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General Motors Says It Will Stop Making Gas-Powered Vehicles by 2035:
General Motors announced Thursday that it will stop making gas-powered cars and trucks and exclusively produce zero-emissions vehicles by 2035, upending the American automaker's decadeslong reputation for producing gas-guzzling SUVs. GM's articulation of an electric future is a seismic shift for the auto industry, particularly the American auto industry, which had lagged behind competitors in the transition to more environmentally-friendly makes and models.
GM said the goal of phasing out petroleum-powered cars and trucks over the next decade and a half in favor of electric and possibly hydrogen-powered vehicles is part of its larger ambition of going carbon neutral in its global production by 2040. "General Motors is joining governments and companies around the globe working to establish a safer, greener and better world," CEO Mary Barra said in a statement. "We encourage others to follow suit and make a significant impact on our industry and on the economy as a whole."
Previously: California Bans New Internal Combustion Engines, Starting in 2035
(Score: 0) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday January 31 2021, @04:30AM (2 children)
Well, they'd goddamn better have some major collateral to back that up...such as nastily-mined rare-Earth metals. We'd have to be sure that we're sitting on a fat supply of our own and those displaced oil workers could resurrect those mines, and/or hope one of our good buddies has a supply. Otherwise, we'll be right back to raping South America with CIA tactics just like the banana republic days.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 31 2021, @04:51AM
Rare earths aren't that rare. They are messy to mine & refine (at least that's what I remember).
Unlike Government, I suspect Mary Barra (and staff) has done some long term homework. For example, GM has been investing in battery research for decades. My guess is that they have some advanced battery designs in the pipeline, nearing production-ready now. They may also have lined up (tentatively) supply chains for rare earths and other materials needed for the changeover.
They have a long history of developing suppliers for their high volume needs. C.1932, they introduced independent front suspension with coil springs. Before that, front axles were on leaf springs. They built (or worked with a supplier to build) a steel wire plant to supply the spring wire (a fancy alloy) and to wind all those springs--no one had the wire making capacity until then.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 01 2021, @12:01AM
It's GM. They're switching from gas to coal.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 31 2021, @04:37AM (20 children)
..and unicorns with shit out the electrical infrastructure to support this, because no one else will
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 31 2021, @04:41AM (19 children)
Looks like you missed the Biden announcement, the US Govt (including 400,000 postal vehicles) is going all electric vehicles, and building-out charging infrastructure at the same time. No timeline yet, but I suspect that will be announced later this year after the Dems work through their near-term issues first.
The timing is good on the Post Office vehicles, many of the current fleet are 30+ years old and near end of life. So they would have to be replaced anyway.
(Score: 4, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday January 31 2021, @05:55AM (18 children)
And you reckon postal vehicles account for enough of the cars on the road to make a big difference do you?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 31 2021, @05:59AM (2 children)
Yes. You got a problem with that, Buzzard? Oh, Biden is doing it with an Executive Order! Oh, the pain, the suffering, the misery it is to be a conservative in a post-Trump world!
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 31 2021, @05:49PM
Misery loves company. Google the word "Perestroika" to learn what your probable future with Biden will hold.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday January 31 2021, @06:33PM
Nah, I just think it's being touted as wonderful when it's really a big, fat nothingburger. Rest assured you will not be using the charging stations at the post office facilities, so that's effectively zero new infrastructure for consumers.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Sunday January 31 2021, @08:07AM (11 children)
Ummm... wasn't that about the charging infrastructure which, once present, will drive the adoption of EV-es and increase their number on the road just to spite TMB?
Biden has been deprived of smelling girls hair and he's now stalking your libertarian butt with keens senses, TMB; not that you could actually do anything to prevent him, but your answer suggest he'll have your ass without you even realizing how and when.
(LARGE GRIN)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday January 31 2021, @06:34PM (10 children)
If it was the person saying it was bloody stupid. You will not be charging your EV at post office facilities without getting arrested.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Funny) by c0lo on Sunday January 31 2021, @09:40PM (9 children)
heh, who says the charging stations will be in the post office facilities?
Biden can executive order 3 charging station outside postal offices for each of the postal ecar. That will keep him busy for a while, 400,000 cars will make for 1,200,000 executive orders, but boy, won't he raise the bar for the number of EO the next president will have to beat?
To put the cherry on top, he'll EO TMB to pay for them.
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 01 2021, @12:08AM (8 children)
There's a limit to how much Biden can order with respect to the USPS, given that it was devolved from government some time ago, and that it's cash-strapped because of the terms of the devolution putting it on the hook for fully funding postal employee benefits - so much so that, despite a positive cash outlook, it's scratching hard for money to dump into that fund.
You can look it up. It's a well-known case history on how not to devolve things from government.
So Biden can order whatever he wants, but his ability to tell the USPS to build things that the feds don't own, with money that the USPS doesn't have, is strongly limited.
Makes for a nice pipe dream, I'll give you that.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday February 01 2021, @12:37AM (7 children)
Not if Biden puts the money down and Congress approves the budget. See also Postal Clause [wikipedia.org]
also, take note of the (grin) whenever present. If not for anything else, to lower the risks of a whoosh.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 01 2021, @01:24AM (6 children)
The postal clause does not turn the USPS into a part of the government. It just means that the federal government can establish a postal service. They did so, some time back, then devolved it. They can do it again. Hell, if they could print enough money, they could have a complete do-over.
