Volvo to phase out the combustion engine starting in 2019

[Masark]

Really? -20 celsius and 700km to travel without a charging station.

A lot of gasoline vehicles won't handle that either. Every vehicle my family owns would be needing a gas station well before 700km.

[Doctor Funkenstein]

What is sad about electric cars is that it will kill the car culture, or at least what is left of it.

Oh, well, that's definitely a reason to keep obsolete technology around (even though this is an example of stupidity in action; electric cars are still cars) and mock the newer, significantly improved technology replacing it. No sarcasm to be found here. Honest.

I'm still pissed about bronze rendering the stone weapon culture obsolete. And then iron had to come around and ruin that culture. GAWWWWWWWD.

[Vash The Stampede]

What is cleaner than a horse? Do you get it now? If you set your goal to "clean" this is what you get. Electric engines are not clean, they are just a bit cleaner, and less powerful - do you see the trend?

Don't know what you mean about clean, because electric engines produce no byproducts, with the exception of heat. In terms of efficiency, they're above and beyond gas engines. The best gas engine though wastes a lot of energy, mostly as heat. An electric motor something like 90% efficient, while a gas engine is 35% to 45% efficient. If only we could just recycle that lost heat.

Also power is subjective. Gas engines have to deal with power curves where electric engines don't. So in top speed a gas engine might be quicker, but not when it comes to torque. But unless you plan to go to 200+ mph, I don't see a reason to mention power. But you can make the argument of power to weight ratio, as those batteries aren't light.

The main source of pollution is mass production. Sure, it'll help a little, but simply by supporting and supplying this infrastructure we create more pollution than we "reduce" by removing combustion engines. Especially talking about production in china, where half of their energy comes from fucking coal

I'm just interested in electric cars cause they're super simple and one day I dream of having solar power for my home to recharge my electric car with. When I can reach that point, I can officially give the power company my middle finger, as well as gas stations.

[Tackhisis]

A lot of gasoline vehicles won't handle that either.

Gasoline vehicles can carry gasoline, and the driver can refuel it without tools. With electricity? Forget it.

[Masark]

Gasoline vehicles can carry gasoline, and the driver can refuel it without tools. With electricity? Forget it.

So they first need a gas station to fill the jerry cans.

[oxymoronic]

Teslas biggest thing is the price. Once car makers can reliably make an electric car with a 150-300mile range for around 15 to 25k range then I'm sure they'll become more mainstream.

how long will it take to recharge? im guessing road trips will not be happening. even 15m is way too long.

[Jinpachi]

Volvo must not want to stay in business. RIP.

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Don't know what you mean about clean, because electric engines produce no byproducts, with the exception of heat. In terms of efficiency, they're above and beyond gas engines. The best gas engine though wastes a lot of energy, mostly as heat. An electric motor something like 90% efficient, while a gas engine is 35% to 45% efficient. If only we could just recycle that lost heat.

Also power is subjective. Gas engines have to deal with power curves where electric engines don't. So in top speed a gas engine might be quicker, but not when it comes to torque. But unless you plan to go to 200+ mph, I don't see a reason to mention power. But you can make the argument of power to weight ratio, as those batteries aren't light.




I'm just interested in electric cars cause they're super simple and one day I dream of having solar power for my home to recharge my electric car with. When I can reach that point, I can officially give the power company my middle finger, as well as gas stations.

You'll never create enough power from rooftop solar panels to charge your car. And electric cars today are NOT clean because the power generated to supply the batteries with energy still comes from burning fossil fuels at the power plants. Replace all of the gasoline cars tomorrow with electric(and the infrastructure to support them) and you'll have just as much pollution from the production of the batteries, the power plants, and all of the lower-tier manufacturers. It's a big fucking scam, ill pass on the 'lectric meme

[unfilteredJW]

how long will it take to recharge? im guessing road trips will not be happening. even 15m is way too long.

Man, I hope I can travel 200+ miles in 15 minutes!

That sounds awesome.

[Jinpachi]

Don't know what you mean about clean, because electric engines produce no byproducts, with the exception of heat. In terms of efficiency, they're above and beyond gas engines. The best gas engine though wastes a lot of energy, mostly as heat. An electric motor something like 90% efficient, while a gas engine is 35% to 45% efficient. If only we could just recycle that lost heat.

Also power is subjective. Gas engines have to deal with power curves where electric engines don't. So in top speed a gas engine might be quicker, but not when it comes to torque. But unless you plan to go to 200+ mph, I don't see a reason to mention power. But you can make the argument of power to weight ratio, as those batteries aren't light.




I'm just interested in electric cars cause they're super simple and one day I dream of having solar power for my home to recharge my electric car with. When I can reach that point, I can officially give the power company my middle finger, as well as gas stations.

You'd better check the local housing codes where you live. They are making it illegal to be unhooked to the powergrid. Good luck telling the city no when they come to hook you up for the water. PUCO wont let these become mainstream.

