -- hybrid only, or pure electric is the way.BMW chief said they don't expect to make a new ICE car after 2025. They will be relegated to low cost vehicles and speciality applications that require extremely long range. Eventually, battery-electric will replace almost all passenger cars. I think the "econobox" cars will remain ICE powered as the price of the engines is very competitive.

author: Corporate666
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 16, 2015, 11:18:16 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 13, 2015, 10:46:09 pmThe link is junk.-He's rounding up CO2 numbers for coal per kWh.. it's more like 920-980 rather than 1,000 grams... not a huge difference, but most of the numbers are cherry picked to be worst case for EV's.-He lists the CO2 of solar at 150g/kWh. There is no study that comes close to that. The Vattenfall study came out at 50g/kWh and that was Japan/Finland and somewhere else (Norway?) that were far from ideal conditions. There is a Yale study that puts the number at 46-48.-He lists 49% of energy from coal, 3% from oil, 19% from NG, etc. The EIA (going right to the source) says 39% coal, 27% NG, 19% nuclear, 6% hydro, 7% renewables, petroleum 1%. Do the math and it works out that the average/total is 522g, not 607.-He adds in 10% loss for transmission of electricity. But nothing is added in for transportation of petrol. Nor is anything added for NOX emissions, or vapor emissions from refueling, carbon monoxide, evaporative emissions from the engine, etc. According to the EPA (http://www.epa.gov/otaq/consumer/05-autos.pdf), due to increasing emissions controls on combustion, a majority of pollution from a petrol car now comes from evaporative losses on hot days. There is no concern with electricity evaporating from a vehicle.-While we're at it, what about other forms of pollution due to petroleum? Here's the list of major oil spillshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_spills.In the last 10 years, we have had between 600,000 and 1 million *tonnes* of crude oil spilled. And that is not a complete list, and some of those on the list don't have an estimate for how much was spilled. You don't want to go back further because the numbers get even worse. How much coal turns into environmental disasters if it falls on the ground? And we don't have much to worry about from solar panels falling over or wind turbines falling down. You could argue events like Fukishima, but even if we were 100% driving EV cars, it would only be 29% of our electrical usage (source:http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2014/05/02/electric_vehicles_how_much_energy_would_we_need_to_fuel_them.html), whereas more like 70-75% of crude is used to make gasoline and diesel fuel for transportation (doesn't include jet fuel either). In other worse, pollution due requirements for petroleum for transportation vastly outweigh pollution due to requirements for electricity for EV's, even if 100% of people drove EV's.-The author (and you) use numbers like 0.2 to 0.3kW to drive 1 kilometer. Again, cherry picking numbers. Wikipedia (the source the author uses) has a listhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car.The best EV's like the Scion IQ will hit 0.149 kW per kilometer, less than half of the number listed in the article. In fact, none of the EV's on that list come close to his 0.3kW/km number. Even the Tesla S is 0.230kW/km. In fact, the average of the whole list is 0.188kW/km-He goes on to say average European vehicles generate 195g/km and the best will hit 145/km. Well, theaverageof the EV's on his own Wiki link, using the correct (from the EIA) distribution of fuel sources and CO2 production works out to be 98 grams per kilometer. And the most efficient Scion is 78 grams per km.Now, that article/link was written some years ago, but it just goes to show that - despite being an emerging technology - EV's are already significantly more efficient and less-polluting than fossil fuel cars, despite fossil fuel cars having 100+ years of iterative refinement behind them. And it is grossly incorrect to ignore the other pollution sources of ICE vehicles (evaporative, transportation of fuel, refueling pollution, oil changes, additional maintenance on braking systems, coolant systems, etc). Not to mention EV's are mechanically simpler and logically will have less maintenance requirements (less spare parts and the transportation costs of manufacturing and distributing those parts).The fight is already over. It's not even close. And the gap EV's have over ICE vehicles is just going to get larger. The numbers above were for the USA, which is a nation that is pretty heavily reliant on fossil fuels. A place like Brazil, Canada or many European countries change the picture *dramatically*. Not to mention it's easier and better to build and maintain a single power plant and have a single point of maintenance rather than millions of individual polluting vehicles, mostly located in cities and being maintained (or not) by average people. And if we want to reduce CO2 emissions, it would be much easier to scrub or contain that at a single source (power plant) than coming up with millions of devices that every ICE vehicle driver needs to buy/install/maintain, etc.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2015, 11:43:47 pm
content: We never lived so long or had a higher standard of living and people are still complaining. That's how political dogma blinds people.

author: johansen
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2015, 12:34:37 am
content: i have to fully agree with Corporate666's last commenthowever, the last number I found was 7% loss in electrical transmission.. it may be higher in cities due the higher power density.this energy waste will signifiicantly differ from one utiliity to another.there are some very badly run co ops oh, i meant coups where people are paying 30% more for their kilowatt hour than they should be.now i know a lot of you guys don't believe this, but the amount of money you pay for something is approximately linear with regard to the co2 it took to produce it.meaning if i buy a 500 dollar multimeter.. sure, there's the same amount of carbon in that dmm than a 30$ meter.but the corporation that makes the 500$ meter has a lot of very happy employees compared to the night shift in china getting paid 10$ a day.so take a guess where the co2 gets produced.. not at fluke.. no.at the gas station.. at the hospital where 2 trillion dollars a year gets spent... etc, etc

author: dr.diesel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2015, 12:37:03 am
content: The evolution of transportation, it's gonna happen, naysayers or not.In 50 years, when electric vehicles have decades of refinement, Fusion instead of coal, Dave in a wheelchair designing yCurrent, good times ahead.Makes me wonder, In the year 9595........

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2015, 01:29:33 am
content: Quote from: dr.diesel on July 17, 2015, 12:37:03 amNobody say no, use whatever technology you want, on your own dime. Nobody cares it you use anelectric car.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2015, 11:18:01 am
content: Quote from: zapta on July 16, 2015, 11:43:47 pmI'm not complaining about dino-juice cars, but the technology has improved; it's time to move on to a cleaner, simpler and better form of transport.

author: BradC
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2015, 12:04:15 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on July 17, 2015, 11:18:01 amAnd that works when you live in a dinky little country where you can drive top to bottom in less than a day. Not so practical in a sprawling city with a low (relatively) population density.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2015, 12:11:58 pm
content: Petroleum products aren't going away anytime soon. About 1/4 of all UK greenhouse gas emissions come from personal transport.As for jobs, this is going to be painful. I don't think we should subsidise jobs that don't have to exist any more. When automated cars and trucks become commonplace, electric or otherwise, millions of taxi drivers, bus drivers, transportation workers etc. will all become obsolete. What will we do then? There is no easy answer. Certainly, as automation becomes more common, there will be less need for human labour.

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2015, 12:22:24 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on July 17, 2015, 12:11:58 pmNow I'm hoping they'll bring in a law that every vehicle has to be autonomous in a year or two.QuoteThey were saying the same when smashing up looms. Other jobs were created that couldn't have existed when the manpower was needed in other areas best done by machines.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2015, 12:57:08 pm
content: Quote from: AcHmed99 on July 17, 2015, 12:22:35 pmSolar and wind subsidies are short term (they should really go away in the next 5-10 years as renewable energy hits grid parity pricing) - but we can't subsidise complete jobs, that's unrealistic.I think it will be an economic disaster if a solution is not found and I'm not convinced there is one where everyone keeps working 40 hours a week.Quote from: Mechanical Menace on July 17, 2015, 12:22:24 pmRight, and there will be jobs in the future we can't even conceive of. The job title of computer programmer or IT systems architect didn't exist 50 years ago. These jobs will be relatively untouched by automation.The question is, what happens to unskilled labour? There's no shortage of demand there right now while we keep endlessly consuming. But this is liable to change in the future. Not everyone is capable of being an engineer or computer programmer, they cannot take on other jobs and unskilled labour will be progressively eliminated.FANAC has a factory in Japan that is completely unstaffed. It makes other robots used in factories. It runs for 30 days between check-ups by maintenance engineers, but otherwise it's completely autonomous. How many eliminated jobs there? That's only the start.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2015, 01:01:12 pm
content: Quote from: AcHmed99 on July 17, 2015, 12:22:35 pm"Green" industries add way more job per subsided dollar than coal or oil. Equivalent to the petroleum industry per year right now (but we are near the base of the bell curve, so it's an apples and Mc Bacons comparison).But I agree with you on the labour part, I like working, I like physical labour. And what is going to put up magic windmills? Magic robots maybeWork is good, work is great, Lots off people like playing with tools and the physical exertion.Furthermore, a lot of these same people are allergic to being stuck in a office watching a screen.Don't do the same stupid logic that the French political elite did in the 1970's and 1980's and assume that if you like 5 years of post high school education, a cubicle, a leather chair and infinite coffee, that every last soul is like you, thus justifying sending out this uncouth work to far away places that are more adapted to this uncivilised sweating thing with tools and noise.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2015, 02:22:58 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on July 17, 2015, 12:11:58 pmDid you account for plain water evaporation in the UK?Water vapor is by far the dominate greenhouse gas in the Earth atmosphere.

