The Green Leap Forward

[nmoore63]

I am confident free ways will be for electric, autonomous only within my life time.

[nmoore63]

Nick, I'm coming to WA on my electric bike; I'll give you a fifth of TN whiskey for a charge at the store. How far east from the store to the nearest Whole Foods?

OOHH that whole foods.

Back the way you came.

[Montegriffo]

Which brings me back to this Green New Deal idea..

Why not just spend that money building charging stations across the United States at every interstate rest stop, and working with Tesla to produce a model that has good quality but without the bells and whistles?

Cities are where these things come into play, and urban drivers likely only need charging stations at rest stops. Imagine being able to drive from New York to LA without ever leaving the interstate system.

We don't live in a tiny European country. Everything is spread out far and wide. Our transportation solutions need to be based on individual vehicles outside the densest portions of the large cities, and inside the cities maybe focus on mass transit like monorails, which run on electricity.

To power the cars and mass transit, built thorium nuclear power plants.

Wouldn't that accomplish what everybody wants?

Electric cars are the answer, people can bitch and moan about them not being ready yet but they are here to stay.
Any rare and therefore expensive metals used in the batteries will get recycled and charge points will start appearing all over the place.
20 years time nearly everyone will be in electric cars and the internal combustion engine will be banned from most cities and large towns.
Fight it all you like naysayers but it's coming and there's nothing you can do about it.

The main ingredients in the batteries are nickel, cobalt, and lithium. Recycling can be done the same way we have recycling laws for tires and old fashion car batteries.

Electric will eventually replace most domestic automobiles eventually. There's not really a need to legislate shit either. It's just going to happen because it will become more economical.

That said, I do think there is a place for letting auto companies reproduce their older 1950s and 1960s era vehicles with minimal updates for safety. Just limit those vehicles from being used on high-speed interstates. An old 1960s Ford truck today coming off the line could probably be sold around 10 to 15 grand tops, brand new. That opens up transportation to rural people without a lot of costs that come with electric cars.

Like any new technology, electric cars are going to get cheaper with time.
So far most of the new EVs are top of the range showpieces with all the bells and whistles available.
I'm hoping that in the future there will be a big range of basic no frills peoples cars like the post-war Renault 2CVs, VW beetles or Morris Minors.
The cost per mile to run EVs will make IC engines obsolete soon enough. Gas prices won't be any lower in the future.

[nmoore63]

Like any new technology, electric cars are going to get cheaper with time.
So far most of the new EVs are top of the range showpieces with all the bells and whistles available.
I'm hoping that in the future there will be a big range of basic no frills peoples cars like the post-war Renault 2CVs, VW beetles or Morris Minors.
The cost per mile to run EVs will make IC engines obsolete soon enough. Gas prices won't be any lower in the future.

Doubt EV will ever be truly cheaper than IC in my life time.
It will be regulated so, but not on raw numbers.

[Speaker to Animals]

Depends on where oil prices go in the next few decades. When peak oil hits, you better believe electric is going to be more economical than combustion.

[TheReal_ND]

Diesel is cheaper to produce than gasoline but regulated to the price it is based off the economy turbo diesel motors are able to achieve so that the tax between gas and diesel is spread evenly via productivity in the name of "green house gases" which is an absolute lie because diesel does not put off carbon monoxide when it is combusted. Very minimal if any. It takes days to die of carbon monoxide poisoning from it. It puts off CO2

[MilSpecs]

I don't need to tell you this, but none of those benefits will ever occur. Why would anyone take a train when they can easily drive to where ever they need to go? HWY 99 from Bakersfield to Merced is mostly just farmland. Even for the few that commute from one town to another in the valley, it's not like there are major city hubs were most people work. The cities there are tiny to medium sized suburban cities. Are the people going to take city buses once they get off the train? It's so crazy.

A lot of the country can’t easily drive anywhere. Let’s take tiny Rhode Island as an example. Densely populated, the roads can’t handle the amount of cars that travel them. Flooded with tourists half the year. You’d have to condemn a huge amount of property just to widen the existing roads, never mind build new roads. And BTW, lots of jobs available in nearby Boston if people could get there. It would take the residential pressure off Boston too. More money for RI as well. This makes sense for the region.

I don’t understand what the problem is with the bus from the train. It’s easy. Did it every day for years. Fast and safe. That said, you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. Commuter lots would work.

[TheReal_ND]

I don't think anyone is questioning the logic of commuter rail. I think people are wondering if this is your first time playing sim City and you just took out massive loans to build high speed rails all over the map because you think that means it will make your little towns more attractive.

[Speaker to Animals]

You cannot apply the social and urban planning problems of cities to the nation. Most of us do not live or operate under those constraints. At all.

It makes more sense for most of this country to switch to electric vehicles powered by nuclear power plants.

Long distance mass transit only works in specific kinds of regions, much smaller, and with less non-urban populations.

Again, I am not against building a fast rail system per se, that connects coastal faggots together so that they don't bother the rest of us, but let's not pretend like you are doing it for the environment or for anybody's sake but your own. We are doing just fine without that shit out here. Please leave Western North Carolina off your list of potential stops. We are full up already.

[Montegriffo]

Like any new technology, electric cars are going to get cheaper with time.
So far most of the new EVs are top of the range showpieces with all the bells and whistles available.
I'm hoping that in the future there will be a big range of basic no frills peoples cars like the post-war Renault 2CVs, VW beetles or Morris Minors.
The cost per mile to run EVs will make IC engines obsolete soon enough. Gas prices won't be any lower in the future.

Doubt EV will ever be truly cheaper than IC in my life time.
It will be regulated so, but not on raw numbers.

Why?
They are already much cheaper to run per mile and production costs will fall with the economies of scale.
Once all European and Japanese car production is electric in 20 years time the competition between manufacturers will bring the prices down.
Electric motors and batteries are a lot less complex to produce than modern low emission IC engines.