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Will our machines be saved from the electric wave ?

Pollushon

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A while back, someone was converting waste cooking oils for use in diesel powered vehicles....What ever happened to that idea I can't remember, but did make headlines for a number of reasons...None that I can remember being bad for the environment

Bio diesel. It's still popular, I know a couple of 4WD enthusiasts who make their own. Hydro diesel is another less popular alternative but makes great power
 

Skylarking

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A while back, someone was converting waste cooking oils for use in diesel powered vehicles....What ever happened to that idea I can't remember, but did make headlines for a number of reasons...None that I can remember being bad for the environment
A bloke I worked with over 20 years ago used to pick up waste oil from fish and chip shops fo nix. He process it at home (filter and chemical was?) for use in his diesel 4x4. Must say the exhaust of that truck smelt nice for those following him :D Was it environmentally friendly, who knew, no one cared back them :eek:

Some at work joked that he wasn’t paying his diesel taxes and they would visit him in the slammer if he’s ‘Capone’d :p I thought he was innovative :)

But then a large company recycling company went around and signed up all the fish and chip shops which meant his supply of free oil was gone... He was forced to pay for fuel like the rest of us.
 

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The vast majority of the worlds population just can't afford it and the second hand market of electric vehicles won't be as affordable as the second hand ICE market, meaning the demand for crude won't reduce anytime soon.
Knowing what the future will bring is fraught with difficulty but going electric in a connected world may change things in many more ways than we think.

Considering some car vehicle manufacturers (GM is one) are looking at running their own self drive taxi fleet, private vehicle onwnership may just go the way of the dodo.

The future may be one where be to tell Siri that you want to go to Jack‘s place and a “Johnny cab“ will turn up, you hop in and it willtake you to Jack‘s door, your account will be charged the requisite credits :p

 

Drawnnite

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I wonder if the elec supply network is currently able to supply enough if everyone was to take up an EV.
Or will we all suddenly have power rations.
Or maybe on hot days people will have to choose between Aircon or charging their car.

More restrictions are coming for Diesel and the likes for things such as sulphur content, partly why refineries are closing in Aus due to cost to update to those standards. So itll still be made.
I just cant see the power networks being able to supply everyone if they all had EVs, the loadbase is already high and unless more baseload is available itll be a challenge.
 

Pollushon

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I wonder if the elec supply network is currently able to supply enough if everyone was to take up an EV.
Or will we all suddenly have power rations.
Or maybe on hot days people will have to choose between Aircon or charging their car.

More restrictions are coming for Diesel and the likes for things such as sulphur content, partly why refineries are closing in Aus due to cost to update to those standards. So itll still be made.
I just cant see the power networks being able to supply everyone if they all had EVs, the loadbase is already high and unless more baseload is available itll be a challenge.

The short answer is yes, the capacity and expansion exists and is prepared for an EV increase based on current rates of uptake. It won't be a smooth road no doubt but Govco incentives (they have a huge vested interest in anything that impacts fuel excise) and residential solar will assist the transition greatly. Also the increases and uptake of battery farms will improve efficiently significantly. Look at the success of the Tesla farm in SA. We need more of that. Either way where there is demand there will be supply

I think the bigger challenge is building infrastructure so that when I drive to Airlie Beach from Canberra I can still do it in two days not five
 

shane_3800

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You do know that there are already a few companies like Tesla, Daimler Trucks, Volvo, Riven, Nikola Motors, Workhorse (making UPS vans) and a few Chinese companies all planning or already have prototypes of heavy haulage electric vehicles. Some are rather close to selling commercially (UPS actually having 900 vehicles on order).

And battery technology isn’t stationary, it is moving along, especially in the labs with some amazing energy densities, recharge rates and life expectancy. I’ve read that there is already a million mile battery (16 year life span) commercially available so I expect we’d all see lots of improvements over the next decade.

In any case, an ICE is what, 30% efficient while the drive line looses another 20% which overall makes it about 24% of petrol energy within fuel is actually converted into work... Compare this to an electric driveline which can be 80% efficient at converting battery energy into work. In this context battery density only needs to be @ 30% the energy density of petrol to equal it in terms of motive efficiency ;) So I wouldn’t say will never :p

In my view it can’t come fast enough if the COVID induced clean air isn’t a wake up call to all thinking sentient beings living on this 3rd rock from the sun :eek: else we be dinosaurs o_O

( I just hope we can still by petrol in the distant future so I can enjoy a Sunday drive in my smelly V8 :p )

Battery powered trucks simply will not compeate with diesel. For the batteries to be commercially viable they need to have a massive leap forward in power density I believe it's in the near impossible range.
At current battery technology levels the batteries take up about 30% of payload weight which can't be commercially viable.

Your a smart man, tell me do you ever see ships being powered by batteries..... The same reasons are why trucks will continue to use diesel. Just because some companies virtue signal with pipe dreams doesnt mean physics will ever change.

