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What does it take to succesfully transition to a green energy economy?

RandomEar

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I'll never understand why people make these clearly false, unsubstantiated blanket statements.

EVs are much worse than ICE cars at two essential things: range, and charge time. I can "charge" an ICE vehicle, from 0% to 100%, in about one minute. It's easy to get a 500 miles range in an ICE vehicle. I recently drove a VW Passat that had a range of over 1000km (621miles).

Worse, those two things have a horrible synergy, making an EV a pain in the *** for long distance travel.
The range problem is essentially solved for high end EVs like the Lucid Air. It will solve itself in the very near future for midrange EVs and the low end ones will follow later. I'd like to point to recent technological progress to support that argument.

The charging is still an argument for long range travel, but not most other scenarios. For daily commutes, you don't actively look after charging an EV - you plug it in after coming home and forget about it. For long trips, it currently storngly depends on the car how often you will have to stop. If you want to drive 1000 km in one trip and have a recent Tesla model 3 LR, you can do it with 3 stops of around 17-20 minutes for charging (or 2 stops, but longer in total). That would prolong your total trip by roughly one hour. On an approximately 11 hour long trip, that's really not a big difference.

I like to stretch my legs at the very least every 3 hours when driving long distance. Therefore, I would stop 3-4 times for at least 15 minutes anyway, even whe using an ICE. And this is not accounting for any meals, which may take longer than 15 minutes. Using a decent long range EV wouldn't make my trip one minute longer than an ICE car already today. But I understand that people are different and some just like to "get it done" when it comes to long drives.

Then, compared to ICE cars, there are other small issues where EVs do worse: greater weight, substantial difference in behaviour between normal and very cold weather, higher susceptibility to fire (due to an impact or even spontaneous).

@OP if you want a green energy economy, you need lots of nuclear power plants. Lots and lots. You can paint them green, too.
EV's are significantly less likely to catch fire. Like, "order of magnitude less likely". People are used to burning ICE cars, it's not newsworthy anymore and therefore greatly underreported in the media, which distorts the general perception.
 

Blumlein 88

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Apparently the transition is not a priority in India. Power output grows mostly from coal. Expected coal generated power will go up 8% more next year.
 

Doodski

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Apparently the transition is not a priority in India. Power output grows mostly from coal. Expected coal generated power will go up 8% more next year.
We have known that this was coming for some years or more. Massive populations with first world energy requirements.
 

symphara

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The range problem is essentially solved for high end EVs like the Lucid Air. It will solve itself in the very near future for midrange EVs and the low end ones will follow later. I'd like to point to recent technological progress to support that argument.
Again, pie in the sky. "Essentially solved" for you is like SpaceX's Dragon module has "essentially solved" my personal needs of orbital transportation.

I haven't seen a single Lucid Air. What I see are VW ID3, Hyundai Ionic 5, various Skodas/Audis, the odd Taycan or Mercedes. And these tend to have ~300km range, add another 100km with the (costly) super battery pack option, all of it pitiful, in my opinion. My "fun" ICE car has a range of 450-500km, and range was hardly on their mind when they designed it.

The problem will be solved, as far as I'm concerned, when you have a reliable 800km+ range on the average product, energy efficiency at 130km/h speeds, and a virtual certitude that if you need one of those >=195kWh chargers, I won't take you more than 15 minutes to get to one, that's working and unoccupied. All of these are very far from reality. At least in Western Europe.

If you move anywhere else - I've recently traveled to Eastern Europe and the Middle East - this EV stuff varies from a curiosity/city driving to plain SciFi.

So no, EVs are not "way better" than ICE cars, and the problem is far from being "essentially solved". Like I said, when it's solved, I'll go buy an EV first thing.

I absolutely get why people like them. If you drive an average ICE car and then an average EV car, the acceleration and availability of torque is just startling. You think you're in a Porsche or something. They're also very quiet. I like all these things too, but since I had very nice ICE cars for a long time, this didn't impress me quite as much to rave about it, and I can judge the product on its merits, without rose coloured glasses.
 

