The transition

[Chargeride]

Alpha motors make the coolest EVs on the planet, the trucks are just custom retro heaven

Alpha Motor — JAX Electric CUV

www.alphamotorinc.com

 

[Chargeride]

Matson have suspended EV shipping.
A story worthy of the news, but supressed around most of the world.
They need vastly increased fire protection and probably hoping for government help, three ships lost to EVs turning normal fires into boat melting furnaces.

Matson halts EV shipments due to fire safety concerns

Matson has suspended shipments of EVs and lithium iron phosphate (LEP) batteries, citing growing safety concerns and the risk of battery fires during maritime transit.

www.automotivelogistics.media

 

[kevinmccune]

Matson have suspended EV shipping.
A story worthy of the news, but supressed around most of the world.
They need vastly increased fire protection and probably hoping for government help, three ships lost to EVs turning normal fires into boat melting furnaces.

Matson halts EV shipments due to fire safety concerns

Matson has suspended shipments of EVs and lithium iron phosphate (LEP) batteries, citing growing safety concerns and the risk of battery fires during maritime transit.

www.automotivelogistics.media

apparently they were not sure of the cause in a couple of cases( ins anyone? scapegoat time,just saying) the only definite thing was the EV battery packs contributed to the severity of the fire I could see a couple of ways to mitigate the risk,stow EVs on the perimeter were they can be easily scuttled( a metal fire is hellishly hot and temp monitors on the areas that contain said vehicles and or batteries,the only battery packs I ever had that got hot were worn out nicad cells.(B29s and VWs again,the old lightweight chainsaws would burn merrily too)

 

[Art Deco]

Alpha motors make the coolest EVs on the planet, the trucks are just custom retro heaven

Alpha Motor — JAX Electric CUV

www.alphamotorinc.com

I've never heard of these, or ot the Morton you mention below. My question is always "who services something that is too heavy to return to sender." Boring, I know, but something that really matters if we aren't mechanics with parts available off the rack.

 

[Chargeride]

Translating corporate speak...

EVs sales are facing challenging conditions.

Sales are not expected to reach predicted targets.

Various factors are influencing sales trajectories

growth has moderated.

consumer demand for new EVs has softened in some markets.

I would say more like 2035 before we can stop making ICE cars.

No freakin idea where the electricity will come from.

 

[sc00ter]

Chargeride, I know where the electricity can come from! Remember those old cars that you had to manually crank the motor from the front to start? I had a friend who had a Model T, that crank was a thing of nightmares! Anyways, bring that crank back. Use it to charge the motor!

 

[Chargeride]

ive actually used one, bit scary to say the least.

 

[Art Deco]

Chargeride, I know where the electricity can come from! Remember those old cars that you had to manually crank the motor from the front to start? I had a friend who had a Model T, that crank was a thing of nightmares! Anyways, bring that crank back. Use it to charge the motor!

I would bring back zeppelins in the air before I brought back cranks on the ground. Jes sayin'.

 

[mschwett]

Translating corporate speak...

EVs sales are facing challenging conditions.

Sales are not expected to reach predicted targets.

Various factors are influencing sales trajectories

growth has moderated.

consumer demand for new EVs has softened in some markets.

I would say more like 2035 before we can stop making ICE cars.

No freakin idea where the electricity will come from.

it will come from the grid, from a mix of nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, and gas. same as it does today but a different mix plus lots of storage - both battery and gravity. these are easy problems to solve and electric cars are inherently cheaper and more reliable once they reach scale and maturity.

people will charge their cars mostly at night, off peak, and the total capacity of the grid will hardly have to change.

 

[Art Deco]

it will come from the grid, from a mix of nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, and gas. same as it does today but a different mix plus lots of storage - both battery and gravity. these are easy problems to solve and electric cars are inherently cheaper and more reliable once they reach scale and maturity.

people will charge their cars mostly at night, off peak, and the total capacity of the grid will hardly have to change.

What you say is possible and rational, but it doesn't count the money ... petroleum is very profitable, renewables usually not. Period. Sorry about that, Chief...

 

[mschwett]

What you say is possible and rational, but it doesn't count the money ... petroleum is very profitable, renewables usually not. Period. Sorry about that, Chief...

it may take a few years longer than it would in a "rational" world, but petroleum isn't magic. there's a century of human ingenuity, blood, sweat, and tears embedded in it and renewables are much earlier on the curve. but for all the same reasons that "horseless carriages" replaced horses, so will electrification replace combustion for a pretty wide range of uses. i'm not so sure about aviation, industry, maritime, etc, but for ground based transportation of relatively small loads/people/etc, it's inevitable. other countries are already way ahead of the curve.

it's important to note from an energy independence standpoint (something i think even the right and left can agree on being important!) that a lot of the recently prospected US oil, like bakken shale, is quite expensive to produce. it really doesn't pencil below 70 or 80 dollars a barrel, while the saudis can produce oil for a tiny fraction of that. wind and solar, on the other hand, are just going to keep getting cheaper. most new renewable projects have a lower LCOE than new petroleum projects in north america. not sure about the middle east.....