The technology that will likely power trucks in the future is hydrogen fuel cell.
I still don't even understand why people froth at the jaw over battery powered vehicles as they actually are more hazardous to the enviroment then cars. This is because to manufacture the batteries in the first place makes a lot of carbon and dangerous chemicals.
The amount of KW hours used per day to power transport we would need to cut forrests down to make solar farms to power these battery cars without coal.

The answer is nuclear power and hydrogen fuel cell cars. All the other pipe dreams are just that. Look at what Toyota and Mazda are doing they're the real leaders not Elon with his rich person mobiles.
 

shane_3800

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I wonder if the elec supply network is currently able to supply enough if everyone was to take up an EV.
Or will we all suddenly have power rations.
Or maybe on hot days people will have to choose between Aircon or charging their car.

More restrictions are coming for Diesel and the likes for things such as sulphur content, partly why refineries are closing in Aus due to cost to update to those standards. So itll still be made.
I just cant see the power networks being able to supply everyone if they all had EVs, the loadbase is already high and unless more baseload is available itll be a challenge.

Not to mention the repair networks. We're about ten years behind in the repair side so even if everyone in Australia bought an EV today you wouldn't get a booking at a repair garage.
 

chrisp

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I find it interesting to numerate things a bit to get a better understanding of the viability of the technology and the energy needs.

Using a few assumptions to do a back-of-the-envelope calculation, I will assume for purposes of the calculation that the average domestic car does about 15,000km per year. This equates to 41km per day.

I had a quick look on the web to find out how much energy an electric vehicle uses. A Tessa Model 3 uses about 18kWh per 100 km, so to cover 41 km it’d need about 7.5kWh per day.

In Melbourne, the PV output factor for solar systems is 3.6 kWh/day/kW of solar panels. i.e. a 1 kW solar system will produce an average of 3,6kWh per day in Melbourne. So to provide the energy for the EV a household would need 7.5 kWh / 3.6 = 2kW PV system. The typical PV installations are about 6 ~ 7 kW today (20 panels) , so by adding, or allowing, another 2kW (6 panels) the average energy needs of the vehicle would also be covered.

Of course this calculation is an average over the whole year, and the output will sometimes be higher and sometimes it’ll be lower, but the calculation does show that an EV is very viable from a domestic perspective.

Also, after the initial capital costs, an EV will be very economical to run. Service needs on an EV are much lower than on an ICE vehicle. The motors are usually 3-phase induction motors with very few wearing parts. Even brakes get an easy life in EVs and most of the braking is done by the motors (to recover energy) so brake pads will last a lot longer than in an ICE vehicle.
 

shane_3800

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Knowing what the future will bring is fraught with difficulty but going electric in a connected world may change things in many more ways than we think.

Considering some car vehicle manufacturers (GM is one) are looking at running their own self drive taxi fleet, private vehicle onwnership may just go the way of the dodo.

The future may be one where be to tell Siri that you want to go to Jack‘s place and a “Johnny cab“ will turn up, you hop in and it willtake you to Jack‘s door, your account will be charged the requisite credits :p


As someone that catches the bus everyday and most of the time I sit further back on the bus I see the spoils of public transport. Chewing gum on the back of seats, food wrappers discarded, graffiti all over the back three rows of seats.
Self ownership is never going away.
The executives that envision these pipe dreams have obviously never sat on a bus or jumped into a friday night taxi that has damp seats from the quick wash just done in the back after a someone spewed all through the back.
 

shane_3800

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I find it interesting to numerate things a bit to get a better understanding of the viability of the technology and the energy needs.

Using a few assumptions to do a back-of-the-envelope calculation, I will assume for purposes of the calculation that the average domestic car does about 15,000km per year. This equates to 41km per day.

I had a quick look on the web to find out how much energy an electric vehicle uses. A Tessa Model 3 uses about 18kWh per 100 km, so to cover 41 km it’d need about 7.5kWh per day.

In Melbourne, the PV output factor for solar systems is 3.6 kWh/day/kW of solar panels. i.e. a 1 kW solar system will produce an average of 3,6kWh per day in Melbourne. So to provide the energy for the EV a household would need 7.5 kWh / 3.6 = 2kW PV system. The typical PV installations are about 6 ~ 7 kW today (20 panels) , so by adding, or allowing, another 2kW (6 panels) the average energy needs of the vehicle would also be covered.

Of course this calculation is an average over the whole year, and the output will sometimes be higher and sometimes it’ll be lower, but the calculation does show that an EV is very viable from a domestic perspective.

Also, after the initial capital costs, an EV will be very economical to run. Service needs on an EV are much lower than on an ICE vehicle. The motors are usually 3-phase induction motors with very few wearing parts. Even brakes get an easy life in EVs and most of the braking is done by the motors (to recover energy) so brake pads will last a lot longer than in an ICE vehicle.

All of what you said is correct. But you assume every house is only going to use one car.
 
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