Electric Vehicles- The Good, The bad

EV will be much more prevalent, just by having more available options. I think you’ll see a lot of families with one EV and one gas vehicle.

Gas isn’t going anywhere for a long time though.

I don't think we will replace lithium within 10 years, but I do think/hope we will be sourcing it from the oceans by then and I believe recycling will be more viable.

The energy density of lithium is good enough, the biggest problem with current battery chemistry is charge rate. There are two sides to the problem: the batteries can only charge so quickly without destroying them, and we can only produce so much power at a station safely.

There are of course a lot of solutions in development, and I think through a combination of many of them EVs will be far more convenient than gas vehicles. Wireless charging is a big one. This is possible already with today's technology, even while the vehicle is in motion. As with everything, though, cost is a roadblock. But I am pretty confident that the benefit is so great (imagine getting a wireless charge everywhere you park, at stop lights, or even on certain sections of the highway) that the demand will drive innovation and cost will come down to make it viable.



So while lithium is good for mobile energy storage in EVs, they might not be so good for grid level storage. Since EVs kind of go hand in hand with renewable energy, I think grid storage will develop right along with EV adoption. If the storage system doesn't have to be portable, there are tons of ways to store energy, many of them pretty cheap and low tech. Energy can be stored as heat, gravity potential (stack/un-stack heavy things), rotational (spin up a flywheel), pressure, split water, etc. We can even store energy by un-rusting iron, then capture it again when it rusts. All of these methods have different costs, charge/discharge rates, etc so they may all be used in different scenarios and applications, probably often together to get the benefits of each. Imagine a flywheel for instant on-demand power, backed by molten salt thermal to keep the flywheel spun up, backed by stacked blocks to keep the salt hot and for indefinite zero-loss storage, backed up by solar/wind/whatever to keep the blocks stacked.



Energy is everything, and everything is energy. Everything we do requires energy, and everything we produce is embodied energy. If we continue to rely so heavily on fossil fuels for energy, we are beholden to the huge corporations that control it due to the massive investment required to extract and convert it to usable forms. I think we are on the verge of an energy revolution, and energy production and storage will be democratized. I think in 10-20 years it will be pretty common for people to produce and store their own energy, and this will fuel economic growth.



Sorry for the wall of text, but I think if we are going to talk about EVs then we need to talk about the peripheral issues and why they are so important. I know the big issue is climate change, but given how controversial that is in some circles I try to focus on other issues and benefits. EVs enable individual self-sufficiency that gas powered vehicles can't.

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If we continue to rely so heavily on fossil fuels for energy, we are beholden to the huge corporations that control it due to the massive investment required to extract and convert it to usable forms.

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I'm with you but how is this any different than Bezos, Bloomberg and Gates owning the mega Corp that extracts the resources for batteries? I don't see any difference at all.


And you still haven't answered the grid question which will
...probably require the use of megacorps to get done.


What's the other alternatives to megacorps getting involved in this? The government has proven a billion times over its far more inefficient and far more corrupt than any megacorp.

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I'm with you but how is this any different than Bezos, Bloomberg and Gates owning the mega Corp that extracts the resources for batteries? I don't see any difference at all.

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The difference is as I mentioned, there are numerous different types of batteries. Electricity is fundamental, and we can convert any type of energy potential to electricity, and electricity to any other form. We don't need any specific resources to construct a battery. You are a battery. Hook an alternator up to a stationary bike and you can pedal away at maybe 100 watts. Put a 40lb bag on sand on a table 4' off the ground, you have just stored about a twentieth of a watt hour for later use.

And obviously a lot of our fossil fuels end up producing electricity as is, so diversifying our sources on that front makes us less dependent on megacorps, not more dependent. Likewise for transportation, the move to EVs greatly diversifies the sources of energy. No one can monopolize all of it.

Think about it like this... if you have a gas vehicle, could you ever manage to produce your own fuel? How long would it take, and how much would it cost? If you have an EV, you could get a few friends to help you push the car and it can charge itself. Or you could spend a few thousand dollars on solar panels and charge controller and you can charge it for years with no further resources required. With gasoline we constantly need to buy these resources that have been funneled through megacorps. They can bump the price or shut it down at any time.

The difference is enormous. An EV makes it possible for an individual to own the means of producing his own energy, sourced from the sunlight or wind that strikes his own property. The logistics and cost of finding, extracting, transporting, and refining fossil fuels makes the equivalent impossible for gas vehicles.

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And you still haven't answered the grid question which will
...probably require the use of megacorps to get done.

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But I did. Megacorps will surely build some or a lot of it, but again the diversity of sources and storage methods allows us to scale down and out. Some people already live off-grid with solar and batteries. You can't do that with fossil fuels, you need a steady supply of fuel. A less centralized and more distributed grid would be very reliable. We can have both production and storage at the regional, city, neighborhood, and home levels.

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What's the other alternatives to megacorps getting involved in this?

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Probably not possible to do entirely, but I'd rather be able to buy the means of producing my own energy than have to suck the production from the teat forever. It's a lot harder (or impossible) to monopolize and control all the means of producing electricity than it is to control the means of producing gasoline.

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The government has proven a billion times over its far more inefficient and far more corrupt than any megacorp.

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But both are corrupt(ible), especially since they usually work together. That's why we need to democratize energy. It'll never happen with oil.

I'd love to get one but the one I would want if a) way too expensive and b) does not have a range which I consider to be acceptable.

I'm not ready to make the jump yet, but I'm sure as long as we let the free market drive the train without a lot of Federal Government directives, it will only get better and better with more options and infrastructure in the not so distant future for sure.

I'm still gonna stick with gas engine for my next couple of vehicles; I do like the idea of another poster in this thread that eventually have one of each.

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The obvious answer is a small gasoline engine to charge the batteries. Is anyone working on that? Doesn't look like it.

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Sure, this is just a series hybrid.

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I can EV's as being a good idea. The big problem is the limitation of mobility. Who's going on a road trip when there's no charging stations and the charging sessions take hours.

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This is why a lot of people see themselves having an EV and a gas vehicle. You get the benefit and utility of both, different tool for different jobs. I wouldn't take a sedan off-roading, and I wouldn't take an EV on a long road trip just yet.

But this is a solvable problem, and I think within a couple decades it won't be an issue at all.

Love this post. incredibly well thought out. Not sure why its downvoted

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but imo they have to find another power source than Lithium.

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Why?

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Not really interested in an EV yet but I also think they missed out on advancing hybrid technology. I woulda been interested in that more. Until they can charge in 10 minutes I'll stay with ICE vehicles.

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I agree with this, which is why I am interested in how Ford is progressing their hybrid power train in their trucks and SUV’s. This is the middle ground for those who like to take long road trips. I don’t want to be required to take an 8-10 hour break during a long drive. Long term, battery charging time will be the one thing that EV has to overcome for widespread adoption and is what will keep ICE vehicles around.