Author Topic: TESLA finally launches a truck/semi ? AND some solarpower in PUERTO RICO.  (Read 30515 times)

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Offline 3roomlabTopic starter

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Re: TESLA finally launches a truck/semi ?
« Reply #75 on: November 23, 2017, 12:50:37 am »
i found this interesting article describing battery degradation over time/range
https://www.teslacentral.com/worried-about-tesla-battery-degradation-its-23-miles-every-100000-driven

and that leads to this group of over 900 TESLA users logging their battery data
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/t024bMoRiDPIDialGnuKPsg/edit#gid=1669966328
and a few users have surpassed 0.25 million km (under 4 years of use) = 39k miles per year.

what is interesting about the data is that, 18 out of 396 users have replaced their batteries (in what looks like first 4 years of usage?). and if i depend on 39k km/yr mileage rate, it will take 41-ish years to reach 1 million miles, about 32 changes of tires? in ICE terms, how many servicing runs would that require?
 
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Offline Monkeh

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Re: TESLA finally launches a truck/semi ?
« Reply #76 on: November 23, 2017, 03:40:15 am »
:phew: Damn Good someone had and good invention years ago it called Metrical System.
Maybe someone here heard about?  :popcorn:
Why not use them? Just 98% of all Country in the World do it.
So everyone here can use it to.  :clap:  :-+

Perhaps you could participate in the topic instead of whinging that you don't understand the units.
 

Offline Zero999

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Re: TESLA finally launches a truck/semi ?
« Reply #77 on: November 23, 2017, 09:57:15 am »
You just linked a paper, which directly contradicted your previous point, and proving mine. Thank you, saved a lot of trouble. But the second paper completely ignored food to road efficiency.
https://momentummag.com/carnivorous-cyclists-contribute-global-warming-vegan-drivers-argues-harvard-researcher/ Here is an article, including it. In this one, even a toyota prius is more economic friendly than biking. I dont completely agree with this, but it is an indicator, that biking is worse than people describe it.
That article makes an assumption: someone on an average US diet gets the extra calories, required for the commute, from animal products, rather than plants. It also talks about carnivorous cyclists, which is very misleading. Very few people are carnivorous.  It does site the paleo diet as being bad for the environment, but very few people eat like that today, other than Eskimos and some fitness freaks. In reality, most humans are omnivores.

I'm omnivorous. I haven't analysed my diet, but I'm pretty sure my commuting calories come more from carbohydrates (plant based), than animal products, since when I'm active, I crave sweet food and carbohydrates, rather than meat.

The article also ignores the energy required to manufacture and recycle the car vs the bicycle.

The main point I think that article highlights is how bad the agricultural industry is for the environment.
 

Offline Fungus

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Re: TESLA finally launches a truck/semi ?
« Reply #78 on: November 23, 2017, 10:08:48 am »
I'd like to see how the range holds up when the thinlg is fully loaded with 44 tons of stuff is attached to this truck...
Elon says the quoted range is at full load and at highway speeds.

Also 1.6 MW for each charger?? That will no doubt put a huge stress on the power grid if they are to have more than few trucks charging per city
The great thing about trucks is that they don't go into cities much.
 

Offline tszaboo

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Re: TESLA finally launches a truck/semi ?
« Reply #79 on: November 23, 2017, 12:58:30 pm »
You just linked a paper, which directly contradicted your previous point, and proving mine. Thank you, saved a lot of trouble. But the second paper completely ignored food to road efficiency.
https://momentummag.com/carnivorous-cyclists-contribute-global-warming-vegan-drivers-argues-harvard-researcher/ Here is an article, including it. In this one, even a toyota prius is more economic friendly than biking. I dont completely agree with this, but it is an indicator, that biking is worse than people describe it.
That article makes an assumption: someone on an average US diet gets the extra calories, required for the commute, from animal products, rather than plants. It also talks about carnivorous cyclists, which is very misleading. Very few people are carnivorous.  It does site the paleo diet as being bad for the environment, but very few people eat like that today, other than Eskimos and some fitness freaks. In reality, most humans are omnivores.

