California to phase out internal combustion vehicles by 2035 There's a popular adage that "as California goes, so goes the nation." If that holds true, America could be on the path to parity with the EU's planned 2035 ban on internal combustion engines, as a regulator in Sacramento voted unanimously today to effectively do just that. The package of rules known as Advanced Clean Cars II …
To all those youtube videos of people dragging old electric cars out of barns where they've been sitting twenty years, and trying to start them - only to discover that (a) the mice have eaten all the wiring and (b) that they can't find where to squirt the starter fluid.
The grubby overall, obviously --->
Sadly, using updated published October 2022 electric charging prices
https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/1661119/electric-cars-energy-price-cap-petrol-cost-of-living-crisis-driver-warning
The UK Royal Automobile Club calculated that ‘gas’ (petrol) cars will be cheaper to drive, say 400 miles, this autumn than a nice high-end Electric Vehicle ( jag I-pace )
(So there won’t be all that many in barns, in the future, probably: deepest apologies for using Daily Excess as a news source - but for some reason it’s not a popular story…)
"To all those youtube videos of people dragging old electric cars out of barns where they've been sitting twenty years,"
Local BBC news report from June 1975 heralding the beginning of the electric car revolution. It had a 50 mile range even then, 47 years ago. Looks like it used sealed lead acid batteries and took forever to charge from a standard 13A socket though. Clearly, as per the decades old attitudes, only suitable for "housewives doing the shopping" :-)
To be fair, they didn't suggest that the big V8 is necessarily either good or smart, but it is definitely very American.
Feels kinda like the death of the Steam Locomotive. Sure, they're dirty, noisy, inefficient, slow... but there's a soul that an electrified train will simply never have.
The time of the big V8 is ending, and it's right that it ends. The world has to move on. It's sad too tho.
> I'm already running on homemade ethanol.
It's a little more difficult for city dwellers, you can only plant so much on your window sill...
And I guess you would like it if some 8 million New Yorkers suddenly invaded your neck of the woods (or more likely, San Franciscans...).
My point is that there is no obvious, or "one size fits all" solution. Most people will be screwed, period.
New cars will be 100% electric, that will just put a gigantic premium on well-maintained ICE vehicles with low mileage, especially ones with minimal electronics that can just continue to run without needing any particular chippery or computer interface.
Any late 90s / early 2000s big V8 in working condition will be worth a mint in 2040
yes and no.
You can buy every part for 60s Corvette or Mustang from the dealer. Just check the part number from part catalog and order it. Most parts for 1980s BMWs or Mercedes. I'm restoring a '89, I should know.
Some manufacturers aren't that friendly and blatantly refuse to even acknowledge the existence of 20-year-old models.
Policy VW used for decades. And still didn't manage to kill Beetles or Buses. But spare parts for 1st gen. Rabbit? No way, none.
My big V8s will continue to run as I need them to run, into the foreseeable future. If they ban gasoline, I can easily produce alcohol for fuel legally, even here in California ... Note that the big motors run better on alcohol than gas anyway, especially if they are boosted to one degree or another. Most of my fleet has already been converted.
Most of my diesels have run on used cooking oi for over a decade.
However, I may be a trifle over-proactive ... I rather suspect this is going to become quite contentious. People are already grumbling about CARB and the EPA getting too big for their britches ... they are only one election cycle away from being disbanded entirely.
Also please note that nowhere in this does it say gas and diesel cars and trucks are going to go away ... all it says is that it;ll be illegal to sell new fossil fuel vehicles in California.Existing vehicles will still be allowed, and California residents will be able to bring vehicles in from outside the state.
In other words, it's nothing more than a feel-good boondogle, designed to get a few rah-rah greenaholics (re)elected.
"all it says is that it;ll be illegal to sell new fossil fuel vehicles"
Yes, Cali will turn into Cuba where people keep decades-old combustion cars on the roads because it's impossible to replace them. Even if the state bans fuel sales, people will make their own, and they can straight-faced claim they're green because they're just cycling carbon from the air through plants and back into the air to go back into plants.
"illegal to sell new"
And the low mileage used market in Nevada takes off. Onemight be able to even turn a profit by buying new out of state, driving a year or so and then selling into the Cali market. And then there's all the work from home folks with a legal address in Lake Tahoe.
"...they can straight-faced claim they're green because they're just cycling carbon from the air through plants and back into the air to go back into plants."
Which is more or less the truth.
While electric cars will run on electricity which is literally made by burning *coal*. Infinite amounts of it.
Gasoline engine has an efficiency about 30%, diesel a bit better: Electric car using elecricity made by burning anything, has composite efficiency less than 20%.
Focusing to emissions from tail pipe is absolute bullshit and *total emissions* from electric cars are and will be *much* higher.
And. When they realise how unsustainable battery-fueled vehicles are (and when China cannot steal any more rare earth metals from the third world) millions will be left with useless flash-in-the-pan over-exuberance headaches. The future is a mix of biofuel and hydrogen. Eventually 100% hydrogen.
"Eventually 100% hydrogen."
No. Anyone proposing it has zero idea what they are talking about and the devil is in details: In theory hydrogen is a good fuel. Reality is something else.
Hydrogen is basically impossible to store in any significant amount. Also *really* expensive to make, doesn't make any economical sense at anything which moves.
It is usable if you have a power plant, sea and industrial scale usage for it, in one industrial complex. otherwise, it's not: Difficult to move, difficult to store and energy efficiency (J/m^3) is pathetic.
"Feels kinda like the death of the Steam Locomotive. Sure, they're dirty, noisy, inefficient, slow... but there's a soul that an electrified train will simply never have."
That's true. There will always be collectors and enthusiasts, just as there are now for vintage steam, gas[*] and electric cars, as well as old petrol cars.
* Gas gas, not gasoline gas :-)
My 1975 F250 does about 16 MPG on the freeway, which is up from a bone-stock 8-10MPG. That's on gasoline. If I switch to alcohol, it's just over 8MPG. For either fuel option, my "bad" emissions are quite a bit lower than stock. The trick is to make the correct power and torque at the correct RPM so you can re-gear the thing for lower RPM at cruise. Judicious use of boost and tuning makes this kind of thing fairly easy, despite all the objections of the EPA and CARB.
Yes, it's an iron block. (460ci ... about 7.5l). There are some things that just can't be handled with electric motors and batteries.
I recently watched a video from a chap who'd replaced the carb on his seventies V8 and replaced it with one from a lawn mower, with a little electronics jiggery pokery I failed to note in detail that corrected the mixture. He reduced his consumption to - IIRC - the low forties and was still able to cruise at seventy plus.
Didn't sound quite the same, somehow...
Edelbrock sells multi-point electronic fuel injection conversion kits for AMC, Chevy, Chrysler, Ford, and Pontiac V8 engines under their Pro-Flo series.
I did a V6 to V8 engine swap with an old pickup truck many years back. The rules were that the new engine had to meet the emission standards of the old engine in order to pass. With a MP EFI kit and a mild camshaft, the new engine had about the same emissions as the throttle-body EFI V6.
A V8 cast iron block clunker that does 15mpg? :-)
That's not even difficult. For example the cast iron 305 TBI on one of mine does easily 20mpg+ (imp. gallons). Ok perhaps not in city but certainly on motorway. Even in city it won't drop much under 20.
I worry when my "dirty diesel" gets below about 48mpg. Cruising down the motorway at 70mph it's more like 57mpg. If I'm not in a hurry and sit behind a lorry at 56mph, 65+mpg is about average. But then UK fuel costs are tad higher than in the USA.
On a different note, I don't really care about cars anymore. It's a "tool" to get me from A to B in an acceptable level of comfort and reasonable (to me, not you! :-)) level of economy. I really don't care that it doesn't have a throaty roar like a Ford GT or Porche. I had a petrol/electric hybrid on hire for a week a while back. I was actually quite impressed with it. Good pull-away with electric start, got a little lower[*] mpg on the motorway, but significantly better mpg around town thanks to the batteries, averaging about 58mpg overall on the same type of daily trips I do normally
* petrol gives lower mpg then diesel anyway, but is also a little cheaper, so probably comparable.
"Those V8 engine blocks make great bases for coffee tables."
No, they don't. They are a right pain to vacuum around. And don't get me started about stubbing your toe on one ... and when it decides the temperature and pressure is just right and it oozes a little 10W40 onto the Axminster, SWMBO tends to not be amused.
better buy a new gas or diesel powered car or truck NOW, while you can, and keep fixing up the old cars!
