WHERE IS MY ELECTRIC CAR?

Quote:

 "My [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashid_bin_Saeed_Al_Maktoum]grandfather[/url] rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel."

There won't be electric cars for the masses. There won't be endless green energy. That is, quite literally, a Deus Ex Machina fantasy where technobullshit will allow us to live our pampered lives without consequence. Demanding electric cars is like a junkie demanding chrystal meth instead of crack. The problem isn't the drug, it's that you have an addiction.

My grandparents crossed northern Alberta with oxen pulling a sleigh. My father hitched and drove the buckboard to school at 8 years old. Later, he worked building highways across Albeta. His kids were driven to school everyday. As energy costs increase, his grandkids will need to use public transit. His great-grandkid (presuming there will be any) will probably have to learn how to hitch up a team to pull their buckboard.

It's been a fun ride, but it'll be a short one. 

I wrote this comment last night before seeing what jungles and BB wrote, which is why it might sound a bit like 'talking over'. But its related, so I'll leave it as is, and address those comments later.

Boom Boom wrote:

If what you say is true, isn't that an incentive for automakers to just improve their current fuel efficiency numbers and build better emissions controls for their gasoline/diesel powered vehicles - instead of funding pure EV research?

What absentia said in post#40. Plus this, which was already implicit in that answer:

All the auto companies know they will be going more electric. Hybribs as well as pure internal combustion will always be with us, but hybrids as the dominant form of electric propulsion is just a transition.

The time frames involved mean there is still plenty of requirement and incentive for improving conventional fuel economy. And FINALLY they are starting to lighten all categories of vehicles, when previously it was only the sub-compact and mini-car segment doing that. [Sick: as materials for engines and bodies got ever lighter, the vehicles got HEAVIER.]

For the forseeable term- investment in EV development for big auto is seperate and on top of that. Like I said, because of the amounts of money and time until payoff comes, most of the majors are playing some degree of follower when it comes to EV development. I have not heard it said, but I would bet that to some degree Renault/Nissan is the only one doing the opposite: doing a little bit of cannibalizing of development in the conventionals so they can concentrate on being the big dog in EVs. It's not hard to play follower in vehicle development. Renault and Nissan would just need to do a little more of the junior end of the joint venturing they all do. Not a viable long term strategy to depend on for any of them. But it works for a while, and the plan would be that it gets Renault/Nissan through until the EV age takes off.

Boom Boom wrote:

Okay, try it from a different angle. If I am somehow generating excess power through solar/wind/etc then what I do with the excess?  Or can I simply store that excess power somehow?

The only way to store it is some sort of battery system whether it's a overall power storage bank or some piece of equipment.   The same is true with most large scale production as well.  

So being completely off the grid mean no connections to the large grid whatsoever.  It's just as if you were a self contained power unit,  Any excess that doesn't make it into a battery is just that, excess and does nothing.

This is one of the reasons that in jurisdictions where the option is there people who are moving towards self sufficiency in individual power generation choose to maintain the connection and have a grid tied system where any excess is able to go into the larger grid.   They could function "off the grid" if the connection was cut or the larger grid went down for some reason but they are running a 'grid tied system'.

Quote:

You guys think too much in the ruts of where we are now. I'm not talking about 'think big' or 'think outside the box'. I mean literally, dont think SO much stuck in how things are.

You can already get EVs that are not expensive toys and are reliable. A Leaf doesnt cost that much more, and its operating costs are a LOT lower. It isnt convenient enough for most people. But since they lose money selling them, there are plenty of people for whom they are the right thing even now.

Yes, you cant throw a switch and EVs are suddenly the dominatant mass car.

 

Thats just looked at through the lens of consumerism and capitalism as it is. As noted above, big auto knows that pure EVs in huge numbers are coming. They are all moving that direction.

Clearly, as you promote EVs as a part of the solution without ever mentioning public transportation, they are a HUGE part of the problem.

They allow the self-involved to go on believing that there's a technical solution around the bend that will allow them to continue their current lifestyle without interruption or any more inconvenience than getting out of their Hummer and into their new EV.

Lard Tunderin Jeezus wrote:

Clearly, as you promote EVs as a part of the solution without ever mentioning public transportation, they are a HUGE part of the problem.

They allow the self-involved to go on believing that there's a technical solution around the bend that will allow them to continue their current lifestyle without interruption or any more inconvenience than getting out of their Hummer and into their new EV.

I agree with your points on public transportation and people looking for a quick tech fix.

