The Age of Electric Vehicles

[Bird on a Fire]

However, we are allegedly facing a climate emergency. And this requires that people stop driving fossil-fuelled cars.

Except in the real world you can't make all ICEs vanish overnight, because many of the journeys people make in them still have to happen. The replacement needs to happen as quickly as possible, but a bit of extended thought about the pragmatic issues involved will soon reveal the necessity of juggling multiple priorities.

It's not an overnight change - we didn't first learn of the problem yesterday. How much longer is pragmatism going to result in expensive, ineffective measures?

I actually think the problem has been too much expedience, rather than too much pragmatism. But practically everybody involved in serious environmental campaigning is convinced that the necessary transition should aim for justice as well as speed.

One thing that has definitely failed so far though is relying on market forces.

[TopBadger]

So the TEDx talk suggests Hybrids are the way forward to greenify travel without pumping too much CO2 into the atmosphere in production.

I'd never really thought too much about 'Self-Charging Hybrids'. But as I understand it those have normal engines and transmission...

Wouldn't the optimum configuration be to have essentially a small BEV (so all electric transmission and battery enough for 100 miles say) mated to a generator? When the battery is full - it operates as a BEV - on lower charge levels the generator kicks in and propels the car and recharges the battery until enough charge restored for the battery to take over again, whilst also offering the option to park, plug in and top up the battery?

I'm guessing the issue here is that compact generators capable of powering the car and recharging the battery don't exist?

[lpm]

That's a Range Extender, REx. It's just a PHEV. The Volt is the most common example.

REx cars are a dead end and development is being abandoned. Battery tech got too good too fast for this interim answer.

The bigger problem is that Ted talk. It is non-stop wrong. It is embarrassingly stupid.

For a start, he repeats the zombie fake statistic that a BEV takes 80,000 to 90,000 miles to pay back CO2 cost of the battery manufacture. The actual figure is around 12,000 miles, depending on country and it's electricity mix. A Tesla Model 3 takes 13,000 miles for the US mix. It would be 8,000 miles for the Norway mix. The pay back can be improved by making the manufacturing plants directly powered from renewables, as well as the electricity supply getting more renewable, both of which are happening. The 80,000 miles was invented by fossil fuel lobbying groups and is a lie that can't be killed. Shameful.

Other false claims in the video are:

- a fossil fuel car emits only 30 tons of CO2 in its lifetime usage stage. This isn't even true for the most efficient cars (i.e. not American cars), it's more like 40 to 60 tons
- that the BEV range is only 125 miles. I believe he faked the figure for CO2 embedded in a BEV with that sized battery, or maybe he was taking figures from early Leafs or something
- the lie that bigger battery cars have even longer than 80,000 miles to pay back CO2 and never get there
- the constant repeating of his silly pretence that CO2 emissions from BEV usage goes unmeasured or unrecognised
- the faked appeal to moderation, with his 'let's gently transition to hybrids' (not even PHEV hybrids) argument

Which, of course, makes one immediately suspicious. Who is this person? What is his background?

And sure enough he works for a non-profit think tank founded by the fossil fuel industry, working on fossil fuel vehicles and promoting the fossil fuel message.

I'm annoyed with you for making me waste 15 minutes of my life watching this kind of sh.t on YouTube and making me fisk it. What were you thinking? Why didn't you immediately see it was all bollocks? Raise your game or f.ck off out of here.

[TopBadger]

I'm annoyed with you for making me waste 15 minutes of my life watching this kind of sh.t on YouTube and making me fisk it. What were you thinking? Why didn't you immediately see it was all bollocks? Raise your game or f.ck off out of here.

My apologies lpm... techy today? I'd figured TED vets their speakers more carefully than most so my fields were lower than normal.

Without the information you provided (which I clearly didn't have and appreciate) it's not at all obvious that in his 'y = mx + c' charts that the rather critical value of c is bollocks.

At least you've now created a google searchable post to allow others to know something of what you know... so not all bad.

[dyqik]

I'm annoyed with you for making me waste 15 minutes of my life watching this kind of sh.t on YouTube and making me fisk it. What were you thinking? Why didn't you immediately see it was all bollocks? Raise your game or f.ck off out of here.

My apologies lpm... techy today? I'd figured TED vets their speakers more carefully than most so my fields were lower than normal.

My baseline assumption for TED is that it's a platform for self-promoters, and that it's marginally less trustworthy than newspaper opinion pieces by guest writers.

[basementer]

I'm annoyed with you for making me waste 15 minutes of my life watching this kind of sh.t on YouTube and making me fisk it. What were you thinking? Why didn't you immediately see it was all bollocks? Raise your game or f.ck off out of here.

My apologies lpm... techy today? I'd figured TED vets their speakers more carefully than most so my fields were lower than normal.

They do. But your link is to a TEDx video not a TED video.

[bjn]

I'm annoyed with you for making me waste 15 minutes of my life watching this kind of sh.t on YouTube and making me fisk it. What were you thinking? Why didn't you immediately see it was all bollocks? Raise your game or f.ck off out of here.

My apologies lpm... techy today? I'd figured TED vets their speakers more carefully than most so my fields were lower than normal.

They do. But your link is to a TEDx video not a TED video.

I barely bother with TED, for the reason that dyqik said. TEDx is like TED, but worse.

[bob sterman]

I barely bother with TED, for the reason that dyqik said. TEDx is like TED, but worse.

Even TED say TEDx = "Not necessarily field experts"...

[shpalman]

Put a groove into the pavement for the charging cable? Bedfordshire is giving it a try

Most on-street parking is on the public highway, so spaces can't be allocated exclusively for individuals. We recognise, that in some areas, parking outside of the home is at a premium. In these areas, this may not be a suitable way forward. In other areas, however, this isn't the case. For these, a cable gully is a potential option for electric vehicle (EV) charging that is worth exploring.

[Bird on a Fire]

Groovy.

[Grumble]

Put a groove into the pavement for the charging cable? Bedfordshire is giving it a try

Most on-street parking is on the public highway, so spaces can't be allocated exclusively for individuals. We recognise, that in some areas, parking outside of the home is at a premium. In these areas, this may not be a suitable way forward. In other areas, however, this isn't the case. For these, a cable gully is a potential option for electric vehicle (EV) charging that is worth exploring.

Facebook comments on this and any other article about EVs are always an absolute bin fire.

[EACLucifer]

Put a groove into the pavement for the charging cable? Bedfordshire is giving it a try

Most on-street parking is on the public highway, so spaces can't be allocated exclusively for individuals. We recognise, that in some areas, parking outside of the home is at a premium. In these areas, this may not be a suitable way forward. In other areas, however, this isn't the case. For these, a cable gully is a potential option for electric vehicle (EV) charging that is worth exploring.

If they aren't well designed and maintained they'll be a bastard for manual wheelchairs with small casters.

On the other hand, way better than just trailing cables. I would ask do some people just not f.cking think before obstructing pavements, but I well aware from experience that a lot of people don't.