However, that would require an act of congress over which Biden has very limited control, and has precious little to do with wishing charging stations into existence. Best case, he could beg the USPS to do it and kiss congressional butts until they give USPS a big enough subsidy to justify the work. Again, none of this translates into the generation infrastructure (which doesn't exist), the transmission infrastructure (which is completely inadequate) the charging terminals (which don't exist in anything like the right quantities or locations) and while all that could be built in principle, even if it were built for the postal vehicles (which Biden doesn't control) that would still be laughably inadequate compared to the needs of millions of vehicles run by people nowhere near postal depots.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday February 01 2021, @02:01AM (5 children)
Letting aside the presence of (grin), are you arguing that the charging stations for "millions of vehicles run by people" will never be built?
On the line of "..and unicorns with shit out the electrical infrastructure to support this, because no one else will"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 01 2021, @02:36AM (4 children)
I'm saying that it would be eye-bleedingly expensive, that doing it through the USPS locations wouldn't meet the need in terms of distribution, and that consequently it makes no sense to expect Biden to address that by using any executive orders. Instead, it's a matter for congress and the location would be better set forth using something like the interstate highway regulations, perhaps starting with rest stops (where they don't already have charging stations - I know that some do).
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday February 01 2021, @02:41AM (3 children)
Letting aside USPS, will a large enough network of charge stations get build by 2035 or not? What do you reckon?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 01 2021, @04:17AM (2 children)
Maybe.
Doubtful.
The problem is the nature of the case.
Right now one can drive in to a fuel station, dump in a full tank's worth (unless you have a secondary or some other huge capacity), and drive out in five minutes or less. A 1,000 mile journey in a day is easily feasible. Assuming no problems with construction or other road blockages, you could drive from San Francisco to Seattle in a day.
Electric charging stations would have to be larger in number (closer together) because of range limitations, would have to somehow charge vehicles a lot faster (not just because of the convenience of customers, but also because of turnover making it a viable proposition) or be much larger to allow for more concurrent customers, and then we still haven't solved for generation. We either need titanically massive storage (inefficient and expensive, and still an unsolved problem) to cope with a very inconveniently peaky renewable electric source, or we need high reliable baseload (i.e. not solar, not wind, not tidal, and geothermal and hydroelectric aren't massive enough and nuclear makes people cry) to deliver enough all the time.
The best bet that I can see is a pre-charged battery pack exchange system, but the charge/discharge/control/maturity/format/heat standard fights are bound to make cellular phone standards look like a huge kumbaya-fest.
But who knows? Maybe we'll get lucky. (And even if they stop selling new ICE vehicles, what's the bet they'll still sell smallblock V8s?)
(Score: 2) by Muad'Dave on Monday February 01 2021, @01:31PM (1 child)
How about a flow battery [wikipedia.org] station, particularly a SLIQ [wikipedia.org]?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 01 2021, @04:13PM
Yeah, a flow battery could work (although the energy density ain't great, even by battery standards) for solving the refuel problem.
The question is how close they get to solving a real-world electric vehicle problem, and unfortunately unless you want to drag over a ton of battery, control systems, containment and so on along, you're still going to be badly range constrained. There are also concerns about safety in general, not to mention the space they take affecting vehicle size, friction and aerodynamic efficiency ... but oh well. Nice idea.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 31 2021, @03:34PM
Unfortunately to get to 100% you have to pass through 1%, 2% and so on. Unlike Trumpian conspiracies that magically state things into existence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 31 2021, @06:29PM
> And you reckon postal vehicles account for enough of the cars...
It's called "lead by example". Rather than trying to wish things into (or out of) existence, Biden appears to be supporting a measured change-over to electric. Once others see that it can be done, the hope is that they will follow. Infrastructure was part of the stated initiative. Just saw in the paper this morning that our local powerline transformer company (all made in USA) is looking at a bright future with all the new charging stations under discussion.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday February 01 2021, @07:09AM
Toldja, TMB.
Biden's energy platform calls for the construction of 500,000 new public charging stations by the end of 2030. [axios.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 31 2021, @04:52AM (33 children)
Let's pretend they solve the problems of battery materials sources, of electricity generation, of delivery infrastructure, of charging times, all of that. Just pretend those problems go up in smoke.
It can't have escaped their attention that many of their customers for those larger vehicles they want to sell look for something particular: over 300 miles of range while loaded under bad conditions. These are the contractors, the farmers, the loggers, the small business folks buying trucks or vans that need to go a long way.
You can do it with batteries, but the energy density just isn't there. This means more weight, on a high torque system, driving the same number of miles. This is worse for the roads - quite a lot worse, in fact, and produces more rubber waste per mile driven (a serious source of pollution in itself). It means heavier-duty suspension components, brakes (brake dust is still a problem), more and heavier lubricants, all those goodies.
I haven't heard so much as a peep about solving any of this, except for a bunch of idiots squawking about how we shouldn't have those vehicles without special licensing because apparently they have no idea of the burden they'll create, and what that'll do to the price every time they want to achieve anything from getting their crap delivered, to calling out Roto-rooter to have their crap flushed out.
So, real talk: what's the prospect of not raising the cost of all this infrastructure and its maintenance, or is this all just a big plan to make life more expensive and damn the consequences?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Sunday January 31 2021, @05:45AM (13 children)
Hydrogen + fuel cells are still electric. Whenever the weight of the vehicle is not an issue, hydrogen will be the first choice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Sunday January 31 2021, @08:49AM (2 children)
Biggest problem with Hydrogen currently is ~85% of the worlds supply is made from Hydrocarbons in an energy intensive process that also generates a LOT of CO2, so Hydrogen is not really as green as most seem to think it is.
There is also the whole 2nd law of thermodynamics that gets ignored too. About 30% of the potential energy from the hydrocarbons and/or electricity used to generate the Hydrogen is lost. It is better to just burn the Hydrocarbons directly or use the electricity directly to charge EV batteries than waste it on Hydrogen production.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Sunday January 31 2021, @09:05AM (1 child)
That's the problem of today, yes.
