Quote:
Originally Posted by Isidore
Electric vehicles are fine in town for short journeys but they just are not there yet (or possibly ever) for long distances. Let me give you a very simple example: The batteries of a Seg store about 1 Kw.h of energy.and they weigh just over 10 kg. The most efficient internal combustion engines, large 2 stroke diesels as used in ocean going ships or diesel power stations produce 1 Kw.h of work from about 183 grams of fuel. If we call that 200 gms, we have a ratio of weight to stored energy that is some 50 times better for the chemical fuel powered system. So for every pound of fuel, you need 50 pounds of battery! Of course a car is nowhere near this efficient but the numbers still illustrate the size of the problem. This is why (as well as cost) the Chevy Volt needs a gas engine as well as batteries, unless of course you are going to tow a large trailer full of lithium ion cells. For commuting or short in town trips, battery may well be best but it will be a while before you can do a trip that lasts all day. Even the Tesla, a highly modified Lotus Elise carrying an enormous weight of batteries can barely run for 3 hours at freeway speeds. The electric Mini carries 260Kg of batteries, loses half its seats and still has a range of only 150 miles and that is not at highway speed!
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All true -- and usually irrelevant. Most trips are short. Most travel is short-to-medium short. Most people don't exceed the range of a Tesla very often.
But with no alternatives, most people have to consider the rare case where it IS relevant. Make it easy to rent a car for those rare occasion, and use other means the rest of the time, and people can save serious $$$.
We don't really need as many, and as large, a fleet of vehicles as we operate in this country. We're just set up to do it this way. And as long as it's based on individual decisions, when individuals don't decide about putting their $$$ into automobile roads vs alternatives -- it will change very, very slowly indeed.
We need to retool our transportation modality and infrastructure to be more sustainable and economical. That doesn't include an ever-growing fleet of ever-larger single-occupant vehicles, ad infinitum. It's some more rational mix, and I predict that we are near the peak of number of individual petroleum-powered cars in this country. Population growth will drive the total higher for a while. Efficiency improvements will extend the curve a bit.
But in the end, it's not a sustainable model. Propping up the automobile industry without accommodating this reality isn't wise.
I think we need to invest (and I mean invest, not give away without concern for return) in a modality shift for our transportation industry, and try to recapture the world-wide initiative with a better way.
Unfortunately, it means government investment right now, because that's the only place where money can come from to be placed at risk in new efforts -- or even well-established ones. But at least, we can approach it as an investment, demanding a return - so the only way for people taking those stimulus dollars can hope to get rich is by actually producing, rather than just taking the dollars and doing the same-old.
Paying people to make cars nobody buys would be a disaster. Paying people to buy cars would be a disaster. Doing nothing would be a disaster.
But a recession is the perfect time to invest. Resources (human and physical) are more readily available. People will give you better return on your dollars. Assets are available at reduced cost. You just have to (1) get ahold of the money, which is hard in a recession, and (2) stay afloat cash-flow wise, also hard in a recession.