Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

https://youtu.be/1yK7_LCbvec

VIDEO INTRO: I was sceptical about Electric Vehicles until I learned that battery powered cars accelerate faster. Since then, I’ve been convinced that electric vehicles are the future, obviously.

But recently I’ve changed my mind. I now think that hybrids are the future, obviously.

This opinion shift was caused by a number of things.

For one, the transition to electric vehicles will require a substantial extension of power grids, globally. And of course it’s not done with the grid alone, also the energy has to come from somewhere.

The estimated costs for this are staggering and it’s rather unclear how this will happen by the time that we’re all supposed to be driving electric vehicles.

In the European Union, for example, all new car sales are supposed to be electric by 2035. This isn’t new, I went through the numbers in a long episode a year ago.

What is new is that it’s becoming increasingly clear that the transition isn’t going as smoothly as hoped, because many nations are simply not doing what’s necessary...

I thought electric cars were the future. I changed my mind.

So hybrid gas/electric cars are pointless because people (like Sabine) treat them like petrol cars but with better acceleration.

So what about the infrastructure to charge cars? One of the problems utility companies face is that demand varies by (say) a factor of two (or more) over a 24 hour period. One possibility is to invest in batteries and use them to store electricity when it's cheap and release it when it is expensive. There is already somewhere (?) where you can use your electric car battery to do this resulting in a low or negative electricity bills.

Making the car battery effectively part of the power grid is attractive even without adding renewables to the equation.

Do you own an EV?

(May 14, 2024 11:35 PM)Syne Wrote: [ -> ]Do you own an EV?

The evasive answer would be that I had to give up driving about 6 months ago - eyesight problems .
The fair answer is No I don't drive an EV and I wouldn't buy one even if I could drive.
I have always viewed cars as a tin overcoat that gets you fro A to B without getting wet - I've never had any interest in 'features' - most places in the UK all you need is enough acceleration to keep up with a double deck bus and virtually all cars can easily exceed the UK highest speed limit of 70 mph.

BUT..
As far as national (or local) power grids are concerned .. the electric car and the battery within it are (potentially) the answer to a prayer .. if (and only if) properly organised.