In 15 year from now, we'll likely have excess intermittent renewables and would have run out of cheap lithium.
Any other cheap energy storage will be OK and water electrolysis and hydrogen storage is among the technologically cheapest - the low hanging fruits, so to say.
We'll deal with increasing efficiencies just a bit later, the start always goes on the "scale up" path, until you run out of the "up" to scale further.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 31 2021, @05:55PM
Yeah, the fruit of this tree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamite_tree [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 31 2021, @05:02PM (7 children)
"hydrogen will be the first choice."
Yeah, for bullshit research grants that exist for no other purpose to create congressional kickbacks.
GM getting into the E-car space, is like Microsoft getting into the Linux space.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 31 2021, @05:54PM
Forget space, let's learn to embrace our congressional kick-backs and go to motherfucking Mars.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Sunday January 31 2021, @09:25PM (5 children)
You reckon Japan is kickbacking the US Congress? [nikkei.com]
Europe perhaps? [greentechmedia.com]
Did you know the world is larger than US?
That the hydrogen fuel cells are already researched for centuries [wikipedia.org]?
That catalysts for cheaper water electrolysis are cheap to prepare [soylentnews.org]?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 31 2021, @11:24PM (4 children)
So same scam different venue. And your point is?
This has been going on for decades. GM gets a research grant for projects it doesn't complete, then uses tax payer monies for political interference. When the electric car mandate happened in CA, GM bought off the CARB, and rescinded the legislation. Then crushed every electric car they made.
The way they did it was by going on a public relations spree touting "Hydrogen Fuel Cell", creating a fraudulent Hydrogen research advisor board, and "employed" /s CARB members onto the board. Basically they wrapped a bribe in a 1040 form, and paid for it taxpayer funded R&D money. After CARB was liquidated, they just forgot about everything and went home. Job well done!
But it turns out they spent more than just the feds kickback money on the subversion of a burgeoning industry, and went bankrupt. (oops) No worries though, the taxpayer is always there to inject more money into most corrupt auto producer in the world. Gotta fund those congressional campaign kickbacks somehow after all!
This is not even scratching the surface of what that company has done over the years BTW. But go ahead, keep lapping up their propaganda if you want. It will be a free country for a while longer... maybe.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday January 31 2021, @11:59PM (3 children)
Oh, yeas! Here lays exposed the international cabal high geared to rob the poor freedom lover of his God given right to rolling coals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 01 2021, @12:03AM
Oh neah! No-one ever expects the GLOBAL cabal!.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 01 2021, @12:53AM (1 child)
You want the masses to believe ZOG cannot use Telegram or Signal?
Even the masses are not that stupid, dude.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday February 01 2021, @01:13AM
Using them for what? Connecting the dots Q put in front of them?
I'm sure they have no problem with both, the grasp on reality is a bit more troublesome for them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 01 2021, @05:20PM (1 child)
Instead of pumping oil out of the ground or extracting it from oily dirt/sand, we should be using sand or wind power to run factories that make artificial gas and diesel using carbon from the air and hydrogen from water. This will let us cotinue to run our existing cars while we transition to electrict vehicles, stop releasing carbon from multi-million year old sources into the atmosphere and give us an answer to the quesiton of "what do we do to store renewable energy for use whn the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing.
I saw at least one start-up company is looking into doing this, and hopefully more will follow.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Monday February 01 2021, @10:32PM
More expensive than making hydrogen from water and transforming the trucks to run on hydrogen.
At best, one can try to make methanol from CO2 and water involving electrolysis to obtain H2, but CO2 capture alone is energy intensive.
See also [iass-potsdam.de]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 31 2021, @05:51AM (12 children)
It's probably more marketing than anything else. Everyone is focusing on "electric" in the statement, but what exactly do they mean by "hydrogen". H2 specifically? Or a different source of hydrogen like liquefied natural gas or propane? Hell, for that matter, they could just use gasoline for their hydrogen source.
Even if it is H2, that might not be super awesome delicious: Hydrogen fuel could widen ozone hole [nature.com]. It is from 2003 so maybe things have changed though.
(Score: 3, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday January 31 2021, @05:59AM (11 children)
Water Vapor Confirmed as Major Player in Climate Change [nasa.gov]. So that'll be a "no" to hydrogen unless this whole hysteria thing was just bullshit from the start.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 31 2021, @07:27AM (7 children)
Shhh. Nobody mentions water being about fifty times the greenhouse gas that CO2 is.
There is a reason for that of course, rain is just an indication that water has hit its saturation point. Any extra will just fall out of the sky.
Of course what the USA really needs is a better rail system. A container* that can easily be shifted from rail to truck for the last mile, better handling at the stations, more tracks and a better tracking system. Shipping stuff via truck from coast to coast is fucking ridiculous.
*A smaller one that locks 8 together to form a standard-sized container would be ideal. Most of the current container infrastructure would be fine, just some new extra stuff to handle the sub-units after breakup (and probably recombine for on-shipping). All 8 would have an exposed end to put a label on, and for the last mile a smallish electric van could handle one or two. Not everyone needs a full container load of stuff at a time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 31 2021, @03:39PM (6 children)
Nobody is saying shhh except you.
The difference is that we are *adding* CO2 to the mixture. Dumbass. Deliberate misinformation dumbass.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday January 31 2021, @06:36PM (2 children)
Which is a fuckton better than adding water vapor, yes.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 31 2021, @06:55PM
Even if you turn on all the kettles at once, you won't move the H2O needle.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 31 2021, @10:02PM
Water liquefaction temperature at 1Atm: 373K
CO2 liquefaction temperature at 1Atm: none, CO2 needs 5Atm to liquefy.
