Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[jakeroot]

Dream: 10s (Canada)/ 100s (USA) billions will be spent anyway.
Reality: we have no money to run a line across the road:
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=24009.msg2569259#msg2569259

It's not a dream. There will not be any ICE vehicles to buy as, by 2040, virtually all automakers will shift to electric. that'll get that line run real quick!

And there will be all-nuclear flying cars by 1980 anyway.

Barely any tangible evidence of that ever happening. The end of ICE, on the other hand, is very real.

Has any automaker even attempted any solid concepts for electric freight vehicles (heavy duty trucks, trains and sea vessels) as of late?  Internal combustion in some form will probably always be around even when (and I argue “if”) the entire passenger market goes to full electric.

Have you driven a diesel semi? I haven't, but my grandfather made a living of it. Nothing like shifting through 14 gears only to get cut-up by a dozen cars. Internal combustion has proved highly valuable for freight but it is not the last word. To answer your question: absolutely. There is a shift towards electric trucks throughout the industry, from school buses to delivery vehicles (my local district already has electric school buses). Volvo, Rivian, Tesla, BYD, and Daimler (among many others) have already begun investing heavily into electric semis. Electric trains are very much a thing. Hard to believe you even mentioned that. And while ships maybe aren't the next big electric revolution, yes it is a thing.

[Max Rockatansky]

To clarify my previous post, I’m talking about long haul freight and not the in town services that are common in urban areas (such as the electric bus lines in Seattle and obvious urban use of electrified rail).  It’s hard to envision a full fleet of long haul trucks or the Union Pacific (as examples) being anywhere near term for something like mass electrification.  Neat to see a concept for commercial shipping, that’s a hugely under estimated source of internal combustion related pollution. 

[jakeroot]

To clarify my previous post, I’m talking about long haul freight and not the in town services that are common in urban areas (such as the electric bus lines in Seattle and obvious urban use of electrified rail).  It’s hard to envision a full fleet of long haul trucks or the Union Pacific (as examples) being anywhere near term for something like mass electrification.  Neat to see a concept for commercial shipping, that’s a hugely under estimated source of internal combustion related pollution.

I know you meant long-haul. Electric long-haul trains are normal in many countries, both for passenger and freight services. Having everything powered by diesel is pretty unique to North America. Of course, it wasn't always this way: electric lines were common in the early 20th century. This old bridge over the Columbia in Beverly, WA still has the early-1900s electric catenary supports installed by Northern Pacific. Electric power only fell out of favor as the private railway organizations were not interested in maintaining the electric infrastructure, not because it wasn't a good technology. In the future, I suspect we may begin to experiment with diesel-electric trainsets that can run on overhead catenary systems within urban areas, and diesel in rural areas, especially since smog and pollution is more of a serious issue in urbanized areas.

Electric long-haul trucks are indeed a thing, but current trucks are only possess around 250 miles of range (the Tesla Semi is around 400 to 500 but it's not in production). Long term investment could at least get us to the point where trucks align with the drivers, charging up whenever required breaks occur. In a more ideal world, the trucks will last longer than the driver, and they will simply draft each other in a driverless convoy. But that's another technology.

[Duke87]

What would you rather they do? Proclaim themselves as the last vestige of the petrol or diesel automotive enthusiast? Or better put, are you just not into electric cars and would rather governments stay out of policy-making in a way that affects car markets?

I think the main issue here is that governments are setting goals on this stuff that are aspirational as opposed to realistic. The amount of infrastructure that needs to be built out to support ubiquity of EVs makes the interstate system look tiny, and that took 30 years to build to substantial completion.

It is certainly the right thing to be doing to be investing in that infrastructure now, and doing some other things to encourage adoption of EVs. But it is way too early to be setting an end date, practically speaking. Saying "no more new gasoline-powered cars come 2035" is a political play.

And this understandably stirs the pot because guess what: come 2035, there are going to be people who, for one reason or another, are not prepared to go electric. Some of them may just be stubborn curmudgeons, but others will have legitimate reasons why a gasoline-powered vehicle better suits their needs. And there are also going to be people who would/could go electric except that the infrastructure for them to do so is still not in place where they need it to be in place.