I'm omnivorous. I haven't analysed my diet, but I'm pretty sure my commuting calories come more from carbohydrates (plant based), than animal products, since when I'm active, I crave sweet food and carbohydrates, rather than meat.

The article also ignores the energy required to manufacture and recycle the car vs the bicycle.

The main point I think that article highlights is how bad the agricultural industry is for the environment.
As I said, I also take this numbers with a grain of salt. What we need to understand is:
1) Biking is not the "infinitely better green future" some people think it is.
2) Over the last 90 years, the combustion engine improved, but this is preatty much it. It will not get infinitely better, it will not be a magical button which gets rid of CO2 and the pollution
3) Electric cars are not polluting when they are being used. There is some dust of course.
4) With the shifting power generation to renewable energy, the electricity required will be less polluting. The manufacturing of the car will be less polluting. The batteries will be less polluting. Recycling is just energy. Did you know, there is a 90% recycling rate on automotive lead acid batteries worldwide? Guess what will happen to lithium.
Clearly, electric cars alone, or with coal power plants is a bad idea. And I dont really care, if it takes 2 times as much energy to make something, if that energy is from a green source. Nothing can be made as clean, as a self-driving electric cars, manufactured, charged and recycled with solar and wind power.
 

Offline Lord of nothing

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Re: TESLA finally launches a truck/semi ?
« Reply #80 on: November 23, 2017, 01:34:07 pm »
Quote
3) Electric cars are not polluting when they are being used.
When the Power come from Nuclear, Coal, Gas,... are better than Diesel, Bensina?
Made in Japan, destroyed in Sulz im Wienerwald.
 

Offline 2N3055

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Re: TESLA finally launches a truck/semi ?
« Reply #81 on: November 23, 2017, 02:45:31 pm »
While my biggest desire is to ban diesel, and I would prefer to drive fully electric cars, infrastructure is fundamental problem.

I will illustrate with example from Croatia. Current capacity of network is around 4200 MW. That means that you can have 4200 MW of simultaneous load on whole Croatia network before we overload network. That is maximum capacity. If we want spend more than that we need to import electricity or build capacity. 

We have around 820-830 gas stations in the country.  If every single one installs only 4 Mega chargers, that would  well exceed electricity producing capacity of the whole country.
It would mean we would have to double number of existing power plants... Not really, because we could build smaller number of larger ones, but to illustrate it graphically, double the existing number.. Of course power plants can be green type.

Also whole electro-distribution network would have to double in capacity...

That is HUUGE infrastructural investment... And it would take 20 years to be made...  It is of course doable, but not realistic at this moment...
At this moment nobody wants to pay for it...

If anybody discovers energy to customer distribution model that is as economical as gasoline today, that will be the moment when things might change...
 

Offline Zero999

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Re: TESLA finally launches a truck/semi ?
« Reply #82 on: November 23, 2017, 03:58:26 pm »
You just linked a paper, which directly contradicted your previous point, and proving mine. Thank you, saved a lot of trouble. But the second paper completely ignored food to road efficiency.
https://momentummag.com/carnivorous-cyclists-contribute-global-warming-vegan-drivers-argues-harvard-researcher/ Here is an article, including it. In this one, even a toyota prius is more economic friendly than biking. I dont completely agree with this, but it is an indicator, that biking is worse than people describe it.
That article makes an assumption: someone on an average US diet gets the extra calories, required for the commute, from animal products, rather than plants. It also talks about carnivorous cyclists, which is very misleading. Very few people are carnivorous.  It does site the paleo diet as being bad for the environment, but very few people eat like that today, other than Eskimos and some fitness freaks. In reality, most humans are omnivores.

I'm omnivorous. I haven't analysed my diet, but I'm pretty sure my commuting calories come more from carbohydrates (plant based), than animal products, since when I'm active, I crave sweet food and carbohydrates, rather than meat.

