New energy transitions: Tipping point for self-organized criticality?
September 9, 2016 7:11 AM Subscribe
Electric vehicles – It's not just about the car - "One of the key characteristics of complex systems, such as the world's energy and transport sectors, is that when they change it tends not to be a linear process. They flip from one state to another in a way strongly analogous to a phase change in material science... A second important characteristic of this type of economic phase change is that when one major sector flips, the results rip through the whole economy and can have impacts on the societal scale." (via)
California is about to find out what a truly radical climate policy looks like - "California is... trying to prove to the world that it's possible — desirable, even — to pursue the really drastic emission cuts needed to stave off severe global warming."
also btw...
-Modeling California policy impacts on greenhouse gas emissions (pdf)
-How Much Energy Storage Would Be Needed for California to Reach 50 Percent Solar?
-Will Texas Surpass California as King of Solar?
-The Eastern US could get a third of its power from renewables within 10 years. Theoretically.
-Here's How Electric Cars Will Cause the Next Oil Crisis [1,2,3]
-Great resource shift leaves investors walking tightrope: "How oil demand pans out over the next 15 years will wield a massive influence on investment portfolios, because oil and gas companies globally comprise more than four trillion dollars of stock market value."
We are seeing this effect in the electricity system right now. The rapid uptake of renewable generation in the power system, unstoppable now because of cost reductions in wind and solar, has not simply rendered a certain proportion of conventional generation uneconomic. It has fundamentally changed the way power markets work, making new investment in other sources all but impossible; it has changed the control paradigm for the grid from base-load-and-peak to forecast-and-balance; it has altered flows of investment throughout the power system and its technology providers; it is forcing through an accelerated digitisation of all electrical equipment. It is even changing the way buildings are designed, the training needed by the construction trades, and the way infrastructure is financed."In the past, revolutions in energy have often come hand-in-hand with revolutions in communication: the First and Second Industrial revolutions of the 1800s and 1900s, for example, were matched by revolutions in steam-powered printing and the advent of radio and television. We already have our revolution in communication: the Internet, which broke away from old, top-down models and instead emphasizes collaboration and lateral, peer-to-peer power. Now, Rifkin says, we need an energy regime that matches it." --Power to the People
We’ve seen this effect before, and not just in the distant past. When the first cell phones appeared, the assumption was that they would be used like normal phones, but on the move. But as their costs came down, their uses rose and they demanded the digitization of the analogue phone network – just as renewable energy is doing now to the power network. Three decades on, cell phones have pushed fixed phones to the fringes; even more importantly, however, they have driven profound changes in sector after sector of the wider economy – the type of holidays we take and how we book them, the mix of shops on high streets and in malls, the way we move around our cities. Mobile phones have eaten entire industries (cameras, alarm clocks, maps) and are set to do the same to others (newspapers, cash handling, music systems). No sector is immune...
California is about to find out what a truly radical climate policy looks like - "California is... trying to prove to the world that it's possible — desirable, even — to pursue the really drastic emission cuts needed to stave off severe global warming."
The state is already on track to nudge its greenhouse-gas emissions back down to 1990 levels by the year 2020. Then last week, after much fierce debate, the California Assembly and Senate passed a new bill, known as SB 32, that would go much further, mandating an additional 40 percent cut in emissions by 2030."The human race is in a twilight zone between a dying civilisation on life support and an emerging one trying to find its legs. Old identities are fracturing while new identities are too fragile to grasp. To understand our situation, we need to step back and ask: what constitutes a fundamental change in the nature of civilisation? The great turning points occur when new, more complex energy regimes converge with communications revolutions, fundamentally altering human consciousness in the process." --Towards an Empathic Civilization
It's hard to overstate how ambitious this is. Few countries have ever achieved cuts this sharp while enjoying robust economic growth. (Two exceptions were France and Sweden in the 1980s and '90s, when they scaled up nuclear power.) The EU is also aiming for a similar 40 percent cut below 1990 levels by 2030, though they've got a head start...
The stakes are enormous: Policymakers everywhere will be watching to see if California can pull this off. Getting a 40 percent cut will require more than bucking up wind and solar and putting more electric cars on the road. It will mean reshaping virtually every facet of the state's economy, from buildings to transportation to farming and beyond... We're talking about a world where California gets more than 50 percent of its electricity from renewables in 2030 (up from 25 percent today), where zero-emissions vehicles are 25 percent of the fleet by 2035 (up from about 1 percent today), where high-speed rail is displacing car travel, where biodiesel has mostly replaced diesel in heavy-duty trucks, where pastures are getting converted to forests, where electricity replaces natural gas in heating, and on and on.
Possible? Sure. Easy? Hardly. The level of effort is just orders of magnitude different from anything California has done so far.
also btw...
-Modeling California policy impacts on greenhouse gas emissions (pdf)
-How Much Energy Storage Would Be Needed for California to Reach 50 Percent Solar?
-Will Texas Surpass California as King of Solar?
-The Eastern US could get a third of its power from renewables within 10 years. Theoretically.
-Here's How Electric Cars Will Cause the Next Oil Crisis [1,2,3]
-Great resource shift leaves investors walking tightrope: "How oil demand pans out over the next 15 years will wield a massive influence on investment portfolios, because oil and gas companies globally comprise more than four trillion dollars of stock market value."
As often as kliuless makes me feel like an underachiever I just start calling him "dad."
Another great post.
posted by Tevin at 7:44 AM on September 9, 2016 [8 favorites]
Another great post.
posted by Tevin at 7:44 AM on September 9, 2016 [8 favorites]
I have been driving a plug-in hybrid (Ford C-Max) for 2.5 years. I love it. I run at about 99 miles per gallon which includes a 5 day a week trip through the Sepulveda pass without charging on the other side. So I get all the way to UCLA in the morning on a charge and about 1/6 of the way home on charge and the rest is gasoline.
A few things I thought I'd see in the 3 years since I leased the car that apparently won't be in production for my new lease coming up in May:
1. MORE FREAKING CHARGING STATIONS! This is ridiculous and California, as mentioned in TFA, needs to step this up. There are no charging stations at my office and two about 1/2 a mile from my office that are usually taken for the day. If I had somewhere to charge at work, I'd probably be getting somewhere around 300 mpg.
2. A plug-in electric that has a better range. Mine has about a 20 mile range. I'd love something with even 30 or 35. 20 is not enough.
3. An SUV type car with plug-in electric capability. Currently, the only ones on the market are a BMW, a Porsche and a Volvo (and the Tesla X if you can call that an SUV). I'd love a lower cost vehicle (Ford Escape, RAV4, etc.) with plug-in electric. I'd get that in a hot second. Right now the C-MAX is all that's close on the market. I haul a lot of stuff (chicken feed, lumber, bee equipment, etc.) so I really need a larger vehicle.
Again, I really thought I'd see this stuff by now, but no. Unfortunately, it looks like I'm going to be leasing another C-MAX until 2020. Hopefully, based on the goals of SB32, we'll have something done by then.
posted by Sophie1 at 7:46 AM on September 9, 2016 [5 favorites]
A few things I thought I'd see in the 3 years since I leased the car that apparently won't be in production for my new lease coming up in May:
1. MORE FREAKING CHARGING STATIONS! This is ridiculous and California, as mentioned in TFA, needs to step this up. There are no charging stations at my office and two about 1/2 a mile from my office that are usually taken for the day. If I had somewhere to charge at work, I'd probably be getting somewhere around 300 mpg.
2. A plug-in electric that has a better range. Mine has about a 20 mile range. I'd love something with even 30 or 35. 20 is not enough.
