California promotes a lot of this green agenda crap, yet this past summer, they couldn't even supply enough electricity for households, thus they told people to charge their electric cars every other day. These are the problems with all EV vehicles:
1) There is very little infrastructure to support a total conversion to charging cars. The batteries take a long time to charge.
2) There are not enough rare earth metals to make batteries to replace every single car, truck, motorcycle, train, boat, etc...
3) The current electrical grid cannot supply enough energy to charge all of these vehicles, thus carbon based fuels are needed to account for the energy deficit. Wind and Solar are limited because the Sun does not always shine, nor does the wind always blow(Unless you are a politician in Washington DC(possible source of unlimited wind energy))...lol
4) You still need to make plastics(which require petroleum products) for exterior and interior parts. You need forges to form the metal frames, which use tremendous amounts of energy, etc...
5) The Battery metals are hazardous to mine(think poor children, men, and women being exposed to Lithium poisoning). They are also hazardous to get rid of once they are depleted. So all the green hippies think they are saving the earth buy saving gas use, yet the rare metal pollution from spent batteries have a far more deleterious effect.
6) This green agenda is politically motivated, thus they are forcing an energy solution which is not feasible at this time. People's energy costs are going up and causing a domino effect on cost of goods and thus reduced spending in the economy.
This being said, hybrid engines are a great way to incorporate using less gas and some EV to reduce emissions. The batteries are smaller, but energy is recaptured through driving and breaking.
I'm not in the BEV crowd yet due to
sheer cost. Very difficult at the moment to buy affordable electric bikes with comparable range, weight and speed to ICE bikes. The Harley Davidson Livewire for example is
50,000 AUD and comparable to a $12K 650cc cruiser/naked. The BMW CE 04 scooter is
22,000 AUD and comparable to a $9K 350cc maxi scooter, but with only 120km range.
However, there are workarounds to the points above:
1) People have an obsession at the moment with range which means bigger batteries which takes longer to charge. We need a cultural change so people are incentivised to charge smaller amounts at time, like we are happy to charge our phones several times a day without thinking. No need to have 100% charge all the time if there is better charging infrastructure, just like not having a full tank all the time because there are filling stations everywhere.
Some EVs have a VTL (vehicle to load) function which can supply power your home during peak periods.
2) This is true to an extent, there isn't enough lithium or rare earth metals in the world so we need to develop alternative battery chemistries such as sodium-ion.
3) Fossil fuels and nuclear are very important to provide baseload power generation.
However in countries like Australia, 1 in 4 homes have their own solar power and this is becoming more common, allowing people to charge at home. Not uncommon for homes to have a system up to 10kW which can provide 100-200km range per day (assuming 15kWh per 100km) in addition to household demands. Plenty enough.
Variations in supply/demand can also be compensated with battery farms and other energy storage which is important for renewables.
4) This will happen regardless of whatever cars people choose to drive. If anything this means less consumption of petroleum and depletion of deposits.
5) They are moving away from cobalt, of which 3/4 of the world's supply came from Congo, aka child labor. Mining will always have issues.
6) Of course it is. The US and Europe want to reduce their dependence on OPEC countries which can be volatile and run by authoritarian regimes. The key word is sustainability - making existing resources last longer.
Hybrids - this is a good solution. The new Prius uses just 4.7/100km which is very good and more makers are offering hybrid versions of their ICE vehicles. Hybrids are not as expensive as they used to be and are a viable alternative to pure BEVs. Plenty of Priuses with 1 million kilometres.
I think HEVs (hybrids) and PHEVs (plug-in hybrids) offer the best of both worlds and are the immediate solution. They also excel in the city where most people live and use the fraction of lithium of BEVs.
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