Trying hard to not make this political

[Greg]

I may have my facts wrong, but I heard we only have so much lithium etc . to make so many batteries, so we still need to advance our technology. Electric cars have their pollution issues also and are far from the answer. Also keeping old cars has a benefit to the ecology by less waste etc.. The bright side? Many of us might be dead by the time it gets bad for our cars to use. Also alternative fuel cars save oil for our cars. Even if our cars are still allowed on the road, will they get vandalized etc. like Hummer's did? I don't like politics here, but if it is about our cars and we try to not show our biases then it can be tolerable. The two main parties (which I don't belong to) are both at fault for our problems and we need to work together and not be divisive. Things took a much worse direction in our politics before the current president whom owns a great 1967 Corvette by the way. Every year it will be harder to find parts and people to work on our cars and If you aren't willing to do it yourself is it fair to blame the system or others or who would rather do something else also? Many people would love to have these problems. I would love to work on my cars and learn which I don't know and face all the challenges. Unfortunately I already work over 60 hours a week restoring non car things and can just dream for now.

 

[71ProjectJunk]

I have always though the the CURRENT perfect solution for cars are hybrids. You can get great fuel economy around town by using the batteries and when you need to go far, you have your ICE engine, but the current powers that be have decided to go all out on the electric vehicles as they can tout them as "zero emissions" and get all types of political brownie points for that. In reality all the electric cars will accomplish it to move the pollution from the rich cities and countries of the world and drop it into the laps of the poor countries and areas of the world. It will probably be the biggest transfer of environmental waste and pollution from the richest to the poorest in the history of man... Regrettably we live in this "sealed box" of a world, so no matter where you move the pollution to, it eventually ends up affecting the world equally.
Interestingly some of the environmentalist, like the guy on the previous video, are now also stating that renewable energy is not a solution either. They are all coming back to nuclear now. It's not like a lot of people weren't telling all the environmentalist that renewables were not the answer for 2-3 decades, back then the facts did not matter, and still today, the facts do not matter. We are going all in on renewables, just like we did with E85 fuel, FACTS BE DAMMED! Just as E85 was later found out to be worse for the environment than gasoline, eventually solar and wind will end up in the same place, after trillions of dollars have been squandered, and after our very reliable electric gird is completely unreliable. The answer has always been nuclear, and if not for the fear mongering, with all the money we have spent on renewables, we could by now have almost 100% cheap reliable electricity produced by nuclear plants...
Super interesting video from Time Magazines “Hero of the Environment” and energy expert, Michael Shellenberge:

 

[will e]

Nice job guys on keeping it mostly non-political and, more importantly, not attacking each other if we don't agree.

I am 100% ICE at the moment but will look at an electric pickup truck when it's time to get rid of my Colorado. My old cars are all hybrids, they burn both gas and oil...
Agree, there are lots of things to think about with EV. Grid/batteries/limited supply/road taxes/etc.
Also keep in mind that EV's are heavier which means they wear down the roads quicker.
Charging 'at home' will be a problem for a very large number of people. Yes you can charge on 110v. You can even limit the amp draw on some of the EV's. But many many people do not live in single family homes and live in apartments/condos where charging stations will be more of an issue. Over time solutions will come up for multi-family housing but it will be expensive and retrofitting will be really expensive. Battery swapping might be the answer, I know some of the manufactures are looking at it.
Self driving cars may help push the EV revolution too. Instead of owning a car you summon one when needed. Sure it doesn't have to be electric but by not having to charge the car yourself it opens the market up to many more people.
I wish the renewable folks would get behind nuclear. A strong nuclear infrastructure could provide the base power needed and that would make the solar/wind more attractive.

An electric pickup for me is a good use case. I like the flexibility of a pickup but I don't drive many miles each day/week so I could charge it at home on 110v and it would work out most of the time. The problem is I do one or two 'road trips' each year and, again, the pickup truck is the most practical for carrying our stuff along. I will have to understand better how our trips might be impacted if we go EV. I know it means stopping and charging. How often and how long will be the questions for the specific trips we take and is that inconvenience worth it .

And I generally don't trust the Government or politicians on either side of the aisle. (But I love my country).

 

[Steve McMahan]

Lithium is everywhere. Here in So Cal, there’s a “white gold rush” underway at the Salton Sea. Each car uses about 8 to 10 pounds of the stuff, and with the geothermal sites, we have even more to offer.

