On July 5th I commented on the Volvo hype in Volvo Goes All Electric – Well Not Quite.
On July 7th the Wall Street Journal chimed in with Volvo Discovers Electric-Vehicle Hype
The most popular article on the Journal’s website on Wednesday was headlined “ Volvo to Switch to Electric, in First for Major Auto Firm.” On its front page the next morning, the New York Times declared Volvo “the first mainstream automaker to sound the death knell of the internal combustion engine.”
Well, not exactly. By 2019, Volvo said all its cars would be hybrids or gas-electric hybrids or “mild” gas-electric hybrids—i.e., most will continue to have internal combustion engines.
“This announcement marks the end of the solely combustion engine-powered car,” is how Volvo chief executive Håkan Samuelsson actually put it (emphasis added).
Volvo, unlike just about every major car maker, doesn’t even have an electric car in the market today. Its big winner is a luxury SUV, a gasoline-powered vehicle whose top-of-the-line model is further enhanced, yes, by a supplemental electric drive.
The hybrid version of the XC90 comes with a $75,000 price tag: A customer who wants a hybrid is also presumed to want the 19-speaker, 1,400-watt sound system, the self-parking package and every other option Volvo can stuff into a $75,000 SUV.
Therein lies the real point. Volvo’s announcement signals nothing about the electric-car future and everything about Volvo’s niche marketing.
But something else is also going on. Volvo is still run out of Sweden. Its chief is Swedish. But the Volvo car business has been owned by China’s Geely since 2010.
Volvo’s biggest market now is China. Starting in 18 months, China’s auto makers will be subject to an increasingly onerous California-style “zero-emission vehicle” mandate.
To repeat a sore point, if the goal is to reduce greenhouse gases, passenger cars are not the place to aim. Electricity production is.
China’s real goal here is to reduce its strategic vulnerability to imported oil. By mandating a switch to electric cars, it’s essentially mandating a switch to a domestic fuel in plentiful supply, coal. An eager convert is the city of Taiyuan, capital of China’s coal belt, which enacted a rule requiring local taxis to be all-electric by 2021.
As part of declaring its energy independence, especially its independence from the U.S. Navy, guardian of the Middle East oil routes, China also is seeking to capture world leadership in lithium-ion technology. Its electric-vehicle mandate includes a requirement that manufacturers use only locally made batteries.
This is the China, by the way, that the media has been trying to turn into the world’s conscience on global warming since Donald Trump removed the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement.
Not even China, by central command, will be able to make mass adoption of electric cars economically viable, at least not without resort to massive mandates, subsidies and other distortions that bring their own problems.
Just Lovely
To reduce dependence on oil, China will burn more coal to power electric cars that supposedly will reduce greenhouse gasses and the environmentalists cheer.
I think electric can work in cities but I am not sure by what date.
Autonomous truck driving on highways will happen long before any major move by the public towards electric, barring government mandates of course.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Why are you conflating electric drive and autonomous drive? The two are mutually exclusive.
Only interesting thing about the article is pointing out more fake/misleading news by WSJ and Nytimes.
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I am not conflating anything
My positions on both are clear
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I’m so baked. How is this all effected by economic collapse?
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Passengers get to pedal.
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The Prius hybrid seems to have solved any reliability problems and is very popular.
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Agreed…My local Toyota dealer sold 2 last month…
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Here are the auto sales by vehicle YTD.
Where I live (yuppy valley) all I see are Priuses, Honda Fits, hybrid SUVs, etc, nary a full size P/U in sight. When I go camping the F-Series start proliferating. When I go into the mountains I start tripping over Subaru dealerships. Horses for courses.
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Oops – forgot link: http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2017/05/usa-april-2017-ytd-auto-sales-by-model-every-vehicle.html
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I think Holman Jenkins is solidly on target with this article. Anyone who is paying attention should notice too that the energy policy being set intends to place China’s economic security ahead of CO2 targets. One good aspect for other countries is, to the extent China sets economically wasteful domestic objectives, it should be easier for others to compete. All local taxis in Taiyuan are to be electric by 2021? That sounds typical of a communist 5 year plan. It should fit well with the Potemkin villages.
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Geeky bought London Taxi (LTI) for the purpose of building all electric taxis that are the only being pushed to meet EU air quality standards in dense inner city and remove diesel.
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Geely
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Cautiousobserver,
Since when has TAIWAN been known as Taiyuan?
DavidC
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Don’t be so clueless. Taiyuan is a city in mainland China. Google Map would locate that right away.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/06/france-ban-petrol-diesel-vehicles-2040/
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Yes, I saw that. It appears EU and China are walking hand-in-hand on this. However, policy makers promising to replace internal combustion vehicles with electric vehicles does not in any way prove that electric vehicles are more energy efficient or helpful for the environment.
