I've been watching the latest automotive news and it seems electric cars are all the rage. Rimac, who ever they are, is building a $224 million dollar plant in Croatia, the Chinese are supposed to put everyone out of business with their electric cars, Audi is making the A6 e-tron, Stellantis is spending $30 billion to build electric Jeeps, Alfa Romeos, Maseratis, and Chryslers, Ford's building an electric F 150; then we have Tesla, Rivian, Nio, Nikola, Charge Point, etc., etc. etc. There are over 81 new companies planning on making electric cars. So, I've been thinking maybe I should start considering an electric car in my future. I mean I was into slot cars back in the sixties, what a hoot! I could be scooting around in my own slot car! They started out 1/25 or 1/24 scale, as I remember becasue the motors were on the large size. Here's a vintage Strombecker 1/24 set. A friend of mine had a ATM Authentic Model Turnpike set which was really cool as the front wheels were locked to the track. They couldn't fly off! Instead the car would just spin out and then you had to throw her in reverse and spin the steering wheel to get the car straight then shift back to forward and take off. Cool. "It steers, it spins, it slides. 360 degree spin out, will run forward or reverse!" Sorta like me driving down the road. Then they got smaller, 1/32 then HO scale. But I digress. So as I said, electric cars seem to be the future and everyone's saying how cheap they'll be to run. Much cheaper than gasoline. Then I thought, but wait a minute. If everyone gets electric cars the cost of electric will go up, due to demand. And...I thought...nobody will want gasoline. That means the price will go down! I'm thinking they'll be just about giving that stuff away! So why go electric? I'll just pull over somewhere, some guys house maybe and say, "Hey you want to get rid of all that gasoline you got in them cans over in that garage? Can't just dump it on the ground ya know. Pollution and all that." Maybe I'll even charge the guy to get rid of it! And I'll just dump it in my tank and motor on to the next town for free.
Only if you don't give a fuck about the environment. Part of the appeal of electric cars is that they'll have less fuel cost per mile, but also that they'll emit less carbon. If more of the grid is powered by non-carbon emission sources, that aspect of electric cars will only improve.
the scaled up "slotcar" track is concept that peeks my interest. christopher swan's yv88 suggested a similar concept called free rail, although his was more like hirailer wheels to follow tracks built into the freeway, which could opperate in multiple to form a kind of a bus for part of the trip, during which part, the highway system itself would do the driving and people could just relax and do pretty much what they could on a bus or a train. powered of course by a clean grid, plus energy storage on board and perhaps onboard solar trickle suplimental charging for that. there's also a concept, where the road surface itself becomes a solar collector. not sure how well that would work for high traffic lanes. onboard intelligence i feel needs some sort of signaling system controlled guideway. several examples of which exist also. a simple follow the burried wire would be safer then what is being attempted with non-guideway tied onboard a.i. development. for propulsion there's also something called magnetic field in resonance, that's a bit like having a linear induction coil under the pavement.
I used to like Volt. I actually went to felix chevrolet in dtla and asked about if the seats fold down so I could put a surfboard in there without a roof rack (tacky...).
But it didn't fit, right? I'll take a roof rack myself... wish I had one. I just have to wonder about the impact of all those batteries when they go dead... not likely that they will get recycled, will they? Overall I would love an electric car for the quiet ride...
I had one on my Sentra in 2011 when I looked at the darn thing (Volt). I had a Thule one - and it was really good-looking! so much so that I felt a little like a yuppy or a trust-fund kid. Well, it was expensive looking, and I decided that it's not my cup of tea. They make one's that are less flashy, but I had this: b. angular, and wicked! the aerodynamic design is reminiscent of a weapon on star-trek, or perhaps a spaceship! Anyway, I felt like a heel... My car, a 2010 Sentra in 2011, had roof bars with my inexpensive longboard in its board sock (also cheap). But the whole thing felt like a giant price tag - not like someone was going to steal it, but just like I was flashing everything around. After awhile of this, I sold the rack stuff on ebay or craigslist and decided that even a longboard (depending on its length) can fit from trunk to windshield if you fold down the seats between the backseat and the trunk. So, I asked "can you put a surfboard in it?" and the gentleman invited me to come investigate. The Volt has more range than a Nissan Leaf, but it also costs more. The Leaf is cute, but it's impractical for me simply because its range is comparably limited. Volt can go 300 miles or so. I don't know what Tesla does... Leaf is something like half of that.
