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The irony to me is how we continue to discuss improvements in battery technology for EVs in terms of increased range, rather than decreased weight. I still have

The irony to me is how we continue to discuss improvements in battery technology for EVs in terms of increased range, rather than decreased weight. I still have high hopes EVs will shift public consciousness about our environment and the way we live our lives, but true enthusiasm still seems to be for heavy vehicles people can spend more time in.

enchiridion 5y ago
Given the large long roads in the US, there’s always going to be a preference for large vehicles. Especially since there is a strong link between weight/size and safety.
- jMyles 5y ago
  Be reminded that many of us are out here on bikes every day, and that our lives are at risk by the strange proclivities to engineer car-first roads and to drive oversized, heavy, fast vehicles on them (regardless of their means of propulsion). Many municipalities (I'll use my current location of St. Petersburg, FL as an example) are working to make the roads safer in all that ways that you (I assert, incorrectly) presume will never happen.
- alamortsubite 5y ago
  > Given the large long roads in the US, there’s always going to be a preference for large vehicles. Are you sure you don't have that relationship backwards? Similarly, > Especially since there is a strong link between weight/size and safety. Solely for the given vehicle's occupants, and to the detriment of everyone else around them.
  - jmspring 5y ago
    I have a sprinter van for business and a Tacoma for a normal driver. I drive more than some due to distance, not frequency. I also explore remote back/off roads. The sprinter is more susceptible to wind and driving surface variation.
- amluto 5y ago
  You mean how tall vehicles are much less stable in high wind and are much more likely to roll over? Having recently driven a large vehicle and a small vehicle on the highway, I’ll take the small one any day as long as whatever I’m carrying physically fits. Not to mention that the operating cost of the small vehicle is about 1/10 that of the large one.
neaanopri 5y ago
Yup, the means to solve climate change and electricity the US already exist, but people don't like them for stupid reasons. US has an irrational dislike for overhead wires, for both trains and trolley buses (ubiquitous enough they have Unicode) This isn't a problem of technology, and we can't "innovate our way out". Our dispersed suburban land use pattern is simply a mistake, and impossible to make efficient. Efficiency comes from: * Electrified freight rail for cargo transport into and between cities and buildings * High speed intercity electrified passenger rail * Frequent, automated subway and heavy rail in cities and their peripheries * Frequent, ubiquitous trolleybuses to bring people to rail stations * Dense apartment buildings with good noise cancellation which share heated walls, and use heat pumps for heating and cooling * Renewable electricity * Flights for trips >500km, taking passengers from several nearby cities who take high speed rail to the airport ALL OF THESE TECHNOLOGIES EXIST TODAY, we just need to be willing to adopt them. Because these technologies exist today, there is no sense in "waiting for technology to save us". We need to choose to adopt them, and abandon our inefficient policies now. These will always be the solutions, and we are just in denial that we need to adopt them.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  > US has an irrational dislike for overhead wires, for both trains and trolley buses but oddly, not for neighborhood electrical delivery.
  - LeifCarrotson 5y ago
    I have what I believe to be a rational dislike for overhead wires for neighborhood electrical delivery: They're unreliable (multiple outages every winter because snowstorms take out trees), unsafe when they're knocked down but still live, expensive in the long run due to pole replacement and tree maintenance, ugly, and all it takes is a slight increase in capital expenses for installation to replace them with underground utilities. I don't think I'm alone in this.
    - oblio 5y ago
      You're not alone. The EU generally has underground wires and where it doesn't yet have them it's actively planning to move them there.
wffurr 5y ago
These same type of batteries will make their way into a whole range of vehicles, from shorter-range runabouts to e-bikes and scooters.
- alamortsubite 5y ago
  Right. I meant to imply that is the silver lining.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jcims 5y ago
If they would build a car that had removable packs you could have the best of both worlds. Leave one at home charging and commute with the other.
- lm28469 5y ago
  It's all fun and games until you start looking up the environmental cost of mining the metals needed for batteries. Replacing all thermic cars with electric ones is already going to be a disaster, if we need two batteries for each car we're in for a treat
- rad_gruchalski 5y ago
  Hydrogen.
  - AtlasBarfed 5y ago
    ... is a carbon boondoggle whose only practical economic sourcing is fossil fuels. Please don't foist green hydrogen fantasy propaganda in response, I've read it, it has no application in consumer transportation
    - rad_gruchalski 5y ago
      Mmmm, because digging up Greenland in the search of "green, nature friendly BEVs" is a better choice. Neither is good. None, there are too many of us with a wish to have all the convenience of current life standard but being squeezed by the pace of life. Get off of your horse. BEVs aren't good for environment. Okay, there is no local pollution but the damage is done somewhere else. The problem with electricity is the storage. Using electricity to produce hydrogen locally is a method to store said electricity. Hence: hydrogen.
      - AtlasBarfed 5y ago
        "Okay, there is no local pollution but the damage is done somewhere else." Is that the old coal/nat gas trope that the fossil fuel a-holes trot out to FUD? Have you looked at LCOE for coal? And nat gas is about to be economically uncompetitive as well compared to alt energy, without subsidies. If there was a proper carbon tax, then it wouldn't be close. Power companies lose money on coal, and are breaking even natural gas. They will be strongly incentivized by economics, not LIB-UR-AL REG-U-LATION, to get rid of that stuff as quickly as possible. Solar/wind is STILL dropping. Things have slowed in the LCOE graph, but I wonder how much of that price drop slowdown is inflation. If you're talking about battery materials and car construction, that is, AT WORST, the same as building an ICE vehicle... except ICE vehicles have about a 100+ more components and parts than an EV. LFP chemistry (and hopefully sodium ion) batteries will be very cheap. Cobalt/Nickel chemistries are rapidly becoming the domain of vanity and luxury cars... the 300 mile LFP/Sodium car is probably about a year away, but it is coming. EVs will drive research into Carbon Fiber as well: hopefully we get an breakthrough like the Bessemer process or Haber process that will deliver low-energy economical carbon fiber bodies. ICE/Big Oil never cared about that. As for hydrogen as grid storage, well, you're just proving my point that it is inapplicable to consumer transport. Thermodynamic losses for hydrogen generation, even temporary, will make it noncompetitive once mass scale LFP/Sodium or other grid storage chemistries hit the big time. Sure throw some research towards Hydrogen and fuel cells. They do have potential in aviation and long haul trucking/shipping. Just like we should throw some research at LFTR and next-gen nuclear. You might as well have said "MONORAIL!"
rad_gruchalski 5y ago
> I still have high hopes EVs will shift public consciousness about our environment and the way we live our lives, but true enthusiasm still seems to be for heavy vehicles people can spend more time in. I’ve been thinking about it for a while and so far I understood that: people posting here live in a bubble, people doing their regular jobs at a shop, hospital, local doctor, builders, people who have children, bills, mortgages to pay, for them what counts is next paycheque. They won’t care about ev vs ice saving the planet because saving the planet isn’t solving any of their immediate problems. And those problems are basically being squeezed tax wise and having to earn enough to cover for inflation. There are just so many people out there for whom sitting at a coffee shop for 20 minutes and waiting for the car to charge isn’t an option.

