Reading some comments, it's clear beliefs are stickier than evidence.
There's a contingent of numbskulls who simply cannot (will not?) make the effort to envision a future in which this is scaled up. Trying to find a way to deal with that is one of the great challenges of our time.
@TechConnectify
You have to go back to first principles and look at who is saying this stuff and why.
It's basically all tribal, it's all political. It's a culture war concocted by the Far Right Billionaires to prevent a class war. It's an orchestrated plan to get the least intelligent people to fight (distract) on behalf of the richest 0.1%.
Instead of people being outraged about inequality and planetary destruction, concoct an enemy for people to blame. Trans people, BLM, George Soros, Environmentalists, and their woke EVs.
@TechConnectify If you're open to requests, please do battery electric buses versus trolleybuses, since I think we made the same mistake with trolleybuses that we did with streetcars.
But, honestly... I'm not so certain it would truly be worth rebuilding overhead power infrastructure. There's a lot of headaches there (permitting, NIMBYs, engineering cost) which are sidestepped by $50k in batteries per vehicle - an added cost that's fairly marginal when that vehicle is a bus.
@TechConnectify Fair! Both technologies benefit from having far fewer moving parts. But, one eliminates almost all energy charging loss by only needing enough battery to negotiate a short detour, can run with the heat on without effecting range and can effectively run 24/7 for weeks on end stopping only for cleaning and inspection. All of those upsides is why the cities that have trolleybuses are not keen on getting rid of them any time soon.
@BalooUriza Oh absolutely, if it's already there, there's no reason to ditch it! I do think that in a situation where it doesn't exist, though, it's a lot of work for (mostly) diminishing returns.
If we can get light rail going, though... then by all means!
@TechConnectify Sure, light rail is great and hella efficient but really, if you got BRT already, what are you even doing not electrifying a static, high volume route, other than making it harder to transition that line to light rail later?
@TechConnectify Actual BRT? It's mostly a LA and Eugene thing, with Eugene's EmX being a textbook example. Though other places have it too, Utah has almost BRT. And then my city claims to have BRT but I'm not calling AERO anything but a regular bus with nice stations thanks to the level of BRT creep it had.
@TechConnectify@BalooUriza Hear hear! I often read/hear about the old Chicago Aurora and Elgin light rail line, and hate that it was long gone by the time I was born.
@gregly@BalooUriza Now it's the Prairie Path, which I rode all the time when I was a kid. Sad what happened to it (though the path it is today is very nice!).
But, we thankfully still have plenty of rail service in Chicago and, honestly, the CA&E was kind of redundant in many places so it's not a terrible loss... but it sure is annoying to realize what we used to build and have before the car changed our priorities.
@TechConnectify@BalooUriza Oh definitely, the Prairie Path is fantastic — but it would be nice to have a public transit alternative to taking the Metra in without having to drive down to Forest Park and hop on the Blue Line!
Then again I’m still salty about the STAR Line being cancelled back in the early 2000s. A light-rail “ring” through the Chicago suburbs would’ve been phenomenal.
@TechConnectify Thanks for sharing this! I wasn’t aware of this type of operation! This is really cool and gives me a lot of hope for our future of sustainability. Now if we can solve some of the ethics surrounding lithium mining issues… :/
@TechConnectify I have a neighbor who insists that all electric cars will be thrown, whole, in the junkyard when the battery dies. That’s why they prefer gasoline powered vehicles.
So yeah, now we mostly just talk about yard and garden maintenance.
@number6 My understanding is that they currently have a functioning facility in Rochester and that what they're building now is expressly to scale that.
@artemist The answer you're looking for is in the video, and a word of advice:
I know about all the things you've mentioned here, and agree. Don't take my excitement for this process as an endorsement that electric cars are some sort of panacea.
@artemist No, and to be quite honest, I'm similarly annoyed that every time I mention something to do with electric cars, I am flooded by "car bad!" comments.
Some folks will still needs cars. We need to electrify them.
