Battery powered electric cars have already failed.
There is only one area where the battery powered electric car has proven to be better. In bumper-to-bumper traffic over short commutes. Where you have no concern that you are going to run out of battery charge. And the electric vehicle conserves all the energy of the stop and go.
Everywhere else, it is proving to be more polluting than an ICE.
Especially now that we are getting to the end of many Tesla's battery life.
We are seeing very big, very expensive paper-weights.
A real waste of all the resources that went into creating it.
Battery powered cars are EXTREMELY polluting
Just because they do not have a tailpipe, does not mean they don't pollute.
Now we are seeing that the idea of replacing a battery in a 10 year old electric car is cost prohibitive, we can see the actual costs and compare pollution generated between ICE and electric vehicles.
So, we compare an ICE vehicle which will generally last 30 years.
Lots of base metals and plastic. Mined in many 1st world countries.
And most if its pollution happens when you drive it.
It is only slightly more polluting than a coal powered electric plant currently used in China.
A battery powered electric vehicle seems to have a life span of 10 years.
Lots of base metals and plastic PLUS lots of rare earths; cobalt & lithium which are mined in slave conditions in third world countries. (many are taking up the moniker "Blood Batteries"
Most of its pollution happens before it gets to the show room. Comparable to an ICE pollution creation over 30 years.
And then you charge it, causing whatever pollution that electricity was produced with.
With a lifespan of about 10 years, the battery powered electric vehicle is far worse for the environment.
10 years, and all those rare earths and all that labor, just become a pile of junk.
Battery powered cars are dangerous!
All that electricity stored in a battery that is supposed to be intelligent and disconnect itself on shorting.... well, that doesn't always happens.
Just waiting for the first responder to be first to be electrocuted to death.
While we wait for that, we can see all kinds of fires happening in electric vehicles. And because we use lithium batteries, we really do not have a way to extinguish the fire. And if the lithium is in a certain form... it will explode when exposed to water.
Of course this is no where near as dangerous as hydrogen cells, but still, we have a long way to go to making these things safe.
Battery Powered Cars cannot be made for everyone.
The real reason we will not see a Tesla in every driveway is we just do not have enough cobalt, nickel and lithium.
In fact, we do not even have enough copper.
To make Komifornia's dream come true, no more ICE's sold in the state in 10 years, we would have to see record mining production increases that have never happened before in recorded history.
That is correct. We can't do it. Not unless Komifornia offers huge incentives to mine for these minerals. Making great big pits all over California. And even then, they might not make it.
Or maybe Komifornia only intends the rich to actually have a car.
But what will the landscaping crews do to get to these rich people's houses to manicure their lawns?
There just isn't enough of the precious resources to build enough Teslas to make California green (and the rest of the planet black in the process)
Electric vehicles will be a thing in the future, but not lithium battery powered.
(Or maybe we will use compressed air.
Just nobody yet has made a Tesla level compressed air powered vehicle yet.)
However, the technology coming will probably also get rid of the tires and motors too.
So, they might not really be electric vehicles.
My thoughts of where we should have gone / could have gone is using turbines.
Back in the 70s we tried using the much more efficient turbine in cars.
The problem is with gearing, and turbines do not have a good torque range.
But if you built a turbine that powered a genset charging super-capacitors
you would have a much more efficient hybrid vehicle.
Car manufacturers (like Tesla) should look into the Tesla Turbine. 10 HP per pound!
No doubt an ICE car CAN last 30 years but the average lifespan is much lower (150,000-200,000 miles or 12 years is the average). My last car lasted 160,000 miles or so and almost 20 years before it got to the point it was no longer worth repairing). Most cars from 1993 are not still on the road today.
Newer electric cars (including the batteries) last longer than older ones. I'm not sure about other brands but batteries in Tesla models currently being produced are expected to last between 300,000 and 500,000 miles (about 1,500 battery cycles) which would be in the range of 22-37 years if you drive 40 miles per day on average (this means that the capacity will still be 70% of original or more after that distance/time). No doubt the batteries in older Teslas were not as good. I believe the current warranty is for 8 years or 150,000 miles. While the car manufacturers won't do it, you can also find places that will repair your batteries (replace individual cells) vs. completely replacing them for a significantly lower cost.
As most of my driving is around town, an electric car would be ideal for me. The problem is price. They are just too expensive. They cost less to drive but it takes 10 years or more to make up that cost difference with savings so it isn't worth it, at least not to me. Right now our family has two relatively new ICE cars (2017 and 2022) so I don't plan to buy anything for a long time. Maybe by then an electric car will be worth it.
Yeah, electric cars catch on fire sometimes but that's actually much more common with ICE cars. Electric car fires are more dangerous but less likely.
Battery technology is constantly improving. My expectation is that over time we'll see less rare earth materials needed, better recycling and other newer technologies (like solid state batteries and who knows what else) improve things over time.
I haven't looked in a while because the few times I did look I was shocked about how much more expensive the electric cars were. Any idea what the average cost for a base model is these days?
Well it's not just a question of digging a hole in the ground right? I'm under the impression that there are only certain places in the world that have these elements at all.
It is not exactly true, nor exactly false.
Cobalt, nickel, lithium are everywhere.
But only certain places have them in an abundance worth mining.
There are several places where i believe we can find mine-able lithium in Komifornia. But no mining company is looking because it would be impossible to get permits and mineral rights for it.
As an example, some of the BIGGEST gold deposits are left untouched in California.
People know its there, but the govern-cement has locked it up.
What people also often overlook, is how is the energy generated to charge the electric cars. No country in the world has reached a majority of energy generated from renewables. So as the article says, while these vehicles might not have an exhaust pipe, the pollution is simply being created elsewhere.
Take for instance the city I live in. They proudly tout that their tram and metro systems are powered by renewable hydro power. But what is not mentioned is that a major river had to be dammed for this doing massive environmental damage.
Then there's the question of all of the plastics used in the production of the car. This is of course all produced from oil. The tyres also require a large amount of oil to produce. The list goes on and on. These things are in no way the green solution they are being sold as.
But all that doesn't matter. You just simply have to have the correct car, else you will be excluded in your "help save the world" club.
We let them get away with murder... telling people that Electric vehicles are zero emission.
We let it slide on a technicality. We should have demanded that they always use the addendum when stating that.
And that battery... omg the horrors of ecological damage that thing causes.
Even if you are granted a halo in the "help save the world" club, you still have no more rights to drive the thing than a petrochemical car. Switzerland has mandates ready and waiting, that if there is an energy crisis, a power grid deficiency / issues, there will be restrictions or outright bans put in place on charging electric cars.
None of the existing power grids can supply the extra load required for the mass adoption of these vehicles. With the current "energy crisis" they barely meet the current demands. In Europe that started the campaign last year telling citizens to prepare for potential blackouts.
Komifornia said, no ICE cars sold after 2030
Almost the same week they said, please do not charge electric vehicles during this electric power crisis.
That makes sense. Seems like a turbine takes time to spool up so I'm assuming it doesn't have the low end torque that electric has.
The turbine has zero low end torque. You have to have it up near 5000 rpm before it won't just stall when you put a load on it.
But that doesn't matter if you are just making electricity to feed the batteries
You can run the turbine at the optimal revs.
It's good to know because this next crypto cycle I plan on buying a fighter jet. Did you watch "Pepsi, where's my Jet?" On NetFlix?
What's a TV? What is Netflix? (I actually know who NetFlix is because i had (past tense) a friend who worked for them when they started up. He's gone now. SF got him.
Was Pepsi offering a jet as a prize in some game?
And i am sure as the govern-cements around the world collapse that you can buy an F-16 or something