The article also ignores the energy required to manufacture and recycle the car vs the bicycle.

The main point I think that article highlights is how bad the agricultural industry is for the environment.
As I said, I also take this numbers with a grain of salt. What we need to understand is:
1) Biking is not the "infinitely better green future" some people think it is.
It can be. Change farming practises to ones which don't emit as much greenhouses gases and cut down on the distances food has to travel to the consumer.

Quote
2) Over the last 90 years, the combustion engine improved, but this is preatty much it. It will not get infinitely better, it will not be a magical button which gets rid of CO2 and the pollution
True, but biofuels* are a possibility, although not without their potential problems.

Note: that when I say biofuels, that could be wood gas used to power an internal combustion engine, to generate electricity, to charge electric cars, as well as biodiesel powered cars.

Quote
3) Electric cars are not polluting when they are being used. There is some dust of course.
So we shift the pollution away from the city to the nearby coal plant.

Quote
4) With the shifting power generation to renewable energy, the electricity required will be less polluting. The manufacturing of the car will be less polluting. The batteries will be less polluting. Recycling is just energy. Did you know, there is a 90% recycling rate on automotive lead acid batteries worldwide? Guess what will happen to lithium.
Clearly, electric cars alone, or with coal power plants is a bad idea. And I dont really care, if it takes 2 times as much energy to make something, if that energy is from a green source. Nothing can be made as clean, as a self-driving electric cars, manufactured, charged and recycled with solar and wind power.
The problem with renewables is storage and making sure charge there cars, when there's an excess of power on the grid and not when it's low.
 

Offline tszaboo

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Re: TESLA finally launches a truck/semi ?
« Reply #83 on: November 23, 2017, 05:20:48 pm »
Quote
3) Electric cars are not polluting when they are being used.
When the Power come from Nuclear, Coal, Gas,... are better than Diesel, Bensina?
You haven't read the rest of the post. Use renewable energy. And I would bet some money on this: a modern filtered coal plant produces less pollution, than a modern cheater WV diesel. Gas plants are almost clean, of course CO2 is still a problem.
Biofuel
Coal
Biofuel isnt a solution. We are struggling feeding the people as it is. For example, in Belgium, there just isnt any land left for agriculture. Coal plants have to go.

The problem with renewables is storage and making sure charge there cars, when there's an excess of power on the grid and not when it's low.
You say it is a problem, I say it is an opportunity.
There are solutions. We need more solar and wind energy to start with. And it is going to happen, just because it is economically better than anything else. Solar is so cheap, it is wort to make a plant, without incentives. Then, we can install P2G plants. Good thing about power storage with P2G is that you actually reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere.

You have to realize, nobody ever invested huge money into energy storage. It is expensive, and it needs futher development, right? I guess they said the same thing about nuclear power 50 years ago. "Oh nobody is going to invest that much money into one power plant" And then today you have big power plants, which provide 5-6 million people with power. One single plant. 10 billion EUR. Show me, anyone investing that much into energy storage. Maybe some pumped hydro plants.
But here is the thing: As solar power gets wider and wider adaptation, it will drive the price of energy negative on the market more and more often. It already happens. The market itself will create opportunities for energy storage.

That is HUUGE infrastructural investment... And it would take 20 years to be made...  It is of course doable, but not realistic at this moment...
Norway has a plan to switch to all electric cars by 2025. It is doable. more than 50% of cars currently sold are plug in hybrid or electric there. They have 10000 Charging stations right now.
I go to croatia very often. You are sitting on a huge treasure, countless sunny hours, and nobody seems to take advantage from it. It is really sad to see.
 

Offline Kilo Tango

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Re: TESLA finally launches a truck/semi ?
« Reply #84 on: November 23, 2017, 07:15:01 pm »
LPG is another clean'ish fuel. Its mainly Propane and burns cleaner than petrol. I converted my 14 year old Omega and its still much cleaner than modern diesels.

