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I've noticed this happening with off-grid setups. People will post a YT video with something where solar covers >90% of their use, but people will point to the generator as some sort of gotcha.
In a lot of cases, neither alone would have been practical. That's not a gotcha, that's smart pairing of technology to produce a solution to a real problem. But instead we get a parade of "see you still need diesel". :facepalm
The other large part of it is until something is better than the old thing in nearly every way there is going to be a significant volume of people who were really served well by old thing disgusted by the idea of new thing being called better already. For anything as common as cars that has more to do with numbers than a specific HN obsession.
That's it for me. I'm not philosophically opposed to electric motors powering automobiles. But none of them yet produced serve my needs as well as a gas or diesel powered car. EV proponents are obsessed with trying to "gotcha" my reasons, so there's no need to go into the details. If you're asking me to spend $50k or more on a car, it better damn well be a heck of a lot better in every way than the $5k car I am perfectly happy with, and can replace if needed for the same amount of money.
These are likely range coupled with charge time.
Some can't understand that no, 20 minutes of time (15+ minutes charging plus paying and hookup and so on), to barely 80%, when you can find a free supercharger without route diversion, isn't the same as a 2 minute fillup at the gas station.
It's just not. At all.
EVs are where we are going, and I am confident we'll get there for all usage cases eventually, but right now EVs are not suitable for some.
People need to get over this fact. EVs are not suitable for some.
And that's fine! So what of 20% of the population can't use EVs due to range, and another 40% due to cost. That's what early adopters are for, and the price will come down, range via charge time will get even better, and it will self resolve.
Frankly, if every car changed to EV tomorrow, we'd have blackouts everywhere, and be forced to restart depreciated coal power stations, just to handle all that sudden power demand.
Not to mention the immense cost of new infra, power transfer stations, etc, that needs to be built!
But again, we're doing a gradual rollout. People are switching. We'll get there.
But the comments of GP make me think he gets the ridiculous replies such as "but no you can just..." if he mentions "EVs aren't suitable for me".
The arrogance, and hubris in such replies are astonishing to watch.
Yes. There's a very odd phenomenon where both sides seem to think there can be only one winner, rather than a lengthy period of co-existence.
Environmentally it's almost certainly better to continue using an existing vehicle than to manufacture a new one. It's when you come to buy a new one that the choice matters.
Interestingly, depreciation is really dramatic on EVs. But there's also a high degree of churn. Companies introduce small EV models and then pull them entirely, so the old ones fall off a cliff value wise. I feel that savvy secondhand buyers could do fine.
It heightens emotions and lowers the tone of discussion from curious to conflict driven.
Ideally use wording that you think the people you are talking about would agree fairly represents their views. (E.g. for your first sentence, do you think half of HN commentators would agree that they are "obsessed with trying to "gotcha" electric cars, any form of power generation other than nuclear,"?)
That starts with what you pay for electricity (e.g. 0.4€/100kWh in Germany vs. 0.05€ in Denmark).
But continues with how much CO2 is created. With the German energy mix, 1 kWh "produces" 0.434 kg of CO2 (tendency rising). Burning 1l of gasoline results in 2.37 kg. Comparing two cars:
Tesla 3 (18 kWh / 100 km, 80-90% efficiency during charging):
(18 kWh / (0.8 bis 0.9)) * (0.434kg / kwh) = 8.68 bis 9.765 kg (CO2 per 100km)
Toyota Yaris Hybrid (with E10):
3.9 l * (2.37 - 0.126) kg/l = 8.75 kg (CO2 pro 100 km)
Which is basically the same ball park.
To be fair, Tesla 3 vs Yaris Hybrid is an apple to pears comparison. But the argument that can be made is for a cleaner energy mix and smaller cars.
[0]: https://natural-resources.canada.ca/sites/www.nrcan.gc.ca/fi...
430g/kWh is without external costs too. Germany just has a very, very bad energy mix.
What’s fun about that number is that those 6 kWh would drive an EV about 18 miles. So, unless you have a reasonably efficient gas car, even if you never burned any of the gas you buy, and used it to fill swimming pools or something, you only come out even with an EV.
I didn't. That's the number without externalized CO2 costs. With those it's closer to 0.48 kg/kWh which comes out at 10kg CO2 per 100km.
As I said above, I am not trying to argue against EVs. It's mostly that the German energy mix sucks.
(We switched of all our nuclear plants some time ago and now rely on coal again ...)
source: https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/themen/co2-emissionen-pro-kil...
