Everyone driving electric cars----------what a joke.

I hear you and I agree for many....But the biggest driver of suv sales is the pure practicality. That includes higher ground clearance and awd. Really, you don’t think they’ll be a jump in SUV sales in Texas ? The most widely sold vehicle that is not a Truck is a RAV 4. They aren’t “that “ big to save you in a cash with a Truck, which is the most popular on the road.

The next big factor is gas prices. They haven’t been outrageous for quite a while. That could change in a blink. Hence, electrified SUVs become a safe bet. The hybrid RAV version is only $900 more then regular one and gets 40 mpg and goes faster. It’s their model most in demand. Why not. Every car maker is making shortly a hybrid or electric SUV. The f150 comes in hybrid form that can run as a back up generator for your house. An all EV 150 is due shortly.

 

Btw, to your point, in the frozen north everyone learns quickly that tires are more important then 4 wd .

But, awd and 4 wd are more easily managed and include by electrification. No drive shaft....Just add another motor when it’s electrified.

btw, in really bad weather, every road is off road and every ditch is impassable. Electrics and hybrids will dominate those conditions eventually.

 

Well, there is a move afoot to make self contained nuke reactors for generators like found in the military. They can be placed and power a small town in the Arctic for years w/o refueling. Am sure the towns will have vacuumed cleaners.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small,_sealed,_transportable,_autonomous_reactor

 

Something like the wings in the gop. Neither want to pay taxes. One side will be dishonest about it and create huge deficits. Bush one and McCain ? The old accountable breed.

 

By the way - every time we fill our regular gas tanks, we should be thanking environmentalists.

Do you think the price of gas would be under $3.00 a gallon if environmentalists hadn't have demanded higher average
gas milage on cars or EVs and Hybrids hadn't started taking a bite out of gas consumption? Do you think Natural gas prices
would have dropped 40% over the last decade if renewables hadn't started putting pressure on oil producers?

If we were all still driving cars that got 14 miles per gallon, even with increased domestic production, we would have still had to
rely more on foreign oil, and prices would be much higher.

 

Great point. This pressure will continue as long as we subsidize EVs and renewables like we subsidize the oil companies. We can stop both, but then we’ll be paying a bigger “ tax” for energy with higher prices and more pollution. I find it funny when deniers say they don’t believe climate change but they do believe in less pollution. Wow, there’s a contradiction right there. .

 

I did forget ground clearance. Hybrids are an interim solution. As I said EV is coming even Cadalac is going to be there in 5-7 years. Sedans are indeed becoming a thing of the past. We have an older cross-over bought and paid for many moons ago and the 3 out of 4 vehikces that we leased 9-10 years are SUVS. The one sedan we got rid of in 2 years.

 

ROFL I don't have 500 gallons of gas stored at my house either and I still beat EV's on range and refill time. I could drive down to the gas station about 50 times in the time it would take to recharge the battery in an EV. Why do I want to drive to a gas station? Because when I am driving on a long trip I need to stop at them but not have to wait hours to even find one I can use and then wait hours to get a refill. And gas stations will be installing hydrogen refueling stations. Hydrogen has EVERYTHING over EV's. And again where is the electricity for your EV coming from?

 

I agree. Families can have a lot of gear just supporting the kid's various sports, let alone the road quality in some places.

And, there are at least a couple automakers that are coming out with all electric SUVs - and pickups, too.

 

Today, you can't buy a hydrogen car outside of CA. And, you really need to be in the bay area or LA or there won't be enough places to get hydrogen.

Refueling and refueling stations have proven to be expensive to build, hard to keep a supply of hydrogen, and not fast to fuel a car. Also, hydrogen is more expensive than gas or electricity on a mileage basis.

https://www.thedrive.com/tech/33408/why-we-still-cant-deliver-on-the-promise-of-hydrogen-cars

 

https://paylesspower.com/blog/electric-rates-by-state/

Electricity used to be a LOT cheaper in the Pacific Northwest than in manystates due to the amount of hydro.

However, the nature of the grid, the increased demand in the northwest, and the various regulations have spread the benefit and required expanding other sources.

But yes. You can't make one sweeping statement about electricity rates that is true everywhere, because electricity prices are nowhere near the same in every state.

Also, gas taxes are different in each state. Some states depend on gas tax pretty much exclusively for anything related to transportation. Others take other approaches.

So, if you have an EV in CA, you dodge the highest gas tax in America, but pay more for electricity.

It's a comparison that you would have to really get into for where you plan to spend your time.

Going back to hydrogen, that costs more per mile than gas or electricity. My previous cite suggested that for hydrogen, a cost equivalent of $4 gas was the objective, and wasn't met. AND, hydrogen has a larger CO2 footprint than electric vehicles, because creating hydroen is energy intensive and with hydrogen there is a significant loss of energy in the process from creation, compression, shipment, storage at the refueling site and the actual refueling. The cite in my previous post says it's something like a 60% loss. There are losses for electricity, too, like the loss that happens due to chemistry when recharging a battery, the loss of electric transmission lines, etc. But, with electric cars it's not nearly as much as with hydrogen cars.

 

The auto companies made a bunch of low riding high mileage to make companies conform to mileage requirements....That’s because half the drag comes from under the car. It makes for a horrible ride 3 inches off the ground. People stopped buying them leaving the market to just a few. But everyone is making lots of SUVs.

