Tesla Achilles Heel

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I read some accounts of travelling by Tesla finding that it took a lot of planning. Even with the supercharging stations they had to be available and coordinated with meals. Fifteen minutes doesn't sound like much until you are forced to wait 15 minutes. I wondered what the traveller might have done if he had to wait on others before even starting his 15 minutes. His conclusion was that the best situation for the battery might be more frequent stops and 10 minute charges.

I think the Tesla 2 is at least initially being built and tested in China. To conserve weight the battery forms part of the car's structure. IIRC the predicted range is 275 miles. Cost will be around $25K, not a problem for those used to keeping up with the Joneses but for a zero debt person like me it's still too steep. But it will impact taxes and deficit/debt as the government is expected to to pick up $7K of the price with a bit of its magic (and sleight of hand, similar to my free LED bulbs from the utility).
 
apparently when you get in a tesla and are driving to lets say Florida for example. it calculates your route and where to recharge all on the gps. It knows how far you can go and where all the charging stations are,
 
I'm in Canada this week and there are a lot more charging stations around here. At one large shopping center there was a row of about 15 stations way at the back of the lot. Passed a couple rest area type places that had a whole bunch of them. Much more previlent up here.
 
68bucks said:
I'm in Canada this week and there are a lot more charging stations around here. At one large shopping center there was a row of about 15 stations way at the back of the lot. Passed a couple rest area type places that had a whole bunch of them. Much more previlent up here.
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Per Google there are over 43,000 public charging stations in the USA and over 5000 in Canada. The USA and Canada have a similar landmass but the USA has 10x the population of Canada. We don't have quite 10x the public chargers as Canada but you're less likely to wind up in an area with none in the USA than in Canada just given the similar landmasses. Canada's population tends to cluster within 50 miles of the US border and around their major cities. For comparison there are about 145,000 gas stations in the USA and many of them are adding EV charging. The Sheetz stations near me all have EV chargers. For places like Sheetz and Wawa with restaurants attached it makes a lot of sense to install EV chargers since it can drive sales in the convenience store/restaurant while people wait the 20 minutes to charge their cars. I'm seeing chargers at McDonalds, Chic Fil A, shopping centers, grocery stores, and offices.

If you're doing a road trip in the USA and likely in Canada there are charging points along the interstate system to get you where you're going. I suspect if you go far off the beaten path in either country you're going to want to make sure you have a full charge to get you in and out of the rural area. Worse comes to worse you can charge at 120v outlet, it will just take forever. The charging network is growing rapidly. Tesla is opening their 1200+ charging network to other EVs. The charging network is constantly growing and right now EVs make up a small but growing percentage of the fleet in both countries. When doing road trips the navigation systems in EVs will map your trip out with charge points along the way and tell you when you should stop and for how long. They typically only charge up to about 80% of capacity because going from 20% to 80% can take about 20 minutes, going the next 20% takes longer and is tougher on the battery life.

To me the biggest problem with EVs is mining the rare earth metals and lithium (which is pretty abundant) isn't exactly green. We don't have the capacity to switch to EVs overnight. ICE cars will be around for the rest of my lifetime and likely my 20 something kids lives. But I suspect ICE vehicles will not be the majority of vehicles on the road in my lifetime.
 
Excellent presentation. I don't buy into the unproven theory that CO₂ is our enemy however when considering other pollution and waste issues the video destroys the idea that an electric vehicle is ideal for the short trip commuter who doesn't rack up lot of miles per year. Yet that's what it's being promoted for since long distance travelling involves scheduled delays.
 
Early, in the presentation is depicted a, cycle, of a horse, emitting CO2, which is then absorbed by plants, which are consumed, again, by the horse, and thus the cycle.

And, as a follow up, a vehicle, emitting CO2, which is not being absorbed by plants.

So, what component differences exist, in the emitted CO2, which prevents the vehicle emitted CO2, from being absorbed?
 
Snoonyb said:
Early, in the presentation is depicted a, cycle, of a horse, emitting CO2, which is then absorbed by plants, which are consumed, again, by the horse, and thus the cycle.

And, as a follow up, a vehicle, emitting CO2, which is not being absorbed by plants.

So, what component differences exist, in the emitted CO2, which prevents the vehicle emitted CO2, from being absorbed?
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The theory is we're releasing CO2 that has been locked up in fossil fuels for millions of years. Whereas the horse is eating grass and other plant products that have locked up CO2 and created O2 through photosynthesis. The Europeans use the same logic in saying the burning wood to create electricity is "green" versus burning coal. Thing is it takes decades to create a tree that is gone in a few seconds in a wood powered electrical plant. We're dumping more CO2 into the air than the natural cycle can absorb. We're also clear cutting the rain forests in the Amazon River Basin and releasing all the stored CO2 there.

If we're serious about reducing green house gas emissions and don't include nuke power you're delusional. Wind and solar can't replace the other sources of electricity without a huge increase in storage that would dwarf the batteries used in personal transportation.
 