And as far as sunny countries, I was in Egypt recently, a fairly sunny place and there was no evidence of solar panels. I asked and was told they have to pay the regular price with no subsidies and payback was like 5-10 years so you needed a lot of faith to tie up all that money. Plus the exchange rate didn't help either.

So countries that have money and want alternative energy don't have enough solar to work well and countries that have plenty sun can't afford to convert. Its a strange world.

Ken
 

Offline bd139

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Re: TESLA finally launches a truck/semi ?
« Reply #85 on: November 23, 2017, 07:31:33 pm »
I’ll pass on the compressed gasses thanks: 

https://gfycat.com/VigilantZealousFirebelliedtoad
 

Offline Kilo Tango

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Re: TESLA finally launches a truck/semi ?
« Reply #86 on: November 23, 2017, 07:58:02 pm »
The current LPG set up is quite good. There is a pressure release valve built into the tank that vents any excess pressure outside the vehicle envelope; as it will be pure propane it will not burn until it meets air and gets ignited outside the vent tube. In the case of a vehicle fire, as the tank gets hot the propane will turn back into gas and vent to the atmosphere, where it will burn, yes, but so will petrol. Both petrol and LPG vehicles will explode given the right circumstances.

I wonder what an electric car lithium battery is like once ignited ?.

There will always be hazards carrying fuel, however if we can design a safe method of handling them AND EDUCATE THE PUBLIC IN THE CORRECT USE, then it should be OK.

Ken
 

Offline jonovid

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Re: TESLA finally launches a truck/semi ?
« Reply #87 on: November 23, 2017, 08:42:23 pm »
why do People still say CO2 is pollution?  its political. 
Al Gore's 2012 dooms-day hockey stick is a fraud. & today their is two or more alternative scientific theorys.
the sun, natural cycles, and global cooling.  if the earth's surface was covered with electronics. 
are we better for it.  not the house made of candy. - maybe its the house made of electronics.  ;D
are we saying battery powered aviation is were we go next. better check the toy-box for some more inspiration.
Hobbyist with a basic knowledge of electronics
 

Offline 2N3055

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Re: TESLA finally launches a truck/semi ?
« Reply #88 on: November 23, 2017, 08:46:30 pm »

That is HUUGE infrastructural investment... And it would take 20 years to be made...  It is of course doable, but not realistic at this moment...
Norway has a plan to switch to all electric cars by 2025. It is doable. more than 50% of cars currently sold are plug in hybrid or electric there. They have 10000 Charging stations right now.
I go to croatia very often. You are sitting on a huge treasure, countless sunny hours, and nobody seems to take advantage from it. It is really sad to see.

In Croatia NOBODY buys electric cars.. And not because they are anti green... They are too expensive for what you get.. In Norway, few weeks ago there was an article in newspapers that electric cars are overloading electric distribution network at certain times. Nobody took them into account when planning capacity.. It's not so easy when you have to plan for something on country level....

I always like when people are ignoring realities..  You say we have  "all this treasure of countless sunny hours" ...

We are what, too lazy to plug the sun in to our arses that will give electricity..
If you have lots of sun, it doesn't mean solar panel plants are growing on the trees for free... You have to build huge infrastructure to be able to use sun, and it's very expensive..

I found US Dept of energy estimates from 2015 that estimate that capacity weighted average cost for building solar plants was on the order of 3000 USD per KW of installed power. 4200 MW of new installed power would be 3000 USD x 4200000 KW = 12,6 x10^9 USD

12,6 x10^9 USD is  1/3 of GDP of Croatia.  And upgrading distribution network would make total cost something like half of country's GDP.

And that is only capital cost to build.. Plants and network maintenance cost would double too...

Everybody wants to do it, until the point somebody has to pay for it... Than you realize it's not that easy... 


Don't get me wrong. You are 100% correct it could be done. You are 100% correct it should be done. You are 100% wrong it's easy.. You cannot compare Norway to Croatia. They have almost the same population but Norway has 9X bigger GDP... If you think that's irrelevant, you are wrong.

