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Thread: Electric Vehicles

  1. #1

    Default Electric Vehicles

    Not your father's "End of Suburbia"...


    All fossil-fuel vehicles will vanish in 8 years in twin ‘death spiral’ for big oil and big autos, says study that’s shocking the industries
    This speedy revolution, a Stanford economist says, will be driven by technology, not climate policies — and while his timing may be off a few years, there is little doubt about the direction

    No more petrol or diesel cars, buses, or trucks will be sold anywhere in the world within eight years. The entire market for land transport will switch to electrification, leading to a collapse of oil prices and the demise of the petroleum industry as we have known it for a century.

    This is the futuristic forecast by Stanford University economist Tony Seba. His report, with the deceptively bland title Rethinking Transportation 2020-2030, has gone viral in green circles and is causing spasms of anxiety in the established industries.

    It is a twin “death spiral” for big oil and big autos, with ugly implications for some big companies on the London Stock Exchange unless they adapt in time.

    The long-term price of crude will fall to US$25 a barrel. Most forms of shale and deep-water drilling will no longer be viable. Assets will be stranded. Scotland will forfeit any North Sea bonanza. Russia, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Venezuela will be in trouble.

    It is an existential threat to Ford, General Motors, and the German car industry. They will face a choice between manufacturing EVs in a brutal low-profit market, or reinventing themselves a self-drive service companies, variants of Uber and Lyft.

    They are in the wrong business. The next generation of cars will be “computers on wheels”. Google, Apple, and Foxconn have the disruptive edge, and are going in for the kill. Silicon Valley is where the auto action is, not Detroit, Wolfsburg, or Toyota City.

    The shift, according to Seba, is driven by technology, not climate policies. Market forces are bringing it about with a speed and ferocity that governments could never hope to achieve.

    “We are on the cusp of one of the fastest, deepest, most consequential disruptions of transportation in history,” Prof Seba said. “Internal combustion engine vehicles will enter a vicious cycle of increasing costs.”

    The “tipping point” will arrive over the next two to three years as EV battery ranges surpass 200 miles and electric car prices in the US drop to $30,000. By 2022 the low-end models will be down to $20,000. After that, the avalanche will sweep all before it.

    “What the cost curve says is that by 2025 all new vehicles will be electric, all new buses, all new cars, all new tractors, all new vans, anything that moves on wheels will be electric, globally,” Prof Seba said.

    We are on the cusp of one of the fastest, deepest, most consequential disruptions of transportation in history

    Seba’s premise is that people will stop driving altogether. They will switch en masse to self-drive electric vehicles (EVs) that are ten times cheaper to run than fossil-based cars, with a near-zero marginal cost of fuel and an expected lifespan of 1 million miles.

    Only nostalgics will cling to the old habit of car ownership. The rest will adapt to vehicles on demand. It will become harder to find a petrol station, spares, or anybody to fix the 2,000 moving parts that bedevil the internal combustion engine. Dealers will disappear by 2024.

    Cities will ban human drivers once the data confirms how dangerous they can be behind a wheel. This will spread to suburbs, and then beyond. There will be a “mass stranding of existing vehicles”. The value of second-hard cars will plunge. You will have to pay to dispose of your old vehicle.
    http://business.financialpost.com/tr...g-the-industry

    His time line is probably off by a decade or more but otherwise probably not so much.

  2. #2

    Default Re: Electric Vehicles

    i definitely think the market is headed in that direction but 8 years for 'every vehicle' to transition from internal combustion sounds more like some economist's wish than reality.

  3. #3

    Default Re: Electric Vehicles

    LOL at the article. Hell i'll hold out if nothing else.

  4. #4

    Default Re: Electric Vehicles

    I usually keep vehicles 12-15 years, my Tesla Roadster being an exception at 5. I'm about to swap a couple into new ICE or hybrids and do not expect to have problems finding gas for the lifetime I own them. His timeline was 2020-2030. As I said, he's probably off by a decade or two but we'll see. I'd guess maybe 95% of the cars on the road flip every 15 - 20 years, two generations would be 2040's-2050's. I can sure see it happening where most of the cars two flips out would be electric, unless there is a major disruptive accelerator that speeds that up.

  5. #5

    Default Re: Electric Vehicles

    Aren't electric vehicles fossil fuel vehicles? I mean, where do they think that electricity comes from? Unicorns? A majority of it comes from coal.

  6. #6

    Default Re: Electric Vehicles

    JLR announced today that their entire lineup will be EV or hybrid starting in 2020.

    Volvo already has announced that, for 2019.

