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Electric cars?

Would you buy an electric car?

  • Already own one

    Votes: 10 5.1%

  • Yes - would definitely buy

    Votes: 43 21.7%

  • Yes - preferred over petrol car if price/power/convenience similar

    Votes: 78 39.4%

  • Maybe - preference for neither, only concerned with costs etc

    Votes: 38 19.2%

  • No - prefer petrol car even if electric car has same price, power and convenience

    Votes: 25 12.6%

  • No - would never buy one

    Votes: 14 7.1%
  • Total voters
    198
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I wouldn't be betting against Tesla at the moment.
The ground changing news is the intended announcement of a million mile battery that will be cheaper than current units.

The announcement was supposed to be made in June but has been postponed till September. Apparently this happened to enable Tesla to simultaneously announce the battery and have the capacity to deliver it to customers.
https://thedriven.io/2020/06/22/tes...ks-live-audience-for-million-mile-revolution/
 
over9k said:
True, but the game's changing and tesla's ahead of that particular curve IMO.
Click to expand...

Apparently, they aren't ahead in autonomous driving anymore; though I heard Elon's announcement that Tesla were close to level 5, so not sure. When you have major industry players like Volkswagen who are pumping in more than 1000% R&D than you, it is just a matter of time before you fall behind.

Tesla don't have too many shares on issue, so they may be able to raise equity capital easily if they can convince the market.
 

I don't think anyone here is betting against Tesla: we are merely discussing the challenging environment that Tesla must overcome; example R&D investment, relative to peers within the industry.
 
Six years is a pretty big call. I feel like it's a bit of a clickbait.
 
over9k said:
Six years is a pretty big call. I feel like it's a bit of a clickbait.
Click to expand...

Definitely clickbait.

I did some rough back-of-the-envelope calculations a few years ago; looking at the electricity generation capacity requirements for the USA to move to 100% EVs. The USA would need to build more than 500 1GW nuclear powerplants.
 
From memory the U.K did a study on the cost of the infrastructure roll out, to support the electric car charging network, it quite considerable.
On the phone ATM so wont look it up.
 
sptrawler said:
From memory the U.K did a study on the cost of the infrastructure roll out, to support the electric car charging network, it quite considerable.
On the phone ATM so wont look it up.
Click to expand...

it would be less than the cost and maintenance of Current fuel stations.

For a start you require a lot less of them, because people can just charge at home.

Just like regular fuel stations they are user pay, and would pay for them selves and naturally expand as demand grows.

look at how the Tesla supercharger network has grown steadily around the world, it didn’t require government funding.
 
sptrawler said:
From memory the U.K did a study on the cost of the infrastructure roll out, to support the electric car charging network, it quite considerable.
On the phone ATM so wont look it up.
Click to expand...

I was very conservative with that number. It could be many times more than that capacity.

Point being that we aren't moving to 100% EVs within the next few decades at least. Maybe next century
 

Let's run some basic numbers on the back-of-a-napkin. It has been a few years and maybe I got the numbers mixed up.

The USA uses 142 billion gallons of motor gasoline a year, which 92% is used for vehicles (https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/gasoline/use-of-gasoline.php)

So that is ~130.64 billion gallons a year/ 365 days a year / 24 hours a day = ~15 million gallons of gasoline an hour.

15 million gallons of gasoline an hour = 1.875 billion BTU an hour

1.875 billion BTU an hour = 549508197 KW used every hour = ~549GW used every hour

549GW per hour x 24 hours a day x 365 days a week = 4809240 GW hours of electricity needed per year.

The Ginna nuclear powerplant has a nameplate capacity of 4GW and produces 4,697,675 MWh a year which is 4700GW/hours per year (https://www.americangeosciences.org...ity-does-typical-nuclear-power-plant-generate).

4809240/4700 = 1023 4GW nuclear powerplants

Want to double check the math. I am a bit rusty, its been a few years
 
There's a documentary called "pump" where the former shell head honcho states that he reckons it'll take 3-4 decades for most cars to be electric only.
 
Nice to see back of the envelope figures, that quickly put reality back, do the same on climate warming and you will be surprised then start wondering: all these so called experts, where are they, more exactly what are they?
They exists but few can afford to fight a trend
Anyway this is nice technology and if mankind cracks fission, we will all be cruising on EV
 
I'm a bit bewildered . My reference was to an analysis which suggested that that all /almost all new car sales could be electric in 6 years.

That doesn't mean we won't be using petrol for the rest of the current cars. So I can't understand why people make a totally unnecessary straw man argument about substituting all gas sales with electricity.

As far as the analysis goes ? Basically saying that the cost differential between petrol and electric is rapidly decreasing and that many people are probably waiting a few years before they buy their next car. Interestingly enough if Tesla and other companies are producing a million mile battery which also helps power their home the value ofg going electric increases significantly.
 



I just went over those numbers that I posted again; the math is right; just an error with writing the BTU numbers. Should be 1.875×10 to the power of 12 BTU per hour : or 1,875 billion BTU per hour.

So start building your 1023 nuclear powerplants now that have a 4GW nameplate capacity. That is only for the USA, and for last year's gasoline use in the USA. Then you need the transmission networks, the recharge stations; and so on.
 
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ALL ALICE IN WONDERLAND FANTASY STUFF. 100% EVs, not this century, unless we manage to develop and commercialise nuclear fusion energy or completely embrace nuclear fission; which will still come at an astronomical cost that would bankrupt nations.
 
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You forgot to take away the power currently being used by the refineries and petrol bowsers.
So it's only 1020 new nuclear powerplants needed.
 
Austwide said:
You forgot to take away the power currently being used by the refineries and petrol bowsers.
So it's only 1020 new nuclear powerplants needed.
Click to expand...

I think we all get the point that 100% EVs, in the USA, isn't happening in our lifetime and I am just in my mid 30s.

We might be able to do a 100% mix of hydrogen vehicles and EVs in Australia, without nuclear. Not easy though.

I am all for smart allocation of resources which is based on intelligent economics. Like:

- Biogas plants that use sewage, domestic animal waste, and green waste; to produce methane.

- A tidal barrage in WA that produces hydrogen.

- Incineration of municipal waste to generate electricity.

Even these ideas are difficult to bring into commercialisation in Australia.
 
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