This means one of two things logically must happen. Either the deadline for gasoline phaseout will be pushed back, in which case one might ask why they bothered making a deadline in the first place if they weren't going to stick to it, or the official line will be "you had 14 years to prepare, if you aren't ready, that's on you, you deal with the consequences. Buy a used car if you still want a gasoline-powered one". Neither of these outcomes is ideal, though the latter one less so.


So, what I at least would like is for policymakers to state an intent to phase out the sale of gasoline-powered cars "when the infrastructure is in place to support all cars being electric and when technology allows for them to replace all use cases for gasoline without substantial loss of function". This commits to making the transition without making any promises that cannot be kept, or otherwise creating any fears that we might be dealing with the consequences of being forced to change before we're actually ready to.

[Duke87]

Quite a few automakers have already announced the intent to phase-out ICE vehicles by 2030, pretty much everyone else by 2040. Only a few notable holdouts, like BMW. 2035 is likely an encouragement for automakers like Toyota and Honda to speed up ICE-phaseout (they have both indicated 2040).

Do want to note that these stated intents are not set in stone. A decade ago, major automakers had stated intent to start eliminating AM/FM radios from cars in the next few years in favor of just offering integration with streaming services. Then that didn't happen.

Right now automakers are saying these things for political reasons, just like governments are. They can and will shift course if they determine it makes business sense to do so.

[jakeroot]

It is certainly the right thing to be doing to be investing in that infrastructure now, and doing some other things to encourage adoption of EVs. But it is way too early to be setting an end date, practically speaking. Saying "no more new gasoline-powered cars come 2035" is a political play.

Of course it's political play. What else would it be? An actual, hard "2035" is incredibly difficult to be certain of. There are way too many factors to really, truly know when we can actually end combustion engine sales.

The point of "2035" is nothing more than Canada settling in with numerous other organizations, countries, and states that have all announced similar goals. Not setting a goal does not get anyone closer to ending combustion engine sales, because government policies do play a big role in how we, as a society, progress into the future. And while setting a goal doesn't mean they will reach a goal, it will help them guide their investment policies for the next 10-20 years, to ensure that goal can be met. That is, like, the definition of politics.

Right now automakers are saying these things for political reasons, just like governments are. They can and will shift course if they determine it makes business sense to do so.

Again, that's very obvious. That's what any private enterprise should do: make sound business choices. But what shift is going to occur in the next 15 years that would, say, drive VW to abandon all of its EV infrastructure? What shift is going to force Volvo to begin investing in combustion engines? And importantly, what shift occurs in battery and charging technology that drives us away from an electric drivetrain? While there are many technical barriers that need to be overcome, I highly doubt we are going to walk away from EVs.

Just for the record, I've always found government policy to be at least as important in the auto market as the preferences of the general public. Audi can sell matrix LED headlamps, but they're only half-baked since policy dictates very specific controls. But, it's not like Audi can waltz into NHTSA's office, slap down some sales numbers, and force their hand. NHTSA has the upper hand, and so does the government. It can set a hard policy if it wants, and we're beginning to see that now. Even in China.


edit: fixed second-to-last paragraph final sentence, as it did not make sense.

[SectorZ]

Quite a few automakers have already announced the intent to phase-out ICE vehicles by 2030, pretty much everyone else by 2040. Only a few notable holdouts, like BMW. 2035 is likely an encouragement for automakers like Toyota and Honda to speed up ICE-phaseout (they have both indicated 2040).

Do want to note that these stated intents are not set in stone. A decade ago, major automakers had stated intent to start eliminating AM/FM radios from cars in the next few years in favor of just offering integration with streaming services. Then that didn't happen.

Right now automakers are saying these things for political reasons, just like governments are. They can and will shift course if they determine it makes business sense to do so.

I tried looking up the story about the AM/FM radio thing and it looks like it was a throwaway line from a GM exec talking about other companies, and he was wrong. AM has been removed in electric cars because they're too cheap/lazy to shield things to prevent interference. Tesla made an "upgrade" that removed AM/FM/XM, only to find a way to charge more to put FM/XM back Tesla finds new and creative ways to assail their customers.

Based on that, there was never a sincere effort in 2013 to remove AM/FM radios from most cars by the end of the 2010's.

[SP Cook]

The purpose of science is to discover what IS true.  Not to invent whatever some politician or whatever WISHES was. 

