Electric Cars - Saviours of our environment or just another fad?

fatcat posted:

 

The second part of the second video appears to indicate hydrogen could be produced in a domestic environment.

GHG ???

That is a truly scary prospect given that we occasionally have methane explosions from people not handling natural gas properly...
Hydrogen is 4 times more difficult to contain, 3 times more likely to explode and 10 times more violent when it does explode!

Adam Meredith posted:

fatcat posted:

The second part of the second video appears to indicate hydrogen could be produced in a domestic environment.

If cars could run on hydrogen sulphide some of us have the technology licked.

Why are you licking technology?

Innocent Bystander posted:

Why are you licking technology?

A hangover from savouring the undersides of Dinky toys.

Adam Meredith posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

Why are you licking technology?

A hangover from savouring the undersides of Dinky toys.

I suppose that's better than licking the undersides of Corgis!

Huge posted:

Adam Meredith posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

Why are you licking technology?

A hangover from savouring the undersides of Dinky toys.

I suppose that's better than licking the undersides of Corgis!

Especially when they're installing your gas systems...

While I guess we will see more and more cars with electricity, I am still doubting it's contribution to emission problems. So in other words how much energy needs to be used to create the electricity to refill the car, what about disposal of batteries. Even given the diesel gate I still belief diesel when properly used is a good alternative.

Huge posted:

fatcat posted:

 

The second part of the second video appears to indicate hydrogen could be produced in a domestic environment.

GHG ???

That is a truly scary prospect given that we occasionally have methane explosions from people not handling natural gas properly...
Hydrogen is 4 times more difficult to contain, 3 times more likely to explode and 10 times more violent when it does explode!

Oh come on Huge...what could possibly go wrong with hydrogen?

It's just one proton and one electron...

pt109 posted:

Here in Quebec, electricity is relatively cheap, and gas prices are the highest in Canada. I bought a used Chevy Volt 3 years ago, mainly to reduce my dependance to petrol. People are put on a waiting list to get their EV's, having to wait 6 months to get their Chevy Bolts. I see many Tesla's, and Leaf's on the roads everyday.

So, at least, here, yes, it is the future. The future would be closer, if not for manufacturers not really wanting to sell EV's...

The pace of the mainstream manufacturers in terms of developing true electric vehicles is glacial. (I don't count the emissions-regulations cheating hybrids.) Reminds me of IBM's "Nah, personal computers will never be popular. Not powerful enough. Too expensive. - we'll stick with main-frames".

Clay Bingham posted:

Skip posted:

I have a friend who drives a Toyota Mirai.   It is a fuel cell car that runs on hydrogen.    Not many places to get fuel but they are working on it.    I am happy with my diesel.

Skip

Recently saw my first Mirai on the road. My lord what an ugly car. The technology is wonderful but the Toyota designers were having a major off day.

 

Yes, why do electric/hydrogen cars need to look so damn weird? Teslas notwithstanding. 

Huge posted:

fatcat posted:

 

The second part of the second video appears to indicate hydrogen could be produced in a domestic environment.

GHG ???

That is a truly scary prospect given that we occasionally have methane explosions from people not handling natural gas properly...
Hydrogen is 4 times more difficult to contain, 3 times more likely to explode and 10 times more violent when it does explode!

It is actually much more than 3X more likely to explode. It has a much,much wider explosive range, and has no effective "lag on ignition" meaning that even the briefest spark can set it going. Methane/natural gas is much more difficult (relatively) to ignite.

Being a very small molecule hydrogen diffuses through membranes more readily than other gases, such as methane, and seals are much more prone to leak, so risk from unintended gas build up from leaks is greater - precautions are easy to take, but it is indeed potentially a more dangerous gas to use than methane.

Interestingly it burns with an invisible flame, so you can have a leak burning in air and not see it.

The two issues that are commonly cited as impediments to electric cars replacing diesel/petrol is much smaller range and lack of infrastructure for recharging. Both have been aired earlier in this thread.  But i think there is a related third issue and that it the time it takes to recharge.  This can be hours.  On a journey exceeding the car's range, how many people are going to accept that they must plan a long break while the car is recharged at various way-points?  When I fill up my diesel at the service station it takes just a few minutes and I then have a range of 600+ miles before I need to fill up again. In today's world patience is short and we all expect to be able to do things quickly so I think the speed of recharge is going to have to be addressed as well. 

winkyincanada posted:

Huge posted:

fatcat posted:

 

The second part of the second video appears to indicate hydrogen could be produced in a domestic environment.