enchiridion 5y ago

Given the large long roads in the US, there’s always going to be a preference for large vehicles. Especially since there is a strong link between weight/size and safety.

jMyles 5y ago
Be reminded that many of us are out here on bikes every day, and that our lives are at risk by the strange proclivities to engineer car-first roads and to drive oversized, heavy, fast vehicles on them (regardless of their means of propulsion). Many municipalities (I'll use my current location of St. Petersburg, FL as an example) are working to make the roads safer in all that ways that you (I assert, incorrectly) presume will never happen.
alamortsubite 5y ago
> Given the large long roads in the US, there’s always going to be a preference for large vehicles. Are you sure you don't have that relationship backwards? Similarly, > Especially since there is a strong link between weight/size and safety. Solely for the given vehicle's occupants, and to the detriment of everyone else around them.
- jmspring 5y ago
  I have a sprinter van for business and a Tacoma for a normal driver. I drive more than some due to distance, not frequency. I also explore remote back/off roads. The sprinter is more susceptible to wind and driving surface variation.
amluto 5y ago
You mean how tall vehicles are much less stable in high wind and are much more likely to roll over? Having recently driven a large vehicle and a small vehicle on the highway, I’ll take the small one any day as long as whatever I’m carrying physically fits. Not to mention that the operating cost of the small vehicle is about 1/10 that of the large one.