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2015, 02:43:29 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on July 17, 2015, 02:22:58 pmSo we want to keep the temperature increases to the minimum so we can to stop the feedback loop before it starts.Every degree increase due to CO2 (or methane or whatever) will be doubled by the increase in water vapour until the air's* carrying capacity for it is reached.*EDIT: Think it should have the apostrophe :/

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2015, 02:53:06 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on July 17, 2015, 02:22:58 pmFun fact about water vapour: it's an indicator rather than a cause of temperature rise. As surface temperature increases more water evaporates. This can cause a positive feedback loop as water vapour will increase temperature if the cooling rate (due to other factors) is less than the rate of temperature rise caused by the vapour. That is why CO2 is so potentially harmful to climate stability, a small change to the CO2 level can have a strong influence on the overall temperature (even if it is 0.03% to 0.04%)

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2015, 03:45:23 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on July 17, 2015, 02:53:06 pmYou say in the same post that water vapors are not 'a cause of temperature rise' and then that 'water vapor will increase temperature'.Water vapor is a greenhouse gas and saying that 1/4 of UK's greenhouse gases are emitted from cars is clearly false, regardless of one's view on the climate predictions.

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2015, 03:49:49 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on July 17, 2015, 03:45:23 pmYou've contradicted yourself. Water vapour can't be a greenhouse gas because it's a vapour not a gas

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2015, 04:05:03 pm
content: Quote from: Mechanical Menace on July 17, 2015, 03:49:49 pmThere aren't too many possible states, pick yours ;-)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_matterAnd from another wikipedia page:"Being a component of Earth's hydrosphere and hydrologic cycle, it is particularly abundant in Earth's atmosphere where it is also a potent greenhouse gas along with other gases such as carbon dioxide and methane."And yet another climate related scientific misconception, the ocean waters are not acidic.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2015, 04:18:38 pm
content: In the normal, currently stable climate we have, water vapour does not warm the planet up further than the rate of external losses (I.e. the system is "stable"). However, as concentrations of water vapour increase *due to* other factors such as CO2 (or methane) a positive feedback loop could occur as the higher temperature will cause more evaporation, which can cause temperature to rise and so on.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2015, 04:27:50 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on July 17, 2015, 04:18:38 pmLet's see if you can give simple answers to simple questions, without intellectual gymnastic. ;-)1. Are water vapors a greenhouse gas?2. Does the atmosphere contain much more water vapors than co2?3. Do the water vapors in the atmosphere capture more heat than the co2?

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2015, 04:49:04 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on July 17, 2015, 04:27:50 pmThose are not relevant questions. Relevant questions are:1. Is human activity altering the concentration of water vapor in the atmosphere?2. Is human activity altering the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere?3. If 2 is true, is this having a disruptive impact on the climate?

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2015, 05:19:49 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on July 17, 2015, 04:27:50 pmIf you are confused by the positive feedback loop idea, this website explains it well:https://www.skepticalscience.com/water-vapor-greenhouse-gas.htmI'm not a climatologist. I only play one on the internet.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2015, 05:30:16 pm
content: Quote from: IanB on July 17, 2015, 04:49:04 pm<flame off>That's what I expected. With so much politics and personal convictions involved, it's impossible to have an honest discussion. You have hard time to admit even simple facts that are accepted by scientists on both sides because somehow it will be used against your point. This is not how science should work.Anyway, over time we will have more data to verify the validity of the catastrophes predictions.And here is my view of the answers for your questions:1. Is human activity altering the concentration of water vapor in the atmosphere?Most likely, many human activities emit vapors and it's likely that it's measurable.2. Is human activity altering the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere?Ditto.3. If 2 is true, is this having a disruptive impact on the climate?I don't know. It depends on many variables, the magnitude, positive and negative feedback mechanisms, is the current CO2 level is sub optimal or not and more.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2015, 06:13:17 pm
content: My answers:1. Is human activity altering the concentration of water vapor in the atmosphere?There is no theory or mechanism for this to be the case. The water vapor cycle is dominated by evaporation from the seas and precipitation over sea and land. There is no additional contribution that mankind can make other than to increase global temperatures (see 3).2. Is human activity altering the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere?There is a theory and a mechanism for this to be the case. There is a carbon cycle, as there is a water cycle. By digging up and burning fossil fuels, more CO2 is added to the cycle. There is no natural way that fossil carbon will get into the atmosphere other than by human agency, and the quantities involved are huge.3. If 2 is true, is this having a disruptive impact on the climate?There is a supportable theory that the climate is being impacted, and there is a good basis to predict that the impact will be disruptive.The trouble is that it may already be too late to reverse the damage, and damage limitation is all that is now possible. This does not mean that damage limitation is still not a good idea.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2015, 09:49:42 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on July 17, 2015, 05:19:49 pmBut doesn't water vapour also keep the heat out when it condenses to form clouds which block out the sun?http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/climate/warming_clouds_albedo_feedback.html

author: johansen
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2015, 12:44:13 am
content: Quote from: Hero999 on July 17, 2015, 09:49:42 pmfrom the website:"Rising global temperatures are expected to cause greater evaporation of water vapor into the atmosphere, primarily from the oceans."this is not true.the heat flux available to evaporate the water remains the same.if the air temperature is warmer then perhaps it can contain more water vapor.but not significantly, as we are only dealing with 1 or 3 C increase.

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2015, 01:40:57 am
content: Classic denier water vapor nonsense. Debunkable by high school level science.Increase temperature ---> Increase atmospheric water vapor^ |-----------------------------------------It's a simple positive feedback loop, something any engineer can understand.There are multiple positive feedback loops involved in global warming - meaning that once we get to 2 degrees warming things will continue to accelerate and we won't stop at 3 degrees.

author: apis
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2015, 02:25:46 am
content: Quote from: Hero999 on July 17, 2015, 09:49:42 pmTrue, but water vapour by itself doesn't create clouds. It's actually a rather complicated process that requires small particles that can act as condensation nuclei among other things. There have been some research into how cosmic radiation affect cloud formation for example (it does to a small extent but not enough to affect the earth's climate significantly).

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2015, 02:56:34 am
content: Quote from: mtdoc on July 18, 2015, 01:40:57 am... and almost every engineer understands that the gain of the loop does matter.

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2015, 03:17:38 am
content: Quote from: zapta on July 18, 2015, 02:56:34 amOf course. But in this case the exact gain is irrelevant to the question. It is a positive feedback cycle and that fact alone negates the denier water vapor FUD.For anyone interested in more specifics, you could starthereQuote

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2015, 03:38:32 am
content: Quote from: mtdoc on July 18, 2015, 03:17:38 amWell, if the gain is close to zero than it's insignificant and the fact that there is a gain doesn't mean that there are no other contributions.Anyway, have a good day doc. You seems to be in a bad mood today. After all ... tomorrow is another day.

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2015, 03:44:45 am
content: Quote from: zapta on July 18, 2015, 03:38:32 amHmm, not sure why you would conclude that but thanks anyways!

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2015, 11:24:44 am
content: Mr Musk just announced the latest, fastest Tesla now available (P90D) will now have a "Ludicrous Mode", which will take the car from 0-60 in just 2.8 seconds with 762hp motor horsepower. That's as fast as a Nissan GT-R and only 0.1 seconds slower than a Koenigsegg Agera R, a million-dollar supercar.The performance ICEs are dyingLong live EVs!

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2015, 12:06:56 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on July 18, 2015, 11:24:44 amIn the Porsche range, it accelerates faster than all the Panameras, Boxters, Caymans and 911s (TurboS; 183 000 $)...Only the 918 accelerates harder at a bargain 845 000$.On that metric, the Telsa is a bargain.As a side note, the range of the 911Turdo S in normalised EPA driving is 570km, the Telsa S85 is 434km the S90 with all the new softaware is about 483km.So ICE still leads there in a similar performance bracket.

author: dr.diesel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2015, 12:16:31 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on July 18, 2015, 11:24:44 amThat is pretty badass. I wonder how many times that can be done on a fully charged battery?

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2015, 12:19:32 pm
content: Quote from: dr.diesel on July 18, 2015, 12:16:31 pmI think the question is more "how many tires per charge"...

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2015, 12:20:25 pm
content: Quote from: dr.diesel on July 18, 2015, 12:16:31 pmThe motor cooling is the limit. The launch mode slows down after the 3rd or 4th launch in a row... It's competitive off the line, but it can't keep itself cool at high power for long periods so the power limit kicks in. It's not a track-day car, though. Tesla need to improve the cooling if it is to be competitive on a track. 5,000lbs around a corner is also a touch too heavy.

author: dr.diesel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2015, 12:22:56 pm
content: Quote from: gildasd on July 18, 2015, 12:19:32 pmThere is an amazing amount of smoke in a tire!

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2015, 12:32:23 pm
content: Acceleration in a straight line is just one of the requirements from a sport car though these numbers are impressive. I would be more impressed if they would do it on their own dime.

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2015, 12:37:04 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on July 18, 2015, 12:32:23 pmFair enough, but then so should the older approaches too. No government loans, grants, subsidies, or bailouts for anyone. Until that's the case the Likes of Tesla, Nissan, Toyota, GM, Ford, and everyone else making electric cars etc are only having the playing field levelled in that area by taking advantage of these schemes.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2015, 12:50:59 pm
content: Quote from: Mechanical Menace on July 18, 2015, 12:37:04 pmYes, subsidies are non desired in general but Tesla and its customers get a lot of extras and even its competitors are forced to subsidized it.If their products are so good they should be able to stand on their own merit.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2015, 01:10:02 pm
content: We've had this discussion before. For as long as the government subsidies electric vehicles with tax credits and incentives, Tesla would be going against their legal requirement to maximise profit for shareholders by not taking full advantage of these incentives. Your gripe here would be better directed at the government subsidies, not Tesla, Nissan, etc. Tesla did not lobby for these incentives.My personal opinion is that Tesla are producing great technology and the subsidy money is well spent on further development of low cost vehicles. By 2017 when the Model III comes out, Tesla will have exhausted nearly all of the federal incentive (up to 200,000 cars) and will be established as a mass manufacturer. Exactly what the subsidies are designed to encourage.