[Severance]

You'll never create enough power from rooftop solar panels to charge your car. And electric cars today are NOT clean because the power generated to supply the batteries with energy still comes from burning fossil fuels at the power plants. Replace all of the gasoline cars tomorrow with electric(and the infrastructure to support them) and you'll have just as much pollution from the production of the batteries, the power plants, and all of the lower-tier manufacturers. It's a big fucking scam, ill pass on the 'lectric meme

The bigger problem is that they're still cars. It's not just fossil fuels that power them, but fossil fuels that create them too. All of that metal, rubber, liquids, greases, and glass have to come from somewhere. Then you need fossil fuels to ship them, of course, and the industry that pops up around the vehicles to service them will have similar demands on fossil fuels as well.

It's nice to dream of a clean future, but these half steps aren't good enough.

[Surfd]

how long will it take to recharge? im guessing road trips will not be happening. even 15m is way too long.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Supercharger

Tesla supercharging stations charge with up to 145 kW of power distributed between two adjacent cars, with a maximum of 120 kW per car. That is up to 16 times as fast as public charging stations; they take about 20 minutes to charge to 50%, 40 minutes to charge to 80%, and 75 minutes to 100%. The charging stations provide high-power direct-current (DC) charging power directly to the battery, bypassing the internal charging power supply. The next version of Supercharging is expected to charge with more than 350 kW

Road trips are quite doable, if you can plot points between locations with a super-charger. Take off, stop for lunch and charge the car, drive some more, stop for dinner and charge the car, drive some more.

Just takes a bit of planning.

[SL1200]

You'd better check the local housing codes where you live. They are making it illegal to be unhooked to the powergrid. Good luck telling the city no when they come to hook you up for the water. PUCO wont let these become mainstream.

Why would you unhook? The power company will pay you if your meter spins backwards.

[Deleted]

Electric engines are widely used for public transportation since invention of electric engines, I dunno, at least 50 years. It's the only efficient way to use electric engines as transportation. Instead of putting heavy batteries (that need recharging) in each vehicle you build electric lines along the roads - and public transport is attached to these lines at all times, drawing electricity from the city's energy grid directly.

There's nothing saying that you can't construct a car battery that takes 10 seconds to load and lasts for weeks. Just look at how immensly more powerful todays computers are compared to just 20 years ago.

[Elim Garak]

There's nothing saying that you can't construct a car battery that takes 10 seconds to load and lasts for weeks. Just look at how immensly more powerful todays computers are compared to just 20 years ago.

A battery is not a computer. Neither is the electric engine. Power requirements are vastly different. Hence electric tanks are so heavy, and so short charged and long recharged.

[Camthur]

I look at Electric Cars the same way as I do broadband availability. Sure, the folks who live in the busy central areas will have access to some nice options, but most of the rest of the United States gets jack squat/mediocre options.

I don't foresee myself every having an electric car. I live 10 miles out from a small town in a Rural area. There's very few places that would be viable charge locations. (especially no the dirt/gravel driveway where I part my car up on the hill)

Also, I foresee some problems with charging trends. Many people will plug their cars up when they get home. Long hot Summers where the AC is drinking current in the day and cars are drinking at night might be a very heavy strain for our systems to deal with.

[Elim Garak]

Also, I foresee some problems with charging trends. Many people will plug their cars up when they get home. Long hot Summers where the AC is drinking current in the day and cars are drinking at night might be a very heavy strain for our systems to deal with.

Shhh, don't ruin the utopia. In a world where smartphones leak and burn their owners, or outright explode - electric cars for everybody will do JUST FINE.

[Camthur]

Just for fun, I went and looked up how many public chargers there are anywhere near me. My county has zero. Surprisingly, one of the power companies has a super charger in the county to the north. (one of those 10 mile away places). The nearest charge to the west and east are roughly 50 miles away. The nearest to the south is 35 or so. Quite a few of them the further south you go. (many seem to be places where charging is only available during business hours)

Most seem to be normal charger types. In a huge 50 mile circle around where i live on the map, there might be 4 or 5 of those fast chargers. Many seem to be very specific charger types too. (like Tesla)

More importantly though, Do I ever go to those counties?
west? Nope
East? Nope
North? Quite often actually
South? Maybe once a month tops.

So, if I never ever went anywhere and just let it sit in my drive way, I could TOTALLY have an electric car.

[Elim Garak]

One additional point for CLEAN - what would all the energy converted into HEAT while charging BILLION of cars would do to the CLIMATE? We will be LITERALLY heating up the planet at NIGHT. Converting fossil fuels into HEAT. Releasing more moisture into atmosphere, intensifying CO2 effect... fuck.

[Deleted]

One additional point for CLEAN - what would all the energy converted into HEAT while charging BILLION of cars would do to the CLIMATE? We will be LITERALLY heating up the planet at NIGHT. Converting fossil fuels into HEAT. Releasing more moisture into atmosphere, intensifying CO2 effect... fuck.

This is an attempt at humor, right.

[Akka]

A lot of gasoline vehicles won't handle that either. Every vehicle my family owns would be needing a gas station well before 700km.

Well, on this one you can thank the wasteful culture of North America, with oversized cars and pointlessly big engines. My car can routinely do 900 to 1100 km between each refill.