    Honda will offer their entire lineup as EV or hybrid by 2020, but will still sell traditional cars.

    The UK and France are banning the sale of IC cars by 2040. Now the devolved Scottish government is aiming for the same thing by 2032.

    JLR and Volvo are relatively small potatoes in the market, but the writing is on the wall. I think the language in the article is a little over the top, and the timeline is ambitious, but it will happen. It's just a matter of time.

  7. #7

    Default Re: Electric Vehicles

    Quote Originally Posted by traxx View Post
    Aren't electric vehicles fossil fuel vehicles? I mean, where do they think that electricity comes from? Unicorns? A majority of it comes from coal.
    Coal is 30% of electricity generation in the U.S., a close second behind natural gas. Coal is about 25% in the EU, in third place behind renewables (as a group) and nuclear.

  8. #8

    Default Re: Electric Vehicles

    Quote Originally Posted by riflesforwatie View Post
    Coal is 30% of electricity generation in the U.S., a close second behind natural gas. Coal is about 25% in the EU, in third place behind renewables (as a group) and nuclear.
    According to this site: https://oaspub.epa.gov/powpro/ept_pack.charts coal is nearly 39% and gas is 27.5% followed by nuclear at 19.5% nationally.

  9. #9

    Default Re: Electric Vehicles

    Quote Originally Posted by traxx View Post
    According to this site: https://oaspub.epa.gov/powpro/ept_pack.charts coal is nearly 39% and gas is 27.5% followed by nuclear at 19.5% nationally.
    Not that I don't trust your link but I can't get it to show national stats, only local ones. Is there a more specific link?

    Here was my source:

    "Natural gas was the source of about 34% of U.S. electricity generation in 2016. In addition to burning natural gas to heat water for steam, it is also burned to produce hot combustion gases that pass through a gas turbine, spinning the turbine's blades to generate electricity.

    Coal was the second-largest energy source for U.S. electricity generation in 2016—about 30%. Nearly all coal-fired power plants use steam turbines. A few coal-fired power plants convert coal to a gas for use in a gas turbine to generate electricity."

    https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/..._united_states

  10. #10

    Default Re: Electric Vehicles

    Quote Originally Posted by riflesforwatie View Post
    Not that I don't trust your link but I can't get it to show national stats, only local ones. Is there a more specific link?

    Here was my source:

    "Natural gas was the source of about 34% of U.S. electricity generation in 2016. In addition to burning natural gas to heat water for steam, it is also burned to produce hot combustion gases that pass through a gas turbine, spinning the turbine's blades to generate electricity.

    Coal was the second-largest energy source for U.S. electricity generation in 2016—about 30%. Nearly all coal-fired power plants use steam turbines. A few coal-fired power plants convert coal to a gas for use in a gas turbine to generate electricity."

    https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/..._united_states
    Put in your zip, hit enter, then hit view report. It'll give you info on your region as well as national.

  11. #11

    Default Re: Electric Vehicles

    I agree with both points. 8 years seems a bit fast, but that said, it's all but a done deal. I think the US will be one of the last holdouts. As mentioned, some European countries are already banning the traditional engine, but I don't see the US doing that (regardless of which power is in office) any time soon. As long as both are made, both will continue to sell.

    Once they start, the dominoes will fall fast, I just don't think the timeframe on that is within the next 8 years.

  12. #12

    Default Re: Electric Vehicles

    Coal is Number 1 in China, and second is not close...

    Coal Total %
    2004 1,713 2,200 78%
    2007 2,656 3,279 81%
    2008 2,733 3,457 79%
    2009 2,913 3,696 79%
    2010 3,273 4,208 78%
    2011 3,724 4,715 79%
    2012 3,850 4,937 78%
    2013 4,200 5,398 78%
    2014 4,354 5,583 78%
    2015 4,115 5,666 73%
    2016 3,906 5,920 66%[1]
    excluding Hong Kong

  13. #13

    Default Re: Electric Vehicles

    I'm not sure about a transition in 8 years, especially if the price of oil is hovering around $25-30. Oil at that price is a fairly major incentive to hold on to an ICE vehicle.

    The other elephant in the room is the cost of lithium, copper, and other rare metals in EVs. If demand for EVs does increase in line with the economist's view, those raw materials are going to become rather expensive. Not to mention, I think we'll see the price of natural gas climb as wind mills and solar farms alone will not create the type of capacity the grid needs to support all the new EVs.

