EVs Likely to Result in Dirtier Air than Gas Powered Cars (Fox News)

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frugal-phile™
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ou can bet your *** that electrifying all those ancient diesels running on the roads today would result in a huge amount of PM reduction, too.

Noteable that a test of a big Volvo BEV excavator at a months long LA construction site, showed greater efficiency than the diesel units, but the side effect that surprised me (it shouldn’t have) is that the significant reduction in noise and vibration led to much lower levels of operator exhaustion.

dave
 
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Noteable that a test of a big Volvo BEV excavator at a months long LA construction site, showed greater efficiency than the diesel units, but the side effect that surprised me (it shouldn’t have) is that the significant reduction in noise and vibration led to much lower levels of operator exhaustion.

dave
They've been deploying electric buses in the city near me. If I start seeing EV buses at night as well, then I'll be more confident that they've done it correctly with a battery swapping solution instead leaving half the fleet out of service for overnight charging.
 
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There are problems presented by EVs. Generation of pm2.5 particles is among them. There is evidence that they're higher than petrol cars because of increased EV weight.

EVs also present other problems:
  • Generating capacity
  • Grid infrastructure
  • Rare earth and lithium needed
  • Charging point installation
  • Accident repair costs and increased likelihood of accident write off
  • Cost of cars and effect on those on low incomes
  • Lack of recycling infrastructure for batteries and motors
None are insurmountable, but just making EVs and batteries is only going to create more problems.

I keep hearing about new technology, that'll solve some of this, but it's all mostly 10-20 years from actually being useful...

The problem is that we have two sides equally blinded by belief. One refusing to accept evidence that change has to occur, the other demanding change NOW while treating criticism as evidence of stupidity or dark conspiracy by fossil fuel interests.

The first step to solving a problem is accepting there is one...
 
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frugal-phile™
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[QUOTE="StevenCrook, post: 7621793, member: 479578”]

The first step to solving a problem is accepting there is one…

[*]Generating capacity
[*]Grid infrastructure
[*]Charging point installation

Grid has long needed upgrading, and it is only a question of time before the charging infrastructure is decent.

[*]Accident repair costs and increased likelihood of accident write off

I understand largely due to Tesla being by far the most common, and their use of only 1 or 2 big stamped pieces fro the chassis. Tweak it and th ercar is a rwrite off

[*]Cost of cars and effect on those on low incomes

Cost of batteries, amortization of development of whole new products, it is all coming down.

[*]Lack of recycling infrastructure for batteries and motors

This is somethign that unlike the petrol industry, has been thot of more of less from the start. Batteries that don’t have sufficient juice for cars anymore are still useful and being used for virtual power plants. Given the cost of getting the stuff in them from the ground recycled material will become cheaper than new (probably not as large a delta as aluminium, where recycled product costs 10% of freshly mined and processed Al). Same with solar cels and wind turbines.

The new energy “revolution” is taking care to clean up after itself.

[*]Rare earth and lithium needed

Until they aren’t. Just saw a bit on a lithium/sodium anodeless SS battery. Better, cheaper batteries are coming…

As the first sentence i quoted from Steven (i shuffled his post around) this is important, and it seems has largely been the case.

It takes a long time to turn an aircraft carrier around, the automotive industryis much larger, it will take time.

dave
 
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frugal-phile™
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That's only your opinion. No different from CNN or, worse yet, MSNBC. Just the other side of the how various people see the situation.

Also the opinion of the CRTC who call it a misiniformstion network and we don’t see it in Canada.

I can watch CNN, MSNBC, BBC, CTV, CBC, Global, Al Jazeera, and the other worldwide news organizations have broadly similar news, but no one is supporting many of the “stories” i do get to see on Fox News.

dave
 
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frugal-phile™
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[*]Lack of recycling infrastructure for batteries and motors

The demand is creating new better techniques to recycle stuff. For instance mining gold from e-waste: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.202310642

Since EVs are essentially computers on wheels they will benefit from this technique.