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2015, 03:11:03 pm
content: Has anybody worked out how much tax these companies on all sides pay? When all subsidies to the company are taken into account including the benefits/creits/welfare/entitlements/whatever they're called in your area going to their lower paid employees*? Obviously not including the taxes or subsidies their customers get. How does Tesla compare to (lets be fair) Ford and GM then? And to not be fair how do they compare to Exon-Mobil and Walmart?*These schemes are a handout to the companies, not their employees after all.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 03:16:33 pm
content: Quote from: gildasd on July 18, 2015, 12:06:56 pmThen tell me why every Tesla I see on the road dissapears in my rear view mirror while my car's engine only does 72kW at one specific RPM. Range anxiety anyone? I have done some German Autobahn driving in the past week. Not a single Tesla. Just BMWs, Mercedes, Porsches and one Ferrari.If you want to be propelled fast just tie a piece of rubber between 2 trees and sit on a wheelchair.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 03:27:23 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 19, 2015, 03:16:33 pmBecause the group of people that buy Teslas is composed mostly of people who stretched to buy a nice car, or would have bought a Merc C Class Diesel, BMW 5 Series touring, etc. These people want a nice car to drive, but probably don't care about going so fast (hence why they buy a diesel as fuel economy is important to them.)The speed is just a bonus. I've met two Tesla owners, and both of them stretched their budget to a limit to afford the car. One had new 70D - base model. Cloth seats! Other had 85 with leather and basically nothing else. The P85/P85D generally people buy them in place of a high end petrol V8 sedan from a German marque.Obviously, they also recognise that driving fast will use battery quicker, but it's not a huge factor (by about the same fraction as a petrol engine is affected.) A fully charged Tesla can still go over 180 miles at 90-100mph and about ~130 miles at 140mph. Which isn't as far as an ICE can go, but it's far enough to go in between the superchargers along the autobahn which are positioned every 80 or so miles.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 04:00:43 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on July 19, 2015, 03:35:49 pmHopefully, in 5 years, I can get a EV for 35 000€ that can do 500km on the motorway at a 110kmh average - that would cover 95% of my usage.In 14 months, I'll also have my high power electrics certificate, that will allow me to install a custom 4 to 8kW roof solar with the surplus going to a Telsa wall (or equivalent) when the time comes.If I can get an extra 0.5kW wind (mostly for the joy of tinkering), i'll take that too.With my usage, this means I wont have to go fill up the tank ever again (the low priced stations are at the other side of the harbour, only a 15min drive, but tedious).My impact on power-plants? None.If 1 000 people do this? Mouse fart.I think that about 100 000 users to do this to get any measurable load differences on power plants/distribution/fuel sales - to get back to the original post.

author: ErikTheNorwegian
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 04:30:48 pm
content: From Norway, the country that buy the most electric cars pr citizen in the world.A new, brand new village on the soil of the old airport, got 290 appartments, and only 21 oulets for charging cars.That is 16 amp 220v outlets. Ther infra structure dont handle more than that. So if you want to charge you car in the winter with temps down to -25 -30, you musty be pretty lucky to get one spot to charge it. And be shure that you get there early enough to have it fully charged before the morning.http://www.budstikka.no/fornebu/elbil/okonomi-og-bolig/jeg-kan-jo-ikke-kjore-rundt-og-lete-etter-ladepunkter-hver-kveld/s/5-55-66233

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 04:50:53 pm
content: Quote from: gildasd on July 19, 2015, 04:00:43 pmHopefully, in 5 years, I can get a EV for 35 000€ that can do 500km on the motorway at a 110kmh average - that would cover 95% of my usage.In 14 months, I'll also have my high power electrics certificate, that will allow me to install a custom 4 to 8kW roof solar with the surplus going to a Telsa wall (or equivalent) when the time comes.If I can get an extra 0.5kW wind (mostly for the joy of tinkering), i'll take that too.With my usage, this means I wont have to go fill up the tank ever again (the low priced stations are at the other side of the harbour, only a 15min drive, but tedious).My impact on power-plants? None.If 1 000 people do this? Mouse fart.I think that about 100 000 users to do this to get any measurable load differences on power plants/distribution/fuel sales - to get back to the original post.If you will do it on your own dime and without government incentives I don't think anybody will care. Your money, car, your choices.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 04:55:07 pm
content: So, Zapta, Model 3 in a few years will be federal subsidy free. May still have state incentives ranging from $0 to $2,500, though those are steadily going away. You do not have to claim either.Would you buy one?

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 05:15:50 pm
content: Hopefully by then there will be some on the used car market at a price I can afford.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 06:10:57 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on July 19, 2015, 04:50:53 pmDo you even begin to comprehend what a major electronics project this is? THis is the focus of EEVblog, this is not "Ihatebiggvtforum.com".And notice the flag, I'm in Belgium, part of Europeland, where it's illegal to sell goods such as cars at a loss (except in exceptional circumstances) and where Telsa get little to no incentives where I live (appart from me not paying tax on the diesel I will end up not using) - in fact it has to pay import duties like all foreign cars.Your anti gvt stance might be relevant in your part of the world, but this a forum run by an Oz and with a worldwide audience with VASTLY different world views and experiences and is quite frankly a "whatever".So we are NOT talking about the POLITICAL consequences, but the PHYSICS/ELECTRICAL/ELECTRONICS consequences (i'll give you hints: brownouts, plant overloads, need for more localised production etc, may or may not be consequences of interest).Grow up, we are not 14 year olds discussing politics for the first time here.Edit - And you cant even use the godforsaken quote handles properly making reading all this a mind-numbingly stodgy read.If you are going be a non relevant, humdrum, lifeless, monotonous, mundane, stale, stuffy, tedious, tiresome, tiring, trite and uninteresting commenter, at least do it properly.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 06:33:00 pm
content: gildasd@, I presume you are referring to non technical opinions like this one.Quote from: gildasd on July 19, 2015, 06:10:57 pmhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_standardAs for your other claimhttp://www.acea.be/uploads/publications/Electric_vehicles_overview_2015.pdf

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 06:59:45 pm
content: Quote from: gildasd on July 19, 2015, 04:00:43 pmI'd calculate the return on investment time first. The Tesla wall battery sounds nice but it adds a significant amount of money to the investment and thus time before break even. And there is the choice to import cheap panels from China directly or to buy more expensive panels locally. Panels with a long warranty may not work out economically in the long run (and you won't get their value when you move). IMHO the ideal solar panels should pay for themselves in 3 years and get replaced in about 6 to 8 years. By that time technology will have improved so you can get even better panels for less money.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 07:10:02 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on July 19, 2015, 06:33:00 pmTHose are not claims:http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/03/31/uk-climatechange-science-economy-idUKKBN0MR00320150331http://cleantechnica.com/2014/03/14/clean-energy-created-nearly-80000-green-jobs-in-america-during-2013/and lastly, from those communists at Fortune:http://fortune.com/2015/03/17/green-jobs-2/And frankly, I don't want to go back and find the article about renewable projected to add more jobs than oil/coal but it was in the Wall Street Journal I think.Why?Most people here get bell curves and it's not the bloody subject! We don't come here for this, these comments where me being polite to you. Trying to get back on subject somehow.I wont read your link because I MY CASE (that nobody gives a fuzz about), I did not get ANYTHING for getting a hybrid (except lower tax that ALL lower consumption vehicules get, because they reduce the bloody trade deficit and pollution).And in 5 years, if nothing changes, I will get NOTHING, nor try to, to get an electric vehicle.And who cares? This is NOT ABOUT BLOODY POLITICS!Is there an ignore feature in this forum? I'll hopefully will never be back for you in a few minutes.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 07:18:13 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 19, 2015, 06:59:45 pmI was more thinking along the line of 48V industrial batteries in the short term...A friend in the south of France has a hydro setup (she raises horses deep in the mountains and EDF does not want to go there, too narrow a valley for solar PV), with a mini turbine. She only runs it 4h every two days or so during the morning because it's noisy and in the back of the house...The batteries where supposed to be changed every 5 years, but 15 years latter, they still work well...Edit: I have another friend with mini hydro, EDF insisted on connecting him and have to buy his electricity, and it turns out he can generate A LOT... Last time I saw him, EDF where still trying to renegotiate the price and he was standing firm to what was initially signed. But that's beside the subject.

