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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?
Microgeneration. There's a lot of houses with solar, none of which would be included for example.
Cars are extremely inefficient. You're burning fuel to accelerate and decelerate a 3000lb vehicle constantly, to move around a person who weighs only 100-200lbs. Electric and even hybrid are much more efficient because much of that energy gets recovered. Electric is also more efficient than burning fuel directly in the vehicle
Microgeneration. There's a lot of houses with solar, none of which would be included for example.
I don’t about the solar viewpoint, solar has been around for decades. But I do think several leaps in not only how technology has been developed, but how’s it deployed into the average home consumer has played a huge role. LED bulbs, yes. But also I suspect many old-school 1990’s era HVAC units have since been replaced with increased efficiency. Washing machines with auto sensing that reduces water and therefore electricity. And smart phones. Yes, iGadgets. Charge for 1 hour, get say 4 hours of constant use instead of TV on for that same 4 hours. That sort of stuff.
I have 0% doubt EV is our future for personal vehicular use. Honesty, I’ve been thinking about replacing one of my gas cars with one, but there isn’t anything out there I like and/or willing to pay the premium for. But seeing VW coming out now with some new offerings, that might change. I don’t like Tesla at all. Just not my style or brand.
There's big money in autonomous vehicles. Freight trucks are already autonomous on limited routes, and anything that eliminates labor is a Good Thing to the bean counters. There are 3.5 million truck drivers in the US. If you could eliminate even a million of them, at say $50k/year, that's $50 billion a year that can go into the owner's pockets instead of payroll. Over 20 years, somebody but truck drivers gets to pocket $1 trillion.
The second market is us baby boomers. We had to take my mom's drivers license away when she turned 90. The next five years of her life were limited to wherever a cab could take her (too early for ride share). She was well-to-do, and could have written a check for an autonomous car. She probably would have. As one of the oldest boomers, I have perhaps 15 years until advancing age makes driving unwise. There are 76 million of us boomers, and if even a tenth of us pony up for a self-driving vehicle, that's a lot of cars. That's a lot of money laying on the table. The car manufacturers are drowning in drool. At $100k/car, call it $760 billion in sales.
Do you see why there is a push? Gummint will do what it's told to do.
As for electric vehicles, the reason for support is less clear, but so is the reason for opposition. Going to an EV economy will require building out a national electrical infrastructure, which desperately needs to be done anyway. The US is years behind the world leaders in HVDC power transmission.
We have a whopping 50 miles of HVDC transmission line in operation, which is pathetic. AC is fine for short runs. China has one 530 mile line in operation, while Brazil is building out a 1500 mile line. That's what we need. When the wind blows in the Columbia Gorge, we need to be able to sell the power to Chicago. When the wind blows in Oklahoma, we need to be able to sell the power to Los Angeles. Meanwhile, electricity is cheap, efficient and non-polluting. The wind is always blowing somewhere, we just need to be able to plug into it.
Meanwhile, our oil pipelines need to be replaced. Natural gas pipelines last for decades, but oil pipelines do not. In the last decade, pipeline spills have increased 60%. The lines are wearing out, while the political will to build and maintain them is flagging. With the Permian Basin production, we have plenty of crude, but we don't have the refinery capacity to deal with a growing economy, and nobody is building new ones.
Cars don't run in a vacuum. They have to fit into a long term energy policy. If we started building a national electrical grid, it would take 20 years for it to be in operation. Politicians keep talking about "infrastructure," but they would rather buy F-35s. Nobody is doing squat, and it's unlikely they will do anything until it's an emergency. Meanwhile, subsidizing a little EV research is cheap insurance. We might need them someday.
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?
Easily, but that is not an automotive issue. There have been comparable efficiency increases on the highway too. Remember the "Cash For Clunkers" program during the last recession? It took a lot of gas guzzlers off the road, and boosted car sales when the makers were in a world of hurt. Remember when 20 mpg was considered great mileage?
I just got done reading the story of the guy that first came up with running vaporized fuel, and how he was getting close to 80mpg...and this was decades ago, govt tried all they all could to shut him down, he survived one assassination attempt, just by the skin of his teeth, but ultimately he died of a mysterious overdose a year later...so they got to him after all, its not in their best interest for vehicles to be THAT economical.
Thank you. I knew I would hook a bunch of suckers when I wrote that story. It's good to know my work survives.
