Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
7,500 federal tax credit. More early adopter than whole agenda, but there's momentum to make it permanent which may or may not happen. Trump would be more likely to push coal powered steam vehicles than EV. Which is kind of funny since coal is where we get most of our electricity so EV is coal.
This is old news though. That tax credit was adopted back in 2008 as part of the Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008. Auto makers like Tesla and GM have already phased out of the tax incentives and others will soon follow. I’m talking about in 2019 and all I’m hearing is crickets.
Americans love novelty. Electric vehicles are a convergence of novelty, fashion, hipness and a kind of self-described fraternity of ostentatious virtue.
Electric propulsion could enable light, limber, streamlined personal transportation... "cars" weighing only a few hundred pounds. Yet we see none of this, not even in the most "progressive" nest of urban sophistication. Instead, the rage is all about increasing miles-driven between a recharge, which means larger and heavier batteries, which means larger and heavier vehicles.
Correct, Ohio. I used my four-thousand pound minivan today twice; once, to go and get some dinner at about 3:00 (so I could eat it while watching "Jeopardy", the new Whiz Kid busted five hundred grand today). That was maybe a five mile round trip, barely enough time for the engine to warm and get out of the "most polluting" phase. Later on this evening, I used it to go to the health club (a little more than a mile from home), and afterward, two more miles to Mickey D's for an ice cream cone and a couple cheeseburgers to share with the dogs, so there's another maybe six-mile round trip; I probably burned a gallon of gas today. To me, that's plain nuts, I'd love to have a thousand or fifteen hundred pound "Smart Car" sized runabout to do that kind of thing. It needs to be drivable in rain and snow, have A/C, and a passenger seat I can easily remove to put in groceries or the dogs, and maybe an 80 mile range and be capable of 70 mph.
Unfortunately, I do enough 300 mile weekend trips, that this could not be my only vehicle, so I'd keep the van for those, going to the lumberyard, etc.. But there's no way in heck that I can justify even buying a Bolt or Leaf as a second car for "urban runabout" duty. It needs to be smaller, and far cheaper, than those two entries. I used to have a motorcycle I'd use for this, but was limited in use due to weather and carrying ability. Why can't I purchase a Renault Twizzy or Zoe in the U.S.? Why is Tesla uninterested in this market niche?
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/...-in-the-us.php
Last year, electricity production in the US from coal constituted 27% of electrical production and has likely been trending downwards since. Combined renewable energy production is probably be at parity with coal for electrical production in the US by the end of 2020.
Oy, the most interesting thing to me about your link is that it shows total electrical consumption mostly unchanged since about 2008, when it was rising steadily before that. I have to wonder why that is - LED bulbs and other increased efficiencies can't account for that big a change in consumption, can they?
Clearly, this can only be an exercise in extreme totalitarian gubmint mind control, by Communists, working with the UN, and Martians! I mean, what else could it possibly be??? And you know what's really telling - KFC announced this sandwich, and the White House said NOTHING, not one word! OMG!!! The only people who won't see this coming, are sheep who can't handle the real truth! PATRIOTS, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU EAT THIS SANDWICH WITHOUT WEARING YOUR TINFOIL HAT!!!
Funny!
You do know we have a “ funny” thread? A separate thread.
I, for one, appreciate a future of the automobile conversation and a serious BEV vs ICE conversation more
Please, don’t derail this topic.
Funny!
You do know we have a “ funny” thread? A separate thread.
I, for one, appreciate a future of the automobile conversation and a serious BEV vs ICE conversation more
Please, don’t derail this topic.
Ranting about fanciful conspiracy theories, as many people are doing, isn't remotely a serious discussion. It's just a lot of ridiculous paranoid assertions. Hence my satire.
EV is the future and I for one am 100% in support for mankind to continue challenging themselves to figure out how to make it work. Honestly why not? For the consumer - it’s a FAR less complicated device - battery and motor, no more filters, seals, 100,000 parts. It’s faster, it’s quieter, it’s safer. For the public - it’s no more sitting behind Leroy’s neglected beater spewing exhaust in your face, or that Honda Civic that hasn’t seen an oil chance in two years and leaving all of us behind it in a black cloud of crap.
For earth and our kids - duh..
