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posted by Fnord666 on Friday July 07 2017, @06:16PM   Printer-friendly
from the I-have-methane dept.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40518293

France is set to ban the sale of any car that uses petrol or diesel fuel by 2040, in what the ecology minister called a "revolution".

Nicolas Hulot announced the planned ban on fossil fuel vehicles as part of a renewed commitment to the Paris climate deal.

He said France planned to become carbon neutral by 2050.

Hybrid cars make up about 3.5% of the French market, with pure electric vehicles accounting for just 1.2%.

It is not yet clear what will happen to existing fossil fuel vehicles still in use in 2040.


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  • (Score: 2) by jcross on Saturday July 08 2017, @03:10AM (5 children)

    by jcross (4009) on Saturday July 08 2017, @03:10AM (#536384)

    I agree with what you're saying about energy density and range, but I think the importance of that stat rests on some assumptions that may not apply for much longer. If you want to take a really long trip in a vehicle that you own, you probably want an ICE. But if your goal is to get from A to B in a private cabin as quickly as possible, current battery tech coupled with emerging self-driving tech might be able to do better.

    First of all, there's no need to take time charging if you can switch batteries or even just get into another car at a waypoint. Iirc Tesla has demonstrated doing 2+ battery swaps in the same time it takes to fill a gas tank. That should take care of the range problem unless you're traveling a long way from the electrical grid, which I think would mean nowhere in France. I haven't seen this discussed much, but if the car were computer driven, and especially if all cars on the road were, it could safely drive much faster than any human, while also minimizing g-forces with perfectly tapered deceleration on curves, even anticipating turns the car can't see yet. Extending range by forming a tight peloton on the highway or even linking together into bus-like vehicles. Seamlessly driving onto specialized train cars and taking high-speed rail for longer legs of the journey. Better streamlining because human visibility of the road is no longer needed. I could probably keep going but you get the idea.

    And far from being more expensive in a larger sense, my guess is it would be much cheaper. I don't have the exact figure, but fuel is not the bulk of the expense of a personal car in money or energy terms. I think more money/energy is spent building and maintaining a car than will be used in fuel over its lifetime given average driving habits. We currently have a massive fleet that spends the bulk of its time rusting in garages. Now, at times we may need a lot of cars at the same time, for example when commuting if everyone works 9-5. But imagine something like Uber Pool, but cheaper than you could possibly manage by driving yourself, and you could easily cut the number of cars by 3-6x just by making sharing convenient. Congestion would virtually disappear so everyone would spend less time commuting, and they would all skip the stress of driving and be able to do something relaxing instead. You can even maintain privacy by splitting the car into personal compartments. I can still imagine a few people insisting on a personal gas vehicle in this scenario, but not so many.

    I'm probably missing tons of stuff here, but my point is that even with current technology, the transit landscape could change so radically that figures of merit like energy density or fuel cost aren't nearly as important as they are now. All it takes is a little imagination.

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday July 08 2017, @04:00AM (4 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday July 08 2017, @04:00AM (#536402) Journal

    I agree with what you're saying about energy density and range, but I think the importance of that stat rests on some assumptions that may not apply for much longer. If you want to take a really long trip in a vehicle that you own, you probably want an ICE. But if your goal is to get from A to B in a private cabin as quickly as possible, current battery tech coupled with emerging self-driving tech might be able to do better.

    First of all, there's no need to take time charging if you can switch batteries or even just get into another car at a waypoint. Iirc Tesla has demonstrated doing 2+ battery swaps in the same time it takes to fill a gas tank. That should take care of the range problem unless you're traveling a long way from the electrical grid, which I think would mean nowhere in France. I haven't seen this discussed much, but if the car were computer driven, and especially if all cars on the road were, it could safely drive much faster than any human, while also minimizing g-forces with perfectly tapered deceleration on curves, even anticipating turns the car can't see yet. Extending range by forming a tight peloton on the highway or even linking together into bus-like vehicles. Seamlessly driving onto specialized train cars and taking high-speed rail for longer legs of the journey. Better streamlining because human visibility of the road is no longer needed. I could probably keep going but you get the idea.

    The thing is the advantages of self-driving and related technologies apply to gas-powered vehicles as much as they do to electric vehicles. Those advantages of gas-powered vehicles such as range and lower mass still apply. There's much less need for switching batteries or waypoints when your vehicle can just do several hundred miles in one trip. And just as you can automate a battery swap to get much faster turnaround speed, you can do the same with gasoline fueling. A lot of these supposed advantages of electric and self-driving vehicles only happen because no one has otherwise bothered to do it with the current gasoline technology due to the relative efficiency of the current processes compared to the current inefficiencies of the proposed new processes requiring a higher degree of automation in order to become competitive.