However public transportation is only a solution to one part of the problem as well.  It's also mostly an urban solution. 

What about our transport system that gets the zillions of goods to the people using the public transport.  Then there is the the production of those goods.  Right now the feeding of all of those users is entirely dependent on the internal combustion engine.  It doesn't stop at just vehicles either.  All levels of our current food system is a fossil fuel hog and burner, from the production of  fertilizer and on through to transporting of the finished goods.   

Then of course there's people like me where public transport, beyond carpooling  is more then likely to never be an option for daily functioning.   Like hybrds if EV's become cheaper and more available I would look at something useful and viable for some light functioning.   I'd still need some sort of 'workhorse' though.   They are making hybrid trucks now which offer better fuel economy but they are not cheap.  I haven't seen anything on the EV horizon, or at least not at any mass scale,  that would provide the power necessary for more then light functioning and transport.  Great if all you are doing is driving to work and picking up groceries.  Not to useful if you have to haul produce to market or a ton of feed from the farm co-op.

Lard Tunderin Jeezus wrote:

 

Clearly, as you promote EVs as a part of the solution without ever mentioning public transportation, they are a HUGE part of the problem.

You'll have to explain how that works.

It happens that I promote public transportation in NS. But that does not really make any difference.

Most solutions are complex, and all the pieces that people might work on or promote, only overlap. There is no rule somewhere that you can only talk about one piece of the solution if you talk about all of them- though babblers do often act as if there is such a rule.

You are saying here that EVs are part of the problem. Thats simply incorrect since they are a piddly novelty now an for the next several years. You COULD argue that it is to be expected that they WILL make our problems worse... but no one has. [And please dodnt try to do it as just an assertion.]

(responding to post #61)

Or a ton of firewood - weekly - for the wood burning furnace. Roads are not maintained here, and trucks, both two and four wheel drive, are popular, but so are ATVs, both the small ones (250 - 500 cc), and the unnecessarily big block (800 cc) ATVs, which in my opinion are an obscenity - same as big block skidoos (800 - 1000 cc). My skidoo is a 380 cc, and can go anywhere - at less cost and less gas - that the bigger machines can go, and is less likely - because it's much lighter, to fall through the ice.

ETA: big block cars like the Mustang, Camaro, and Challenger/Charger are obscenities as well. Don't get me started.

KenS wrote:

Apropos of what Life is saying: I live on a farm that has been in the family since the land was cleared. And I know what all the different fields were used for. It took a hell of a lot of land, and a hell of a lot or work to feed just a couple horses, to do the work that a dinky little tractor can do.

Horse logging is a good idea because of the agility and the kind of forestry that it facilitates. But horses as a blanket replacement; or even worse, horses as a practical means of transportation: to hell with that romantic crap.

We cant keep using that tractor like we have been. Fine. I couldn't agree more. Since I dont really like working on machines I'm not going to be anywhere near the first of early adoptors and adapters to have an essentially do-it-yourself electric or hybrid tractor. But I know that having them, and powering them without fossil fuel powered electricity is not rocket science. 

I've seen some experiments with electric and even solar powered tractors. They are all however being used for small scale use and not production for the masses.  I also know a couple of people who are expermenting with older and modified horse drawn equipment for use with a what is essentially a modified atv or 'mini' tractor set-up.  Their experiments are not directed towards any sort of mass production though, it's self sufficiency and production for their very localized community.   I also know a few that are looking seriously at horses.  Again though,  self sufficiency and very localized production is the goal and not producing for the masses.

I was being a bit tongue in cheek of course but I hope my essential point was clear.  You see I have actually used horse labour on our farm in the past (when I was still young, energetic and naive).  It just didn't work for 90 per cent of stuff.  There is a reason that many of the first adaptors of steam and then internal combustion engines were farmers.  Sure we could feed ourselves with horses, but forget feeding very many people beyond us.

We have been using small tractors (under 100 HP) for some time and can get much more done, and here's the important thing, much better crops that are harvested at higher quailty.  I always laugh at the romanticism of this stuff.  I live in an area with a lot of Old Order Mennonites and a much smaller Amish population.  Those folks use horses for a few things like going to town (unless they need a long ride) some stooking and manure spreading (on snow by the way something most of us stopped doing for good reason long ago), but they get others, including me, to come in and do an awful lot of the 'heavy' work like ploughing, planting, harvesting.  Many of them are adopting older mechanical technology (such as using a small square baler - but loading the wagons by hand) with the use of tractors.  One of the problems is that many of these folks continue to use old steel wheels - which have these little projections for grip that tear the heck out of area roads and creates a bit of hard feelings.  So the folks using this technology the most in our society and have a regligious imperative to continue that use are finding ways around it.  I await the day when enough generations have passed and the older Bishops pass on and we see widespread adoption of KCars for use- painted black with steel wheels.