For decades in the United States we have required that ethanol be blended into gasoline in the name of saving energy and reducing CO2 emissions. It is now widely acknowledged that growing corn, fermenting it into ethanol, refining it, blending it with gasoline, and burning it in transportation vehicles neither saves energy nor reduces CO2 emissions. It is more wasteful than using gasoline made from straight petroleum. Yet the policy continues unabated, apparently because production of ethanol fuel is now an established industry that pays to preserve its niche in US energy policy.
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What moron buys a $75,000 SUV.
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Cheap for a Land Rover.
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SUV? Its a mobile environmental sound system. OK, its for the sound system. Happy?
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“zero emissions vehicles” – the chinese have copied this nonsense from German politicians (who voted to ban all normal cars and trucks by 2030). While switching from clean nuclear power to dirty coal burning & CO2 spewing power plants.
Yesterday, I read an article on the all electric VW Golf being driven up and down Swiss mountain passes. Quote” 24.7 kw/h for 100 km” going up with the heavy car. No way!
Show me a battery which lasts longer than 1000 deep cycles. Check the replacement cost at today’s prices. Folks will be needing $ 15,000 loans in 7 years’ time.
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The typical battery lasts 10-15 years and 120-150K (your mileage may vary). The replacement cost is $2.5-3.5K including labor. There is an offset with gas savings:
120K miles @ 30mpg @ $2/g = $8000 (gas car)
120K miles @ 45mpg @ $2/g = $5334 (hybrid)
Gas savings = $2666
Also, ConsumerReports tested a 200K Prius using its original battery for performance, etc. and saw little change. They also had some points about replacement battery options:
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2011/02/the-200-000-mile-question-how-does-the-toyota-prius-hold-up/index.htm
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So, based on those numbers, the hybrid makes no economic sense. You save $2600 in gas, then spend $2500-3500 on replacement batteries. Up front you pay more for the vehicle, and then pay more as you go. I know that a number of people in my extended family bought hybrids at one point, but are back to driving gas powered vehicles.
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Basically yes, is my understanding.
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The electrons are also not free.
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In this case they are included in the price of the gas – the standard Prius we are comparing isn’t a plug in, although you can get that option.
Also read the Consumer Reports article – they are seeing Priuses get a lot more out of their first batteries and are recommending a $500 reconditioned or salvaged option, especially for a car with high mileage.
All-in-all you are probably going to come out slightly ahead, and you reduce CO2 in the process. What is the problem?
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Those numbers look very suspect. 32 mpg in city driving in a first gen ’02 Prius? WTF? I was getting over 52 mpg in mine, 42-45mpg in winter city driving. Highway was about 45-48 mpg any time of year.
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LiOn batteries don’t like extremes: Either being fully charged, or deeply discharged. If you run the battery between fully charged and discharged, you may only get 1,000 cycles or so.
However, if you only vary between 25% charged and 75%, it’ll last for a lot more than 1,000 cycles. The battery management on the Prius is very, very good. It also has the advantage that it can stop drawing energy from the battery without completely disabling the car, which allows it to optimize for battery lifespan with minimal effect on the operator.
The biggest problem in automotive applications is usually heat – the packaging makes it very difficult to get rid of excess heat.
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Why are we even talking about hybrid or full electric vehicles. Remember Trump digs coal and Rick Perry stated that if we produce more coal there will be more demand for it. So hold your horse’s soon Trump and his team will come up with a mandate for coal powered vehicles as another goal for his administration living in the 1920s when America was truly great !
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Smart move by China, as the coal burning will boost their CO2 production to peak in 2030, which will be the baseline from which China cuts back under the climate change treaty. Of course, they know the CO2 climate story is fake news with good propaganda value for them. Cutting back on oil also makes good sense for their national security. China does not need a climate change treaty to do any of this.
Volvo story now makes sense, and I imagine GM and others will have to compete. China could also put its solar panels to work charging all those car batteries, and bask in the environmentalist propaganda. So, switch from oil to coal is a separate issue from electric cars.
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I’d question if China is going to increase investment in coal. They seem to be moving to a solar/wind/natgas combo.
If you’ve ever visited Beijing you’ll quickly understand why. The air resembles the “pea-soupers” my father used to talk about. My first trip there was over 10 years ago and the first couple of days were fine. On the third morning I opened my hotel room curtains and instead of seeing the “squatting building” (I always think it looks like somebody taking a dump), I saw precisely nothing. Outside you could see maybe 10-15 yards.
The communist government are paranoid over a people’s uprising (try searching for “tiananmen” there and you get no results) and know that harming or killing peoples’ (only) kids with poor air quality is likely to cause unrest.
Their drive to clean up their air will have the secondary effect of lowering their CO2 so they’ll claim the credit for PR purposes to make them look good in the West, and now with 45 blundering ignorance it is also a lever to unseat the U.S.’s leadership in World affairs. Win-win-win for them.
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Slightly outdated article here
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Coal/Peak-Coal-And-Chinese-Economic-Growth.html
Not just China, a lot of countries will have to diversify energy production. Lots of space for efficiency to be incorporated also.
