OT: Electric Vehicles--anyone driving them or seriously looked at them?

[Mr. Pink]

Well, I stand corrected. That's stunning. As I said, no wonder nobody has any money.

edit: I can do the google, too. I was wondering if pandemic stimulus money affected that pricing, and, I think so. A buddy of mine who has part ownership of a restaurant was whining about a year ago about not getting the second check, because, yes, he had a new car lined up. There was a lot of that. Remember how used car prices went nuts? All that is calming down, just like they are now discounting new bicycles you couldn't even buy a year and a half ago. One wonders what will happen to auto pricing the next few years. Reasons why the Fed may be all wrong with interest rates.

Check out that post WW2 spike. Hoo boy.

[sg8357]

Originally Posted by Mr. Pink

Fine with me. But, the governor of California and other politicians are mandating EV use by law. In just over ten years, all of California will not be able to buy a gas powered vehicle, by decree. No choice.

Part of California Population Reduction Act.
Unintended or maybe intended consequence, Kalifornia Kustom Kars will be doing a land office business in refurbished pre-malaise era cars.

[Mr. Pink]

Originally Posted by sg8357

Part of California Population Reduction Act.

The Colorado drying up will help, too.

[HenryA]

Originally Posted by sg8357

Part of California Population Reduction Act.
Unintended or maybe intended consequence, Kalifornia Kustom Kars will be doing a land office business in refurbished pre-malaise era cars.

Problem is they migrate to some other place. But the good news (maybe) is there is some self selection going on. Get up and goers get up and go.

[Brian Smith]

Originally Posted by Dave

If only a 40A breaker is needed for charger, it's no more difficult to install than a large air conditioning unit, but in areas that already have brown outs, it's like every EV owner now has a second AC unit running all night. That's got to cause grid problems.

I have natural gas furnace and water heater, but those are now considered evil devices that are causing global warming. My rural electric company has incentives to change to a heat pump and electric water heater.

Dave, I appreciate your brief points above.

I'm not trying to troll you nor belittle you.

Regarding the first point: Are you aware that many utilities, where permitted, are so inviting to evening EV charging as to make available DISCOUNTED pricing plans for those willing to allow the charging to take place during utiliity-selected evening hours? Let me ask you - do you think the utilities are incenting this activity in order to create "grid problems?"

Regarding the second: Should a "rural electric company" NOT be allowed to offer an incentive to partially underwrite the switching costs of shifting your load from a pipeline to a transmission line? How much incremental remaining customer lifetime value, in your case, do they get by NOT doing so? Less perhaps? Shouldn't they be looking at their longer-term residential load base?

You might choose to feel that utilities giving people an incentive to get on board with a new plan to fuel society's energy loads differently is not in your interest. Fortunately, for some, it's not (yet?) an edict. Looking closer, if you choose to do so, may lead you to discover that what's motivating it all is not simply a desire to "demonize" your existing arrangements.

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by corkycalvin

I’m pretty sure the ban of ICE in California will move up the courts and maybe end up in the Supreme Court. Does the governor have that much power to implement a ban? In California, a car is needed outside of urban areas and most people can’t afford EV’s. Grabbing my popcorn to see how this plays out

HA, THIS court will stay far, far away from anything that impinges on State's Rights. Maybe SCOTUS will wade into State's Rights when it comes to the Bill of Rights(2A) but no 'rights' are involved when it comes to vehicle engine type. Yes there is a 'right' to travel, not a 'right' to drive a car or truck, type.

He certainly does, IMHO.

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by Mr. Pink

Oh, I agree. But we really need to get serious as to how to fix this problem, and somebody has to be an adult and tell us how much it will cost, which may be astronomical in the EV space alone, and, even then, how the economy will be affected. But, most of our leaders are bickering children who are narcissistic and in love with their own power and career possibilities on the other side of the revolving door, and most citizens are in love with their pickups and guns and football and fast food, and relatively comfortable existence to the rest of humanity. They ain't giving that up easily.

Are you familiar with Louis CK? He's back. Just did an interview with Joe Rogan. He goes off on this topic (the unreal state that Americans live in) near the end of that podcast. It's brilliant. I like that guy.

Need a like button and also one of these.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6iF5sINVns

Gotta remember that we here on the PL mostly live in some sort of fairly wealthy 'bubble'. John and Jane '6 pack' don't...

[Dave]

Originally Posted by Brian Smith

Dave, I appreciate your brief points above.

I'm not trying to troll you nor belittle you.

Regarding the first point: Are you aware that many utilities, where permitted, are so inviting to evening EV charging as to make available DISCOUNTED pricing plans for those willing to allow the charging to take place during utiliity-selected evening hours? Let me ask you - do you think the utilities are incenting this activity in order to create "grid problems?"

Regarding the second: Should a "rural electric company" NOT be allowed to offer an incentive to partially underwrite the switching costs of shifting your load from a pipeline to a transmission line? How much incremental remaining customer lifetime value, in your case, do they get by NOT doing so? Less perhaps? Shouldn't they be looking at their longer-term residential load base?

