Well, IMO, hybrids are the way to go, unlike me who wants to come in to cars fully electric.

@Spartan, well, electric cars are still much cheaper per mile, since electric cars are much more efficient than gasoline cars. Even at 0,28$CA/kWh, that is still 3,25x cheaper compared to gasoline when you take into account efficiency.
Also, most vehicles that are cooled well, designed well and not super fast charged too quickly, like the Teslas and Chevy Bolts, have very small battery degradation.
They have no problem getting 200 000km with 92% capacity remaining.

@strayz, that’s personally the reason I hate gas prices. They are so volatile.
As I’ve mentioned before, this is why hybrids are your best bet.

@ScallyWag, excellent job!

Anyway, the reason I’m trying to be environmentally friendly as possible is that I want for myself, and my future kids, to have a bright, clean, nature filled and lively world.

I try to do anything in my power to do so, which includes going to conferences to voice out my knowledge, take part in regional offices, etc.

BlueSwordM wrote:

Anyway, the reason I’m trying to be environmentally friendly as possible is that I want for myself, and my future kids, to have a bright, clean, nature filled and lively world.

BlueSwordM wrote:

@Spartan, well, electric cars are still much cheaper per mile, since electric cars are much more efficient than gasoline cars. Even at 0,28$CA/kWh, that is still 3,25x cheaper compared to gasoline when you take into account efficiency.
Also, most vehicles that are cooled well, designed well and not super fast charged too quickly, like the Teslas and Chevy Bolts, have very small battery degradation.
They have no problem getting 200 000km with 92% capacity remaining.

At 5km per kw*, where exactly is this “account for efficiency”?

That is for a full size E-Benz. A REAL car, not some piece of garbage. Full hard-on luxury with absolutely no compromising or worries. And good for a million kilometers,…that’s multiples of electric car lifetimes.

No problem for 200k? Nope. There is no such thing as 200,000 km at 92%.

REAL numbers from manufacturers.

REAL kw/mileage for electric cars under favorable conditions. Let me know how this does in Canadian winters….lol

*https://www2.greencarreports.com/news/1082737_electric-car-efficiency-fo...

Out here on the left coast I paid $4.39 last night it’s cutting into my flashlight budget

Mike K wrote:

Out here on the left coast I paid $4.39 last night it’s cutting into my flashlight budget

Taxes….taxes….and more taxes.

The wet dream of enviros is to make driving a sin. Ergo, sin-tax. Then unlimited taxation is “justifiable”……and achieves THEIR goals.

NOT
GOING
TO
HAPPEN

@Spartan, even at 0,28$/Kwh, that’s still 0,36$CA cheaper on average.

And these are only warranty bases. There have been a lot of cases where Tesla Model Ss have gone above and beyond the warranty with well over 70% capacity.

There are plenty of videos online of Tesla Model Ss still having 90-96% capacity left.

I know what you mean though.

We have to embrace change however.

For our future, and the future of other generations.

Why do you think we went from incandescent lights to LED lights?

While they still excel in terms of CRI at 2700-3100k, they aren’t widely used anymore and have been superseded by LEDs.

Also, don’t cheat with diesel.
While diesel vehicles are more economical than gasoline cars, diesel is much worse in terms of pollution. Much worse.

The best bet for now would be hybrids with large battery packs(10+kWh) and propane powered cars.
That last one would be intersting, as its efficiency is higher than a gas powered car, uses a cheaper fuel, is easier to transport over long distances(pipelines/boats), and is more environmentally friendly compared to gasoline.

And taxes aren’t bad… if companies were actually paying their fair share taxes to get rid of the debt and can provide great services all around.

Spartan wrote:

Mike K wrote:

Out here on the left coast I paid $4.39 last night it’s cutting into my flashlight budget

Taxes….taxes….and more taxes.

The wet dream of enviros is to make driving a sin. Ergo, sin-tax. Then unlimited taxation is “justifiable”……and achieves THEIR goals.

NOT
GOING
TO
HAPPEN

Anyway, the gas tax in CA only accounts for half of the premium we pay out here (it’s less than 50c a gallon). Not sure why it’s so much more expensive.

BlueSwordM wrote:

And taxes aren’t bad… if companies were actually paying their fair share of their taxes to get rid of the debt and can provide great services all around.

Spartan wrote:

There is no such thing as 200,000 km at 92%. REAL numbers from manufacturers.

Not sure why this is what people think. There is plenty of real world data from real owners that support the fact that the vast majority of Tesla vehicles lose <10% of range over 100,000 miles.