3. An SUV type car with plug-in electric capability. Currently, the only ones on the market are a BMW, a Porsche and a Volvo (and the Tesla X if you can call that an SUV). I'd love a lower cost vehicle (Ford Escape, RAV4, etc.) with plug-in electric. I'd get that in a hot second. Right now the C-MAX is all that's close on the market. I haul a lot of stuff (chicken feed, lumber, bee equipment, etc.) so I really need a larger vehicle.
Again, I really thought I'd see this stuff by now, but no. Unfortunately, it looks like I'm going to be leasing another C-MAX until 2020. Hopefully, based on the goals of SB32, we'll have something done by then.
posted by Sophie1 at 7:46 AM on September 9, 2016 [5 favorites]
The rapid uptake of renewable generation in the power system, unstoppable now because of cost reductions in wind and solar, has not simply rendered a certain proportion of conventional generation uneconomic.
I assume that when an electrical company builds a plant, they take out a loan. If solar/wind wasn't invented, I'm sure the plant would match forecasted demand and prices and bring in enough cash to pay for itself. But, it sounds like the reduction in cost of solar/wind might be making the coal/nuclear more and more expensive. What happens when it crosses the tipping point - where the plant is too expensive to keep running, but it's not been paid off yet?
posted by rebent at 7:52 AM on September 9, 2016
I assume that when an electrical company builds a plant, they take out a loan. If solar/wind wasn't invented, I'm sure the plant would match forecasted demand and prices and bring in enough cash to pay for itself. But, it sounds like the reduction in cost of solar/wind might be making the coal/nuclear more and more expensive. What happens when it crosses the tipping point - where the plant is too expensive to keep running, but it's not been paid off yet?
posted by rebent at 7:52 AM on September 9, 2016
I assume that when an electrical company builds a plant, they take out a loan. If solar/wind wasn't invented, I'm sure the plant would match forecasted demand and prices and bring in enough cash to pay for itself. But, it sounds like the reduction in cost of solar/wind might be making the coal/nuclear more and more expensive. What happens when it crosses the tipping point - where the plant is too expensive to keep running, but it's not been paid off yet?
It's the performance as a whole energy system that counts. Renewables required subsidies and grants to get started, to make it to viability. Likewise, sunset technologies like coal and gas will operate for a bit in the red til they can be replaced economically, factoring in the possiblility that the plant didn't pay itself off. I don't see nuclear as being a sunset technology just yet btw.
Mothballed powerplants make inexpensive sets for dystopian future movies, or paintball arenas, so there's life in them yet.
posted by Artful Codger at 8:00 AM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
It's the performance as a whole energy system that counts. Renewables required subsidies and grants to get started, to make it to viability. Likewise, sunset technologies like coal and gas will operate for a bit in the red til they can be replaced economically, factoring in the possiblility that the plant didn't pay itself off. I don't see nuclear as being a sunset technology just yet btw.
Mothballed powerplants make inexpensive sets for dystopian future movies, or paintball arenas, so there's life in them yet.
posted by Artful Codger at 8:00 AM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
2. A plug-in electric that has a better range. Mine has about a 20 mile range. I'd love something with even 30 or 35. 20 is not enough.
Chevy at least says that the Volt gets 35 miles to a charge although obviously YMMV.
posted by octothorpe at 8:01 AM on September 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
Chevy at least says that the Volt gets 35 miles to a charge although obviously YMMV.
posted by octothorpe at 8:01 AM on September 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
I want a 50 mile electric pickup, ideally with full size bed, but ranger sized is ok.
I assume the state of the home conversion market is what it has always been? In many ways my old 68, despite being heavy, would be an ok platform, having a heavy drive train to replace and lots of places to stash stuff. Hm.
posted by maxwelton at 8:11 AM on September 9, 2016 [3 favorites]
I assume the state of the home conversion market is what it has always been? In many ways my old 68, despite being heavy, would be an ok platform, having a heavy drive train to replace and lots of places to stash stuff. Hm.
posted by maxwelton at 8:11 AM on September 9, 2016 [3 favorites]
Sophie1, talk to your fellow employees to see (or build up) the demand, then your company's facilities manager. Any company (or apartment complex) can pay companies like Chargepoint to set up chargers, then they get a cut of all electricity sales. So if there is a need, the charger will pay for itself and afterwards it is profitable. It is a win-win situation. (They have several chargers where I work and are considering installing more).
Also, if you wonder if a Tesla X is an SUV, then Tesla has done a really bad job at marketing. Maybe making it aerodynamic makes it look less SUVish.
And, Toyota used to sell an electric RAV4. It flopped, and they stopped making it. Short ranges work for commuting, but not for a general purpose family car or truck, where most people want to use them for lots of purposes, some of which involve driving long distances. What we really need is an affordable Tesla X.
posted by eye of newt at 8:14 AM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
Also, if you wonder if a Tesla X is an SUV, then Tesla has done a really bad job at marketing. Maybe making it aerodynamic makes it look less SUVish.
And, Toyota used to sell an electric RAV4. It flopped, and they stopped making it. Short ranges work for commuting, but not for a general purpose family car or truck, where most people want to use them for lots of purposes, some of which involve driving long distances. What we really need is an affordable Tesla X.
posted by eye of newt at 8:14 AM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
Iceland: A 100% renewables example in the modern era.
And, hot off the press:
Costa Rica has gone 76 straight days using 100% renewable electricity
posted by eye of newt at 8:20 AM on September 9, 2016 [4 favorites]
And, hot off the press:
Costa Rica has gone 76 straight days using 100% renewable electricity
posted by eye of newt at 8:20 AM on September 9, 2016 [4 favorites]
An SUV type car with plug-in electric capability. Currently, the only ones on the market are a BMW, a Porsche and a Volvo (and the Tesla X if you can call that an SUV). I'd love a lower cost vehicle (Ford Escape, RAV4, etc.) with plug-in electric. I'd get that in a hot second. Right now the C-MAX is all that's close on the market. I haul a lot of stuff (chicken feed, lumber, bee equipment, etc.) so I really need a larger vehicle.
I'm in the UK and have just ordered a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. Ironically I wanted a C-Max hybrid but they're not available here.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 8:29 AM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
I'm in the UK and have just ordered a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. Ironically I wanted a C-Max hybrid but they're not available here.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 8:29 AM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
The Volt is a lovely car, but it has pitiful storage. We really need more utilitarian plug-in hybrids and electrics with reasonable ranges. Every time this topic comes up around here I bang on about how I'm astounded that nobody has come up with a hybrid pickup truck. I would belly-crawl over hot coals for one (unless the designers decided to get all weird with it and made some kind of pointless SUV/Truck crossover vehicle—I want a normal pickup, but a hybrid).
The ideal would be an all-electric 4WD plug-in, with a diesel generator in it for range extension. I'd settle for whatever I could get, but right now there's nothing available. I am hoping there will be something bu the time I'm ready for a new vehicle, because the current range of trucks is pretty disappointing to be honest.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 8:30 AM on September 9, 2016 [3 favorites]
The ideal would be an all-electric 4WD plug-in, with a diesel generator in it for range extension. I'd settle for whatever I could get, but right now there's nothing available. I am hoping there will be something bu the time I'm ready for a new vehicle, because the current range of trucks is pretty disappointing to be honest.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 8:30 AM on September 9, 2016 [3 favorites]
My kid is 10. I would really love if, by the time he was 16, he could expect to never need to drive a 100%-gas-fueled car in his lifetime.
But until electrics/hybrids are cheaper than conventional cars, that seems unlikely. We have to buy at the low end of the car market, and that won't change unless we win the lottery. We need subsidies and incentives to make that (and the relevant charging infrastructure) happen, yesterday.
Nothing talks like money. Make renewable options cheaper and people will use them.
posted by emjaybee at 8:36 AM on September 9, 2016 [4 favorites]
But until electrics/hybrids are cheaper than conventional cars, that seems unlikely. We have to buy at the low end of the car market, and that won't change unless we win the lottery. We need subsidies and incentives to make that (and the relevant charging infrastructure) happen, yesterday.
