Did I miss something or...

[ClockworkCoder]

I don't have a car and my partner has a bicycle. We're pretty carbon neutral.

 

[Bosbeetle]

As an American country boy, that is so weird. There is at least 1 vehicle per adult round here, in general.



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being dutch we have at least 2 or 3 per person but most of them being bicycles

Post automatically merged: Oct 29, 2019

I don't have a car and my partner has a bicycle. We're pretty carbon neutral.

My current bike is also quite carbon neutral

 

[TrashyMG]

@ible would be nice if I had any sort of public transit where I live. Rural area and close to an hour commute to work.

 

[Grench]

@ible would be nice if I had any sort of public transit where I live. Rural area and close to an hour commute to work.

I have an 18 mile commute these days. On a good day that takes 15 minutes by car. The public transit "option" requires 3 connections/transfers, 2 miles of walking/biking and takes over 2 hours.

 

[TrashyMG]

Google says walking would take 11 hours to get to work, bicycling a little under 4 hours... For bicycling, I doubt if google accounts for elevation changes or if my heart could handle that kind of cardio... Winter weather coming up makes this kind of commuting very impracticable even if I lived only a few miles away.

 

[spud42]

I really whish i could share one, i use mine so little, maybe 1000km per Year.

wow, that wouldnt work in Australia.. im a service tech and have to use my own car. i get a car allowance and a per Km rate too. i have done your yearly Km's in one week!! i drive a Suzuki swift it has 254,000 Km's on it and doesnt burn too much fuel..around 7Lt /100Km

 

[ible]

@TrashyMG consider driving electric. the more miles you put on the more you will save in gas over time. Teslas are great American cars, support American innovation, etc.

 

[TrashyMG]

@TrashyMG consider driving electric. the more miles you put on the more you will save in gas over time. Teslas are great American cars, support American innovation, etc.

Thought about it for summer time driving when I have my current car payed off. I live in a fairly hilly area with extreme winter weather, the AWD versions of the model 3 run around $40k-$60k depending on package and winter tires alone (not rims) are close to or over $1000... For now, I'll stick to my Subaru.

 

[levi]

Yeah, most if not all electrically driven cars are more expensive than their old rustbucket petrol cars to buy outright. They do generally cost less in maintenance, and if you can get on a cheap overnight electricity tarriff and charge the new electric car there overnight when it needs it, they can be pretty cheap to run, but I don't know for how many years you need to run them to break even, and even then the initial outlay might make them impractical for most people. They make a lot of sense as sharing cars in suburban and inner city areas, but out in the sticks? You can use their cheapness to run as an excuse to justify your initial outlay if you like, but that's about it for a few years I expect.

 

[docbroke]

And I guess when you brake even it may be time for battery replacement

 

[Grench]

213q354

And I guess when you brake even it may be time for battery replacement

Most of the 'cost of ownership' numbers I see presented for the electric cars only cover the first few years of the car's expected lifespan. Two of my vehicles are 23 years old, still maintained, still driven daily, and I expect them to still be running in another 20 years assuming I can find gasoline to feed them with. So I wonder, what does the 'cost of ownership' look like for 'the life of a car'? That should be, what, 20 years? At that point costs of multiple out of warranty battery replacements need to be considered - as would ongoing software updates for a car out of warranty - and with no 'right to repair' laws on the books (Thanks John Deere and Apple!), obsolete takes on a far more final definition.

 

[elw3]

wow, that wouldnt work in Australia.. im a service tech and have to use my own car. i get a car allowance and a per Km rate too. i have done your yearly Km's in one week!! i drive a Suzuki swift it has 254,000 Km's on it and doesnt burn too much fuel..around 7Lt /100Km

TÜV guy was actually laughing at me for coming every two years with the same unused car.
Was that "doesnt burn too much" meant sarcastic? Thats way more than my old golf needed.
Recently i got a new car with CNG, makes 100km for 4€ and my dad still says that model needs a lot. Normal gas is 1.30€ per liter here, so equvalent its like driving a 3l/100km car.