 

[detritusmaximus]

A couple thoughts...
We have no resources of any kind that are not finite, except sunlight, which is nearly infinite for all practical purposes. Lithium will not last forever, but there are other battery technologies yet to come.
Even solar cell tech is evolving. There is a new technology being developed that promises significant leaps in efficiency (faster charging). Even a new induction charging application built into the roads to recharge as you drive, ideally at a break even level.
Fossil fuels will never completely go away, but you might not like the price. Oil will be needed for lubrication and plastics, that will never end.
EVs are excellent in urban areas, the real problem is distance traveled, like city to city or just living in a rural area.
We've already been shipping our pollution overseas for decades. The First World moves on with technology, the Second and Third World lag behind, but still progress. In fact, the Third World may be able to skip over some of what we went thru since in many places they haven't a fully developed energy grid to begin with.
I can't think of any adoption of a transformational technology ever where we waited until the infrastructure was in place first. Plus, new technology is almost always adopted by the rich first, many times as just a symbol of status. Eventually, the price starts to drop and the market demand reaches downward.

 

[71ProjectJunk]

Nice job guys on keeping it mostly non-political and, more importantly, not attacking each other if we don't agree.

I am 100% ICE at the moment but will look at an electric pickup truck when it's time to get rid of my Colorado. My old cars are all hybrids, they burn both gas and oil...
Agree, there are lots of things to think about with EV. Grid/batteries/limited supply/road taxes/etc.
Also keep in mind that EV's are heavier which means they wear down the roads quicker.
Charging 'at home' will be a problem for a very large number of people. Yes you can charge on 110v. You can even limit the amp draw on some of the EV's. But many many people do not live in single family homes and live in apartments/condos where charging stations will be more of an issue. Over time solutions will come up for multi-family housing but it will be expensive and retrofitting will be really expensive. Battery swapping might be the answer, I know some of the manufactures are looking at it.
Self driving cars may help push the EV revolution too. Instead of owning a car you summon one when needed. Sure it doesn't have to be electric but by not having to charge the car yourself it opens the market up to many more people.
I wish the renewable folks would get behind nuclear. A strong nuclear infrastructure could provide the base power needed and that would make the solar/wind more attractive.

An electric pickup for me is a good use case. I like the flexibility of a pickup but I don't drive many miles each day/week so I could charge it at home on 110v and it would work out most of the time. The problem is I do one or two 'road trips' each year and, again, the pickup truck is the most practical for carrying our stuff along. I will have to understand better how our trips might be impacted if we go EV. I know it means stopping and charging. How often and how long will be the questions for the specific trips we take and is that inconvenience worth it .

And I generally don't trust the Government or politicians on either side of the aisle. (But I love my country).

My wife the other day asked me about what they would do with electric tractor trailers, and other heavy equipment, she said that there were people saying that the batteries would be an issue as charging times would be incredibly long. As you mentioned, battery swapping, would be an easy solution for big rigs. If you had time, you could charge the truck normally, but if you need to keep driving, you would just swap the battery assembly. There would have to be tons of battery swapping stations, and the tractor trailer would just need to go in, the complete battery pack assembly would be pulled out of the tractor trailer, and a newly charged one would be put in place, and off you go. Obviously you would need to have a quick disconnect, and quick removal battery assembly, that can be pulled out and replaced in 10 minutes or so. The only issue I can think of is that you could be changing an old battery pack with 100,000 miles that is basically done for, and getting a new one in there that is good to go another 100,000 miles. I guess the battery pack assembly would need to have a life gauge that will say what life percentage the battery has, and you would be given a battery pack with about the same life percentage in exchange, or if you got one with more life percentage you would be charged an additional fee. After a certain point the battery would no longer be serviceable and you would need to buy a new one, or the battery station could take it in as an exchange for a better one, or a new one. The old one would then be recycled.

 

[71ProjectJunk]

A couple thoughts...
We have no resources of any kind that are not finite, except sunlight, which is nearly infinite for all practical purposes. Lithium will not last forever, but there are other battery technologies yet to come.
Even solar cell tech is evolving. There is a new technology being developed that promises significant leaps in efficiency (faster charging). Even a new induction charging application built into the roads to recharge as you drive, ideally at a break even level.
Fossil fuels will never completely go away, but you might not like the price. Oil will be needed for lubrication and plastics, that will never end.
EVs are excellent in urban areas, the real problem is distance traveled, like city to city or just living in a rural area.
We've already been shipping our pollution overseas for decades. The First World moves on with technology, the Second and Third World lag behind, but still progress. In fact, the Third World may be able to skip over some of what we went thru since in many places they haven't a fully developed energy grid to begin with.
I can't think of any adoption of a transformational technology ever where we waited until the infrastructure was in place first. Plus, new technology is almost always adopted by the rich first, many times as just a symbol of status. Eventually, the price starts to drop and the market demand reaches downward.