The moment I can buy a decent, affordable electric tractor I can power through my already present solar panels I will be in line getting one.  Food production is not a simple thing and unless all those urbanites are going to try a revolutionary, armed take over of rural areas for squatter farmsteads (sort of like was done to First Nations) we are going to have to find ways to create and adapt new technologies to new realities.  And that doesn't even get into issues like fertilizer and other things needed to grow food above a subsistence level.  And yay I know someone is going to say, but urban agriculture...   Urban Ag is all well and good and I have helped wannabe urban farmers as a presenter at courses and they can reduce some of the problems with big, industrial ag, but it will never, ever be the solution.  Urban density forbids it, and rightfully so because land should not be over farmed, it needs rest periods and transistions or you burn it out and reduce its fertility.  There are no simple solutions -sorry about that.

I can't remember the last time I saw a horse up close, actually.

Speaking technologically, tractors are ideal for earl adoption of electric drive. For a couple of things: weight of batteries is less of an issue [and integrating that with body/frame concerns], and interchangeable battery packs is more practical.

But I'm sure it will be longer before you see them. As in the discussion of auto compamies above, it takes deep pockets and losing money for a long time to bring in 'off-the-shelf' EVs. Thats fine when the near future market for them is huge. There is no such early potential market for tractors. Possibly, the easier technolgy issues, and that around the world there is no small market of potential early adopting farmers, might trump all that. I havent seen any indication of that, but I'm not THAT close or comprehensive an observor that I would necessarily know if there was a nasceat push towards mass produced small electric tractors.

A brief warning for anyone contemplating the deal with Hydro, where you sell electricity to them. They offer a very good rate, a bit higher than you're paying for their electricity now, if we don't count all those extras - and it sounds good. BUT You have to shoulder the entire investment - $10-15,000 for starters - and the contract is for less time than it would take to recoup, during which time, their rates can be raised any amount and yours can't. After that, they can offer whatever they want and you have no options. And, of course, they can terminate the contract with impunity (Like you could afford to sue Hydro, right?) while you're stuck. I wouldn't touch it.

I would, however, improve and expand the solar system we have. It's very modest: two panels (15 years old), four batteries (new last spring). It runs our lights and the three laptop computers and wood-working tools most of the time (when there is a lot of snow, we give it a rest), tv and vcr in summer (the inverter and long wire waste too much power to use on short days) When/if we come by a little more money, we'll fix those problems. Unfortunately, we're in a hollow, so windmill is not very practical. I'd still like to try a little one on the antenna tower, once they're available. If we can't store the surplus, so what? For millions of years the sun's been shining and all it did was create and sustain life.

absentia wrote:

A brief warning for anyone contemplating the deal with Hydro, where you sell electricity to them. They offer a very good rate, a bit higher than you're paying for their electricity now, if we don't count all those extras - and it sounds good. BUT You have to shoulder the entire investment - $10-15,000 for starters - and the contract is for less time than it would take to recoup, during which time, their rates can be raised any amount and yours can't. After that, they can offer whatever they want and you have no options. And, of course, they can terminate the contract with impunity (Like you could afford to sue Hydro, right?) while you're stuck. I wouldn't touch it.

I would, however, improve and expand the solar system we have. It's very modest: two panels (15 years old), four batteries (new last spring). It runs our lights and the three laptop computers and wood-working tools most of the time (when there is a lot of snow, we give it a rest), tv and vcr in summer (the inverter and long wire waste too much power to use on short days) When/if we come by a little more money, we'll fix those problems. Unfortunately, we're in a hollow, so windmill is not very practical. I'd still like to try a little one on the antenna tower, once they're available. If we can't store the surplus, so what? For millions of years the sun's been shining and all it did was create and sustain life.