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Sorry for reply delay. Enjoyed reading your firsthand China report. The Mainstream Media is strangely silent about the true chemical nature, ecology and agricultural and forestry value of CO2. Thus, there is 99.9% public ignorance. CO2 is an invisible gas, and therefore cannot be the cause of dirty air in China or anywhere else. CO2 health effects are negligible to zero. Even if there is global warming, CO2 is not the real culprit. CO2 is less than 1% (0.03% to be exact) of the earth’s atmosphere, and is therefore a minor air impurity, much rarer than argon. Elevated CO2 levels will boost plant growth and increase forest growth and agricultural production, a proven scientific fact from greenhouse studies. In other words, more CO2 means more photosynthesis by green plants, and hence higher forestry and agricultural production, which is good.
China can burn more coal cleanly, removing particulates and gases causing dirty air. Clean coal, scrubbing, etc. do this. The USA EPA was sued to stop Obama’s CO2 regulations for coal, as CO2 removal costs are very high and provide no air quality benefits. Until 2030 under the treaty, The climate treaty is incentive for China to burn more coal (cleanly), maximizing CO2 emissions to peak in 2030 before switching to solar, etc., which will be much improved by then. It is best to have CO2 as high as possible in 2030, so cutbacks will have negligible economic impact. Thus, the climate treaty is incentive for China to increase CO2 emissions until 2030. No treaty would likely lead to lower CO2 emissions.
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I wonder what the Paris Climate Commission will do about this?
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The Russian Science Foundation stated publicly that global warming is a silly hoax, but Russia supported it anyway because it forced Europe to buy more Russian nat gas.
The EU heard only the part of the quote that they wanted to hear: Russia supports the paris accord.
The part about Europe becoming a Gazprom annuity was censored
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“The Russian Science Foundation stated publicly that global warming is a silly hoax”
Can you provide a link. I went to their web site and searched for “CO2” and also for “Climate” and found nothing remotely like that.
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Google it. There are hundreds of links to the RSF comments alone.
Wikipedia has an entire page on scientists that don’t buy into global warming (and they are pretty left wing / published out of San Fran / edited by Berkley grads) — including links to the RSF study.
There are just as many scientists predicting global cooling — and if you pay any attention to these academics, you would know this. The UN published a study in the 1970s warning of an impending ice age by 1990 (and that studies authors are also among the pseudo-scientists claiming global warming). The idiots at Oxford even got caught manipulating data and selecting only data points that reached their pre-determined conclusion.
The Paris accord might as well be an announcement that western academia already peaked. Its really bad science, even if your politics agree with their hypothesis. Scientists don’t change raw data. Period.
The fact that otherwise “reputable” scientists are willing to draw a conclusion from data they know has been edited and manipulated is just an embarrassment. And the Russian Science Federation, which is not beholden to western media, was not afraid to say so.
Want to know why fewer and fewer patents are issued to western science? (more to Japan, China and Russia)… want to know why even politicians keep giving lip service to the sorry state of STEM education?
because the people supposedly teaching science in the US and Europe have let their standards slide so much that they are teaching a discredited hoax.
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Maybe he meant Russian Academy of Sciences?
http://www.climatedepot.com/2017/03/23/russian-scientists-dismiss-global-warming-predict-decades-of-cooling/
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That is yet another Russian paper on the same subject.
I think I did have a translation error in earlier comment. Apparently it is the Russian Science **Federation** (not foundation?). Maybe there are some Russian speaking readers of this blog that can help with that part.
In any event, scientists that are not being bullied by leftist academia and western media — which is to say everywhere but the USA and Europe — are far from convinced that Al Gore’s tax hike plan has any scientific basis to it.
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Here’s one Russian scientist predicting a temperature DROP:
http://principia-scientific.org/top-russian-scientist-fear-a-deep-temperature-drop-not-global-warming/
And if you bother to google the subject, thousands of scientists say the temperature fluxes (BOTH up and down) relate to humidity levels in the atmosphere — aka cloud cover.
Still others point out that the mount St Helen’s eruption released more CO2 into the atmosphere than all the cars, trucks, power plants and cargo ships had in the previous two decades. And that was one eruption among many major eruptions.
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You don’t think that a science foundation supported by a government that relies on fossil fuels for a huge portion of its income might just be pay-for-play?
Of course you don’t, because it fits your political needs.
Oh dear.
Got science?
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That is one paper, from one Russian scientist. There are hundreds of scientists in the USA that also think Al Gore’s crap is a hoax. Nice attempt at a strawman argument, but I don’t need academic tenure so you can’t threaten me like some Berkley dipsh!t
Just because your politics don’t agree doesn’t mean you get to pervert science. There is nothing scientific about doctoring data, having no control group, and bullying everyone who disagrees with you.
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The paper from the “Russian scientists” focuses on cosmic ray flux. Since cosmic rays have been level for 60 years, you’ll need to explain to me how is has been involved with the observed warming in the period.
You know what has been rising in the last 60 years, CO2 levels. Maybe your (Occam’s) razor needs sharpening 😉
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You claim CO2 levels have been rising for 60 years… and yet the very same quacks that are peddling global warming were warning of an impending ice age only 45 years ago.
