The Future is Electric

SilverEagle · April 5, 2014

http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/04/04/5707011/the-future-is-electric.html

" But consider this: According to numerous studies on our driving habits, only 1 percent of all trips in automobiles go farther than 70 miles. Realistically, that means that 95 percent of the time we are in a car, we can easily get where we’re going in any modern all-electric."

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/04/04/5707011/the-future-is-electric.html#storylink=cpy

Stan R · April 5, 2014

Great article silver.

MeanGreenTexan · April 5, 2014

I can just see it now:

"Ladies & Gentleman, it has been an exciting past 24 hours here at the 2050 Daytona 500. We're only on lap 160 out of 200 and we've seen these supercars reach a speed of 75mph a few times so far, but they're averaging a much more manageable 55mph!

Jimmie Johnson Jr and Dale Earnhardt III are neck & neck at the front right now, but they're about to come in for their 40th pit stop of the day. The plugmen have the fast-chargers ready, they also have frappuchinos & Kindles ready for their respective drivers during the 15-minute charging downtime. It just doesn't get any more exciting than this folks!"

Mean Green 93-98 · April 5, 2014

" But consider this: According to numerous studies on our driving habits, only 1 percent of all trips in automobiles go farther than 70 miles. Realistically, that means that 95 percent of the time we are in a car, we can easily get where we’re going in any modern all-electric."

So what does he suggest doing for the remainder of our trips, that extend beyond the range of an electric or "range-extending motorcycle engines"?

ChristopherRyanWilkes · April 5, 2014

I can just see it now:

"Ladies & Gentleman, it has been an exciting past 24 hours here at the 2050 Daytona 500. We're only on lap 160 out of 200 and we've seen these supercars reach a speed of 75mph a few times so far, but they're averaging a much more manageable 55mph!
Jimmie Johnson Jr and Dale Earnhardt III are neck & neck at the front right now, but they're about to come in for their 40th pit stop of the day. The plugmen have the fast-chargers ready, they also have frappuchinos & Kindles ready for their respective drivers during the 15-minute charging downtime. It just doesn't get any more exciting than this folks!"

If this will get rid of NASCAR,I'm all for it.

TheTastyGreek · April 6, 2014

I can just see it now:

"Ladies & Gentleman, it has been an exciting past 24 hours here at the 2050 Daytona 500. We're only on lap 160 out of 200 and we've seen these supercars reach a speed of 75mph a few times so far, but they're averaging a much more manageable 55mph!

Jimmie Johnson Jr and Dale Earnhardt III are neck & neck at the front right now, but they're about to come in for their 40th pit stop of the day. The plugmen have the fast-chargers ready, they also have frappuchinos & Kindles ready for their respective drivers during the 15-minute charging downtime. It just doesn't get any more exciting than this folks!"

You're joking, but the reality is that the transformative power of F1 will (as it often has) drive innovation and evolution in performance car technology.

Started with KERS and engine restrictions, and it's obviously in their future: http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikescott/2014/03/13/formula-1-feels-the-need-for-fuel-efficiency/

And, this year, FIA launched Formula E: http://www.fiaformulae.com/ All electric, they pull 140 on a road course, and this is only the first year.

MeanGreenTexan · April 6, 2014

You're joking, but the reality is that the transformative power of F1 will (as it often has) drive innovation and evolution in performance car technology.

Started with KERS and engine restrictions, and it's obviously in their future: http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikescott/2014/03/13/formula-1-feels-the-need-for-fuel-efficiency/

And, this year, FIA launched Formula E: http://www.fiaformulae.com/ All electric, they pull 140 on a road course, and this is only the first year.

That's great and all, but it's more fun to imagine hillbilly NASCAR dudes driving around in Prius-looking cars though.

seriously, that's neat.

SilverEagle · April 6, 2014

So what does he suggest doing for the remainder of our trips, that extend beyond the range of an electric or "range-extending motorcycle engines"?Well, I don't know what Ed would suggest, but I've noticed that most families have two cars. One can be all electric and one can be a hybrid.

SilverEagle · April 6, 2014

If this will get rid of NASCAR,I'm all for it.

Yeah right. NASCAR will go away as soon as rebel battle flags are no longer in vogue.

SilverEagle · April 6, 2014

Once Google (or someone else) perfects the self driving car, my fantasy is that it will be all electric, run by a voice command sync-like system, and it will help ease the coming crisis of boomers getting to old to drive themselves.

Mean Green 93-98 · April 6, 2014

Well, I don't know what Ed would suggest, but I've noticed that most families have two cars. One can be all electric and one can be a hybrid.