You might choose to feel that utilities giving people an incentive to get on board with a new plan to fuel society's energy loads differently is not in your interest. Fortunately, for some, it's not (yet?) an edict. Looking closer, if you choose to do so, may lead you to discover that what's motivating it all is not simply a desire to "demonize" your existing arrangements.

You took my post entirely wrong. It's simple facts comparing a low level car charger to running a big AC unit.

I have no problem with utilities promoting the electricity they sell either, but my local utility only gets about 30% of its power from renewable sources, so your AC or EV is mostly running off natural gas and coal right now. I don't think my local utility even knows when my electricity is being used since there's no mention of it in their advertisements.

I'll probably try a heat pump when my 10 year old AC unit dies, but I'll probably choose natural gas backup for the temps when it won't work. If the electrical system fails, it would require a large backup generator to keep warm. I get by with a Harbor Freight generator that I bought after the 2013 flood. I've used it a few times, back feeding 30A into the house.

My neighborhood requires city water pressure booster pumps to have adequate water pressure for home use and fire protection which has to supply 500 gpm. We have a 135A, natural gas backup generator at the pump house.

[Mr. Pink]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

Need a like button and also one of these.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6iF5sINVns

Gotta remember that we here on the PL mostly live in some sort of fairly wealthy 'bubble'. John and Jane '6 pack' don't...

We, as Americans, live in a wealthy bubble compared to the rest of humanity. It's not a natural state.

Louis CK tells a little story about he and his wife at a party telling a person from Tibet that they were so upset that their dog had to go into surgery for some issue, and the man broke out into laughter, because, well, who in the third world actually does that? It was an eye opener for him.

[Mr. Pink]

Let's not forget about the massive amount of raw materials that are needed to make batteries for our new, modern, "clean" giant pickup trucks.

https://stockhead.com.au/resources/h...on-every-year/

[dustyrider]

Originally Posted by Mr. Pink

We, as Americans, live in a wealthy bubble compared to the rest of humanity. It's not a natural state.

Louis CK tells a little story about he and his wife at a party telling a person from Tibet that they were so upset that their dog had to go into surgery for some issue, and the man broke out into laughter, because, well, who in the third world actually does that? It was an eye opener for him.

Yes Americans are wealthy when compared to non Americans, but what about when compared to Americans. If the average yearly income in the US is ~50k and the average debt of 40-50 years old is ~130k, how rich are we? I know that my yearly salary puts me into one of the richest % when compared to the world, but I’m a pauper compared to the folks that post here.

[tomato coupe]

Originally Posted by Mr. Pink

Let's not forget about the massive amount of raw materials that are needed to make batteries for our new, modern, "clean" giant pickup trucks.

https://stockhead.com.au/resources/h...on-every-year/

I'm guessing you didn't read much past the teaser. A web article that cites a tweet as its source doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in the analysis, especially when the tweet includes the following:

Let’s break those stats down even further (don’t judge the questionable math).

[bikinchris]

Originally Posted by tomato coupe

I'm guessing you didn't read much past the teaser. A web article that cites a tweet as its source doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in the analysis, especially when the tweet includes the following:

I always like the hit pieces aimed at EVs. Like the battery mining is not great, but the process of exploring for oil, drilling, producing, transporting the crude, refining it, transporting for sale and then wasting roughly 66% of the energy in the gasoline is just stupid.
Internal combustion engines WASTE 66% of the energy in a gallon of gasoline.
This flip flops the energy leaving the electric generating station. Only 30% of the energy in the electric energy is lost between the power station and the rear wheels of the EV.

There was a Tesla the burned while driving this week and the story was RUSHED to national news detailing it took 6,000 gallon of water to put out the fire. No mention of the tens of thousands of ICE cars that burned this week. An ICE car is roughly 100 times more likely to burn for every mile driven than an EV.

[David Kirk]

Originally Posted by bikinchris

I always like the hit pieces aimed at EVs. Like the battery mining is not great, but the process of exploring for oil, drilling, producing, transporting the crude, refining it, transporting for sale and then wasting roughly 66% of the energy in the gasoline is just stupid.
Internal combustion engines WASTE 66% of the energy in a gallon of gasoline.
This flip flops the energy leaving the electric generating station. Only 30% of the energy in the electric energy is lost between the power station and the rear wheels of the EV.

There was a Tesla the burned while driving this week and the story was RUSHED to national news detailing it took 6,000 gallon of water to put out the fire. No mention of the tens of thousands of ICE cars that burned this week. An ICE car is roughly 100 times more likely to burn for every mile driven than an EV.

This over and over again.

dave

[Dave]

Originally Posted by bikinchris

Internal combustion engines WASTE 66% of the energy in a gallon of gasoline.
This flip flops the energy leaving the electric generating station. Only 30% of the energy in the electric energy is lost between the power station and the rear wheels of the EV.

You need to add the inefficiency for the coal or natural gas power plant making the electricity. Coal is the worst - only 33-48% of the energy gets converted into electricity, due to low efficiency of the steam cycle. Natural gas is 45-57%.