Please check: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/t024bMoRiDPIDialGnuKPsg

Until Electric cars come down in price about 200% . A lot More charging stations and longer life battery.
They NOT viable outside the city’s in places like USA and Australia,
We have to long a distance to travel,
Even just to get into town some of the stations are over a thousand km to nearest city.
They HAVE to Fly everywhere.
Most of us just run Diesel Utes and 4wd. as we carry family. Tow boats and caravans (trailers) with lots of Horse floats along for the ride too.
We’ve had gas supplemented diesels for decades here.
VERY efficient, with great improvement in power,economy.
The only real vaibility of transport in large areas
Truck and car. electric rail even more costly to run.

“GREEN” anything is just a dreamers wishful thinking in todays clime.

For bulk. reliable 24\7 power supply. there IS Coal. Gas. and Nuclear.

I’ve worked on all three over the 60+ yrs I’ve been in workforce.
Personally. Nuclear. CONTROLLED.
Is the most efficient. cost effective, reliable, and constant.
With least disruption of the planets surface. Which is fine.
And instead of spending the multi billions we do on warfare.
Spend it on a practical. Nuclear powered shuttle service to transport all the spent rods out into the outer space around us.
There is a little bit of it out there. We’d never fill it.
just chuck the lethal (to us) crap out there a bit

A few of the stupid greenies and do gooders with it too. Hopefully. Bloody dead heads..

She only has to get annoyed once too often by us,
She’ll shrug ONE of her surface plates.
Melt\burn everything off all the surfaces. and start again in a few million yrs when the outer core cools a little to form a new mantle.
Without all the crap she’s carrying round at present (humans)
This place would be a lot better off without us destroying it more daily.

Fuel and transport is NOT going to change.

Get rid of ALL the present politicians and even more so.
The useless dead heads that were there b4 them. ALl just draining the country’s tax coffers.
Sack ‘em all. put ‘em on the unemployment with none of their perks.
and spend the billions releases on the country.

That’d be a much more useful thing to do with our reorganisation of
basic costing in any country.

CalvinIS wrote:

Spartan wrote:

There is no such thing as 200,000 km at 92%. REAL numbers from manufacturers.

 

Not sure why this is what people think. There is plenty of real world data from real owners that support the fact that the vast majority of Tesla vehicles lose <10% of range over 100,000 miles.

Not interested in charts by Tesla fan boys over a few hundred cars.

Li-ion degrade. Period. How much they degrade is based on how far one has to travel, which means how deeply one discharges the pack. The deeper the discharge, the faster the decline of the pack capacity.

Fan boys aside, ALL the manufacturers, every single one knows this and that is why they have predefined expectations on the battery pack capacity.

Well, lithium-ion degrade extremely slowly when properly taken care of, which means:

Temperature control between 25-35C. Done with the Teslas.

Charge and discharge from 20-80% capacity most of the time. Done.

Use a very smart charging algorithm that actively cools the cell at full throttle to get ultra fast charging.

Individual pack liquid cooling using glycol and a small mix of graphite. Done.

Top of the line electronics and BMS. Done

Using cells that can easily get rid of the heat, and have very good cycle life and low internal resistance on their own. Done.

Any electricity production is more efficient and more environmentally friendly compared to petroleum based power sources for vehicles. Done.

Wait, did a post get removed?

I have a feeling someone did…

The thing is though, as electric car battery packs get better, so do our flashlights cells.

Bluesword.

BUT………………………..

You forget.
Electricity in large. RELIABLE volume.
Can only be produced by burning fossil in either Fuel Gas or Nuclear.

just a vicious circle. Going round and round.
Solar and wind. Nor sea surface movement round land areas.

Can NEVER…… produce enough electricity to maintain any
human livable area with it’s consumptions required.
NOR without a real breakthrough (dreamers) will ever change.

My 5.7L 4WD Suburban has a 42gal tank, so if I catch it early enough below 1/4 tank I can get through a fill-up for less that $100 lately.

That’s why I’m saying ANY electricity production.
Be it petroleum, methane, even coal is more efficient than using liquid based hydrocarbons for direct transportation.

That’s why hybrids are quite a bit more efficient than gasoline cars: they actually use their engines as electric generations, and since electric generators are more efficient than engines, hybrid vehicles win.

And yeah. A mix of nuclear, hydroelectric, solar for electricity, and thermal storage for homes and businesses would be your best bet.

Heck, until we can get 300Wh/kg+ cells or 500Wh/kg+ cells, I think we should keep gas electric generators as a baseload.

Using excess electricity for hydrogen production would be great though during the day

Post removed? Yes, that was me, editing myself.... I may hate myself later for this but.....

