The Adoption of Electric Vehicles
A friend sent me this article on the adoption of electric vehicles for my comment. Like so many other things, there are two sides to the “EV” coin, but, as I told him, this piece was written for the lowest possible common denominator of audiences; I’ve seen more credible journalism in the National Enquirer covering alien abductions and three-headed babies. (Of course, the 45% of 2GreenEnergy readers outside the U.S. have no idea what I’m talking about here. Sorry. You have to see it to believe it.)
Just how on-target is the author’s point, i.e., that government is forcing new, impractical forms of transportation down your throat? It’s true that the government is playing a role in the transportation of the 21st Century, just like it did in the 20th, when it subsidized domestic oil exploration, built the roads and highways, and consistently deployed the military to maintain access to oil from foreign sources.
Also, let’s not forget that this subject of transportation does not end with cars and trucks. Does the article’s author (Neal Asbury) know where the radar systems came from that have virtually eliminated fatal accidents on our commercial airlines? Could he have told you that the annual risk of being killed in a plane crash for the average American is about 1 in 11 million, as compared with the annual risk of being killed in a motor vehicle crash, which is more than 2000 times greater (approximately 1 in 5000). And speaking of the government and the automobile industry, does he know the source of every single safety advancement, from seat belts in 1961 to anti-lock braking, air-bags, and the many dozens of other technologies that save more lives each year (though each one was fought tooth-and-nail by the auto industry itself)?
Expanding the concept of transportation one step further, has Mr. Asbury asked himself how we put a man on the moon and began to explore vast regions of the universe? Taking the subject of transportation back down to Earth, has he considered where the Internet came from, that provides us our real-time traffic maps, our roadside assistance, the backbone for deployment of emergency medical services, not to mention the hundreds of other benefits we count on every day?
Government’s encouraging progressive concepts in transportation — pragmatic concepts that have proven themselves thousands of times over for their effectiveness in protecting your life and providing the safekeeping of your loved ones — versus “forcing something down your throat” are grossly different concepts.
At the risk of appearing rude, Mr. Asbury’s talents would be better plied in covering Elvis sightings.
Mr. Asbury would do well to remember that the same was said of the personal computer years ago. Governments all over the world are partnering with big business to find a greener more sustainable future. I for one refuse to believe that the Amercna people are as stupid as Mr Asbury would have us believe. They are the last ones to have anything ‘shoved down their throats’. Amercans have always led the world technologically and I see no end to that in my lifetime. So they will embrace the electric car, the hydrogen car, green energy concepts, a smaller human footprint on this palnet – because they know, and their government knows, we will not propsper as a species if we do not. In Earth Corporation we are focused on changing attitudes towards our world and the way we think – on growing more Earth conscious future generations. It’s fatuous to believe that ‘more jobs’ is all we need, especially when it’s a change in attitude that will drive humanity’s direction. And that is the next wave Mr. Asbury, new thinking for a new world – one you will clearly be missing. Reg Wessels. Earth Corporation. “Earth is everyone’s Business”
“I for one refuse to believe that the Amercna people are as stupid as Mr Asbury would have us believe. They are the last ones to have anything ‘shoved down their throats’.”
We had motor fuel containing ethanol forced down our throats.
We also were deprived of ethanol as a fuel by fossil Rockefeller’s oily, cynical and massive political/financial support for Prohibition – an amendment that he ensured was carefully designed to eliminate the very industrial fuel production by farmers that Henry Ford had designed his new mass-produced cars to link with. (Henry always much preferred farmers to oilmen.)
At once conversely and similarly, the root source of today’s ethanol being “shoved down our throats” is the shortsighted influence of bribery from massive agricultural interests like ADM and Cargill who have ensured that food crops on farmland (rather that switchgrass on marginal land) are used to (inefficiently) make that ethanol. Corn prices and their profits have responded predictably.
Once again we see it played out that the problem isn’t our government, but the bribery we have allowed to continue. People need to remember that our government is what We the People use to get things done for each other, and for future generations, that otherwise can’t or won’t get done by “The Market”.
Those misguided folks who want to see government drowned in a bathtub have never been, and will never be, very good at running government. Many of the most fiscally influential of those anti-government folks are most highly motivated by their desire to increase profit through fraud, theft, monopoly (gouging) and destruction/preclusion of potential competition.