 

Well the way I look at it is that regardless of whether I can personally get to the point of providing all my power needs on site, unless I'm also 100% self sufficient and never have to leave home to get and do anything that I'm still depending on powered grid for even some of my most basic survival needs.    If I'm doing it just for the individual economic factor then that's one thing.  If I'm doing it for that plus other factors, like lessening the overall fossil fuel load and ecological factor as basic principle that takes it to more community and global perspective.  It's about more then just me.   If I have excess then why waste it.  Sure I might not get paid properly for it and sure hydro and some other big corp  might some $$$ advantage from it but at this point in time I feel the need to 'lighten the load' so to speak, even in a miniscule way, outweighs the $$$ factor of a little excess travelling off into the wider world of wires.   Besides I can just imagine that my excess is flowing through the grid and used by someone whos ethics and ecological concern makes them desire to do the same but finacially just can't afford it at this time.   Perhaps even a small return for the more likely then not fossil fueled manufacture of the the equipment that allowed me to be self power providing in the first place.

If one has excess, then why waste it if it is possible for it to be used?

Too alturistic? Possibly but sometimes I think that "self sufficiency" in the eco movement  gets turned too much into an individualized experience.  In reality there is really no such thing unless one lives back in a bush and only ever uses tools they fashion from rocks and trees.  "Self sufficient' or mixed  farms for example,  romanticized or not were never and will likely never be self sufficient in an individual sense.  It's a community affair.

Boom Boom wrote:

If Quebec Hydro goes ahead with rate increases, then it's in my interest to use solar power to cut costs down - if indeed solar works out for me on a cost efficiency basis.

Of course it is and I'm in no way knocking that as a factor or even one of the primary motivating factors.  It's completely sensible.  Increasing power rates are a factor in making individual site power production a more cost effective possibility.  If the numbers work and over the long term money is saved then yeah it's obvious thing to do from an individual perspective. 

Good to see someone with experience with photovoltaics, absentia.

Have you considered a thermal collector for water pre-heating?  Depending on the number of users, they tend to make economic sense where water is heated electrically.

George Victor wrote:

EQ: " I would like to see the development of as much urban ag as possible.  When I see any bit of lawn I automatically think what a waste."

 

The sons and daughters of the soil work with land that has been under cultivation (in Ontario) for perhaps 125 to 150 years, and with care, has maintained good "tilth" (organic matter ? ).

The urban plot is composed of a mixture of glacial till (gravel and sand) left behind by a builder/developer who scraped away all the topsoil for sale elsewhere. One inch of indifferent soil was left to support sod...hence the lucrative business in home lawn and garden care.

After some 17 years of composting (and buying) I've managed tio "create" a 15 x 20 foot vegetable garden - there's little lawn left - which this year gave me potatoes (I've given away 20 pounds but still have 10 lb. left) ; carrots (still have 7 or 8 pounds of the best ones in a crisper (the pre-nibbled were consimed first); tomatoes (I'll never use all of the frozen sauce); zuccini (kept the neighbours happy) and cooking onions (they will last me the entire year.

The small plot goes with a small energy-efficient house (a semi), that someday will be, hopefully, heatable with a couple of big candles (exaggeration here), so I can't do better in the self-sufficiency dept. (2 maples were planted and now shade the front all afternoon).

Still, it means I can be independent of the gym from late April through into September. At least, that's part of the rationalization.

That's wonderful.  You explanation of what you had to do to 'create' your small plot in your setting is on point and part of my 'as possible' caveat.  When I lived in the city and did some work gardening myself and working in areas that did promote urban ag initiatives as you point out with your experience it most often it does not involve digging down into a lawn.  If it occurs in a older park area then there is more likely to be at a semi decent soil layer.   Building up is necessary or digging down and ammending and ammending and ammending.   It still strikes me when I drive by large scale housing developments during the soil scraping part of the process.  It's full of irony really.  Here you have Meadow Vale or Apple Grove but we're going to scrape that part off, take it away and leave an superficial illusion of green behind.  You can buy it back though. :)

It's not just an urban thing though.  My area is a quarrying region.  The stone is very near the surface even on what looks like lush fields of grass.  It's one of the reasons you see more livestock then crop farming around here.  Anyways just down the road a new quarry operation is going in.  Before that it was an old farm with a herd of pastured beef cattle.  Over the summer I watched the dozers in there scraping up the acres of soil to get to the bedrock.   Nice soil too, dark and rich with lots of organic matter. Smell, texture and taste.    Wouldn't be so bad  if that soil did go somewhere else to be used but a good portion of it was just mounded up around the permimeter.  It's done that way for a number of reasons, security, no need to fence and for asthetic reasons, hide the ugly operation.   Still I drive by and get a pang at all the goodness it could have been used for.  

I have a thing for good soil.  It's precious.