The left wingers don’t even agree with themselves. And you are doing your usual tactic on mishtalk of just picking fights. Go outside and get some fresh air — you might learn something about the real world
And enough with the berkley bullsh!t
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A nice summary on the insignificant impact of cosmic rays, or as Russian’s like to call them “our excuse to get people to keep buying our fossil fuels, cos we got nothing else and are destroying our education system and all our smart people are leaving as fast as they can”:
https://phys.org/news/2015-03-cosmic-fluctuations-global-temperatures-doesnt.html
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The Russians want to sell nat gas. The left wingers in US/Europe want to raise taxes.
There is no science going on here.
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This is just to widen the argument, no idea how much truth in it but the idea is not too far fetched.
https://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/24980-new-report-exposes-rockefeller-dynasty-s-role-in-climate-scam
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Seems like paranoid stuff Crysangle
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Create a sub-commission.
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Hi Mish. I am a commercial real estate inspector and travel to properties throughout the big cities and small towns of the Midwest and South. Even if it is only the urbanites, those who mostly travel short distances on their daily commutes, who are first to make the switch from combustion to elecrtic vehicles, I cannot conceive of the manner in which it will be possible to continuosly re-charge so many vehicles on a daily basis. Currently, what percentage of cars are parked each night in the garage of an owner’s house? Many people (not all) who own a home may have a garage, but never park their car(s) in it as they are filled with toys, boxes, etc. And what about households with 2 or 3 cars? Or, what if one lives in an apartment complex? What happens when you travel out of town to visit the grandparents or for a weekend getaway? Also, presently, it takes only 3-5 minutes to fill the tank with gasoline. Who has the time to wait hours for a re-charge? There is absolutely no infrastructure in place to address these issues, and I doubt consumers will have the patience to give up the current conveniences (gss stations on every street corner) for their daily drivers. The first time one runs out of juice and is stranded on the side of the road waiting for a mobile re-charge, will be the day the owner heads back to the dealership to end their nightmare.
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I know 3 EV Owners who always charge overnight. Admittedly they do have off street parking. One day California will reach saturation point for EV charging infrastructure at which point more money will become available for other states to use.
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Lol! Thanks for that.
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I were just trying to be helpful.
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The head of the Russian science foundation has pointedly stated that global warming is a ridiculous hoax — but that Russia supports the Paris accord because it forces western Europe to buy more Russian natgas.
Its funny that now the Chinese have also figured out ways to use the globalist scam against the globalist.
Meanwhile, both IEA and BP pointed out 9-10 years ago that the world simply could not function in 2030 unless China relied mostly on coal for energy. Both reports assumed peak oil wasn’t happening, but that crude oil supply would continue to grow at the same pace as 1950-2000 ad infinitum… but the world, and especially China, would still have to burn a lot more coal to maintain historical growth levels (never mind if China’s growth accelerated, which it did). China can maintain social harmony only by burning a lot more coal.
Germany made a huge error by allowing Merkel to save her political career by getting rid of nuclear power and coal electricity in what can only be descibed as a panic. Without German industry (which needs affordable energy, duh!), the EU experiment cannot be saved. Germany is now a Gazprom annuity, Merkel is now the undisputed leader of a dying EU.
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–> “Autonomous truck driving on highways will happen long before…”
Makes you wonder how long it will be before we get a country song about how a man’s truck drove off and left him
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Good one!
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Well said.
Not to mention that to actually PRODUCE a new electric car – the batteries are extremely toxic to the environment both in natural resources, manufacturing and disposal as compared to a traditional internal combustion engine vehicle.
++++
To reduce dependence on oil, China will burn more coal to power electric cars that supposedly will reduce greenhouse gasses and the environmentalists cheer.
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China’s main focus is reducing urban pollution. Electric vehicles that have zero tail-pipe emissions absolutely combat this problem. Generating of clean energy is a separate problem. Why are these always conflated.
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interesting… but as you point out, electric vehicles cause as much pollution as gasoline powered cars and simply more the pollution upstream (to the power stations) and downstream (to the rubbish tips).
has anyone done a study on the half life of a battery once disposed of? or thought about the second hand car market for electric vehicles after they replace gasoline powered cars?
i am betting that there will be a rapid growth in roadside rescue of battery powered cars – a good business to get into now – maybe the resuce vehicles would be gasoline powered.
given advances in techology, i can see 3D printed cars and trucks made mostly of solar panels, and, roads with pressure panels that convert pressure from vehicle weight aother source of recharging (like railways).
point is, companies lie Tesla and Volvo will not be able to compete with innovation and are rushing towards obsolesence – so why is tesla valued at more than GM and Ford when it sells less than half a million a year against millions? maybe you can’t fix stupid or libtards that thrive on ALWAYS exploiting some form of guilt – without capturing the upstream AND downstream impact of their puerile views.
time to reshape the issue – autonomous cars are human assisted robots, not the other way round.
