Electric, Hybrid or Just Wait

[woodPixel]

Placing an additional tax on the sales of new-new items would fix this.

Use that tax as a rebate to offset the costs of producing recycled-new items.

Like a GST.... 10%... or something.

(ducks for cover!)

[Lappa]

So we want people to buy electrical vehicles so we wack another tax on top?
One of the problems re electric vehicle in some OZ States and Territories is there is no incentive to buy them, like in other countries Adding a recycling tax is only going to make it worse

[Spyro]

Not impossible, just previously uneconomic.
That's now changing as technologies develop, plus public opinion accepting higher prices for greener items.

But technologies are not developing only in batteries, they also developing in petrol engines making them cheaper to make and run, so the bar that the electric car has to jump will always be moving.
As long as it's easier to make money from petrol then that's what car makers will do.
The amount of accumulated research and already available infrastructure is in favour of petrol by miles.

[woodPixel]

I think with petrol, we should include in the conversation - Ethanol.

I was using this years back in Sydney when it was available at the pump as V-Power 100 RON.

MAN O MAN did the car love that. The engine tune changed radically.

The 98 now is nowhere near as good. The ethanol really added a huge kick.


I've read a few places where people talk of running the engine (LS1 V8) on pure Ethanol and it doesn't seem so big a deal to convert. The update to the computer is trivial (it plugs in and flash updates via a program. Very slick. One can "noodle" with the settings).

My fantasies aside, Ethanol is a wise thing to make. Its dead easy. I know of two organisations (Manildra and Sydney Chemicals) who supply absolute gigalitres of it now and upgrading to massive production (for just Oz) seems basic.

This stuff seems CO2 neutral. Would that be right?




edit - here: Ethanol - Manildra Group

[Lappa]

While ethanol has a higher octane rating than petroleum, its energy rating is less therefore you need to use more. In the old days of carbies, we just drilled out the jets.
Flex fuel vehicles (quite common in the USA) have sensors in the fuel line and will automatically change the “tune” of the vehicle to suit the level of ethanol - most are set to a max of 85% ethanol.

Interesting read re ethanol as a fuel.

Ethanol fuel from corn faulted as 'unsustainable subsidized food burning' in analysis by Cornell scientist | Cornell Chronicle

[BobL]

If ethanol was used as a majority vehicle fuel it would be OK in a few high rainfall places, but the worldwide demand would place the planet into a serve water shortage and compete for food cropping land, destroy existing rain forests (imagine flattening the Brazilian rain forests to plant sugar cane for vehicles ie WOOAH) not to mention the fact that its still "internal combustion" so it still makes lots of tiny particles and other gases like nitrous oxides. We have to plan to stop the whole idea of internal combustion to propel the majority of vehicles. Long term, like mineral oil, ethanol is an important material in industrial processes and materials manufacturing so will eventually be come too expensive to burn but in the meantime we will have trashed the planet.

[Glider]

But technologies are not developing only in batteries, they also developing in petrol engines making them cheaper to make and run, so the bar that the electric car has to jump will always be moving.
As long as it's easier to make money from petrol then that's what car makers will do.
The amount of accumulated research and already available infrastructure is in favour of petrol by miles.

Sorry Spyro, I can't agree with your statement. The bus has left, mate. Major car manufacturers have already announced the cessation of production of petrol cars in Europe and California by 2030 and elsewhere by 2035. It will happen and the sooner our federal government gets onto the bus instead of standing by and waiting for provenance to intercede, the better. Auto makers have seen the writing on the wall and are planning to survive rather than sitting there like Kodak, Polaroid, the "old General Motors", all of whom failed to invest in new technologies to secure their future.

Nissan have foreshadowed the release of an updated car which will extend the range of their existing Leaf model. Hopefully, it'll give me what I want which is somewhere >400 kms. guaranteed at a decent speed and an affordable price.

mick

[woodPixel]

I saw a battery pack exchanged on a Prius.

Fiddly job with a good deal of digging and a thousand bolts, but not out of the range of a person with a few spanners.

Now, if the packs were easy to get to for upgrades, that would be good... Even better if they had spare room for extra packs to plug in like suitcases.

Nice!

[woodPixel]

They're comin'!

Honda launches world's first level 3 self-driving car -
Nikkei Asia

Industry experts are cautiously watching to see if the Legend, a luxury sedan that operates without driver supervision under certain conditions but requires the driver to assume control of the vehicle within seconds when alerted, can capture enough demand to suggest a way forward for other manufacturers. Honda unveiled the Legend on Thursday at an online press event.

The new model's Traffic Jam Pilot system was approved by Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism in November. It can free drivers from driving in congested traffic on an expressway when traveling slower than 50 kilometers per hour. The system automatically accelerates, brakes and steers while monitoring the vehicle's surroundings, using data from high-definition mapping and external sensors. The driver, meanwhile, can enjoy the vehicle's infotainment using the navigation screen but must respond to the system's request for a handover when the vehicle speeds up after the traffic jam eases.