Regular sedans have evolved into squatters with ridiculously hard entrance and egress and with low profile tires that smash rims in the nations surplus of potholes. It’s no wonder SUVs and trucks are on the rise with gas prices stable.

 

I hear you, but I fear it’s an interim solution that will be here indefinitely and share the market with EVs

Think about the RAV4 hybrid Prime PLUG IN which behaves like an electric car up to 40 miles of commuting which is enough for most. Then on week ends, you can drive 500 miles on a tank of gas
. Btw, it goes 0-60 in little over 5 seconds. Theses cars and other PLUG IN hybrids from other companies will give straight EVs a real run for many a year. They are cheaper to buy initially too.

 

Yes, there certainly were a bunch of tricks used, along with significant lobbying efforts in order for US auto makers to keep selling low mileage high emissions cars.

Plus, US auto ignored reliability (shop time), automobile lifetime (when the owner just needed to give up), and safety.

These were ALL features that Americans actually did want.

One of the interesting aspects here is that freemarket capitalism doesn't really allow that to happen. When there are all sorts of fundamental features that customers want, freemarket capitalism will cause those features to appear.

And, once we got a few foreign manufacturers here, things changed. There actually WAS competition and US automakers got caught out.

I have to believe that a BIG part of what happened came from collusion. And, big auto just had enough political power to ensure they never got busted.

 

Even car companies everywhere are cheaters if you let them. Remember VW making dirty diesels that automatically adjust their operating mode just to pass inspections. They had software that temporarily changed computer settings when it sensed a test was going on. After, while on the road, they reverted to their, “ higher mileage” but high polluting mode without ever getting caught for years. Other auto makers spilled the beans on the cheaters.

 

That does make sense. I am squeamish on EV and hybrids because I need to learn more about the charging technology and a availability. We have a charging station very close by at the now defunct GE electrical parts plants how ironic. I need to find out about home charging hookups. My thinking is that a separate dedicated line needs to be installed running to my garage. We lease one car and own one .
So just got new lease and in 2 1/2 years I will be making decision to go EV hybrid or what. The cost of a new hookup will need to be considered and amortized into my decision.

Hey I am the generation of Baby Boomers who had to be bragged away kicking and screaming from our V-8 muscle cars and station wagons ( once we had kids vans where not popular yet). Even my old crossover is a V-6. The 4 new cars since my last V-6 sedan were / are 4 bangers ....
they still amaze me.

 

EVs will always have trouble heating cars up in real cold weather. Cooling and warming in moderate climates can be handled with a heat pump. But it still
Worries me.

I did a little research on hybrids and why they are so reliable when it seems they are more complicated. It seems that unlike the transmission in an ordinary car which has a gazillion moving parts, several electric motors along with the gas engine are set in a planetary gear set which just switches between drive motors as it accelerates.

Slowing just uses the generator capability of the E motors to slow down. Consequently, you eliminate a gazillion moving parts in a transmission by substituting three E motors which can all run for literally, decades. They are mechanically simple and allow the gas motor to run with much less load on it. That’s why I suddenly became more hybrid friendly. Toyota will make EVs according to them. But they feel hybrids will rule the roost for many years with EVs being more specialized......mostly in moderate climates. It’s impossible for an example to tow or plow much with an EV truck as efficiently as a diesel or soon to be sold, hybrid truck.

There are just too many btu’s per gallon in diesel compared to any battery while under real heavy load.

 

We are going into techno world but politics are integrated. I still think that hydrogen must haveca future after EV/Gas engine hybrids end of life. In fact I envision Electric/ Hydrogen hybrids with hydrogen electric generators. Of course I am but an insurance guy not an engineer.
We need to team up universities and government and private industry to explore hybrid fisel fuels. Is hydrogenated oil or coal an answer as the interim fosel fuel?

If we are going out into space as we must hydrogen and solar and safe nuclear plasma laser and tech stuff we have not imagined need to be developed. Sadly we will be gone by then but some of our DNA will reach some solar system mega lightyears away.

 

Considering hydrogen is the most abundant element, it makes sense. It’s just real energy consuming to extract it from other compounds. Toyota has been behind hydrogen for a long time. Right now, they are claiming to be near feasible production of solid state batteries. They are a game changer. Still, hydrogen fuel cells is intriguing. It can even used to generate heat.

 

The power outages aren't happening due to a lack of power. We have plenty of power. The problem is that a weather event severed power lines and prevented that power from getting to people.

 

I guess you disagree with the people who actually deliver power. Their story is..
“The bulk of the power loss in Texas came from natural gas suppliers, according to regulators, as pipelines froze, making it difficult for plants to get the fuel they needed. Production from coal and nuclear plants dropped as well. A similar phenomenon played out in Kansas and other states.”

 

If you park your vehicles overnight a standard outlet will charge an EV for whatever commuting you did that day so you do NOT need to factor in a new hookup. You ONLY need one of those if you have a NEED for FAST charging and/or FULL charging in a limited time.

Imagine leaving your house with a FULL tank every morning because that is what EV drivers have.

 

Not everyone needs a vehicle with towing capacity but Ford is well aware of this requirement and made certain that it would be available in the F-150 EV.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/23/...uck, driven by F,Zhang pulled the train again.

 

I hear you ! I still would at least rewire the line that goes to the garage one thickness up from white to yellow. Luckily that line has its dedicated circuit breaker and all I run now is a garage beer fridge occasional shop vac. And maybe bump the Amps up on that breaker. It will take time for me to trust this Brave New World.

 

You assert they "last longer". Ok, how long?