JktHifi

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The direction of EV is depending on the top 2 manufacturers here. If they stop combustion engine production then no choice.

IMG_0535.jpeg
 

Willem

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If we are concerned about range, the real future is to modern high speed trains: https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/tgv-m-france-rail-revolution/index.html
I have been traveling quite a bit to Paris and to parts of Germany in recent years, and each time the ICE and TGV were a wonderfully fast and comfortable option. I would have hated to drive there, and flying would have been quite a bit more time consuming, not to mention the fact that my university no longer allows flying for distances up to I think now 800 km.
 

RandomEar

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Again, pie in the sky. "Essentially solved" for you is like SpaceX's Dragon module has "essentially solved" my personal needs of orbital transportation.

I haven't seen a single Lucid Air. What I see are VW ID3, Hyundai Ionic 5, various Skodas/Audis, the odd Taycan or Mercedes. And these tend to have ~300km range, add another 100km with the (costly) super battery pack option, all of it pitiful, in my opinion. My "fun" ICE car has a range of 450-500km, and range was hardly on their mind when they designed it.

The problem will be solved, as far as I'm concerned, when you have a reliable 800km+ range on the average product, energy efficiency at 130km/h speeds, and a virtual certitude that if you need one of those >=195kWh chargers, I won't take you more than 15 minutes to get to one, that's working and unoccupied. All of these are very far from reality. At least in Western Europe.

If you move anywhere else - I've recently traveled to Eastern Europe and the Middle East - this EV stuff varies from a curiosity/city driving to plain SciFi.

So no, EVs are not "way better" than ICE cars, and the problem is far from being "essentially solved". Like I said, when it's solved, I'll go buy an EV first thing.

I absolutely get why people like them. If you drive an average ICE car and then an average EV car, the acceleration and availability of torque is just startling. You think you're in a Porsche or something. They're also very quiet. I like all these things too, but since I had very nice ICE cars for a long time, this didn't impress me quite as much to rave about it, and I can judge the product on its merits, without rose coloured glasses.

You seem to be ignoring every argument presented to you and the obvious pace of technological progress. You're also misrepresenting what I wrote. If you don't recognize what is and what isn't and refuse to extrapolate from existing data, this dicsussion is hopeless and won't result in any new insights.
 

Ornette

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You seem to be ignoring every argument presented to you and the obvious pace of technological progress. You're also misrepresenting what I wrote. If you don't recognize what is and what isn't and refuse to extrapolate from existing data, this dicsussion is hopeless and won't result in any new insights.
His great-great-grandfather probably made the exact same argument in the early 1900s about the superiority of horses as a mode of transportation over those "new-fangled internal combustion buggies"...
 

symphara

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You seem to be ignoring every argument presented to you and the obvious pace of technological progress. You're also misrepresenting what I wrote. If you don't recognize what is and what isn't and refuse to extrapolate from existing data, this dicsussion is hopeless and won't result in any new insights.
It was unlikely for this discussion to result in any new insights. The differences are too stark: I see this simply as a consumer problem, with me (and others) as the consumers, so I look at the solution as a whole. I don't regard it in an ideological fashion. Changing to an EV for me is simply a case of benefits outweighing the costs, and by costs I don't mean just money, but time and convenience. Just like I switched my lawnmower from petrol to an electric robot. There's nothing else to it.

Manichean thinking bores me. You identified me as being in the opposing ideological "team" and therefore has closed your mind to anything resembling nuance. You just don't write anything that could convince me, because you don't understand real life issues. I guess you're young, congratulations, like the guy with the university and the high speed trains in a post above. Do that with your family, young kids, lots of luggage, old parents.