(I happen to like the Ford Mustang)
Then, work freelance, get paid in half gasoline, half cash.
(Reminds me a little of "Dimension W")
On a more serious note, until ALL electricity is generated NOT from fossil fuels, which is really NOT possible, especially when you DOUBLE the demand by REQUIRING electric vehicles (unless THE PLAN is to keep the poor and middle class from OWNING VEHICLES, and therefore IN THEIR PLACE in the socio-economic world, like a SMUG WOKE SNOB would do) then without an INCREASE in power production, you'll either see RATIONING or EXCESSIVELY HIGH RATES or BOTH. Quite obviosly, there is NO SUFFICIENT INFRASTRUCTURE (unless you want to pretend to be a 3rd world country) and the cost of NEW electric cars AVERAGE over $60k! (and that's just the sticker price). And just as much exhaust (potentially) goes into the atmosphere from coal, oil, and natural gas power plants as did before from gasoline, except NOW you have power distribution losses to go with it, especially when demand AT NIGHT is likely to .exceed battery and transmission line capacity while MILLIONS of commuter cars simultaneously charge.
WOW, those MANDATES REALLY *DO* something WONDERFUL!!!
[N O T ! ! !]
Cali-Fornicate-You continues to INVENT NEW LEVELS OF STUPID.
(and WHAT percentage of all of that EXTRA COST for an electric vehicle IS FUNNELED DIRECTLY TO CHINA??? As opposed to the USA drilling MORE DOMESTIC OIL???)
honorable mention: Arthur C. Clarke's "Superiority". The warning against throwing out an old technology when the "new, shiny" replacement tech is not NEARLY ready for prime time.
But it is MY BOMBASTIC OPINION that WOKE SMUG SNOBS (aka 'the political donor class') are behind this, they are VERY wealthy, they often 'feel' some kind of guilt for being wealthy, and ASSUAGE that guilt by becoming radical leftists and (through politiical donations and lobbying) force THE REST OF US to do *THEIR* *PENNANCE* whlle THEY continue to fly private jets, travel on mega-yachts, and air condition their PALACES while the rest of us ration, pay confiscatory rates, and DO WITHOUT.
Yeah, THAT is FAIR, right?
Hindsight has been polished up quite a bit. The glorious old big V8 cars of yesteryear used to break down and get out of tune constantly. And run out of gas.
I have to admit, a small car with a turbo 4-cylinder is a lot more fun on mountain roads. You have better visibility, more room on the road, and longer uninterrupted fun before it's time to find a gas station. I'm hoping my 2018 Golf R lasts until sporty electric cars are lighter and less bloated looking.
Kevin,
While you may be right about old V8s, I like them for the feeling you get when you press on the accelerator pedal and the noises that come from both the engine and exhaust.
My current 2.0L 4 pot out accelerates the 1978 Oldsmobile Delta 88's 350c.i. V8 I had when I was younger, but it feels harsher doing it.
That said, I would hate to be fueling that beast at today's prices!
" The glorious old big V8 cars of yesteryear used to break down and get out of tune constantly. "
Uhm ... what? "Break down"? What's that? Have you *any* idea what you are talking about? Like "experience" or is it just arse talking?
I had a '61 Cadillac for 5 years and countless miles, not a single breakdown. And it was already 50-year-old car at that point.
" 2018 Golf R "
Your Golf has designed lifetime of 200k km/150k miles. Then *everything* needs replacement as they *will* break. It's literally a product of planned obsolence.
And by 2028 you won't be able to buy any spare parts for it, too. 10 years it is, says EU.
Believing it's "better" than 60s cars is almost unbelievable, how someone can have that kind of disconnection from reality? Says a mechanical engineer here.
Oh, it *is* lighter and faster and uses less fuel. But it's also 'no can fix this, buy a new one' -product.
I see the point with electric cars, and I have one myself (though not as my only car). But that said, this is another politically motivated pipe dream. It's not even borderline realistic.
Just from the perspective of minerals for manufacturing electric car batteries, there simply isn't sufficient capacity for this ambitious goal, assuming others also pursuing some less ambitious electric car plans.
And on top of that, California is lacking not only in electric production capacity, but transmission as well. Already the state is on the verge of brown-outs and rolling black-outs if anything doesn't go to plan on a hot summer day.
How is that system supposed to support a massive new power sink? Not going to happen, as the investments for that kind of expansion would have had to be started 5 years ago, not even accounting for the predictable NIMBYist delays that'll slow down any attempts at building more power plants and stringing up power transmission cables all over the state.
They might as well legislate that we will all have flying cars by 2035.
"access to personal vehicles is going to be severely restricted in the near future."
If any elected official here in the USA suggests such a thing, they will be tarred & feathered and run out of town on the rail. And then they will be defeated at the ballot box. And the fuckers know it, too.
Speaking as a person of retirement age (whatever the hell that means these days), I would welcome re-testing everybody over the age of 60 on a yearly basis. (Maybe every other year, until 70ish.) If you can drive, you have nothing to fear[0] from taking the test. If you can't drive, keep the fuck off the road!
Grandma passed away quietly, in her sleep. Her passengers died screaming in fear.
[0] No, this is not a privacy issue. It's a public safety issue.
Young drivers have far more and far worse accidents than old ones.
Worse accidents, usually yes the oldies tend to be involved in less serious accidents, but they only have less accidents because they are on the road less. Accidents per mile driven for old fogeys is not good reading.
"Young drivers have far more and far worse accidents than old ones."
Semi-BS. The "far worse" is proper BS and "far more" isn't water tight either. You don't see teenagers driving wrong way in a highway, do you?
But the reason for that? They are fu***in *teenagers': They'll *know* how they should drive and don't do that. No amount of testing will change that.
Anyone believing teenagers won't behave like teenagers, no matter what, is and will be seriously wrong.
> re-testing everybody over the age of 60 on a yearly basis
I do agree with the idea, but am very afraid of the execution: I fear it will be a bureaucratic nightmare where you lose your time and money for no real benefit.
I'd argue more for a yearly medical test. Is your eyesight still good enough? Reflexes? Cognitive capacities? Any medical condition or treatment which could interfere? After all those are the real dangers, not that you'd suddenly unlearn 44+ years of driving.
Besides, older people are usually sensible: At some point my father stopped driving after dark and making trips longer than to the supermarket, all on his own. Now there are certainly those who aren't sensible, but I'm not sure that testing would stop them from driving.
"I'd argue more for a yearly medical test. Is your eyesight still good enough? Reflexes? Cognitive capacities?"
Which *looks* like a good idea but how much it will cost, especially in US? 1000 dollars? More than that?
Have a mandatory test and a cartel generating a price for it: It *will be very, very high*.
"Poor old geezers no need driving licence." That's the idea here.
"everybody over the age of 60 on a yearly basis."
Ever been to the DMV in the US? If the other side of the barrier was 20cm deep in treacle, they couldn't move any slower and you want to add more requirements that require people to go there more frequently?
Ideally, the person should realize they just aren't keeping up and need to stop driving or limit their driving to the shops and back along lower speed roads. As long as people aren't getting cited there isn't a reason for being more intrusive. At most, it might be a good check to have cautions added to somebody's driving record pas the age of 70 or so. If they get pulled over frequently, but not issued a ticket, that could be a sign. How many officers want to issue a ticket for something on the border to somebody that reminds them of their dear old mum?
"yearly basis"
Oh, you mean old people tax, because that's what it is. Tests cost money.
"Yearly" has strong fascist vibe too, as even here in North, where safety fascists run the show, it's only every 5 years until you're 80.
Nothing to do with "public safety", but very much related "squeeze money from old geezers".
That's not entirely true.
Case in point, Mackinac Island.
Vehicles are prohibited on the island... unless you happen to be a former Vice President of the United States... and his caravan.
"Case in point, Mackinac Island."
Bad example. It's a National Historic Landmark and State Park, many of which do not allow cars (except those of fuckwitted politicians in all their high and mighty entitlement, of course). It is a "preserving the past" thing, not a "cars stink" thing.
One might say it's about preserving the historic atmosphere, not the future of the atmosphere.
They also allow cars when there's enough money behind it -- like when Hollywood comes calling. Watch "Somewhere in Time" and you'll see, plain as day. That one car (plus any production vehicles) had to be ferried in [1] like everything else [2].