GHG ???

That is a truly scary prospect given that we occasionally have methane explosions from people not handling natural gas properly...
Hydrogen is 4 times more difficult to contain, 3 times more likely to explode and 10 times more violent when it does explode!

It is actually much more than 3X more likely to explode. It has a much,much wider explosive range, and has no effective "lag on ignition" meaning that even the briefest spark can set it going. Methane/natural gas is much more difficult (relatively) to ignite.

Yes, the 3x was based solely on the lower explosive limit.
I was being conservative rather than going for the dramatic (which will usually describe the result if you do get a hydrogen explosion!).

MDS posted:

The two issues that are commonly cited as impediments to electric cars replacing diesel/petrol is much smaller range and lack of infrastructure for recharging. Both have been aired earlier in this thread.  But i think there is a related third issue and that it the time it takes to recharge.  This can be hours.  On a journey exceeding the car's range, how many people are going to accept that they must plan a long break while the car is recharged at various way-points?  When I fill up my diesel at the service station it takes just a few minutes and I then have a range of 600+ miles before I need to fill up again. In today's world patience is short and we all expect to be able to do things quickly so I think the speed of recharge is going to have to be addressed as well. 

While patience may play some role, it is also a case of viability: when I drive to visit my father for a couple of days, I have an 11 hours drive each way. I can pull that off in one day, spend a couple or 3 days with him, and then another day burned coming back. With an extended refueling time, even once (and at present technology I believe it would be more than once), the whole trip falls apart, and I either have to stay in a hotel, or drop the whole operation.

From an investment advisory I get:

Tesla a prime example of the insanity that's sweeping the credit markets today.

On August 3, we noted that electric-car maker Tesla (TSLA) was burning through cash at an unprecedented rate. Despite promises to the contrary, we said it was only a matter of time before CEO Elon Musk would be forced to raise more capital.

You can fake earnings, but you can't fake cash flows. And Tesla is now hemorrhaging cash like never before...

Tesla sent more than $1 billion to "money heaven" in just three months... which means it has already burned through most of the money it raised from investors back in March.

The company now has just $3 billion in cash on hand, out of a mind-boggling $10 billion it has siphoned from investors since 2012. And yet it's expected to burn through at least another $2 billion before the end of the year. At this rate, Tesla could run out of money as early as the first quarter of next year.

Don't be surprised to see Musk going "hat in hand" to investors again soon.

So we weren't surprised when just a few days later, Musk said the firm was planning to raise another $1.5 billion from investors. But we were shocked he intended to issue bonds, rather than equity and convertible debt, as he has in the past. And we were downright appalled by the terms...

The eight-year bonds – rated deep in "junk" territory by both major credit-rating agencies – were priced at just 5.3%. This is the lowest yield among similarly rated "high yield" bonds in history.

But "investors" weren't fazed. In fact, they begged for more... Musk was ultimately able to raise $1.8 billion, $300 million more than originally planned.

Longtime readers know we've questioned why anyone would willingly buy stock in a capital inefficient company with a failed business model and no hope of ever turning a profit. But at least Tesla shareholders stand to benefit from the company's potential success (however unlikely that is).

That's not the case here...

Remember, bonds are fundamentally different than stocks. Bonds can't "do OK." They're binary. They either pay back interest and principal or they default.

That's not a minor concern for a company that has never earned a profit and could run out of money within a year.

In other words, the folks who bought these bonds are also likely to suffer massive losses if Musk's grand vision falls short. But unlike Tesla shareholders, they won't earn anything more if he somehow pulls it off. And they're being paid just 5.3% a year for the pleasure.

As Martin Fridson – the "dean" of corporate debt, and the world's foremost expert on the high-yield credit markets – noted to Bloomberg following the deal...

"It's a great deal for [Tesla], which by definition means it can't be a great deal for the investors."

The reason they're getting a good deal is because yields are near record lows and risk premiums are much less than they should be. Tesla is taking advantage of that.

We wish those folks the best of luck. They're going to need it.

One proposal a few years ago was batteries mounted on the car's underside, and 'refuelling' achieved by physical battery exchange - park the car in the designated spot and it would be done mechanically from below in minutes  - all based on batteries not actually being owned by the car owner, rather rented or leased, I suppose a bit like cylinder rental of pressurised gas cylinders.