It is POSSIBLE that ICE cars will be replaceable in 2035.  It is also possible that they will never be.  Childlike faith that something that has, in the history of mankind, not yet been invented will be just because we wish it to be so is foolish.

As is making public policy based on things that do not yet exist.

[kalvado]

Of course it's political play. What else would it be?
....
NHTSA has the upper hand, and so does the government. It can set a hard policy if it wants.

It is probably nice to see glass half full. But the other way of putting it is "idiots with the sledgehammer"

[jeffandnicole]

The purpose of science is to discover what IS true.  Not to invent whatever some politician or whatever WISHES was. 

It is POSSIBLE that ICE cars will be replaceable in 2035.  It is also possible that they will never be.  Childlike faith that something that has, in the history of mankind, not yet been invented will be just because we wish it to be so is foolish.

As is making public policy based on things that do not yet exist.

Electric cars don't exist yet?

[kalvado]

But what shift is going to occur in the next 15 years that would, say, drive VW to abandon all of its EV infrastructure? What shift is going to force Volvo to begin investing in combustion engines? And importantly, what shift occurs in battery and charging technology that drives us away from an electric drivetrain? While there are many technical barriers that need to be overcome, I highly doubt we are going to walk away from EVs.

There are tons of issues people don't quite realize.
A random one - but it can become a show-stopper: peak copper.
We're running into general situation, where natural resources are becoming a limitation. This covers many things - oil is a well known one; iron (steel) is less so. What I hear is that today's iron supply comes from ores which were not even considered ores 100 years ago.
Electric cars means significant growth of copper consumption - while people have to back away from household copper use, such as drinking water pipes and house wiring - due to increased cost.
What would happen when all cars are electric, and automotive copper demand increases 5-10x compared to today (that is before use in charging stations is considered?) 
right now there is about 90 kg of copper per electric car, 17M cars sold in US - so projected demand is 1.5 million metric tons.  Total US consumption in 2019 was 1.8 million metric tons.

Is that a show-stopper? Well, we'll see.  Copper price took off about 20 years ago, so far growth is is 30x over 20 years. When we needed to do some plumbing at work 20 years ago, my boss went to Home Depot and bought literally a bag of fittings - and didn't bother to submit a reimbursement for less than $20. Today it can be easily  $10 per single piece. 

  Would electric vehicles help to bring it further up? Hell, yes.

Of course, Aluminum wiring in motors is an option. A couple hundred billion investment in technology, anyone?

[1995hoo]

For those of you who have, or who have experienced travel in, an EV, something I'm curious about as to Canada (and colder parts of the USA like North Dakota) is how running the heater affects range. Certainly we know AC usage has a significant effect on EV range. I assume running the heater must have some effect but that it's likely less of an impact than the AC has, consistent with ICE-powered vehicles.

[US 41]

The 2035 thing is just a timeline to make certain voters happy. When 2030 comes along they will simply delay it another 10 years to 2040. Plus most people in office (Canada or US) will be long gone by 2035. Throwing out a date like that just means that they won't be responsible for it.

My local university has been 10 years away from building a new football stadium for at least 15 years now. Same deal. The AD and President that promised that 15 years ago are long gone.

[kalvado]

For those of you who have, or who have experienced travel in, an EV, something I'm curious about as to Canada (and colder parts of the USA like North Dakota) is how running the heater affects range. Certainly we know AC usage has a significant effect on EV range. I assume running the heater must have some effect but that it's likely less of an impact than the AC has, consistent with ICE-powered vehicles.

I suspect it will be worse than heat.
ICE has a pretty low efficiency, so recycling unused heat for the cabin is a no-brainer. EV have less losses. Battery cooling loop in Tesla is still Glycol, so recycling that for the cabin is very doable. How would that work in Winnipeg or Edmonton - I am not sure.
 Heating battery in parked car may be needed. Oil heaters pretty much in every car is one thing which surprised me in Winnipeg, though.

[1995hoo]

Good point about reusing the heat in an ICE. I obviously didn't think about that.

[SP Cook]

Electric cars don't exist yet?

Electric cars that can meet every transportation need in all of Canada in terms of range, power, durability, and affordability (absent subsidy) do not.   Nor does the infrastructure to support same.  Nor the electrical generation capacity to supply same.