1. They made it look like one can drive straight to the Grand Hotel from Chicago. Not only is it on an island, and cars are prohibited except for emergency vehicles (fire/ambulance), but there is the issue of having to go around Lake Michigan, which makes for quite a long drive.
2. Yep, even the Amazon boxen come in on cargo ferry then are transferred to and delivered by horse-drawn carriage.
"1. They made it look like one can drive straight to the Grand Hotel from Chicago. Not only is it on an island, and cars are prohibited except for emergency vehicles (fire/ambulance), but there is the issue of having to go around Lake Michigan, which makes for quite a long drive."
That's normal in TV/Movie-land. The locations you see on screen are "actors" portraying somewhere/thing.
I clearly remember my first realisation of this as a child when a TV advert for a car showed the young couple getting married on the steps of our local, very impressive Victorian era Town Hall, crossing a bridge about 10 miles away seconds later, heading north, then crossing the scenic moors which are south of the town. Because it was local and I knew the places, it just blew my tiny young mind that nothing on TV was "real" in any normal sense :-)
"The locations you see on screen are "actors" portraying somewhere/thing."
The first movie I was an extra in had the main character walking from where they were filming in Wisconsin to a location in California while hailing another character. I just saw the part being filmed in California and didn't have any idea about the other half of the filming so it seemed really strange. When I saw the film in the cinema, it was completely seamless. I could also pick out all of the other places where they filmed in WI to give the look and feel of a midwestern university. Most of the movie was filmed around Los Angeles. Being an extra is a bunch of fun. The pay is crap and the meals aren't very good most of the time, but the whole process is very interesting to see working.
"Fargo" -- driving "south" into Minneapolis but they skyline is clearly from Interstate 35W northbound, somewhere after MN/County 62 "Crosstown" but before the mesh with Interstate 94.
And "The Blues Brothers" -- the "Illinois Nazi"'s launch and free-fall filmed in Milwaukee, not Chicago.
I love finding those misplaced tidbits.
Well, it is also a culture that the locals enthusiastically support as well.
Sure, the locals may have been/are drawn by the lack of automobiles, similar to how those who are "allergic to EMF" are drawn to the National Radio Quiet Zone, so there may be a bit of bias.
Yes they are, but the result will be the same in every vaguely non-authoritarian nation.
Tell tens, hundreds of millions of people they can't have the personal freedom afforded by their own car, then watch the inevitable backlash erupt. Probably very aggressively and violently.
You want a dystopian future where only the "important" people can have a car and the plebs have to slum it on cramped, inconvenient and over-subscribed public transport that is financially cut to the bone by over-zealous capitalists? This is that future.
"Why do you have to be capitalist to have crappy public transport?"
Because it is actually working under communism. Somewhere between in countries between. Just because it's classified as *public service*, like roads, and it's not even *meant* to generate profit.
You literally have to have capitalism involved to create crappy public transport.
"and it's not even *meant* to generate profit."
The thing is that public transportation does generate a profit. It just doesn't do it directly, but does it through facilitating more business than could take place in an area based on private cars. Car parks take up room and so do roads wide enough to allow business to operate during business hours (a problem in itself). The local government collects taxes on the businesses and then sells bonds to invest in more public transportation and then passes more taxes tentatively earmarked to go for public transportation but then that money gets put in the General Fund to be used anywhere it will buy votes. 3. Profit.
"You want a dystopian future where only the "important" people can have a car and the plebs have to slum it on cramped, inconvenient and over-subscribed public transpor"
With fewer cars on the roads they can remark the streets so there is a reserved lane for VIPs. Hmmm, where have I seen that before?
"If any elected official here in the USA suggests such a thing, they will be tarred & feathered and run out of town on the rail."
Maybe. It depends how it plays out. I don't know about the USA, but here in the UK there has been a huge shift to leasing, not purchasing, cars. All it would take would be a slow and gradual increase in leasing, "fuel", taxes, insurance costs and people start to think that maybe they don't need to lease a car 24/7, but just hire one when they need it. The younger generations are already primed for that switch as so many already lease or rent most of what they "own" these days, from music tracks to software, from phones to homes and sometimes even the furniture. So much of life is "...as a Service" these days and all paid for on credit. That's probably why so many are so worried about inflation right now. They own nothing and have no "backstop" for when things go pear-shaped.
"but here in the UK there has been a huge shift to leasing, not purchasing, cars."
In the US that can make sense if you are using the car for business. It's a tax thing. If you buy the car, you have to depreciate it over time. With a lease, the payments become tax-deductible if the car is used for business.
For non-deductible personal use, I'd rather own the car. I'd hate to be going through a rough patch as the car lease was about to expire and have to hand it in. Sometimes you can buy the car at the end of the lease, but if the leasing company underestimated the value, they may want too much money or may want it back with no option. That said, it may still be viable to lease an EV. The technology is changing rapidly so in 3-5 years there may be much better options. You might also find that your driving needs have changed and you need more range or other things.
Wherever possible, I'll stick buying outright. ICE cars aren't going away for a few years yet, probably not for decades on the 2nd hand market. Being able to buy fuel, easily and conveniently for them, will most likely become a problem before the ability to obtain one does :-)
I'm just at the start of beginning to seriously consider replacing my current car. I might look at hybrids, but I've no idea if it's safe to be looking at 2nd hand there yet or consider only new. With my daily mileage, leasing costs get very high and even though it's used for business, I get a car allowance from my employer which is taxed as earnings. I can't claim tax back in the car in any way.
>>What people don't realize, or are in denial about, is that access to personal vehicles is going to be severely restricted in the near future.
It wont be an outright ban, just a number of measures that make it impractical/unaffordable for the ordinary person; real people (people earning >>£100k p.a. as espoused by some Tory the other month) won't be too inconvenienced.
What to the proles need personal tramsport for anyway?
When do they have time to drive anywhwere for their own leisure?
Why do they get leisure anyway?
They should be working 28x7x52 for the greater good!
Welcome to the 1820s boys and girls. Thank the minister for the middle ages (sorry, Brexit opportunities) and his cronies.
Here in EU some MEPs are already *demanding* that only some people (i.e. themselves, of course) should *allowed to have a personal car*.
Back in to USSR, apparently. Proper green fascists.
Of course every MEP existing *flies* to Brussels and back weekly. Bu nono, *cars* are the problem.
California is lacking not only in electric production capacity, but transmission as well
You don't need new generation or transmission capacity when most charging will be at night. A decent chunk of it will probably be locally generated during the day via rooftop solar panels.
The old model of people driving until they are almost out of fuel before going to a gas station is obsolete with electric cars. The only time you would do that is if you drive several hundred miles (however long your car's range is) in one day.
Anyway, by 2035 when 100% of cars sold will be electric, probably 2/3 of cars on the road will still be gasoline powered. Cars last a LONG time these days. I see cars on the road from the 90s and earlier all the time - which is kind of astounding now that I think about it because I live where winter is a thing and I remember seeing cars with rust everywhere all the time when I was a kid. Now other than maybe a few spots here and there, even 30 year old cars don't seem to have much rust anymore. Not sure how much of that is improvements in rustproofing and how much is using different snow melt formulations on the road.
That night time charging thing is touted about plenty. As are new battery technologies, local production, and the fact that it'll take time to displace most of the cars in use.
But with a calculator anyone can figure out that these won't account for the needed generation capacity. It's not even close, even if the state were to not try to run down traditional power sources, following in the footsteps of Germany into brownouts and rolling blackouts.
Nor is anything being done to get things in place now, even though it's already at least 5 years too late to make a 2035 goal. If the state continues to push for this, in a few years -- well before 2035 -- California will have to choose between driving cars and running air conditioning. And on a windless cloudy day, both might not be options.
Unless of course a renewed love for nuclear power swoops in to save the day, but those projects should've been started a decade ago in order to be available in a relevant timeframe.
And you didn't mention the other elephant in the room: minerals. There isn't enough mining capacity for critical minerals, unless one chooses to like every African dictator using child and prison labor in death camps to produce them while contaminating swaths of the continent in the process (or pretend to look away when the Chinese deal with them for you). Without those key minerals it'll either be impossible to manufacture the batteries, or the minerals become so expensive to make the transition impossible, or both.