[BobL]

They're comin'!

Honda launches world's first level 3 self-driving car -
Nikkei Asia

From that article

Honda said it simulated around 10 million possible situations, and conducted test drives on highways for approximately 1.3 million kilometers, in developing the car.

Interestingly, Tesla has 3 billion miles of fully self driven vehicle data, mostly collected in "on the road driving conditions by a wide variety of drivers".

[Spyro]

Sorry Spyro, I can't agree with your statement. The bus has left, mate. Major car manufacturers have already announced the cessation of production of petrol cars in Europe and California by 2030 and elsewhere by 2035. It will happen and the sooner our federal government gets onto the bus instead of standing by and waiting for provenance to intercede, the better. Auto makers have seen the writing on the wall and are planning to survive rather than sitting there like Kodak, Polaroid, the "old General Motors", all of whom failed to invest in new technologies to secure their future.

Nissan have foreshadowed the release of an updated car which will extend the range of their existing Leaf model. Hopefully, it'll give me what I want which is somewhere >400 kms. guaranteed at a decent speed and an affordable price.

mick

Why did they do that? Because countries announced grandiose plans to ban internal combustion engines starting from their biggest cities. Which honestly sounds like the intention is to keep screwing up the planet, as long as we do it away from their precious cities. Recycling batteries is in its infancy, it's a dirty and unprofitable business that requires massive subsidies just to make it viable financially. Which is not going to happen obviously, which means you will ultimately have similar solutions as "recycling" our plastic home garbage, which means sending it on a boat to Malaysia so it can be set on fire in a jungle somewhere or to the depths of China which is a black box country that nobody knows exactly what is going on.

But, we will all feel good about our clean cities.

[Bushmiller]

Why did they do that? Because countries announced grandiose plans to ban internal combustion engines starting from their biggest cities. Which honestly sounds like the intention is to keep screwing up the planet, as long as we do it away from their precious cities. Recycling batteries is in its infancy, it's a dirty and unprofitable business that requires massive subsidies just to make it viable financially. Which is not going to happen obviously, which means you will ultimately have similar solutions as "recycling" our plastic home garbage, which means sending it on a boat to Malaysia so it can be set on fire in a jungle somewhere or to the depths of China which is a black box country that nobody knows exactly what is going on.

But, we will all feel good about our clean cities.

I would very much like to tell you that won't happen, but to some extent it will. Gradually those practices will cease too. What we can say if that this is not commenced at some point in time it will certainly not happen. PV solar panels are in fact a good example of this. back in the 70s before funding to the CSIRO was progressively reduced, Australia was a leading source of solar development. There was no funding, diminished research and as a consequence we lost that competitive edge. If solar subsidies had not been implemented, that form of renewable would be much less prominent in Australia than it is.

We have to start somewhere.

One aspect that does not seem to receive discussion is that of commercial transport. If electric vehicles and following on from that, batteries, for the moment are problematical, the situation for trucks and other large road vehicles is far more serious. I do not know the ratio of total truck emissions compared to private vehicle emissions, but it appears to be an area that is not discussed. From trucks we would have to look too towards off road vehicles (agricultural in particular) and from there we move on towards rail, shipping and the aeronautical industry. All aspects I certainly have no suggestions about.

I certainly agree we should aspire to more than a placebo effect.

Regards
Paul

[BobL]

One aspect that does not seem to receive discussion is that of commercial transport. If electric vehicles and following on from that, batteries, for the moment are problematical, the situation for trucks and other large road vehicles is far more serious. I do not know the ratio of total truck emissions compared to private vehicle emissions, but it appears to be an area that is not discussed. From trucks we would have to look too towards off road vehicles (agricultural in particular) and from there we move on towards rail, shipping and the aeronautical industry. All aspects I certainly have no suggestions about.

It depends on the type of commercial transport. We tend to think of long distance commercial haulage, but most commercial vehicles operate in and around industrial centres and cities. Short distances and stop start driving spending overnight at base is the largest grouping. This is ideal for electric vehicles like vans and light trucks, but even bigger trucks are already out there..

Here is a real Mack Rubbish truck ready for testing
Mack Delivers First Electric Garbage Truck to End User

SA and WA already have been testing electric rubbish trucks for some time.
SA’s First Electric Garbage Truck Doing The Rounds – SEA... the Future

Diamler has an electric 18 wheeler that does 220 miles which is fine around industrial centres and cities.

[woodPixel]

Elon Musk: 10x More Tesla Cars To Get Full Self-Driving Beta Soon

[Chris Parks]

But technologies are not developing only in batteries, they also developing in petrol engines making them cheaper to make and run, so the bar that the electric car has to jump will always be moving.
As long as it's easier to make money from petrol then that's what car makers will do.
The amount of accumulated research and already available infrastructure is in favour of petrol by miles.

This is the reason all European manufacturers are going electric as it is the quickest way to avoid the crippling fines they will face if they don't meet the European emissions targets

Carmakers Face Billions in European CO2 Fines from 2021 | IndustryWeek.