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2015, 10:35:33 am
content: Just test drove a Model S P85+Damn that thing is fast. and the 85D is faster*Psitips his hat to free_electron

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2015, 11:25:19 am
content: I sold two Leafs last year - accidentally. I mentioned the £130pm lease deal and a work colleague bought into a two-year lease on one and my line manager bought a used one outright for £13k to replace his Plugin Prius.I got a lift in leased Leaf with the base trim package. I'm pleasently surprised by how much power that 80kW motor puts out at the low range. It might not have the acceleration of more powerful cars at 50-60 mph but from zero to 30 it's surprisingly nippy. Great little city car - just wish it came with double the range. I regularly commute down to London, charging twice each way would be a pain.

author: ccs46
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2015, 12:03:13 pm
content: The funny thing is, that tesla to charge takes the same power to charge as a desktop computer, I don't know why people are freaking out...Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2015, 12:42:12 pm
content: Quote from: ccs46 on September 01, 2015, 12:03:13 pmEh? It can charge at 22kW from a Wallbox in the UK... and up to 125kW from a supercharger.What kind of desktop PC draws that?!

author: BradC
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2015, 12:56:53 pm
content: Quote from: ccs46 on September 01, 2015, 12:03:13 pmMaybe if your desktop was the ENIAC...

author: bookaboo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2015, 01:15:00 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on September 01, 2015, 11:25:19 amPotentially a game changer for city commutes:http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/nissan/leaf/91993/nissan-leaf-to-increase-range-up-to-250-miles

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2015, 02:01:20 pm
content: 200 miles would be nice for the Leaf -- personally I prefer the design of the Tesla (the Leaf is a little ugly if I'm honest; nice car, but not my style.) So if the Model 3 is like a 3-Series BMW with 200+ mile range then I would be very interested in it. Plus, I want more powaaaaah. (It seems likely the base Model 3 will have 221hp, which is good enough for me.)

author: suicidaleggroll
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2015, 05:24:36 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on September 01, 2015, 12:42:12 pmMaybe he means once you take the energy required for a typical commute and average it out over the day?Take an efficiency of 35 kWh per 100 miles. If you have a 20 mile commute round trip, that's 7 kWh per day, or an average draw of about 290 W. Still quite a bit higher than normal a desktop computer, but not terrible.

author: bookaboo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2015, 06:08:32 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on September 01, 2015, 02:01:20 pmAgree, the leaf is "almost there" on a number of factors, range and looks being the main ones.Although I think feasible electric choices for my needs are 2-4 years away I'm watching the market in the hope that my next car (or my wifes) can be fully electric. Back of envelope calculations show that the fuel savings are significant enough to justify spending a little extra when the time comes.

author: ccs46
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2015, 08:06:58 pm
content: Quote from: suicidaleggroll on September 01, 2015, 05:24:36 pmYes, I wasn't very specific. My apologies.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 01, 2015, 08:24:51 pm
content: Heheh, seriously though, I really like their cars.

author: bookaboo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2015, 08:28:02 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on September 01, 2015, 07:46:07 pmFor a lot of people I agree.... it makes sense for more people than realise it. Just doesn't quite fit our family needs at the minute though. If it had a bigger boot and a bit more room it might have suited as my wifes car.I look at cars from a purely "get from A to B safely as cheaply as possible" standpoint. They way I calculate it there should be a suitable EV along soon enough that I should just keep running the wifes old citroen as long as it keeps going.

author: rx8pilot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2015, 09:42:06 pm
content: Quote from: ccs46 on September 01, 2015, 12:03:13 pmCharging at a few hundred watts is not very practical.  most folks will get rapid chargers to top off the car and each one will need big bursts of energy.Maybe getting time slots allotted to specific chargers so that they can be sequenced across the whole system. It would not be too ridiculous to smart manage the grid load if the chargers were the balancing element. Say someone comes home on a low charge but they want to leave to go shopping in one hour - they can get priority and a fast charge. For those that are in for the night can have the charging sequence start many hours later while they sleep.Charge a premium for the fast charges and economics will help to balance things as well.

author: McBryce
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2015, 09:53:18 pm
content: Local batteries would solve that. Each charger could have a local battery that it charges slowly over the full 24 hours or even during low usage times. The battery wouldn't have to have the full capacity of the car battery, just enough to reduce the peak to acceptable levels.McBryce.

author: rx8pilot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2015, 10:20:04 pm
content: In the end, the problem of charging cars is small in comparison to putting men on the moon in 1969. The problem of dealing with many billions and billions of dead batteries will be bigger than the problem of charging.I have read about some of the expired battery disposal techniques and they seem rather terrible. They should not yet be called recycling since so much appears to be lost and so much energy is needed to facilitate the process. I am generally uneducated about battery chemistry, manufacturing, and recycling, but I am trying to learn as fast as I can. recycling will be the next big topic after mass charging is worked out.When viable mass charging solutions are available, it will drive development and sales of e-cars which will inundate the world with massive quantities of dead cells. Maybe Exxon and Shell should invest in primary cell recycling - that could be the future after oil.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2015, 10:24:35 pm
content: I think it will depend on how long the batteries in EVs last. The batteries Tesla are using are easily capable of 2,000 cycles under high discharge and charge rates to 80% capacity. If treated well, 3,000+ is possible. That is over 700,000 miles. Most cars don't make it that long, although EVs might as there are much fewer parts, they're still going to have suspension, brake, steering, coolant, electronic problems etc.There are Leaf taxis with 100,000+ miles going strong, and one Tesla driver has over 160,000 miles and still gets 95% of a design charge.Don't forget many thousands of cars are scraped for metal every year. You think people won't find a way to scrap EV packs for their metal?It's likely a lot of batteries will go into stationary storage, where they may have high DCR and reduced capacity but be nonetheless still useful as grid storage or backup.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2015, 10:29:09 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on September 01, 2015, 07:46:07 pmI dunno. I live in Leeds and drive a diesel hatchback. Nothing exciting but gets 52 mpg on the motorway and I commute to London occasionally. I would love to drive a Leaf but stopping for one hour or more to charge seems like a hassle... assuming no one else is using the chademo port. Plus, the ecotricity fast DC chargers seem like they have some reliability issues (at least, it was in the news recently and Tesla owners using them with Chademo adapters seem to be complaining on the other forums.)I think Tesla has got it right installing a few fast chargers at one station and using a proprietary plug rather than the abomination that is Chademo. Plus 120kW charging just blows away the competition.In three years, I'll dispose of my car then upgrade to an electric. It'll either be a Model 3, or Model S on the used market, or something compelling from another marque. The Leaf as it is doesn't strike me as a good looker, so unless the Model 3 is well out of my price range I'll probably avoid it.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2015, 09:29:16 am
content: Quote from: tom66 on September 01, 2015, 10:29:09 pmTry looking at the SAE plug. That will make you think better of ChaDeMo. :-)

author: mzzj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2015, 09:48:55 am
content: Quote from: rx8pilot on September 01, 2015, 10:20:04 pmHow about mining and refining then?And Lithium supply is another problem.http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Is-There-Enough-Lithium-to-Maintain-the-Growth-of-the-Lithium-Ion-Battery-M

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2015, 10:20:46 am
content: My hope will be that Tesla's plug becomes somewhat standard and Tesla licences out the network to other companies (though perhaps not for free forever - that's going to bite Tesla in the future.) It's compact and universal, plus 120kW charging is necessary for larger batteries. SAE Combo is some kind of joke, I'm sure, Chademo on its own is a bit cumbersome.

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 10, 2015, 09:47:11 am
content: Quote from: gildasd on July 19, 2015, 06:10:57 pmYou are wrong about that, it's a big lie, or you are hugely underinformed.Quote from: gildasd on July 19, 2015, 06:10:57 pmThere is no way to separate these groups of aspects.

author: kosmonooit
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: September 10, 2015, 06:54:54 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on September 02, 2015, 10:20:46 amTesla has 'open sourced' all their patents in this regard and are encouraging others to use their supercharger system, as long as its free (I seem to remember Elon saying)

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 10, 2015, 08:31:15 pm
content: Quote from: rx8pilot on September 01, 2015, 10:20:04 pmNot really. A cell which isn't suitable for use in a car can be re-used for stationary energy storage. That would require binning the cells but techniques to measure/determine a cell's health are readily available. Re-using cells would extend their useful life significantly.

author: rx8pilot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 10, 2015, 10:09:57 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on September 10, 2015, 08:31:15 pmEven if that is true, it simply adds a modest delay to the inevitable barrage of dead cells that need to be dealt with. I may be rather far behind in my understanding on this topic, but it seems the 'recycling' is more like environmentally friendly disposal. If the goal is to replace fossil fuels - trading bad for bad seems like a horizontal effort.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 10, 2015, 10:20:20 pm
content: You are right. At some point the batteries need to be disposed. Either recycled or just dumped somewhere. I deal quite a lot with batteries these days but never looked into recycling them. I have a gut feeling recycling batteries is going to take a lot of energy and effort. OTOH the dissassembly/recycling plant can probably run on the batteries it receives. If you have ever seen the amount of damage a single shorted Li-ion cell can do you know it has to be fully discharged before a battery pack can be dissassembled.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 13, 2015, 10:03:55 am
content: You can discharge them, shred them and mix with water to react the lithium to get it safe, then simply separate out the steel, copper and the caustic rest. Then copper can be recycled, steel the same and the lithium soup is a lot easier to react back to metallic lithium again for new cells. Plastic will be a part that is ground up and simply used as a filler in new products.