Hence
You never saw rain in TN, TMB?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 31 2021, @11:28PM (1 child)
That's "Mighty Deliberate misinformation dumbass", to you! Nobody can talk to TMB like that! He won't listen, and just crawls further into his alt-wrong bubble.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 01 2021, @12:06AM
If everyone fills up their empty bottles with H2O and stores them in the refrigerator we can offset the H2O released by hydrogen fuel cards AMIMOTHFUCKINGRITE?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 01 2021, @04:08AM
Fail at reading much?
Or are you just getting excited at chanting "Burn the Witch!"
(Score: 5, Interesting) by unauthorized on Sunday January 31 2021, @12:56PM (2 children)
Water vapor's half-life in the atmosphere is a few days, where as CO2 and methane stays for centuries. Since vapor only has a significant greenhouse effect at high atmospheric altitudes, anthropogenic pollution has very little effect in that regard because it's emitted near the surface and tends to fall back long before it reaches altitudes at which it will matter. What the article is referring to is the feedback effect of other sources of warming which increase the overall amount of vapor into the higher levels of the atmosphere. Hotter air can hold more water and thus over the long term a warmer atmosphere will tend to have more water in it, including at high altitudes where it will have a significant greenhouse effect.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 31 2021, @03:40PM
Yea but... ROLLS COAL!! Suck my tailpipe commies!!!lol11!
(Score: 3, Informative) by captain_nifty on Tuesday February 02 2021, @05:49PM
Methane actually doesn't stick around too long in the atmosphere, it has a half life of ~9 years. It's a pretty reactive molecule and it reacts with oxygen and produces CO2 and H2O.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 31 2021, @05:25PM (5 children)
"I haven't heard so much as a peep about solving any of this"
Then you haven't been looking.
The greens have been flogging heavy rail for decades. Yes, it is WAY more efficient for freight than trucking. As for farming, the permies have been sorting that out for decades. Higher diversification in agricultural systems leads to higher production AND lower CO2 footprint.
From a design standpoint, 99% of the engineering required for a carbon neutral planet is complete. What isn't there are the economic mechanisms that allow us to run economies based on long term, rather than short term gains. And that is mostly the result of corruption.
From a legislative standpoint, the best thing that could happen for the environment is for congress to get term limits. Corruption in government needs to become more expensive. If that were the case, then smart people could actually spend their time being smart, rather than blowing every fundamentalist cult leader who creates a fiefdom under the party banner.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 01 2021, @12:28AM (4 children)
Nothing that you mentioned actually addresses the point at hand. Rail is good for terminal-to-terminal stuff, but when you need to move things the metaphorical last mile (which in the USA is a hell of a lot more than just a mile, especially in rough terrain which the USA has aplenty, and is damn expensive to connect by rail) your chief option is ... wait for it .... road! And things like feed mills, silos, construction equipment depots, lumber yards and so on aren't around every corner. Someone is driving their truck up from a long way, loading up a ton or more at a time, and driving back the way they came.
Not air, when you're talking about point-to-point delivery of metric ton pallets of goods, not water (canal infrastructure is even less forgiving than rail in many ways) and not overland mule train. Road. Which means, again, heavier, more powerful road vehicles doing the same job that we do today with commercially available light trucks gulping hydrocarbons.
The "permies" as you put it still need to get their stuff to market, their supplies from market and so on. In fact, they often deal in light truck quantities because they aren't scaling up, like the big boys, to TEU or bulk hauling vehicles. Claims regarding their returns aren't entirely false, but they're still limited by natural rates of replenishment of their nutrients, so the big win from a transportation point of view is that they aren't spending extra time dragging sacks of NPK around.
Nothing in the rest of your post addresses ROAD WEAR AND MAINTENANCE, nor INCREASED RUBBER WEAR nor INCREASED BRAKE PAD DUST nor any of the other suspension-related costs involved. It doesn't address the toxin problems, or the changes in even simple things like the tax structures that people are already complaining about with regard to electric vehicles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 01 2021, @05:14AM (3 children)
I guess perhaps you have a misconception that the level of rail penetration in the U.S. is even remotely close to typical rail capacity in other developed nations. The U.S. has less rail per capita than Numibia. In much of the EU, even small podunk towns have service multiple times during the day, and streetcar service, and bendy bus routes to nearly every place you could want to go.
There have been a number of economic studies done on public trans. vs. cars. In every case the road costs that you refer to exceed the cost of public trans on a per seat mile basis. Or IOW, for every person who switches from car to rail, the state saves money.
The challenges that you refer to regarding terrain are mostly fixed costs, rather than variable costs. Yeah, it is expensive to lay rail in year one. But amortized over 30 years or so, the rail is actually cheaper than the road is, on a per seat mile basis. Even with huge projects like tunnels and bridges. The averages still work out in favor of public trans.
modern EV's have a 300 mile + range. That is more than adequate for regional delivery of agriculture and consumer goods. There are a number of challenges, but they are mostly buerocratic. Lack of intra-state right of way coordination, lack of interest in public works projects etc.
One way to deal with the dilapidated state of U.S. infrastructure would be to extend some of the benefits from the GI bill onto the Civilian Conservation Corps. (still exists in law) and then make CCC citizenship ambivilant. Esssentially make the CCC a path to citizenship for foreign workers, and allow them to build the infrastructure. It has always been that way in this country. The new guy gets to shovel poo for a while, but then figures out how to thrive.