Nothing talks like money. Make renewable options cheaper and people will use them.
posted by emjaybee at 8:36 AM on September 9, 2016 [4 favorites]
One of the things that I always wondered about the range and charging of electric cars was why they wouldn't have swappable batteries. Imagine driving into something like a gas station, but instead it had a big rack of charged and charging batteries. You could sit there while a forklift removed your battery and plugged it into the charger and then replaced it with a charged battery. You then drive off with the full battery and then your drained one gets charged at a good slow rate, not a quick charge that could damage the battery. Say it takes 5 minutes so about the same as a gas stop.
If it takes about 4 hours to charge without using the super fast technology then there could be a constant rotation of cars through this station all getting full batteries very fast. Unfortunately there would be a lot of trust built into the system because the batteries are quite expensive. I could imagine it running on a subscription basis, with an additional cost per charge. That way you would be essentially spreading the cost of new batteries across many years and also many people.
posted by koolkat at 8:57 AM on September 9, 2016 [4 favorites]
If it takes about 4 hours to charge without using the super fast technology then there could be a constant rotation of cars through this station all getting full batteries very fast. Unfortunately there would be a lot of trust built into the system because the batteries are quite expensive. I could imagine it running on a subscription basis, with an additional cost per charge. That way you would be essentially spreading the cost of new batteries across many years and also many people.
posted by koolkat at 8:57 AM on September 9, 2016 [4 favorites]
Alternatively, stop using SUVs. They're not compulsory, and the whole structure of private transportation doesn't need to retain the fossilised DNA of the internal combustion engine.
In the UK, some people have taken to doing their work commute on electric scooters, some of which have removable batteries with wheels and pop-up handles a la travel case. They have two chargers, one at work and one at home, and just recharge for the return trip by plugging in under their desks. Cost of the scooter is around $3k and power costs under a cent a mile even if you don't use the work's juice. And electric bicycles are no longer an unusual sight, even in Scotland where the weather isn't quite California.
I'm also not entirely convinced by the phase-change metaphor. That a combination of new technologies can change the economics of a market is basically how new technologies live or die, it's not exceptional or notable, it's the ground rule. And correlation is not causation: the article says that mobile phones caused the digitisation of the phone system, which is completely arse-about-face; the phone system went digital long before mobile phones were any sort of factor (and indeed, GSM started out as the mobile version of ISDN). What actually made all this happen was Gordon Moore, a fifty-year-long continuous revolution in adjusting what you could do with information for a dollar, and if you want an analogy for that I suggest the evolution of cyanobacteria, But it's all process, not point change. Or World War II - if I wanted to be rich overnight and despised by all right-thinking people, I'd write a book claiming Hitler created Facebook and it would be at the least an arguable thesis.
The power ecosystem is going through lots of changes, and there are plenty more to come. Nobody knows what the effect of climate change will be on renewable infrastructures (nor vice-versa; it doesn't really matter at the highest level how you move energy around the environment, there will be unanticipated consequences.) The increase in efficiency of putting intellgence into distribution and consumption was happening anyway; I hope that the parallel here will be when the Internet took control of innovation away from the phone companies, which was I think a far bigger factor than any one technology.
The winners will be those who find the new niches and exploit them the best, and who stop thinking in terms of how to do the old stuff a bit better. Which is why I find the 'where's my electric SUV?' question really... harrumph.
posted by Devonian at 8:58 AM on September 9, 2016 [7 favorites]
In the UK, some people have taken to doing their work commute on electric scooters, some of which have removable batteries with wheels and pop-up handles a la travel case. They have two chargers, one at work and one at home, and just recharge for the return trip by plugging in under their desks. Cost of the scooter is around $3k and power costs under a cent a mile even if you don't use the work's juice. And electric bicycles are no longer an unusual sight, even in Scotland where the weather isn't quite California.
I'm also not entirely convinced by the phase-change metaphor. That a combination of new technologies can change the economics of a market is basically how new technologies live or die, it's not exceptional or notable, it's the ground rule. And correlation is not causation: the article says that mobile phones caused the digitisation of the phone system, which is completely arse-about-face; the phone system went digital long before mobile phones were any sort of factor (and indeed, GSM started out as the mobile version of ISDN). What actually made all this happen was Gordon Moore, a fifty-year-long continuous revolution in adjusting what you could do with information for a dollar, and if you want an analogy for that I suggest the evolution of cyanobacteria, But it's all process, not point change. Or World War II - if I wanted to be rich overnight and despised by all right-thinking people, I'd write a book claiming Hitler created Facebook and it would be at the least an arguable thesis.
The power ecosystem is going through lots of changes, and there are plenty more to come. Nobody knows what the effect of climate change will be on renewable infrastructures (nor vice-versa; it doesn't really matter at the highest level how you move energy around the environment, there will be unanticipated consequences.) The increase in efficiency of putting intellgence into distribution and consumption was happening anyway; I hope that the parallel here will be when the Internet took control of innovation away from the phone companies, which was I think a far bigger factor than any one technology.
The winners will be those who find the new niches and exploit them the best, and who stop thinking in terms of how to do the old stuff a bit better. Which is why I find the 'where's my electric SUV?' question really... harrumph.
posted by Devonian at 8:58 AM on September 9, 2016 [7 favorites]
. Every time this topic comes up around here I bang on about how I'm astounded that nobody has come up with a hybrid pickup truck.
I feel the same way about minivans/station wagons.
My weekday commute to school is ~15 miles across town through stop and go traffic, it's perfect for an electric vehicle.
I imagine a lot of the use case for family haulers is the same.
Vehicle sits overnight being charged, drives to school, then to work, where it sits for 8 hours being charged, then the same thing in reverse back home.
I'm trying to replace my VW TDI and car lots are just row after row of vehicles that get worse gas mileage than the wood-paneled V-8 Country Squire I rode to school in 1978.
posted by madajb at 9:03 AM on September 9, 2016
I feel the same way about minivans/station wagons.
My weekday commute to school is ~15 miles across town through stop and go traffic, it's perfect for an electric vehicle.
I imagine a lot of the use case for family haulers is the same.
Vehicle sits overnight being charged, drives to school, then to work, where it sits for 8 hours being charged, then the same thing in reverse back home.
I'm trying to replace my VW TDI and car lots are just row after row of vehicles that get worse gas mileage than the wood-paneled V-8 Country Squire I rode to school in 1978.
posted by madajb at 9:03 AM on September 9, 2016
why they wouldn't have swappable batteries
"It’s clearly not very popular," Musk said.
posted by Rat Spatula at 9:05 AM on September 9, 2016
"It’s clearly not very popular," Musk said.
posted by Rat Spatula at 9:05 AM on September 9, 2016
Alternatively, stop using SUVs. They're not compulsory...
Where I live (Canada) monster pot-holes everywhere make higher clearance a desirable feature.
posted by ovvl at 9:24 AM on September 9, 2016
Where I live (Canada) monster pot-holes everywhere make higher clearance a desirable feature.
posted by ovvl at 9:24 AM on September 9, 2016
The thing is, Devonian, a lot of people—people who don't live in dense urban cores—have commutes that couldn't be done comfortably on an electric scooter. Folks like not getting rained on for one thing, and if your commute involves highway driving then your smallest realistic option is really some kind of motorcycle.
And people have their reasons for liking SUVs—cargo space, passenger space, 4WD, high driving position—which are unlikely to change anytime soon. Plus, some people have jobs that require a utilitarian vehicle like a pickup, van, or SUV. Many fleet operators run vehicles like that as well, and would probably jump at the opportunity to reduce their gas costs.