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 13, 2015, 04:58:58 pm
content: Quote from: SeanB on September 13, 2015, 10:03:55 amPlus you'll get a reasonable amount of gaseous H2as a side effect, could possibly use that to power some of the recycling.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 13, 2015, 05:18:21 pm
content: Quote from: kosmonooit on September 10, 2015, 06:54:54 pmI don't think they have quite "open sourced" the patents - they have just given every one permission to use them.But as they are a huge customer @ panasonic - it will be hard to compete with Tesla's prices on the batteries themselves. So even if you did want to use them - competing with Tesla might not be so easy unless you can send as many bucks towards panasonic as tesla.

author: Einsteins_Ghost
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: September 13, 2015, 09:47:54 pm
content: The hefty price tag comes because of the battery cost. When you put 7000+ li-ion batteries in every car, its gonna cost. With the giga factory coming online, a new age of battery cost will be available.With respect to power demand, its important to remember that with a grid connected charging system, it is possible to pull power from the packs in the cars to smooth out ripples caused by peak power usage.With respect to your assertion that Tesla will not garner as much name recognition as BMW, then just give it some time. Tesla outsold bmw and Mercedes in the first half of 2015.Car pods will be good for cities, but there will be demand for cars for sometime. 20 years is an arbitrary date and does not mesh with the generational timelines that new ideas typically take.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 13, 2015, 10:06:46 pm
content: Quote from: Einsteins_Ghost on September 13, 2015, 09:47:54 pmThat doesn't make sense. Smoothing a peak by taking back energy from what caused the peak. Better have a smart grid which can slow down charging so the peak gets smeared out. That still doesn't solve the energy demand problem though. IF (big if) EVs are going to be used by a lot of people the grid will need some serious upgrading.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2015, 06:15:04 am
content: Quote from: Galenbo on September 10, 2015, 09:47:11 amAs for the subsidies:http://finances.belgium.be/fr/particuliers/transport/vehicules_electriques/Science should be sorted out before the politics... Doing the reverse is shouting about possibles that have not been certified - a bit like 24h news channels do about current events...

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2015, 07:28:22 am
content: Quote from: Galenbo on September 10, 2015, 09:47:11 amQuote from: gildasd on September 14, 2015, 06:15:04 amGood to see you already are aware of that website. It already gives you some numbers, and from there you can start searching for all the other numbers, put them side by side, and compare them yourself.Much work to do, but don't give up.Quote from: gildasd on September 14, 2015, 06:15:04 amYou give a good summary of what I saw happening since multimillionaire Al Gore got the idea of making a movie for the fiction genre, in his heated swimming pool.

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2015, 07:38:22 am
content: Quote from: Galenbo on September 14, 2015, 07:28:22 amI still can't find the bit that says "Only for Teslas and not for any other companies electric cars."

author: McBryce
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2015, 07:42:38 am
content: Quote from: Einsteins_Ghost on September 13, 2015, 09:47:54 pmWhere did you pull that data from??Tesla has a target of 55,000 cars for the entire of 2015. BMW sold 208,000 cars just in June!McBryce.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2015, 08:09:19 am
content: Quote from: McBryce on September 14, 2015, 07:42:38 amI think he is referring to their sales of electric cars. I also think the main name recognition issue there is most people haven't really noticed that BMW and Mercedes are even selling electric cars.

author: AG6QR
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2015, 05:39:22 pm
content: Quote from: kaz911 on September 13, 2015, 05:18:21 pmAny legitimate patent is always "open sourced". A requirement of patent law is that, in order to be granted a patent, one must describe the invention in sufficient detail to allow any practitioner of the art to replicate the invention, and that description is a matter of public record in the published patent. Perhaps some patents do too much "hand waving" in their documentation, so that they don't quite meet this requirement, but if so, the patent should be declared invalid, if challenged.The whole premise of patent law is that, in exchange for making your invention public, you get the exclusive right to market it for a period of time.A side effect of this is that, if you have an interesting device that contains a patent number on it somewhere, you can usually get some very good insight on how it works by looking up the patent number on-line.

author: nfmax
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 14, 2015, 08:48:16 pm
content: Speaking as someone who has written a fair few, the aim of a patent description is to describe everything, but explain nothing...

author: Richard Crowley
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2015, 12:28:08 am
content: Pacific Gas & Electric (northern California) is paying $1000 to BMW electric car owners to delay charging until low-demand hours.It appears to be an automatic process where the electric utility notifies BMW that they are running out of capacity, and BMW controls the chargers over the internet to keep them from all piling up and charging at the same time. It says that they even track when you return home (and plug in your car) and how much charge is needed, etc. So they apply some artificial intelligence to manage the charging load on the utility grid.http://content.bmwusa.com/bmwi_pge/index.html

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2015, 02:19:40 am
content: Quote from: Richard Crowley on September 17, 2015, 12:28:08 amThat appears to be just an experiment. Its limited to 100 BMW owners. I think the snag is only owners whose usage pattern fits well with the charging restrictions are likely to apply. Then, the experiment doesn't see how well the managed charging system fits the average person's needs.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2015, 10:26:39 am
content: Quote from: Richard Crowley on September 17, 2015, 12:28:08 amAt some point I've read that they are considering using electric cars as a stabilizer for the electric grid. Like you plug in the car at work and at home to a smart charger, there are sufficient enough cars, so if the demand peaks, instead of increasing the power plant output, they just discharge the cars. Or if the PV, wind and other not controlled outputs are peaking.I think it makes total sense. It will smooth out the grid, and we don't need to invest that much into power plants and stuff. Everyone was so thrilled about it.Then someone asked, what happens if there is a disaster, flooding, hurricane etc... and the cars are not there anymore, or everyone decides they need their cars asap. Reliability will go down, because at some point you NEED the cars plugged in, otherwise the grid falls apart.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2015, 08:17:01 am
content: And there is a new problem, because all the houses, garages, needs to be elevated by a meter, because the stupid door they put on their cars now.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2015, 11:25:46 am
content: Quote from: NANDBlog on October 01, 2015, 08:17:01 amYou mean the Tesla SUV? That is bit of a fail indeed. Where do you park it to charge it? In the garage. But you cannot park it in the garage because the doors will hit the roof. Also many parking garages at hotels, shopping malls, etc have low ceilings and/or pipes hanging from the ceiling. With a normal car you have to be careful with the tail gate already.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2015, 01:51:59 pm
content: No, the doors are not a problem.In fact , they take up less motion space than a traditional door, whether turning or sliding.The door is double hinged and each section has actuators. The ultrasonics and proximity sensors scan the environment and the motion controller can figure out the optimum motion ( do igo up first, then out, or out first, then up , or do i follow some other motion curve. It can even retract around obstacles.The doors will not bump into anything.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2015, 02:20:17 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on October 01, 2015, 01:51:59 pmIf it was not for the 1 year wait list..... I think I would get one. It fits perfect for our new residence in London - with kids, sometime family - and and mostly "short trips" it is a nice car.

author: McBryce
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2015, 02:25:46 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on October 01, 2015, 01:51:59 pmThat may be, but they presented it as a solution to tight parking where the cars on either side are very close. This usually happens in undergound carparks... with very low ceilings, not out in the open. So what will the door do in that case? Stay closed I assume, because it can neither go out or up.McBryce.P.s. The CarAdvise Logo looks very similar to the Bateroo logo.. Aaaarrrggghh, no thread is safe!

author: Ice-Tea
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2015, 02:40:25 pm
content: Quote from: NANDBlog on September 24, 2015, 10:26:39 am"Wooooohh! My shiny new electric car! Now, how shall I spend the 1000+ charge cycles of it's 10 000€ battery? Oh, I know! I'll just let my utility company use them to stabilise the grid!"Me thinks not.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2015, 03:23:03 pm
content: Quote from: McBryce on October 01, 2015, 02:25:46 pmExactly! It is nice the doors don't bump into anything but if the car thinks the doors cannot open then what? Parking a SUV in the average European garage isn't fun anyway. With a normal door you can squeeze in & out. How to do that with gullwing doors? Crawl underneath them through the dirt? Nice idea but FAIL!

author: continuo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2015, 03:35:48 pm
content: Well, that's when the trunk lid may come in handy...

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2015, 03:44:03 pm
content: The doors don't look like they go up very high, maybe 6-7 feet from the ground. It might be different elsewhere, but I've never seen a parking garage with ceilings (or pipes etc) that low. Are the new doors necessary? With regular doors, you can generally open them into any space wide enough to walk out of, but the risk of chipping the paint is higher. My own concern is whether they can be opened after a crash with loss of power.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2015, 03:46:19 pm
content: Quote from: Ice-Tea on October 01, 2015, 02:40:25 pmThe pack comes with an 8 year unlimited mileage warranty. So no need to worry.Anyway, the lifespan of the pack is 18+ years.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2015, 03:48:06 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on October 01, 2015, 03:23:03 pmand that's the SUV's fault ? Build bigger garages !SUV = SMALL utility vehicle.... if your microscopic garage can't hold something small ....

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2015, 03:52:54 pm
content: No, SUV = Sport Utility Vehicle. The Cadillac Escalade is an SUV, as is the Hummer H2.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2015, 04:06:43 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on October 01, 2015, 03:48:06 pmNo SUV= 'Sukkelt U Voort'. There is nothing small (neither sporty) about an SUV.

author: Ice-Tea
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2015, 04:17:25 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on October 01, 2015, 03:46:19 pmIt comes with "8 year, infinite mile battery and drive unit warranty". Keywords being "mile" and "drive". It doesn't say anything about bailing out your local utility. My guess is that the fine print will not allow it and the car will monitor it. If it were an option, they would advertise it as an additional benifit: doubles as powerpack.

author: rx8pilot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2015, 04:37:46 pm
content: It's not exactly a challenge to prevent the car from giving out any energy. That warranty is superb but they need to make sure that are profitable too. The electric utility can buy their own batteries with the money they save from avoiding a whole plant to deal with peak demand.

author: johansen
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2015, 04:49:45 pm
content: Quote from: rx8pilot on October 01, 2015, 04:37:46 pmthe electric utility will install batteries after they are profitable.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2015, 04:52:15 pm
content: It's a 90kWh battery, using just 10% of that would provide a good grid stabilisation mechanism whilst preserving cell lifetime, imagine, 100,000 cars at 9kWh a piece and that's 900MWh right there. Not to mention the effective capacity created by simply delaying charging or slowing charging down during peak times. Would be nice to say to the car, "I need at least 100 miles tomorrow. Give me at least that, at the lowest cost." During periods of low demand, the car charges at the maximum current capability and to the maximum percentage. If the price per kW (not kWh, demand level pricing) increases, then the charge rate can be reduced or even suspended if the car can fully charge by the morning.The falcon doors are certainly divisive. I think that they will work well in some cases. A few cases I can see them not working and this might be a sales problem. First, it does solve the entry issue but only for the rear doors. You still have to do the clumsy entry/exit move with the front doors. Perhaps a full-width falcon door with no pillar? Secondly, how well will it work when several Model X cars park next to each other e.g. at a supercharger? Will two X's be able to open adjacent doors? Finally, crash safety. Even though it has the lowest rollover risk for an SUV, accidents happen and it will still be possible to roll it over. Will the doors detach in a rollover crash e.g. via explosive bolts like on the Mercedes gullwings?

