When an engineer cuts thru the EV cultists crap
 

This guy produces great videos on engine technology. But a number of viewers question focusing on "obsolete" ICE vs electric motors. It's a question of technology and psychology. Great ending.

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Anyone that has traveled much from state to state has stopped at the typical mega gas station - convenience station - and multiple restaurant mega center. Some have 50 or 60 gas pumps, and as many truck spots for the semis. When I stop at one of those and see hundreds of cars pulling in and out of there or getting fuel, I just know it will be decades before the electric cars have anything remotely like it. And they will need a private sub station or power plant to make enough electricity to provide the energy of gasoline.

It will happen someday, but it took us 60 years or more to build the current interstate system and all the gas stations. Gasoline has a lot of energy per gallon and can be pumped in short order.

If I was commuting 20 or 30 minutes per day like I did back in the 90s and 00s I would likely have a cheap electric commuter car. It would not be a Porsche Taycan, I will never spend that much for a car, I am too cheap.

I looked seriously at dual fuel gasoline and natural gas conversions for my El Camino. Right now the certified installations and the compressor needed to hook up to household natural gas and refill is just too expensive. I would have to be driving a ton more than I do, and I am really happy I don't have to drive that much. CNG is still about a $1.50 to $1.00 per gallon and has similar power as gasoline.

This technology is in its infancy and still, it makes perfect sense for certain people depending on their driving applications. Looking forward, there is no question in my mind that all cars will one day be electric. That day is not today, or next year, but the technology will evolve and small ICE passenger vehicles will go away. Large ones, trucks, etc....they will go away too.

And so...I consider today's critics to be in the same category with yesterday's complainers when ICE vehicles was a new technology.

My wife's EV fits our situation perfectly right now & into the forseable future. We have solar and it supplies electricity (net metering) for the house (3.3K s.f.) and her car. Last year we had to pay $288 at true up time. That's not bad for an all electric house and car. If we go on a trip, I prefer to take the van, since I like the room and ride, & it gets 20+ mpg. The EV doesn't require trips to the gas station, doesn't have fluids, hoses, lines, filters, etc., etc. Basically I jut put air in the tires and wash it. It's fast, quiet, and so far problem free. I don't trust the network of chargers for highway use, although I'm sure it OK but for our uses, I'm really glad we went that route.

Watch the video? The author is not saying ICE is the permanent mobility solution. He is saying EV is a long way off from mass adoption and that ICE will be around for many, many years, and that it is not unreasonable to further develop ICE. How advantageous would EV be w/o solar and EV subsidies?

Would be so much better if EV's could simply be designed to quickly (and automatically) switch out battery modules at "refueling" stations. Simply drive over a "target," car then gets automatically aligned with underground battery swap mechanism - old battery extracted and refreshed battery installed. Five minutes tops. Why has this not been considered?

Yet we have states, like my own (Washington) who are eagerly passing law to ban the sale of ICE vehicles in either 2030 or 2035, depending on state. Anyone here think we'll be even remotely ready for that even by 2035? No way in hell.

Different size batteries for different cars. What would owner of a new $150k Taycan think of swapping his new $20k battery with some guy with a beat up Prius who drove the piss out of his. People would purposefully game it bring in worn out crap or compromised from accidents. So, batteries need to be QC'd and certified. Imagine storing hundreds of batteries at your local station.

I had that same thought when this 'goal' was set. I like stretch goals as much as the next guy but not guaranteed-fail ones.

And yet, it will be interesting to see what things look like in 15 years. If I live that long. I never had a plan to be 65 but here I am.

And when electric cars can beat top fuel dragsters in the quarter-mile, I'll think that's just adorable and go see (and hear and smell) the top fuelers.

I love my wife's Tesla Y. Its an 'appliance' to be sure, its fast as hell, an I like the single huge interface. But the fact is when my wife want to drive here from Rochester, NY where she is currently working, she has to charge at least once. It takes 45 minutes. And that is if she does not have to wait to get a charger. For now, I will stick with my gasser, but as soon as the range goes beyond 600 miles I think it will be a different ball game.

OK so I watched the whole thing and even went back and skipped through it a bit to take some notes. This guy is a f'ing moron. The smug smarmy millennialness of him doesn't help. And he jumps around and conflates meaningless, not well thought out concepts.

I do not have time for a well-constructed rebuttal to the video but here are some thoughts.