The only place I can see you still really needing fossil fuels is heavy equipment that has to run day-in-day-out without any access to electricity. Graders, dump trucks, cranes etc. Large ships too. But people moving, freight and agriculture can be fully electric for most of the country. I guess your going to say: "what about this, what about that!". Yes those things too for the most part. Look into it, and what you find is that the current financial models backing a lot of those systems are not sustainable over the long term. So the supporting infrastructure will be re-engineered eventually, it and will cost more the longer we wait.
We need to stop manufacturing false scarcity as a nation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 01 2021, @07:39AM (2 children)
Wrong. I've lived in Europe and the US. I'm familiar with the above situation. Of course, europeans were building rail infrastructure before there were even 48 states, but it also matters that the situation is apples and oranges. The EU has about half again the population of the USA, and less than half the territory. This matters for the economic viability of these things - but even if it didn't it'd be a red herring because it doesn't solve the problem of a farmer going to pick up a pallet or two of feed or fertiliser, and trucking it out over a field, or a contractor taking a load of lumber. What do you think they'll do, ask the railway official to just quickly kick three tons of gravel off the side of the train and then haul it by bicycle to the jobsite? No, they'll do what they do in Europe today: use a truck or a van to move their stuff. And given that they're already locked into using that vehicle, they won't bother with the train; they're on the Autobahn. Your reference to Namibia is a complete red herring. Not only does the entire nation of Namibia (I'm assuming that's the one you meant, because Numibia isn't a thing) have a population smaller than that of many american cities, it tends to be clustered tightly around several far-flung locations. This isn't a surprise when a lot of the country is a freaking desert. The real rural dwellers don't get rail service, but fuck them for living in Africa, I guess? Tough break. Logistics are a real inequity in much of Africa.
Again, distances and population densities and topography matter. In the UK there simply is no place that is 100 miles from the sea. Doesn't exist. The island isn't that big. Even if you go from Land's End to John o' Groats, it's about like going from Miami to NYC. And even so the rail network through the grampians is sparse, to say the least (and a lot of what was there was discontinued because it cost too freaking much and they couldn't justify it - there were songs written about it, such as Slow Train). When you have less range to cover you need fewer hauling vehicles making a circuit to have frequent service, and when you have higher density you have more potential passengers. This is why the subway in NYC works out, and bus service and light rail work out in Miami, and the rapid transit in Concrete, Washington will get you nowhere fast.
Yes, that's lovely, but if it doesn't solve the problems at hand, then it's not an economy. Saving raw dollars to the state doesn't mean a damn thing if people are unwilling to use it because it's slow (which it is), inconvenient (which it is), unsuitable for many purposes (which it is), and still leaves many needing private transport anyway (which it does). The case of Washington and Seattle is particularly instructive because it encapsulates so many factors. Washington has a regional commuter train, light rail, ferry system, bus service and of course the monorail to nowhere. It has turned into a huge money sink for which they keep passing more and more tolls and taxes and for which ridership keeps falling below expectations so they keep asking for more tolls and taxes ... for a bureaucrat, it's the gift that keeps on giving. For the politicians it's a headache because they've actually faced multiple rounds of pacifying the angry taxpayers. And even so the buses don't keep pace with traffic in general, the light rail is great if you happen to be going exactly where it does, the ferry system has a captive audience, the monorail is a bad joke, and the commuter train is confidently expected to reach Olympia ... no, wait, it's confidently expected not to reach Olympia before 2040, if ever, because of topography and limited access to limited lines. Not because anybody's being evil, but because the cost of building an additional line across a river valley is laughably ridiculously disproportionate to the population that might benefit.
If a fixed cost is high enough, the amortisation can be well over a century. I actually looked into the Seattle-area commuter rail because it looked like such an obvious case for access all up and down Puget Sound - but then you discover that there's basically one rail line that will get you across the Nisqually valley, over a mile of swampy estuary between hills. You'd have to save a fuckton of money to justify that construction. Roads (like I5) are actually more forgiving. And, yes, I5 is a major shipping corridor that carries vast numbers of trucks up and down that line all the time.
Slow down there, hotshot. Modern EVs in the mass market can do 300 miles (in warm weather, under good conditions, using regenerative braking, while lightly loaded), but they don't do it while hauling a metric ton (the minimum for plausible use in this scenario), below freezing, and even Tesla's cybertruck concept didn't hit all the numbers. Their extended range options are of course well-known: double battery packs (don't exist as an option) or refuel at a high speed charging station (still way slower than glugging in the diesel, and time is money). Performance that is routine for an F250 or comparable vehicle (including van variants) is out of reach for anything available in battery-powered form in the mass market. When you do construct a frankenvehicle that meets your numbers, it carries so much in batteries as to actually take it up a vehicle class simply because of weight - and that means of course heavier-duty wheels, and suspension, and needing a CDL and .... yeah, good times. Bonus: remember the tax bitch about electric vehicles not needing to pay the fuel taxes that supposedly support the running of the highways? These heavier vehicles still won't pay those taxes, but will tear up the roads something fierce compared to grandpappy's Ford Ranger, even if he upgraded it and put in an air ride kit so it can pack on the pounds.