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2015, 05:01:55 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on October 01, 2015, 03:48:06 pmNo the SUV means Wannabe Land Rover. I like the Model S, it is a nice car. And I totally get, that the American market means SUV. All in all, I dont like the new SUV, it is not practical, too expensive for off road, and the height is too low. To futuristic to be mainstream. Too many seats. How many people are using an American car in average? 1.2?But I'm sure you will sell a few thousand of it, and overall it will be a success.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2015, 06:06:02 pm
content: Quote from: Ice-Tea on October 01, 2015, 04:17:25 pmwho said anything about using the cars pack to stabilize the grid ? i may have misread that.That is why we have the powerwall and power pack. those are intended for that purpose.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2015, 06:48:16 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on October 01, 2015, 06:06:02 pmSome people have the idea to degrade your car's battery pack more quickly by using it as a grid demand equalizerBetter use old cells and/or cells which where not approved for use in a car battery pack for such purposes. I guess Tesla (also) has a machine to test/measure/match cells before they go into a battery pack?

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2015, 07:49:48 pm
content: Perfect example of USA supersizing is the "New Mini". FFS, it is supposed to be a small, compact, affordable vehicle. Not something approaching the size of the average SUV, and then you get the "Clubman" which is the same or larger than the smaller SUV's in any case.The original mini was small, and you could park 2 of them in any standard parking spot ( and in some bays 3 would fit), it was light on fuel ( for the time at least), reliable and most importantly low cost. Not something that you can park the original one in the rear and still close the door, and priced at a level that makes it a luxury car.

author: McBryce
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2015, 07:54:49 pm
content: Quote from: SeanB on October 01, 2015, 07:49:48 pmThat's because they've created a new cult from the old one. The people who are into the "mini-cult" today have no experience of, or connection to the original mini like (old people) we do. The modern mini isn't targeted at the original mini generation.McBryce.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2015, 10:37:34 pm
content: Quote from: SeanB on October 01, 2015, 07:49:48 pmThe Mini is very affordable in Germany, but they then priced it as a luxury car in our export countries. Fuel economy on the Mini is average to good for a car of its size/weight (weighing as much some European D segment Large Family Cars).

author: djacobow
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2015, 11:30:25 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on October 01, 2015, 06:48:16 pmAgreed, it's a bad idea. In theory, if you could get paid for the service and the value of the service was greater than the wear an tear on the battery, it could make sense. In practice, it is very far from making sense, as the battery is valuable and lots of other resources can provide the same service for less.However, you do not have to discharge a battery at all in order to use it for grid management services -- if you have some flexibility. Imagine you have a battery that needs 20kWh of top-up and you have a 4kW charger at home. You get home from work at 7pm and leave again at 7am. You only care that the battery is fully charged in the morning. The charger could charge the battery in 5 hours at 4kW. But why not let the battery charge at 2kW? It will be still be done by morning. Moreover, in response to a signal from the power company, the charge rate could be varied from, say 0.5kW (or whatever the reasonable lower limit is) to 4kW. From the power company's perspective, they get a lot of flexibility and from your perspective, the battery is charged safely, and it all happens while you sleep.Even if you were to have the system default to the full charge rate, the charger could still be throttled down during peak periods and that would be valuable to the electric operator.The ability to increase generation (or decrease load) or decrease generation (or increase load) is called Reg Up and Reg Down in the industry, and it's important. Have a certain amount of flexible capacity available to provide RegUp and RegDown services means that you can drastically reduce the amount of throttling of large power plants or (which makes them much less efficient) or starting up the smaller, much more expensive peakers plant.If you ask me, in some future scenario where there are LOTS of electric cars, they will dominate the power system, it's hard to imagine we will invest in sufficient capacity that they can be treated just like any other uncontrollable residential load. It is much more likely that they will be brought into the fold, so to speak, as a dispatchable resources. This is because it will be a significant new load on the power system. Moreover, if we plan on switching to a mostly-renewable power system, then the supply will be more variable, too. Leaving the flexibility of a large new load like this on the table would be foolish.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2015, 01:14:14 am
content: The problem I see is that the users need to be able to tell when they need their batteries full. Some leave at 4:00 in the morning while others leave at 9:00. So what will everybody choose: have the battery full by 4:00. In other words: that load balancing / spreading isn't going to work. I'm sceptical about charging at home anyway because the infrastructure isn't up to the task. Supercharging is more likely to be a viable solution. That way you can concentrate infrastructure and energy storage in one place.

author: djacobow
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2015, 02:05:35 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on October 02, 2015, 01:14:14 amSupercharge or residential, the load is the same from the utility perspective. Actually, the supercharger is worse. However, if superchargers are very bursty, (That is, their peak use is much higher than their average use), the utility has special ways to punish the owners of the charging station (Google "demand charges.") Right now , utilities do not generally apply demand charges to residential customers, but they could one day, in which case users might find that they /want/ to participate in these kinds of programs.I agree there is some complexity in getting the user's intent relayed to the controlling utility. Do you want your car to participate? Do you want to be sure that at least 75% capacity is available by time X and 90% by time Y. It's not hard to imagine a console where you essentially bid in your willingness.What it all comes down to is how you pay for electricity. Right now, the vast majority of residential customers pay volumetrically ($/kWh) with no time variation, no demand charge, no price variability whatsoever. This gives the customers no incentive not to care when they use electric power, but that will become increasingly untenable, for example, when an entire fleet of vehicles comes home from work and plugs in at more or less the same time. The utilities will find a way to convey the cost impacts of those usage patterns.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2015, 02:18:29 am
content: Quote from: djacobow on October 02, 2015, 02:05:35 amYou missed where I wrote:That way you can concentrate infrastructure andenergy storagein one placeIts the combination which makes sense. No upgrade of residential infrastructure and guaranteed capacity for peak smearing due to the storage facility. Win-win.

author: djacobow
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2015, 03:11:12 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on October 02, 2015, 02:18:29 amI did miss it. In reality, if the supercharger has storage so that it can smooth out its demand, it is merely self-serving that particular service. That is, if the cost of the storage is less than the cost of the utility providing the equivalent service (the service being the capacity to meet peak instantaneous needs and also provide for all energy needs) then, sure have at it. Storage costs today do not justify it, but if you have vision you might see the situation reversing.

author: johansen
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2015, 12:41:34 am
content: it seems most of these conversations circle around letting the utility control the systeminstead, why not just have a flexible rate. let the market decide what to do with that information.

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2015, 12:50:38 am
content: Quote from: johansen on October 03, 2015, 12:41:34 amHow do you keep track of what the rate is? It's not like economy 7 would work if everyone has relatively massive energy storage. The utilities would want to change the price dependant on the immediate grid wide demand, not average demand for a particular time of day.

author: johansen
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2015, 02:40:08 am
content: you keep track of the rate the same way the grid would control your waterheater, heatpump, or luxury electric car.keep the standards open, not closed and the market will find solutions.there used to be systems where the utility would send 1050hz down the line and various devices would loadshed from that signal; this is probably the simplest way to do it.

author: HackedFridgeMagnet
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2015, 02:58:03 am
content: Quote from: johansen on October 03, 2015, 12:41:34 am^ Yes this is the future.Have the meters only logging instantaneous power, time, local grid voltage and making the loads the smart ones.Also the utilities would be wise to (somehow) link in the price to local grid voltage anomalies. Hopefully to prevent unnecessary disconnects of solar powered grid tie inverters when the grid voltage is nearing max on sunny days.

author: johansen
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2015, 03:20:03 am
content: Quote from: HackedFridgeMagnet on October 03, 2015, 02:58:03 amwell individual grids attempt to keep their system within the limits according to their own arbitrary standards, in their own ways.its simple enough to adjust the tap changers, and turn on and off various distributed capacitor banks, but its another to try and offshore that information into residential systems.whatever solutions are found here, require a lot of information to be transfered, perhaps in both directions.

