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Maybe the coal-rollers are freaking out and looking into buying a Prius. Time to buy Honda futures! On a serious note, infrastructure security is almost always

Maybe the coal-rollers are freaking out and looking into buying a Prius. Time to buy Honda futures! On a serious note, infrastructure security is almost always the last thing infrastructure designers ... design for.

Syonyk 5y ago
> Maybe the coal-rollers are freaking out... Is diesel impacted as badly as gasoline out there? I've seen plenty about gas shortages, less about diesel shortages. In general, trucks tend to have far larger tanks than cars, so can ride through various disruptions a bit better if you're careful. > and looking into buying a Prius. Going from one liquid-fuel-only vehicle to another, even if it's more efficient, doesn't really seem to solve the problem of "liquid fuels are unavailable at the moment." If you want robustness against stuff like this, go with a PHEV of some sort - Chevy Volt, RAV 4, Prius Prime, etc. You can do most of your regularly driving on battery, while still having the easy long distance range of a gas engine. If liquid fuel is in short supply, don't do any long trips - just run on battery. On the other hand, if electricity is in short supply, most PHEVs make really good generators for at least limited loads. You typically can't find an inverter that runs off the high voltage pack, but most are good for 1500W or so on the 12V system. They'll just run the gas engine as needed to charge the high voltage battery, and run the DC-DC converter to support the 12V rail. It ends up being quite a bit more efficient than an open frame generator or inverter generator for light loads, though you're limited in what you can run. Storing 10 gallons of gas for a PHEV gets you quite a bit of electricity out of one, and it's no additional maintenance, because you're already maintaining the car. They're good options for uncertain times. Infrastructure security has been, and probably always will be, a joke. Except it's not funny.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Efficiency works best in the context where a resource's continued availability is assured, but the price increases. (Efficiency alone as a conservation measure is fatally flawed, as it's equivalent to a price decrease, and induces yet more demand, following the Jevons Paradox.) In an intermittent-supply model, efficiency-plus-cache helps ensure survivability through a spell of unavailability. If you need to refuel once a month vs. once a week, you'll manage (on avarage) a two-week outage fine, whilst the once-a-week case is stranded for ten days (average).
gnicholas 5y ago
> Maybe the coal-rollers are freaking out and looking into buying a Prius. Time to buy Honda futures! FWIW, the Prius is made by Toyota, not Honda.
- colejohnson66 5y ago
  Yep. Honda has the Clarity (hybrid) and the Fit (all electric).

Syonyk 5y ago

> Maybe the coal-rollers are freaking out... Is diesel impacted as badly as gasoline out there? I've seen plenty about gas shortages, less about diesel shortages. In general, trucks tend to have far larger tanks than cars, so can ride through various disruptions a bit better if you're careful. > and looking into buying a Prius. Going from one liquid-fuel-only vehicle to another, even if it's more efficient, doesn't really seem to solve the problem of "liquid fuels are unavailable at the moment." If you want robustness against stuff like this, go with a PHEV of some sort - Chevy Volt, RAV 4, Prius Prime, etc. You can do most of your regularly driving on battery, while still having the easy long distance range of a gas engine. If liquid fuel is in short supply, don't do any long trips - just run on battery. On the other hand, if electricity is in short supply, most PHEVs make really good generators for at least limited loads. You typically can't find an inverter that runs off the high voltage pack, but most are good for 1500W or so on the 12V system. They'll just run the gas engine as needed to charge the high voltage battery, and run the DC-DC converter to support the 12V rail. It ends up being quite a bit more efficient than an open frame generator or inverter generator for light loads, though you're limited in what you can run. Storing 10 gallons of gas for a PHEV gets you quite a bit of electricity out of one, and it's no additional maintenance, because you're already maintaining the car. They're good options for uncertain times. Infrastructure security has been, and probably always will be, a joke. Except it's not funny.

dredmorbius 5y ago
Efficiency works best in the context where a resource's continued availability is assured, but the price increases. (Efficiency alone as a conservation measure is fatally flawed, as it's equivalent to a price decrease, and induces yet more demand, following the Jevons Paradox.) In an intermittent-supply model, efficiency-plus-cache helps ensure survivability through a spell of unavailability. If you need to refuel once a month vs. once a week, you'll manage (on avarage) a two-week outage fine, whilst the once-a-week case is stranded for ten days (average).

gnicholas 5y ago

> Maybe the coal-rollers are freaking out and looking into buying a Prius. Time to buy Honda futures! FWIW, the Prius is made by Toyota, not Honda.

colejohnson66 5y ago
Yep. Honda has the Clarity (hybrid) and the Fit (all electric).