I have 0% doubt EV is our future for personal vehicular use. Honesty, I’ve been thinking about replacing one of my gas cars with one, but there isn’t anything out there I like and/or willing to pay the premium for. But seeing VW coming out now with some new offerings, that might change. I don’t like Tesla at all. Just not my style or brand.
You could dip your toe in the EV waters with a used one for a few years to see if you can deal with it. A Volt or a Spark EV are fun choices that can be had in the $10k price point and will still give years of reliable, fun service. I'm thinking of replacing my Volt with a Spark EV or Fiat 500e, as I rarely exceed the 40 mile EV range of the Volt, so a car with 100 miles of range would do me fine even in the winter. Both are zippy little cars (the Spark has almost 400 lb ft of torque in a very light package) that handle good and are great commuters.
Cars are extremely inefficient. You're burning fuel to accelerate and decelerate a 3000lb vehicle constantly, to move around a person who weighs only 100-200lbs. Electric and even hybrid are much more efficient because much of that energy gets recovered. Electric is also more efficient than burning fuel directly in the vehicle
Thank you for reiterating this point!
Consider.... a transport airplane weighs maybe 200K pounds empty. It carries maybe 100K pounds of fuel, and another 100K pounds of cargo (people and their stuff). So the ratio of empty weight to useful cargo weight is 2:1. Much the same can be said for 18-wheelers, oil tankers and so forth.
But we have a 3000 pound car and a 200 pound human. The ratio of empty weight to useful cargo weight is 15:1. That's not going to change whether the engine is diesel, gasoline, hybrid, electric, hydrogen, nuclear, warp-drive or anything else.
What we need is lighter vehicles! Unfortunately, electric is going the opposite direction. EVs are heavy, because batteries are heavy, and they're heavy because their energy density is poor. The Tesla Model-3 is an impressive car, but compare its weight to that of say a BMW 3-series or C-class Mercedes. It's heavier. And it's because of the batteries.
But we have a 3000 pound car and a 200 pound human. The ratio of empty weight to useful cargo weight is 15:1. That's not going to change whether the engine is diesel, gasoline, hybrid, electric, hydrogen, nuclear, warp-drive or anything else.
What we need is lighter vehicles! Unfortunately, electric is going the opposite direction. EVs are heavy, because batteries are heavy, and they're heavy because their energy density is poor. The Tesla Model-3 is an impressive car, but compare its weight to that of say a BMW 3-series or C-class Mercedes. It's heavier. And it's because of the batteries.
I was curious, so looked up some weights...
Curb weight of Tesla Model 3: 3,627 to 4,072 lbs
Curb weight of BMW 3 Series: 3,582 to 3,764 lbs
Curb weight of Mercedes C Class: 3,472 to 4,012 lbs
Thank you for reiterating this point!
Consider.... a transport airplane weighs maybe 200K pounds empty. It carries maybe 100K pounds of fuel, and another 100K pounds of cargo (people and their stuff). So the ratio of empty weight to useful cargo weight is 2:1. Much the same can be said for 18-wheelers, oil tankers and so forth.
But we have a 3000 pound car and a 200 pound human. The ratio of empty weight to useful cargo weight is 15:1. That's not going to change whether the engine is diesel, gasoline, hybrid, electric, hydrogen, nuclear, warp-drive or anything else.
What we need is lighter vehicles! Unfortunately, electric is going the opposite direction. EVs are heavy, because batteries are heavy, and they're heavy because their energy density is poor. The Tesla Model-3 is an impressive car, but compare its weight to that of say a BMW 3-series or C-class Mercedes. It's heavier. And it's because of the batteries.
Ohio, although I agree with you that we need choices for lighter-weight vehicles, it's not a fair comparison to load up the airplane in your example, and not the car. For instance, my Caravan has a curb weight of about 4500 lbs., but can carry an additional 1500, which would give it 3:1 "empty:cargo" ratio. Not great considering I can purchase a 30 lb. bicycle that provides a 1:7 ratio, but the van can do a lot more than the bicycle. The problem is, I use my van as you illustrated, with myself as the only passenger the vast majority of the time. Hence my need for a much smaller and lighter form of transport.
Again, I have to believe that a two-passenger (or single passenger plus cargo) vehicle, similar in size and features to a Smart Car, is going to be the entry level electric vehicle going forward. But it's going to have to be "cheap" to get people to give up their F250's. Maybe that's why the major automakers have no interest in producing them, because people will no longer be wearing out and replacing their forty grand Explorers at the same rate.
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