 

[Mr. Coffee]

What you say is possible and rational, but it doesn't count the money ... petroleum is very profitable, renewables usually not. Period. Sorry about that, Chief...

Although if you look at the rate of return on power plant development nothing pays for itself faster and brings in more money than solar.

No imaginable technology will make electricity cheaper than solar panels. And people aren't going to pay more money to get electricity from dinosaurs.

 

[Art Deco]

I should have said "profitable this quarter " . My mistake.

 

[Mr. Coffee]

I should have said "profitable this quarter " . My mistake.

The real issue is with solar or wind you don't have the recurring revenue that you do with natural gas or coal. You can't really charge for sunlight.

In about 2011 a friend who works in finance explained the "facts of life" to me on this topic. Basically you have to borrow money to build any kind of electrical power generation. And the time to pay the loan back is approximately:

• Nuclear: 25 years
• Coal: 10-15 years
• Natural Gas: 2-5 years
• Solar or Wind: 12 to 18 months

Note that all of these have to sell electricity at approximately the same price.

Now if you can pay a loan back faster, there is less risk (e.g. a change in interest rates) so you typically get a lower rate for that loan. That makes the cost of renewals even lower still.

What those numbers mean is that any attempt to keep legacy power is doomed. No one is going to finance building new nuclear power plants or new coal plants if they are facing that kind of competition. You can make arguments about using natural gas as "peaking" generation and that probably will make sense for some time, but that won't be the majority of power generation.

I'll also point out that batteries are on a similar Wright's Law cost curve to solar. Both solar panels and batteries are very amenable to automation and mass production at absolutely ludicrous scales. Yes, our current tech depends on some fairly exotic and expensive rare earth minerals, but even then in only trace amounts. Chances are that in the future the rare earths will be replaced with complex organic molecules with exotic trace elements (consider how OLEDs have improved over time compared to LEDs or Plasma displays).

Pretty much all power generation except solar requires that you have machines that make a "clanking" sound. The only moving parts in a solar panel are electrons (or, technically, "holes" sometimes).

 

[Art Deco]

The real issue is with solar or wind you don't have the recurring revenue that you do with natural gas or coal. You can't really charge for sunlight.

In about 2011 a friend who works in finance explained the "facts of life" to me on this topic. Basically you have to borrow money to build any kind of electrical power generation. And the time to pay the loan back is approximately:

• Nuclear: 25 years
• Coal: 10-15 years
• Natural Gas: 2-5 years
• Solar or Wind: 12 to 18 months

Note that all of these have to sell electricity at approximately the same price.

Now if you can pay a loan back faster, there is less risk (e.g. a change in interest rates) so you typically get a lower rate for that loan. That makes the cost of renewals even lower still.

What those numbers mean is that any attempt to keep legacy power is doomed. No one is going to finance building new nuclear power plants or new coal plants if they are facing that kind of competition. You can make arguments about using natural gas as "peaking" generation and that probably will make sense for some time, but that won't be the majority of power generation.

I'll also point out that batteries are on a similar Wright's Law cost curve to solar. Both solar panels and batteries are very amenable to automation and mass production at absolutely ludicrous scales. Yes, our current tech depends on some fairly exotic and expensive rare earth minerals, but even then in only trace amounts. Chances are that in the future the rare earths will be replaced with complex organic molecules with exotic trace elements (consider how OLEDs have improved over time compared to LEDs or Plasma displays).

Pretty much all power generation except solar requires that you have machines that make a "clanking" sound. The only moving parts in a solar panel are electrons (or, technically, "holes" sometimes).

And an example from the real world...

How China's clean energy is changing the world

 

[Art Deco]

Up in the middle of the night and saw this IDK anything about this but it looks cool.

 

[Chargeride]

Those solar panels wouldnt move that train 20ft

 

[Chargeride]

America will need an extra 2.5 trillion kws to just power cars, plus a four fold grid increase to get that much power to places it never went before.

The only future is grid rationing.

Wind and solar are only 4% of world energy usage, fossil is still 85%, many people take repeating that fact take it as an attack on nature.
Its just the facts ,where we are.

The percentage of fossil is increasing, not decreasing.
The hilarious COP events are doing nothing, not a single promise has been fulfilled in their entire history.

 

[kevinmccune]

I wonder if charging stations are being systematically sabotaged by a coal roller contingent.

when these assholes are choking for breath perhaps (not likely)maybe a light will come in their small craniums,this thing about the orange baboon rolling back the emission requirements will kill off a bunch of asthma suffers and make American cities stink again

 

[kevinmccune]

I believe China already has super cheap EVs?

the answer is to change the chemistry,had one genius tell me ions wont burn(I guess he couldn't grok where the ions came from) there have been many promising types of cells that are difficult if not impossible to get to ignite( ever see 300 gals of diesel cooking a semi?) all charging stations should be realtime monitored or at least reviewed on a hourly or some reasonable time basis really wouldn't be surprised if some of the big energy corps having a stake in promoting an inferior dangerous tech( don't think so? back in the day when nukes were coming on line the oil companies actually promoted solar.