They might be possible.  Might not.  Science will answer that question.

Until then, best to make public policy based on what we know IS, not what we WISH was.

[kphoger]

It is certainly the right thing to be doing to be investing in that infrastructure now, and doing some other things to encourage adoption of EVs.

Only if what ends up replacing IC engine automobiles is actually better for the environment.  Not everyone agrees that EVs are a net benefit to the environment when compared to IC, especially at such large scales.

[kphoger]

... come 2035, there are going to be people who, for one reason or another, are not prepared to go electric. Some of them may just be stubborn curmudgeons, but others will have legitimate reasons why a gasoline-powered vehicle better suits their needs. And there are also going to be people who would/could go electric except that the infrastructure for them to do so is still not in place where they need it to be in place.

This means one of two things logically must happen. Either the deadline for gasoline phaseout will be pushed back, in which case one might ask why they bothered making a deadline in the first place if they weren't going to stick to it, or the official line will be "you had 14 years to prepare, if you aren't ready, that's on you, you deal with the consequences. Buy a used car if you still want a gasoline-powered one". Neither of these outcomes is ideal, though the latter one less so.

Another possibility would be to make the target easier to hit.  Instead of "no IC production", instead aim for something like "at least 80% of each auto maker's production to be non-IC".  That would still leave room for a couple of IC models from each auto maker, but would leave the rest of the line EV or whatever else.

Another possibility would be to allow exceptions for specific types of individual needs:  farmers and ranchers could be exempt, people living in areas of low enough population density could be exempt, etc.  Kind of like how, in Mexico, citizens don't have the right to bear arms but can apply for an exception (security officers, high-profile politicians, those in very rural areas, et al)—except for operating IC vehicles rather than for bearing arms.  Some of those would continue to fill up from private gas tanks (farmers and ranchers), while others could continue to be served by a much-less-populated gas station network.

I'm not saying I think either of those options should happen.  Just that there are other possibilities to consider.

[vdeane]

The purpose of science is to discover what IS true.  Not to invent whatever some politician or whatever WISHES was. 

It is POSSIBLE that ICE cars will be replaceable in 2035.  It is also possible that they will never be.  Childlike faith that something that has, in the history of mankind, not yet been invented will be just because we wish it to be so is foolish.

As is making public policy based on things that do not yet exist.

Electric cars don't exist yet?

They exist, but they're not even remotely practical for everyone.  If you have home-charging and only need a daily driver for the local area, they're great - better than ICE cars, in fact.  If you regularly drive long distances (particularly roadgeek levels of distance), how well they work depends on how flexible you are regarding where, how often, and how long you stop.  If you're preferred lunch place isn't near the charger, well then you have to choose - do you spend extra time eating lunch, or do you pick the place that's near the charger, even if it's unappealing, so that you can get back on the road when you're done charging?  If you have a non-Tesla, virtually all the fast chargers are Electrify America stations at WalMarts, so that's a bigger issue than one would think.  Even many superchargers are a further distance from the interstate than one would need to go to get gas.

If you don't have home charging, especially if you also don't have charging at work, they're not really practical.

Now this is (mostly) not a tech problem so much as an infrastructure one, but that will still be a MASSIVE investment to make EVs as practical as ICE cars for the vast majority of use cases.  And some cases never will be.  Someone who drives a company car to sites across a geographic area and eats in the car to get more done in the day (as my cousin does - he works as a contractor supervisor for a company that landscapes parking lots and is on the road 60 hours a week) is going to find an EV less convenient no matter what.

[jakeroot]

This thread definitely took off again!

Now this is (mostly) not a tech problem so much as an infrastructure one, but that will still be a MASSIVE investment to make EVs as practical as ICE cars for the vast majority of use cases.  And some cases never will be.  Someone who drives a company car to sites across a geographic area and eats in the car to get more done in the day (as my cousin does - he works as a contractor supervisor for a company that landscapes parking lots and is on the road 60 hours a week) is going to find an EV less convenient no matter what.

It could be an infrastructure problem, but it could also be a technology problem.

For example: if chargers were everywhere right now, across every shopping center parking lot, gas station, rest area, etc, electric cars would be pretty practical even in their current state. You wouldn't have to wait for an opening, and assuming you had access to a high-speed charger, you could get back on the road pretty quickly (in the off-chance you're actually going a really long distance).