Yes, there are promising lab batteries out there that use fewer critical minerals, but after one of them becomes usable in the real world it'll still take the better part of a decade to bring it to the mass market. And none of those "promising" technologies seems to be anywhere near emerging from labs. (And I'm not discounting the advances that have been made, but they *always* seem to come with at least one gotcha that prevents their real world use.)
So in the end this is about selling pipe dreams to gullible individuals.
You don't need new generation or transmission capacity when most charging will be at night. A decent chunk of it will probably be locally generated during the day via rooftop solar panels.
Where is the electricity going to stay between being generated during the day and charging cars at night?
Exactly!
No sun shining at night for the PV arrays, and the wind usually starts dying down at night. What Calif needs to make running EV's off of renewable energy practical s lots of charging stations where cars are parked between 9AM to 1-2PM. This is to absorb the overproduction from PV during that time period - look up "solar duck" for more information. Unfortunately, seems like very few people in Cal state government (outside of Cal ISO) know anything about running an electrical grid. Related problem is that Hair Gel believes his own BS.
You don't need new generation or transmission capacity when most charging will be at night. A decent chunk of it will probably be locally generated during the day via rooftop solar panels.
Yes, that is exactly the problem. The electricity is generated during the day (with many many vehicles NOT parked at home but likely on some far corner of a large parking lot without a charging connector, nor much local generating capacity) and then at night when they ARE parked at home there's no solar power available to charge them again.
Out of curiosity, what is the average daily commute there? Here in the UK it's pretty low mileage *on average* so many EV owners won't need to charge every day, some might even get a whole week without a charge and with EVs it's how far you go, not how long you are stuck in traffic since the EV is barely using power when stopped plus the regen brakes. Having "played" with a hybrid for a week, I can say the 30 mile range of it's battery easily got me on a "typical" local commute of 10 miles each way, the ICE barely kicking in, so full EV with 100+ mile range should be good for that.
Full disclosure, I'm not in that average group. My daily mileage is in the order of 200-300 or miles per day and I can't afford an EV with that range. I'd need, at the very least, to be able to charge at each end, every day, and maybe even during a trip. ICE or hybrid are my only options.
"Out of curiosity, what is the average daily commute there?"
It's a massive country so trying to come up with an "average" is useless. People that live in a city and don't make the mistake of buying a home miles away might travel 30 miles or less per day. An EV with 300 miles of range and an owner that likes to have 50 miles of reserve could go the whole week with plenty to spare. They could recharge the car on the weekends they don't go somewhere and do their weekly shop mid-week someplace that has charging available (Level 2). There are so many variables that each person needs to look at their situation to see if they can make it work. If they go in with lots of misinformation and an attitude of not wanting it to work, they'll justify that stance. Others that are keen to get an EV will be looking out for all of the ways they can get one to work for them if it might be a tight fit.
"People that live in a city and don't make the mistake of buying a home miles away "
So the idea is 'don't be poor and EV works for you'.. You know, most people didn't *choose* to be poor?
Poor people buy houses where they can and that means they are *tens of miles* away.
" An EV with 300 miles of range" Which literally means you buy a $80k Tesla. Sure, with that kind of cash you don't live far away from work either, but >99% of population aren't that rich.
150 miles is something realistic and that's one day commuting. Or two, if you are lucky and then it's 24 hours full time charging to get batteries full again. Better to have another car for that time.
"If they go in with lots of misinformation and an attitude of not wanting it to work, they'll justify that stance"
...and what you offer is 'don't be poor'. Literally. I'll classify that as intentional misinformation as most people *are* poor.
> You don't need new generation or transmission capacity when most charging will be at night. A decent chunk of it will probably be locally generated during the day via rooftop solar panels.
According to tonight's forecast at Cal-ISO, California will have around 20GW of extra available capacity versus actual demand around midnight. US building code is pushing for 7.65 kW as the target at home charging speed per parking space. So that comes out to around 2.63 million vehicles.
Based on average EV efficiency and average number of miles driven in California, each vehicle will only need 11.87 kWh per day. So with a typical charger, you'll be done in under 2 hours. If vehicle charging times were staggered between midnight and 6AM, you could support at least 7 million vehicles during that time.
California has around 14 million cars and light trucks. So yes, extra capacity will be needed. And with Oregon and Washington thinking about cutting gasoline vehicles in 2035, too, imports from them may be limited.
Of course, the energy market will likely look much different in 2035. Given the huge push for solar, we may see incentives for charging between 10AM and 2PM when there is a huge glut of solar power.
"If vehicle charging times were staggered between midnight and 6AM, you could support at least 7 million vehicles during that time."
It would be better to program the car with the level you want it to be at by a specified time. Common wisdom is to charge up to 80% unless you are going on a long trip. If you can tell the car you want to charge to 80% by 6am and let the car calculate when to begin, that would go a long way towards a very staggered set of start times.
There isn't going to be a changeover from ICEV to EV in just a couple of years so there will be plenty of time for the grid to adapt.
Another feature that could be implemented is for cars to choose the charge rate based on how much charging that needs to be done. EVSE's are set up to match the amount of power the circuit can supply so as long as the car programming extracts less than that, it will work. Power companies would then have a surcharge for peak power used as well as total energy consumed. If you have all night, there is no need to have the car draw so much that it's done in an hour.
"here isn't going to be a changeover from ICEV to EV in just a couple of years so there will be plenty of time for the grid to adapt."
California was having rolling blackouts in 1970s. They are still having those every summer. So where did you get the idea of 'adapting' to *anything*?
Won't happen. I can bet on that.
"California was having rolling blackouts in 1970s. They are still having those every summer. So where did you get the idea of 'adapting' to *anything*?"
Look up how much the population has grown (both official and unofficial residents) in the last 50 years and factor in how much more common AC is. This is all to be viewed against a background of horribly unqualified elected officials that are actively trying to cause problems.
"US building code is pushing for 7.65 kW as the target at home charging speed per parking space."
*is pushing* ... so it possibly will be a rule somewhere in the future, possibly not ever.
That means 3-phase 25 amp main fuses *solely* for the car charger. That's the same as most houses have now, for the whole house. Good luck on that, *not a single component* on the grid will stand that.
Also: At least here in North we pay monthly fee by the size of main fuses and if I want anything more than 3*25 amps, the price skyrockets. Fast. 3*´64 amps would cost 10 times what 3*25A costs.
And electricity is forecasted to pass 50cents/kWh next winter. That's what we call 'hidden cost'.
"US building code is pushing for 7.65 kW as the target at home charging speed per parking space. So that comes out to around 2.63 million vehicles."
That's ludicrous for the average driver in a city. 7.65kWh (one hour at 7.65kW) is around 26 miles of range (assuming an efficiency of 3.4 miles/kWh). Charging 6 hours/night durning off-peak would be 157 miles of range. That's far beyond what's "normal". A person doing mostly city driving could see efficencies of around 4.2miles/kWh which is 32/193 miles (hr/6hours). Even with two cars charging, that's still a lot of miles. I still haven't seen a law that requires an EV to be charged all the way up before it can be used again.
"A decent chunk of it will probably be locally generated during the day via rooftop solar panels."
That's wonderful if you work from home and those are your solar panels so you get the benefits. The corollary is that if you work at home you aren't likely needing to do as much charging unless part of your work involves traveling like with the work I do.
"You don't need new generation or transmission capacity when most charging will be at night. "
False logic. A/C runs 24/7 and that's the most consumer in California summer. Grid is daily on the edge of failing already and they're adding 50 million electric cars consuming terawatts of electricity, all night.
Also solar panels produce zero elecricity in night time so it's all made by burning coal. You can't store electricity, so day time production is irrelevant in night.
"Anyway, by 2035 when 100% of cars sold will be electric"
Wet dream of lunatic politicians used to get them re-elected. That's 13 years away and currently less than 10% of population can afford an electric car. And they have it as 2nd or 3rd car.
That percentage won't change as both prices and wages are totally stagnant. So 90% are doomed to their aging cars until California looks like Cuba: Elite has new Teslas and everyone else is driving >30-year-old cars.
Just what the elite *wants*. Literally.
"False logic. A/C runs 24/7 and that's the most consumer in California summer. "
False logic: A/C runs 24/7 and that's the most consumer in California summer. FTFY
While the AC might be "on" 24/7, the compressor and fan will be on more frequently during the hottest part of the day and far less frequently in the middle of the night to maintain a constant temperature.