We just have more work to do before we get there. Hope we continue and we don’t allow ignorance and quitters get in our way..
I’m not wholely agreeing with the reasons, just pointing out THEIR reasons. If they get the self driving technology to operate properly and fully communicate with all other self driving vehicles then accidents would be greatly reduced. This could result in a reduction of insurance rates as well as a reduction of road breaks requiring repairs. The other advantage is fuel economy. They’ll accelerate as fuel efficient as possible to the posted speed limit and if on the highway then all the self driving vehicles could form a train to reduce drag and greatly improve highway fuel economy. Because of the self driving they’d also reduce tire wear because of the lack of aggressive driving. An electric car makes sense if your daily commutes is very short on miles. Drive too few miles and your gas vehicle doesn’t get hot enough to be efficient and reduce pollution.
Personally, I like choices. The more choices the better. If some people want self driving vehicles then more power to them. Imagine the independence for those who are blind or have other forms of disabilities that limits their driving abilities.
I don’t like the self-driving aspect aspect at all. I don’t trust anyone but me when driving. But I do like the idea of electric motor over gas. Wish they could just swap out the gas motor for an electric version and call it a day. Maybe someday that’ll happen.
EV's is simply much more efficient. Electric motors run in industry 24-7 with a 2 week shutdown per year to rebuild an refurbish such equipment. These motors commonly last 30 or more years. There are 2 bearings (the wear parts in an electric motor). There are hundreds of wear parts in an internal combustion engine. The problem is the supply and control of the electronic and battery materials are owned or controlled by China. The western world has been based on the oil dollar and China wants the new standard to be based on the battery dollar. Looks like the hybrid will be the compromise.
As for Autonomous Vehicles it took hundreds years to refine our roads-ways and infrastructure which are not perfect but are a lot better off then most of the world. Think about what the bottle necks actually are in transportation in this country. Most of which are thousands of drivers slowing down and gawking at the overturned Vehicle which ran off the road.
Semi-Autonomous cars and trucks are not a bad thing. The reason again is accidents cost lives and money.
People are moving faster then ever before with busier lives. Distraction and unforeseen mechanical issues are being eliminated with driver assist features and additional OBD2 features. Over-speed control on vehicles is very close to being implemented as well.
It's the cost of safe Vehicles.
Thank you for pointing out a reliability of electric motors in principle: but what makes some really unreliable “throw away” small appliances with electrical motors then?
I appreciate the simplicity of one efficient smoothly functioning underground? electric grid infrastructure in the country vs petrol+ diesel+ Natural gas, etc. with their own depots, pipelines, pump stations, etc.
Then the nuclear power generation may come into place: let us say we pay to put nuclear energy generation into remote areas of Canada- some of which are practically uninhabitable due to the climate. Win-win?
Maybe we could develop huge banks of batteries as fast charging stations on every corner: for all electric needs, not only cars- to make the cars simpler and lighter?
Think what you want about nuclear energy- I just think that truly there is no any other alternative ...
To me the important debate isn't the one between electric and internal combustion engines, it's the one between self driving and autonomous vehicles. So long as the EV technology is advanced enough, it won't really change the way we drive to any great degree. I agree with those who say any changeover should be allowed to happen naturally and not be forced on us by government or big business that is subsidized by government, but I do think an eventual changeover would be beneficial or at least benign.
Autonomous vehicles are a different monster altogether though. That's where the bigger agendas come in to play. The increased if not total urbanization of society, the greater control over the extent of people's mobility(the ability to control where people go and how they get there) and the adaptation of a more collective mindset through the abolishment of privately owned vehicles. It is a much bigger lifestyle change than a question of engine type ever could be. That's why I think on this issue there needs to be more choice involved. Partial autonomy instead of full autonomy. No effort to outlaw self driving vehicles or private ownership of same. Back up manual controls even on vehicles that are fully autonomous.
When the technology is sufficiently developed and matured people will accept electric vehicles without much fuss, but any changeover to complete autonomy of our vehicles and/or the elimination of private ownership will be a much harder sell and a much more transformative societal development. And not necessarily in a good way.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The only people who won't see this coming, are sheep who can't handle the real truth! PATRIOTS, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU EAT THIS SANDWICH WITHOUT WEARING YOUR TINFOIL HAT!!! 
