Electric Cars - the discussion continues.

[Jerry_Atrick]

21 minutes ago, octave said:

Rolling coal is the practice of modifying a diesel engine to emit large amounts of black or grey sooty exhaust fumes—diesel fuel that has not undergone complete combustion. A predominantly North American based phenomenon, rolling coal is sometimes used as a form of anti-environmentalism.^[1] Such modifications may include the intentional removal of the particulate filter.^[2] Practitioners often additionally modify their vehicles by installing smoke switches, large exhausts,^[3] and smoke stacks. Modifications to a vehicle to enable rolling coal may cost from US$200 to US$5,000.^[4][5]

What is wrong with some people. Big insecurity complex or something, that they have to crap on other people for buying something they don't like.

 

In current ownership models, EVs won't make that much difference, at least in the new car market, to CO2 and other greehouse gases/toxicity/pollution,  because of the manufacturing process. Most engineers I have watched state it is betweeen 3 - 5 years of normal driving before the CO2 ledger tips in balance of the EVs, however, while our current ownership model, in general means turning cars over between 3 - 5 years, the net effect on the new car market is zero. Even though the second hand car market should see where the real CO2 savings are made, I am not sure anyone has done their sums on the relative diffence of changing the battery when it has to be (or turifing the car, as I would gues, the new battery may make it uneconomic to replace), and the realtive difference in emissions in electricity generation versus fuel (taking into account the fossi/renewable mix). I am not saying that,. say a 10 year old EV won't be better, but nothning comes for free.

 

However, everyone I know can't wait to get an EV or, with lesseer enthusiasm, a hydrogen car; but everyone I know who has gone EV won't go back to ICE as the better driving experience it gives, even at the cost of longer fills on long trips. Why would anyone want to crap on that, and poop their nest at the same time.

 

 

[onetrack]

They produce vast amounts of black smoke from their diesels simply because they're Trump-supporting rock apes, who still drag their knuckles on the ground when they step out of their pickups.

The problem is, there are still so many of them populating America, and still claiming Trump was the best thing to ever happen to the U.S. Just goes to show the long-term brain-damage effect of excessive lead pollution in their environment.

[octave]

I think that EVs are not definitely not the total solution to our problems.   As of Jan 2021 there are 20.1 million cars registered in Australia.  If we take out those under the legal driving age and those who for whatever reason chose not to drive or have had their license cancelled for health reasons or advanced age, this is a lot of cars per license.

 

The notion of using 1.5 tonnes (or more) to transport 1 human seems absurd. 

 

Since buying my Ebike I now can go a couple of weeks without driving my car.  The notion of driving to the supermarket now seems absurd to  me. To be fair I am not holding down a job or anything and my car is available when I want to travel further afield.  As well as saving me money this has massively improved my life.    

 

Here is an interesting video about Peachtree city  in Georgia.  This city since the 50s has had most of its roads duplicated for transport by golf carts and  This seems brilliant to me. Peachtree city has 11000 registered golf carts.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcVGqtmd2wM

 

 

 

 

 

[facthunter]

Call them Morons if you like, but you are being a bit hard on Morons. Why do white supremacists look SO Inferior?  FAT and DOPEY.   What happens if you get a Hole in One of them golf Carts? .Drive all the way to the Gym? IF you walked there you wouldn't need the Gym. Nev

[red750]

Reminds me of the old photo of the gym with an escalator to the street. Ride you golf buggy to the gym so you can pay to walk on the treadmill.

[kgwilson]

There is a lot of information out there which is historically correct but is promoted by anti EV and efficiency circles to the nth degree to pour scorn on EV production. They don't look at the latest developments and the fact that battery technology is increasing at exponential pace.

 

Things like Tesla  installed almost 22 GWh of solar panels by the end of 21, its Nevada gigafactory is carbon neutral, & the manufacture in house of its new 4680 batteries has reduced energy consumption by more than 70% etc.

 

The current demand for lithium for batteries will be quite short lived. Sodium ion batteries now have similar energy density & are 30% cheaper to make. There are dozens of new battery technologies under development which will make existing high end batteries look like the old Eveready carbon D cells of the 60s.

 

The Apterra may not suit everyone but its efficiency and price were previously unheard of. Making the wheel the electric motor might be new but it is the most logical way to gain efficiency you can get at this stage.

 

Swappable batteries are ideal for large trucks with a huge front end that used to house an enormous diesel engine & transmission but I personally don't think they will gain much traction in the personal transport market. There are 300 EV manufacturers in China alone producing more than 700 models of every size & shape and for multiple roles.

 

1000 km of real world range is already there in quite a few of the new larger sized Chinese EVs and the latest CATL innovation of cell cooling of LiFePo4 batteries has increased this even more. New batteries can be fully charged without degradation and last 500,000km, the latest from 10% to 80% in only 5 minutes.

 

All this was unheard of only 1 year ago.

 

And now the BYD Dolphin is being sold in Australia for about 35k so why would you buy a new ICE car that will cost more to run as time goes by and be virtually unsaleable within 10 years.