It doesn't apply to me as I have an evaporative cooler that works extremely well where I am. While it does run continuously, it draws far less power than a refrigerative AC system. I was hoping that it would be running on solar during the day this last summer, but other budget items got in the way. I should have a dedicated solar array for it come next spring/summer. In the winter I'll just burn up the power running a heater. Any excess will go towards keeping a thermal battery hot.
"Cars last a LONG time these days"
These days cars are crap. Planned lifetime is 20 years or 150k miles and then everything fails. And no spare parts for you, "old model, we don't sell any".
Total opposite of my '61 Cadillac (unfortunately sold but still in traffic). Now *that car* lasts LONG, >60 years in use and still works.
I live in an end terrace here in the UK. It's on street parking, and many homes in the city are like this. It's not possible to guarantee getting parked outside your own home. It's like musical chairs out there, and we couldn't be running charging cables up and down the street. I WFH now, so where would I charge? I recently changed vehicles, and test drove a PHEV, but in the end, I'm looking at moving house, so I get a drive, and then thinking about going electric. This will solve my charging issue, but there will still be a hundred housand people in the city that won't have anywhere to charge a pure EV, and the only way they could is if Local Govt restrict parking, issue permits and mark bays outside each house. But in dense streets that's going to deny people access to vehicles. Going pure EV is laudable goal, but it's going to be a painful journey.
But in dense streets that's going to deny people access to vehicles. Going pure EV is laudable goal, but it's going to be a painful journey.
There are tried and tested solutions. Rather than having trailing cables at ground level, simply raise the charging infrastructure. EV's can extend a charging connector vertically, and data over powerlines or cellular systems in EV's black boxes can authorise charging and payment. Worked for trams, can work for EVs.
Bigger challenge is today's news, with the price of electricity rising on average from 28p per kWh to 52p in October-December. So the cost of EV motoring per kWh doubling, for no apparent reason. And it's due to increase massively again in another 3 months. So not only will people have to deal with the high cost of EVs, the claim that it's 'cheaper' than ICEs will become ever more of a myth.
But such is politics. Increase demand, wonder why the price rises. Reduce supply, wonder why the price and inflation rises. Still, if you're a 'renewables' subsidy farmer, it's excellent news because your costs are pretty much unchanged, and you can make an extra 24p per kWh profit. Ok, you may have to share a bit of that with government, but still, trebles all round!
There are only two street lights on my street, one at either end, nothing in the middle. So the road would need digging up to lay more power cables, and more poles would need to be erected. This sounds expensive, and many of the streets with on street parking aren't affluent areas, so I doubt would get that level of spend dedicated to solving this.
For a generic crowded terrace like you describe, the answer is combined parking meters / charge points. You swipe your resident's parking card at the meter whether you want to charge or not, and then while you've got your card out you have the option to plug in overnight for a slow fillup (5kW or so should give atleast 60kWh overnight).
Ah, problem is we have more cars than we can park on the road, so my side, the general rule is we park on the road, to keep that side footpath clear, the other side, they park partially on the footpath, to keep the road clear. We could have meters on one side, but I don't see how that would work on the other side. Installing that amount of infrastructure sounds costly, and our govt have made noises about getting rid of ICE but not one word about investment in onfrastructure to support it.
"5kW or so should give atleast 60kWh overnight"
Gracious! 60kWh times 3.8 miles per kWh is 228 miles. How about 3kW charging and more spots available to plug in to? In my opinion, it's better to provide more people with a baseline level of service than just a few with red carpet charging.
I live in an end terrace here in the UK. It's on street parking, and many homes in the city are like this. It's not possible to guarantee getting parked outside your own home.
Welcome to the future, citizen.
People in your situation simply won't be allowed to have a car. Thus instantly reducing concurrent problems of traffic congestion, inadequate power generation and lack of charing infrastructure. Govenments can claim all problems are therefore solved, without needing to actually do anything.
<sarc>
Ain't the future great?
</sarc>
And not forgetting that cars are Public Enemy #1, even though exhaust gas pollutant emission have been drastically cut over the last 30 years and will drop further with more EVs on the roads. Now the anti-car brigade are running out of complaints, they've discovered "micro particles" from the tyres and brake discs. Suddenly, that's now a huge problem too.
Don't get me wrong, it is a problem, but I'm not sure it's a big a problem as is being made out. Risk:Reward ratio kicks. You can't eliminate all risk.
In the UK our shagger in chief Boris Johnson and cronies declared 2030 to be the end date for new ICE sales.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-takes-historic-step-towards-net-zero-with-end-of-sale-of-new-petrol-and-diesel-cars-by-2030
So, like Brexit, you get to enjoy the UK inflcitign self harm with no real plan abot how to get anything done.
"There are few houses without garages or apartments that lack off street parking."
There are plenty of apartments that don't have off-street parking or only one assigned space per unit with most apartments being shared by at least two people. This is common in larger towns and places where the planning board accepted some off-the-books payments to allow an apartment complex or building project to pass with insufficient parking. Many of those areas are also not going to have many people with a high enough income level to afford an EV right now. Some will still buy them to compensate for anatomical Short-comings, but not many. If somebody is buying a $155,000 Tesla Model S plaid, they have off-street parking.
"I live in an end terrace here in the UK. It's on street parking, and many homes in the city are like this."
My insulting advice is to move if you want an EV. I lived in high density areas after I left home and will never do that again. Being older and not as spry as I once was is part of it. I don't want to walk 3 miles back and forth to the car to collect all of my shopping and get it into the fridge as fast as possible. I like the peace and quiet. I also like to bang on my drums and make noise too without making enemies of my neighbors. I've found that I can live in a area where salaries are lower (even though I'm self-employed) but the cost of living is proportionally even lower. It allowed me to buy and pay off a house and have a car that is also paid. It's not what you earn, it's what you keep. Not having as much annual revenue also keeps me in a more reasonable tax bracket.
We've put an offer in on one house (not yet accepted), and are viewing a bungalow on the same street on Saturday,... both have drives and double garages. I'm off to the 'burbs. Looking into solar panels too, sadly neither are rural enough for a wind turbine, unless I consider one of those vertical twizzly things.
13 years is a long time.
California's power problems are not difficult to fix - the current set of brownouts have been due to reducing capacity on poorly installed lines to reduce the risk of wildfires. If they're willing to spend some cash, it can quickly be sorted. Renewables are still increasing at double digit percentages *per year*, and time-varied electric charges will guarantee most of the growth in consumption is off-peak.
To say there aren't enough minerals for the batteries is ludicrous - the Earth is full of them. Much like we currently have with oil, the limit is not how much exists in the Earth's crust, but in how much people are willing to pay to extract it. If batteries continue at their current rate of development, in 10 years they'll have double the capacity and charge twice as fast for the same mineral usage. And that's discounting any new, disruptive tech like aluminium cells (useless for small items, but a potential game-changer at the industrial level).
Basically, it's an entirely achievable goal, if - IF - they're willing to spend on it. Simply setting a law for carmakers that all cars have to be electric by 2035 won't do it. And that's where I remain skeptical. But I think you're being too pessimistic to dismiss it as not realistic.
Ah the universal 'we just need to spend more' solution :)
So PG&E have pretty much refused to spend money on fixing infrastructure, declared bankruptcy to try and avoid paying out for the deaths they caused and then got a huge bailout from Gov Gav (which no doubt helped line his pocket) cos they were now poor. Profit first and if they manage to make some electricity then that is a bonus.
'They' will NEVER fix the problem. Same with the homeless crisis in CA. Cos they know there are enough 'we just need to spend more' suckers who will authorise them to spend more over and over again.
https://www.kitco.com/news/2020-06-24/Chile-s-lithium-miners-consume-65-of-region-s-water.html
Admittedly 2 years old so probably worse by now.
The greenies moan about digging big holes to dig up stuff so now the solution is to dig up more stuff. OK... We must save the planet by destroying it even faster!
"The greenies moan about digging big holes to dig up stuff so now the solution is to dig up more stuff. OK... We must save the planet by destroying it even faster!"
Well you've hit on the problem there. The real solution is not to consume so much, to not buy new cars, to rely more on shared resources. I do honestly wish the best of luck to anyone pursuing that solution - in the end, it's the only way we're going to save ourselves.
In the short term, digging up something different does result in a big cut in all kinds of emissions so it does represent a good short-term investment of effort.