We should also make not needing one easier.
Conversations don't need to be broadened at every opportunity. It's pretty close to sealioning, honestly.
@TechConnectify But also, I LOVE how interactive you are here. Your videos are awesome and watch them religiously. Even the 1 hour rants, because you have so much good things to say!
@TechConnectify I just keep remembering that we've had EVs that didn't need battaries for over 100 years https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybus
It was at least viable enough for public transport and could be scaled up for things like lorries.
At least part of the solution to battaries is simply to have less.
Alas, people don't seam to like investing in infrastructure anymore.
@TechConnectify There's a strong urge for a very focal group to always have one very specific reason why NEW TECHNOLOGY X won't work.
After wondering why (dark motives) I think the easiest explanation is that people need a reason to justify to themselves for clinging to the old (and known) system.
@IIVQ yes, I truly believe that's the biggest thing and am pretty jaded by arguments that evil people are pulling strings.
We humans seek stability and familiarity more than anything, and we bristle at the thought things might need to change. It's simply too comforting to believe that there's nothing wrong with things as they are.
@TechConnectify Yeah. But I find it weird that people are so opposing new technologies with as argument that it can't do 100% of what old technology did, even if it can do a lot of other things objectively better.
You have noted this yourself in many of your heat pump video's. "What about the coldest days".
Another thing that happens is that people have a dated image of the state of the art. "This will never be big" even though it has already gone mainstream (in this case: bus electrification)
@TechConnectify
I noticed heat pumps grind your gears! Thanks to your films I finally understand how they can be 400% efficient. Thanks for that!
I always wondered why we don't have more appliances hooked up to a heat pump network in our homes (e.g. extract heat from fridge, use that to heat tap water) but it turns out that you need specific refrigerants for temperature ranges, it can't be done in a one-step process, according to a friend in the industry.
@TechConnectify in my particular case I feel is not scalable with current technology, and that you dirty americans should start coalescing cities and promoting public transportation 😆
This is a yes and situation. And there are people who worry about the recyclability of batteries /period/ and see that as a reason to not bother with renewable energy.
We need demonstrations that raw materials in battery packs are recoverable for far more applications than just cars
For static uses like UPSes in homes, I would much rather have a non-toxic but bulky aqueous-electrolyte sodium battery than a lithium battery with horribly toxic and flammable electrolytes.
@TechConnectify we absolutely should bother with renewable energy. But renewable energy can use batteries that have less-enegy-dense but easier to supply materials, like thermal accumulators (which usually uses sodium), or batteries made with non-"exotic" materials. Cars cannot afford that.
Fortunately, I think we will see many advances in energy storage in the coming years. We are already seeing papers about new electrolites and battery types so I think is a matter of time.
@Nekoplanet Check out Rondo. Their heat battery tech is pretty amazing.https://www.volts.wtf/p/why-electrifying-industrial-heat.
Unfortunately, the energy density people (feel they) need with cars, generally, is just insane. Most people just cannot understand the idea that the car in the garage only needs to go maybe 25 miles a day to handle 360+ days a year of their needs, and a rental/public transit can handle those other edge cases. People, Americans in particular, want that feeling of security they get from not having to be flexible at all. Not to mention that there are always going to be trade and logistical needs for cars that CAN handle hundreds of miles a day of movement that demands huge energy density.
@admiralteal@Nekoplanet This might seem contrarian, but there actually is a solid reason to have a large battery even when you don't truly need it: wear.
Pack lifetime is, at least currently, a function of the number of cycles. If your battery can only sustain your daily needs, then it's cycled daily and will wear out faster.
From that perspective, I don't actually find it all that wasteful.
Average vehicle lifespan is 12 years -- ~4380 days. That's below average for a well-maintained lifepo battery cycle lifetime, isn't it? But it will be interesting to see how much longer EVs may last than ICE cars, given their comparative mechanical simplicity. I recharge my e-bike daily even though I could probably do it just every 2-3 days because this math on its battery told me it wasn't worth the stress. Admittedly, that battery is vastly smaller and cheaper (since the vehicle is vastly more energy efficient). And also intensely easy to replace -- something I hope may one day be true of car/truck batteries.