Right-of-way problems are hideous in the USA because of the bill of rights (otherwise Keystone XL would have been a done deal ages ago) but you can't say that there's a lack of interest in public works. Just look at monumental boondoggles like the Californian high speed rail project, or the Seattle tunnel, or Boston's Big Dig. People love the idea of spending other people's money to use as a jobs programme. Even disregarding the CCC (a complete non-starter of an idea for many reasons, including low unemployment, lack of appetite for immigration schemes that benefit foreign workers, and a lack of political will to actually pay the money to fix the shit because of a permanent case of fiscal fingerpointing between states and feds) you have the problem that you can't just suddenly jump up and build a big new thing (even a little rail line across a little valley) without lawsuits galore and monumental payouts before you've set so much as a single concrete form. Even if you had the glorious plan to connect all of Denver and all outlying areas with snowproof rail (pretty much have to be subway) and to have five minute recurring service to all comers, you'd get nothing for a decade - and voters know this. You could get a few idealists on board, and maybe you could drag along the community, but every project that does nothing except suck up tax dollars for a decade sours people on the next big idea. Then when ridership doesn't meet the unrealistic expectations, you get an ongoing political football that can't be dropped without annoying lots of people who cry about underserved communities, and can't be paid for by itself, and won't willingly be paid for by anybody else.
Really? What's the magic refuel plan for your all-day combine harvester run? Those things suck down the agrodiesel in bulk quantities for a couple of weeks a year, and there ain't no battery big enough to replace them. Are you going to say that they're one of your exceptions, or are you going to say that they aren't agriculture at work?
I actually did look into it. With professors looking over my shoulder, no less. You can cry as hard as you want about how unsustainable anything is, but when the best, hottest, sexiest alternative that you can drag along is even worse, a harder sell, less useful and more expensive? You lose that argument every single time. I've ridden a lot of buses, light rail, short and long distance trains in my time and I'm here to tell you that I have never, ever, EVER ridden one that wasn't slower than the alternative, less flexible in terms of haulage as well as schedule. I only ended up using them repeatedly when there was genuinely no alternative (stuck without alternative transport), could overlook the limitations (a commuter line running practically from door to door), or for personal research (what the hell, it's worth a shot). I've done this on three continents, and the result was always the same. Now, to get it back to the original topic, EVs are better than mass transit for the particular use cases in question, but are a terrible deal for the vast majority of working situations except for things like short-haul delivery. The whole topic of rail might maybe make sense if you had ro/ro trains where an EV utility vehicle could hop in a train in a city, reach a terminal and drive off to do whatever, but then you still have to magic the railway into existence, as well as the additional specialised terminal facilities (and heaven forbid you're carrying extended loads or dragging a trailer) and traffic management (all of which takes space in valuable central areas, and doesn't come cheap). Right now the solution to all of this .... doesn't exist. And pending fancy-dancy new battery technology, fancy-dancy transit options, and fancy-dancy infrastructure maintenance that doesn't currently exist, this has all the hallmarks of an avalanche of crap.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 01 2021, @09:37PM
Read the first line. Ignored the rest. I called that a "fundamentalist retard filter". Have a nice day.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 01 2021, @10:27PM
Actually addressing the points in someone else's post and using facts? Please read the terms of service for this site. That kind of behavior will get you shunned by the Soylentils who don't think beyond campaign slogans.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 31 2021, @08:12AM
(Score: 5, Informative) by PinkyGigglebrain on Sunday January 31 2021, @09:04AM
GM did everything it could to kill electric cars in the 1990's, and now it wants to lead the way into a bright and shiny EV future.
I've heard that the first Honda and Toyota hybrids were originally developed because Japan auto manufactures thought they would have to compete with America made EVs, and then they ended up with a big head start when GM and other auto makers managed to sink the EVs in the USA.
I can't help but wonder where the world EV market would be now if GM's EV1 production and sales hadn't been intentionally undermined by GM, other American auto manufacturers and oil companies.
If you want more facts watch "Who killed the Electric Car" for more back ground.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by crafoo on Sunday January 31 2021, @10:27AM (13 children)
GM will say whatever pleases the local and federal government bureaucrats, and whatever has the most political utility for lawmakers that wield actual power.
GM will in fact say just about anything at all.
The question is, what will GM do? They will do what is most economical and rewarding for their shareholders, including of course, their board of directors. You may guide them with new laws and regulations. You may decide that the federal government should have more control over what companies, in general, do with their capital and resources. Do not deceive yourself. This is the very definition of fascism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 31 2021, @02:54PM (3 children)
OH NOES
NOT THE F WORD
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 31 2021, @03:08PM (1 child)
I used to think when I was a child that fascist governments rose to power by crushing the opposition of freedom loving people. Who wants to live in a dictatorship? Then as I got older, I saw that fascism is actually quite popular with A LOT of people. Look at all the press and Democrats who slobbered over the inauguration with a division of the National Guard present and martial law in DC. This is North Korea stuff.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 31 2021, @03:45PM
Almost. But took a wrong turn. Fascists are the oppressed victims who need to protect their heritage. Thanks again by the way to the Proud Boys for saving Western civilization on our behalf - appreciate that.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday January 31 2021, @11:30PM
Ford?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 31 2021, @04:18PM
Sorry, no. Merely being guided by government is not in itself fascism.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday January 31 2021, @10:08PM (6 children)
"GM Will Stop Making Gas-Powered Vehicles by 2035" ... "This is the very definition of fascism."
Oh, wow!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 01 2021, @12:08AM
That's what it literally says in the dictionary.
(Score: 2) by The Vocal Minority on Monday February 01 2021, @04:08AM (4 children)
Sorry I don't think that you get to deliberately misrepresent what the the OP said by putting together two bits of completely unrelated text and say "oh, wow". Really shitty move.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday February 01 2021, @05:14AM (2 children)
So, since his conclusion has nothing to do with the topic, you suggest that I should mod his rant as Offtopic? That would have been a rational decision, but there's too little fun to it.