Regards,

Sinisa




 

Offline 3roomlabTopic starter

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TESLA finally launches a truck/semi ? AND some solarpower in PUERTO RICO.
« Reply #89 on: November 23, 2017, 08:52:50 pm »
While my biggest desire is to ban diesel, and I would prefer to drive fully electric cars, infrastructure is fundamental problem.

I will illustrate with example from Croatia....

I think it is maybe more of a direct "political" problem?

I would like to draw an example from the things I read coming from the situation in puerto rico. this is 1 of the post hurricane "maria" zones.

trump initially said, they have done enough for aids towards the country
http://www.smh.com.au/world/after-hurricane-maria-donald-trump-defends-puerto-rico-aid-effort-20170926-gypexs.html

and it is a country in financial and political crisis made worse by the hurricane
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/bankrupt-puerto-rico-faces-direct-hit-hurricane-maria-n802431

and in comes whitefish projects to restore power,
www.nbcmontana.com/news/keci/whitefish-energy-working-on-puerto-rico-power-grid/629158601

but who is whitefish? oh boy ... is it a $1 company? this feels like solar roadways all over again!
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/27/white-house-distances-itself-from-whitefish-contract-with-puerto-rico.html

did elon musk pledge to restore puerto rico's power?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/06/elon-musk-could-help-rebuild-puerto-rico-solar-powered-electricity/

I think the 2nd set of boots on the ground made whitefish un-easy. whitefish got cancelled. but whitefish sends puerto rico a $83million bill anyway (for 45days of work?).
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/21/whitefish-halts-power-work-in-puerto-rico-over-83-million-its-owed.html

so whitefish is considered a post hurricane relief aid company, and they refused puerto rico from auditing its works, wait what?
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/357473-whitefish-energy-contract-bars-government-from-auditing-deal

so how will puerto rico government know what whitefish did to amount to $83million? (come to think of it, USA congress approved USD$36billion in total of aids, this is not looking very good?)

in any case, since there are some real techies (I think?) from TESLA on the ground, in about 20 days, solar power arrives
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41747065
but since all these energy supplying business is political, I wonder will there be a higher political hand to STOP TESLA from supplying more? I hope not. there are other bits of stories coming out of these hurricane areas like people who have working solar panels on the roofs, became a sort of aid centre.

So the above is a very interesting story to observe for the next few years, and many energy companies are likely not happy with TESLA now.
maybe croatia will ask TESLA to put some boots in croatia? (and other energy companies will go "NOooOoOoOoooOoooooo, I promise promise, im not whitefish, i swear im not ... ")
« Last Edit: November 23, 2017, 11:05:21 pm by 3roomlab »
 

Offline tszaboo

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Re: TESLA finally launches a truck/semi ?
« Reply #90 on: November 23, 2017, 10:03:03 pm »
They have almost the same population but Norway has 9X bigger GDP... If you think that's irrelevant, you are wrong.
I'm from Hungary, and quite familiar with what the east European and southest European countries are facing, economically.
But here is just the thing: Do you think, it is possible, that countries like sweden got rich, because they think of the future. Belgium has 7% renewable. If someone installed a solar panel on his rooftop a few years ago, it payed itself back, and now he is earning money.
My parents installed their panels last year. Electricity bill is gone.
Hungary's solar power is booming, in 2018, it could reach 2100MW.  It is a tenfold increase in two years.  We could install more, but the installers are already 110% booked. Hungary's GDP is almost the same as croatia. It is not the money, which counts. You could take out a loan with 5% interest rate just to buy the solar, and it would be still worth it. Now, let me ask you a question. Would you put money in the bank, if it would pay you, say 15%?  You place there 1000 EUR, you do nothing else, it pays you 150 EUR every year (for say, 25 years).
Should your country do that? Why would it be a bad thing? A country can just take a loan or even print money to finance this. Hell, it is paying for itself, isnted of wiring just all our money to the midle east and russia. I know, I make it sound simple, but in reality, it is simple. The decision is political.
And statistics show, that each MW capacity creates about 5 jobs. And solar actually releases the grid, as the generation is closer to the consumption.
« Last Edit: November 23, 2017, 10:56:05 pm by NANDBlog »
 