That wouldn't work for everybody, but that would work for a lot of people. Regardless, it pretty well shoots down his thesis. There may be far more electric cars in the future; but if households are typically having one car that runs on gasoline, I don't know that I could call electric cars "the norm."

UNTFan23 · April 6, 2014

There are lots of hidden costs to owning an all electric or even a hybrid car. Better hope none of the batteries die out while you own the vehicle; replacement batteries are not cheap. Neither is getting a high-speed charger installed in your home. Better have 2 120-volt breaker slots open otherwise you will likely need a new breaker box installed. Charging with a 120-volt charger takes several hours, which might be fine for an overnight charge but if you're running around town, the high-speed stations are what you'll need to find and those stations aren't on every corner.

For all electric cars to really go mainstream huge improvements in infrastructure need to be made.

UNT90 · April 6, 2014

Gonna have to find a way to bring down the sticker price and the cost of replacement batteries for the hybrid before it can become an option for lower economic class Americans.batteries cost around 2K to replace.

Also, not all American families can afford 2 vehicles.

SilverEagle · April 6, 2014

There are lots of hidden costs to owning an all electric or even a hybrid car. Better hope none of the batteries die out while you own the vehicle; replacement batteries are not cheap. Neither is getting a high-speed charger installed in your home. Better have 2 120-volt breaker slots open otherwise you will likely need a new breaker box installed. Charging with a 120-volt charger takes several hours, which might be fine for an overnight charge but if you're running around town, the high-speed stations are what you'll need to find and those stations aren't on every corner.

For all electric cars to really go mainstream huge improvements in infrastructure need to be made.

There are a lot of hidden costs in owning your every day gas vehicle. Ever checked on the price of a transmission replacement for a newer car? I was talking with a guy a couple of days ago who drove a Dodge Ram (dooley) with a Cummins diesel. It was about 10 years old and had 270K on it. You would think that most repairs on an older vehicle would be a bit more reasonable than when it was new. He said that the only repair that he's had on his diesel was a recent fuel pump replacement.......$2000.00. A simple water pump replacement on a 2001 Grand Marque that I used to own was close to $500. Fortunately I had purchased an extended warranty........which I'm sure you could do with an electric car.

And as to the infrastructure needed to support electric cars. I think that installing charge stations (one was installed recently at my local walgreens on Jacksboro hwy) is much more reasonably priced than digging big holes in the ground to bury gas tanks (that may or may not leak in 10-15 years) for your local quick stop.

FirefightnRick · April 6, 2014

Of course #1 thing for me is safety and nothing else is second.

My wife's 2000 Ford Expedition just rolled 238,000 miles and hasn't had a penny spent on it since 2005 other than one tune up and oil changes. My F150 is close to 200,000 miles and has been just as reliable.

Both offer the #1 thing I demand....SAFE transportation with the ability to perform a heavy work load.

With that said we finally made a significant accident involving a Chevy Volt that was rearended by a garbage truck, and I was very impressed by the structural integrity of the car. Tells me it's rearend is structurally very well designed. How that translates to the front and sides remains to be answered?

BTW, I heard one of Ed Wallace's best, most informative shows ever yesterday. He was interviewing Dr. Micheal Burgess about the Chevy ignition congressional hearings that's currently going on, and pointed out the true facts of the cases being presented against Chevy. Like the Toyota acceleration cases this is also equivalent to a Salem Witch trial.

Both men agreed the ignition switch design was crap and should be improved. But of the 13 deaths being cited...and I can't remember all the specifics so don't hold me to exactness on this,.... but of the 13 deaths 8 involved alcohol, 7-9 were late at night, 7-10 involved high rate of speed, one being 69 mph in a 25 mph neighborhood, 6-9 of them involved people ranging in age from 16-21 years old, 29 being the oldest. All incidents involving high risk individuals in high risk situations, yet Chevy is having a knife held to its throat over them. Also, Wallace pointed out that the fact that the part in question only costing .56 cents isn't correct. The material costs .56 cents but the part costs $28 to make and another $36 to installed, all told would cost the company around $160 Million to change out in a recall.

Burgess mentioned that during the Toyota hearings Wallace helped point out to some unknown information which he took back to congress and presented to the committee, and that Wallace had done it again this time and thanked him for the help. Tells you a lot about Ed Wallace when congressmen are coming to him for information concerning congressional hearings concerning The automobile industry.

Rick

Coffee and TV · April 7, 2014

Waiting for Tesla to figure out the 200 mile range battery with a 30k sticker price.

Until then...

Green Mean · April 7, 2014

Waiting for Tesla to figure out the 200 mile range battery with a 30k sticker price.

Until then...

Not sure what the battery range is but I thought Tesla was coming out with a small SUV next year or year after in the 30K price range.