There's a definite market demand that isn't being met. Not everybody who wants better mileage is in a position to move down to a dramatically smaller vehicle.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 9:32 AM on September 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
And people have their reasons for liking SUVs—cargo space, passenger space, 4WD, high driving position—which are unlikely to change anytime soon. Plus, some people have jobs that require a utilitarian vehicle like a pickup, van, or SUV. Many fleet operators run vehicles like that as well, and would probably jump at the opportunity to reduce their gas costs.
There's a definite market demand that isn't being met. Not everybody who wants better mileage is in a position to move down to a dramatically smaller vehicle.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 9:32 AM on September 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
Another, tangentially related factor that will drive enormous change in the electrical generation industry is the ability of efficient battery storage solutions at grid scale to smooth out the historically problematic demand curve. If electric generation could be normalized over a 24 hour cycle and not scaled to meet the peak demand of a hot August afternoon, we could potentially reduce our generating capacity dramatically. Better still, we could cut out the dirtiest plants and significantly lower our pollution and consumption of natural resources. It is hard to overstate the impact this could have, there are entire industries built around helping companies offload their energy consumption to off-peak hours and eliminating massively expensive surge prices. It could literally lower the cost of almost every type of manufactured good.
posted by Lame_username at 9:49 AM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Lame_username at 9:49 AM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
Hey madajb, have you heard of the 2017 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid? It's a plug-in hybrid with a 30-mile electric range that's rated for 80 MPGe, with a total range of 530 miles.
Chrysler is pretty much my least favorite make of vehicle, but if you're in the market for a plug-in minivan this looks to be a game changer. Expect to see more from other companies; Honda has one in the JDM version of the Odyssey already, for instance. They're coming.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 9:50 AM on September 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
Chrysler is pretty much my least favorite make of vehicle, but if you're in the market for a plug-in minivan this looks to be a game changer. Expect to see more from other companies; Honda has one in the JDM version of the Odyssey already, for instance. They're coming.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 9:50 AM on September 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
It's possible that power distribution networks will fall apart in the same way that social networks like Myspace do (or MMORPGs for that matter).
In a social network, everyone has some threshold for staying in the network, which is is some combination of the number of friends and the level of activity. Everyone has different thresholds. When one person leaves the network, it pushes all their friends a little bit closer to leaving the network themselves. You can imagine how once users start leaving, it can snowball on and on until there is no one left.
Similarly, imagine a power distribution network. The subscribers are paying for the cost of maintaining the network, plus the cost of generating power. If one subscriber decides to go off the grid, say getting a solar roof and battery bank, the power company does not have to generate watts for them, but the cost of maintaining the distribution hardware is probably not going to drop a lot. Those maintenance costs have to get shared around a shrinking pool of users, so everyone else shoulders that much more of the burden. As more users leave, the cost for the ones remaining increases, which makes going off the grid look more and more attractive.
posted by rustcrumb at 9:50 AM on September 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
In a social network, everyone has some threshold for staying in the network, which is is some combination of the number of friends and the level of activity. Everyone has different thresholds. When one person leaves the network, it pushes all their friends a little bit closer to leaving the network themselves. You can imagine how once users start leaving, it can snowball on and on until there is no one left.
Similarly, imagine a power distribution network. The subscribers are paying for the cost of maintaining the network, plus the cost of generating power. If one subscriber decides to go off the grid, say getting a solar roof and battery bank, the power company does not have to generate watts for them, but the cost of maintaining the distribution hardware is probably not going to drop a lot. Those maintenance costs have to get shared around a shrinking pool of users, so everyone else shoulders that much more of the burden. As more users leave, the cost for the ones remaining increases, which makes going off the grid look more and more attractive.
posted by rustcrumb at 9:50 AM on September 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
I don't deny that there are places and times when a combination of attributes that an SUV provides is preferable, even necessary. I would deny - living as I do in a non SUV-culture which does have plenty of diversity in use cases - that these are enough to justify the size and importance of the US market in the things.
Am I right in thinking that the SUV really got going through tax breaks for commercial vehicles being applied to domestic markets?
Nor am I saying 'everyone on e-scooters. NOW!'. I would say that anyone who commutes twenty miles a day by themselves in an SUV in an urban environment where the roads work and the weather isn't terrible... might like to think outside the large metal box. There are lots of interesting electric vehicles, and the European market is evolving nicely without the SUV obsession.
posted by Devonian at 9:51 AM on September 9, 2016 [5 favorites]
Am I right in thinking that the SUV really got going through tax breaks for commercial vehicles being applied to domestic markets?
Nor am I saying 'everyone on e-scooters. NOW!'. I would say that anyone who commutes twenty miles a day by themselves in an SUV in an urban environment where the roads work and the weather isn't terrible... might like to think outside the large metal box. There are lots of interesting electric vehicles, and the European market is evolving nicely without the SUV obsession.
posted by Devonian at 9:51 AM on September 9, 2016 [5 favorites]
So I am actually in the market for a new minivan, and I am waiting for Chrysler to actually release the Hybrid Pacifica linked to above. I have 4 kids and so I need a big vehicle. My 13 year old Odyssey is showing its age and is starting to need repairs every 6-8 weeks, but there is still no definite word on when the Chrysler will actually be on the market or at what price. Given my needs there is virtually nothing on the market that I can pick.
posted by bove at 10:04 AM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by bove at 10:04 AM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
I thought Liebrich's blog entry summarising the BNEF work was very interesting. We did some work over the last couple of years and the uncertainty over rates of uptake of EV were a big concern with the distribution network companies, (along with the plenty of other uncertainties in the decarbonising system). There was a lot of concern among the stakeholders we spoke to as to whether EV adoption would be straight line as opposed to sudden switch across society. The jump in electrical demand if it was sudden was seen as problematic and very challenging to deal with.
Its a problem in some places since they are running with a narrow margin of power capacity (eg the UK) but the ability of the grid to deliver it in some places without considerable reinforcement was also seen as a big issue. Since EVs will be domestic they will be charging at the very end of the grid. Connecting one at home would push the peak demand in that home up substantially. If a few people in one street connect EVs up then it has the potential to strain the local grid.
Alternatively if you get a lot in a major urban centre then there could be serious problems. London is seen as the likely centre for EV growth in the UK and its distribution network is already seriously strained. Some form of management of EV charging may well become essential but whether the tools for the job will be in place is another question. The Liebrich blog mentions the potential for use of EV batteries to strengthen the grid but at the moment this is just potential. For it to happen then domestic consumers need smart meters. There needs to be a strong data connection, data warehouse and sufficient capacity to deal with high volumes of data in a relatively short time window to make it worthwhile. Politicians need to introduce legislation needs to allow it to happen (and to reduce consumer privacy as a condition of allowing it). The market needs to offer it as an option and consumers then need to buy into it. There is also the question as to how to charge for using the network since this, along with lots of distributed renewable energy generation will likely short circuit the current charging mechanisms that pay for high and low voltage connections.
This stuff is all necessary, but it is also pretty complex. Not a lot of places are considering much of this, never mind making the changes necessary to enable it.
posted by biffa at 10:20 AM on September 9, 2016
Its a problem in some places since they are running with a narrow margin of power capacity (eg the UK) but the ability of the grid to deliver it in some places without considerable reinforcement was also seen as a big issue. Since EVs will be domestic they will be charging at the very end of the grid. Connecting one at home would push the peak demand in that home up substantially. If a few people in one street connect EVs up then it has the potential to strain the local grid.
