If you want to speak of conflict minerals for EVs, cobalt is WAY more problematic, since it is far more rare and mined mostly in the DRC, where we know child labor and starvation pay is given for the work that allows EV cathodes their precious Co.
https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news/stories/2020/03/lithium...
Having mineral resources its kind of a curse:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/268790/countries-with-th...
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/01/amnesty-internat...
What makes a lot more sense is that the US doesn't want China to gain a reliable and possibly even prosperous ally on the South American mainland. While Bolivia will not meaningfully affect the global supply of lithium, the demand for lithium will absolutely affect the economic future of Bolivia, and could even make it a regional power. With the Second Cold War increasingly going global, every square on the chessboard counts.
However, the evidence for US involvement in the overthrow of Morales so far consists of a strongly worded letter from OAS, while the fact that Morales actually lost a referendum asking if he should be allowed to run for a fourth term suggests that there was significant internal opposition to his reelection. But Elon Musk made a tasteless joke on Twitter, so that confirms it.
Morales was anti-US influence, pro-coca. The right wingers and Evangelicals were against him, and Morales was socialist... basically fits the profile of exactly the type of leader the CIA would try to depose.
The fascists that staged the coup had long been supported by the US, the OAS is merely one small part of the imperialist apparatus. And Elon Musk doesn’t need to be in on it to recognise he would benefit.
It could be more than just that too, the Monroe doctrine is alive and well. All South American anti-imperialists get attacked by the US.
https://twitter.com/panoparker/status/1318157559266762752?s=...
But I've seen people claim this before - I'm curious if there is a source this keeps coming from?
I think this individual tweet is the sole evidence cited for Musk's supposed support, and that seems a long bow to draw from it (an equally sinciere reading would be that it is Musk's take on the history of coups in South America),
We need more nuclear power plants sequestering atmosphere carbon dioxide into liquid fuels. My job sites in rural counties lose power regularly in sunny calm wind conditions. I would be utterly helpless and stuck regularly if my vehicle strongly depended on the electrical grid.
Liquid fuels carry so much energy per liter I can store a massive amount of energy in a compact package. This is more important to me than pulling a 55 foot semi trailer filled to the brim with 18650s to have enough energy to tow. I cringe at the cost of lithium ion batteries to meet my energy requirements. God forbid those batteries freeze! Now my precious expensive batteries are destroyed.
We will see electric trucks in the near future on a very small subset of routes where reliable electrical connectivity is available.
For Ford, the most popular Truck, 50-60% of Trucks are F150 XL, or XLT, the XL is the base work truck, the XLT as the common features but not level of luxury of the Lariat, or Platinum Trucks.
You can't own medium or larger sized boat or trailer if you don't have a truck to pull it with without jumping through massive hoops like borrowing, renting one, or putting together a dangerous contraption on a vehicle not legally rated to pulling that weight.
Further, wouldn't this essentially solve the storage problem with renewables? If the tech were easily scalable / didn't rely on any scare materials, it would essentially be a type of battery that could be used in combination with existing fossil fuel plants (and nuclear of course) for baseline load.
Which, now that I think about it, would actually make any kind of green new deal much more politically viable. If the fossil fuel plants and gas stations get to keep running, it's that much fewer jobs we're axing and hoping to replace with better alternatives.
I call BS on that, of the many many many Truck owners I know maybe 10% have any interest in the Cybertruck... Of that 10% none of them use their truck for work or as an actual truck
The CyberTruck is targeting Late Gen X and Millennials the grew up with 80's and 90's movies with nostalgia, not a practical usable truck
Now the F150 Lightening that has about 60-70+% of the Truck Owners I know interested
A large charging network is really only relevant to regular consumers, and even that is more of a psychological reassurance than a strict requirement given measured consumer behavior.
0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzpNC2zMAys (dramatic, but there are plenty more of these kinds of videos)
That way both sides hate me.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/38291/this-2000-honda-insight-...
The Honda hybrid tech of that time is a lot easier to swap engines on. A Prius has the motors in the transmission, so it's harder to simply bolt a new engine on. You'd have to either drive the transaxle with your own control algorithms, or figure out another way to make it behave with a different engine. The Honda electric motor was on the engine crankshaft, and you could get the Insight with a manual transmission, so it's really just "bolt in the motor and go."
EDIT: Sorry, only watched the YouTube clip now -- OMG, seems that was the purpose! Sheesh, you think you're making an obviously absurd jokey take on something... America, you never (cease to) disappoint.
Beware of getting your information from youtube.
All Tesla's have cameras running on them nearly all the time. Any "disgruntled" driver who does any amount of various illegal things to them can easily be found and punished in the legal system. Quickest way to end the bullshit.