DrMark posted:

MDS posted:

The two issues that are commonly cited as impediments to electric cars replacing diesel/petrol is much smaller range and lack of infrastructure for recharging. Both have been aired earlier in this thread.  But i think there is a related third issue and that it the time it takes to recharge.  This can be hours.  On a journey exceeding the car's range, how many people are going to accept that they must plan a long break while the car is recharged at various way-points?  When I fill up my diesel at the service station it takes just a few minutes and I then have a range of 600+ miles before I need to fill up again. In today's world patience is short and we all expect to be able to do things quickly so I think the speed of recharge is going to have to be addressed as well. 

While patience may play some role, it is also a case of viability: when I drive to visit my father for a couple of days, I have an 11 hours drive each way. I can pull that off in one day, spend a couple or 3 days with him, and then another day burned coming back. With an extended refueling time, even once (and at present technology I believe it would be more than once), the whole trip falls apart, and I either have to stay in a hotel, or drop the whole operation.

A pertinent example, Dr Mark

It is sometimes better off renting a car for long distance travelling...

cat345 posted:

It is sometimes better off renting a car for long distance travelling...

Maybe if you've spent a fortune on buying an electric car - and then pay to hire a fossil fuel car to pollute for that long distance. 

When the Smart Car was introduced in Britain there was supposed to be an arrangement whereby owners could rent a Merc at a very low cost rate when they wanted to do a long journey - but I'm not sure that it actually happened. Potentially idea for electric cars could work - have interchange points where you leave your electric car and use another for the next stage of your journey, at minimal cost. BUt somehow I don't envisage it happening in practice,

MDS posted:

The two issues that are commonly cited as impediments to electric cars replacing diesel/petrol is much smaller range and lack of infrastructure for recharging. Both have been aired earlier in this thread.  But i think there is a related third issue and that it the time it takes to recharge.  This can be hours.  On a journey exceeding the car's range, how many people are going to accept that they must plan a long break while the car is recharged at various way-points?  When I fill up my diesel at the service station it takes just a few minutes and I then have a range of 600+ miles before I need to fill up again. In today's world patience is short and we all expect to be able to do things quickly so I think the speed of recharge is going to have to be addressed as well. 

It is no longer a "much smaller range". New Teslas with the large batteries will do 500km+ or so between charges.

A Tesla supercharger will recharge 80% of the range in about 30 minutes. It's not terribly inconvenient, and I reiterate that only a very small number of journeys for most people would require en-route charging. You start each morning with a completely full "tank", and for that vast majority of use, that 500km+ range is more-than-adequate for the day's driving.

Tesla also demonstrated a battery swap on a Model S that was completed in about 1/2 the time for a conventional gas fuel-up. The swap-stations have not been rolled out because there is really no demand for this. See point above.

Innocent Bystander posted:

One proposal a few years ago was batteries mounted on the car's underside, and 'refuelling' achieved by physical battery exchange - park the car in the designated spot and it would be done mechanically from below in minutes  - all based on batteries not actually being owned by the car owner, rather rented or leased, I suppose a bit like cylinder rental of pressurised gas cylinders.

Tesla have already demonstrated this. See video. No real demand, though. Most people just charge overnight.

DrMark posted:

From an investment advisory I get:

Tesla a prime example of the insanity that's sweeping the credit markets today.

On August 3, we noted that electric-car maker Tesla (TSLA) was burning through cash at an unprecedented rate. Despite promises to the contrary, we said it was only a matter of time before CEO Elon Musk would be forced to raise more capital.

You can fake earnings, but you can't fake cash flows. And Tesla is now hemorrhaging cash like never before...

Tesla sent more than $1 billion to "money heaven" in just three months... which means it has already burned through most of the money it raised from investors back in March.

The company now has just $3 billion in cash on hand, out of a mind-boggling $10 billion it has siphoned from investors since 2012. And yet it's expected to burn through at least another $2 billion before the end of the year. At this rate, Tesla could run out of money as early as the first quarter of next year.

Don't be surprised to see Musk going "hat in hand" to investors again soon.

So we weren't surprised when just a few days later, Musk said the firm was planning to raise another $1.5 billion from investors. But we were shocked he intended to issue bonds, rather than equity and convertible debt, as he has in the past. And we were downright appalled by the terms...

