Ch-ch-ch-changes

cells

antrobus wrote: »

Yes, but in 1976 the economist David Henderson described Concorde and AGR as being "two of the three worst civil investment decisions in the history of mankind". They were both massive failures that burnt up prodigously large amounts of cash.

P.S. If anyone is interested, the other worst civil investment decision was the Tupolev TU-144. Being, of course, the Soviet version of Concorde. Which it was, given that the Soviets stole the plans from the French in the first place. So it would be no surprise that it failed too.

pyramids?

also what did the Concorde program cost? £1.3 billion according to google? didnt we spend about 10x that throwing a party in 2012 for people who can run and swim a second or two faster than you?

Martyn1981

michaels wrote: »

Can you get a new fiesta for under 10k?

Our Leaf which would claim to be the next size up (focus size) with satnav and reversing camera, alloys etc was 16k (or be it with a 5k subsidy from the govt)

I'd agree with you, as I'm not sure it's fair to simply compare the prices of EV's and ICE's. The greater efficiency of the EV means that running costs are far lower, especially fuel costs, so in a way, the extra initial cost is actually a pre-payment on fuel bills.

I've got to say I'm very impressed with the Leaf, but we're a one car family, and range limitations, whilst only occasional, would be tricky.

I think Elon Musk got it right, supply a small number of super expensive EV's to the rich, then a larger number of expensive EV's to the not so rich, and so on, slowly funding the rollout of Tesla's in ever increasing numbers at ever reducing prices. The model 3 should cost around $35k and have a range of about 250miles.

Building the Tesla supercharger network across America, so that you can travel coast to coast for free, is an excellent piece of PR.

Now he's building the GigaFactory to produce batteries at a lower price. It's capacity (before they decided to make it even bigger!) was already going to exceed all of the worlds Li-ion battery production put together.

I think an awful lot is going to happen/pull together by 2020.

Mart.

antrobus

cells wrote: »

pyramids?

also what did the Concorde program cost? £1.3 billion according to google? didnt we spend about 10x that throwing a party in 2012 for people who can run and swim a second or two faster than you?

David Henderson has quite a CV you know. Professor of Economics at UCL, chief economist at the Ministry of Aviation, and then the OECD.

Don't blame me if, yet again, you have sounded off on a topic only to reveal your complete ignorance of said topic.:)

antrobus

Martyn1981 wrote: »

.... The greater efficiency of the EV means that running costs are far lower, especially fuel costs, so in a way, the extra initial cost is actually a pre-payment on fuel bills....

The lower fuel costs of an EV are largely a product of the tax system rather than any 'greater efficiency'.

Martyn1981

antrobus wrote: »

The lower fuel costs of an EV are largely a product of the tax system rather than any 'greater efficiency'.

Not so. I recall reading an interesting article in Car & Driver magazine (possibly 5 years ago?), about New York making hybrids compulsory for taxi vehicles. They looked at the results of a similar move in Canada, where taxi drivers were reporting daily gas consumption figures of $13 (Canadian) v's $30 previously.

Now, these were ordinary hybrid vehicles, not plug-in, so all of the vehicular movement is still obtained from burning fuel, even when running in electric only mode, as the electricity has come from recycling energy. Just to be clear, the only external energy source added is gasoline, not leccy.

So EV's are extremely efficient in stop & go traffic as they don't waste any energy when stationary, can re-charge batteries when braking slowly (technically not actually braking, but using regeneration to slow the vehicle), and because max torque is available from pretty much zero rpm's they are almost always sitting 'in the sweet spot', whereas an ICE only briefly hits the torque fuel efficiency sweet spot each time the revs, in each gear pass through it.

Torque is extremely important when it comes to vehicle efficiency, and is why generally you want more gears for an ICE. Larger lorries may have 16 gears, and the driver will try to maintain rpm's in the torque sweet spot at all times (perhaps 1,200 to 1,400rpm, but I stopped reading truck engine specs many years ago, so it may have changed). At higher or lower rpms, fuel economy will decrease as torque (and efficiency) will be lower.

Also the life expectancy of disc brakes and tyres on EV's are considerably longer as momentum is being removed via the regeneration system (unless you brake too hard), rather than conventional braking using friction and heat in the discs and tyres.

Mart.

michaels

We used to get very poor ICE fuel economy as all the short journeys meant the engine was never warm and running efficiently, not a problem with an electric car.

We also have solar pv so can use co2 free electricity (well technically 25% of standard energy co2 after taking into account the co2 needed to produce and install the panels) without grid losses.

I still think battery swap 'charging' is needed rather than 30 minutes fast chargers, obviously it looked like the sums would work when it was tried 5 years ago in Israel and technology has now moved on - though of course that debacle may mean that getting funding is difficult.

No doubt the big driver for any wholesale switch will be if any big jurisdiction (probably California) imposes such strict pollution targets that zero emissions is the only answer.

cells

michaels wrote: »

We used to get very poor ICE fuel economy as all the short journeys meant the engine was never warm and running efficiently, not a problem with an electric car.

We also have solar pv so can use co2 free electricity (well technically 25% of standard energy co2 after taking into account the co2 needed to produce and install the panels) without grid losses.

I still think battery swap 'charging' is needed rather than 30 minutes fast chargers, obviously it looked like the sums would work when it was tried 5 years ago in Israel and technology has now moved on - though of course that debacle may mean that getting funding is difficult.

No doubt the big driver for any wholesale switch will be if any big jurisdiction (probably California) imposes such strict pollution targets that zero emissions is the only answer.

Presumably battery switching would only really be viable if a company owned and operated the fleet of batteries in which case they would account properly for the true cost.

Maybe in the future new EVs will come with no battery and you just swap batteries as and when in a building like a petrol station. The EV cost will be less but each time you swap a 200 mile battery it costs £25 rather than a £5 recharge.

cells

one consideration of self drive cars that i just thought of is how it will change the balance of trade if computer taxis replace human cars.

Countries like Japan that are a big net exporter of human cars ~$100B worth of cars each year could see that fall considerably. Of course net vehicle importers would benefit

zagubov

Generali wrote: »

Time to make the change,
Ch-ch-chaaaange-e-es.





Things change faster than you think when a new technology takes over.

Apropos of nothing, this video shows the transition between the upper two photos. Look at the left at about 3:18 and tell me that's not the best way to cross a city!


And weirdly, even now, our army still has more horses than tanks.

chris_m

zagubov wrote: »

And weirdly, even now, our army still has more horses than tanks.

You can't eat a tank