On Friday, June 22, 2018 at 11:42:20 AM UTC-7, lconley wrote: > > Every time you change the battery in an electric car, you have a > relatively large backward step (increase in carbon footprint). Batteries > are expensive because they consume a lot of energy to manufacture. The > longer that battery lasts, the smaller your carbon footprint so take care > of your battery if you want to minimize your carbon footprint. As > technology marches forward, especially battery technology, the smaller the > overall carbon footprint for electric cars will get. Gasoline engines have > been continually developed for the last 120+ years and have a lot of > infrastructure in place (gas stations etc.). Electric car technology kind > of ground to a halt ~100 years ago and only in the last 20 or so has really > picked back up. The electric cars 20 years from now will be way, way better > than the ones they have now. The current Chevy Bolt (238 mile range) > already makes the current Nissan Leaf (151 mile range) look stone age by > comparison. The technology gets better every year. Once there are more > recharging stations, it will be easier to travel intercity by electric car. >
My Tesla-phile friends rave about Tesla and its 300+ mile range. They also rave about Tesla's supercharging network and how you can now drive a Tesla across the country. They blast existing car companies too. But I remind them that car companies have established networks of dealerships and can easily put in charging stations on their property similar to what Tesla has done. So the question is how long will it take? All the major car companies will be rolling out their EVs in the next 5 years. The high end will be very crowded and it will only trickle down to the masses. These are interesting times. In the meantime, I'm happy to drive my 2014 Prius with its almost 20 year old hybrid technology using Nimh batteries instead of the latest lthion-ion batteries found in today's EVs. Or, I just jump into my 1990 BMW 535i with its "big six" gas hog eating engine and enjoy the 5 speed manual transmission! Bike content - fortunately, I commute to work on a bicycle! > One interesting aspect of commuting by electric car and charging at night > is that the extra load on the electric grid at night usually helps the > electric grid be more efficient. Generators are more efficient when fully > loaded than partially loaded. > > The other day when I parked in the low emitting and fuel efficient parking > spot at work, there was a guy parking a Harley in another one of the spots. > Being the annoying engineer that I am, I had to point out that he did not > qualify, he was fuel efficient, but not low emitting. He predictably got > very annoyed and claimed that fuel efficient and low emitting were the same > thing, but they are not, at least not in Florida. Motorcycles do not have > catalytic converters or evaporative emissions controls in Florida, not sure > about other states, especially California. Motorcycles and scooters pollute > all day and all night even when they are not running by letting their > hydrocarbon fuels evaporate directly into the air. I read somewhere that a > motorcycle puts out ten times the pollution of a modern car. Due to the > small number of motorcycles and scooters, they are not a big part of the > overall air pollution, so they have almost no regulations. So, while you > may feel holier than thou sitting beside the SUV on your Vespa - you do > have a smaller carbon foot print, there is a good chance that you are > polluting the air more. > In San Francisco, e-bikes, e-scooters (Scoot!) and my favorite e-skateboards are everywhere! I especially like climbing up our hills and seeing guys fly up the hill on their e-skateboards - quiet, fast and they look very relax! > > Bicycles put all kind of cars and motorcycles and scooters to shame, but > unless you exhale through a carbon capture device, your carbon foot print > is still not zero. > Whatever, you're going to have a "carbon foot print" sitting at home watching the game on the couch too. So that's a given! > > Geeking out on technology again. > > Owning ten Rivs is probably not all that green. > I don't know any Rivs, but I do have 2 steel frame bikes and 2 carbon bikes - ahhhhh! Good Luck! > > Laing > > > On Friday, June 22, 2018 at 12:55:22 PM UTC-4, masmojo wrote: > >> I read somewhere that the Prius is now the #1 car for owner retention. At >> the time I read that the average Prius owner was going in 11 years & >> counting! >> Now, I realize that Prius are technically hybirds, but the fact is that >> mechanically there's far less involved with an electric car then a petrol >> powered car or even a hybrid. So, long term electric car owners should be >> able to get massive numbers of miles out of their vehicles and aside from >> the eventual battery change, service should be cheaper as well. >> Point being, that while you might make a case for a negative >> environmental impact initially, over the long hual electric should overcome >> it's gasoline brother and surpass it by a healthy margin. >> My major worry with electric cars is fire issues & water encroachment >> over time or in flood situations. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