 

[levi]

Most of the 'cost of ownership' numbers I see presented for the electric cars only cover the first few years of the car's expected lifespan. Two of my vehicles are 23 years old, still maintained, still driven daily, and I expect them to still be running in another 20 years assuming I can find gasoline to feed them with. So I wonder, what does the 'cost of ownership' look like for 'the life of a car'? That should be, what, 20 years? At that point costs of multiple out of warranty battery replacements need to be considered - as would ongoing software updates for a car out of warranty - and with no 'right to repair' laws on the books (Thanks John Deere and Apple!), obsolete takes on a far more final definition.

Most european manufacurers are considering the lifespan for their electric cars of about 10 years after which point the batteries get taken out and used for mains backup or to collect the electricity from your renewable sources on your roof, so you can use it to boil the kettle instead of being forced to sell it back to the mains operator for a pittance. The theory at present is that in ten years the battery tech and packing will have moved on so far that you can get a much more practical car if you swap the batteries for new ones then.

If we all have home batteries, it'd smooth out demand, and the mains operators would only be tasked with keeping your batteries topped up when they need it, and they could even pull power out of your batteries if there's a catastrophic energy event as happened in the UK a month or two back. As is some privately owned static batteries were used to limit the extent and bring the network down more gracefully as I understand it.

 

[Swordfish II]

gross! my wife and i can share a car, but she telecommutes to work and i can take the bus. (we usually just use it for family trips.)

remember smoking is bad for you and the environment.
View attachment 35437

Used to have a motorcycle too.

1. Classic that i restored
2. Sports car
3. Normal car

 

[ible]

Most of the 'cost of ownership' numbers I see presented for the electric cars only cover the first few years of the car's expected lifespan. Two of my vehicles are 23 years old, still maintained, still driven daily, and I expect them to still be running in another 20 years assuming I can find gasoline to feed them with. So I wonder, what does the 'cost of ownership' look like for 'the life of a car'? That should be, what, 20 years? At that point costs of multiple out of warranty battery replacements need to be considered - as would ongoing software updates for a car out of warranty - and with no 'right to repair' laws on the books (Thanks John Deere and Apple!), obsolete takes on a far more final definition.

i wonder how often people "drive their cars into the ground" versus selling after 5-ish years. electric cars make a lot more sense for the latter (corolla vs. tesla 3 TCO comparison), especially due to resale value, which is getting really bad for higher end cars already (tesla hurting used luxury car values). this article on 200k miles in a tesla model S might be a bit overselling the point, but he also rented out the car to help pay for it.

for longevity concerns, i think they're important but misplaced: tesla already has about a 200k to 300k mile battery lifetime (yes battery life will degrade over that time, 10-20% loss, maybe more depending on charging/environment concerns), and a 1 million mile drive-train lifetime (and wants to get the batteries up there as well). the reason they are doing this is because they want to put robotaxis out, and it doesn't make sense not to make a reliable, long-lasting car, since that is their ultimate aim. other car manufacturers don't really have this goal. and repairs at dealerships actually provide more income than car sales, which means that gasoline cars don't have the same incentives for reliability...

if you're doing all the repairs/maintenance yourself, good for you! but your time is also worth something, so you are putting something into the car.

regarding right-to-repair, tesla has been putting out some repair guides for DIYers (news article). if they stopped letting cars work via a software update, there would be a big class action lawsuit. they also don't change their cars all the time (new models for each car type, but small tweaks under the hood every once in a while rather than a completely different looking car each time), so i think that shows some commitment to the cars they have out.

driving electric also helps with the environment and with not hurting people via polluting their air (even if your power plants are burning coal, electric cars are way more efficient than gas, getting e.g. 120 mpg-e, means you are helping out even in the short term, air pollution endangers a lot of people's lives and is responsible for something like 7 million deaths annually).

and you can charge at home, instead of supporting dictators in the middle east to keep pumping out oil. (and the endless wars in that direction to ensure our oil supply.)

and some of them are extremely fun to drive .

cute commercial from long times ago:

Spoiler

 

[elw3]

I hold to the theory that artificial produced gas is better for the environment than driving around a heavy battery.
This will be out of question as long as oil and gas companys sell for a fragment of that price of course.