Alternatively if you get a lot in a major urban centre then there could be serious problems. London is seen as the likely centre for EV growth in the UK and its distribution network is already seriously strained. Some form of management of EV charging may well become essential but whether the tools for the job will be in place is another question. The Liebrich blog mentions the potential for use of EV batteries to strengthen the grid but at the moment this is just potential. For it to happen then domestic consumers need smart meters. There needs to be a strong data connection, data warehouse and sufficient capacity to deal with high volumes of data in a relatively short time window to make it worthwhile. Politicians need to introduce legislation needs to allow it to happen (and to reduce consumer privacy as a condition of allowing it). The market needs to offer it as an option and consumers then need to buy into it. There is also the question as to how to charge for using the network since this, along with lots of distributed renewable energy generation will likely short circuit the current charging mechanisms that pay for high and low voltage connections.
This stuff is all necessary, but it is also pretty complex. Not a lot of places are considering much of this, never mind making the changes necessary to enable it.
posted by biffa at 10:20 AM on September 9, 2016
Devonian: as a fan of electric bicycles I agree with most of what you say, but one limiting factor in the adoption of such things is the distances that, due to failings of urban planning, many USians (and Canadians) have to cover to do the things they need to do. If everything you need is within a few miles, e-bikes & scooters win every time, but in most jurisdictions they are limited (for good reason) to 20mph. Once your trips start to get into the 10-mile plus range, this starts to really eat into your time and the attractions of something a bit faster start to become more obvious - and I speak as someone who often does the combined school+daycare run and office commute on an electric cargo bike. That run is 11 miles, all told, fortunately for me - but throw kids summer camps into the mix (a challenge I faced for the first time this summer) and even I am all "Damnit, I am taking the car."
It's also worth distinguishing between SUVs and "crossovers" which is what I believe most people in this thread are really talking about. These have almost completely displaced wagons/estates in the NA market, to the point where you have very few choices in the latter but at the same time the mileage penalty for the former has come down to very little. I am kind of a wagon guy but I don't think they are coming back.
posted by pascal at 10:56 AM on September 9, 2016
It's also worth distinguishing between SUVs and "crossovers" which is what I believe most people in this thread are really talking about. These have almost completely displaced wagons/estates in the NA market, to the point where you have very few choices in the latter but at the same time the mileage penalty for the former has come down to very little. I am kind of a wagon guy but I don't think they are coming back.
posted by pascal at 10:56 AM on September 9, 2016
2. A plug-in electric that has a better range. Mine has about a 20 mile range. I'd love something with even 30 or 35. 20 is not enough.
A Nissan Leaf has an 80- to 100-mile range. It's all battery, so you'd be limited to the range of the charge, but for work commutes it seems ideal. I'm mulling getting one as a second car, just for the work ride.
posted by touchstone033 at 10:57 AM on September 9, 2016
A Nissan Leaf has an 80- to 100-mile range. It's all battery, so you'd be limited to the range of the charge, but for work commutes it seems ideal. I'm mulling getting one as a second car, just for the work ride.
posted by touchstone033 at 10:57 AM on September 9, 2016
I don't deny that there are places and times when a combination of attributes that an SUV provides is preferable, even necessary. I would deny - living as I do in a non SUV-culture which does have plenty of diversity in use cases - that these are enough to justify the size and importance of the US market in the things.
The problem is actually similar to that of the electrical grid needing to be able to handle those peak August air-conditioning loads. You probably don't need an SUV every day, but you really need it when you need it and most families can't afford to have both an SUV available just for when they need it and another car for all the other times.
posted by straight at 11:02 AM on September 9, 2016 [3 favorites]
The problem is actually similar to that of the electrical grid needing to be able to handle those peak August air-conditioning loads. You probably don't need an SUV every day, but you really need it when you need it and most families can't afford to have both an SUV available just for when they need it and another car for all the other times.
posted by straight at 11:02 AM on September 9, 2016 [3 favorites]
Hey madajb, have you heard of the 2017 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid? It's a plug-in hybrid with a 30-mile electric range that's rated for 80 MPGe, with a total range of 530 miles.
Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The -
I have, but I've yet to see one in real life.
If they're out, they're pretty damn rare.e
But, yes, I'd happily trade stowable seats or a built-in vacuum cleaner for a set of batteries!
posted by madajb at 11:08 AM on September 9, 2016
Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The -
I have, but I've yet to see one in real life.
If they're out, they're pretty damn rare.e
But, yes, I'd happily trade stowable seats or a built-in vacuum cleaner for a set of batteries!
posted by madajb at 11:08 AM on September 9, 2016
Am I right in thinking that the SUV really got going through tax breaks for commercial vehicles being applied to domestic markets?
That and the minivan's persistent reputation as uncool and stodgy.
posted by madajb at 11:11 AM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
That and the minivan's persistent reputation as uncool and stodgy.
posted by madajb at 11:11 AM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
The new Pacifica is on sale, but I believe you have to wait until next year to get the PHEV. The combination of FIAT and Chrysler quality control doesn't exactly give me great hopes, but this is a pretty unique combination of features right now.
posted by pascal at 11:14 AM on September 9, 2016
posted by pascal at 11:14 AM on September 9, 2016
Unusually for a kliuless post, there's are missing links: Reinventing Fire, the followup to Winning the Oil Endgame, both from Amory Lovins who has been practising "institutional acupuncture" to encourage this stuff to happen since writing Soft Energy Paths: Toward a Durable Peace in the mid 70s.
posted by flabdablet at 11:51 AM on September 9, 2016
posted by flabdablet at 11:51 AM on September 9, 2016
At this point it doesn't make a lot of sense for a pure electric minivan or similar. We've got a Toyota Sienna. Most of the driving in it is 20 miles or less. Except for when we drive 800 miles round trip every 6 weeks. We could get a rental, and we have in the past, but getting something that will fit the whole family starts getting expensive.
If I got a job closer to home, something like a Nissan Leaf starts looking appealing. Could get one parent plus 3 kids to schools and/or errands.
posted by ericales at 11:52 AM on September 9, 2016
If I got a job closer to home, something like a Nissan Leaf starts looking appealing. Could get one parent plus 3 kids to schools and/or errands.
posted by ericales at 11:52 AM on September 9, 2016
All-electric minivans are getting popular among small businesses over here; you can lease one for around 250 quid a month and have vanishingly small pence per mile.
Everyone's lives have Reasons they can't give up something they know they could do better without, or can't fully adopt the progressive option they would like, if only it did factor X. My beef is that the choices within this matrix are artificially constrained by options that like perpetuating the status quo.
My ideal transport situation is where I tell my phone what I want to do, and an autonomous electric vehicle of the right size and capabilities appears outside my door, does what I want and then goes away. It might be an electric trike, it might be an eighteen wheeler. For extra ideal, it will be part of a global public not-for-profit network and the part of a similarly structured lifetime creation-management-decomissioning supply chain.
Because at that point, the system is probably as efficient in terms of resources and footprint as it can be, without imposing restrictions on what I want or need to do - FALCO FTW.
posted by Devonian at 12:35 PM on September 9, 2016
Everyone's lives have Reasons they can't give up something they know they could do better without, or can't fully adopt the progressive option they would like, if only it did factor X. My beef is that the choices within this matrix are artificially constrained by options that like perpetuating the status quo.
My ideal transport situation is where I tell my phone what I want to do, and an autonomous electric vehicle of the right size and capabilities appears outside my door, does what I want and then goes away. It might be an electric trike, it might be an eighteen wheeler. For extra ideal, it will be part of a global public not-for-profit network and the part of a similarly structured lifetime creation-management-decomissioning supply chain.
Because at that point, the system is probably as efficient in terms of resources and footprint as it can be, without imposing restrictions on what I want or need to do - FALCO FTW.
posted by Devonian at 12:35 PM on September 9, 2016
USian SUV's are the unholy union of poor regulation and the arms race of highway driving.