But consider this (as it relates to tech): while we build out our charging infrastructure, we also continue to innovate in battery technology. What if electric cars could go 1000 miles between charges? You might say that such a distance would require a huge battery; that's true right now, but who's to say that remains the case? Maybe future software and vehicle design is more efficient, allowing us to drive further with the same or even smaller battery.

[kalvado]

This thread definitely took off again!

Now this is (mostly) not a tech problem so much as an infrastructure one, but that will still be a MASSIVE investment to make EVs as practical as ICE cars for the vast majority of use cases.  And some cases never will be.  Someone who drives a company car to sites across a geographic area and eats in the car to get more done in the day (as my cousin does - he works as a contractor supervisor for a company that landscapes parking lots and is on the road 60 hours a week) is going to find an EV less convenient no matter what.

It could be an infrastructure problem, but it could also be a technology problem.

For example: if chargers were everywhere right now, across every shopping center parking lot, gas station, rest area, etc, electric cars would be pretty practical even in their current state. You wouldn't have to wait for an opening, and assuming you had access to a high-speed charger, you could get back on the road pretty quickly (in the off-chance you're actually going a really long distance).

But consider this (as it relates to tech): while we build out our charging infrastructure, we also continue to innovate in battery technology. What if electric cars could go 1000 miles between charges? You might say that such a distance would require a huge battery; that's true right now, but who's to say that remains the case? Maybe future software and vehicle design is more efficient, allowing us to drive further with the same or even smaller battery.

Sometimes I really envy those who don't know physics, not even at high school level. World must be really full of miracles and wonders to such lucky folks! 

[jakeroot]

Sometimes I really envy those who don't know physics, not even at high school level. World must be really full of miracles and wonders to such lucky folks!

https://insideevs.com/news/515413/tesla-models-battery-pack-reduction/

Yeah, I don't know physics. Just relaying what I've been seeing, which is increased efficiency.

[Duke87]

For those of you who have, or who have experienced travel in, an EV, something I'm curious about as to Canada (and colder parts of the USA like North Dakota) is how running the heater affects range. Certainly we know AC usage has a significant effect on EV range. I assume running the heater must have some effect but that it's likely less of an impact than the AC has, consistent with ICE-powered vehicles.

I suspect it will be worse than heat.

It definitely will be. As a general rule of thumb, heating consumes more energy than air conditioning for a very simple basic reason: temperature difference. To be comfortable, the average human will want it to be somewhere in the range of 70 degrees, give or take a few. For air conditioning, even if it's 110 degrees outside (it usually is not), that's a 40 degree difference in temperature you're fighting against. But now for heating, if it's a roughly equally extreme -30 degrees outside, you're fighting against a 100 degree temperature difference! Since the rate of heat flow through the wall of the car is faster the greater the difference in temperature is (basic thermodynamics), even maintaining a larger temperature differential once you have achieved it will consume more energy.

Now, there are other confounding factors here. For one, as we all know, the sun heats up cars, whose surface area has a lot of glass. This hurts you when you're trying to cool the car but helps you when you're trying to heat it (though it doesn't help you at night, when it will be the coldest).

On the other hand, air conditioning works by pumping heat energy out of the car, and it can reasonably be expected to move 3 or more units of heat for every unit of energy it consumes. While it is possible (to a point) to reverse this process for heating, cars generally do not come built with two-way heat pumps and your car will be relying on electric resistance for heat, which only produces 1 unit of heat for every unit of energy it consumes (any more would violate the laws of physics). So the heater, in addition to needing to provide more output, is considerably less efficient at doing so.


Another thing to consider here regarding range is that batteries themselves are temperature sensitive. When it is really cold outside you will get less range even if you don't run the heat, simply because cold temperatures lower the electric resistance in the battery and cause it to lose energy faster.

Sometimes I really envy those who don't know physics, not even at high school level. World must be really full of miracles and wonders to such lucky folks!

https://insideevs.com/news/515413/tesla-models-battery-pack-reduction/

Yeah, I don't know physics. Just relaying what I've been seeing, which is increased efficiency.