I have to say, I'm kind of tempted to check out what China has to offer on the subject, some of these supposedly reach highway speeds somehow JIUTANG Store - Amazing products with exclusive discounts on AliExpress
My Caravan has a self storing roof rack. The cross bars stow on the roof rails when not in use. Here they are in stored position. (off the van)
Yeah, but.... I guess the time is coming when we'll be going to gasoline shows like people go to steam shows now. Just to look at those old internal combustion engines.
that's my thought. combustion power will be a thing for machinist hobbiests the way live steam is now. the whole mind set, the whole perspective, that has made the car so dominant, depends on the production of fuels to burn, which right now, we have a lot of humans, so many humans that our numbers are the major threat to ourselves, though that's another thing the ego doesn't want to accept. there's so many things tied together, i don't want to sit here and write a book about it. we get away from burning stuff to propell transportation, that's a good first step. what we have right now, we have so many people and we also have ways of doing things we're familiar with that depends on that, resource extraction, but what happens when/if, we no longer have this level of population due to the very environmental collapse that having so many of us is very likely bringing about? people today, understandably, might think i'm being silly, that we need to think about how we're going to solve things when that happens. but there's a when, not if, on the horizon that's getting closer all the time. now you wanna burn stuff to cook on and keep warm, if that's all you ever burn anything for, that will probably be ok. but if we keep burning more then that, as we do when we use that to generate energy and propell transportation, we are going to alter our environment to one that no longer supports our species. which i believe we can avoid doing, by not waiting until we no longer have the means to extract fuels for burning in mass quantities, but instead adopting ways of doing things, whole perspectives, of all the ways we can do the things we want, without doing so. the biggest problem i see with electric personal vehicles right now, is that they've yet to become the kind of mass commodity that will bring their price within reach of everyone who drives an old clunker now, because that's all they can afford. electrically powered two and three wheelers, like bikes and trikes, for the majority of trips that are relatively short, and public vehicles, like trains and monorails, for anything like going to the next town over.
I am all in favor of more people using smaller lighter personal vehicles that are electric, rechargeable at home and good for the grocery runs and appointments. Not all of us need to be on the freeway going 80 mph, or want to.
Its all very well trying to be environmentally friendly and going all electric with your personal vehicles, but has anyone ever thought just how environmentally friendly electric vehicles really are ??? When the batteries die, just how and where are they to be environmentally friendly destroyed ??? Are they to be put in a land fill ??? and what of the chemicals contained therein ??? are they, like other rubbish we've shipped abroad to some third world country and paid a fee for them taking it, notwithstanding they have no means of dealing with the chemicals leaching out of these batteries and further damaging the environment ??? Somebody, somewhere needs to think all this through and soon !!!
The answer isn't pretty according to experts: """ Lithium-ion batteries, which are the main batteries used in Electric Vehicles (EVs), hybrids and Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs), are recyclable. Currently, the life cycle of the lithium-ion batteries that are used to power the majority of electric cars is estimated to be around 10 to 20 years. Considering the first wave of EVs hit the market roughly a decade ago, that means the world is starting to wonder “Can lithium batteries be recycled?”, pondering electric car batteries’ environmental impact and how to undertake environmentally friendly electric car battery disposal. With the International Energy Agency predicting an 800 percent increase in EVs over the next decade, electric car battery recycling will soon become a major focus for those wanting to avoid electric car battery waste and electric car battery disposal pollution. Although the infrastructure to support the mass disposing of lithium batteries and then eventual lithium battery recycling isn’t quite in place yet, there are start-ups that have popped up to deal with this emerging issue. Another problem is that EV batteries are designed to be cheap and long-lasting, with potential recycling of their materials currently not factored into their production, making recycling the batteries somewhat tricky. If you’ve got a Tesla or a Nissan Leaf, battery recycling may be something you’ll one day want to consider. There are currently two main techniques available in regards to how to dispose of lithium-ion batteries and engage in EV battery recycling. How are lithium ion batteries recycled? Pyrometallurgy This process involves burning EV batteries at high temperatures to remove any unwanted plastics or organic matter, and results in only a fraction of the original material being recovered – usually just the copper, nickel or cobalt. A common pyrometallurgical process for EV batteries is smelting, which is simple but also not very ecologically friendly as the process requires the use of pollution-causing fossil fuels. It also causes lithium and aluminium to be lost, making it a far from ideal way to recycle electric car batteries. Research into recovering lithium through the condensation of smelter off-gas, however, is currently underway. There is a technique that avoids fossil fuel use by taking the residual energy in the batteries, such as the organics in the electrolyte, to power the conversion process. Hydrometallurgy A common hydrometallurgical process for EV batteries is leaching, which is the process of soaking lithium-ion cells in strong acids to dissolve the metals into a solution. The success rate of recovering materials, particularly lithium, is much higher using this technique, but it can be an expensive and complex process. Up until now, mining lithium has been viewed as a cheaper and easier alternative to leaching, but it is gaining in popularity as EV use continues to grow. """
nothing is perfect and its unreasonable to expect of demand it to be. some things are more sustainable then others. current dependence on fossil fuels is not. and there are cleaner ways then batteries of storing energy, though not all are suitable for moving vehicles. there may even be more advanced batter technologies, though not yet beyond the demonstration test stage (afaik).
