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I know HN has a large fanbase of Tesla and Elon Musk, but yet I'm still surprised to see no one address the problem of the supply side of renewables before movi

I know HN has a large fanbase of Tesla and Elon Musk, but yet I'm still surprised to see no one address the problem of the supply side of renewables before moving towards a larger consumer base of electric cars. I would be a very happy man to be able to own a Tesla Model S, but gasoline just has some advantages, especially so if we still are powering the majority of our grid with fossil fuels: 1) it has extremely high energy density relative to lithium ion batteries, 2) IC technology is very well-developed, 3) it is low cost in the near-term, and 4) no energy loss through transmission over the grid. Depending on where you live, most of the juice you put in your Tesla (or other EV) is generated by fossil fuels, anyways. It seems to me that we're putting the cart before the horse. We need to solve the problem of powering our grid with renewables first before we should pressure the car makers out of economic equilibrium.

greglindahl 10y ago
How about people with both an electric car and solar panels? How about people who pay for carbon offsets and own an electric car? Or people who voted for renewables minimums and own an electric car? I'm also unsure what you mean by "pressure the car makers out of economic equilibrium"? Are you referring to the economic equilibrium with negative externalities paid for? California started down the path of encouraging electric cars because of smog, which has a large negative effect on LA and the SF Bay area.
- wallace_f 10y ago
  Like I said, I would be very proud to own a Tesla, and to have resources to send funds towards renewable energy resources. However, while that is great to be able to make those purchases, let's not conflate 2 separate economic choices. I can obviously buy renewable energy certificates without buying an electric car, and I can buy an electric car without buying RECs. The question I posed was: should we get more renewable energy on the grid before forcing EVs onto the market? That is in the context of the article which discusses government influencing public policy -- if made those aforementioned individual choices that's great, I think well of you for doing that. > I'm also unsure what you mean by "pressure the car makers out of economic equilibrium"? No worries. Here is the Wikipedia definition: > In economics, economic equilibrium is a state where economic forces such as supply and demand are balanced and in the absence of external influences the values of economic variables will not change So take that and put it in the context of the article. From the article: > The government in Berlin fears that German automobile companies are lagging behind as electric cars pick up speed around the world > The Chancellery and the Economics Ministry have spent years trying to persuade German manufacturers to establish their own joint battery-cell manufacturing facility. Does that make sense? Since the German car manufacturers are for-profit corporations who exist to make profit, their profit-maximizing strategy is to produce at market equilibrium the products which consumers demand. What the article discusses is that they are "lagging behind." You should place your null hypothesis on their products as responding to market forces, not that successful corporations do not produce what their markets demand. You bring up negative externalities, which are a prudent factor to account for, and is a reason why free markets don't always lead to optimal outcomes. So that's a perfect example of a reason to have a government which can effectively regulate, if you care about human welfare and economic prosperity. In this case, is it the right call for the government to force electric cars into the market? There are pros and cons, and it depends on a number of given factors. If our effort is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, do we produce less or more by switching to electric cars? It's a complex question, but if renewable energy production remains constant, the increased load on the grid will come from fossil fuels, so the answer could actually be more. Counter intiuitive, but generating and transmitting electricity over the grid and storing it in relatively very heavy batteries that most be moved with the vehicle all create inefficiencies. It's not such a simple yes or no question, either. Like you pointed out, residents of LA and SF may wish to effectively relocate their pollution from their respective urban centers to remote areas where energy generation occurs, and that appears to make sense: less people live in remote areas.
  - greglindahl 10y ago
    No, what you say doesn't make sense. I will point out one thing that requires renewables and electric cars to be encouraged together: electric cars that charge when solar or wind energy is available can help smooth consumption to match output. This works easiest when cars are long-range (i.e. don't have to charge every day) and can plug in at both the solar peak and wind peak (day and night, respectively.)
    - wallace_f 10y ago
      Well if something doesn't make sense, I'd appreciate if you were able to point out exactly what it is that doesn't, since I took the time to write you a detailed response. Otherwise it just comes across as dismissive and honestly a little bit insulting. What you are talking about here is what is called vehicle-to-grid (V2G) load balancing. That is actually a technology that is really interesting and exciting possibility for the future, but is just that. So I guess that irony is that you're requirement that these two things be encouraged together is the one thing I can see that doesn't make sense at the moment - V2G is still honestly in development. There is a lot of scepticism about how practical it will be in practice, i.e. IIRC the efficiency of each grid->car->grid cycle is only about 60%.
      - greglindahl 10y ago
        I am not talking about grid->car->grid, I'm talking about a slightly more advanced version of time-of-day charging for cars: grid->car. That's a smartphone app, not rocket science. Tesla's API is already capable of supporting it. All studies of "what happens when electric cars are a significant % of electricity consumption?" involve this. It's super-useful because it's storage with no cost: it only cycles batteries that would have been cycled already, just at a different time of day or day of week. The key thing is that a long-range car doesn't have to be charged to 100% by morning, every morning. As for your complaint that I didn't respond to your entire rant, sorry. You started by claiming that "no one" was doing something, which really isn't true except for some bizarre combination of things that appears to only exist for you. You seem to think that the German government is wrong for pointing out to German car-makers that it's stupid to ignore California's mandate, even though you admit that California has a reasonable smog-based reason for having a mandate. Next time that you think that "no one" is doing the right thing, consider that you don't agree with most people about what the right thing is.