Otherwise, I washed my hands after making this shitty move, thanks for your concern. (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by The Vocal Minority on Monday February 01 2021, @06:18AM (1 child)
I'm not a big fan of down-modding generally, although I have found myself doing it more and more recently. The rant was in the general vicinity of the topic, I think, even if it didn't address TFA directly. One persons fun is another persons "being a dick" I guess...
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday February 01 2021, @06:42AM
Well, sometimes I'm a nice guy.
Seldom, but it happens, I'm a dick, especially to those that gratuitously stretch an argument to the Godwin limit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 01 2021, @05:27PM
You just accused him of acting like a member of the main stream media.
At least you didn't come out and say he was actualy a member of CNN/MSNBC/ABC/CBS/Fox!!! :P
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Monday February 01 2021, @05:19PM
Not really. Fascism would be the US Government nationalizing GM and taking ownership of it. The feds throwing some new regulations at them doesn't qualify.
Answer now is don't give in; aim for a new tomorrow.
(Score: 2) by Username on Sunday January 31 2021, @11:44AM (13 children)
Which country is Tesla located????
(Score: 4, Informative) by maxwell demon on Sunday January 31 2021, @12:46PM (12 children)
Tesla's car market share is below 1.5%. [insideevs.com] That's insignificant. It may dominate the news, but it doesn't dominate the car market.
By comparison, GM's market share is 16.9% [statista.com] If only every tenth car sold by GM were electric, it would surpass Tesla's EV sales by a wide margin.
Remember, what matters in the end is how much you sell, not how much you are talked about.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 31 2021, @01:50PM (9 children)
So, only 4 doublings in 15 years and Tesla can make GM's accouncement true.
We won't be building any gas-powered vehicles in 2035.
(Perhaps they didn't mention that they won't be making much of anything else either?)
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday January 31 2021, @02:22PM (8 children)
That's assuming Tesla only eats market share from GM. A pretty unrealistic assumption, IMHO.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 31 2021, @04:43PM (1 child)
In the 70's they laughed at that crappy little motorcycle company that started building cars too. Yet Honda ate GMs lunch anyway.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday January 31 2021, @07:54PM
And that is related to my comment how? I don't think people will say “oh, I don't drive a GM, so I won't change to Tesla.”
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Sunday January 31 2021, @04:46PM (5 children)
It's not going to be just Tesla eating that market share. GM has been bleeding [knoema.com] market share since 1962, consistently. My take is that someone is going to get the rest of it too. Tesla probably will get a piece of that, assuming they don't self-destruct first.
There's a couple of other car companies losing market share too. Ford might lose more as well.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday January 31 2021, @07:56PM (4 children)
That still doesn't make the calculation in the post I replied to more correct.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 01 2021, @05:10AM (3 children)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 01 2021, @06:15AM (2 children)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 01 2021, @06:20AM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 01 2021, @12:10PM
The only real question is if Tesla will get it's efficiency and output high enough to compete in the lower priced vehicles. I think they can easily do, and probably will succeed, because there are engineers who worked on those problems still alive and able to be bought. I think GM will eventually just end up selling only crate motors and licensing parts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 01 2021, @05:17PM
That may be true, but it may also be misleading.
What was the iPhone market share compared to things like Motorola Razors and others when it first came out? What was the market share of AMD processors when they came first came out? What was the market share of the early Apple (and PC-clones) compared to servers when they first came out.
How old is Tesla compared to GM, and what has their growth trend been?
This sounds like the "Japanese motorcycles may be good toys, but REAL DRIVERS will always drive Harley Davidsons." It may be true for a snapshot in time, but companies grow (and shrink)... and I've only seen more and more Teslas on the road as the months have passed. Is it guaranteed to increase, no, but to say Tesla is forever insignificant because they are currently insignificant is shortsighted. (And I'd even debate whether they are currently insignificant... in terms of marketshare they are minor, but in terms of the nebulous ideas of "thought leadership," "headspace," and "fashionable" they are VERY strong.)
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Monday February 01 2021, @05:24PM
Yes, however their share of the US EV market is 80% (as of August 2020). https://electrek.co/2020/08/21/tesla-holds-us-ev-market-losing-federal-tax-credit/ [electrek.co]
I also saw that they have 18% of the global EV market as well. Not too shabby, I'd say.
I for one won't buy a Tesla (I hate their interiors), but I will buy from the first company that builds a small (or midsize) full EV pickup truck.
Answer now is don't give in; aim for a new tomorrow.
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Sunday January 31 2021, @01:00PM
Considering they've lost billions from their disaster [youtube.com] deal w/ Nikola [youtube.com], I'll believe it when I see it.
To be oneself, and unafraid whether right or wrong, is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Sunday January 31 2021, @02:49PM (16 children)
That's great that GM is moving to zero-emission vehicles, exclusively. (It occurred to me that they could've been a little sneaky, and pledged to drop gasoline while keeping diesel, but no, diesel is also out.) At the very end, the article mentions that this move is in response to California and their own 2035 deadline on this matter.
Yes, EVs are hard on tires, and can wear them out very quickly. It seems there is an answer: design tires for electric power.
There are other big elephants in the room. Like, suburban sprawl. Americans are highly addicted to the automobile. Lot of ingrained habits and thinking around cars. Even with an all-electric fleet, it is still worth reducing our traveling, and not just to save energy. Electrics won't fundamentally change rush hour and traffic jams. I find it incredibly tiresome to be stuck in heavy traffic, and to have a trip take 50% longer, no matter what vehicle I'm in. Having to leave for work an extra 15 to 30 minutes earlier, to compensate, is a wretched way to start a day. Telecommuting is worth a lot to me. Any employer who wants me to commute every day has to pay a lot more.