First, the thing that struck me the most was his conclusion is in direct contrast for his reasons why electric cars won't work. He contradicts himself to the highest order. Why won't electric vehicles work? The infrastructure to support them is too big of a challenge.

That's ridiculous of course. It's just building infrastructure. In fact CHina has 1.419 million public EV charging stations. Let me say that again. China has 1,419,000 (that's million) public charging stations, NOW. Not 10 years from now. They have them now. Now.

By the way there are varying numbers on this. Some sources say 2.2 million. So whatever. Yeah, building out an EV charging infrastructure is WAAAAAAAYYYYYY to hard and will take decades.

What's funny and I actually laughed at his conclusion is that we are the problem and we have to change and we can't use technology to change. I have no words for the latter. The former, we have to change, that was hysterical.

Why?

He thinks building infrastructure is too difficult. But he wants people to change how they interact with the world IN THEIR CURRENT ENVIRONMENT BUILT ON DRIVING AROUND. So TWO things there.

First, he wants to change human behavior. That's pretty easy. I mean when 100s of thousands of people were dying from a virus everyone, and I mean everyone, to the last man, put on a mask and proudly wore it to protect his fellow citizen.

So yes, modifying human behavior, especially of humans who don't believe in climate change, is CAKE.

But then, you've modified your behavior but you live in an infrastructure designed around moving around by car, at least here in the U.S. More on that later. So now it's easier to change how people live and where they live and how they move around. OK, moving on.

It is a little ironic that he uses an apartment complex in Europe to show all these cars there that people need to use to go to work and such but dollars to donuts, he was filming at 2PM on a Tuesday when everyone was at work. Why? Because the majority of people in cities in Europe use their EXCELLENT MASS TRANSIT SYSTEMS to go to work. Americans drive 14000 miles a year. Europeans drive 7000. Why the difference? Do Europeans only drive to work accounting for that 7000 and then never touch their cars at night or on weekends? Of course that's the answer.

So that bring us to:
Americans: 14K
Europeans: 7K
Japan: 3.8K
India: 7.5K
China: 7K

So yes, we drive more that anyone in the world and we should change our behavior but we DON'T HAVE EXCELLENT MASS TRANSIT SYSTEMS so we don't use them to go to work. So we can either build an EV infrastructure of charging stations or create a whole new mass transit system in every city above 100K. That's easy and cheap, right? I mean compared to installing charging stations. Cake.

And why the **** does he even go into how much time it takes to charge your car when you charge it at home and at work. Just so he can tee up how hard it will be create charging stations at apartment complexes. What a waste of time. And you get to install some solar on the tops of buildings to help. Every little bit helps.

What's most annoying about him is his position that because no magic silver bullet solution has fallen from the sky, we just say **** it and keep going full steam ahead with no thought to the future or the very nature of progress is incrementalism which, wait for it, sometimes creates magic bullets either through happy accidents or through the continuous process of scientific achievement. His absolutely moronic 1930 hp to 2018 hp illustration should have told anyone watching this that he's just getting you to click so he can get another surf shark payment. The complexity of that comparison is way beyond the scope of this discussion taking government regulations in terms of gas mileage into account more than anything.

And then we get to power plants and mining for lithium. It's been only a decade since we've taken renewable energy seriously. There is tremendous room for growth. Yes, coal sucks. And Chinese and Indian coal sucks more. But it's easier to clean coal plants than millions of cars. Wind and solar are just getting going. And again, there's money to be made in scientific advancement in these areas so it's not like anyone said, hey, let's put windmills up and we're done, let's go get a beer. Why aren't we building out nuclear. that's your question.

On lithium mining, that's a problem. And there isn't as much as we would like in the Earth. Quick googling shows sodium isn't as energy dense but it works. And we've got a decent amount of salt on the planet. But that's not even the point. The point is Li-ion batteries aren't the end solution. They are a stepping stone. They will be used for years to come but I'm pretty sure within 5 years from now the flat-earthers will have another battery to ***** about.

The net net is he glued all kinds of random thoughts together to get to a 5 second money shot that most of the world is already doing. And of course he doesn't say how you can effect change. Maybe send Greta a Christmas card or something.

I think mainstream electric cars are simply a series of step-changes in technology and probably 20 years away rather than the 10 that Gavin Nuisance is pushing for.

The motors, controllers, and regeneration are already pretty well developed technologies. The big hurdles that are being worked now are localized micro-generating stations, light weight mass energy storage, and rapid transfer of energy from the charging station to the car.