    • (Score: 2) by jcross on Saturday July 08 2017, @12:28PM (3 children)

      by jcross (4009) on Saturday July 08 2017, @12:28PM (#536506)

      I still think self-driving tech mitigates the disadvantages of electric cars, and there are some real advantages in other areas. For instance, if I had to manage the maintenance of a fleet of vehicles in near-continuous use with minimal breakdowns and downtime, I think I'd rather it be a fleet of electrics. There are fewer moving parts and components can be made more modular, for example you can put the motors right behind the wheels, so the whole assembly can be swapped out if needed with just a plug connecting it to the chassis. Modern gas engines have become fairly reliable, but whenever anything does go wrong (and it often will on a car driving 20 hours a day), they're a real pain in the ass to maintain. Then you have the emissions, which I'd personally rather not be breathing. Electrics are quieter both inside and outside the cabin. Maybe these are small things, but I think the market will speak for itself when the time comes. Think about it this way: currently the super-rich seem to hire a limo or employ a personal driver because they can afford it. Do they give a shit what's under the hood? Subtract the expensive driver and I imagine most people will want that. Once the bulk of vehicles are owned by the likes of Uber, the market will be tuned to the demands of fleet management, and all the chicken/egg problems of charging or battery-swapping will be much easier to solve.

      Also, this range obsession doesn't make much sense to me in places like France. If I'm taking a long trip there, I can't think of a reason not to take a train, and if cheaply hired cars can drop me off at the station and take me wherever I need to go at the other end, why would I want to go through the expense, hassle, and danger of driving myself all that way? If you're used to how transit works in the USA, then sure, gasoline is king, but only because our passenger rail system has deteriorated to developing-world quality. Scratch that, it's worse: I've ridden on Indian trains and they're pretty decent. And yes, a lot of trains are diesel-electric hybrids for all the range reasons you're talking about. I'm just predicting that personally owning and driving a gas-powered car won't be what the French market wants anyway in 20 years.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday July 08 2017, @01:35PM (2 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday July 08 2017, @01:35PM (#536523) Journal
        On the maintenance issue, sure, electric vehicles have advantages in some areas and drawbacks in others. Lower range, battery life issues, and higher weight per axle will impact maintenance and operational complexity in the other direction.

        Also, this range obsession doesn't make much sense to me in places like France. If I'm taking a long trip there, I can't think of a reason not to take a train, and if cheaply hired cars can drop me off at the station and take me wherever I need to go at the other end, why would I want to go through the expense, hassle, and danger of driving myself all that way?

        Why do that hassle when you can just take a cheaply hired, self-driving car for the entire ride, start to finish? No need for waypoints or hopping transportation modes. As to safety, let us keep in mind the most dangerous parts of your outlined trip are the end points which you handled by car anyway. As I noted before, gasoline-powered vehicles also benefit from self-driving automation. It doesn't make sense to compare electric self-driving to gasoline non-self-driving, where most of the alleged virtue of the former comes from the self-driving aspect rather than the electric vehicle aspect.

        My view here is that most mass transit fails hard when it comes to the most common mode of transportation in the world - point to point. Most people want to go to specific places when they take a trip. Self-driving vehicles help fix that, but electric versus gasoline is almost an afterthought in comparison. I can see various subtle nuances that give advantages which might make one choice better than the other in certain circumstances (particularly, pollution control), but I think the supposed advantages of electric are exaggerated. It certainly doesn't make sense to pick winners and losers decades in advance in such a situation.

        • (Score: 2) by jcross on Saturday July 08 2017, @04:10PM (1 child)

          by jcross (4009) on Saturday July 08 2017, @04:10PM (#536556)

          As you say it's a complex set of tradeoffs. I guess we'll see!

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday July 08 2017, @10:26PM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday July 08 2017, @10:26PM (#536665) Journal
            As an aside, you wrote:

            Maybe these are small things, but I think the market will speak for itself when the time comes.

            Here, the France government deciding to kill hydrocarbon vehicles in twenty years is not an example of the market speaking. Fortunately, there's more to the market than just France, but it's worth noting that it's kind of empty to talk of the market while governments have put their thumbs on the scale.