If we want to organize our society with a logical and efficient infrastructure and product stream, “The Market” (a.k.a. Greed) is a proven failure. The same is true for our legislation and our tax code, as well as the veritable gold mine of an illness profit system we have been taught to call “healthcare”, and the cruel usury of finance and insurance firms. As long as we allow cash to reign as king in our nation, we will be ruled by vicious greed and craven cowardice. Bank on it.
It is commonly known that journalists very often do not have the time or the scientific background to research a topic to great depth. Of course Mr. Asbury can publicly state his personal opinion if he feels so inclined.
But why are we discussing his private views on this platform?
your comments about EV’s very good, but when we talk about americans saving the planet, can i point out that Chyslar has a new Dodge van out that is a Fiat but it has an american built engine V6 3ltr Petrol when that van is in the UK has a 2.2ltrD and not Petrol that does 25+ to the UK gallon so it should do 20 US, why do you need a big engine when you have the straightest and longest roads anywhere in the world.
Sure he is wrong about “cram them down the throats of uninterested American drivers”. Some things like mass transport, security, social security cannot be left to private concern but have to be supported by the Government.
But he is right about the electric car not being successful because of its electric battery limitations, and even about hydrogen cars being the correct answer, though further in the future.
But Obama’s administration has played down hydrogen for cars and left the field for Japanese and European companies, which endangers the future of car industry jobs in the US.
Hydrogen, really? Until we develop the least expensive way to the most abundant CLEAN energy source, hydrogen will just be “hyprogen”.
I like solar and wind (and I like to amuse myself with ways America could store the excess energy from a 4x build up of such) but after becoming “serious” on the issue and the problem of excess CO2, I realize that advanced nuclear such as LFTR is that best way because it has been proven and is meltdown proof.
Then we can convert water to hydrogen, and then into liquid fuels such as ammonia (or just high pressure the hydrogen, depending on which is cheaper or easier).
One must choose one’s battles. Asbury is basically a sock puppet with website. At least the NYT writer got in and drove the Tesla S, why not poll what he is saying off-record to his friends? The retired Big Engineering company engineer across the street from me pooh poohed my DYI EV for years, rejecting my offer to let him drive my car. My response was to smile & say, “talk to me after you’ve driven a Tesla”.
After a Tesla S owning golf buddy gave him the chance, he met me in the street.”My next car is going to be a Tesla!”, he said, smiling the smile.
Experience is the best teacher, the gas companies are also providing excellent motivation, the real challenge is getting US lithium into US-made batteries. Address THAT issue.
Now, now, lets be kind to people with limited understanding and impaired vision. Obviously, Mr. Asbury suffers from both, in addition to a healthy dose of paranoïa as he dreams of the president standing behind car buyers with a gun (he has the right to bear arms too!), forcing poor folks to adopt technologies that may be good for the environment and for us.
I wonder what Mr. Asbury will do when he wakes up and discovers that driverless vehicles are about to make their appearance on our roads. Will he think that the third of us interested in such technology are possessed?
There is a primary game-breaking issue with pure battery-electric powertrains. This issue is not cost or range, but rather involves recharging time. Tesla’s Model-S can come with an 85 kWh battery. Assuming home recharging at 240 V / 30 A, a normal electric range or dryer outlet, this computes to a power level of 7.2 kW. Thus if the battery needed just 36 kWh or 42% of its capacity, the recharge time at home is 5 hours!
Tesla realizes this issue, and is installing high power recharging at a power level around 100 kW. Thus this 36 kWh could be delivered in 0.36 hrs or 22 minutes, a much more reasonable time. As Tesla quotes a 265 mile range with their 85 kWh battery, 36 kWh gives a proportional range of 112 miles, certainly reasonable for normal daily driving, but not for long distance road trips.
The bottom line is that a battery-electric powertrain can be a reasonable alternative to conventional IC engine powertains for normal daily driving, but not for long distance road trips. The key problem rests with the power level involved with gasoline recharging vs. electric energy recharging. Accounting for the fact that on-board stored electric energy can be delivered to a vehicle’s driven wheels with six times the efficiency of a conventional IC engine powertrain, Tesla’s high-power recharging power is 100 kW while gasoline pouring into a tank at a service station is recharging (energy per unit time) at about 20,000/6 = 3300 kW. This 33:1 ratio between our thousands of service stations and Tesla’s high-power charging stations limits the utility of a pure battery-electric powertrain. This is not either a battery or range issue, but rather an issue with the power level available in the electric utility power grid’s distribution system.