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I recently listened to a podcast where Chris Martenson noted that seven years worth of CO2 emission is required just in the battery manufacturing process of these vehicles…
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I recently listened to a podcast where it was noted that seven years worth of CO2 emission is required just in the battery manufacturing process of these vehicles…
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Plug in hybrids with pure electric range of 40-50 miles are going mainstream in rest of world.
These vehicles use essentially nil gasoline in daily use.
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Yup. And a good approach. All battery for 99% of your driving and still have an ICE for long distance. A good interim until battery technology makes the necessary improvements.
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It’s my wild guess that plug in hybrids will have ‘significant’ market share by 2020 in the world ( ex US of course )
this will have cataclysmic effect on oil demand
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It’s my wild guess that plug in hybrids will have ‘significant’ market share by 2020 in the world ( ex US of course )
this will have slight effect on oil demand but a cataclysmic effect on oil prices
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The problem with futurist predictions is that so often those making the predictions ignore so much of the reality of life. I love watching videos on You Tube of the various future predictions and what is so obvious is how much of the minutiae of reality these people leave out. I found this article, I believe it comes from a recent NYT issue.
Jason Eichenholz, co-founder of Luminar Technologies, with a 3-D lidar (light detection and ranging) map. Lidar may eventually help autonomous cars drive more safely. Credit Ben Margot/Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO — In the minds of many in Silicon Valley and in the auto industry, it is inevitable that cars will eventually drive themselves. It is simply a matter of how long it will take for the technology to be reliably safe.
But as indicated by Google’s challenges with the so-called handoff between machines and humans — not to mention Uber’s problems during recent tests on the streets of San Francisco — there is a lot more work to be done before self-driving cars are ready for the mainstream. Here are some of the challenges facing technologists.
The ability to respond to spoken commands or hand signals from law enforcement or highway safety employees.
There are subtle signals that humans take for granted: the body language of a traffic control officer, for example, or a bicyclist trying to make eye contact. How do you teach a computer human intuition? Perhaps the only way is endless hours of road testing, so that machines can learn the interactions that humans have been socialized to understand.
Driving safely despite unclear lane markings.
This, too, is a question of intuition. The most challenging driving environments require self-driving cars to make guidance decisions without white lines, Botts Dots (those little plastic bumps that mark lanes) or clear demarcations at the edge of the road.
Notably, California may phase out Botts Dots on its roads because, among other issues, they are not believed to be an effective lane-marking tool for automated vehicles. In short, the highway infrastructure is going to have to change over time to interact with computer-driven vehicles.
Reliably recognizing traffic lights that are not working.
Picking out traffic lights is now done reliably by self-driving car vision systems. Making correct decisions in the event of a power failure is more challenging. Yet again, it’s a question of teaching a machine human intuition and how to cooperate among multiple vehicles.
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Making left turns into intersections with fast-moving traffic.
Merging into rapidly flowing lanes of traffic is a delicate task that often requires eye contact with oncoming drivers. How can machines subtly let other machines and humans know what they are trying to do? Researchers are considering solutions like electronic signs and car-to-car communications systems.
Detecting which small objects in the roadway must be avoided.
Recognizing objects is something that machine-vision systems can now do reliably. But so-called scene understanding, which would inform a determination like whether a bag on the road is empty or hides a brick inside, is more challenging for computer vision systems.
The ability to operate safely in all weather conditions. Software improvements to lidar (short for light detection and ranging) technology may help someday, but not yet.
Lidar systems can’t be fooled by darkness or sun glare. But if you’re wondering whether the lidar systems in self-driving cars have problems in rain or snow, you’re on to something. Heavy rain or snow can confuse current car radar and lidar systems, making it necessary for humans to intervene.
Cybersecurity. There is no evidence yet that autonomous cars will be any more secure than any other networked computers.
A self-driving car is a collection of networked computers and sensors wirelessly connected to the outside world. Keeping the systems safe from intruders who may wish to crash cars — or turn them into weapons — may be the most daunting challenge facing autonomous driving.
Now this also applies to class 7 and 8 trucks. Please note that this a only a short list of problems. I know Mish and others believe it will just a couple of years and the floodgates of autonomous fleets of trucks will run the interstate with ease. I will tell you, the devil is in the details. If you have never driven truck either over the road or intercity delivery, then you have no idea of that which you speak. It is not like driving a car. There is a great amount of infrastructure needed for these fleets of self driving trucks. The interstates carry a lot of freight, but much of that freight begins and ends o US and state highways and those destinations and origination points are often as much as five hundred miles from the interstate. That means reliance of day cab drivers to ferry loads to exchange lots (a great many will be needed, by the way, with controlled access) on the Interstate. The only cost being eliminated by the trucking industry with self driving trucks is that of the driver on the Interstate. By the way, many day cab drives are unionized. Add in the cost of facilities for drop and pick up, and what costs are your saving? It’s about the money, always about the money.
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you confuse level 4 & 5
you also fail to fathom that driving the speed limit will eliminate nearly all of your challenges.