EVs aren't there. You misunderstand that I root for them not to get there, or I don't care/ignore the trends. It's not about that. They're not there yet, for most people. My feelings on the matter don't matter. Nor do, unfortunately, yours.
 

symphara

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His great-great-grandfather probably made the exact same argument in the early 1900s about the superiority of horses as a mode of transportation over those "new-fangled internal combustion buggies"...
Let's have a race from Zurich to Vienna. You in an EV, me in an ICE. $10'000 prize. Let's see the superiority in action. Easy money for you.
 

blueone

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If we are concerned about range, the real future is to modern high speed trains: https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/tgv-m-france-rail-revolution/index.html
I have been traveling quite a bit to Paris and to parts of Germany in recent years, and each time the ICE and TGV were a wonderfully fast and comfortable option. I would have hated to drive there, and flying would have been quite a bit more time consuming, not to mention the fact that my university no longer allows flying for distances up to I think now 800 km.
Unfortunately, in the US, I think it would take decades to achieve a passenger train system competitive with air travel on a nationwide basis.
 

JktHifi

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If they loose about 1/3 of their ice sales to evs, then what do you think would happen to these manufacturers?
No, they won't loose because Vehicle is not TV, Hi-Fi, Amplifier, etc. Vehicle is about parts and maintenance.
Let's see next year stats of the global share market 2023.
 

Ornette

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Let's have a race from Zurich to Vienna. You in an EV, me in an ICE. $10'000 prize. Let's see the superiority in action. Easy money for you.
Exactly what your great-great-grandfather would have said about his horse vs. the Model T. And you'll look just as silly as he does after twenty years. You're also mistakenly projecting that your driving patterns and needs are the same as everyone else's. If EVs didn't make sense for anybody, then nobody would be buying them, don't you think?

You've made the point that an EV doesn't make sense for you at the present time. Which has exactly zero relevance to the topic at hand (see title of thread).
 

blueone

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Inner Space

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Let's have a race from Zurich to Vienna. You in an EV, me in an ICE. $10'000 prize. Let's see the superiority in action. Easy money for you.
I share your apprehension about long fast trips and the practicality of on-the-road charging. No argument from me on that. But ... most households have two or more cars, most trips are low-mileage commutes, errands and grocery shopping. Could you embrace the idea that a household could deploy one EV and one ICE? Tailpipe emissions would be reduced in towns and cities, and long-trip convenience would be unaltered, for a significant net benefit. That's how I - and virtually everyone else - do it at this stage of development, and it works great. Your concerns apply only in one-car households ... how many of those are there?
 

symphara

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Exactly what your great-great-grandfather would have said about his horse vs. the Model T.
And you'll look just as silly as he does after twenty years.
Well, he's dead, not silly. You don't know anything about him or his life. But sure, keep the ad hominems if they make you feel like a big man.

You're also mistakenly projecting that your driving patterns and needs are the same as everyone else's. If EVs didn't make sense for anybody, then nobody would be buying them, don't you think?
You lack basic reading comprehension.

I never said that EVs don't make sense for anybody. Ever. I can easily imagine EVs making sense for some people. I even gave examples - I have friends and neighbours who have EVs and use them to commute. They also have ICEs to fill the gaps where the EVs suck (i.e. longer distance travel).

What I said is that EVs are not superior in every sense compared to ICE vehicles, which was and remains the gist of your and others' position.

You've made the point that an EV doesn't make sense for you at the present time. Which has exactly zero relevance to the topic at hand (see title of thread).
EVs don't make sense for the title of the thread unless you have the energy to support it. If you charge your EV using coal-generated electricity, as Germany is doing to a sad extent, that's hardly a step forward. Let's see how the EU ICE ban from 2035 will go, when we simply lack the infrastructure and electricity generation capacity to sustain that transition.

I share your apprehension about long fast trips and the practicality of on-the-road charging. No argument from me on that. But ... most households have two or more cars, most trips are low-mileage commutes, errands and grocery shopping. Could you embrace the idea that a household could deploy one EV and one ICE? Tailpipe emissions would be reduced in towns and cities, and long-trip convenience would be unaltered, for a significant net benefit. That's how I - and virtually everyone else - do it at this stage of development, and it works great. Your concerns apply only in one-car households ... how many of those are there?
In Europe most households have one car. It varies a lot by country and rural/urban setting.
 
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