author: djacobow
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2015, 10:13:18 pm
content: Quote from: HackedFridgeMagnet on October 03, 2015, 02:58:03 amIt's a future. Technically, I think we can all agree that the same (well, almost the same) infrastructure that would have utilities directly controlling load inside the home is one that could bring a price signal into the home and let the appliance and/or their users react appropriately.The latter is perhaps the "first best" solution from an economics standpoint, but it might not be easy to get there in one leap. For one, the smart appliances for the most part don't exist. And even when they do exist, it might not be super obvious to most people how to convey their market preferences (their demand curve) to the appliances, particularly when their personal demand curve is likely to change with their mood, the day of the week, the weather. whether they are hosting a party that night, etc. And I can assure you having worked in the utility industry that getting people to understand their utility bill as it is today is hard enough -- it will be 100x as hard when the price varied continuously in 5 minute intervals over the past month. You also might find that people won't want to all be exposed to the spot market energy price (which can vary wildly, by the way, from negative prices to $ thousands /MWh. So, that's fine, you can offer people financial hedges against their average load. This is also good economics. Customers are still exposed to the true price on the margin, but if they don't want to risk getting a huge bill unexpectedly, they can hedge most of their load against some futures price. The only problem is that you now have the problem of explaining hedging to Joe Customer.That's why I think some kind of compromises are probably going to happen. For example, you might allow utility to control X or Y appliance in return for a fixed monthly discount. Or, you might sign up for a time-varying rate, but one that does not float on the market, but is pre-hedged to a few standard time-of-use tiers, etc. There are a lot of ways to crack the nut. Rate design is an art and a science. All that said, EV charging load is almost certain to become "market active" in some way or another.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2015, 10:53:51 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on October 02, 2015, 01:14:14 amnot really a problem. your average home has a 100 to 200 amp feed.the main fuse for an air conditioner is a 40 amp breaker at 240 volt. the grid handles that just fine with all homes running their airco.so charging at night you can run at 24 amp. i charge mine ( if i charge it a t home) with 24 amps at 240 volts. starting at 10pm ( lowest tariff ) till 6am i can get 46 Kilowatts in the pack. that is more than half the pack.not a problem for the grid to handle that, as it is less than what my airconditioning pulls

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2015, 11:13:42 pm
content: Quote from: djacobow on October 03, 2015, 10:13:18 pmThat is what we ended up with in Australia, though very few of the time of use tariff structures offered (they all vary from retailer to retailer) are attractive at all when you actually look at the ability to shift load without batteries and some contracts even prohibit using energy storage devices!

author: djacobow
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2015, 01:55:07 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on October 03, 2015, 10:53:51 pmActually, really a problem. The issue is not at your house, which probably has ample capacity (NB: I'd dispute your assertion about the _average_ home's panel capacity. There are a lot of older homes out there). The issue is throughout the distribution system, starting with the local pole can transformer. The utility installed in XX years ago. It was designed to handle the load of a few homes and its capacity is maybe 50kVA. But transformers are robust devices and they can handle short overloads. That is, the system was designed with a diversity of load in mind, not for the uncommon situation when each household is simultaneously drawing 40kW for an extended period.The problem just aggregates as you move up the chain of distribution. The utility installed those transformers with a certain lifespan in mind, using certain guidelines for the size and location of the homes connected, along with some estimates of load growth over time. Throw in a very large new load and the whole game changes.It's not an insurmountable problem, just a problem. If home charging of electric cars does become widespread, there will be a lot of transformer upgrades and probably a fair amount of reconductoring work, too. That will show up in your bill, sooner or later. I am not an expert in electric rates around the world, but in Northern California, where I live, retail rates break down to about 40% distribution, 20% transmission, and 40% energy. (Here's PG&E's current basic residential tariff for reference:http://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_E-1.pdf)Of course, there are cheaper ways of managing this problem then just upgrading the entire distribution system to handle just about everyone charging their car on a 40A 22V charger simultaneously. One such way is to control (either directly or through prices) when and how EVs charge.

author: djacobow
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2015, 01:59:34 am
content: Quote from: Someone on October 03, 2015, 11:13:42 pmYes, I have heard of that prohibiting storage devices. You have to understand, utilities are not exactly the most forward thinking organizations. And they see all kinds of self-generation, self-arbitrage, or self-anything as a threat to their business and their domain -- and they are right. But I say, that is for them to deal with. EVs and storage are coming, whether they like it or not.That said, utility obstructionism aside, some of the difficulties with EVs, distributed solar, storage, etc, are real.It sounds like where you are in AUS they have a liberalized market, hence the choice in retailers. In many parts of the world (including most of the US) they are well behind even that.

author: dr.diesel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2015, 11:13:24 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on October 03, 2015, 10:53:51 pmThis is only partially true, what about the winter?Heat pumps are very common in the US, a huge number of them with electric/resistive backup. My electric energy usage was WAY (2-3x) more in winter than summer, 60 amp breaker for main heat pump, additional 60 amp breaker for electric backup (I never measured actual). (I've since decommissioned my central setup for (3) Mitsubishi 30.5 SEER units, no electric backup needed, a HUGE reduction on usage)Total electric heating is the cheapest to purchase/install, most expensive to run, but many end up with it. I still see many houses with electric baseboard heat,Nobody is going to wait till after peak to walk out and plug in their EV, a programmable schedule, or some sort of automatic grid detection would help. (Perhaps part of this already exists?)

author: bookaboo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2015, 01:21:52 pm
content: Interesting discussion straight from the horses mouth of the UK grid:At around 5.40 and 9.40 they discuss the surplus of over night energy and capacity available for charging cars.

author: dr.diesel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2015, 01:35:55 pm
content: I failed to complete my thoughts above,Although summer and winter peaks do put additional load on the grid, it's EV adoption rates that will determine grid shortages. At the current rate capacity expansion and planning can easily keep up.However, if Tesla or whoever were to release a competitively priced model, combined with $4-5/gal fuel, the story might be different. A $40k, 300+ mile vehicle, another fuel crisis, war, etc?

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2015, 03:53:37 pm
content: Quote from: djacobow on October 04, 2015, 01:55:07 amSuch systems are not going to work. The NL government has tried to tax people out of their cars for decades but that has had no effect at all (more cars and more kilometers travelled every year). People still need to get to work so they just send the bill for the extra tax to their employers. With charging EVs it is the same: People need their cars in the morning to go to work so the peak load will always be there during the evening and night.

author: djacobow
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2015, 04:01:05 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on October 04, 2015, 03:53:37 pmI don't know NL, but in CA, peak load is around 5-8pm. That would be a bad time for cars to charge. Starting at 10pm through the wee hours is a great time to charge cars. How is that incompatible with cars being charged in the morning?By historical standards, midday is also a bad time to charge cars. But there is enough solar in CA that solar noon prices are being depressed and there will soon be a glut of energy during that period, so a great time to charge EVs.My point is that there are ways to do this that barely inconvenience anybody. Building out massive infrastructure with capacity enough for everyone to plug in a 10kVA charger near-simultaneously is just the "I have a hammer" solution. Not only would distribution need to be improved, but you would probably need a lot of peaking generation or grid storage, too. Peaking generation (like an open cycle combustion turbine) is low efficiency and the idea of using grid batteries to charge EV batteries should make any thoughtful engineering blush.

author: dv2600
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: October 10, 2015, 04:30:58 pm
content: My cars.[ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ]

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2015, 10:52:17 pm
content: When do you drive with them?

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2015, 11:25:13 pm
content: afaict, the peak to average load for the US is close to 2, that's a lot of available capacity if you can figure out a way to use itsomething like 20% of the generating capacity only used for a few hundred hours during a year

author: lewis
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 11, 2015, 12:44:19 am
content: Quote from: dv2600 on October 10, 2015, 04:30:58 pmHere's mine:(no I do not have a small penis)

author: edy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 11, 2015, 01:32:20 am
content: I am not sure if this has already been touched upon in this this thread, but I wonder how much further along we could be in modifying our behavior with existing technology as compared to just moving ahead as usual on purely electric.For example, telecommuting options are not being used to their full potential. Staggering work hours to minimize congestion. Making cities more affordable to avoid long commuting. Bicycle infrastructure, public transit and apps to facilitate ride sharing and carpooling. Hybrid cars that can plug in and use electric when crawling along at 10 mph in traffic. Being more efficient planning shopping trips. Smaller cars and not huge fast powerfully performing beasts.Do you really think just buying a Tesla or other all electric is the answer to all our problems, without stopping to fundamentally think what is wrong with the society and urban planning that got us here in the first place?

author: rx8pilot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 12, 2015, 06:27:56 pm
content: electric cars are nothing more than something to break the ice of a long term energy scheme and changes in how society operates day-to-day.Historically, humans are only reactive on average. a few people have visionary peeks into the future, but VERY few. In this topic of energy, only a catastrophe of massive proportions will drive change. Tiny incremental changes like battery powered cars that happen over huge spans of time will not make any real difference. The cold war/space race inspired whole nations to develop space technology and go to the moon in a VERY short time span. The driver was purely national pride. The smartest, brightest, and bravest people signed up to be a part of the space race. The scientific advancements were underwritten by two of the largest and most economically powerful nations on earth and carried out by an enormous number of smart people. I would go out on a limb and guess that the primary motivation for each individual involved was not the benefit of space exploration, but rather "WINNING" the space race. Being first. Fly the highest. Fly the fastest. Fly the farthest. The long term benefit to society was simply a consequence of the efforts.Today, we need a similar motivator in energy as a matter of long term survival. If the climate change does not kill us, then dried up oil reserves will. Exactly when, no one really knows. But it is awfully hard to argue that oil can be consumed at this rate indefinitely - there is a finite amount that took many millions of years for natural forces to create. Right now, I see the energy race as a business plan. That will take a VERY long time. If getting a man on the moon in the 60's was a business plan that needed to be profitable, we would not know who Neil Armstrong is today. Energy efficiency and production has to be bigger than private business to advance. All the nations of the world should be prioritizing energy challenges and they can allow private businesses to develop around the discoveries. There are plenty of ways a nation get financial payback over a long period of time.I support the various efforts of Tesla and other companies, not because the Model S will save the world, but because they are planting the seeds for a better conversation. I can only hope that the conversation matures into one that drives change as a matter of pride and achievement with the largest nations of the world. It should be seen like the ultimate Olympics. Only this game the gold medal is long term survival of humans.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 13, 2015, 12:34:06 am
content: The problem is we now have too many againstalists. People don't want change.I once saw a graph for nuclear fusion with investment versus time to achieve. At the current investment scale the time to achieve is likely to be never.