And replacing battery after seven or three years is not much difference. Rugged truck like that, should last 30 years with basic maintenance! This car is not even serviceable!!!
It is the smugg greenwashing people hate!
> 8-year or 150,000-mile
> The high-voltage battery pack capacity naturally decreases over time with use. This expected gradual capacity loss over time is not covered under the Battery Pack Limited Warranty. However, greater than expected degradation is covered under the Battery Pack Limited Warranty. The warranty will cover a battery pack that loses 30% or more of its normal minimum usable rated capacity within the warranty period.
All that said - I don't think a truck like the Rivian R1T makes any sense. For the same reason that I don't think most trucks make any sense. They're just penis extensions that have little to no utility for a vast majority of people that buy them. But since we're OK with that for regular trucks, I think we should be OK with that for the battery electric version too. Lets at least be consistent.
I try! A few months before warranty runs out, it gets full inspection, and I claim every part that acts funky! It is a free money!
> If that was true your phone would have a fully working battery ten years later,
What exactly is the difference? If anything phone batteries are way more expensive and sophisticated!
R1T can tow 100 miles on single charge. That is 1500 battery cycles within 150k miles warranty, or 3000 cycles if you do that daily for 8 years!
> just penxs extensions that have little to no utility for a vast majority of people that buy them
I actually want to use this as a truck. It should be soo much better, new revolutionary technology...
You claim that thing is useless "penxs extension", yet somehow manufacturer does not lie about its numbers!
> But since we're OK with that for regular trucks
OK, let's ban useless extensions. Why should people who actually need proper truck for work, pay fines and sponsor people, who buy useless EV penxs extensions?
That's not what you claimed. This is clearly something that everyone that own a vehicle should do, and probably do. Obviously it makes a lot of more sense to do on a combustion engine that has literally thousands of moving parts that easily can ruin an engine. But any sensible person will service their car before warranty runs out.
> What exactly is the difference? If anything phone batteries are way more expensive and sophisticated!
I don't know where to even start. How does my example prove that they're more expensive and sophisticated? They fail to deliver enough power to the CPU so it crashes. So they have to clock the CPU down so the battery is able to deliver enough power.
> R1T can tow 100 miles on single charge. That is 1500 battery cycles within 150k miles warranty, or 3000 cycles if you do that daily for 8 years!
This argument makes no sense. You're constructing a edge case that doens't fit with reality. Show me a truck with a combustion engine that hauls max load all day, every day, for 150k miles without significant service requirement, to the tune that cost vastly more than a simple battery replacement.
> I actually want to use this as a truck. It should be soo much better, new revolutionary technology...
Then buy a truck that fits your needs. It's that simple.
> You claim that thing is useless "penxs extension", yet somehow manufacturer does not lie about its numbers!
I don't understand what or who is lying. Even most truckers will admit that most people that own a truck don't really use it as it was intended. The vast majority of trucks on the road has never had anything in their truck bed that couldn't fit in a Fiat Punto. I'm not going to stop you from getting a truck. Be that electric or combustion. I just want you to be consistent.
> OK, let's ban useless extensions. Why should people who actually need proper truck for work, pay fines and sponsor people, who buy useless EV penxs extensions?
Huh? I never made any argument like that. And it's okey, you're allowed to say penis[0].
Cars are very different. They have much more aggressive battery management and use active temperature control. Phones are assumed to be obsolete in 3 years due to software anyway so they run the batteries much harder.
> It took years to find the right partner, build out the infrastructure and secure the 800 kilograms of green hydrogen required for the 10-day event, she added.
yeah, okay. just a nothingburger /s
I imagine the green hydrogen was for PR, because otherwise you could say the EVs were diesel-powered.
that said, I expect things like one motor per wheel that EV's can do will become pretty interesting off-road as time goes on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Body_Control#Magic_Body...
That's exactly the point of the discussion above. Why is it important to point out?
My nr.1 beef with cars is the noise pollution and the excessive space taken by them. Neither of those are changed by EV's. (An EV makes just as much noise above 35 km/h, and now they have them even making fake noises below that speed).
I feel like EVs do actually solve part of the noise problem. Yes a EV at speed makes just as much noise as any other car due to tire noise dominating at those speeds. However You've got no idling noises, nor revving noises when taking off. And that's leaving out edge cases like how they introduced electric city buses here and those make wildly less noise than gas or diesel buses. Never mind the lack of gross exhaust fumes.