how do you feel about electric performance cars?
The thing that has always made me love cars is the interaction between the machine and the driver. The engine feels like a living, breathing thing with a beating heart. With an old hotrod, the engine and the driver are a team. Tuning, maintaining, and extracting the best possible performance requires that the driver is involved and engaged.
With electrics, the car doesn't even need you. It can do everything on its own. Electric cars have HUGE advantages which sucks almost all of the fun out of it. We now have sedans that any old granny can get in, push a couple of buttons and run a 10 second quarter mile. Literally. What the hell is the point?
They're undeniably cleaner, easier to maintain, cheaper to run, quicker to accelerate. I can't believe how little those advantages mean to me on an emotional level.
Vegiterians make soy crap to look and taste like meat....
Just sayin.....
Don't knock it until you've tried it.
I tried one of those Impossible Whoppers...went back for a few more! They're damn near as good as the real thing! I like the idea of being able to eat a burger and not turn into a fat slob with cholesterol coming out of my nose. If it's easier on the environment, all the better.
I LOVE gasoline powered muscle, but I have to admit I really like the electric movement too. It just shows hot rodding is gonna LIVE no matter what. Google Tesla powered Mercury. If you don't like that car, you got some problems. lol
I hope you're right...but it seems like it's easy enough to make everything with an electric motor do 0-60 in 3 seconds which doesn't leave much room for hotrodding. What's the point when the rolling jellybean (Tesla Model 3) can keep up with a Ferrari?
Yeah, heard the same argument from AOC, but it was about cows farting in a field.
Check out how much pollution/energy consumption comes from that industry. Clean that mess up and we can go back driving to big block C Bodies to work every day. Between clearing trees for farm land to grow the feed, the land and energy to tend to them, the methane that comes out of their butts, the energy to refrigerate and transport meat...it's not sustainable on a planet with 7.5 billion people.
As far as I am concerned, the electric cars are pure bullshit, and here is why.
- The entire bullshit green industry, including electric cars are all heavily subsidized by the U.S. taxpayer.
- Electricity storage is nowhere near as portable or dense compared to liquid hydrocarbons, and will not be for a long time.
- The battery packs do wear out over time. What is going to be done with these dangerous and toxic things at the end of their life? Are we just going to be NIMBYs and send them off to China or India, so somebody else's kids get fucked up with those toxic things?
- The entire lifetime cost of these is hidden, I do not know what it is, that data is not readily available to me, and that tells me it is a LOT worse than those pushing these boondoggles want us to know.
If these things can compete on a fair and level playingfield, without government subsidies, if one could "fill up the tank" in a matter of minutes such that the TIME investment is competitive with liquid hydrocarbons, if the disposal of the end of life parts is made abundantly clear, if the electrical grid were robust enough to support a
HUGE hammering at around 5-9 pm that even a 5% of the population would put to it, if the population actually CONSIDERED where their magical unicorn rainbow fart dust electricity came from...
As far as I'm concerned, it's a huge scam.
As far as I know, you're right on with some of your points here. My input is that you may be suffering from a lack of imagination and faith in human ingenuity. :D
These problems are solvable.
Yes. Batteries do lose performance with cycling. Internal resistance increases as they chemically break down with each cycle. That said, internal combustion engines deteriorate with use too. The rate of performance loss is probably pretty darned similar. 100k+ mile Teslas are showing ~90% of their battery performance is intact. The software minimizes the most abusive conditions for batteries (running too low, overheating, etc).
The waste from used-up batteries is a concern but the components of the batteries are largely recyclable. The lifetime cost has been analyzed over and over again...and electrics come out on top. Nearly zero maintenance, significantly lower cost per mile offsets the cost of the batteries, apparently.
Good point about the electrical grid but this can and will be upgraded as needed.
Electricity generation is definitely a source of pollution. The net production of pollution and CO2 emissions is still lower than having each car burn it's own fuel apparently. Plus, pollution can more easily be managed when it comes from one source. Electricity can be generated in part from renewable sources like solar, geothermal, hydro power...that diversity of sources is a huge plus. We're not reliant on OPEC or the system of refineries that just happen to have a fire or another reason to shut down when fuel prices are low. :rolleyes:
As for taxpayer subsidies...I don't know about these. There is a tax break on purchasing them that doesn't apply to normal cars which is supposed to help get the tech off the ground. Is that what you mean? That won't last too much longer, I would guess.
One simple answer: In order to support a magical "now we are all electric cars" world, and the coming increase, there simply is not enough lithium to do so. The recycle/ toxic/ pollution problems associated with lithium make current automotive pollution look like a hair in your soup
Yeah. The supply of lithium is a bottleneck. There are a lot of people trying to come up with the next battery tech. The pollution associated with lithium are significant but have you seen what it takes to get aluminum out of the ground? Huge electrical consumption on top of the environmental damage from any kind of mining...
I have to wonder what the range would be when it is -30 outside and you have to run the heater at full power.
Good call. Range definitely takes a hit in the cold weather. This is a big problem but it's not exclusive to electrics. Internal combustion cars get worse mileage/range in the cold too. Denser air requires a more fuel to maintain the right mixture. Once the engine is totally warmed up, the difference isn't that big (and you can make more power thanks to the cold air) but a lot of extra gas is wasted in the mean time, never mind the raw fuel emissions that come from cars with cold catalytic converters.
For
Electric
Cars
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Liberals
FECAL
As someone who has views that can be categorized as conservative and some that would be called liberal, I just want to say cut this crap. We can handle disagreeing and debating so long as we remember that we're on the same team. Both "sides" have good points from time to time and we succeed by taking the best ideas from each. Just my .02