I'm afraid I can't back you on the "why even try?" approach. I'm more of an optimist than that, and I don't believe there's such a thing as NEVER (within the boundaries of physics). Something does have to be done. We killed CFCs. We killed smallpox. We are capable of doing this, so long as the will and the funds are there. California is the 5th largest economy in the world, and the still beating heart of the tech industry - I think it will be a tremendous shame if they fail for not having the guts to see it through.
I never said 'why even try' :)
The problem is that all too often the bounds of the simulation are 'tweaked' and statistics are massaged to give a result that fits the narrative. All sides are guilty of this.
No single solution is going to work but we only ever focus on one solution at a time.
I work for a company that is quite big in the e-mobility industry. Lithium ion is only a stop-gap IMO and certainly not a solution for grid scale. You don't need the energy density for grid scale (although it helps) and I see fuel cell with battery hybrid as a longer term solution for mobile applications.
When you dig deep enough you find out that the 'anti the other thing' and the 'just spend more money on this thing' groups are often backed by people who will profit from it. Endless profit and endless digging up of resources cannot continue. And that is not a capitalism caused issue. There are no isms where someone at the top doesn't want more stuff. We're in this situation due to cronyism and protectionism.
"We're in this situation due to cronyism and protectionism."
That's why regulation is needed. But in the US, that's "socialism", the great debate ender as both sides immediately distance themselves from any hint of socialism, which is seen as communism by the collective consciousness.
"Ah the universal 'we just need to spend more' solution :)"
That's not actually what he said, but it's a good sound bite.
What he said was to define an achievable goal and spend on that. In a truly capitalist society, that can be very difficult, especially when the target is short term profits driven by shareholders and stock prices. After all, why should the tax payers invest in power generation and distribution when the power company's make money from generating, distributing and selling power? It should be in their interest to provide enough power over good infrastructure since that should mean they can sell more power more reliably and make more money in the long term.
"Much like we currently have with oil, the limit is not how much exists in the Earth's crust, but in how much people are willing to pay to extract it."
With oil, another way to look at the costs of extraction is the return on the energy expended. If it takes more energy to extract the oil to use it as a form of energy, that's going to end badly. If the oil is being extracted to turn it into products such as plastic, epoxy, fertilizer, herbicide, medicine or thousands of more things, that's where financial considerations come into play.
"13 years is a long time."
For power corporations to *do* anything, that's literally a blink of an eye.
"California's power problems are not difficult to fix - the current set of brownouts have been due to reducing capacity on poorly installed lines to reduce the risk of wildfires."
Which is BS now and has been BS since 1970s. That's *50 years* of brownouts. I'm old enough to remember. "power problems" exist because of profit and that is not going to change, ever.
2035 is still a way away. As long as the highly ambitious plans to move to electric cars go hand-in-hand with highly ambitious plans to improve generation (renewable + nuclear), grid transmission and grid-scale storage, it will be fine.
Granted that 'As long as' is doing quite a bit of heavy lifting in that sentence.
I see that you don't have a calculator and the back of an envelope handy.
It's not just electric cars. They also want to switch away from gas central heating to electric heating, and the same with cooking.
Grid scale storage is so insanely expensive that it's unviable. Take a calculator and scale up from UPS systems storing kilowatt hours to storing gigawatt hours to figure out what the ballpark of the cost is. Then figure out what the requirement actually is by looking at gaps in wind production at the moment and multiply one figure by the other.
My conclusion was that the only way it would work would be to toss renewables out the window and build enough nuclear plants to cover the predicted baseload. I also concluded that we won't do that, so either the lights are going out or the price is going up high enough that the lights go out voluntarily. It's also too late; the greens have already committed political suicide having screwed energy policy and don't have time to correct. It's inevitable that the current (and future) energy prices will lead to us ending up with somebody willing to produce fossil fuels to bring energy prices back down.
It's also just as inevitable that increasing electricity demand under the current circumstances is going to be unwelcome.
"figure out what the requirement actually is by looking at gaps in wind production"
Is that UK or CA? I would guess that for California the solution would be solar/molten salt, which can store daytime sunlight as heat and release electricity throughout 24hr. California should be at a southern enough latitude for that (works very nicely in Spain and Morocco). And wind tends to be stronger in winter when solar is weaker. Certainly grid-scale storage is expensive but overbuilding renewable capacity would help.
"build enough nuclear plants to cover the predicted baseload"
This, absolutely, is needed anyway and everywhere, since as you say, 100% renewable will not cut it with insufficient grid storage
"They also want to switch away from gas central heating to electric heating, and the same with cooking."
At some point (ie when brownouts start), electrification will stop (or pause until grid can handle it)
They tried molten salt solar in Nevada and the utility company pulled the plug as it was more expensive than PV. Even though it could supply electricity at night. They don't want an actual working solution.
It is all about maximum profit. Get the govt to protect your industry (eg focus on only one solution, MY solution) and profit.
The other CSP plants in the southwest US are direct sun to steam and require natural gas to start up and to cover for when there are clouds.
"It's also just as inevitable that increasing electricity demand under the current circumstances is going to be unwelcome."
I see the "Just Stop Oil" or whatever they are called have been damaging petrol pumps at filling stations again today. The same day we see energy prices almost doubling. I wonder what their solution is to keep the UK moving and producing? There's wind turbines and solar farms appearing all over the place at a fairly rapid rate of expansion, but still we don't have enough to replace oil and gas like they want. I wonder if they also protest when a wind or solar farm is planned near where they live?
"2035 is still a way away. "
Well, if you are thinking that it's a good idea to add some nuclear power plants, it will take at least that long to clear all of the lawsuits. There is also the issue of the Coastal Commission having to give their approval which doesn't happen. In the midst of a bad multi-year drought, they denied permission for desalination plants.
Most vehicles must slowly charge until the grid is updated. I don't see this as a problem other than perception. Most cars will be parked 20+ hours a day.
National holidays will be the big loads for vehicle charging, but then there aren't many commercial loads those days either. Worst case scenario is December when there's little solar, hydro, or wind power but two travel holidays.
I think bigger problem is electrifying parking spaces. It's going to require huge quantities of miscellaneous hardware that factories aren't ready for. We also need far simpler and cheaper chargers. The gas-station style chargers don't scale - too much copper, too much power, too complex, too much to break.
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"And on top of that, California is lacking not only in electric production capacity, but transmission as well.
It takes an enormous amount of energy to refine oil into transportation fuels and California has several refineries. Most people are charging their EV's at night with a reduced EV tariff from the power companies to incentivize off-peak charging when the infrastructure isn't taxed and there is base load generation already spun up. In the eyes of the power companies, EV's are great. They are going to be getting mroe utilization from the already installed infrastructure that just sits idle in the wee hours just like all of the massive freeways.
Your assertion would be correct if the change to electric vehicle happened in a very short time span. With the cost of EV's and the lack of a used market, it's going to take a while which gives the energy companies time to add capability and reconfigure their distribution to adapt. The adding of sales in a traditionally low demand time period should also give them the capital to make the improvements.
The sky is not falling and California's power grid is not going to be a congealing pile of slag one afternoon.
"It takes an enormous amount of energy to refine oil into transportation fuels and California has several refineries."
Which is true and still a blatant lie. Refineries run on *steam*. And you know how steam is made? Right, burning *process gases* and crude oil.
Every refinery has its own power plant to make electricity anyway, so they won't pull much from the grid and that makes your claim blatant lie.
And you know this, choice of words tell us that: Anyone not knowing would have said 'electricity' instead of 'energy'.
"And on top of that, California is lacking not only in electric production capacity, but transmission as well. Already the state is on the verge of brown-outs and rolling black-outs if anything doesn't go to plan on a hot summer day."
The issue is time of day usage, not capacity over a 24 hour period. After the sun has gone down and people are shutting their 80" flat screen TV's off for the night, there is plenty of generation and transmission capacity. This is why the power companies offer incentive plans for EV owners to charge during off-peak hours rather than in the evening when demand is the highest.
I learned to drive in a muscle car. It could accelerate from a stoplight like nobody's business and would easily top 100 mph as long as the road was straight. I much preferred my next car, a European I4 which could actually turn. My last couple of cars added a turbocharger to the I4 and would out accelerate any traditional muscle car. I don't buy a car for the sound it makes but for what it can do.