All resources are not infinite, at some point even the sun will die, but man will long have incinerated before that happens, so for all practical purposes sun light is infinite. The one issue with all this is that we are being duped into going all gung ho into all this renewable energy and electric vehicles as if this will somehow stop "climate change" and save the environment. Where we are right now with electric cars, we are just moving the pollution from one place in the planet to another, and with renewables we are just making the electric grids not as reliable as they used to be, while building these huge solar farms that do an enormous amount of damage to the environment. We are still burning a ton of fossil fuels, as when the sun is not out and the wind is not blowing, we are burning fossil fuels to take up the slack. The damage being done to the environment and the pollution created by having to mine all the minerals necessary to build all the batteries and solar panels is real, and at the end of the day, those minerals will not last forever either. I agree that eventually we will get to battery technology that is far superior to what we have now, solar panels will also be much more efficient, but even then, there is an environmental and climate impact that cannot me mitigated by any technology that we can currently foresee. We will still need to be mining all these elements from the ground, producing enormous amounts of environmental damage and pollution, we will still end up with incredibly huge amounts of used solar panels and batteries, which will need to be somehow recycled of disposed of, and we will still be polluting the environment with fossil fuels to take up the gaps in electric production from renewables. Nuclear has none of the disadvantages of renewables, it is 100% clean, and there is no waste that goes into the environment as either pollution or material waste, as with all the renewables. Plus nuclear power ends up being much cheaper to the end consumer than renewables. According to scientist there is enough uranium in the world to power all the nuclear plants currently in use for the next 60,000 years, it's just that a lot of it is in the sea, and is not currently economical to get it. There is also a new technology called a fuel-recycling fast-breeder reactors, which generate more fuel than they consume. they would use less than 1 percent of the uranium needed for current light water reactors. Breeder reactors could match today's nuclear output for 30,000 years using only current estimated supplies of Uranium, which does not include what is in the sea...

 

[skerwath]

Bolivia has A LOT of Lithium, and the happen to be on this side of the planet.

 

[Dark Horse]

There are currently electric tractor trailers and in my industry there are even electric cranes and telehandlers. Not sure exactly how they are re-charged but they are here...

 

[tony-muscle]

This is an excerpt from a very good article in the SAE magazine where it compares the minerals used in electric and ICE vehicles, and where those minerals come from. These tables tell a a lot of the story:
PS: guess what? Unfortunately Russia has a lot of these minerals

 

[tony-muscle]

and one more comment to give food for thought. I have seen a few V8 Tesla swaps, mainly LSs, so who will be the first one to swap a Cleveland in a Tesla?

 

[detritusmaximus]

and one more comment to give food for thought. I have seen a few V8 Tesla swaps, mainly LSs, so who will be the first one to swap a Cleveland in a Tesla?

Talk about 'de-evolution'...

 

[will e]

Talk about 'de-evolution'...

We are DEVO. haha

 

[detritusmaximus]

We are DEVO. haha

Well, somebody gets it!

 

[71ProjectJunk]

Sorry, could not help myself...

 

[detritusmaximus]

I actually have a red Energy Dome...

 

[Ron Tanzi]

We are DEVO. haha

"Freedom of choice" was my favorite by the aforementioned Devo.
Ron

 

[Ron Tanzi]

It is difficult to avoid politics. Politics influences and controls most aspects our lives and one would be delusional to assume it can be ignored. On the subject of Evs and renewables my analysis is that there is no free lunch when it comes to energy. There are always negative consequences no matter what source is powering our lives.

Ron

 

[will e]

Politics is hard to avoid, I agree. The trick is to respectfully listen to the other person's opinion and don't demonize them because they have a different solution than yours. It all goes down hill when EITHER side claims they have the moral high ground and the person who doesn't agree with them is evil and morally corrupt. And I hate the use of name calling that is very prevalent on the internet these days.

 

[detritusmaximus]

"Freedom of choice" was my favorite by the aforementioned Devo.
Ron

I was going to post a link, but the video isn't that great.
Lyrics are spot on, though.