4th gen micro nuclear power plants are being explored and tested now including thorium, and walk-away safe fission. Imagine a modern version of a nuclear submarine power plant complete with high energy storage and rapid transfer that occupies the space of 4 shipping containers. Easily transportable and can run 24/7 loading up the storage medium for easy energy transfer during peak usage. These are completely mobile that could be moved to different locations as demand shifts. This is the goal to deliver localized independent generation around the world and will happen as engineers continue to work the problem. Give it 20 years.

High capacity energy storage is being worked at a feverish pace because this offers the greatest potential for increase range. This will make a technology step change in the next few years.

The final step is to transfer a lot of electrons in a hurry so you can charge a car in a much shorter time than overnight.

Engineers are working these problems in many different ways and they will get solved at some point. Once these are well developed the ICE will still be around but more as cherished pieces from an earlier time like the Model T and steam cars than daily transportation.

He never says electric cars won't work. He actually says at 5:46 "sure, they may work in the long run".

I checked, and yes China has millions of "charging stations". In quotes because they are apparently AC powered, which is slow and causes damage to the batteries - a far cry from the Level 3 stations in the video.

It's hard to make comparisons from location to the next. Maybe mass transit is widely used in europe, but I'll bet per capita income is lower, while gas is much more expensive. Mass transit in LA doesn't work, for the most part. It's too spread out and people prefer driving.

I was going to go point-by-point with your rebuttal but it will take too long.

I don't know about all those confusing facts. All I know is:
We use our short range EV just for around town (which happens to be about 90 percent of our auto usage). We charge at night at home. Our home is solared. No money is spent on fuel, no time is wasted on fueling, there's no warming the car up on cold mornings and the vehicle is maintainence free except for checking the tire pressure once a month. I never give a thought about lubrication or cooling. This ugly little appliance has proven itself to be a blessing and now I'm spoiled

My perspective, I bought an EV in 2018. Only has about 100 mile charge.
This is my wife and I's primary driver. We are not retired, but we both work from home. I have worked from home since 2015.
We only need to charge once a week.
We have almost 8k on the car. Most of our driving is within 5 miles.
Make perfect sense for us. I don't need to tow anything. If I need a few yards of dirt, delivery is less than one month of truck payments. Hell, delivery on almost anything is less than a truck payment/tank of gas.
We still have some gas vehicles, but I know I spend more on oil and insurance than I do on gas. Average mileage over all our cars is less than 2500 a year, however ymmv.

I saw this video when it came out and agree w/ most of his points. I do think if I bought an electric car I would buy the cheapest one and use it for an around town grocery getter.

Our problem in the USA is that we are not developing infrastructure for electric cars. We need to build a ton of nuclear power plants and develop a HV smart grid. We are doing neither. And we can't even agree/mandate a universal charger plug design.

It will come with time, but the rate that legislators are saying we're going electric does not match the construction of infrastructure to support it. Not remotely.

Has there been anymore discussion on how roads are going to be funded? Or was that just glossed over?

Just 3 weeks ago, while in Japan, I met with high level execs from 2 very well known Japanese companies that produce HEV and EV batteries. The one company has the largest battery production facility in the world, they also have the largest battery winding machine in the world. Both groups said the same thing, The new NY and Cali laws are based on dreams not reality. It simply impossible to build enough batteries to support their fantasy laws. It cannot be done. Here in the USA we are building new battery plants at a fever pace, but it isn't enough. Incidentally, China and Japan are way ahead of us with this effort. IT will be at least 2040 and beyond before we can produce the batteries needed to sustain this dream.

China does what China wants the population be damned. Chinese govt also lies. China builds stuff that's not safe. China builds stuff that sometimes doesn't work or will never be used. I'm not sure China is a good comparison.

Were you here for Covid. There were people that refused to wear masks, and there was a lot of complaining about masks and other mandates. Hell, it wasn't just the general public. THere were a lot of folks on this board that thought it was BS and a bad move.

Comparing the US and EU is not the best comparison since the US is more than double the size of the EU with a lower population. That means that the EU has a much greater population density (more folks in a smaller area). Accomplishing the same sort of mass transit in the US would be a different undertaking to what exists in the EU.
I don't actually think his position was "EV is junk and should never happen." I watched the full video months ago when it was first posted here. I only watched a couple/few mins. At least in the beginning, it seems to me that he was addressing the people that comment that we should stop all development on ICE and go with EV. I believe his point is that we are not ready to shutdown all ICE production, fueling, etc... and switch to EV either today or in the near term. EV is still in its infancy and before we can/should stop all development of ICE, we need to wait for EV to be more mature.

