Interesting Times

[jiho]

Like they pushed getting fuel out of bacteria or seaweed back 10-15 years ago. 🤣 That went nowhere.

Yep. Too damn easy to just keep making a killing from dinosaur juice. The logic was that by the time biofuels matured as products EVs would be taking over, so why bother making the investment. Now EVs are up against their own obstacles, as logic would have predicted, but this just means more of a killing from fossil fuels. Kind of like a dinosaur chasing its own tail ....

 

[Ugly1]

Yep. Too damn easy to just keep making a killing from dinosaur juice. The logic was that by the time biofuels matured as products EVs would be taking over, so why bother making the investment. Now EVs are up against their own obstacles, as logic would have predicted, but this just means more of a killing from fossil fuels. Kind of like a dinosaur chasing its own tail ....

They better hope they can find and start making lithium on the moon. Since them batteries are magical produced and cause no carbon footprint to produce

 

[abbey castro]

Like all new things, hesitation and the "it won't work" believers will never be convinced that the world moves on. New technology scares people. Some people believe that we never went to the moon and the earth is flat regardless of the evidence presented. Can you imagine if Ford stopped building his rather cheap cars because there were no roads, It wasn't till the 60s the interstate highways were built, electricity discoveries without a power grid in place grid and I could on and on. And here we are with a cell phone that has more computing power than the systems in the 1st spaceship! Just my two cents. One last one and I'll shut up: I remember when 3.0 came out and we are to 11.0

 

[Clone TIE Pilot]

Like all new things, hesitation and the "it won't work" believers will never be convinced that the world moves on. New technology scares people. Some people believe that we never went to the moon and the earth is flat regardless of the evidence presented. Can you imagine if Ford stopped building his rather cheap cars because there were no roads, It wasn't till the 60s the interstate highways were built, electricity discoveries without a power grid in place grid and I could on and on. And here we are with a cell phone that has more computing power than the systems in the 1st spaceship! Just my two cents. One last one and I'll shut up: I remember when 3.0 came out and we are to 11.0

Model Ts and most early cars were designed for rough roads and some off roading and are too slow for many modern highways. They are more closely related to John Deere Gators than modern day cars. Sort of like comparing biplanes to jet planes, two different classes. Some states even have a minimum HP level for highway use.

There were also farmers who worked horses to death trying to beat tractors.

 

[Ugly1]

Like all new things, hesitation and the "it won't work" believers will never be convinced that the world moves on. New technology scares people. Some people believe that we never went to the moon and the earth is flat regardless of the evidence presented. Can you imagine if Ford stopped building his rather cheap cars because there were no roads, It wasn't till the 60s the interstate highways were built, electricity discoveries without a power grid in place grid and I could on and on. And here we are with a cell phone that has more computing power than the systems in the 1st spaceship! Just my two cents. One last one and I'll shut up: I remember when 3.0 came out and we are to 11.0

It’s more the cart before the horse is most of the problem. If you built the rocket but can’t fill it with fuel, all you have is a very expensive statute. Building a car that has very limited range and very limited availability of recharging it, along with saying no more liquid dinosaur pee. But then cause more carbon footprint to make them then they save is all sales BS for the feel good crowd. Still waiting for the underwater farming and cities that was promised 😏

 

[jiho]

Like all new things, hesitation and the "it won't work" believers will never be convinced that the world moves on. New technology scares people. Some people believe that we never went to the moon and the earth is flat regardless of the evidence presented. Can you imagine if Ford stopped building his rather cheap cars because there were no roads, It wasn't till the 60s the interstate highways were built, electricity discoveries without a power grid in place grid and I could on and on. And here we are with a cell phone that has more computing power than the systems in the 1st spaceship! Just my two cents. One last one and I'll shut up: I remember when 3.0 came out and we are to 11.0

No one I know of is claiming EVs won't ever work. It is just a fact that they cannot work anytime soon, on any scale large enough to make any difference, except by causing more problems than they cure.

Generalized rhetoric that drags in the history of other technologies is bogus, because the technologies involve different science with different practical problems.

How about a comparison with nuclear fusion, instead? Where is that at?

Oh and by the way, if the "get a horse" crowd was wrong, why is internal combustion such a problem now?

 

[Hurricane77]

No one I know of is claiming EVs won't ever work. It is just a fact that they cannot work anytime soon, on any scale large enough to make any difference, except by causing more problems than they cure.

Generalized rhetoric that drags in the history of other technologies is bogus, because the technologies involve different science with different practical problems.

How about a comparison with nuclear fusion, instead? Where is that at?

Oh and by the way, if the "get a horse" crowd was wrong, why is internal combustion such a problem now?

To your point, clearly EVs "work". And I agree, There's a lot of work that would need to be done in the background in battery tech (energy density, recharge times etc.), vehicle efficiency (W per mile needed) and power generation if there's any hope of reaching these goals. Certainly I think a lot of places are going to end up moving these goal posts out past the intended 2035. But definitely the battery tech and the vehicle efficiency is being worked on.

Even in the area of power generation, a lot of work is being done - including nuclear fusion and Small Modular Reactors. Not to mention work for increasing the efficiency of solar - which of course has it's own drawbacks.

Other things being worked on include carbon neutral/sustainable fuels. This terminology one has to be careful with as some companies claim to be carbon neutral simply by buying carbon credits - like that will magically somehow reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.

So yeah, there's a lot of BS one needs to wade through. So called carbon neutral efforts by buying carbon credits, environmental and societal impacts of mining all these precious metals to support battery production (though fossil fuel extraction has it's own ugly problems as well), ability of the energy grids to supply massive increases in demand when some can barely support todays demand, etc.. But at the same time, there seems to be some that object to the tech because it is not vastly superior in every conceivable way to the current tech. I'm sure that even if there was a truly carbon neutral fuel that was a direct replacement for gasoline, there would be people objecting to it.

And you do have a point. Maybe the "get a horse" crowd WAS right. There might not be this huge concern over carbon emissions. But we might be shoulder deep in horse-$hit. Literally - as opposed to the figurative horse-$hit we have today

 

[jiho]

I'm sure that even if there was a truly carbon neutral fuel that was a direct replacement for gasoline, there would be people objecting to it.

Not a question of "even if." There are such fuels. Nor a question of "objecting." Simply not discussing, even.

 

[Ugly1]

Not a question of "even if." There are such fuels. Nor a question of "people objecting." People are simply not discussing, even.

Look at the guys that made compressed air engines that work. The big car companies only want $$ and same with the fuel companies. They’re just trying to figure out how to buy in to make the money.

 

[jiho]

The big car companies only want $$ and same with the fuel companies.

There's always been cross-ownership between car and oil companies. So how is it they're on opposite sides now? They aren't, really. As long as everyone obsesses with EVs, oil company profits are a safe bet.