BeanCounterGrad'03 · April 7, 2014

This could be the real game-changer if battery packs are standardized across all vehicles and the infrastructure is built up a bit. You'd pay up-front for the cost of a battery, but then essentially be renting future batteries (but could keep your original battery if you're savvy enough to not need to use swap stations).

Edited April 7, 2014 by BeanCounterGrad'03

yyz28 · April 7, 2014

I'm a BIG TIME gear head, and I'm not at all afraid of the hybrid thing... BUT there are some things that have to be understood -

1. The environmental impact of building the batteries on a Prius is greater than the environmental impact of the fuel burned in a V8 Camaro or Mustang, much less a more fuel efficient vehicle like a Malibu or Accord through around 200,000 miles. Currently, our battery technology isn't where it needs to be and the manufacturing process is quite dirty.

2. Hybrids and Electrics ARE more difficult and expensive to repair. Any shop that would charge $500 to change the water pump off the front of a Ford 4.6 (like was on the afore-mentioned Grand Marquis) is called a dealership, and anyone who has a dealership work on their cars after the warranty is out needs to be educated on the car game. No, a Ford dealership (known in the industry as a "stealership") is not necessarily the best place to have your Ford serviced.

3. The driveline components on today's gasoline cars are FAR LESS prone to failure than in years past, AND are far more reliable than the early technology that is today's electric and hybrid cars.

4. Electricity is not free. Shifting en mass the demand we currently put on burning fossil fuels for personal transportation onto the power grid will require more than simply putting some charging stands in. plus, you may have to consider supply vs. demand. As the demand on power goes up, so does the cost on that supply, and Washington is making it harder, not easier, to ensure we have the electricity we need to keep up with future demand.

Some of today's most exotic super cars are hybrids, and use the hybrid mode for power, better performance and in cruising mode, greater efficiency.

Frankly, I disagree at the core that Electric is the Future. Hydrogen IS the real future.... Electric may be a step in between, but it isn't where this will all go.

UNT90 · April 7, 2014

I'm a BIG TIME gear head, and I'm not at all afraid of the hybrid thing... BUT there are some things that have to be understood -

1. The environmental impact of building the batteries on a Prius is greater than the environmental impact of the fuel burned in a V8 Camaro or Mustang, much less a more fuel efficient vehicle like a Malibu or Accord through around 200,000 miles. Currently, our battery technology isn't where it needs to be and the manufacturing process is quite dirty.
2. Hybrids and Electrics ARE more difficult and expensive to repair. Any shop that would charge $500 to change the water pump off the front of a Ford 4.6 (like was on the afore-mentioned Grand Marquis) is called a dealership, and anyone who has a dealership work on their cars after the warranty is out needs to be educated on the car game. No, a Ford dealership (known in the industry as a "stealership") is not necessarily the best place to have your Ford serviced.
3. The driveline components on today's gasoline cars are FAR LESS prone to failure than in years past, AND are far more reliable than the early technology that is today's electric and hybrid cars.
4. Electricity is not free. Shifting en mass the demand we currently put on burning fossil fuels for personal transportation onto the power grid will require more than simply putting some charging stands in. plus, you may have to consider supply vs. demand. As the demand on power goes up, so does the cost on that supply, and Washington is making it harder, not easier, to ensure we have the electricity we need to keep up with future demand.
Some of today's most exotic super cars are hybrids, and use the hybrid mode for power, better performance and in cruising mode, greater efficiency.
Frankly, I disagree at the core that Electric is the Future. Hydrogen IS the real future.... Electric may be a step in between, but it isn't where this will all go.

Great post, and just to add, electricity does not magically appear out of thin air. It has to be generated. While electricity can be generated in many different ways, we are VERY dependent on fossil fuels at this point.

So, switching to electric cars would mean a HUGE production increase of electricity, which would mean much more electricity needed to be generated by fossil fuels.

While Electric cars may be the answer to a gas crisis, they are from from an ecological answer to eliminate the gas burning automobile.

gksmith · April 7, 2014

I am looking forward to the hydrogen cars.

Did the hybrid/electric cars ever figure out the air conditioning problem? The early hybrid cars rarely used the electric drive because you run the a/c, it has to use the gas drive. If you go faster than 35 or 40 MPH it used the gas drive. The hybrids were real heavy so the true gas mileage was pretty bad.

The Fake Lonnie Finch · April 8, 2014

So, the environmental-friendly wing here doesn't love the earth more than their pocket book? What a surprise.