 

[ible]

citation needed.

Wikipedian Protester

xkcd.com

 

[elw3]

Only have a german source that did the math https://sedl.at/Elektroauto/Energieeffizienz
Money quote:
"Selbst wenn wir die Betrachtung auf den gesamten Lebenszyklus der Fahrzeuge und alle vorgelagerten Aufwände ausdehnen, schneidet ein Elektroauto ungefähr gleich wie ein herkömmliches Auto ab. Wegen des gewaltigen Energieaufwands bei der Herstellung von Lithium-Akkus allerdings nur dann, wenn das Elektroauto max. 150 km Reichweite hat (damit es keinen großen Akku braucht) und mindestens 100 000 km mit dem gleichen Akku gefahren wird. Für Gelegenheitsfahrer ist die Herstellung des über hundert Kilogramm schweren Stromspeichers zu energieintensiv. Vgl. Kohlendioxid-Ausstoß von Elektroautos"
Which means: They are comparable but only if the battery has a range of less than 150km or else it is too heavy to be efficient.
Also the production cost of the battery sells of at 100000km.

There is also the interesting note that efficienty drops very heavy in winter:
"Bei einer Außentemperatur von 22°C mit eingeschalteter Lüftung beträgt der Wirkungsgrad vom Akku bis zur Straße 56%, bei –5°C und eingeschalteter Stromheizung nur 22%."
So you drive with 44% energy loss in summer and 78% energy loss in winter. Numbers for a brand new car in a test chamber!
A conventional car is quoted with 70% loss but there are no citations for that.
Edit: on other pages he also cites the efficience goes down with heat too, so thats not summer but driving at "room temperature".

And of course the oblicatory wikipedia link on how to produce methane. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas
That page states the loss of turning power to methane with 35%, on top of that comes the 70% loss statet above. Engines burning methane should be more efficient than that tho.
This is all more or less the same range, basically the power used for driving is more depending on the air pressure in the tires than the engine. I droped from 5€ to 4€ per 100km by just inflating my tires up to 3 bar.
I just doubt its worth making the batteries when you dont gain a thing here. And spare me this "but your car is polluting the air" crap, my CNG burns extremely clean, not even closely comparable to liquid gas.
And if you have not noticed: The power to gas method creates giant air cleaners as a side effect.
Edit: Not limited to CNG cars when further processed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_to_liquids

 

[ible]

batteries of course take some emissions to build, but don't overlook the fact that batteries won't get thrown away after their useful lifespan in the car. they will be recycled and re-used in e.g. powerwalls and other battery grid applications (replacing peaker plants). many of these studies also don't mention that as the grid gets cleaner (switching to renewables), the environmental cost of producing batteries in the first place will also go down. they assume that the grid will stay as bad as it is now...

gas-powered cars are the past, and i'm pretty sure that will hold for CNG as well (where cost of refueling stations > electric chargers, gas has less efficiency since there's no regen braking, etc.). although it's nice to use scrubbers, the technology to do that at scale is pretty far off.

 

[elw3]

You have not understood this at all: The power loss mentioned at this page is the heat loss inside the battery during charging.
The point is that converting power to gas and back to power has about the same efficiency than using a battery.
But you have to deal with self discharge, more weight and less energy density on the battery side.
I merely question if these downsides justifie some 10% more theoretical efficiency.

Just for the record: Power to gas IS what is used to store energy from wind turbines, not batteries.