When will the combustion engine be obsolete?

[turtlevette]

Originally Posted By: Shannow
Like I keep saying...there's no "orderly transition" to a renewable future.

Need 3-5 times the nameplate capacity to harvest the same capacity over time as a thermal (or nuke), and as it is introduced, it drives the others out of the game when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing...then when that capacity is gone, we are stuffed.


Doesn't mean we should do no solar and wind. The all or nothing argument is just as short sighted as anti ethanol arguments.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: turtlevette
Originally Posted By: Shannow
Like I keep saying...there's no "orderly transition" to a renewable future.

Need 3-5 times the nameplate capacity to harvest the same capacity over time as a thermal (or nuke), and as it is introduced, it drives the others out of the game when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing...then when that capacity is gone, we are stuffed.


Doesn't mean we should do no solar and wind. The all or nothing argument is just as short sighted as anti ethanol arguments.


OK...show me where I have said all or nothing...just once.

Energy return on (energy) investment should be a solid consideration in the decisions that shape the future also.

As an engineer, do you consider a system that only gives back twice the invested energy over it's lifetime useful ?

Oh, yeah, ethanol...you DO consider 1.3 times as a bonus, only half a step a third of a step removed from digging holes and refilling them with tomorrow's holes.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: turtlevette
Originally Posted By: Trav
I think 10-15 minutes would be fair and more than acceptable, you cant fill a full size car in a minute with an almost empty tank.


A battery you can deattach/reattach in a few minutes solves the problem.


I used to think that...'cept there's a little bit more to connecting them then the positive/negative on a car battery. Cooling systems and the like. Cooling systems are needed, unlike low power density forklifts...a couple of minutes is a laugh.


As to charging, 100KWh in 10 minutes would be 0.6MW transfer rate, well short of the 3MW that Tesla are claiming with their semi...cannot let the public anywhere NEAR that sort of energy.

Have you seen the battery pack on a Tesls Model 3

 

[billt460]

Originally Posted By: Vern_in_IL
Electric cars are unpractical, our Grid just can't handle that, along with AC's in the summer!


This is true, and is yet another major wrench in the gears, that the gung ho electric bunch conveniently ignores. If you have cities and states full of electric vehicles, there is nowhere near the power grid capacity to have all of them constantly up and running. Especially as you said, in the Summer months when electrical demand is at it's peak. States like California are already taxed to the max with electrical power demand and consumption. Coupled with an inadequate, under developed and poorly maintained power grid. They are already faced with, "rolling brownouts" occurring on an almost constant basis in peak Summer months.

Add hundreds of thousands of electric vehicles plugged into 220 V garage outlets across the state, and these brownouts will quickly turn into blackouts. And it's totally impractical to ration charging times and amounts. You need your car when you need it. Not when the state allows you to have it. And none of these states have any money put aside to improve their power grid infrastructure. California is poorer than a sailor on shore leave.

Not to mention the added fossil fuel consumption these power plants are going to be consuming to produce it.... Assuming they even can, which most cannot. Nuclear power only accounts for less than 20% of the total electrical power generated in the United States. So it really doesn't matter how many electric vehicles are produced and sold. Because tremendous amounts of fossil fuels are going to be consumed to keep any and all of them operating. And when all of these factors are considered, electric vehicles are no "greener" than a late model internal combustion vehicle is. In fact, they may very well be a lot less.

 

[grampi]

Originally Posted By: CT8
Originally Posted By: grampi
Originally Posted By: HemiHawk
More than specifically getting rid of combustion engines, I'd like to see better public transport. I think in my area they are talking about extending some railways but of course thats going to take a long time. There are simply too many cars on the road and they can't expand roadways fast enough (or don't have the room for it). Its true that many modern cars are pretty efficient... but when sitting in traffic for an hour + everyday...



A lot of the traffic would be alleviated if we could get some of the semis off the roads. Start shipping more via railroad and POVs could have the roads back...
Commercial vehicles pay dearly for the use of the roads.


Everyone pays dearly for commercial vehicle road usage...

 

[billt460]

Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
If we really cared about this stuff, we would build nuclear.


I would agree. But the problem you would run into head on, is the same bunch of environmentally conscious "green" people, who are all jumping up and down for "clean" electric vehicles, would be the same one's jumping up and down against nuclear power. Because of it's potentially damaging effects to the same environment they believe electric vehicles are going to save.

 

[bunnspecial]

I'll avoid going down the road of how it's just shifting the energy source to something you may not see, and in the US at least around here that usually means coal. Of course, there is the fact that stationary installations can generally be a lot cleaner and more efficient than mobile power sources, but you still have transmission losses and ultimately you're still burning "evil" fossil fuels.

Tesla has made a start at making things practical with the Supercharger network, but there are still a lot of things that are impractical with that. Basically, you're out of luck if you're not traveling on the major interstates going between major cities. Yes, most of my trips involving traveling THROUGH those, but my ultimate destination may be 100 miles+ from a Supercharger.

By contrast, at least East of the Mississippi, which is where I stay most of the time, I can find a gas station in the middle of nowhere(I know that may not be the case in some parts of the West, but in the worst case a 5 gallon Jerry can or two doesn't take up that much space).