BTW human drivers kill 40,000 innocent Americans every year and put 2,500,000 in the hospital. Human drivers are extremely dangerous
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Have you ever obtained a Class A license and driven a class 8 vehicle for more than a day? do you understand all of the hazards of diving a vehicle that is approximately 75 ft long and weight up to 80,000 pounds and at sixty five miles an hour takes over 400 feet to stop, more if it is empty? I could ask you well over a hundred questions off the top of my head about what you know about driving a big rig and I would be willing to bet you couldn’t answer a single one of them.
But what is your best in this discussion? Highway deaths and injuries. As if that somehow settles the question of when and where self driving truck transportation will come. By that reasoning then we should ban all passenger vehicles because those are the ones who have the most accidents. As far as driving the speed limit, it depends on the conditions of the road, the weather, the vehicle, and the individual. Or didn’t you know that? I have a million miles under my belt, how many do you have?
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also slightly under a million
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My point is simple. Engineers and entrepreneurs come up with wonderful ideas, it’s been that was for a century or two. But these wonderful ideas are rarely based on more than an idea. Yes, self driving trucks on the interstate, great idea until one actually goes and drives a big rig for a living coast to coast for a few years. Too many people picture the interstate as some lonely highway miles away from city traffic. No so. The I-95 corridor is the most heavily traveled interstates in America. And from Richmond to Bangor the traffic is horrendous. What is worse is that the road conditions, that is, the actually physical maintenance of the pavement, is horrid. Around New Your City the pot holes are unbelievable. Consider what washboard type roads will do to the electronic equipment on board as it tries to maneuver through heavy traffic. Radar can’t tell intent. How many times have you looked at a vehicle and its driver and determined intent? Over your years of experience, how many traffic patterns would you recognize traps that lead to accidents? Do you start to recognize the problems with self driving trucks? One cannot literally program a computer with all the relevant knowledge that a truck driver has accumulated after even half a million miles. Getting through the congestion of cities is not an easy task for an automated truck.
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China has super city pollution. Many residents walk around with masks on to protect themselves. Electricity can be generated far from the cities, while vehicles directly put their output into city air. Citizens are demanding healthy air.
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For Beijing the problem is worse due to local conditions – the power plants that ring the city pump out pollution that is then swept into the city along with fine particle dust from the deserts upwind:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-39801555
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Yes, Beijing has several issues to deal with.
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There is an increase in rate of change in transportation and Mish has identified two of the key drivers:
1. electrification
2. automation
If, and I think Mish has stated this, the number of vehicles dramatically decreases because we will press a button on our phone and a self driving car will appear a few minutes later. Personal car ownership will drop and the usage for vehicles will rise from under 5% (i.e. 95% of the time the typical personal car is parked doing nothing) to about 50-70%. Cars can be a lot more expensive initially and still cost the same or less to run per mile (i.e. depreciation per mile by time will be eliminated for most people/no financing costs, etc., so more money can be put into mpg saving engineering, etc.).
Thus the investment in better drivetrains and the infrastructure to swap batteries will be very feasible. When not in use a self driving car can take itself to a battery switch center for a fresh battery. If you want to travel over say 300 miles in one go, then a relay of fresh cars can be set up for you by the controlling system.
My prediction is that most people will have one car in their garage for times when personal use is more convenient (e.g. you keep your golf gear in your trunk) and use self driving car hailing services for most of their other needs.
The most popular vehicle buzzing around the nearby gated retirement community where I live is electric golf carts.
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Another example of excessive government regulations and controls.
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My officemate who works with Lithium-ion batteries advised me not to buy batteries made in China, and not to buy the higher amp-hour rated batteries. The membranes are too thin and there is insufficient heat dissipation; which contribute to rupture. That’s why cell-phones have caught fire.
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http://www.visualcapitalist.com/china-leading-charge-lithium-ion-megafactories/
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First, estimates are if the economy goes 100% autonomous vehicles the actual # of cars needed to be produced will be 80% less than present. That alone would be a big reduction in CO2, in addition the # of needed roads would dramatically decrease since automated cars would avoid traffic jams and wouldn’t need massive amount of parking spaces.
Second, not a fan of coal but in terms of greenhouse gas economies of scale are a friend. It’s a lot more efficient to have a massive power plant than lots of little ones….at least when it comes to burning fuels. A case where cars recharge their batteries from coal plants rather than make their power on the fly burning gas has economies of scale going for it. On the negative side power is lost when you transport it from the power plant to your home over lines. However fact is very few people use generators to power their homes except during blackouts…that implies even with the loss due to distance it’s worth it to use a massive power plant.
Third, huge coal power plants are great at baseline energy generation. You don’t want to be turning the coal plant on and off, you want it to be on and stay on as long as possible. People often trash solar for this *but* a problem is we do not consume electricity in a baseline fashion. Consumption plummets at night, explodes during the day. Massive amounts of cars sipping electricity while we sleep, however, can even out baseline power generation which means less greenhouse gas *even if* we are just talking about old fashioned coal plants.