Offline 2N3055

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Re: TESLA finally launches a truck/semi ? AND some solarpower in PUERTO RICO.
« Reply #91 on: November 24, 2017, 12:06:33 am »

Croatia is already printing too much money with no real economy..
We are already too much in debt, so no further loans would be prudent... 
We are more like Greece than like Norway.

Also, we are currently around 16% from renewables. We have considerable capacity in hydroelectric plants, that are going through modernization cycle now, and will almost double capacity when done. Hydro power is 4-5 times cheaper than solar, so it is economically responsible to first invest there..

Countries like Sweden are wealthy because of years of effort to produce balanced strong economy.. They have strong high tech manufacturing, services.. They have their own avio industry that produces likes of SAAB Gripen... Norway is full of oil.. All of western European countries are decades away from us, economy wise..

We basically came to exist by fragmentation of a complete country, in which all economy was distributed unevenly across republics..
And then when we separated, we basically got only parts of the car, not a whole one. Unconnected parts of economy, ecosystem that was incomplete...
Government patched together something not to fall apart and here we are.. What industry we had, disintegrated because it was left without support structure industry that ended across the border in other countries... Slowly, things are starting to rebuild on new principles, but it will take decades at this rate...

So with utmost respect to you and to the fact that what you say is right in principle, as a matter of priorities, we have more pressing problems to deal with than solar panels...

That is what I meant by realities...  I actually designed a car charger as a product few years ago, I wish electric car adoption was better but it isn't..

Thanks for a chat... If you happen to come to Croatia, if you plan to pass trough Rijeka, we can have a beer...

Regards,
Siniša
 
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Offline Lord of nothing

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Re: TESLA finally launches a truck/semi ? AND some solarpower in PUERTO RICO.
« Reply #92 on: November 24, 2017, 07:45:26 am »
You are to late there is no free Money from the Hypo Alpe Adria anymore.  :-DD
Made in Japan, destroyed in Sulz im Wienerwald.
 

Offline 2N3055

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Re: TESLA finally launches a truck/semi ? AND some solarpower in PUERTO RICO.
« Reply #93 on: November 24, 2017, 08:11:08 am »
You are to late there is no free Money from the Hypo Alpe Adria anymore.  :-DD

Well if you want to be facetious about it, the way I heard it is that most of that money ended up in Austria anyways... :-DD
Our idiots got only pocket change.... And then Austrian and Croatian people payed for it...

But you are exactly hitting the point my friend.. If it is "investment" and such good business, why it has to be so heavily subsidized...?
It is not an investment, it is a strategic move to energy sources that are more expensive, but for a good reason...

Take care!!
 

Offline vk6zgo

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Re: TESLA finally launches a truck/semi ?
« Reply #94 on: November 24, 2017, 08:30:54 am »
I'd like to see how the range holds up when the thinlg is fully loaded with 44 tons of stuff is attached to this truck...
Elon says the quoted range is at full load and at highway speeds.

Also 1.6 MW for each charger?? That will no doubt put a huge stress on the power grid if they are to have more than few trucks charging per city
The great thing about trucks is that they don't go into cities much.

The city is where the most electrical energy is used, hence it it very much more likely to be available there, than in rural or remote areas.
 

Offline Fungus

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Re: TESLA finally launches a truck/semi ?
« Reply #95 on: November 24, 2017, 11:51:06 am »
The great thing about trucks is that they don't go into cities much.
The city is where the most electrical energy is used, hence it it very much more likely to be available there, than in rural or remote areas.

That's today, yes.