The regulation was for fuel standards, and the SUV qualified as a truck under the standard. That's the short of it.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 1:00 PM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
The regulation was for fuel standards, and the SUV qualified as a truck under the standard. That's the short of it.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 1:00 PM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Kia Soul EV. Here in Georgia, we had a big tax credit for EVs until last year, and so we have a surprising diversity of EVs. The Soul seems to have filled some niche or other.
posted by hydropsyche at 3:24 PM on September 9, 2016
posted by hydropsyche at 3:24 PM on September 9, 2016
One of the things that I always wondered about the range and charging of electric cars was why they wouldn't have swappable batteries.
Better Place tried to make the battery-swapping model work, but fell apart. No idea what proportion of that was due to mismanagement of that particular company vs inherent limitations of the model, but it seems like both contributed. The network effects of this kind of thing are huge - it only works if you have enough battery-swap stations across a wide enough area that people are confident there'll be one when they need one and won't get stranded. Plug-ins have the same problem re charging stations, but to a lesser extent as there are alternatives (e.g. home charging for those with garages).
posted by une_heure_pleine at 4:13 PM on September 9, 2016
Better Place tried to make the battery-swapping model work, but fell apart. No idea what proportion of that was due to mismanagement of that particular company vs inherent limitations of the model, but it seems like both contributed. The network effects of this kind of thing are huge - it only works if you have enough battery-swap stations across a wide enough area that people are confident there'll be one when they need one and won't get stranded. Plug-ins have the same problem re charging stations, but to a lesser extent as there are alternatives (e.g. home charging for those with garages).
posted by une_heure_pleine at 4:13 PM on September 9, 2016
Devonian - perhaps your concept of SUV is too USian - a big, overpowered, overly plush sedan on steroids truck wannabe.
I want an electric Sport Utility Vehicle. (or maybe just a utility vehicle). An all-electric one of these would suit me down to the ground. Somebody, please make it so.
posted by Artful Codger at 6:02 PM on September 9, 2016
I want an electric Sport Utility Vehicle. (or maybe just a utility vehicle). An all-electric one of these would suit me down to the ground. Somebody, please make it so.
posted by Artful Codger at 6:02 PM on September 9, 2016
^ the Soul looks to me to be the typical Korean clone of the Japanese original (Leaf in this case).
At any rate their annual sales to date is the Leaf's monthly sales:
http://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/
The EV Rav4 didn't flop as much as it was actively not-sold, being a "compliance market" offering that Toyota was taking an absolute bath on.
They were rather expensive, at a $50,000+ MSRP. They used the Tesla drivetrain so are a much better car than the Leaf, but having driven both I'm much happier in my Leaf and its sub-$20,000 price after all incentives.
I've got a 30 mile R/T daily commute so the Leaf has been perfect for me this year. Aside from having spent maybe $20 on charging over the past 10 months [I've got free DC charging thanks to Nissan's "No Charge To Charge" program that I'm taking advantage of] Leafs also have very low maintenance costs -- changing the brake fluid every 15,000 miles is the major scheduled maintenance expense.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 6:09 PM on September 9, 2016
At any rate their annual sales to date is the Leaf's monthly sales:
http://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/
The EV Rav4 didn't flop as much as it was actively not-sold, being a "compliance market" offering that Toyota was taking an absolute bath on.
They were rather expensive, at a $50,000+ MSRP. They used the Tesla drivetrain so are a much better car than the Leaf, but having driven both I'm much happier in my Leaf and its sub-$20,000 price after all incentives.
I've got a 30 mile R/T daily commute so the Leaf has been perfect for me this year. Aside from having spent maybe $20 on charging over the past 10 months [I've got free DC charging thanks to Nissan's "No Charge To Charge" program that I'm taking advantage of] Leafs also have very low maintenance costs -- changing the brake fluid every 15,000 miles is the major scheduled maintenance expense.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 6:09 PM on September 9, 2016
This has nothing to do with the actual post, but I'll poke at the mention of SOC.
Self-organized criticality is a term of art in physics for a fairly obscure and less-useful-than-the-discoverers-thought-it-was, mostly for explaining things with radical inequalities in them.
The reason why it's less useful than the discoverers thought it was is that mere positive feedback effects can explain a lot of things a lot easier (see MEJ Newman's review on power laws and 1/f noise). If you ever wonder why complex systems have a lot of positive feedback effects going on, it's instructive to stare at Pesin's theorem (his entropy formula) for a while. This phase change phenomenon is not special, or it is the essence of specialness: most fundamentally, it's present in NP-hard problems in computer science, and is pretty characteristic of NP-hard problems.
Bak, Tang, and Wiesenfeld's model (by far the most cited and most important SOC model) is still pretty fun, although it only fits physical phenomena poorly, except in avalanches of piles of long-grained rice (it's useful to keep around poor models - Copernicus proposed his model in 1543, and it was pretty crap until Kepler un-crappified it by various methods half a century later).
Of interest is the contention, variously and strangely put forth, that neural networks (in the various mean-field formulations, mean-field BM, mean-field MLP) phenomena of transient chaos (which would also entail positive Lyapunov exponent in the dynamical bits) and that neural networks like what listens to your voice on Alexa or whatever are an attack on MAX-CSP (which was a commonplace in the 80's in neural net land but apparently is not now).
And of course the fact that monetary time series have positive Lyapunov exponent was one of the essential points of Mandelbrot (in his economic mode), sort of occluded by the fact that he didn't talk much with the dynamicists.
posted by hleehowon at 6:21 PM on September 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
Self-organized criticality is a term of art in physics for a fairly obscure and less-useful-than-the-discoverers-thought-it-was, mostly for explaining things with radical inequalities in them.
The reason why it's less useful than the discoverers thought it was is that mere positive feedback effects can explain a lot of things a lot easier (see MEJ Newman's review on power laws and 1/f noise). If you ever wonder why complex systems have a lot of positive feedback effects going on, it's instructive to stare at Pesin's theorem (his entropy formula) for a while. This phase change phenomenon is not special, or it is the essence of specialness: most fundamentally, it's present in NP-hard problems in computer science, and is pretty characteristic of NP-hard problems.
Bak, Tang, and Wiesenfeld's model (by far the most cited and most important SOC model) is still pretty fun, although it only fits physical phenomena poorly, except in avalanches of piles of long-grained rice (it's useful to keep around poor models - Copernicus proposed his model in 1543, and it was pretty crap until Kepler un-crappified it by various methods half a century later).
Of interest is the contention, variously and strangely put forth, that neural networks (in the various mean-field formulations, mean-field BM, mean-field MLP) phenomena of transient chaos (which would also entail positive Lyapunov exponent in the dynamical bits) and that neural networks like what listens to your voice on Alexa or whatever are an attack on MAX-CSP (which was a commonplace in the 80's in neural net land but apparently is not now).
And of course the fact that monetary time series have positive Lyapunov exponent was one of the essential points of Mandelbrot (in his economic mode), sort of occluded by the fact that he didn't talk much with the dynamicists.
posted by hleehowon at 6:21 PM on September 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
The main reason why I'm not personally interested in any of the current all-electrics is that I like to go hiking in New Hampshire on the weekends, a trip of over 100 miles each way. There are no charging stations at the trailheads.
Until either range or charge times improve by about an order of magnitude, my ideal vehicle has a plug-in electric drivetrain and a hydrocarbon-fueled generator. I've always felt that a small diesel generator would be ideal, since a diesel engine's favorite thing is to hang out at its most efficient rpm and just keep cranking away.
Using diesel generators in hybrid cars also opens up the possibility of biodiesel, which is more sustainable than fossil furl and also carbon neutral. The efficiency gains from switching to this system might even make it possible for biodiesel to be a mainstream fuel, perhaps eventually displacing fossil diesel.