@Sparky617 All of that might be true (and would help explain why despite cars and horses releasing the same CO2, there is more CO2 in the atmosphere now that we primarily drive cars than back when non-pedestrian land transportation was mainly horse-powered), but I think @Snoonyb was referring to a specific part of the video presentation which addressed none of what you said. The presenter used a diagram exactly as Snoonyb described. To be accurate according to what you said, that diagram should have been greatly expanded. It was a good catch, Snoonyb.

I'll note, the video also talks about replacing fossil fuel power plants with solar and wind, but the components for solar and wind plants also have to be manufactured and assembled, and this process has its own carbon footprint.

There is no beating the laws of thermodynamics.
 
People and scientist with lean to climate change being a problem tend to site the raise in CO2 as a bad thing. It is going up and the other camp points to data saying CO2 at today’s level is in the scope of the earth at a low point and could use a bump. We as man try and understand things as remaining stable or what we have known about over at most 100 years. The stuff like rising water levels is a big problem only because we invested 100 years putting stuff where there might be water in another 100-500 years. Same with a few degrees of temp increase or decrease. IMO the world is an adaptive planet and not meant to not change. Today I’m out staining my deck on a beautiful sunny warm day in shorts and a tee shirt. At one time in history this same location was under 2 miles of ice.



The idea of comparing a horse is ok but I don’t know if he factored in the horse keeps making CO2 when he is in the barn resting. I know a lot of people other than the Amish that have horses and they serve no purpose other than being a pet that maybe gets rode around in circles in a ring just because it needs exercise and gives the owner pleasure doing it. We could pass a law making horses illegal as they make CO2 and provide no output. After all Ca has a law you can’t have a gas powered lawnmower or chainsaw and they have a function that offsets the CO2. How many horses are in Ca?



He listed an offset to his graph showing the CO2 used to make the battery but compared it to an ICE that went twice the miles the battery life would likely be. He should have IMO doubled the offset as a second battery will be needed. He didn’t also factor in the CO2 used to make the rest of the car. If you assume these super high gas prices are being manufactured to push EVs as I do then EVs will make the car it replaces a cash for clunkers without the cash. If the country or world only needs so many cars and people are buying EV because of fuel cost you have to assume some of the ICE cars are going away before their time and all that CO2 it took to make them is being wasted as they haven’t finished their lifecycle, and new CO2 is being released on these EVs. Melting down good energy efficient cars to make EVs is actually the goal I think.



I totally agree with him hybrid step being skipped is a big mistake.

It only takes about 10 years to build a nuclear plant and about $10,000,000,000. I would think the government would be planning at least a 100 of them to start lickity split. Along with coming up with the fuel for them.

I wish I had a little less CO2 here because I'm having a tough time keeping up with the weeds in the garden. On the other hand the veggies are really growing fast.
 
I confess that I feel an air of superiority when I see an EV (or even a big shiny $50K ICE pickup) because I am debt free and drive a 96 Prism. The longer I can keep it out of the crusher the better my (imaginary impact) carbon footprint.
 
Eddie_T said:
I confess that I feel an air of superiority when I see an EV (or even a big shiny $50K ICE pickup) because I am debt free and drive a 96 Prism. The longer I can keep it out of the crusher the better my (imaginary impact) carbon footprint.
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And $50K is usually the base trim after haggling and discounts! 😆

I find myself thinking their car payment must be more than the rent I paid at most of the apartments I lived in.

Well, maybe the people who work for the car companies do a lot of composting and gardening and other "green" activities, so by paying their salaries the people buying new cars really are making a difference.
 
We know a couple that have on order a Ford EV 2500 extended cab full bed pickup. They are not what I would call wealthy but they want a big truck and feel they want to be Green. They didn’t like the mileage of the standard battery so they ordered the larger battery. They are going to have their home service enlarged and are going for some kind of fast charging system. They are getting a large subsidy from Uncle Sam and the end cost to them for the truck is $87k with what they are putting into the house so they can charge it and also use the truck to power the house for up to 3 days they will be pushing 100G is my guess.

As an old timer once told me “If you want all that economy you have to pay for it.”
 
Our cars are paid for with plenty of life left in them. I'm not signing up for a new car ICE or EV any time soon. If I financed it even with a 50% down payment, my current gas usage costs would still be far below the monthly payment on a new car or truck.
 
Something that I don't understand is the people that purchase an oversized PU to tow a camping trailer just to go to a campground and park in an expensive slot just to visit with others of the same mindset.
 
Eddie_T said:
Something that I don't understand is the people that purchase an oversized PU to tow a camping trailer just to go to a campground and park in an expensive slot just to visit with others of the same mindset.
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A lot of the people that do that here are farm people that live miles from their neighbors and camping becomes a social thing. Folks that live in the city often go for rural camping where they go to get away from people.
 
Poetic justice: "I wish I had a little less CO2 here because I'm having a tough time keeping up with the weeds in the garden. On the other hand the veggies are really growing fast."
 
Wall Street Journal reporter Rachel Wolfe recently ventured from New Orleans, Louisiana to Chicago, Illinois in a brand-new Kia EV6 to test America's current electric vehicle capabilities and public-charging infrastructure. By the end of her exhausting trip, she said the fumes of gasoline — though particularly expensive at the moment — "never smelled so sweet." She reportedly said she spent more time charging than she did sleeping.
 
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