EV Thread

Do they carry long sticks with a bag of jumbo marshmallows?

https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=l&ai...LmBLTcDqwoqP49ctka0g0qpMPv2XyasBoCFU0QAvD_BwE

Mmmmm... Lithium-mallows!

(The e-Golf didn't catch fire... but it was replaced with another brand new one, with only a handful of miles on it, it would only allow itself to be used on rare-occasions... maybe it was preparing!)

Holy crap!

another ID R article with some good pictures too

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/0...story-with-record-breaking-electric-race-car/

Volkswagen partners with QuantumScape to secure access to solid-state battery technology

$100 million....

Tesla has now made it official confirming that they produced 5,031 Model 3 during the last seven days of Q2.

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https://electrek.co/2018/07/02/tesla-official-model-3-production-numbers-q2/

I think they have huge lots full of model 3's already built but are allocating them in such a way as to avoid hitting the tax rebate cap for as long as possible.

Tesla has now made it official confirming that they produced 5,031 Model 3 during the last seven days of Q2.

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Taking the skeptical side here: This does not mean that they can produce 5000 a week on an ongoing basis.

Andy said:

I think they have huge lots full of model 3's already built but are allocating them in such a way as to avoid hitting the tax rebate cap for as long as possible.

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That might work in the short term, but I don't think they can afford to sit on a large amount of finished inventory for very long. Suppliers want to get paid...

All Tesla has to do to make more money is to shake down each of the Model 3 deposit holders. Free money!

~400,000 people already gave Tesla a $1k deposit and haven't gotten anything to show for it. That's $400M.

Each of them is asked to cough up another $2.5k when Tesla opens the books and allows each of them to configure their car (still with a several month delivery estimate from that point). That's a cool ONE BILLION DOLLARS they could raise in probably a couple days.

Then don't make the cars, and skip to Spain

NZDubNurd said:

Then don't make the cars, and skip to Spain

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Who mentioned DeLorean?

Fixed it for you

NZDubNurd said:

Then don't make the cars, and skip to Spain MARS

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Andy said:

Holy crap!

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Looks like that was the reaction of other people too:

Ha, turns out West Virginia penalizes you for using alternative fuels or EVs:

https://www.afdc.energy.gov/fuels/laws/ELEC/WV

In addition to standard registration fees, owners of vehicles fueled with natural gas, hydrogen, or electricity must pay an annual fee of $200. Plug-in hybrid electric vehicle owners must pay an annual fee of $100

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I would say WV is penalizing people who don't use coal ... but EV owners use even more coal! In fairness EVs do wear out roads, and don't pay fuel taxes.

Andy said:

.. but EV owners use even more coal!

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This I have to poke my $0.2 into - it's just untrue. The dirty-ness of the electric power generation certainly impacts the dirty-ness of the EV but luckily, outside some states like Pa (sorry Uwe), WV etc power is cleaner than ever with solar and wind.

I always wonder if folks who say EV's are dirtier than gas cars know what generated the electricity that refined their fossil fuels so they can try to sum up that dirty-ness


Carry on

msjulie said:

I always wonder if folks who say EV's are dirtier than gas cars know what generated the electricity that refined their fossil fuels so they can try to sum up that dirty-ness

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I have never been one to suggest that EV's are "dirtier" than any direct fuel burning vehicle, but I do object to those who say that the EV has a zero carbon production. Let's not wrap ourselves in the solar, wind power answer.. we cannot generate enough power to support all electric vehicles and all other loads today with just solar and wind. Maybe some day we will.

I also object to those that say "there is no pollution with an EV." Electricity produced by fossil fuels of any kind produces carbon. Batteries which we do not know how to re-cycle at this point, produce pollution. It is wrong to represent an EV as a totally free of pollution solution. Less pollution? Sure. Different kinds of pollution that ought to be easier to manage via large scale solutions? Sure. Zero pollution... no. Even when all electricity is generated by solar and wind - not something that happens in any state of the USA today - one still has the issue of the batteries.

Remember, all electric devices have losses... they produce heat which warms our environment. That too is a form of pollution is it not? If we are so concerned by global warming, why are we not screaming about all the electric consumers that heat the environment? And our generating plants produce a huge amount that is dumped to the environment.

I say, let's call a spade a spade. Let's be honest about the whole picture. EV's do reduce the carbon foot print of autos. They are an improvement. But, they still pollute... They are not the end all answer despite some of the rhetoric that says they are.

msjulie said:

WV etc power is cleaner than ever with solar and wind.

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Have things changed much since 2016?

https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=WV

Coal-fired electric power plants accounted for 94% of West Virginia's net electricity generation in 2016, natural gas contributed 1.6%, and renewable energy resources—primarily hydroelectric power and wind energy—contributed about 3.8%.

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Disclaimer, I'm a big fan of WV ... it's a beautiful state that I spent time in fishing the crystal clear Elk River. But the stereotype of them loving their coal, does seem to still hold true.

msjulie said:

outside some states like Pa (sorry Uwe),

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About 16 miles straight west of us as the crow flies:

@Bruce I was in agreement with you all the way up to the heat comment.

While I have no disagreement that electric vehicles leak heat, but there is no way under normal operating circumstances that EV's produce as consistently and as much heat as a standard ICE.

Additionally, electro-thermal technologies and efficiencies will improve over time, and I don't think that much can be said about lowering the temps and heat loss from engines designed to create and harness energy from multiple explosions thousands of times per second.

D-Dub said:

@Bruce I was in agreement with you all the way up to the heat comment.

While I have no disagreement that electric vehicles leak heat, but there is no way under normal operating circumstances that EV's produce as consistently and as much heat as a standard ICE.

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I never said the EVs produce as much heat as an ICE. I said, they have losses and they dump those losses off as heat. That is heat pollution by definition. I never quantified and I accept that the amount of heat from an EV is significantly less than an ICE.

My point again is there are those who tout EVs as the solution to all vehicle pollution woes. They are not a complete solution. They are a significant improvement but I will not listen to those that would say they do not pollute. They do. When we know the true reductions in all pollutants, we can then speak in quantitative measures. I have seen no complete report that gives such data.

I have two friends with a Nissan Leaf. They are both big environmentalists - actually I would label them EV evangelists. The passion by which they promote their "Zero Carbon Footprint car".. is over the top and they will not listen to others. The argument I made earlier I have made to them. They cannot refute my statements. Highly educated, engineer types, and still they do not want to listen to others who counter their 0 carbon - 0 pollution claims. It is to those like them who bought the marketing without really studying the facts that I speak. We do not at present have zero carbon and non-polluting vehicles. We certainly have new choices that reduce the carbon and heat that comes from the vehicle industry and vehicle operation. We have not however, eliminated such by going EV.