That's my dream, anyway. Nobody seems to be developing in that direction, though I don't see why not. If anybody thinks they know why not, I'd be interested to hear about it.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 6:43 PM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
Until either range or charge times improve by about an order of magnitude, my ideal vehicle has a plug-in electric drivetrain and a hydrocarbon-fueled generator. I've always felt that a small diesel generator would be ideal, since a diesel engine's favorite thing is to hang out at its most efficient rpm and just keep cranking away.
Using diesel generators in hybrid cars also opens up the possibility of biodiesel, which is more sustainable than fossil furl and also carbon neutral. The efficiency gains from switching to this system might even make it possible for biodiesel to be a mainstream fuel, perhaps eventually displacing fossil diesel.
That's my dream, anyway. Nobody seems to be developing in that direction, though I don't see why not. If anybody thinks they know why not, I'd be interested to hear about it.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 6:43 PM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
Biodiesel fuel is currently very uneven in quality, and it gums up or gels at lower temps. It may need some level of commercial refinement or blending before it's a full replacement for petro-diesel.
Diesel-electric drive is already in use in railroad and ship propulsion, but unless you're going to dedicate like 30% or more of your car's hauling capacity to a diesel generator and batteries... it isn't yet viable for the personal vehicle.
posted by Artful Codger at 7:11 PM on September 9, 2016
Diesel-electric drive is already in use in railroad and ship propulsion, but unless you're going to dedicate like 30% or more of your car's hauling capacity to a diesel generator and batteries... it isn't yet viable for the personal vehicle.
posted by Artful Codger at 7:11 PM on September 9, 2016
Just out of interest, is this Nissan electric van and its variants available in the US?
posted by Devonian at 8:25 PM on September 9, 2016
posted by Devonian at 8:25 PM on September 9, 2016
Because at that point, the system is probably as efficient in terms of resources and footprint as it can be, without imposing restrictions on what I want or need to do
'The system' also encompasses the built environment, and the much bigger potential increases in efficiency would come from changing the built environment to allow people to conveniently use their own feet, supplemented by mass transit, to get around. Potentially, I could see these new vehicles helping in that regard: safety for pedestrians, utility on demand, no need for acres of car storage space in central cities, etc.
However, I've also seen the prospect of electric/autonomous vehicles just around the corner being used as a justification for why we don't need to/shouldn't change any of the rules we have that make walkable development impossible. Because who'll want to walk when cars are even more convenient than they are today? All the more reason to double down on urban design based on cars and cars only, because why would you waste resources on other modes that hardly anyone uses?
posted by alexei at 11:44 PM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
'The system' also encompasses the built environment, and the much bigger potential increases in efficiency would come from changing the built environment to allow people to conveniently use their own feet, supplemented by mass transit, to get around. Potentially, I could see these new vehicles helping in that regard: safety for pedestrians, utility on demand, no need for acres of car storage space in central cities, etc.
However, I've also seen the prospect of electric/autonomous vehicles just around the corner being used as a justification for why we don't need to/shouldn't change any of the rules we have that make walkable development impossible. Because who'll want to walk when cars are even more convenient than they are today? All the more reason to double down on urban design based on cars and cars only, because why would you waste resources on other modes that hardly anyone uses?
posted by alexei at 11:44 PM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
^ the Soul looks to me to be the typical Korean clone of the Japanese original (Leaf in this case).
No. I've heard it accused of being a clone of the Scion xB or the Nissan Cube. It's just a "micro SUV" that's been around for awhile but now comes in an EV version, which I thought some folks on the thread might be interested in. Sorry to harsh your vibe or whatever.
posted by hydropsyche at 5:06 AM on September 10, 2016
No. I've heard it accused of being a clone of the Scion xB or the Nissan Cube. It's just a "micro SUV" that's been around for awhile but now comes in an EV version, which I thought some folks on the thread might be interested in. Sorry to harsh your vibe or whatever.
posted by hydropsyche at 5:06 AM on September 10, 2016
Not sure what you mean, Artful Codger. The Chevy Volt already does exactly what I described above, only with a gasoline generator instead of a diesel one. So tge system clearly can work in passenger cars. I just figure that diesel would be a bit more efficient yet than gasoline, and that such cars could run off of biodiesel or a blend, a patgway to renewable energy that doesn't really have an equivalent with gasoline.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 5:57 AM on September 10, 2016
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 5:57 AM on September 10, 2016
I so wanted a plug-in hybrid when we bought a new car last year, but:
* they had huge lumps in the storage area
* most of them got significantly worse fuel economy than regular hybrid
* they were jeezly more expensive
* they only came in fleet-safe/old person colours
* dealers did. not. want. to. sell them to us. They knew nothing about them, had no brochures, and really wanted us to buy a car with presumably a higher commission. The Ford guy even started in on modelling to show that the life cycle cost of an F-150 truck would be less.
There are few if any hybrid pickup trucks because people who buy full-sized trucks also want big-engine-go-vroom. Us sensitive mefites aren't even a footnote to a sales demographic, sorry. Also, trucks have all the aerodynamics of a spoon sideways, so they primarily exist to use up the hilariously cheap fuel we subsidize the crap out of in North America.
posted by scruss at 6:42 AM on September 10, 2016 [1 favorite]
* they had huge lumps in the storage area
* most of them got significantly worse fuel economy than regular hybrid
* they were jeezly more expensive
* they only came in fleet-safe/old person colours
* dealers did. not. want. to. sell them to us. They knew nothing about them, had no brochures, and really wanted us to buy a car with presumably a higher commission. The Ford guy even started in on modelling to show that the life cycle cost of an F-150 truck would be less.
There are few if any hybrid pickup trucks because people who buy full-sized trucks also want big-engine-go-vroom. Us sensitive mefites aren't even a footnote to a sales demographic, sorry. Also, trucks have all the aerodynamics of a spoon sideways, so they primarily exist to use up the hilariously cheap fuel we subsidize the crap out of in North America.
posted by scruss at 6:42 AM on September 10, 2016 [1 favorite]
Not sure what you mean, Artful Codger. The Chevy Volt already does exactly what I described above, only with a gasoline generator instead of a diesel one. So the system clearly can work in passenger cars.
I wasn't aware that the Volt's gas engine drove a generator, so thanks for that. Still I can't find the numbers for the fuel efficiency of the Volt's combustion engine-generator-electric motor combo by itself. You have to think that if the above combo was more efficient than the conventional combustion engine-transmission arrangement, we'd have seen alot more use of it before now.
And the Volt's still expensive, and there's less people and cargo room than in other comparably-sized cars. So, for now, it's a work in process.
posted by Artful Codger at 8:28 AM on September 10, 2016
I wasn't aware that the Volt's gas engine drove a generator, so thanks for that. Still I can't find the numbers for the fuel efficiency of the Volt's combustion engine-generator-electric motor combo by itself. You have to think that if the above combo was more efficient than the conventional combustion engine-transmission arrangement, we'd have seen alot more use of it before now.
And the Volt's still expensive, and there's less people and cargo room than in other comparably-sized cars. So, for now, it's a work in process.
posted by Artful Codger at 8:28 AM on September 10, 2016
Biodiesel is problematic because the production of it is competing for land with other agricultural uses, and with natural habitats, so you can't scale up without doing massive damage to the environment. Wind turbines you can just plop down anywhere with little effect on the surrounding environment, or share space with existing farmland, or put it in the ocean. Solar you can put on rooftops, parking lots, and in the middle of the desert. Biodiesel also isn't seeing the same rate of improvement in price that wind/solar and battery technology are seeing, so it's going to be priced out of the picture except for niche uses.