Also, as someone else said, the current recharge times are too long. If I'm traveling by myself, I tend to not pre-plan my stops to any great extent. I'll have a general idea of where I might stop for a meal, but often it's drive until I feel like I need a break and then stop for gas and a few minutes to walk around. That's 10-15 minutes. I don't want to have to pre-plan a 30 minute or longer stop and know that it's my only option for the next couple hundred miles.

I could see an electric car in some form(I wouldn't be caught dead in a Tesla-the closest I'd probably come is something like a Volt so that I at least have a just-in-case backup) being viable for running around town. My big issue is that there's no way for me to install a charger at home-I live in a townhouse, don't have electricity in my car port, and I don't think that the neighbors would take kindly to me running a few hundred feet of cord out one of my windows and down to my parking spot. There are chargers at work, but when I looked into a Volt 5 years ago or so(back when they were all but giving them away), I never could get a straight answer on who you have to ask/bribe to even get access to them. They're shoved in a "restricted access" corner of a parking garage.

 

[fdcg27]

Originally Posted By: buster
How long do you think it will take before the majority of cars no longer use combustion engines and electric is the norm?


We just visited with our three year old grandson.
I suspect his grandson will be in the ground long before we see an end to IC engine use in road vehicles.
By then, world population will be declining, having peaked around 2050.
The frakers have shown that supplies of hydrocarbon fuels exist beyond anything we would have thought even twenty years ago.
The efficiency of hydrocarbon fueled vehicles continues to improve and has reached levels undreamt of even forty years ago, when everyone thought that their development was maxed out.
From what we know now of battery development, there is no substitute for hydrocarbon fuels.
A real breakthrough in battery development as well as in controlled fusion would change all of that and may well happen over the coming years.
For now, it can't be seen.

 

[Mr Nice]

Gas is cheap so IC engines will be around forever.

 

[Patman]

Originally Posted By: Mr Nice
Gas is cheap so IC engines will be around forever.


Gas won't be cheap forever

 

[KrisZ]

Originally Posted By: Patman
Originally Posted By: Mr Nice
Gas is cheap so IC engines will be around forever.


Gas won't be cheap forever


Neither will be electricity once it's properly taxed like the gasoline and diesel are.

 

[Snagglefoot]

The other problem of the supercharger is you may be planning on doing the the 30 minute charge stop but so will be 100 other people. I’ve been at normal gas stations with 4 pumps, room for four lanes with as many as 8 cars refueling at once. Unless you are driving a pickup you can be refueled and paid up in under 10 minutes. That would be as many as 24 cars in 30 minutes vs 8 E cars at an 8 stall supercharger. Move the numbers around as you wish but you can see the problems building enough charge locations.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: Snagglefoot
The other problem of the supercharger is you may be planning on doing the the 30 minute charge stop but so will be 100 other people. I’ve been at normal gas stations with 4 pumps, room for four lanes with as many as 8 cars refueling at once. Unless you are driving a pickup you can be refueled and paid up in under 10 minutes. That would be as many as 24 cars in 30 minutes vs 8 E cars at an 8 stall supercharger. Move the numbers around as you wish but you can see the problems building enough charge locations.


Other point that they don't advertise widely is that your 20 minute supercharge becomes 30-40 minutes after you done it multiple (I don't know the multiple) times, as the algorithms that protect the battery limit the amount of "abuse" that the battery can be given...and fast charge IS abuse.

They coded in restrictions to Insane launches after a certain number of those were achieved, and when drivers found out, they were furious and Tesla reversed the decision...but the fast charge coast to coast trips are still limited.

https://electrek.co/2017/05/07/tesla-limits-supercharging-speed-number-charges/

 

[billt460]

Originally Posted By: Patman
Gas won't be cheap forever


Gas prices, maintenance costs, wages, and MPG are all relative. In the late 60's many vehicles got single digit MPG. Along with poor performance and reliability, constant maintenance, short service life, and very high pollution. And back then gas was in the high 30 cent range per gallon. Today some high performance 4 cylinder models get over 40 MPG with very little maintenance. And perform as good or better than many V-8 models did back then.

Yes, today gas costs more. But when you factor in the all but nonexistent maintenance required on today's new cars, compared to the breaker point, condenser, distributor ignition systems that needed attention and "tune ups" every few thousand miles, not to mention spark plugs that were lucky to last 10,000 miles, the overall cost of the fuel is not much more when everything else is considered. Not to mention the gas purchased today burns much cleaner and more efficiently than the heavily leaded motor fuels did back then.

Plus, today's engines and vehicles last much longer. In the 1960s and 1970s, the typical car reached its end of life around 100,000 miles. (Even less if driven in the rust belt). But today due to manufacturing improvements such as tighter tolerances and better materials and anti-corrosion coatings, in the 2000s the typical car lasts closer to 200,000 miles. So you have to buy fewer of them.