 

There is absolutely no doubt that my next car will be an EV (if I live long enough). The only problem at present is demand is far exceeding supply.

[nomadpete]

Has anyone yet discussed the impact that EV's will have upon Australia's balance of payments?

 

Sure, we will be importing our EV's, but sad to say, we import all our IC cars now anyway.

 

What will be the national economy impact of us stopping importing all that petroleum and lubricating oil needed to keep our IC cars rolling along?

[nomadpete]

[onetrack]

One group has already carried out a study on the impact of substantial EV uptake. However, they admit their projections are aggressive, and I believe they're unrealistic. They forecast sales of 576,000 EV's in Australia by 2030. Of course, a couple of members of the group have a large finger in the EV pie, so that would assist in their optimistic outlook.

 

Strangely enough, the entire report completely ignores the trucking industry, and the earthmoving and mining industry - with the former two being the greatest consumers of fossil fuels around.

 

There's constant reference to Norway as the EV pacesetter, which I find aggravating. Norway has a small land mass, has vast hydropower reserves, has a Govt that actively and aggressively promotes EV purchase - and the country is ideally suited for EV transport. Comparing Australia to Norway is comparing apples to oranges. 

 

I believe the most telling part of the report is the motorists survey responses, with an overwhelming number of motorists not yet prepared to invest in personal EV transport - citing cost, range anxiety and the availability of charging stations, as points of resistance to change.

 

I personally believe there's still a disconnect between the EV persuaders, and what people want. SUV's and dual cab utes are by far the biggest in numbers, in types of vehicles in the Australian vehicle market - yet the EV producers are still consistently producing ordinary sedans.

 

GMH went broke because they insisted that everyone still wanted a 4 door family sedan, against all market trends. The Falcon died for the same reason. Toyota make vast amounts of profit from selling 4WD's, dual cab utes and vans.

The EV manufacturers need to address this disconnect in the market place, and stop supplying EV's as ordinary sedans, and start offering SUV and 4WD and ute-and-van type vehicles, and then we'd have product offerings aligned with vehicle buyers expectations.

 

REPORT - "Recharging the economy: The economic impact of accelerating electric vehicle adoption:"

 

https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=95a4553d-f243-407d-a497-58d3c4da8e5c&subId=658135

 

Edited August 17, 2022 by onetrack

[octave]

A the moment one of the constraining factors is supply.  If I wanted to buy a new EV today it would take many months until delivery.   In the near future there will also be a bigger used EV market.   

 

In terms of buyer anxiety I think kgwilson makes a good point.

12 hours ago, kgwilson said:

There is a lot of information out there which is historically correct but is promoted by anti EV and efficiency circles to the nth degree to pour scorn on EV production. They don't look at the latest developments and the fact that battery technology is increasing at exponential pace.

 

47 minutes ago, onetrack said:

I personally believe there's still a disconnect between the EV persuaders, and what people want. SUV's and dual cab utes are by far the biggest in numbers, in types of vehicles in the Australian vehicle market - yet the EV producers are still consistently producing ordinary sedans.

I am not sure about this one. As far as I can see SUVs make up a large proportion of EVs available.

BYD Atto 3

Hyundai Kona

MG ZS

Hyundai Ioniq

BMWiX

 

As for Utes - they are on the way

 

The Eight best Electric utes heading to Australia

 

 

[red750]

Whatever happened  to the Ace Delivery Vans that were supposedly being produced in Brisbane? See my post on page 12 of this thread.

[red750]

I've answered my own question. I checked thir website, which is still very much alive, as well as their Facebook page. They say they will be on the road in 2023. They have four models. The prices shown are to reserve a place in the production line, not the cost of the vehicle obviously.

 

Their website is https://www.ace-ev.com.au/

 

[octave]

One of the EV YouTube channels I follow because of its Australian content is the Electric Viking.

 

Here is a video about the Ford F150 Lightning and other EV pickups that are due in Australia soon.  

 

The Ford F150 Lightning EV is coming to Australia

[nomadpete]

That's all focussing on marketing the EV's.

The point I raised is this....

 

What impact will EV's have upon our economy when we stop buying overseas fuel and lubricating oils, due to fuelling our lnational vehicle fleet with home made energy?

 

There must be billions of dollars involved in the long term.

[kgwilson]

At present it doesn't matter that Utes and SUVs are the most popular vehicle types purchased new in Australia because the demand for what is currently available (BEV cars & SUVs) far outstrips the supply anyway. A friend has placed a deposit on a Kia EV6 but won't get it till 2023.

 

As for the mining industry among others BHP, Rio Tinto, FMG & others are investing in the electrification of their businesses starting with electric land cruisers, dump trucks and excavators.

[pmccarthy]

Why it all will not happen...

“The energy transition is going to be dependent much more on copper than our current energy system,” Daniel Yergin, S&P Global vice chairman, told CNBC. “There’s just been the assumption that copper and other minerals will be there. ... Copper is the metal of electrification, and electrification is much of what the energy transition is all about.”