neaanopri 5y ago

Yup, the means to solve climate change and electricity the US already exist, but people don't like them for stupid reasons. US has an irrational dislike for overhead wires, for both trains and trolley buses (ubiquitous enough they have Unicode) This isn't a problem of technology, and we can't "innovate our way out". Our dispersed suburban land use pattern is simply a mistake, and impossible to make efficient. Efficiency comes from: * Electrified freight rail for cargo transport into and between cities and buildings * High speed intercity electrified passenger rail * Frequent, automated subway and heavy rail in cities and their peripheries * Frequent, ubiquitous trolleybuses to bring people to rail stations * Dense apartment buildings with good noise cancellation which share heated walls, and use heat pumps for heating and cooling * Renewable electricity * Flights for trips >500km, taking passengers from several nearby cities who take high speed rail to the airport ALL OF THESE TECHNOLOGIES EXIST TODAY, we just need to be willing to adopt them. Because these technologies exist today, there is no sense in "waiting for technology to save us". We need to choose to adopt them, and abandon our inefficient policies now. These will always be the solutions, and we are just in denial that we need to adopt them.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
> US has an irrational dislike for overhead wires, for both trains and trolley buses but oddly, not for neighborhood electrical delivery.
- LeifCarrotson 5y ago
  I have what I believe to be a rational dislike for overhead wires for neighborhood electrical delivery: They're unreliable (multiple outages every winter because snowstorms take out trees), unsafe when they're knocked down but still live, expensive in the long run due to pole replacement and tree maintenance, ugly, and all it takes is a slight increase in capital expenses for installation to replace them with underground utilities. I don't think I'm alone in this.
  - oblio 5y ago
    You're not alone. The EU generally has underground wires and where it doesn't yet have them it's actively planning to move them there.

wffurr 5y ago

These same type of batteries will make their way into a whole range of vehicles, from shorter-range runabouts to e-bikes and scooters.

alamortsubite 5y ago
Right. I meant to imply that is the silver lining.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jcims 5y ago

If they would build a car that had removable packs you could have the best of both worlds. Leave one at home charging and commute with the other.

lm28469 5y ago
It's all fun and games until you start looking up the environmental cost of mining the metals needed for batteries. Replacing all thermic cars with electric ones is already going to be a disaster, if we need two batteries for each car we're in for a treat
rad_gruchalski 5y ago
Hydrogen.
- AtlasBarfed 5y ago
  ... is a carbon boondoggle whose only practical economic sourcing is fossil fuels. Please don't foist green hydrogen fantasy propaganda in response, I've read it, it has no application in consumer transportation
  - rad_gruchalski 5y ago
    Mmmm, because digging up Greenland in the search of "green, nature friendly BEVs" is a better choice. Neither is good. None, there are too many of us with a wish to have all the convenience of current life standard but being squeezed by the pace of life. Get off of your horse. BEVs aren't good for environment. Okay, there is no local pollution but the damage is done somewhere else. The problem with electricity is the storage. Using electricity to produce hydrogen locally is a method to store said electricity. Hence: hydrogen.
    - AtlasBarfed 5y ago
      "Okay, there is no local pollution but the damage is done somewhere else." Is that the old coal/nat gas trope that the fossil fuel a-holes trot out to FUD? Have you looked at LCOE for coal? And nat gas is about to be economically uncompetitive as well compared to alt energy, without subsidies. If there was a proper carbon tax, then it wouldn't be close. Power companies lose money on coal, and are breaking even natural gas. They will be strongly incentivized by economics, not LIB-UR-AL REG-U-LATION, to get rid of that stuff as quickly as possible. Solar/wind is STILL dropping. Things have slowed in the LCOE graph, but I wonder how much of that price drop slowdown is inflation. If you're talking about battery materials and car construction, that is, AT WORST, the same as building an ICE vehicle... except ICE vehicles have about a 100+ more components and parts than an EV. LFP chemistry (and hopefully sodium ion) batteries will be very cheap. Cobalt/Nickel chemistries are rapidly becoming the domain of vanity and luxury cars... the 300 mile LFP/Sodium car is probably about a year away, but it is coming. EVs will drive research into Carbon Fiber as well: hopefully we get an breakthrough like the Bessemer process or Haber process that will deliver low-energy economical carbon fiber bodies. ICE/Big Oil never cared about that. As for hydrogen as grid storage, well, you're just proving my point that it is inapplicable to consumer transport. Thermodynamic losses for hydrogen generation, even temporary, will make it noncompetitive once mass scale LFP/Sodium or other grid storage chemistries hit the big time. Sure throw some research towards Hydrogen and fuel cells. They do have potential in aviation and long haul trucking/shipping. Just like we should throw some research at LFTR and next-gen nuclear. You might as well have said "MONORAIL!"

rad_gruchalski 5y ago

> I still have high hopes EVs will shift public consciousness about our environment and the way we live our lives, but true enthusiasm still seems to be for heavy vehicles people can spend more time in. I’ve been thinking about it for a while and so far I understood that: people posting here live in a bubble, people doing their regular jobs at a shop, hospital, local doctor, builders, people who have children, bills, mortgages to pay, for them what counts is next paycheque. They won’t care about ev vs ice saving the planet because saving the planet isn’t solving any of their immediate problems. And those problems are basically being squeezed tax wise and having to earn enough to cover for inflation. There are just so many people out there for whom sitting at a coffee shop for 20 minutes and waiting for the car to charge isn’t an option.