  14. #14

    Default Re: Electric Vehicles

    Quote Originally Posted by traxx View Post
    Put in your zip, hit enter, then hit view report. It'll give you info on your region as well as national.
    Thanks, now I see. EPA data is from 2014, EIA data is from 2016. Shows how quickly coal is shrinking - from 39% in the 2014 EPA source you cited to 34% in the 2016 EIA source I had. In fact, from 2014 to 2015 (https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annu...epa_01_01.html), coal generation dropped 14.5% (in mWh terms) and nat gas increased 18.4%. It appears coal now is not even a plurality of power generation in the U.S., much less a majority.

  15. #15

    Default Re: Electric Vehicles

    Lol

  16. #16

    Default Re: Electric Vehicles

    Quote Originally Posted by riflesforwatie View Post
    Thanks, now I see. EPA data is from 2014, EIA data is from 2016. Shows how quickly coal is shrinking - from 39% in the 2014 EPA source you cited to 34% in the 2016 EIA source I had. In fact, from 2014 to 2015 (https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annu...epa_01_01.html), coal generation dropped 14.5% (in mWh terms) and nat gas increased 18.4%. It appears coal now is not even a plurality of power generation in the U.S., much less a majority.
    You may be right. I'm not even sure anymore. The EPA source page gives this info:
    eGRID2014

    Original Release: 1/13/2017
    Revised Release (v2): 2/27/2017

    Either way, it's still produced by a fossil fuel. People act like electricity is this magical power that produces no emissions.

  17. #17

    Default Re: Electric Vehicles

    Quote Originally Posted by traxx View Post
    Either way, it's still produced by a fossil fuel. People act like electricity is this magical power that produces no emissions.
    Some of it is produced by fossil fuel. I think most people who can afford to buy a hybrid or EV know electricity in Oklahoma comes from natural gas, coal, wind etc, even if they don't really know what respective amounts. Same for people using other fuels elsewhere. This calculator breaks down the make up and CO2 emissions locally and nationally.

    One might also consider comparing an ICE car running 100% gas is gonna be a 100% fossil fuel car until it's converted, running part ethanol, or scrapped, where an EV hitting the street today has two possible advantages on not being a 100% fossil fuel car for life plus are overall more efficient in using fuel and not polluting.

    First, Oklahoma electricity is 25% wind. Second, it's possible that will continue to change over the life of the EV to a more favorable, more efficient, and cleaner source. It could go the other way too. Trump would like more coal in our life.

    EVs, well to wheel, are twice as efficient as ICE cars. That means if there were a power plant running gasoline powered turbines you could run the gas through those turbines, make electricity, send it out to an EV and get twice the mileage as by putting the same gas in the tank of the car. We don't have gasoline powered turbines but people who study this do have comparisons for respective sources. Those comparisons take into account everything that happens from collecting, processing, converting, delivering the energy to the vehicle, and then moving the car down the road, thus, well to wheel. If we could move all transportation to EV and keep the sources the same, we could cut that part of our global energy consumption in half. That's reason enough to move that direction by itself IMO, even if the entire electricity supply were powered by fossil fuels.

    Well to wheel is mentioned in the link too and reflected in the numbers, I believe. If we are running twice as efficient on the same fuel, or a similar fuel, not only are we using less fuel, we should be converting less of it into pollution of all types too.



    https://www.afdc.energy.gov/vehicles..._emissions.php

  18. #18

    Default Re: Electric Vehicles

    It's about par for the course that all these sites that have been linked are government sites and should be official numbers but all of their numbers are vastly different.

  19. #19

    Default Re: Electric Vehicles

    Everyone is compiling from different reports with different dates I suppose. Here's a 2017 snapshot from the same site linked a few times upthread. It shows hydro and renewables used for electrical generation for Oklahoma are almost equal to Nat Gas.



    https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=OK#tabs-4

  20. #20

    Default Re: Electric Vehicles

    even if using fossil fuels for power generation, i'd think that power plants would have greater capablity to scrub emissions than thousands of individual vehicles.

  21. #21

    Default Re: Electric Vehicles

    ^ this
    Power plants, especially new generation power plants, are VASTLY cleaner and more efficient at turning fossil fuels into stored energy (via a battery or it floating through the grid) vs a multi stage process of distilling gasoline and diesel from crude, which creates a plethora of pollutants, bi-products, and waste, then putting into a car which can vary from super efficient like my '94 Honda that got 40mpg or super in inefficient like my '76 coup that got 9mpg and required lead additives to burn and release lest it damage the valve seats and start smoking even more. Modern cars are not exactly the smog disaster from decades past but we now have millions upon millions of more cars thanks to things like globalization, population, advancing 3rd world nations, and sprawl.