Tesla isn't stupid though. They're also busy building power farms in remote areas and investing in all sorts of other ways to generate/store electricity.

eg. Cities don't use anywhere near as much power at night, if there's a way to store the excess capacity (Tesla batteries) then it can be used during the day. You could also recharge the trucks at night when the drivers are sleeping. That's a whole load of extra "capacity" without any more generation infrastructure.
 

Offline Simon

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Re: TESLA finally launches a truck/semi ? AND some solarpower in PUERTO RICO.
« Reply #96 on: November 24, 2017, 11:54:41 am »
Distributed generation and storage will be the way forward, it is more efficient and cheaper than having to build large centralized systems and then the infrastructure to access them.
 

Offline Corporate666

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Re: TESLA finally launches a truck/semi ? AND some solarpower in PUERTO RICO.
« Reply #97 on: November 25, 2017, 05:58:58 am »
I am in the market to buy a new car right now.

I am a technology person and would like to buy a full electric vehicle, but as much as I like them, the technology is just not there yet.  They are a burden to own compared to a gas car.

They require you to think and plan and work around them, whereas a gas car does not.  I am actually not convinced that battery EV's are ever going to succeed until we have a revolutionary battery technology come along.  What we have now isn't it.  Even with supercharging, I don't want to sit for a half hour to charge when I can fill up with gas in 2-3 minutes. 

There is always a knee of the curve, a killer app, a price point, or a threshold that needs to be met before a technology really catches on.  VCR's could do time-shifting for years, but only when digital storage made it really easy did it take off.  And only when EV's are as convenient as ICE cars will they take off.

Until then, they will be bought by tech savvy early adopters willing to live with the (severe) shortcomings and by people who like getting $10k of their fellow taxpayers money for their luxury car.
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Offline NiHaoMike

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Re: TESLA finally launches a truck/semi ? AND some solarpower in PUERTO RICO.
« Reply #98 on: November 25, 2017, 06:27:29 am »
I am in the market to buy a new car right now.

I am a technology person and would like to buy a full electric vehicle, but as much as I like them, the technology is just not there yet.  They are a burden to own compared to a gas car.

They require you to think and plan and work around them, whereas a gas car does not.  I am actually not convinced that battery EV's are ever going to succeed until we have a revolutionary battery technology come along.  What we have now isn't it.  Even with supercharging, I don't want to sit for a half hour to charge when I can fill up with gas in 2-3 minutes. 
I think most people find having to go to a gas station is a burden compared to simply charging at home. And hence why I think plug in hybrids would be the way to go for the near future. For that matter, I wonder how come the idea of an EV with a generator trailer to convert it into a plug in hybrid hasn't taken off.
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Offline Simon

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Re: TESLA finally launches a truck/semi ? AND some solarpower in PUERTO RICO.
« Reply #99 on: November 25, 2017, 07:27:03 am »
I am in the market to buy a new car right now.

I am a technology person and would like to buy a full electric vehicle, but as much as I like them, the technology is just not there yet.  They are a burden to own compared to a gas car.

They require you to think and plan and work around them, whereas a gas car does not.  I am actually not convinced that battery EV's are ever going to succeed until we have a revolutionary battery technology come along.  What we have now isn't it.  Even with supercharging, I don't want to sit for a half hour to charge when I can fill up with gas in 2-3 minutes. 

There is always a knee of the curve, a killer app, a price point, or a threshold that needs to be met before a technology really catches on.  VCR's could do time-shifting for years, but only when digital storage made it really easy did it take off.  And only when EV's are as convenient as ICE cars will they take off.

Until then, they will be bought by tech savvy early adopters willing to live with the (severe) shortcomings and by people who like getting $10k of their fellow taxpayers money for their luxury car.

like most people you are not being imaginative and expect a like for like replacement. So where do you work? does your employer have roof space to put solar panels on so that you can charge your car while at work? there are cars capable of 200-250 miles. If my employer made at work car charging a thing I'd buy a second hand electric tomottow aqnd travel for 1/10 the cost I do now plus have juice to plug the car into the house and run the house for free..........
 


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