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 13, 2015, 08:15:24 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on October 13, 2015, 12:34:06 amThis technology, and other potentional cheap/clean/nice energy sources have huge drawbacks too.

author: rx8pilot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 13, 2015, 05:57:49 pm
content: Quote from: Galenbo on October 13, 2015, 08:15:24 amI think that is a big reason things move so slow. Too many people are looking for a miracle energy solution that is perfect from the first day and did not require any effort to achieve. Take a look back at the early development of the ICE and the automobile. In the early days they were expensive, there were very few suitable roads, there were no gas stations, no service centers, spare parts were very hard to come by, etc, etc....The process started with private industry and some genius thinkers, but it took the governments full cooperation to build roads and other services to support this new revolution in transportation. Once the infrastructure was in place, private business blossomed all along the roads - service stations, restaurants, hotels, etc. If the worlds governments take a look at the various budding energy options and figure out how to support the development and growth of these technologies in a meaningful way - things will change for the better and quickly.The governments of the largest nations are the only entities that can look at a 40-50 investment as reasonable. Private industry needs to see ROI in less than a decade which is too short to re-tool the way we make and use energy. It will take many decades to turn a corner.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 16, 2015, 09:06:41 pm
content: Quote from: ErikTheNorwegian on October 16, 2015, 05:56:19 pmExcept the price is not a "few" dollars:https://www.ssb.no/en/energi-og-industri/statistikker/elkraftpris/kvartal/2015-09-16Norway certainly is one of the more attractive countries to power a car with electricity:Quote from: Someone on July 07, 2015, 05:23:34 amAnd since residential electricity sells for much higher than the "average" in that plot you would save less than 50% in fuel costs, the other incentives are what drive the sudden uptake but governments are famous for putting in place short term incentives and then taking them away.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 16, 2015, 09:40:54 pm
content: Full charge of 85kWh battery takes about 95kWh energy and costs £12 in this country. That gets you 265 EPA miles, real world around 220 miles. Or 5.4p per mile. A typical 20 mile commute to and from work would cost around £2.I drive a diesel hatchback that does about 40 mpg city, 52 mpg motorway (approx 47 mpg combined.) A litre of diesel costs £1.07 right now, which is really cheap for diesel. (Historically it's been in the £1.40-1.50 range.) That litre will get me 10.3 miles, representing costs of approximately 11p per mile.So straight away the Tesla is about 2x cheaper to "fuel". But let's think about other costs. My diesel car is far from luxury, nor is it fast, producing just over 95 bhp. If I were to trade it in for a luxury equivalent - say a 535i BMW - that would do about 25 mpg. I also have to change oil and filters, replace brakes periodically, pay the tax man, and deal with unforseen engine problems.If I'm clever, I'd switch my energy plan to "economy7" style billing and take advantage of cheap night time energy to charge my car, at typically half the normal rate.Of course this is all academic while a Tesla is a £50,000+ car. If it was in the £20~£30k range then the savings become much more noticeable. That kind of range is still expensive, but within the range of affordable for a lot of people especially on a loan.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 17, 2015, 01:28:06 am
content: Quote from: tom66 on October 16, 2015, 09:40:54 pmthis is the sort of comparison that should be shared, accurate and fair.Mercedes is fighting in the same market as the Tesla S, you can easily compare their E300 Bluetec (or other W205 models) to the Teslas on price and performance, then its left to the unknowns about maintenance and longevity. For total cost of ownership small cheap petrol cars are going to be the optimal for many years to come.

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 17, 2015, 03:15:46 pm
content: Quote from: Someone on October 17, 2015, 01:28:06 amExcept the fuel price that is used contains irrational road taxes. So far for the "fair". The price without these taxes is only 33% to 43%.0.5052 euro/liter today. But of course, illegal to drive on the road.

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 17, 2015, 04:55:59 pm
content: Quote from: Galenbo on October 17, 2015, 03:15:46 pmThe same is true of electricity prices too :/

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 17, 2015, 10:08:48 pm
content: Quote from: Galenbo on October 17, 2015, 03:15:46 pmFuel tax is justified on the basis that those using it to fuel their road vehicles are costing society in various ways, obviously governments would not be happy if everyone changed over to electricity and they lost this large source of income. Most governments are actively and passively encouraging electric car uptake right now but governments change and those incentives (such as the lower taxation proportional to road use) aren't likely to last for long. A famous example from Australia was the government grant/rebate to convert cars to operate on LPG promoting the lower fuel costs, now with the increase in LPG use the government is increasing the excise/levy/tax on LPG to bring its fuel costs closer to that of petrol:http://www.allianz.com.au/car-insurance/news/the-rising-cost-of-lpg-in-australiaYou can read a much more detailed look at Australia's fuel excise system here:http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp0001/01RP06

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2015, 11:43:43 pm
content: Quote from: Mechanical Menace on October 17, 2015, 04:55:59 pmNot in my country, how is that done in your country?

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2015, 12:18:34 am
content: You don't have VAT in your country?Plus taxes on coal and natural gas in the form of carbon taxing?And corporation tax on profits?

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2015, 02:08:37 am
content: Yes, btw on all products, belastingen on company's profits.Taxes means here what the goverment steals on top of it, when they still don't have enough, or just because they can.I'm not aware of those extra taxes on electricity, but ready for details.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2015, 11:05:12 am
content: Quote from: Galenbo on October 20, 2015, 02:08:37 amThat is because here the price of electricity works like a black box, we have no idea what we are paying for. I had hard time just looking it up, how much /KWh I'm actually paying.I've payed electricity bill in a different country, there it was detailed, like 20 different lines, including the extra pension payed for some workers retired in the communist era ( like 0.3 cent per KWh). It was at the back of the bill.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2015, 11:34:23 am
content: Over here the electricity bill is split into generation costs, transportation costs and various taxes.

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2015, 03:42:37 pm
content: Quote from: Galenbo on October 19, 2015, 11:43:43 pmGoing by ofgem figures the 5% VAT and the 7% 'environmental and social costs*' are direct taxes on customers. The pre tax margin (9%), operating costs (14%), network costs (23%), and wholesale costs (42%) all have their own taxes and duties. My electricity company makes a big deal on my bills that they only get 5% for their margin after tax and that 40%ish of the cost of the other areas are also taxes, duties, green charges etc... So 12% is a direct and easily tracked tax on the consumer and of the remaining 35%ish goes to the government or must be spent in ways the government proscribes. That comes out at about 47% of what I pay for my electricity is in one way or another a tax. Now whether that's too much is another debate but it's directly comparable with road legal petrol and diesel.*I.e. the 'free' insulation, energy saving bulbs, 'how to save energy' campaigns etc energy companies have to provide.

author: lewis
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2015, 09:30:35 pm
content: Quote from: Mechanical Menace on October 20, 2015, 03:42:37 pmYep, gov't gotta have their slice. About 60% of a litre of UK Diesel is direct taxation in VAT and duty, let alone the tax on the oil companies' and retailers' profits. And all this disproportionately affects the poor. Energycouldbe a lot cheaper if we had the will.

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2015, 12:01:14 am
content: So Consumer Reports took away their recommendation on the Model S because reliability fell below average.http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2015/10/20/tesla-consumer-reports-reliability/74278144/Tesla noted that the same people that responded to the Consumer Reports survey gave them best in the world for service and loyalty.But obviously you can still have best service but still have poor reliability if major parts have to be serviced.Consumer Reports still stands with their test results of 103 out of 100 and the claim that it is the best car they ever tested, also noting that it's not the 1st time a car performs excellent during performance testing but has poor overall reliability in the wild as it was the same case with the Corvette.100% torque 100% of the time is a killer for drivetrains and the motors, but who can fault an owner for stepping on the juice every so often?The sunroof problems and leaks make less sense, maybe they were badly installed or something.The squeaks and rattles, well I'm not sure if they still use the bonded aluminum that Lotus did for them for the roadster but my Lotus Elise sqeaks and rattles and I love every one of those noises, but then again it's not a luxury car where that would be annoying for their target group.But I'm pretty sure they don't use the Lotus Platform but maybe they still do the bonded aluminum chassis.At least Tesla is not keeping quiet and they are addressing the bad publicity but it did have an impact on their stock. But no worries, I'm pretty sure it will climb right up.Anyways, I wish Tesla a good recovery in the stock exchange.Edit: minor spell mistakes.

author: rx8pilot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2015, 12:57:31 am
content: In the big scheme of things, I think the issues reported in CS are a minor bump in the road for Tesla. The thing they seem to have more than other car companies is human energy and pride. That does not mean they don't make mistakes, it means that they will likely respond faster than the competition. To work for a new and yet-to-be-proven company like Tesla means the talent is not risk averse and is interested in doing something more unique and special.