And lastly you have to factor in wages and income. Ask yourself what the average salary of your profession was, back the 60's when there was all of this, "cheap gas" available? It was nowhere near where it is now. According to estimates by the Bureau Of Census and the Department Of Commerce, the average (median) income of families in 1965 was $6,900.00. Today a kid working at Wal-Mart or McDonalds can earn more than that.

The first new car I ever bought, (1970 Nova SS), cost me $3,200.00 out the door. From a financial standpoint, it was the most difficult purchase I ever had to make. In relationship to how long I had to work and save to buy it. The easiest from that same financial standpoint were the last 2 I bought. They ran almost $50K and $30K respectively. So again, when you start talking about, "cheap gas back in the day", it's a big ruse. Because there was a lot more going on in the purchase, upkeep, and operation of a vehicle, than the cost of a gallon of gas pumped into it.

 

[supton]

Originally Posted By: billt460
And lastly you have to factor in wages and income. Ask yourself what the average salary of your profession was, back the 60's when there was all of this, "cheap gas" available? It was nowhere near where it is now. According to estimates by the Bureau Of Census and the Department Of Commerce, the average (median) income of families in 1965 was $6,900.00. Today a kid working at Wal-Mart or McDonalds can earn more than that.


https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

$6,900 in 1965 is $55,640 today. Quick look at wikipedia says median household income for 2016 was $59,039, with average (mean) being $72,641 (in 2014).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States

Quote:
The first new car I ever bought, (1970 Nova SS), cost me $3,200.00 out the door. From a financial standpoint, it was the most difficult purchase I ever had to make. In relationship to how long I had to work and save to buy it. The easiest from that same financial standpoint were the last 2 I bought. They ran almost $50K and $30K respectively. So again, when you start talking about, "cheap gas back in the day", it's a big ruse. Because there was a lot more going on in the purchase, upkeep, and operation of a vehicle, than the cost of a gallon of gas pumped into it.


$3,200 in 1970 is $21,298 today. That doesn't seem bad, not for a higher optioned car. But you're right, mpg and maintenance would have taken TCO well above today's TCO.

 

[billt460]

Originally Posted By: supton
$3,200 in 1970 is $21,298 today. That doesn't seem bad, not for a higher optioned car. But you're right, mpg and maintenance would have taken TCO well above today's TCO.


You also have to look and compare the standard appointments of today's new vehicles which are much better, that were ALL extra cost options when compared to the 1970's models. That 1970 Nova SS I bought had cloth bench seats. Manual steering. No carpeting, (textured rubber floors instead). Crank open windows and manual door locks. And an AM radio that didn't have push buttons. Only a dial with one speaker. And no automatic transmission or air conditioning.

Now if you compare that to say the lowest priced 2018 Toyota Corolla or Camry sitting on a lot today in that low $20K price range, to any 70's model, there is zero comparison. Back then if a new car had a radio, heater, and whitewall tires it was considered "loaded". Laughable, but true. Almost nothing was "Standard Equipment" back then, except for steel wheels and hub caps.

 

[supton]

True, I forgot that SS was a trim level and apart from many other options.

 

[Patman]

Originally Posted By: billt460

So again, when you start talking about, "cheap gas back in the day", it's a big ruse. Because there was a lot more going on in the purchase, upkeep, and operation of a vehicle, than the cost of a gallon of gas pumped into it.


But the difference is I'm not comparing the cost of gas today to the cost of gas of yesterday. I'm talking about the rising price in the future compared to now. There is no doubt that the price of gas is going to continue to rise, as they'll just keep taxing it higher and higher. That's certainly what keeps happening here in Canada. And I don't think in the future that our wages are going to go up at the same rate either. In fact, in my profession (Photoshop retoucher) the wages that companies are willing to pay have mostly gone down in the past 25 years, not up, while the cost of gas has practically doubled in price here during that same time frame.

 

[Shannow]

Patman...regarding the prices and taxes...

What happens when you take an electrical grid, and create more demand to charge EVs ?
Prices go up.

What happens when a lucrative tax stream (transport taxes), and they start falling due to people using alternatives ?
You tax the alternatives.

That last one is the elephant in the room...they WILL have their plans on the drawing board for taxation of the electricity metered into your car...now it's all peachy and subsidised, but it WILL happen.

Proof of that was in Oz, where Honda were set to pull the trigger on home fuelling of NG vehicles. It was pushed as a great idea, then the Govt decided relatively late in the piece that they were going to tax the NG on a per MJ basis identically to gasoline...and what's more, as you couldn't differentiate the use for the vehicle versus the house, the entire metered volume would be taxed.

 

[fdcg27]

I think that you must be right.
When any significant level of alt fuel vehicles is reached, IOW those supplied with energy not currently subject to road tax, then a means of capturing that road tax will be found.
By then, we may simply see taxing schemes based upon some fixed sum per mile of use rather than one attached to the amount of fuel used.
Such per mile taxes are already being bandied about to increase the tax take from low fuel use vehicles in general and thereby better reflect their use of the various roads.
The number of license plate capture cameras is growing and could be used to implement such a scheme with the registered owner being billed on some interval or the requirement to tie the plate to a credit or debit card for billing purposes being implemented.