Another one is public transportation. The US could do a lot better there.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 31 2021, @03:11PM (6 children)
You don't like the time spent on your commute, but you like (the idea of) public transportation? Public transportation always takes much longer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 31 2021, @03:49PM
Ride a bike - there are no traffic jams ever. Only a minor risk of dressing in lycra.
(Score: 4, Informative) by EEMac on Sunday January 31 2021, @04:18PM (4 children)
Can confirm. I lived in part of the L.A. sprawl for several years. I got intimately familiar with the mechanics of commuting by car and by bus.
I need to be at class/work at 10:00. When do I have to leave the house?
Car: 9:30
Bus: 7:20
There's a reason people want their own cars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 31 2021, @06:00PM (3 children)
> There's a reason people want shorter commutes. In L.A. that's why they are spending $20n on extending the subway and plant to invest more in the future.
FTFY
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 01 2021, @06:17AM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 01 2021, @03:29PM (1 child)
OMG how can it possibly work!?! Subway is such a complex problem that nobody can solve. Nobody.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 01 2021, @04:36PM
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 31 2021, @04:55PM
I notice you're comparing (that is, among the non-telecommuting options) auto with traffic to auto without traffic not the more realistic auto with traffic to bike or mass transit with traffic. Telecommuting is the only clearly superior option to autos no matter what the US's habits and thinking about transportation are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 31 2021, @09:48PM (7 children)
How would EVs be hard on tires? Torque and RPMs are torque and RPMs. If the current EVs are burning rubber with hard starts and stops, that's a driver and/or motor controller problem not a tire problem. If tires used on EVs use a compound with lower rolling resistance and higher wear, they've already designed tires for a particular type of economy but it has nothing to do with EV vs. ICE. A tire with low rolling resistance and longer life would benefit all vehicles, not just EVs.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Sunday January 31 2021, @11:05PM
Tires have evolved to work with the power curves of combustion engines, which start off low, and gradually climb to peak power at a narrow range of rpms. Electric motors start at peak power and hold pretty steady at their peak, until they reach high speeds, at which point their output trends downward slightly. A typical tire for a combustion engine car can't last long as the drive wheel for an electric motor. Tire manufacturers have been working on the problem.
Already, there are a few tires especially designed for EV. Most new EV owners and most tire shops are unaware of this problem. And why shouldn't the tire shop happily sell you tires unsuited for EVs? More repeat business!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 01 2021, @12:40AM (5 children)
There's also the mass factor.
Remember why EVs have those particular low rolling resistance needs: they're range limited, with a given battery set. The manufacturers heavily bias their engineering design compromises in favour of efficiency so that they can claim useful range numbers, even when the vehicles end up narrower, with less payload, headroom and legroom and all the rest of it.
If they actually equipped the vehicles with batteries that would deliver loaded vehicle, cold weather range on a par with a typical internal-combustion competitor, using similar choices in everything from rubber to struts, they would weigh a lot more than they already do. This ends up with vehicles that take a lot longer to refuel, more expensive to maintain and have a bigger footprint in other ways.
It's bad for me. I wish that I could get a 400 mile, 1 ton hauling, 10F conditions truck with all the cool traction control and similar options that electric would offer. But I can't. It doesn't exist. And if it did, it would weigh as much as a typical five ton truck.
That kind of sucks. Physics is a bitch, and chemistry its bastard.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 01 2021, @01:54AM (4 children)
Better batteries are in development, thus one reason that Barra/GM is able to make this announcement. No idea if they will make your 10F performance possible, but they should help get partway.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 01 2021, @02:38AM (3 children)
Better batteries have consistently been in development for decades.
This is a good thing, but the general improvement curve in terms of power density has not been great.
Maybe 2035 would be when it becomes practical (and no, 10F kills the vast majority of battery technologies, or at least massively reduces power storage).
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Monday February 01 2021, @04:25AM (2 children)
Are you old enough to remember NiCads?
I used to have some AA's for the walkman I used going to Uni on a tram. Cheapest were 450mAh. Standard were 500mAh. I eventually payed the big bucks and got expensive 600mAh ones at a specialty shop.
Now you can walk into any supermarket and pick up 2500mAh rechargeable AAs for not much more than single-use alkaline. That's a factor of 5 improvement while dropping the cost a lot. Lithium is much better even than that, but not directly replaceable due to voltage differences.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 01 2021, @05:36AM (1 child)
Maybe you missed the part about the relative energy density of our best battery technologies and, for example, diesel fuel. Lithium/sulphur batteries are amazing. They're about one twentieth the density of diesel (some diesel grades are substantially better).
According to wikipedia, Li-S will get us 1.8MJ/kg, or about 1.26MJ/l. Diesel is more like 43MJ/kg, and rather more per litre because it's less than 1kg/l. To put it another way, 80kg of diesel would take about half a ton of batteries to replace. Sure, there's still a diesel burning engine and transmission (but then there's at least one electric motor too) and there's the heavy diesel tank (but then there's a big heavy battery cage and safety arrangement around that, too).
Maybe it'll all magically get solved, but we're an order of magnitude away from that. Even disregarding fast-recharge problems by going with on-the-fly battery replacement plans for fuel stations, this isn't something that Suzy Suburbia will happily sling around. You'll need automated material handling tools of nontrivial grunt to run this in any kind of efficient fashion.
So, I'm glad you got your Ni-Cad battery situation sorted. That's really cool for you.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Monday February 01 2021, @07:14AM
I never argued that batteries would match liquid fuels, and I think the only one that could even theoretically would be Aluminium-Air.
It was mostly a response to this line.
True, a factor of 5 in 20 years is not amazingly great, but it's not bad, and almost all of it was in the last ten years.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.