A reasonable judge might perhaps give the owner of the car a hefty fine for violating personal rights and order the vandal to pay for the damage. IANAL. Either way, I don't see it as a winning strategy to film anything in a public space in Germany, it will get you in trouble and will most likely not solve anything.
I think vandalism is the kind of thing that cannot be excused in adults. Certainly damaging anybody's car on purpose is something only a complete idiot would do.
I could be wrong. I don't know, but I've never heard of anybody bringing up this issue.
Not entirely on topic, but I'm curious whether their interest will shift to the electric Ford truck.
Electric, more reliable, easier to work on. With the same or better performance.
If the early adopters have a good experience, everyone else is going to follow.
Are we not already there in terms of car prices? In SF, a used nissan leaf can be had for from $10k-15k. New EVs aren't actually vastly different in price from new economy cars, especially if you take into account various credits.
To me, it seems like the main reason electric cars are relatively uncommon is not because the sticker price is too high, but rather because of factors like home charging (requires dedicated parking & possibly an expensive charger installed), fear of needing a second car _anyway_ for longer trips (partly due to awful charging infrastructure / range issues), and relatively few of them existing on the used market.
I'm not sure that it's possible to exclude it from the "economy car" category.
There is a different, but it's not so huge. A new nissan leaf starts at ~$25k new, after the federal tax credit. It might be slightly less if you get a state-level credit as well.
$15k vs $25k is in the same ballpark.
I disagree.
If the battery degradation makes the car unfit to your needs, it's a bit weird because it would mean you were on the limit, but anyway it's more economic to sell the car as it is and buy another car. Someone will enjoy the old battery.
https://electrek.co/2020/05/11/tesla-model-x-extreme-mileage...
One way you can try to estimate what the real maintenance cost is in the first X years is to look at what automakers set aside for warranties. In that case, (the last I looked), Tesla seemed in the middle of the pack vis-a-vis major ICE makers. But then you have the 20-X years of service, and the dirty secret is that those years are also paid for by new owners except they pay those repairs forward as depreciation when they sell. So then you look at depreciation curves, to see if Tesla is holding up much better than ICE vehicles due to lower expected maintenance costs and there, too, Tesla appears to be right in line with other major producers. So bottom line, I can't find any evidence for the thesis that getting rid of all these components will significantly reduce lifetime maintenance costs, while the battery costs remain a big unknown.
Now part of this is just not having enough data. In 20 years, we'll have a lot more data, and then maybe the warranty policies and depreciation curves will look very different. But this goes back to my point which is why isn't Tesla insuring the buyers against this risk by selling massive 20 year waranties to stand behind these claims of long service life and very low maintenance costs? Why leave people searching for anecdata in a new car whose service costs they don't have the data to estimate?
For most people a car is a major portion of their net-worth and they tend to be conservative in making this purchase. Sure, for high income buyers, they can afford to take risks but most buyers can't. So why doesn't Tesla do more to insure prospective buyers against this risk? It seems like such a no brainer, and yet many companies insist on pushing risk onto the customer. This isn't just an issue with Tesla, but I see it in many industries, where the producer is the one who has the survivorship data, they benefit from the law of large numbers, and they have financial backing, they are in a position to sell insurance, and people would buy the insurance, but the insurance just isn't being offerred, and if it is offered, it's on absolutely terrible terms, rather than as something to remove purchase frictions.
But if you think Tesla is averse to taking on risk, how much more risk-averse would the customers take on? Tesla has the law of large numbers and technical data available to them. They are in a position to arbitrage that and get (expected) free money by selling long term insurance to buyers for whom the insurance is a lot more valuable than what it costs Tesla, so why wouldn't they do that?
If indeed the EVs are so much more durable and have such lower maintenance costs but are surrounded by a cloud of doubt, why not remove that cloud? Even if Tesla doesn't ramp up production faster, the increased demand would allow them to command a higher price until production was ramped up.
So if indeed the market is wrong and depreciation curves are too steep, Tesla can arbitrage that. Why they don't should raise some questions, at least it does to me.
In Europe, on a modern (diesel but gasoline wouldn't be much different) car, lubricated with semi-synthetic oil that would be 1 oil change at around 30,000 km or at the most two (first one at 15,000 and second one at 45,000, or similar).
As a side note, it depends, but "no maintenance" unlike many people think, is not such a good idea, overall, I'll try to explain myself.
Many years ago, fully synthetic oils came out, they were awfully expensive but guaranteed something like 80,000 km on diesel and 120,000 km on gasoline without any change, you only had to refill to level and change (at double the normal interval, usually 15,000 or 20,000 km x 2= 30,000 or 40,000 km the oil filter).
And, people with older cars might remember this, lamps burned out much more often than modern leds, non-electronic distributors needed maintenance, as well as carburetors and spark plugs (or on diesel pumps/injectors), and to this you add the (normal for mineral oil) 10,000-15,000 km oil change.