I wish I had better soil - I'm going to send a sample out for analysis, because last year my garden flopped.

absentia wrote:

 

Eliza Q - I'm too ticked-off with Ontario Hydro and the way all that s'it went down to want to help them rip off the next guy. I want the whole system broken down to manageable, sensible, local networks. But i would be happy to share excess with my neighbours, at no charge.

(uuurrggh! Major  deja vu jolt. Have we had this conversation already? More than once?)

I'm not sure.  I don't think so but we could have.  No worries there.  I feel for where your coming from regardless.  The whole thing has been quite the smochzzle and I know a number of people personally that have been dealing with it too.   It screwed up a couple of projects that people had put a lot of time into too.

Just wanted to let you all know about a documentary you'll be interested to see. It's called X-CARS and it airs Thursday Jan 6th on Discovery Channel Canada. 8pm ET and 9pm PT. It's about a group of guys from Maple Ridge, BC who built an innovative (mostly) electric car called the eVaro and competed in the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE competition. Check it out at www.x-cars.ca 

 Thanks Dreamfilm appreciate the info.

I just remembered that in Vancouver, a few years ago I knew someone who had a funky electric car. I rode in it is a couple of times. It didn't have a high range per charge about 40 kms but it was fine fo what he regularly needed.
I think he said he got it from somewhere on Vancouver Island so I did some looking to see if I could find out where. Didn't find the car but...

 I found trucks!

http://www.canev.com/about%20us/about%20us%20index.htm

They also have conversion kits for other vehicles including small size trucks.

So there we go. No need to wait for the big corps to do it. Pick a vehicle and for between 6000-10000 bucks DIY it.

KenS wrote:

 

Tractors would be DIY only, and will probably remain that way for some time, for the reasons noted above. The "range" issues with a tractor would depend what you are doing and how long you need to do it between charges. The DIY hybrid- an onboard fossil fuel powered generator- would be easier than with a motor vehicle. An idea that occurs to me is that you could just have the electrics running the hydraulics, as long as the batteries are capable. But I've never even looked at the DIY tractors, I hust know they exist- and the learning curve and ease of getting components would probably be comparable to DIY EVs 20 years ago.

I just did some looking.  I have seen one covered in a magazine.  DIY power or Mother Earth maybe I can't remember.

Here's two links:

http://www.ruralsurvival.com/electric_farm_tractor.html

one from 2003

http://www.eeevee.com/tractors/TNF_article.html

Interesting that back in 2003 he talked about how EVs regularly beat out gassers in pulls.

In the first link the end paragraph caught my eye.

Quote:

Recent news of viable air propulsion has me wondering if that technology is adaptable for farm tractors because that would be a even better solution, no expensive batteries to buy. I can't see why not. Air powered underground mine ore cars were in use in the 1930s in Europe and air powered locomotives were in use here in the US.

Anyone know or heard anything about this sort of tech?   Here's a BBC link to 2008 article http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7241909.stm

I'm going to do some looking.

Almost no one in the DIY world is going to plop for lithium batteries now. Just a few hobbyists for whom price never has been much consideration. [For example, people who convert Porsche Cayenne's, and equip them to accelerate even better than with an internal combustion engine.]

Depending on the applications, the price of lithium batteries is already dropping fast. Laptop batteries are already cheap. Which is why as I mentioned above Tesla has decided to switch to packs made of those- despite they were not designed for it. There are already several serious players in the battery packs designed and manufactured for EVs, including a joint venture with the plant in Michigan being built now, at a shuttered vehicle assempbly plant of course. It will only be  a few years before the prices of those drop to the per kilowatt cost of the laptop batteries Tesla in buying into for now.

Michigan by the way is backing companies big time going into battery development and manufacture. Despite the US lagging behind the Korean and Japanes companies [who the joint ventures are with]. And direct investment in R&D for next generation battery development. Ontario and the feds have stood by and picked their noses- even with Magna being the developer of the Ford EV technology, and Stronach promoting the building of EVs in Canada.

For DIYs cost is not the only disadvantage of lithium battery packs. Despite the general inferiority of lead-acid batteries, there is decades of experience putting them in EVs, plus all the fork lifts running on the same batteries. Let the deep pockets work out the wrinkles that come with any new technology. Lithium batteries are not new, and they've been in hybrids for several years. But thats still new enough for DIYs keeping tabs on enough issues in building a vehicle.

I don't think I ever suggested it's the auto industry that are the dinosaurs, Ken.