The eight-year bonds – rated deep in "junk" territory by both major credit-rating agencies – were priced at just 5.3%. This is the lowest yield among similarly rated "high yield" bonds in history.

But "investors" weren't fazed. In fact, they begged for more... Musk was ultimately able to raise $1.8 billion, $300 million more than originally planned.

Longtime readers know we've questioned why anyone would willingly buy stock in a capital inefficient company with a failed business model and no hope of ever turning a profit. But at least Tesla shareholders stand to benefit from the company's potential success (however unlikely that is).

That's not the case here...

Remember, bonds are fundamentally different than stocks. Bonds can't "do OK." They're binary. They either pay back interest and principal or they default.

That's not a minor concern for a company that has never earned a profit and could run out of money within a year.

In other words, the folks who bought these bonds are also likely to suffer massive losses if Musk's grand vision falls short. But unlike Tesla shareholders, they won't earn anything more if he somehow pulls it off. And they're being paid just 5.3% a year for the pleasure.

As Martin Fridson – the "dean" of corporate debt, and the world's foremost expert on the high-yield credit markets – noted to Bloomberg following the deal...

"It's a great deal for [Tesla], which by definition means it can't be a great deal for the investors."

The reason they're getting a good deal is because yields are near record lows and risk premiums are much less than they should be. Tesla is taking advantage of that.

We wish those folks the best of luck. They're going to need it.

Bonds aren't binary from the perspective of an investor, they are priced and traded in the market just like equity. They can indeed do "okay". The market price reflects the coupon, timing to maturity and likelihood of default amongst other things. But yes, some of the metrics around Tesla point to a high level of risk. I doubt it was ever going to be any other way.

We have two electric cars for use at work. A Tesla and a BMW 3i.

Based on my experience with these over the past year or so there is NO WAY I would buy one of these stupid machines.

Capital outlay is rediculously expensive

Range is pathetic.

Recharge time needs to be carefully planned and is time-consuming on a long journey. the BMW is only good for short (30 mile journeys)

There are too many electrical charging options for the average woman to cope with...........

The Batteries will probably need replacement in three years time.

In summary, they are a joke. Anexpensive joke at that.

When we have built 6 more nuclear power stations and invested in the distribution system to cope with re-charging and found batteries that Last 30 years + well then they might be a sort of proposition.

OTOH, if you are a boy-racer, that little BMW does accelerate like a rocket.....  we have a race track, I know !!!!

Don Atkinson posted:

We have two electric cars for use at work. A Tesla and a BMW 3i.

Based on my experience with these over the past year or so there is NO WAY I would buy one of these stupid machines.

Capital outlay is rediculously expensive

Range is pathetic.

Recharge time needs to be carefully planned and is time-consuming on a long journey. the BMW is only good for short (30 mile journeys)

There are too many electrical charging options for the average woman to cope with...........

The Batteries will probably need replacement in three years time.

In summary, they are a joke. Anexpensive joke at that.

When we have built 6 more nuclear power stations and invested in the distribution system to cope with re-charging and found batteries that Last 30 years + well then they might be a sort of proposition.

OTOH, if you are a boy-racer, that little BMW does accelerate like a rocket.....  we have a race track, I know !!!!

Which Tesla do you have access to? The range of even the smallest battery-option Model S would be fine for 99.9% of our motoring. Your misogynist characterisation of the a woman as unable to plug a car in is worrying. What charging options are you even talking about? What do you base the 3-year battery life on? No battery ever supplied by Tesla is yet out of its 10 year warranty. A Tesla Model S is an expensive car, but they can sell every car they can make. And I agree that the BMW is an over-priced, deeply flawed, short range noddy-car and symptomatic of the pathetic strategy of mainstream car manufacturers.

Winky,

Im in Canada at the moment and I don't recall the model of Tesla that we have, but it's quite large and cost c. £100k, I think. I did post pictures of both the BMW and the Tesla some months back. So you should I be able to determine the model.

We have four ladies at work and NONE of them is able to figure out how to re-charge either car. We have two re-charging points at the airfield plus we can re-charge overnight from the 240V domestic mains. The choice of supply and the relevant cables seems to baffle them !

Clearly the range of the Tesla YOU are buying suits YOUR needs., otherwise you wouldn't be buying it! But neither the BMW nor the Tesla suits any of the men or women that I work with - and they all have used these cars for many months as have I.

The Tesla suits you. It doesn't suit any of the people I know and who have used it this past year.