The report forecasts copper demand nearly doubling to 50 million metric tons by 2035. By 2050, demand will reach more than 53 million metric tons. To put this figure in perspective, S&P Global noted that that’s “more than all the copper consumed in the world between 1900 and 2021.”

[Old Koreelah]

14 minutes ago, pmccarthy said:

Why it all will not happen...

 

The report forecasts copper demand nearly doubling to 50 million metric tons by 2035. By 2050, demand will reach more than 53 million metric tons. To put this figure in perspective, S&P Global noted that that’s “more than all the copper consumed in the world between 1900 and 2021.”

Boomtimes for some industries, lots of innovation (and even more recycling) ahead. When shortages happen, humans always develop alternatives.

It’s said that shortages of wood for charcoal led to coal mining.

I cannot imagine the world running short of ultra-common metals like iron and aluminium.

[facthunter]

Copper can be readily recycled and some windings are of aluminium. Nev

[octave]

Despite an ever-increasing demand for copper, there is more of the metal available today than at any other time in history. This, together with the ability to infinitely recycle copper, means that society is extremely unlikely to deplete the copper supply, and copper will continue to contribute to global initiatives, like the SDGs and clean energy.

Copper Demand and Long-Term Availability

 

I am not a minerals expert (and neither is Daniel Yergin)   but I would suspect if you look in to any mineral input in any area of production you will come up with constraints, everything is finite.   Oil left to be extracted is 40 - 50 years (AT TODAYS CONSUMPTION RATE)  and it can only be burnt once.

 

If we are going to say we can not transition to EVs because the materials required our finite we definitely have a problem with fossil fueled vehicles. 

 

We could argue how many cars we could build with the minerals but we would also have to factor in the infinite recyclability of many of these minerals.   It is not as simple as dividing the known reserves by the amount needed to build each EV.   My IC car most likely has copper wires that used to be some ones plumbing or wiring in a car in the past.    When I scrap my car the copper may well be recycled and become part of an EV.

 

The argument that EVs have no future applies to many things.    We wont stop plumbing our houses because copper supplies are finite.   Copper may become more expensive and there fore more profitable to mine.   We may find other materials.       

 

In 40-50 years the oil will be running dry. One way or the other we will have to find alternatives.   

 

I suspect lot of the opposition to a 20 year transition to EVs is based on.

 

A) I want to keep selling what I sell now.

B) It is new and scary. 

[red750]

Maybe the minerals we're are running out of are availabe in plenty on Mars.

 

Being totally, totally selfish, I won't be around and probably, neither will my kids. My youngest would be in her 90's. I don't have grandkids.

[spacesailor]

I DO ! , plus Great Grand Kids .

Domestic ' plumbing copper ' is Obsolete .

Petrolium plastics are use now for domestic & probably  industrial  plumbing. 

No oil industry,  means no more ' plastic ' as we know it.

Also don,t forget lots of medicinal chemicals will no longer be available. 

HO ! my Head Aches,

spacesailor

[onetrack]

I believe copper will be eliminated in as many places as they can find and the manufacturers will utilise aluminium whenever they can. In the past, when copper prices went ballistic, manufacturers replaced copper with aluminium.

My 5 tonne Isuzu truck had aluminium cabling between the (24V) batteries and starter motor originally - because the copper price was extremely high when the truck was built in 1989. I replaced the cables with copper cables because the aluminium cables started to fracture with vibration.

 

I've owned Lincoln welders and when they died and I dismantled them for scrapping, I found some had aluminium windings. Didn't seem to affect their operability or performance.

[pmccarthy]

Aluminium is known as congealed electricity. Most Smelters are located next to big coal power stations. Needs continuous 24 hour supply of energy. There is no shortage of bauxite at present.

[octave]

1 hour ago, pmccarthy said:

Aluminium is known as congealed electricity. Most Smelters are located next to big coal power stations. Needs continuous 24 hour supply of energy. There is no shortage of bauxite at present.

 Yes I understand that aluminium  production has been energy hungry.   Technology continues to progress. 

 

Green aluminium already cost competitive and huge opportunity for Australia

 

Green steel and aluminium production within reach?

 

Alcoa advances sustainably with recycled aluminum, produced using renewable energy

 

 

 

 

 

[onetrack]

Brian Cooley from the respected CNET gives an excellent information and opinion piece in the video below - from last month, so very current (pun intended).

 

He outlines the latest developments in battery technology, which will appear on the market within 2 years. It's interesting to see that Toyota hold the biggest number of patents for Solid State batteries and are aiming at bringing a SS battery-powered Toyota to market by 2025.

 

Brians practical approach to EV vehicles is that it's best that you buy what you need now, for your precise useage needs, don't buy the biggest range EV just for bragging rights, as you will probably never need that huge range.

 

Fast charging is obviously what a lot battery developers are aiming for, this is a selling point that is going to tip the scales for EV's.