I listened to the first few minutes. I didn't need to watch past "Combustion cars aren't dead and won't be dead anytime soon." I agree, full stop. I don't have to listen to his insufferable yammering for another 20 minutes to confirm it. The guy's presentation is so annoying I don't know how anyone could endure it for that long.

He says "EV isn't the solution because ICE isn't the problem". They aren't mutually exclusive. Each has its +/-. In the frigid North, solar panels get covered with snow and there are few hours of sunlight to begin with. Batteries are compromised by cold and heating a car with the battery is a bust. Win for ICE.

What is the motivation for EV? The video proves the "green" argument is crap. I've heard of battery recycling but batteries and their chemistry are changing. Solar panels and wind mills aren't recycled.

Li-ion batteries only use Li for internal charge balance. The electrodes are good ol' nickel, copper, cobalt, etc. What's the availability of these metals and how will price change as major economies attempt to go EV?

When, in your entire life, did you ever see someone say "It can't be done," and then that person turned out to be correct? "It can't be done" has been said many times, and it has never, ever been true.

And yet, inexplicably, "It can't be done" remains a popular phrase. I guess people just enjoy dissing things. Like.....infrastructure and government.

EVs.

As usual government intervention probably mucks up their adoption --they are not obviously the answer to climate or environmental issues if and of themselves.
1. Range is an issue --they make sense for many commuters. For longer trips not so much.
Clear need for much greater development of the charging structure.
2. High cost ---much of the market is not able to afford them --- true price may come down but...
3. Availability of raw material for battery production. Longer term what to do with :dead batteries:.
4.Environmental impact of sourcing battery raw material and geo -politics of the source countries. America is resistent to mining - and as things like Venezuela show-seems willing to export the environmental impacts of resource acquisition.

Like everything --there is no free lunch-and no quick and easy fix. The Lack of a comprehensive -sane approach in the US energy policy points to a bigger issue. Dangerously close to Parfing here --sorry

Good thoughts Steve.

The Chinese have an autocracy, we have eminent domain and government regulation. Ultimately the same thing. But you would have to show that Chinese business and population as a whole are against electrification and charging stations. The fact is the Chinese nation as a whole is very forward thinking, much more so than the U.S.

For China’s Auto Market, Electric Isn’t the Future. It’s the Present.

More electric cars will be sold in the country this year than in the rest of the world combined, as its domestic market accelerates ahead of the global competition.


China's electric car market is booming but can it last?


China Is Racing to Electrify Its Future




Sorry, that was meant as sarcasm designed to show people don't change even when life and death is on the line. I'm not a fan of green font.




Here I was trying to compare two constructs and which would be easier to achieve:

1. A nation of charging stations
2. Creating many does bespoke mass transit system

His point of view is it's too hard to create a national charging station infrastructure. My point of view is the alternative, creating efficient mass transit systems across the U.S. is many time more difficult. 100 times? At least.




He doesn't really have a point other than people should change to use less energy which is what I thought was so funny vis-à-vis covid and mask wearing, etc. And this applies to Americans more than any other nationality. He jumps around with false analysis and comparisons and projections to arrive at nothing more than humans will do what they do with no thought to the planet or other people, etc. But that's the whole foundation of the green movement, do what you can to use less.

I have friends in the Shanghai area, the waiting list to license an ICE vehicle is over 1 year and costs a staggering amount of money. However, to license an EV is almost immediate and free.
This may have something to do with it...

I'll ask my friend in Shanghai now and see what he says.

Email sent, looking forward to seeing what he says.

This may be going PARF. Your example of mask wearing as proof of peoples willingness to compromise is not valid - that's a pittance. People have to be dragged out of their cars in order to take mass transit. People drive diesels giving zero fks about the future. The whole foundation of going green to use less - that's the theory - something got lost on the road to reality because the opposite is true.

I drive mine because I find it interesting. I've owned vroom vroom cars for over 50 years. Time for something different.

It's interesting to me that China seems to be pushing so hard for EV while their industry and power plants are supposedly horrible for emissions and mostly coal.

Just a guess but cities are cleaner with electric cars.

My guess is that China's dirty power plants and industry is the vast bulk of their pollution.

True but location is everything. Smog from a hundred thousand cars driving around in a city gets trapped in the city. Depending on the power plant location, that pollution could be somewhere else entirely.

