Synobun
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This is becoming less and less true anyways. Charging stations are cropping up all over the place.
The Very-Many-Questions-Not-Worth-Their-Own-Thread Thread ΛΕ
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This is becoming less and less true anyways. Charging stations are cropping up all over the place.
It'll be some time before they're really fast enough. I can gas and go in 5 minutes. I don't want to wait even an hour for charging. But if I can charge overnight at my motel, then that's good enough.
I drive a plug in hybrid, because most days when I drive I travel less than 20 miles, so I'm effectively fully electric. But my car can go six hundred miles as a hybrid, so I'm not limited if I need to go further.
That does not really work. The times I have to drive a long way I am off on holiday, and / or throwing a load of dirty stuff in the car.
It is quite possible it is the long term solution, possibly in combination with hydrogen, but it will require a change in system from individual ownership. It will work very well with with the "car as a service" model.
It doesn't work for you. It would work for more than half of all passenger car owners.
Don't think in terms of a one size fits all solution. Think in terms of one piece of a menu of solutions which move us in the right directions.
Timsup2nothin
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What does it matter if the top speed of a car is "only" 120 instead of 140 if it is going to be driven on roads with a maximum limit of 70 by a driver who would likely crap themselves at 100? Have you noticed the average USian following that obvious logic? Like ever?
Timsup2nothin
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I'm for it, but have you met our current government of the people and by the people?
I don't have kids. If the people who do don't give a flying crap about their future, then I've done all I can for them.
Timsup2nothin
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As long as gas burning cars in the hundreds of millions are roaming the streets, how important is shifting the electrical grid off of fossil fuels, really?
We need one of these eggs to turn into a chicken first, clearly. And soon.
It's also your future, given current life expectancy rates.
It's still more efficient, in the same way that having one single boiler and electric stoves/heating in an apartment building is better than having a small boiler and individual gas stoves in each apartment.
I got 40-50 years tops. So yeah, it'll effect me. But the kids and grandkids of my generation will pay a far steeper price than I will. There's a limit to what I can do if the greed and selfishness of the conservative voter outweighs their concern for their descendants lives.
You are assuming everyone has train service. We haven't had that here for decades.
Zkribbler
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She gets it!
Chukchi Husky
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I'm told that hybrids are just as pointless.
That range isn't good enough for driving in England.
That was one of their complaints. Driving an electric car to save the environment is pointless if the electricity is still generated by fossil fuels.
On the environment though, they see its destruction as a good thing as it represents "mankind's ultimate conquest over nature". Another thing they mentioned, they don't believe in global warming, but if it does exist then it's already too late so switching to electric cars is pointless.
What they said car companies should do is instead of electric cars, they should research into a source of power and energy that hasn't been discovered yet and use that for cars.
hobbsyoyo
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For the last year my wife and I took turns commuting 50 miles (one way) into LA in an electric car - a bargain basement electric car with the lowest mileage capability of any EV on the market. Somehow I don't think the average English bloke makes that kind of daily commute.
Another great ability that EVs can bring to a smart electric grid is to provide surge support. During peak hours, a properly equipped grid can draw from EV's (and pay the owners) to get through peak electric use times and cut down on the number of dirty coal-fired peak load plants. And in any case, the amount of pollution generated by a central grid (or solar panels) to power a car is a lot less than the pollution produced by a gasoline car. Even our dirtiest coal-fired plants are much more efficient than an internal combustion engine. Efficiency is largely a function of size of the power plant (really, it's temperature but size is a decent stand-in here) and the tiny engines in cars can't touch a modern power plant when it comes to efficiency.
Snerk
Smeghead
Non-plug hybrids are semi pointless. They're not fuel efficient enough to justify a car with essentially two engines. Plug-in hybrids are not pointless, they are objectively more environmental than pure fossile powered cars. Pure electric cars are even better. If the electricity that powers it is from renewable sources, even better still.
However, it's very hard to see how we combat global warming if everybody and their grandma still insists on driving around a car. No energy is free. And shifting around a ~1000 kg of mass everyday requires a lot of energy no matter how you look at it. Personal transportation is a huge problem we don't have a green solution for. Individual electric cars are better, but not good enough.
However, it's very hard to see how we combat global warming if everybody and their grandma still insists on driving around a car. No energy is free. And shifting around a ~1000 kg of mass everyday requires a lot of energy no matter how you look at it. Personal transportation is a huge problem we don't have a green solution for. Individual electric cars are better, but not good enough.
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