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When you talk about greenhouse gases, as though it were an established fact — it discredits everything else you write.
There is no consensus except in places that don’t tolerate discussion — like US university campuses. In most of the world, there is a LOT of skepticism whether any of this global warming nonsense is any different from the earlier UN report warning of an impending ice age.
When you try to mix science and politics, you just end up looking stupid. And referencing intolerant academics just makes it worse.
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“When you talk about greenhouse gases… — it discredits everything else you write.”
“There is no consensus except in places that don’t tolerate discussion — like US university campuses.”
I love people who cry tears for ‘tolerating discussion’ while first declaring anyone who disagrees with their ideological, fact free (and you are fact free as you did not address a single fact I provided nor did you offer any of your own) dictates are automatically excluded from the discussion.
You should be more careful my friend, living in your glass house with an underwater mortgage.
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So you agree that you are intolerant?
All I said was that your opinion is not universal. I said your assumption that greenhouse gases were doing anything at all was just an unproven assumption.
And I implied that your ARROGANCE in forcing your opinion on people who didn’t vote for you (via things like the Paris “accord”) is offensive. You have no right to force your opinion on others, which is all you socialists ever seem to do.
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The big problem with Electric Vehicles compared to Internal Combustion Vehicles is the physics of energy production and portability does not favor EVs.
Last time I checked, coal plants were roughly 40% efficient at converting chemical energy to electricity. Since the energy in coal is nearly all from carbon, most of the chemical energy ends up as CO2. By comparison, gasoline C5-C12 chains contain 12 to 26 Hydrogens each, and store a greater fraction of energy as hydrogen bonds. However, ICEs are perhaps only 30% efficient at converting chemical energy to useful work. For a first order approximation, I am going to say that these two items are a wash and Coal and Gasoline are roughly environmentally equal up to this point. (Coal is also a solid fuel that must be dug out of the ground and shipped. Oil must be extracted from a well, sent via pipeline, refined into gasoline and sent via pipeline again. I am calling all of that a wash.)
Everything else in the chain favors the Internal Combustion Engine over Electric:
– Electricity must be shipped over lines (roughly 5% loss).
– There is a charge and discharge loss for the battery (roughly 15% net loss for Li-ion *when new*).
– *When new,* rechargeable Li-ion batteries have about 6% of the energy density of gasoline *after* throwing out the 70% of chemical energy in gasoline not converted to power by the engine. In other words, a battery weighing the same as 20 gallons of gasoline would have the driving range of only 1.2 gallons of gasoline, all else being equal. This is the reason EVs are all very aerodynamic and lightweight.
– Combustion engines produce roughly 30% of their energy as waste heat that can be used for heating the vehicle during the winter. Batteries must sacrifice driving range to heat the vehicle and not much heat is available.
– Batteries are very adversely affected by high and low temperature operation whereas combustion engines are not.
– Batteries have a life expectancy of roughly 5 years whereas a combustion engine can easily last 15 years.
– The major component in today’s rechargeable automotive batteries is lithium, which is a rare earth element. Combustion engines are made mostly from iron and aluminum, which are very common.
All the above issues, and the environmental issues that go with them, favor ICE over Electric. To the people who are Hell-bent on trying to replace all internal combustion engine vehicles with electric vehicles I say: “Please stop trying to push a string uphill.”
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I still see solutions looking for a problem.
Let me know when my self driver can get me off the hook on a DUI charge.
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Volvo desperately needs the media coverage from this move.
In the 1970’s into the 1980’s, Volvo’s were basically Swedish taxicabs. They weren’t fancy cars, but their crash safety was far superior to the competition. They were generally durable and easy to repair. These advantages sold a lot of Volvo’s.
In the 1990’s, the competition figured out crash safety, and today Honda, Toyota and even Hyundai build cars that are as good or better than Volvo.
Volvo then decided to move up-market and try and compete with Mercedes, BMW and Audi. Volvo’s became much more complex, much less reliable, and lost the ease of repair. Unfortunately for Volvo, their plan to steal customers from the Germans has largely failed. At the same time, Geely’s grand plan of turning Volvo into the biggest car brand in China has also failed. (Directly linked to Volvo’s modest sales in the USA/Europe.)
Volvo is now staring down the need to spend billions of dollars developing new drivetrains to remain competitive in the future, but their present sales do not justify that investment. Geely’s only hope may be to sell the powers-that-be in China to “loan” them the money and try to “go green” faster than their competition.
Looks like a hail-mary pass to me.
(It’s also clear that Volvo AB saw this coming in 1999 when they sold Volvo Cars to Ford and used the proceeds to try and purchase Scania, as well as expanding aggressively into the United States after the Scania purchase was blocked. Volvo Group is doing well. Volvo Cars, not so much.)
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Its a marketing scam that Volvo’s “new” (since 2010?) Chinese owners are using to exploit the STEM dropouts in California and France. If Tesla is going to exploit people who have been indoctrinated, why can’t others do exactly the same thing?