The solution that is most feasible in the short term is a plug-in hybrid electric-vehicle, with an electric powertrain having the exciting performance, like the Model-S, but also including an IC-engine drive in a parallel architecture for long distance travel. As for hydrogen powered vehicles, one must always remember the 10-year rule: “Hydrogen powered vehicles will be available at time (T+10) years where time T is any future time one specifies.”
I just told the editor that the article was flawed because it said electric cars are as bad as they were a hundred years ago. I said it was flawed because NOW, we can have a LiFePO4 (or better) battery AND a gasoline engine, that if the battery was only good for “just” 30 miles, that would cut the transportation’s share of global warming to less than half.
I also suggested that we use advanced nuclear such as LFTR to have CHEAP energy required to power the machinery needed to make the batteries cheaper (not to mention the need to offset coal’s share towards global warming, because it IS proven).
Mr Asbury apparently only knows what he reads in “About.COM” as that is his only source. He references them in several locations in the article, but no one else. Such a myopic field of view indicated an obviously inept author. I hope they only paid him the two cents it is worth. Isn’t it amazing that such a terrible product increased its sales volume 300% when comparing 2012 to 2011 ? And as for their being “Pricey” just compare a TESLA to a Corvette or a Viper. The comparison is obviously reasonable.
Craig,
There are a variety of individuals, who for their own internal reasons or because they receive payment from organizations that profit from our reliance on fossil fuels, who wish to mislead us into apathy and depression. Apathy is always the ally of greed and other tools of evil. The forces behind such misinformation will never truly face those who they wish to mislead and debate openly the merits of their sources of profit for evil is always with us. Therefore, eternal vigilance is the only weapon against such forces.
However, I do believe there is a sow’s ear behind the silver lining of the electric car. To fuel and drive such vehicles we must have a source of energy to create the electricity. Currently, we must utilize fossil fuels to create the majority of that electricity. I do not see a net benefit to the use of electric cars. Electricity transported over long distances looses a portion of the electric power generated on site. If fossil fuels are used to generate the electircity we may well be using even more fossil fuels than we currently use.
Do not misunderstand me I love the idea of the electric car. However, we must realize it is no magic bullet and their will be downsides to such a conversion. Let us jump into this pit with our eyes wide open not shuttered by illusion.
To determine the least costly path to the most abundant clean energy source is our ultimate objective. Solar and wind needs like a 4x over build AND storage. But even that is cheaper than global warming!
After much consideration, why should we have to wait for machines to be developed that makes tens of thousands of square miles of solar panels almost devoid of profits and all that extra storage (for wind too), when wecould implement advanced nuclear such as LFTR.
That is the way to power not only electric cars, but the advanced machinery require to make solar and batteries very much cheaper!
To determine the least costly path to the most abundant clean energy source is our ultimate objective. Solar and wind needs like a 4x over build AND storage. But even that is cheaper than global warming!
After much consideration, why should we have to wait for machines to be developed that makes tens of thousands of square miles of solar panels almost devoid of profits and all that extra storage (for wind too), when wecould implement advanced nuclear such as LFTR.
That is the way to power not only electric cars, but the advanced machinery require to make solar and batteries very much cheaper!
My bad (actually, my phone)
There was not enough data in Neal Asbury’s article to warrent much comment. Energy efficiency is not mentioned and may be the largest issue if saving fossil fuel or the global environment is a major concern. The US utility energy efficiency has been ~~34% for decades as reported by DOE. When you add line losses and battery efficiency and driving losses there are huge efficiency challanges. Lets focus on the major issues to see if anyone has solutions.
I agree we need to address the major issues which include efficiency. However, I am not sure industry wants to improve effiency as that will then reduce the energy required and start a cascade of events that will cut into their profits. If they maintain their control, they can keep the squeeze on.
With an increasingly profitable global economy, I do not believe the energy giants really care about the U.S. economy. They will simply sell their product somewhere else such as China. After all, China is now the #1 manufacturing nation in the world.