But, we knew that from last year when I posted the list of everyday items made with petroleum products that leftists need to give up to be true to their cause. Here it is again:

Here is a short list...provided by PBS, so leftist can know that it isn't a church or "right wing" organization that provided it:
http://www-tc.pbs.org/independentlens/classroom/wwo/petroleum.pdf

Here's another one. Shampoo, of course, is in the list. Many leftist already don't use shampoo, so that's an easy one. Guitar strings. Think of that - all those protest songs played on a petroleum product. Kind makes you wanna giggle at them a little more than you normally would:
http://www.ranken-energy.com/Products%20from%20Petroleum.htm

For leftists who have difficulty reading, HuffPo made a picture thingy a few years back. They contended that it was "shocking" that these things were made of petroleum. And, I suppose regular HuffPo-types would be shocked to understand how many things they use whose origins are in petroleum. I especially like the golf ball bit. All of that golf Obama plays - just giving back to the evil oil companies all he can at every turn!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/11/9-shocking-things-made-fr_n_570796.html#s89403title=Plastics

Here's an awesome quote from a leftist website: "How leveraged against petroleum is our first world society? The short answer is: very." Oh, the world is so complicated and frustrating when you dig down past the rhetoric!
http://www.saveandconserve.com/2007/05/petroleum_based_products_a_long_list.html

Again - same as the last time I posted this list - I'll go along with the environmentalist once they put their money where the mouth is and stop using the things produced by the entities they call "evil."

Edited April 8, 2014 by The Fake Lonnie Finch

The Fake Lonnie Finch · April 8, 2014

Waiting to see this from people who claim to want to get rid of oil companies:

Oh, but, wait...these fellas seem to have killed animals for clothing. That's not very environmentally friendly! Weren't the animals here before us?

Gosh! Even cavemen don't understand animal rights! Won't mankind ever get it right?

Stix · April 8, 2014

Talking Heads - Nothing But Flowers - 1988

http://youtu.be/RZuuxcm513c

http://lyrics.wikia.com/Guster:(Nothing_But)_Flowers

I'm sure David Byrne was doing his best to be sarcastic with this song, but it just doesn't come out that way

SilverEagle · April 8, 2014

So, the environmental-friendly wing here doesn't love the earth more than their pocket book? What a surprise.

But, we knew that from last year when I posted the list of everyday items made with petroleum products that leftists need to give up to be true to their cause. Here it is again:

Here is a short list...provided by PBS, so leftist can know that it isn't a church or "right wing" organization that provided it:
http://www-tc.pbs.org/independentlens/classroom/wwo/petroleum.pdf
Here's another one. Shampoo, of course, is in the list. Many leftist already don't use shampoo, so that's an easy one. Guitar strings. Think of that - all those protest songs played on a petroleum product. Kind makes you wanna giggle at them a little more than you normally would:
http://www.ranken-energy.com/Products%20from%20Petroleum.htm

For leftists who have difficulty reading, HuffPo made a picture thingy a few years back. They contended that it was "shocking" that these things were made of petroleum. And, I suppose regular HuffPo-types would be shocked to understand how many things they use whose origins are in petroleum. I especially like the golf ball bit. All of that golf Obama plays - just giving back to the evil oil companies all he can at every turn!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/11/9-shocking-things-made-fr_n_570796.html#s89403title=Plastics

Here's an awesome quote from a leftist website: "How leveraged against petroleum is our first world society? The short answer is: very." Oh, the world is so complicated and frustrating when you dig down past the rhetoric!
http://www.saveandconserve.com/2007/05/petroleum_based_products_a_long_list.html

Again - same as the last time I posted this list - I'll go along with the environmentalist once they put their money where the mouth is and stop using the things produced by the entities they call "evil."

Leftist? :huh:

Are you suggesting that Ed Wallace is spouting leftist/hippie rhetoric in his article? I'm sure he would be surprised to hear that. I don't know how you jumped from a discussion about the possibility of evolving to (mostly) electric transportation to leftist ideology.

And just for clarification, do you consider recycling leftist?

I don't think that Ed Wallace or anyone else who has responded to this article is suggesting that oil companies will (or need) to come to an end.

And (UNT90) I don't think that Ed Wallace said anything in his article about electricity for recharging electric vehicles magically comes out of thin air. There are new products being developed all the time and who knows? Maybe our future homes will have a bank of solar panels dedicated to recharging an electric vehicle.....with a medium sized wind charger in the back yard to back it up on cloudy days. And no, no one thinks that solar panels are the absolute answer, because like anything else that man makes, it wears out. So one very important question would be.....how easily can solar panels be recycled?

And finally. Fake Lonnie, if you are still in your 30's or even 40's I don't think you would know a true leftist if they beat you over the head with a handful of daises and woke you up in the morning with their Strawberry alarm clock. People that you (and others) call leftist are what political activist of my youth called centrist.....or sell-outs. And everyone of that era called our current tea party conservatives the John Burch Society. And all of them, including Republicans, laughed at them.