Motor fuel taxes in the US are amazingly low. There is one other country with a fuel tax lower than the US; Mexico has no motor fuel tax. That makes the US the country with the lowest actual paid fuel tax rate at a state average of $0.53 per US gallon. Canada is next in line with a rate of $1.25 per US gallon. There are 34 developed countries in the OCED, the US is one of them. The average fuel tax rate of the 34 countries is $2.62 per US gallon. That $0.53 US tax rate drags that average down.  Most of the OCED countries also have a VAT tax, unlike the US. That VAT is added on top of the fuel excise tax to increase the actual fuel taxes even more. What a deal we have here. 

My present gasoline burning car gets an average of 36 MPG with 40-41 attainable on the highway. It uses about half the gasoline that my daily driver did 30 years ago. But given the greater fuel efficiency today I contribute less to the road and bridge maintenance. Something wrong there if you really think about it.

The Tesla gets driven more than the gasoline car but pays no gas taxes at all. Hmmm. I am not personally complaining about the tax savings, but the money to repair roads and bridges has to come from somewhere. The cars driving on the roads and bridges should be making more of a contribution, IMO.

Oh, the electricity to charge the Tesla comes from an array of solar panels in the yard. That also powers the house. We have storage but also are also grid connected so daytime sunshine gets stored and the excess pushed into the power grid. We can make a “withdrawal” from the grid when the sun does not shine if we need to. It is fortunate we live in a location with 310 days average of bright sunshine a year. It is an excellent location to make and use solar power.

I actually liked the Chevy Volt we had a lot but a DWI hit us and totalled it.

Macka17 wrote:

For bulk. reliable 24\7 power supply. there IS Coal. Gas. and Nuclear.

I’ve worked on all three over the 60+ yrs I’ve been in workforce.
Personally. Nuclear. CONTROLLED.
Is the most efficient. cost effective, reliable, and constant.
With least disruption of the planets surface. Which is fine.
And instead of spending the multi billions we do on warfare.
Spend it on a practical. Nuclear powered shuttle service to transport all the spent rods out into the outer space around us.
There is a little bit of it out there. We’d never fill it.
just chuck the lethal (to us) crap out there a bit

3 words: Integral Fast Reactor.

They can burn spent radwaste like precious new fuel, ‘til what’s left is so wrung dry it needs no special disposal.

They use fast neutrons vs slow (thermal) neutrons to maintain the reaction.

No more need to even mine new U or even Th, just dig up what’s already buried (or on its way there) to use as fuel.

Conventional reactors are done with fuel rods when there’s something like 90% useful energy still in ‘em, which is why they gotta be encased in concrete or glass and buried in salt-mines.

Imagine tossing out alkaleaks once they drop from new 1.6V to a paltry 1.4V. That’s how wasteful the current process is. IFRs can burn nuclear ash ‘til it’s well wrung-out and classifiable as low-level waste.

Integral, so you can’t separate out Pu for using for Bad Bad things. Essentially self-moderating. Burns nuclear ash. What’s not to love?

You guys should see the price of jet fuel Most major airports (New York, Miami, LA), fuel is +$8.00 per gallon. Fill up with 800 gallons, pay a $1,000 landing fee, $200 “ramp” fee, $250 “parking” fee and $100 to get your passengers vehicles on the ramp… it gets a little crazy.

Most major companies “hedge” the fuel prices, which makes me wonder why people couldn’t do the same. For instance: imagine going to your local gas station when gas is $1.99/gallon and saying “I’d like to pre-buy 1000 gallons please.”

Yep we all too busy trying to get everything for nothing. Everything comes with a price.
which Politicians don’t in the least. Mind us taxpayers forking out for hey.

Lose, lose, all round, till something gets organised.
like the water burning Hydrogen engine developed in the ’30’s.
and the reverse engineered ones.

which oil company was that who gave him an open cheque for it again?.
Same as all other engineering developments.

As long as the top doggies are getting more than their cut.
We will pay and have ALL forward advancement in fuel’power. transport contained..
When the fossils do run out of viable recovery costing.
They already have the next development in line for us to buy from them
AT their prices.

MTNDon.

““The Tesla gets driven more than the gasoline car but pays no gas taxes at all. Hmmm. I am not personally complaining about the tax savings, but the money to repair roads and bridges has to come from somewhere. The cars driving on the roads and bridges should be making more of a contribution, IMO.”“

New Zealand has one of the better ideas.
They have/had a system. where your road tax was paid in advance on the miles per yr you anticipated driving.

More miles. more tax. Over and above the fuel tax (I believe)

YOU paid for the bitumin YOU wore out.
Great idea I reckon.

