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EVs are less than <5% of the global market. They are the Linux desktop of automobiles. Interesting and a passion for some, but always just a few years away.
by sk2020 5y ago
EVs are less than <5% of the global market. They are the Linux desktop of automobiles. Interesting and a passion for some, but always just a few years away.
- fallingknife 5y agoThey have like 20 moving parts vs. 2000 in an ICE, and no transmission. The technical superiority of EV's is nothing like Linux vs Windows / MacOS.
- lastofthemojito 5y ago> no transmission Mostly single-speed transmissions but not exclusively: https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a28903274/porsche-taycan-transmission/ https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a28903274/porsche-taycan-t...
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoYes there's a couple two speeds out there (I think we'll see more as EVs replace heavier vehicles) A single speed transmission can only really be called a transmission in a universe where cows are spherical.
- vidanay 5y agoIt transmits torque from one axis to another axis, so....yeah it's a transmission.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoIn no wheeled vehicle context is a simple gearbox that cannot engage/disengage, change speed or change direction referred to as a transmission. Yes, it's a textbook correct terminology but completely irrelevant anywhere else (hence my comment about spherical cows)
- klyrs 5y agoIf we're going to get technical, the transmission of a vehicle is everything that exists between the motor and wheels. Americans tend to think of the gearbox when referring to a car's transmission; much like we call a computer a CPU and we also refer to a single chip inside the computer a CPU. A gearbox with two gears is still a gearbox. I'm still waiting for the ultimate EV that's got 4 in-hub direct drive motors. Until then, we're stuck with transmissions.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- sk2020 5y agoI’m still waiting to see a Cat D11 with an electric motor or a mechanic who can fix a used EV battery or what planet we’re going to get the lithium and cobalt from to make billions of EV cars. I don’t think we share a common definition for technical superiority.
- dna_polymerase 5y agoLithium isn't that much of a problem, but cobalt might bring some fresh freedom to parts of Africa.
- epistasis 5y agoAnd there's plenty of competitive, cobalt-free battery chemistries coming to the fore. And as you hint, cobalt's damage is a political problem, not a "we don't have enough of it" problem. With proper regulations, the battery industry could clean up what has been a long-accepted human rights nightmare. But nobody seems to complain about it unless they can use it as an excuse to continue fossil fuel use.
- sk2020 5y agoThere are 7M tons of cobalt reserves in the world. That is a “we don’t have enough of it” problem.
- brohee 5y agoKnown reserves, not reserves. (https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2021/mcs2021-cobalt.pdf https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2021/mcs2021-cobalt.pdf). Same known reserves were 4.5M tons in 2000. (https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/prd-wret/assets/palladium/production/mineral-pubs/cobalt/210300.pdf https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/prd-wret/assets/palladium...). Despite all the extraction that happened during those 20 years, we now have more known reserves than before, because unsurprisingly, the more you look for something, the more of it you find.
- kbos87 5y agoThis is the biggest selling point of EVs for me. Driving an EV vs an ICE car is like the difference between streaming a movie vs dealing with a VHS tape.
- Happycars 5y ago60 % in Norway.
- bborud 5y agoIn March of 2000 the Internet was available to roughly 5% of the population. In March of this year it was about 65%. If you look at EV growth, projected growth, the plans of major automobile manufacturers and the economy of building new engine manufacturing, it is pretty safe to say your assumptions are wrong.
- sk2020 5y agoToyota, committing to an all-hybrid/EV fleet, also cut it’s production targets in half. The internet of today was possible to build in 2000. Replacing billions of vehicles and industrial equipment with batteries and solar panels or something in 20 years is not. You’ve observed a market response to legislation and central planning.
- bborud 5y agoMost car manufacturers offer EV vehicles - some have announced the target year for ending manufacturing of combustion engines. Production lines for combustion engines are becoming stranded assets. Yes, tax rebates acted as the activation energy. But what you are seeing is a change that already self-sustaining. In parts of the world EVs vehicles already outsell ICE-cars by a good margin. The average lifetime of a car is about 12 years. (As for Toyota, they are actually notable for being laggards, having dragged their feet, wasted time on dead-end hydrogen technology) What you are seeing is the foot of an S-curve. It isn't unusual for people who don't look at what goes on in industries to miss that. People missed that for the Internet for nearly a decade. And then it permeated most of their life.
- kiliancs 5y agoYou should be looking at their increase in sales. And the trend is going to continue upwards if the prices keep going down.