It's hard to win when your price is staying about the same or even increasing and your competitor's price is on a downward exponential curve. And when we get solid state batteries, it's gonna be game over for most other storage technologies. It'll be a battery electric world. If I were a car manufacturer I wouldn't even bother further developing diesel-electric hybrid tech. Gasoline will do fine until the battery electrics get cheap enough to replace them.
posted by hyperbolic at 11:26 AM on September 10, 2016
It's hard to win when your price is staying about the same or even increasing and your competitor's price is on a downward exponential curve. And when we get solid state batteries, it's gonna be game over for most other storage technologies. It'll be a battery electric world. If I were a car manufacturer I wouldn't even bother further developing diesel-electric hybrid tech. Gasoline will do fine until the battery electrics get cheap enough to replace them.
posted by hyperbolic at 11:26 AM on September 10, 2016
No. I've heard it accused of being a clone of the Scion xB or the Nissan Cube. It's just a "micro SUV" that's been around for awhile but now comes in an EV version, which I thought some folks on the thread might be interested in.
We got a Soul EV back in March - I really like it. (and the fact that's a clone of the xB was a big argument in its favor.) the range is over 100 miles on a charge, which is plenty for our day-to-day driving, and it's surprisingly roomy.
I suspect that, by the time the lease runs out in 2 1/2 years, the battery technology will have advanced far enough that 300 miles on a charge will be commonplace. That, plus better deployment of high-speed charging stations, will be the tipping point.
posted by chbrooks at 2:32 PM on September 10, 2016
> I wasn't aware that the Volt's gas engine drove a generator, so thanks for that.
The initial marketing made it sound like the Volt was a purely a series hybrid (where the gasoline engine -> generator -> battery -> electric motor), but at some point it was revealed that the gasoline engine can directly propel the car if necessary, though the Volt won't run if the primary electric motor won't. There are 3 units in total, a primary electric drive motor, a second motor/generator, and the gasoline engine, and they are used as necessary to move the car forwards and charge the batteries through the complicated "Voltec" transmission.
The Volt's biggest eco feature is the fact that will go as far as it can on battery power alone before engaging the gasoline engine (some 50 miles), so the transmission is designed to be able to do that, more so than the Prius' transmission with a higher top speed in EV-mode.
Semi tangentially, the price on stand-alone generators (for RVs and such) have plummeted with the popularization of inverter-generator technology which makes me wonder if grid-less power might be able to make the same leapfrog for rural areas as telephone service did - running phone lines all over the place is much more expensive than a single cell phone tower. Solar + batteries + a tiny gasoline generator for when solar isn't enough, with electronics to manage it automatically so it is easy to use.
posted by fragmede at 1:11 PM on September 11, 2016
The initial marketing made it sound like the Volt was a purely a series hybrid (where the gasoline engine -> generator -> battery -> electric motor), but at some point it was revealed that the gasoline engine can directly propel the car if necessary, though the Volt won't run if the primary electric motor won't. There are 3 units in total, a primary electric drive motor, a second motor/generator, and the gasoline engine, and they are used as necessary to move the car forwards and charge the batteries through the complicated "Voltec" transmission.
The Volt's biggest eco feature is the fact that will go as far as it can on battery power alone before engaging the gasoline engine (some 50 miles), so the transmission is designed to be able to do that, more so than the Prius' transmission with a higher top speed in EV-mode.
Semi tangentially, the price on stand-alone generators (for RVs and such) have plummeted with the popularization of inverter-generator technology which makes me wonder if grid-less power might be able to make the same leapfrog for rural areas as telephone service did - running phone lines all over the place is much more expensive than a single cell phone tower. Solar + batteries + a tiny gasoline generator for when solar isn't enough, with electronics to manage it automatically so it is easy to use.
posted by fragmede at 1:11 PM on September 11, 2016
I bought my CPO volt back in march. It was a 2013 with about 33k miles on it for around 15k. I commute roughly 88 miles round trip to work every day, with frequent trips offsite to other areas around our main office. I've been averaging around 113mpg. I took the car on a long family trip from Indiana to South Carolina and my average MPG for that whole trip was around 65mpg.
posted by tylerfulltilt at 3:14 AM on September 12, 2016
posted by tylerfulltilt at 3:14 AM on September 12, 2016
Is there any difference in efficiency when you compare using the petrol engine/generator to charge the battery to drive with electric motors, versus using the petrol engine to directly power the wheels?
posted by EndsOfInvention at 5:07 AM on September 12, 2016
posted by EndsOfInvention at 5:07 AM on September 12, 2016
The advantage to a generator-only setup is that it means the engine can operate at whatever RPM is most efficient for it, rather than having to rev up and down as the car accelerates and decelerates. If you've ever driven a car with a realtime MPG indicator, it's immediately obvious that some speeds are more efficient than others, and that accelerating or going uphill just totally trashes your MPG. With a generator setup, you can design an engine that is optimized to provide power at whatever rate the battery prefers for charging, and it can pretty much stay at that optimal RPM all the time (or else be shut off). This more than offsets the losses from converting the mechanical output to electricity, storing it, and then converting it back to mechanical energy again through the electric motors. This is how trains work, only they use turbines instead of piston engines because turbines are considerably more efficient again. (The higher complexity, long start-up times, and high temperatures associated with turbines make them unsuitable for use in passenger cars, though.)
I was unaware that the Volt didn't have this setup. That's too bad, it seems like a really promising design. I wonder what kept them from going that route; the system fragmede describes sounds like a compromise.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 5:29 AM on September 12, 2016
I was unaware that the Volt didn't have this setup. That's too bad, it seems like a really promising design. I wonder what kept them from going that route; the system fragmede describes sounds like a compromise.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 5:29 AM on September 12, 2016
Another reason trains went diesel-electric is that it's far easier and cheaper to control electric motors than it is to make a honking mechanical transmission to drive the wheels.
I've been following the various flavours of combustion/electric hybrids tried in boats, which you'd think would be a natural place to use them (more room for batteries, more cruising at a steady speed)... but it just ain't there yet. Main reason is complexity; a diesel engine turning a propellor is dirt simple and (mostly) reliable, hybrids have more points of failure. There is a small increase in efficiency possible, but it's not justified by the much higher system cost and complexity.
posted by Artful Codger at 6:18 AM on September 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
I've been following the various flavours of combustion/electric hybrids tried in boats, which you'd think would be a natural place to use them (more room for batteries, more cruising at a steady speed)... but it just ain't there yet. Main reason is complexity; a diesel engine turning a propellor is dirt simple and (mostly) reliable, hybrids have more points of failure. There is a small increase in efficiency possible, but it's not justified by the much higher system cost and complexity.
posted by Artful Codger at 6:18 AM on September 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
Thanks for the answer, I should have known another GSV would have all the technical details.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 6:31 AM on September 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by EndsOfInvention at 6:31 AM on September 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
I've got a 2016 Volt. I thought it had a generator only set-up; I looked online and apparently it doesn't. It's primarily electric, but it does get some power out of the engine when it's on. I've got a 32 mile RT drive to my work, and when I'm driving by myself I can't charge at work but since I get about 50 miles electric only it doesn't matter. When I carpool, it's a bit farther but my husband can charge it at his work. It's supposed to have a 58 mile electric only range; but that only happens when the air conditioner or heater isn't needed.
We're probably never going to buy a gasoline only car again. The only concern is long trips. So far, I'd like to continue having a Volt or something else with a gas/electric hybrid. I suppose we don't go on that many; but it's pretty reassuring knowing you don't have to rent a car.
posted by stoneegg21 at 10:15 PM on September 19, 2016
We're probably never going to buy a gasoline only car again. The only concern is long trips. So far, I'd like to continue having a Volt or something else with a gas/electric hybrid. I suppose we don't go on that many; but it's pretty reassuring knowing you don't have to rent a car.
posted by stoneegg21 at 10:15 PM on September 19, 2016
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