We have had solar and wind genny’s since early ’70’s.
Yachts. Caravans. and homes. Plus Evac Tubes water heating on roof.
We run complete home. Pool.Pumps. Air Cond all yr. and total Maint costs.
plus avera,ge a $650 Pr year Cash rebate. Now.
Was more but offset by rising costs. Over $1100 AUD, initially.
on a 2 storey home on side of hill in Central Queensland
Sub Tropics).
We live 27ish km North of Tropic of Capricorn on East coast of Aust.
Just behind 30+ offshore islands, with hills behind us.
that break up Any Cyclone patterns here.
One direct 285kmph Cyclone. Direct hit in 28 yrs.
Lots of near misses that don’t affect us. Just lots of rain for gardens.

Initial costs of Solar.
around $16.5k AUD. Paid off in under 7 yrs.
ALL on 15/25 yr replacement warranty.
German Panels. Aust and Japanese Inverters.
NO Chinese in there.
Over 13 yrs old now. This system. Still ticking over nicely.

Macka17 wrote:

Bluesword.

BUT………………………..

You forget.
Electricity in large. RELIABLE volume.
Can only be produced by burning fossil in either Fuel Gas or Nuclear.

just a vicious circle. Going round and round.
Solar and wind. Nor sea surface movement round land areas.

Can NEVER…… produce enough electricity to maintain any
human livable area with it’s consumptions required.
NOR without a real breakthrough (dreamers) will ever change.

I’ve done calculations on wind/ solar, it’s not enough unless we are talking on a scale where state sizes areas are devoted to solar and wind turbines every square mile of the US. That’s already assuming we have terawatt storage capacity…which has yet to be invented.

Think about the size of generation and grid we need to replace carbon based heating, transportation AND current use.

We MUST go nuclear. It’s not just for our current overall consumption, but in order for our civilization to reach the next level. Then do that 24/7/365.

Or just ask AOC….she’ll purse her lips and snap her fingers…and viola. lol

Lux-Perpetua wrote:

When I lived in Alabama about 15 years ago gas prices were like $ 1,80/gallon (regular unleaded). Coming back to Germany I had to get used to much higher prices (= less fun with long distance trips). The highest prices I can remember here were about € 1,72/liter, i.e. $ 1,90/liter or $ 7,16/gallon. In Germany 62% of the gas price is tax (mineral oil tax, enery tax, eco tax, VAT, …).

It was $1.89 here about a month ago. $2.49 today.

Macka17 wrote:

MTNDon.

New Zealand has one of the better ideas.
They have/had a system. where your road tax was paid in advance on the miles per yr you anticipated driving.

More miles. more tax. Over and above the fuel tax (I believe)

YOU paid for the bitumin YOU wore out.
Great idea I reckon.

Yes, a miles driven tax makes a lot of sense especially when electric vehicles are a part of the fleet mix. There have been many studies here that have pretty much all concluded that a distance traveled tax has more benefits than detriments. However, for the most part nothing happens.

We have had solar electric generation since 2006. Even at the higher panel panels back then the initial system paid for itself. Originally we chose solar because joining the power company grid was hideously expensive. We were building in a slightly remote area with no other nearby neighbors and the power line had to be underground through the adjacent national forest land. . Since then others have built and we were able to join at very low cost after the power company installed an underground line through an easement we negotiated with them. We get paid a per KwH fee for any excess we generate and we have no meter or connection fee in exchange for the power line easement. Good deal all round.

Thanks anyway. I’ll stick with internal combustion gas &/or diesel. YMMV, mine will not.

Dont forget about risk of battery fire on electric cars(li-ion).

Thats why I dont want li-ion electric cars.

SIGShooter wrote:

I live in San Francisco and gas prices are almost $4/gallon. I envy the other parts of the US

If people got their brains around it. Nuclear (Clean)
IS the best way to go.
To give everybody clean almost limitless electrical power.

IF the ocean currents were so deep.
We could install underwater turbines in the Flow of Oceanic Currents.
and get completely limitless power there too.
Look at Planet wise Oceanic flow charts. We used them for deducing seasons and directions for ocean sailing back in the ’50’s to ’80’s.
They cover the WHOLE planet going in differing directions
in different seasons.
It should be possible to design and build Coastal units. But they’d need to be reversible for Tidal flows.
And Salt corrosion would be horrendous, yes.

VP Racing Fuel C14 is over $22.00 bucks a Gallon now! No more long ass burn outs!

Yourrid wrote:

You guys should see the price of jet fuel Most major airports (New York, Miami, LA), fuel is +$8.00 per gallon. Fill up with 800 gallons, pay a $1,000 landing fee, $200 “ramp” fee, $250 “parking” fee and $100 to get your passengers vehicles on the ramp… it gets a little crazy.

Wow, thats crazy the price of fuel at major airports. Here’s the current fuel prices at our local airport as of today.