Going Electric?

[Josh P]

Everything seems to turn political. The auto industry is going through growing pains. Consumers demand more technology from their cars which will take time to get it reliable. Someday I'll own a EV. I'll wait 10 years or so, by then there should be something good.

 

[Lee's Automotive]

If I had any electric vehicles it would be snow machines or ATV's........ a silent snowmobile would be soooooo sweet
I will still charge them at night using my diesel generator, no way around that, solar and wind are not going to produce enough to re charge those suckers......

I will never release by grip on my old 5.0 and 7.3 pushrod engines........... there is no EV that can haul 20 ranger based trucks to my house each summer or pull a 17000# boat, or a 14000# dump trailer........it would take 10,000# of batteries to even try!!

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Show me the ev that can do this and I’ll show you the diesel generator that re charges the batteries

I agree 100% there isn't an EV that can do this whatsoever

 

[Turdle]

Um, union Pacific has been towing freight miles long using electric motors.

 

[Lee's Automotive]

Um, union Pacific has been towing freight miles long using electric motors.

What I mean is a consumer truck or suv im not 100% against electric but I'm also not 100%sold especially when the batteries cost as much as the car

 

[Digitalgp]

I have absolutely no interest in going electric. I don't care if its faster blah blah blah. It has no soul, it not practical or even affordable for most & people are going to lose jobs over it. Not just the mass layoffs that occurred at Ford, I'm talking right down to your service technicians & parts guys. As mentioned before our crumpling infrastructure can't handle it the extra burden. Look at whats happening in California right now. Not being considered is all the extra pollution due to the mining of the lithium for these batteries which is being produced by non other than China. Trees are being knocked down to make parking lots for charging stations. There is also no efficient way to recycle the lithium batteries & just like your cellphone, laptop, etc the batteries lose charging capacity over time. Also the charge capacity decreased in winter climates. How is this being more "green"?

I do believe people should be allowed to have the option to choose between ICE & electric powered vehicles. With that said I am very ecstatic that Ford is keeping the coyote in the next generation Mustang whereas the Challenger/Charger is being downsized to a turbo v6 or full electric & the Camaro is being discontinued (again).

 

[Lee's Automotive]

I have absolutely no interest in going electric. I don't care if its faster blah blah blah. It has no soul, it not practical or even affordable for most & people are going to lose jobs over it. Not just the mass layoffs that occurred at Ford, I'm talking right down to your service technicians & parts guys. As mentioned before our crumpling infrastructure can't handle it the extra burden. Look at whats happening in California right now. Not being considered is all the extra pollution due to the mining of the lithium for these batteries which is being produced by non other than China. Trees are being knocked down to make parking lots for charging stations. There is also no efficient way to recycle the lithium batteries & just like your cellphone, laptop, etc the batteries lose charging capacity over time. Also the charge capacity decreased in winter climates. How is this being more "green"?

I do believe people should be allowed to have the option to choose between ICE & electric powered vehicles. With that said I am very ecstatic that Ford is keeping the coyote in the next generation Mustang whereas the Challenger/Charger is being downsized to a turbo v6 or full electric & the Camaro is being discontinued (again).

Yep exactly I prefer my ICE vehicles over ev

 

[94Eddie]

IMO, the two main issues with EVs is lack of battery technology and an insufficient capacity of the power grid and power generation plants to service such a huge electrical demand increase. Battery technology is moving forward and there are some promising possibilities but they aren't nearly mature enough yet. Ford is moving toward lithium-iron batteries and they pretty much solve the lifespan issues. They will last multiple times longer than current lithium batteries but they have less capacity so there is a tradeoff. The power grid and especially power plants is a huge problem. Using solar, wind, hydro etc. just isn't going to deliver anywhere near the demand EVs will bring. There is a massive environmental cost to producing, and constructing, these systems. Plus, they are very unreliable.