In any case, American driving is not defined by its V8s but by its vastness. To drive from the south to the north of California is about the distance from Paris to Vienna; the longest interstate highway would cover the distance from Paris to Cairo and then some. Growing up, my family would regularly drive about 2400 miles (each way) to visit relatives. I appreciate that California has taken this into account by allowing PHEVs as well as EVs so trips can be planned around overnight stays instead of charging stations. Besides, if you want a V8, they are available now from many European automakers.
"I appreciate that California has taken this into account by allowing PHEVs"
They are an interesting stop-gap, but not always suitable for all situations. Non-plug-in hybrids are likely more useful for long trips since they have much smaller battery only meant for the slow, stop/start of city driving, the ICE doing the real work most of the time. PHEVs have a bigger battery, but rarely more than 30-40 miles worth on a full charge. So on a long road trip, that's a fair chunk of dead weight being hauled along that's little to no use on the vast majority of the journey. Both type of hybrids have the same disadvantage of the extra weight of the electric motors and more complex transmission and so dead weight on long trips.
There used to be some cars which were full EV in terms of drivetrain, but had a small, lightweight petrol engine used as a generator that could run at optimum RPM for maximum efficiency. I guess there must be a reason we no longer see them on the roads now.
We have tons of charging stations around here, but only half the damned things work!
I've rolled up to one to have it stone dead. No display, nothing.
Then there's the ones that won't connect. You try a different charger or even another cable, and it works.
I had one connect, then ramp down and disconnect. Made several tries. No error messages. Turned out the bank had shut down the payment card. Did I mention no error messages?
We have tons of charging stations around here, but only half the damned things work!
It'll be fine-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU_K2NhD_1I
And this is before frustrated petrol heads start copying sabotage tactics from groups like Stinking Rebellion and vandalising electron pumps.
"We have tons of charging stations around here, but only half the damned things work!"
This is someplace where the government might actually be useful in helping. There is a shortage of qualified technicians to make repairs. If there were some grants to open up trade school programs and for accelerated certification programs for people with an engineering degree, that could get more service people out there. You'd think that if the government is willing to guarantee a crap ton of loans to somebody for a graduate degree in 14th Century Hungarian poetry, they'd be willing to spend much less to train somebody for jobs that actually exist.
It is just a matter of time before Noisome's folly will be dead at the abandoned Whole Foods charger.
As more Americans educate themselves about the "green" lies that he has spouted, lawmakers will derail his delusional train of thought. It is likely that California will be sued successfully for trying to exceed its authority, and the next President will be pressured to put aside any CA waiver.
This will be another underground mass-transit vacuum tube -- or whatever goofball idea Musk was insincerely promoting several years ago -- to nowhere.
Ah I see you are one of those "conservatives" who believes in states' rights, except when the states try to do something you don't agree with.
California can't stop you from buying a car in Arizona and bringing it back with you but setting aggressive targets will further encourage what automakers are already doing in abandoning future development of gasoline powered vehicles. Sorry but you'll probably have to buy used to roll coal in your pickup by 2040 or so even in red states!
He has to make sure he profits as much as he can from it. No doubt it will be one of those projects where it could be achieved somewhere without rampant government corruption but this is California... Like the high speed LA to SF rail that doesn't go anywhere near those cities. Or billions to solve the homeless crisis but keep making it worse.
High speed rail would be a good thing, but the way it is being built is a pure boondoggle of the worst kind. The perpetrators should be taken out behind the barn and flogged on Pay Per View to help cover the astronomical costs (and climbing).
One wonders when the general population is going to notice that the more money they throw at the homeless problem, the bigger the problem gets. Moths to a flame. If you build it, they will come.
The US has some almost good public transport. Cities usually have usable busses and the east coast has almost usable trains. I spent nearly 3 months backpacking around the US back in 1999 and used public transport the whole time. Busses with bike racks are a great idea!
To make use of the LA(ish) to SF(ish) rail link looks like it would take longer than just getting the grayhound from central LA to central SF. The grayhound followed the coast road and the views were AMAZING!
Not that I'd want to go there now... LA was grim enough in 1999 and I have friends living in the bay area who report some rather troubling things.
At least HS2 actually goes to the (near enough) centre of the cities it is supposed to link.
And it's going to go no better there.
The Rest Of The World also has insufficient generation, insufficient grid capacity and woeful charge infrastructure outside the areas that The Elites drive.
I really don't know which will be the first country with the pitchforks when people work out they are simply not supposed to own a car any more.
"The Rest Of The World also has insufficient generation, insufficient grid capacity and woeful charge infrastructure outside the areas that The Elites drive."
Germany is already at the brink of power grid falldown. And it's only September!
Adding millions of electric cars to same grid is pure hallucination. Especially after they decided to close *all* nuclear plants. Pure lunacy.
Even here in North electricity jumped from 7c/kWh to *32c/kWh* overnight. Good luck on driving an EV.
"Noisome's pipe dream is just something the rest of the world is already doing, "
False. EU MEPs have similar pipe dreams and they are *saying* they'll do that.
Trying to actually do it would be political suicide and not many are brave enough to try.
Talk is cheap. And you will see it stays just talk.
California can't stop you from buying a car in Arizona and bringing it back with you
Sure they can. It'll need Cali plates and registration, so at that point, it'll be bend over and say 'aaaaargghh'. Already happens with cars that are bought/registered out of state to avoid high state charges.
I own property in both Arizona and in California (and in Oregon, and in Canada), and can register whatever vehicle I like in either state as I see fit (assuming it passes CARB's bullshit rules for California registration, of course). Methinks there will be a run on out-of-state mail boxes. Again.
My mate who lives in London owns a Mazda Bongo and an old Citroen DS, and has to pay to take his toys out. Bristol has plans to introduce a CAZ. Our van achieves ULEZ (by injecting urea into the exhaust) and our car would pass CAZ, but the grip on motorists is tightening. ANPR gives local govt a lot of charging options. Nottingham introduced a workplace parking levy, so people have to pay to park on their companies own car park.
"Nottingham introduced a workplace parking levy, so people have to pay to park on their companies own car park."
So a community tax for *working people*. That's exactly what Tories would do.
It's cheaper to be unemployed, very, very soon.
"California can't stop you from buying a car in Arizona and bringing it back with you"
They can and do, but I think AZ is part of CARB anyway so the cars have to met the same emissions requirements. You will still be liable for certain taxes so there's no getting around that.
If you are a CA resident, your car has to be registered in CA if it's normally used within the state. You could have an AZ registered car in the state that normally lives at your vacation home in Parker, but you'd have to be able to show that to a judge and get them to believe it.
It's been some time since I looked this up, but I think there is a Federal interstate commerce law that states can't prohibit the importation of used vehicles by an owner or make unreasonable demands regarding inspections or emissions if it hasn't been modified. What the state can do is define what constitutes a used car. It's both age (from the date of first registration) and mileage. Something like a year and 10,000 miles, but I could be wrong or it may have changed. There may be other combinations as well. Somebody trying to circumvent the regulations might wind up having their car impounded, charged fines and still need to remove the car from the state in extreme cases. Mostly it will be down to paying the state lots of money which is the main thing at all times anyway.
What will happen is the large used car brokers and dealers will start to bring lots of late model used cars to the state. They'll make a few thousand more per car and buyers will save tens of thousands over having to buy an EV. Every state west of the Mississippi river will see a sharp reduction in used car choices and/or more money being asked for them.
Would be nice to think they won't block such advances, but that requires politicians who actually understand the problem and are aware of all the options, instead of foolishly believing that EV's are the only answer when clearly there's a vast number of car owners for whom EV's are completely impractical, unaffordable, can't realsitically be charged anywhere near the owner's property.
[ Insurer ] Where do you park your car overnight?
[ Owner ] A mile away from my home at the nearest available charger.
[ Insurer ] So it's not even visible from your property?
[ Owner ] Nope.
[ Insurer ] Kerching! or Sorry, we can't insure you.
People keep saying this - it's just kicking the can. The idea being that by the time that folks work out that they can't have a car, there's no point in protesting as the elimination of the ICE will be a fait accompli.
Besides - how long do you think there will be (relatively) affordable fuel and servicing for old cars?
Modern cars are pretty well unrepairable after 10 years, as the electronics is unfixable.
The only cars running after 20 years will be the pre-electronics museum pieces.
"Modern cars are pretty well unrepairable after 10 years, as the electronics is unfixable."