We are in a race to save our future selves from our past selves (and those still stcuk in the past). We will have to science our way out of this problem as we are at the tipping point. As the Chinese curse says”May you live in intersting times"

dave
 
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@planet10 Thanks for the response and I wouldn't exactly disagree with anything you've said, but...

Partly it's timing. Battery wise, I've been reading about solid state batteries. They sound good, more energy, safer storage, lighter too. But the forecasts for their arrival in common domestic cars at reasonable cost is 20 years. Even then, they won't entirely solve the battery weight issue.

The problem with write-off and repair cost is partly complex electronics in things like bumpers, I've read of figures north of £5k for parts, with all the sensors, cameras etc. The other and most important for EVs is that Lion batteries are vulnerable and potentially hazardous. Any side impact can result in writeoff because the battery has received some minor damage and the cost of replacing batteries is prohibitive.

Generation and grid infrastructure took decades to create they will take decades to re-engineer for net zero. If the roll out of EVs proceeds at the pace some politicians plan it will vastly outstrip generating capacity, particularly during cold weather (as we saw this year).

I'm glad you're optimistic about recycling. I'm not particularly. At the moment it's not an issue, but if mandates like California's become common it will be, and there aren't the factories, or indeed the processes, to do the recycling at scale. Old car batteries can be repurposed for storage, but it's not what they were designed for and can't really ever be a serious contender in that space. There are going to be a lot of batteries and a lot of neodymium magnets too.

As for EV cost. I paid £14k for my current car second hand, one careful low mileage owner, honest guvnor. New it would have cost £20k. At the moment an equivalent EV would set me back £30k and that's with a substantial subsidy. I simply can't afford it. Added to which, like ~30% of UK car owners I have no off street parking to be able to recharge an EV. My town boasts ~10 public EV charging points.

Can all this be done? Yes, and we should do it.

But on the timescales being talked about? Hmmmm. I've got a bridge I can sell you...
 
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...I'm glad you're optimistic about recycling. I'm not particularly....
I am optimistic about recycling as well. It's been said by many that the raw materials are expensive to mine and the largest deposits are in parts of the world that are perhaps strategically misaligned. Those to aspects (to me) will drive a need to recycle.

Grid build out is another issue. I see that as slow and expensive and some leaders are perhaps driving too fast towards a goal of zero emissions by legislating an end to natural gas for home heating etc. but the delivery infrastructure and generation capacity need to be there.

I am buying a new car and am getting a hybrid. I am hoping that the car after that will be electric.
 
The most promising option for future individual traffic are bio-fuels. No one has to change habits, just pour another liquid in the same fuel tank.
These fuels are aviable, safe, tested for many decades and can be used in any vehicle from about 1990 up, just with some minor electrical changes. I have been driving 4 cars with 90% bio-ethanol and a 10% gasoline for 5 years. Bio-diesel is just the same story. Why is this way to renewable fuels not working?
The car manufactures want to sell new cars. Easy conversions of old cars harm their profits. They want us to change to electric vehicles, which will not last as long as your usual fuel burner and have to be scraped after less than 10 years. More cars sold, more profit. Impact on the environment? Who cares!

The mineral oil industry doesn't want to share a part of the profit with farmers and land owners, they are used to pump oil from the ground at no real cost.
The mineral industry is lead by stupid people, you only have to be ruthless, greedy, corrupt and give a dam for the planet for qualification. Even when they would try to get into renewable fuels, their "money for nothing" mineral oil profit model makes this new bussines seem unprofitable, too risky and complicated. Giving up a monopoly is not the plan.

The solid particle emission is just a new idea to pressure people into buying the next "clean" car. After going to zero exhaust electic cars, these have to be scraped because of to high solid paricles "for the good of the planet". So the customer has to buy a next generation, cleaner emission car... rinse and repeat.
 
All TV news is propaganda, not just Fox News. Depends on your point of view. It is all entertainment. It is funded by advertising, which means the news outlet is self selecting the coverage of the news.
Private news is this way. Publically-funded news is much less so. Unfortunately, the times are long past that people actually paid for news that they trusted, which has led to big money being an outsized influence on information broadcast.
 
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