Message back

Eletric car license is free but the car is not free. Gas car license is very expensive and not easy to get.

No matter Gas car or Electric car, we have to pay to buy. Telsa is so popular in China and very cheap since it is produced in Shanghai.

As far as the original posted video, I think the D4A videos are great. They really explain engine design concepts in an easy to understand manner. I don’t really agree with everything he says on this one tho.

I do think EV’s and hybrids will become the standard vehicle power plant especially in cities. Why? Because too much energy is wasted to converting kinetic energy to heat through braking in city stop and go driving vs recovering a good portion of it. Electric drivetrains also move emissions to well regulated power plants or better yet solar and wind power generation which are now the cheapest way to build new power plants.

Coal power plants aren’t being built in the US and most existing ones are over 30 years old and close to retirement. In 10-15 years there will be very few coal plants in operation in the US. They will be replaced with a mix of natural gas, wind, and solar. All three having less emissions than gasoline or diesel burning vehicles and much less than coal plants.

When I worked for Calpine, they had no Coal plants. It was all natural gas except for the geo-thermal at "The Geysers." Right about the time that I left, they bought ~20 plants in the North East. One of those was solar. I think some were coal, but there were plans to convert or kill those.

Yes, his other vids are better. This one does provide a lot of good information, however. The problem is that this information is largely kept from the unsophisticated public, who are led to believe, in its absence, that they have enough information to make informed decisions. They do not. The pro-electric, anti-ICE propaganda is all they get to hear. Guys like this, and his message, will never break into the mainstream. We do need to have an informed discussion. Right now, in spite of efforts from individuals like this, we are not having one.

Speaking of wasted energy, one facet of remotely generated power, transmitted in the form of electricity, is "line loss". It's astonishing how much generated electricity is lost to this. The further it must be transmitted, the greater the line loss. If we are going to burn something to generate energy, the most efficient place to do that remains "locally" - meaning on the vehicle that will be using that energy. So, yes - hybrids. Generate it locally, recover it locally. Best of both worlds.

Solar and wind both have their unique problems that may keep them from ever becoming mainstream. Cost of component production, relatively "short" service life driving need for continued maintenance and new replacement production, sheer acreage required, impact on migratory bird populations (windmills swat birds at what is even today an unsustainable rate), and on and on. Word has it that no windmill has yet produced enough energy to have even manufactured itself. Not sure about solar, but I've heard it's close to that as well. This only appears to work if we have coal fired, gas fired, hydro, or nuclear plants to fuel their manufacture and maintenance.

Wind and solar have 20+ year useful life and easily pay for themselves. If you think wind and solar have high maintenance costs, you’ve never worked in a coal plant (I have).

Acreage required? An area the size of Connecticut could provide enough solar power for the entire United States. That’s only generating power for 8 hours a day to make 24 hours of power.

I have read studies at polar opposite ends of the spectrum on this. Some say wind turbines pay for themselves in six months or less, some say they never actually pay for themselves. The impact upon migratory birds, however, seems to be generally agreed upon. And it's been massive.

Same widely scattered claims for solar "farms". Friends who have had solar panels installed on their homes, even with massive incentives, have been told it's about a 30 year ROI on their electric bills. "But it really helps resale..."

I believe that this is such a politically charged "hot potato" that I'm not sure we can ever hope to get unbiased, accurate information. Don't get me wrong - I'm all for the notion that we quit burning things to generate power. I just wish we had good, accurate, unbiased information on which to base our decisions.

Just FYI, if David says something about generating power, I would listen. He's in the position to know.
Per the link below, the solar plant that Calpine bought is 4MW, so tiny by plant standards.
https://www.calpine.com/vineland-solar-energy-center

What's the problem (there doesn't seem to be much solar out there). And how does someplace like that calpine site compare to the one that uses mirrors to focus the sun on molten sodium? What is the best kind of solar?

It looks like most of the places that they bought are no longer coal. Most are natural gas or natural gas and oil.

Clearly many did not watch the video through.

He makes a strong point. to paraphrase - shifting conspicuous consumption to coal-fired EV's is not the solution, because even ICE is not the problem - the conspicuous consumption needs to be considered.

Hey, have you seen the new bad-ass Rivian? How about that Tesla Plaid? That Porsche Tacan is bad-ass ass hell...

Oh, LOOK at ME every body... I'm captain Planet with my Ludicrous Mode!

a yeah...