    Probably most importantly, electricity is a cheaper source. And that doesn't take into consideration the supplemental supply of wind and solar, which gets more productive/efficient as time and demand goes on.

    Let's also take into consideration all the fuel we use to MOVE fuel itself, it has to be tankered from the sea, trucked, etc to the distallation plant, then trucked or railed again to distribution centers, then trucked to filling stations.

    I'm sorry for the long post, but the argument is a fallacy of the false dilemma. Yes most electricity comes from fossil in the same way some plastic comes from corn. Some plastic comes from corn and most plastic also comes from petroleum feedstocks. But corn also makes ethanol fuel and round and round it goes. The POINT is to do what is the most efficient, cleanest, and in the end the cheapest alternative. Shifting the auto industry to electric is more of an inevitability than one might think because the reality is they can be great cars when the only difference in ride/comfort/speed/built/reliability is the juice that make them go.

    As soon as major manufacturers bring a $25,000 car similar to a Camry/accord/Altima/sonata in build to market that can charge from 0-100% on a 40amp 220 in 5 hours(or 90 minutes with special equipment) and go 300 miles on a charge. Essentially a $12 tank. People will flock to electric. It just makes sense. Not to mention! You can time it to charge overnight on smart hours and take advantage of that cheap wind energy making it $10 a tank. Were already almost there with the tesla model 3 at $35k. A company which is valued, not to be confused with WORTH, more than ford moco. I give it 10 years. Personally, my next major vehicle purchase will be the electric, I drove the tesla x, it also drove me autonomously, the hype is real.

    Don't get me wrong. I'm not getting rid of any of my motorcycles my "Sunday driver" or any of my classic cars. They have a place, it ain't my daily commute. And the article is obviously dripping with sarcasm with lines like "you'll have to pay to dispose of your old vehicle." But it does make me wonder what it would cost to get insurance for a car (or rather the driver) that doesn't drive itself in a world driverless, accident free, automatons.

  22. #22

    Default Re: Electric Vehicles

    Quote Originally Posted by Martin View Post
    i definitely think the market is headed in that direction but 8 years for 'every vehicle' to transition from internal combustion sounds more like some economist's wish than reality.
    It has been brought up in other discussions that the average time a care is used is around 20 years in the US (though may be through multiple owners), so 8 years is highly optimistic for the transition to be complete, especially since they are only around 2% sold today. Even if in a decade it did reach the vast majority of new cars sold being battery electric, we are still likely looking more around 30 years before most of the petroleum cars really would be phased out.

  23. #23

    Default Re: Electric Vehicles

    The only way I would drive an electric car is for at least 250 miles per charge, a charge time of less than an hour, and dozens of of nuclear plants being built to supply the electricity needed to charge millions of cars so we don't have rolling blackouts or a surge in electricity rates. In other words, it probably won't happen. Gasoline engines aren't going anywhere anytime soon. They have just too many advantages to them over electric cars.

  24. #24

    Default Re: Electric Vehicles

    I'm going to say two out of three ain't bad. I agree with the mileage, though I might bump it up to 300 miles range. That's just 5 hours of highway driving, but that's fine. On road trips I'm stopping within that timeframe anyway, if not for fuel for the car, then for a drink/snack/break for myself. Charge time is indeed and issue, and I'm going to say it needs to be way less than an hour. There are two options here, either a 20 minute quick charge or a 20 minute battery change. That's at the longest, I think the goal should be 10 minutes. I know people right now would say even 10 minutes is too long to refuel, but if we're being honest with ourselves it takes that long now if we're on a road trip and go in to get a drink/use the facilities. With the electric car, we would just leave it plugged in/have the battery changed while we do our thing.

    As far as the nuclear though, I'm going to say I don't care. I have no special love for it and no special hate against it, I just think if we stopped playing around (especially in this state where we worship the oil and gas industry, much to our detriment) and focused on wind/solar a bit more we could build 'refueling stations' (which will still be called gas stations generations later with the third generation not knowing why) powered by one or both, which will be constantly charging the batteries THEY use to charge/replace ours.

    I sometimes dream of it like a propane tank. It's universal, doesn't matter what grill you have it's the same tank, connected the same way. If electric cars had a battery like that you could just drive right up, disconnect your main battery, take it in to OnCue/WalMart/Walgreens/McDonalds and exchange it. You're back on the road by the time your fries are done.

  25. #25

    Default Re: Electric Vehicles

    How long does the battery last, how does the owner replace it, and how does he responsibly recycle it?

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