greglindahl 10y ago

How about people with both an electric car and solar panels? How about people who pay for carbon offsets and own an electric car? Or people who voted for renewables minimums and own an electric car? I'm also unsure what you mean by "pressure the car makers out of economic equilibrium"? Are you referring to the economic equilibrium with negative externalities paid for? California started down the path of encouraging electric cars because of smog, which has a large negative effect on LA and the SF Bay area.

wallace_f 10y ago
Like I said, I would be very proud to own a Tesla, and to have resources to send funds towards renewable energy resources. However, while that is great to be able to make those purchases, let's not conflate 2 separate economic choices. I can obviously buy renewable energy certificates without buying an electric car, and I can buy an electric car without buying RECs. The question I posed was: should we get more renewable energy on the grid before forcing EVs onto the market? That is in the context of the article which discusses government influencing public policy -- if made those aforementioned individual choices that's great, I think well of you for doing that. > I'm also unsure what you mean by "pressure the car makers out of economic equilibrium"? No worries. Here is the Wikipedia definition: > In economics, economic equilibrium is a state where economic forces such as supply and demand are balanced and in the absence of external influences the values of economic variables will not change So take that and put it in the context of the article. From the article: > The government in Berlin fears that German automobile companies are lagging behind as electric cars pick up speed around the world > The Chancellery and the Economics Ministry have spent years trying to persuade German manufacturers to establish their own joint battery-cell manufacturing facility. Does that make sense? Since the German car manufacturers are for-profit corporations who exist to make profit, their profit-maximizing strategy is to produce at market equilibrium the products which consumers demand. What the article discusses is that they are "lagging behind." You should place your null hypothesis on their products as responding to market forces, not that successful corporations do not produce what their markets demand. You bring up negative externalities, which are a prudent factor to account for, and is a reason why free markets don't always lead to optimal outcomes. So that's a perfect example of a reason to have a government which can effectively regulate, if you care about human welfare and economic prosperity. In this case, is it the right call for the government to force electric cars into the market? There are pros and cons, and it depends on a number of given factors. If our effort is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, do we produce less or more by switching to electric cars? It's a complex question, but if renewable energy production remains constant, the increased load on the grid will come from fossil fuels, so the answer could actually be more. Counter intiuitive, but generating and transmitting electricity over the grid and storing it in relatively very heavy batteries that most be moved with the vehicle all create inefficiencies. It's not such a simple yes or no question, either. Like you pointed out, residents of LA and SF may wish to effectively relocate their pollution from their respective urban centers to remote areas where energy generation occurs, and that appears to make sense: less people live in remote areas.
- greglindahl 10y ago
  No, what you say doesn't make sense. I will point out one thing that requires renewables and electric cars to be encouraged together: electric cars that charge when solar or wind energy is available can help smooth consumption to match output. This works easiest when cars are long-range (i.e. don't have to charge every day) and can plug in at both the solar peak and wind peak (day and night, respectively.)
  - wallace_f 10y ago
    Well if something doesn't make sense, I'd appreciate if you were able to point out exactly what it is that doesn't, since I took the time to write you a detailed response. Otherwise it just comes across as dismissive and honestly a little bit insulting. What you are talking about here is what is called vehicle-to-grid (V2G) load balancing. That is actually a technology that is really interesting and exciting possibility for the future, but is just that. So I guess that irony is that you're requirement that these two things be encouraged together is the one thing I can see that doesn't make sense at the moment - V2G is still honestly in development. There is a lot of scepticism about how practical it will be in practice, i.e. IIRC the efficiency of each grid->car->grid cycle is only about 60%.
    - greglindahl 10y ago
      I am not talking about grid->car->grid, I'm talking about a slightly more advanced version of time-of-day charging for cars: grid->car. That's a smartphone app, not rocket science. Tesla's API is already capable of supporting it. All studies of "what happens when electric cars are a significant % of electricity consumption?" involve this. It's super-useful because it's storage with no cost: it only cycles batteries that would have been cycled already, just at a different time of day or day of week. The key thing is that a long-range car doesn't have to be charged to 100% by morning, every morning. As for your complaint that I didn't respond to your entire rant, sorry. You started by claiming that "no one" was doing something, which really isn't true except for some bizarre combination of things that appears to only exist for you. You seem to think that the German government is wrong for pointing out to German car-makers that it's stupid to ignore California's mandate, even though you admit that California has a reasonable smog-based reason for having a mandate. Next time that you think that "no one" is doing the right thing, consider that you don't agree with most people about what the right thing is.