Electronics probably the last thing that fails. But after 10 years you don't need to sell spare parts to them in EU.
Older than that will vanish quite soon, unless manufacturer does more than legislation demands.
Isn't allowed? Shit, why ever not? There is plenty to take the piss out of us about ... almost as much as the UK, in fact[0]. Hell, I do it all the time! The only difference is that we have thicker hides here in Left Pondia (except the trumpinazis, of course .... and the perpetually offended hand-wringers).
[0]This is to be expected; you lot have had a hell of a head start.
Except everybody who knows the history of car emission controls.
Many years ago, there was such a thing as a "California emissions" car, as a separate product from cars that could be sold in other states but not in CA.
That no longer exists. All cars sold in the US conform to CA emissions now.
All cars sold in the US will be electric by 2035. Nobody is going to bother building a car that can't be sold in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Vermont, Washington, or DC.
Yes, all of those states follow CA emission regs now.
As California goes, so goes the nation. And I don't even live there.
You pointed out the similarities but not the differences. It wasn't that difficult, in terms of supply chain, cost, and technology, to raise emission standards. In contrast, it's not clear that the battery supply will be able to expand by the ~ x20 to ~x50 required while controlling cost. There is some expectation that new tech will make it happen, lessening the dependence on certain rare earths. What if it doesn't?
Moreover, an EV is only as carbon free as the fuel used to generate the electricity it is charged with. The current "plan" is to make renewables reliable by installing batteries to buffer the variation in renewable output. That's a hell of a lot of batteries - which will only exacerbate the battery supply problem.
For some use cases existing EV's are fine. For example a BOLT @ $25K to $32K, with a 200 mile range, and a battery with a 100K mile/ 10 yr guarantee. As a second car for shopping and short commuting that is fine. However, for a driver driving the male average of 16.5K miles a year, the battery guarantee is done in 6 years, and costs 17K to replace (no promise the price won't rise).
There is also the problem of the local CA electricity grid shutoffs for anywhere from several hours to several days, several times a year, due to fire risks and/or existing fires. What is a commuter going to do if there car isn't charged? Call an Uber? Bummer if you can't evacuate from the incoming fire because your battery is dead.
If PHEV (plugin hybrid EV) had been included, it would have made a lot more sense. Firstly, the batteries are smaller, so there is more to go around with the same limited battery supply. Having 6 PHEV owners on the road would probably do more for the climate than having 1 Telsa owner pulling half a million watts between stop signs (yes, actual max power).
The chances of a legislative walk back, or a state referendum to amend the new law, are high, I believe.
I also think we should be hedging with R&D into "green" hydrocarbons from electricity. Hydrocarbons store energy indefinitely - batteries not. Hydrocarbons can be transported around the world, energy in batteries not.
You've got some nice rose colored glasses there pardner.
Emission standards compliance wasn't about "California leading the way", but simple finances. Once the technology became mature enough that the cost of compliance dropped below the cost of providing two different versions of a vehicle, car manufacturers started putting them in all vehicles across the board.
But the financial metrics that applied to emissions won't apply to batteries. Emission compliance costs went from multi-thousand dollar levels to a few hundred dollars before adoption became universal. A similar price trajectory won't happen to batteries anytime soon, and the starting point today is in the tens of thousands for the batteries.
So in a few years California will have to sweat in its rolling blackouts in the middle of the summer all on its own.
"So in a few years California will have to sweat in its rolling blackouts in the middle of the summer all on its own."
As long as the state doesn't allow power companies to trim back trees along the transmission line corridors far enough to mitigate the trees being blown into the lines, there will be blackouts. PG&E was sued into bankruptcy when a tree that fell on a high tension line started a major fire. The power companies are going to be much more cautious about that going forward. The C-Level execs might miss out on their bonuses and have to curtail the use of the private jet if that happens again. I expect their homes already have backup contingencies in place that are entirely seamless.
"All cars sold in the US will be electric by 2035"
Pipe dream, that one. There won't be a single state with electric grid to handle that. Nor enough power stations, even if cheapest ones, burning coal.
Here in EU they built a (one) new nuclear plant, it took 13 years instead of projected 5.
So they'd *start now to build* at least 50 or 100 *new* nuclear plants, just to get that demand filled. There's no way that will happen. Anyone believing so is having a proper pipe dream.
When the temperature gets up to 40C (and it hit 49.5C last year), the grid in our part of Los Angeles doesn't have enough capacity to keep up with the demand from air conditioning.
Diesel generators?
This is just another example of the lack of a systems approach to infrastructure.
" let's remember that it takes more energy/pollution to create a car, than that car could ever cause during its lifetime."
No. Unless 'lifetime' is 10 to 15 years, then it's about the same. Local university of technology did a lifetime analysis and .... what a surprise .... zero publicity on it.
You just may not say that it would be literally saving the environment by using old cars as long as they last, instead of buying new ones. That's a heresy.
Also building an EV causes 2 times that (because rare earths in the battery), so EV should be in use at least 20 years *to break even*. Much more than that to actually *reduce* emissions. ... and then they give 6(!) year guaranty to the battery.
A quick re-watch of Who Killed the Electric Car might lend some insight. CA has tried this sort of thing already and it didn't fly. It's telling that horses and buggies didn't need to be banned at any point and there are places where they are still the prime source of transportation for some communities.
You can't railroad until it's time to railroad. Thank you Terry Pratchett. "Raising Steam" is a good read from the philosopher of our times that talks about technology and its evolution into the mainstream. I can also recommend the Connections series with James Burke presenting and a more modern take presented by The Hamster, Richard Hammond. I'm sure it wouldn't take much looking to find plenty of examples of where the government was pushing technology that wasn't quite there yet and fell flat on their face after wasting countless sums of money.
California might want to lead by example and replace the huge fleet of cars that are operated by various levels of government and agencies. I don't see BEV's or plug-in hybrids with Exempt plates chocking the lot at the local welfare office (and making it hard to get a space to shop at the hardware store). My city certainly doesn't have any and might do well to put up solar canopies over the car park at city hall that's used for "official" vehicles even if it's just to protect the cars from the hot desert sun and offset the cost of the frozen AC settings they keep in the building. The city yard has a large canopy where they work on vehicles that has no solar panels on top. They did find several thousand dollars to buy a new custom dining room table with custom inlays for the fire department.
Infrastructure will sprout like mushrooms overnight, batteries will not catch afire and last a long time, there will be enough lithium, costs will be contained, required technology will jump the shark....
EVs are an entirely new technology that is a niche market for early adapters. I suppose it will go mainstream some day, but there are a lot of very expensive hurdles to jump before then. Can we afford it?
"but there are a lot of very expensive hurdles to jump before then. Can we afford it?"
We can afford it when it's time. Passing laws and forcing people to make the change doesn't change the proper time. It will cost billions of dollars and send more people and companies fleeing any state that adopts the silliness so it has that going for it.
Governor Noisome's Loons: Read it and weep!
California Asks Residents Not to Charge Electric Vehicles, Days After Announcing Gas-Car Ban
https://www.mystateline.com/news/national/california-asks-residents-not-to-charge-electric-vehicles-days-after-announcing-gas-car-ban/
Enjoy your taxpayer-subsidized/robbed, dead-battery electric clown cars!
Rather than repeat his EV lies, squander Biden's bureaucratic-boondoggle billions, and continue to misappropriate taxpayer money on economic refugees, Noisome should instead eliminate sanctuary/drug-rehab status from California's now-crime-ridden cities and repatriate its millions of illegal aliens, which would reap promptly greater returns, including profoundly reduced crime as well as energy and water usage.
"California Asks Residents Not to Charge Electric Vehicles, Days After Announcing Gas-Car Ban"
California Asks Residents Not to Charge Electric Vehicles, Days After Announcing Gas-Car Ban between the hours of 4 and 9pm. You seem to have missed that last bit.
Sort of the same as when they ask people to give their appliances the afternoon off rather than do laundry and run the dishwasher during peak hours. It's not a law, it's a suggestion to people as a way to conserve during the hottest part of the year and the highest demand period of the day so there aren't problems. I get all sorts of "tips" with my electric bill, but I still haven't change the light bulbs in the small bathroom from incandescent. It's been over six years since I bought the house and never needed to replace the bulbs so I'll save the money it would cost for a new fixture that would look really silly with modern LED bulbs in.
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