I know I keep mentioning thorium reactors and the reason is this technology is the only viable one that can deliver the quantity of electricity needed to support EVs while bringing electric costs down and being a long term solution to our current problems. Thorium is much more plentiful than uranium and the same amount of it produces 200 times more energy than uranium. It does not spin off highly radioactive byproducts with very long half lives. Thorium reactors do not melt down like uranium reactors if there is a catastrophe. Thorium is also a byproduct of other mining operations which makes its acquisition relatively inexpensive. Plus, there is a vast amount of thorium on the Moon to mine when/if it would run out here. Between thorium and uranium there is enough on Earth to last us 100k years. If we extract uranium from sea water then this number climbs to 164k years in extreme demand scenarios. R&D for thorium reactors has been increasing but they are probably 20-30 years away from being in wide use. IMO, until they are in wide use, or we build hundreds of uranium power plants, we will be relying on ICE powered vehicles for the most part. Or we just build more fossil fuel powered plants and we will be no better off than driving ICE vehicles.

As a side note, the only reason we don't have thorium reactors now is because these reactors do not produce plutonium. In the 1950s the military put the kibosh on thorium reactors for this reason because it did not promote the construction of nuclear weapons. This brings up another very good reason to go with thorium reactors because they can't be used to produce nuclear weapons. Therefore, they can be built in any country without the fear of them developing nukes.

 

[410Fortune]

Um, union Pacific has been towing freight miles long using electric motors.

And what powers the electric motors? Diesel engines

 

[Lee's Automotive]

And what powers the electric motors? Diesel engines

True

 

[94Eddie]

Yep exactly I prefer my ICE vehicles over ev

To me EVs are souless. Any moron, or experienced driver, can get into one and run the same 1/4 mile ET. The driver is irrelevant from a performance aspect. I enjoy the interaction that an ICE sports car DEMANDS from a driver. The sound, the feel, shifting gears, the smells etc. are a vital part of the overall experience of driving a performance car for me. Plus, drive an EV hard for fifteen minutes and you will need to spend 1.5 hours recharging it to get another fifteen minutes. I can drive my Mustang hard for 1-2 hours, pull up to a gas pump, fill up and be gone in less than three minutes.

 

[Turdle]

But the point is, railroads found converting the fuel to electric was more efficient and powerful.

 

[MAS Tequila]

Ford F-150 Lightning owner with upgraded battery towing a wake boat says a full charge only got him 58 miles - Alt Car news

 

[Lee's Automotive]

To me EVs are souless. Any moron, or experienced driver, can get into one and run the same 1/4 mile ET. The driver is irrelevant from a performance aspect. I enjoy the interaction that an ICE sports car DEMANDS from a driver. The sound, the feel, shifting gears, the smells etc. are a vital part of the overall experience of driving a performance car for me. Plus, drive an EV hard for fifteen minutes and you will need to spend 1.5 hours recharging it to get another fifteen minutes. I can drive my Mustang hard for 1-2 hours, pull up to a gas pump, fill up and be gone in less than three minutes.

Yep and my questions are in a straight line an ice vehicle will have longer range at wot than an ev

 

[Turdle]

Ford F-150 Lightning owner with upgraded battery towing a wake boat says a full charge only got him 58 miles - Alt Car news

Then the tank of gas would have gone 48 miles

 

[Lee's Automotive]

Then the tank of gas would have gone 48 miles

That would be interesting to see honestly

 

[Turdle]

Towing anything will cut the range ,especially a boat. doesn't matter which fuel.

 

[94Eddie]

But the point is, railroads found converting the fuel to electric was more efficient and powerful.

The main reason they went with the electric/diesel setup is because the electric motors produce full torque from zero RPM and up. A diesel engine does not. This is very important when moving thousands of tons of train from a stop and up grades.

 

[Turdle]

The main reason they went with the electric/diesel setup is because the electric motors produce full torque from zero RPM and up. A diesel engine does not. This is very important when moving thousands of tons of train from a stop and up grades.

As in towing

 

[94Eddie]

Then the tank of gas would have gone 48 miles

How Far Can a Gas Truck & an Electric Ford Lightning Go Towing the Same Camper On ONE Fill-up?

 

[94Eddie]

As in towing

The only way the diesel/electric locomotives are viable is to rely on an IC engine. There will never be a large enough capacity battery to run a locomotive with a long train of cars for any distance beyond 10-20 miles, if this long. Plus, the weight and size of the batteries would be massive and greatly reduce the weight that they can pull.