One thing I will say: Lithium Ion batteries as we know them are not the end of the road as far as battery technology is concerned. At some point, something else will become commercially available that is objectively better and Lithium batteries will become as quaint as Nickel-Cadmium batteries now are. What exactly that is, however, we can't be sure of yet. We also can't be sure whether it will happen before 2035.

Personally, I think it is more likely we will see a battery technology that can be safely charged up from near empty in 5-10 minutes than one which is just as slow but can go 1000 miles with the same mass/volume as current batteries. Reason I say this is because the former already exists experimentally, it's just not commercially available (yet?). The latter, meanwhile, would run up against the basic problem that if you squeeze more energy into a tighter space, the resulting battery is likely to be less stable/more vulnerable to having its stored energy released in an uncontrolled manner. And, of course, the more stored energy you have, the greater the damage that an uncontrolled release of it will do.

[Rothman]

For those of you who have, or who have experienced travel in, an EV, something I'm curious about as to Canada (and colder parts of the USA like North Dakota) is how running the heater affects range. Certainly we know AC usage has a significant effect on EV range. I assume running the heater must have some effect but that it's likely less of an impact than the AC has, consistent with ICE-powered vehicles.

I suspect it will be worse than heat.

It definitely will be. As a general rule of thumb, heating consumes more energy than air conditioning for a very simple basic reason: temperature difference. To be comfortable, the average human will want it to be somewhere in the range of 70 degrees, give or take a few. For air conditioning, even if it's 110 degrees outside (it usually is not), that's a 40 degree difference in temperature you're fighting against. But now for heating, if it's a roughly equally extreme -30 degrees outside, you're fighting against a 100 degree temperature difference! Since the rate of heat flow through the wall of the car is faster the greater the difference in temperature is (basic thermodynamics), even maintaining a larger temperature differential once you have achieved it will consume more energy.

Now, there are other confounding factors here. For one, as we all know, the sun heats up cars, whose surface area has a lot of glass. This hurts you when you're trying to cool the car but helps you when you're trying to heat it (though it doesn't help you at night, when it will be the coldest).

On the other hand, air conditioning works by pumping heat energy out of the car, and it can reasonably be expected to move 3 or more units of heat for every unit of energy it consumes. While it is possible (to a point) to reverse this process for heating, cars generally do not come built with two-way heat pumps and your car will be relying on electric resistance for heat, which only produces 1 unit of heat for every unit of energy it consumes (any more would violate the laws of physics). So the heater, in addition to needing to provide more output, is considerably less efficient at doing so.


Another thing to consider here regarding range is that batteries themselves are temperature sensitive. When it is really cold outside you will get less range even if you don't run the heat, simply because cold temperatures lower the electric resistance in the battery and cause it to lose energy faster.

Sometimes I really envy those who don't know physics, not even at high school level. World must be really full of miracles and wonders to such lucky folks!

https://insideevs.com/news/515413/tesla-models-battery-pack-reduction/

Yeah, I don't know physics. Just relaying what I've been seeing, which is increased efficiency.

One thing I will say: Lithium Ion batteries as we know them are not the end of the road as far as battery technology is concerned. At some point, something else will become commercially available that is objectively better and Lithium batteries will become as quaint as Nickel-Cadmium batteries now are. What exactly that is, however, we can't be sure of yet. We also can't be sure whether it will happen before 2035.

Personally, I think it is more likely we will see a battery technology that can be safely charged up from near empty in 5-10 minutes than one which is just as slow but can go 1000 miles with the same mass/volume as current batteries. Reason I say this is because the former already exists experimentally, it's just not commercially available (yet?). The latter, meanwhile, would run up against the basic problem that if you squeeze more energy into a tighter space, the resulting battery is likely to be less stable/more vulnerable to having its stored energy released in an uncontrolled manner. And, of course, the more stored energy you have, the greater the damage that an uncontrolled release of it will do.

Heh.  All that energy just stored in a car...what could possibly be the solution?  Oh, I know:  A tank of gasoline that's fed into an ICE.

[vdeane]

Personally, I think it is more likely we will see a battery technology that can be safely charged up from near empty in 5-10 minutes than one which is just as slow but can go 1000 miles with the same mass/volume as current batteries. Reason I say this is because the former already exists experimentally, it's just not commercially available (yet?).

Hasn't such been the case for 15-20 years now?  I wonder why none have made it to commercial availability.