This meant that every three to six months your car was normally put for one day in the hands of a professional that - besides doing these maintenance chores - tested your car, made sure that brakes and suspensions were in an efficient condition, could notice and repair minor leaks, loose bolts/parts, could (much better than what you normally can do) "feel" if anything in wheels, suspensions, steering wheels (and its servo)was fine, etc.
The adoption of fully synthetic oil meant that the car, unless you found yourself an issue/defect, was seen/tested by a professional mechanic once every 1 1/2 to 2 years, and this was not a good thing, for the overall "heath" (and safety) of the car.
Lubricating oils have changed a lot in the last 30-40 years, as well as materials used in the engine construction.
The differences between mineral oils and semi-synthetic or fully synthetic oils is huge, modern oils are simply not comparable.
A related old discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14969605
The manufacturer is the one that knows (obviously) the most about the engine so you should stick to the recommended type of oil and recommended oil change interval, doing it more often than that is simply a waste.
Engine replacement rates will probably be historically higher than battery replacement within standard car lifetimes. It's possibly that a battery car will last longer than an ICE due to less moving parts, but even then I think long-lived EV cars will be relegated to city car duties with reduced ranges.
Batteries usually degrade rather than catastrophically fail (exempting the dramatic but rare battery fire which I believe happen less than ICE fires).
Not everybody wants to buy a new phone every couple years, and not everybody agrees what a standard car lifetime is.
At that price point, consumables for an internal combustion engine start to be a significant fraction of the vehicle cost.
Lithium batteries are hardly only a plaything for the rich.
China is far from majority-EV quantitatively, and at least four doublings (8 years) from a 50% share in new vehicles temporally.
That's actually excellent progress. But it's nowhere near your claim.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1050111/china-electric-c...
Though yes, the thought occurred after I'd posted.
Per capita car ownership might help tease that out (along with sales of car substitutes).
US car ownership is 804 vehicles per 1,000. In China it's 204 vehicles/1,000 pop.
Wikipedia's Transport in China page could use some updating, but also fails to support OP's claims:
Again, your original claim doesn't stand to any evidence I've found.
You've presented none yourself.
[0] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-now-the-average-pr...
If you've ever read old car advertisements, they would say the exact same thing about old supercars that would lose a drag race against a Toyota Corolla.
In reality speed and torque is an arms race among most road users. For a short while whoever has the nicest car has the ability to rapidly outrun anyone else, but that advantage diminishes as the technology gets cheaper and more common. In 20 years a modern Tesla will not be considered fast at all.
Certainly not enough to help keep alive the market for diesel pickup trucks.
NB: turboprop aircraft also consume jet fuel.
[1] http://download.aopa.org/hr/Report_on_General_Aviation_Trend...
A turboprop engine will cost millions of dollars in purchase cost and maintenance cost over its lifetime just like other jet engines will.
Page 5 for instance lists rotorcraft. But page 5 is confusing to me; has the categories 'single engine', 'multi-engine', 'turboprop', 'turbojet', 'rotorcraft', etc. Are aircraft being double-counted in these categories? Is a single-engine turboprop plane counted twice, in both the turboprop and single-engine categories? Is a Bell 206, a multi-engine turboshaft helicopter, counted as multi-engine, rotorcraft... and also turbojet/turboprop? There is no category on this page for turboshaft aircraft. Maybe the nature of these classifications is clear to a pilot, but they aren't to me.
Page 7 breaks down total operations into the categories jet/piston/turboprop, and seems to have piston operations as about 1/3rd of the total. 1/3rd is a far cry from 1/9 ratio suggested by 209 million gallons of avgas vs 1.8 billion gallons of jet fuel. Here is my suspicion: that difference comes from turboshaft helicopters. Typical turboshaft helicopters burn many more gallons of fuel per hour than other forms of GA aircraft.
Also a nitpick: GP mentioned amateur pilots, but many general aviation pilots are doing it professionally. I would wager most helicopter-hours are probably being flown by professional pilots. For instance, all the helicopters being flown for news stations and police departments have professional pilots and fall under general aviation.
Lithium is a conflict resource. its scarce, its hard to mine, and as a result so far electric cars are a fanciful plaything for what i would consider "the rich." This paves the way for electric cars that a working class mom and dad can afford to get to and from work and the store. and of course electric trucks that have obscene amounts of torque means never "getting stuck" behind a slow truck ever again. it also means cleaner cities and hopefully cheaper trucking for over the road drivers and owner/operators.
Ive told my coworkers and apprentices this for as long as i can remember: expect to service elecric long-haul trucks in your lifetime. Learn the powertrain, the dynamics, the performance characteristics and keep pace with the technology as it evolves. Make it part of your expectation in the future, because the economic model of diesel is a last-ditch effort at best in the 21st century.