I am also optimistic for the future use of "second life" batteries, too. Current EV batteries are huge. Even an old one degraded to 50-60% capacity is still big enough to be a maybe 1 day whole house backup battery, assuming the economy of salvaging them can make sense.
@admiralteal@Nekoplanet I don't think so. 2000 cycles is still pretty average from what I gather. So if your battery were only sufficient for your commute, assuming 5 days a week, 48 weeks a year, that's about 8 years if cycled daily.
Maybe that's acceptable, and battery technology will certainly improve, but I'm still not bothered by more battery on-hand. It allows for emergency energy storage, and people will still have oddball needs they can't foresee.
@admiralteal@TechConnectify@Nekoplanet Careful about assuming what's normal for single urban dwellers is normal for everyone. Some of us go on long drives pretty regularly. Renting a car or truck every time I wanted to drive up the California coast or visit family would add a number of steps and get cost-prohibitive pretty quick.
You're the one making the assumption here -- that your edge case is one so common that it makes sense to design ALL vehicles to be able to account for it, increasing the costs hugely for the average consumer.
It's the same response I get when I say I think modern trucks/pickups have become stupidly large. Someone will inevitably show up to say "Well I DO need a vehicle that large because I do xyz thing that very few people do and a smaller truck wouldn't work for me!".
I unhesitatingly grant that there are folks who will want to own EVs that have huge ranges because they really need it to have a huge range. Just as I directly acknowledged that there will be trade/delivery/other commercial work that requires vehicles with large ranges. But that's not a good reason for the entire EV market to be competing to make EVERY vehicle have a huge range.
Best stats I have seen peg it at somewhere between 35-40 miles are driven per person per day in the US inclusive of all commercial stuff. It is very safe to assume the vast majority of private car owners are driving a lot less than that. Forcing most Americans to spend hugely extra on giant batteries that support hundreds of miles of range to support the few people that really need it is incredibly unfair. But without a culture shift, that's the future we're racing to.
@admiralteal@TechConnectify@Nekoplanet I reckon the automakers are doing a little more in-depth market research than either of us. A good market is one where there's consumer choice.
@williamgunn The automakers are a big part of controlling the culture. They're the ones investing marketing and advertising funds in pushing consumers to get the biggest, highest-range battery possible... because those vehicles have bigger price tags. They have every incentive to reinforce competition on range to avoid competition on price and US auto manufacturing is not exactly known for being a lithe, agile field where new upstarts jump in regularly to shake things up. Tesla is the only time it has happened in more than a generation.
Look outside the US market and you'll see it's a very different thing. Smaller, limited-range EVs are common elsewhere, especially in China. Now the inevitable pivot will be "Well those countries have much higher population density so they don't need as much range!"... but that's been my point all along. That most people in the US also don't need that range.
A good market is one where there's consumer choice... and in the US, we have very limited consumer choice.
@admiralteal@TechConnectify@Nekoplanet That all may be true. Sometimes companies do a bunch of market research and still try to sell something nobody wants. Just look at the metaverse stuff.
I'm just saying that telling people they don't need something because the average person doesn't need it is not a useful form of advocacy.
@TechConnectify but... what if: cars on power rails so we can skip the battery need, then we can put them on a fixed way so we don't need expensive AIs to drive them... and we can make them bigger and public so is cheaper to transition to this new technology! :ablobdundundun:
@Nekoplanet in the end it's all about $/kWh of storage.
I'm in full agreement that Li-ion batteries probably won't win that at grid-scale long-term, but expertise is its own form of efficiency. It might be the fastest path, and that's still important
@TechConnectify@Nekoplanet By the way, i am really happy that you use units like kWh and not quarter penguins per tire revolution or something like that.
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