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I think its funny that most Europeans (as in the rank and file voters, not the political class) support Trump on pretty much every issue — especially immigration. yet the media continues to claim Trump is isolated.
In the previous G20 meeting, Putin was supposedly isolated, and Obama farted rose petals — at least according to media outlets. Putin is more popular in Russia than Obama ever was in the USA; and Putin took control of Syria and Ukraine after Obama’s failures.
Makes me wonder how long before the media admits Trump has more support in the USA than the media does:
https://www.statista.com/chart/10173/most-americans-now-support-limited-travel-ban/
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What a series of posts! So much misinformation and misdirection. Where to begin? In no particular order:
I just returned from China last month. I was in several of the major cities Chongqing (37 million), Shanghai (25), Beijing (22), Xi’an (10), Suzhou (10). The air was mostly clear and very breathable. I saw blue sky occasionally in the cities, and frequently in the countryside when it wasn’t raining. I understand that sometimes the air in the major cities is of poor quality, but to say that is the case all the time is false. Don’t believe those who say you can’t breathe there. I admit to falling for the recent hype, as I brought a few surgical masks with me, but I never had to use them.
Second point: Chinese authorities are encouraging/demanding the use of hybrids or electric vehicles in their major cities, mainly to help improve the occasional poor air quality. I can understand this after seeing the amount of traffic, the sheer size of the city areas, the traffic jams and the population densities. As I have stated many times, even a simple hybrid system with a tiny battery, shuts off the engine when braking or when stopped. The savings in fuel and reduction in emissions is substantial. It’s a no-brainer that almost all vehicles will be hybrid in the future as the cost of these simple systems will become insignificant compared to the benefit.
I am sure that there are many other reasons for this Chinese hybrid/electric policy, including: trying to become an international leader in hybrid and electric vehicle systems and batteries (it wouldn’t surprise me if they surpass Japan, Europe and the US in developing the technology); reduction in their oil imports; fulfilling international commitments regarding emissions; etc
Third point: The Chinese continue to use a lot of coal to generate much of their electricity. This is also part of their emissions problem. They are working at breakneck speed to develop other sources of electrical generation, in order to reduce their over dependence on coal. They are developing all other sources including nuclear, solar, wind, hydroelectric etc. The three gorges Dam generates 22 gigawatts itself, and it’s companion dams bring the total to 37. And they plan on doubling this total in the next 20 years. Make no mistake, the Chinese know that the future is not coal.
And to those of you who say that electric vehicles are just as bad as ICE vehicles, you seem to think that all electricity comes from a coal fired plant. Even if that was the case, the emissions from a coal plant are still less than the equivalent tailpipe emissions from ICE vehicles. Of course, there are some countries that produce almost all of their electricity from renewables. So there are virtually no emissions at all (not counting production of the vehicle itself)
Having said all that, I still disagree with Mish on vehicles of the future. I continue to believe that hybrid will dominate everywhere. Mish believes that electric will dominate in cities, and hybrid will dominate everywhere else. What we both agree on, is that autonomous will dominate, whether in a hybrid or in an electric vehicle.
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Except nuclear and renewables, all energy production heats up the planet. That’s physics. Energy and production (GDP) are tightly correlated as well as population. So if we continue growing GDP and energy, the heating up of the planet will render places inhabitable, so migrations and terrorism will follow. The only alternative to foreseeable collapse is to change our modes of living. From affluence to frugality. Nuclear can replace coal entirely for electricity. Electric vehicles or hybrids can replace diesel and gasoline powered vehicles. But large earthmoving equipment in mines and quarries and in civil works will not operate on windmills nor nuclear electricity…. Remember it took a hundred years to build the great cathedrals, whereas it takes 2 years to build a world trade center above a 100feet excavation.
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energy and gdp growth are linked – tell that to the japanese
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Have a look at this chart http://bit.ly/2sUBkAp
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look at Japan’s chart since 1973
look at German chart since 1985
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nor will steel plants and rolling mills operate on renewables or
electricity
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Last Summer I was around Lexington, KY and had some engine issues. The place that fixed my semi had sixty brand new Volvos sitting in their yard.
“Wow! Big order huh? Congratulations!”
“Nope. Those are returns. The guy just bought them a month ago but said any kind of moisture whatsoever played havoc with the electrical system.”
Maybe they’ll have better luck with cars. Maybe not.
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Hong Kong’s car sales were recently announced — and turns out that when the tax incentives ended, Tesla’s sales ended.
Without a tax incentive, Tesla sold ZERO cars in Hong Kong last month. ZERO.
Tesla is nothing without ongoing taxpayer subsidies
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Too many people picture the interstate as some lonely highway miles away from city traffic. Yes, self driving trucks on the interstate, great idea until one actually goes and drives a big rig for a living coast to coast for a few years.
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How many times have you looked at a vehicle and its driver and determined intent? Thus, the climate treaty is incentive for China to increase CO2 emissions until 2030.
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Thus, the climate treaty is incentive for China to increase CO2 emissions until 2030. Too many people picture the interstate as some lonely highway miles away from city traffic.
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