I thought Electric Cars Were the Future. I Changed My Mind
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- Опубліковано 25 кві 2024
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I thought electric vehicles were the future of transportation. Not so much because they're clean, but because many car enthusiasts love them for their powerful acceleration. However, it's becoming increasingly clear that the necessary upgrades to the electric grid aren't going anywhere near fast enough to get the transition done according to plan. This is why I believe now we'll likely see a shift to hybrids in the near future.
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#tech #technews - Наука та технологія
Hi all, this is a re-upload of a video you might already have seen. Unfortunately, I got two numbers wrong when I said these were expenses per year until 2030, instead of expenses until 2030 (or 2035) respectively. There was also a graph at some point which was just unrelated to what I said and I took the opportunity to fix that, too.
I am very sorry that this has happened. I try very hard to check all images and numbers by myself, but unfortunately, mistakes do happen.
This video will have a very hard time. If you liked it the first time, I would appreciate if you could give the video a thumb up and just let it run until the end.
Don´t worry, shows your integrity🌻
No problem dear Sabine. Your information is fantastic.
Thanks for correcting yourself. It's nice to be reminded that journalism isn't totally dead and buried yet.
I ALWAYS do the opposite of what globalists say. That is why I am a pureblood.
I had tried to verify that information to use in a presentation that I gave yesterday. I found the same thing you did in your correction.
Perhaps your video descriptions could link sources, so things aren't quite so difficult to verify?
At this point, I'm tempted to buy a cargo bike and take the bus when needed
I did that 27 years ago. And still do it that way. However, i do live in Norway, and with a short distance to work, that is pretty much all i need when it comes down to daily transport. Yes, i know i am fairly lucky beeing able to only depend on my (electric) bicycle.
I've no problems with other people who see cars as better suited for their transportation needs though. And i can't deny that cars may be better suited for larger cargo.
Still, driving a car is like moving 1 or 2 tons of plastic and metal and enjoying the ride. I do wonder sometimes how much of the energy is actually used to move the driver , since the driver is probaly 10-20 times lighter then the car itself.
Done, although cheated and kept the car for hauling family couple of times a week, so actually I haven't, love using my bike through its the first choice if I can
Keep in mind, that cargo bikes don't come with air condition.
An electric cargo bike is a much better idea for the environment than owning a car. It gets most of what you need done, at a rate of speed that is more than good enough for most people who don't currently have 1-hour commutes. You'll contribute to needing fewer/smaller roads, rather than massive road projects that merely by existing have a significant negative contribution to handling CO2.
The added bonus is that you'll also likely suffer from fewer and less severe age-related health issues as you age.
Public transportation, as long as it's feasible is also a great option. I currently live somewhere where I can travel as much as I need by bus for less than 50EUR/month, which has led to me feeling very little need for a car for my everyday needs. .
@@werner.x Very true, and no roof to shield from rain and sleet
This is curious: in Germany are closing energy nuclear plants, opening coal mines and attacking EV factories.
There is something fishy going on all right . . .
Not more coalmines, they closing in about 6 years.
A German
@@tonyduncan9852 could be the russians using ngo's etc to strike back at the Germans to internally destabilize them, dont count that option out
@@tonyduncan9852 nothing fishy here, just idiots making and influencing decissions sadly.
Thank you for mentioning people (like yourself) who don’t live in houses. How do you get charging stations in apartments or condos?
Most Finnish apartments have a parking place with at least 230 V 10 A outlet to preheat the ICE car engine in sub zero temperatures. For instance our housing co-op has over 100 parking places and 138 apartments. And it was built in 1961-1963.
I carry my battery up from the basement. Chinese Harley E-scooter. I'm ancient . . .
We have 4 charging stations in our basement garage and 4 in front of the house, that are public.
It's possible, if the city stops glorifying the "this was build 1850, so it is perfectly suited for modern day needs" bullshit.
Modern problems need modern solutions.
So 2 more issues. 1. if you live in a city without assigned parking you need a solution beyond plugging into 'your' house, and 2. In many cities people will steal your cord for the copper or your electricity if you can't somehow protect it. The other issue overall is increased demand tends to burn up the cables. I saw this happen as people moving into an older neighborhood started putting in air conditioners where there were none before. We lost power for a few days until they could bring in bigger cables.
I used to charge at 2 am when excess power was being generated by coal and nuclear which couldn't be turned down too low. Now that I have solar, I charge at 1 pm in the afternoon when I'm exporting more than anyone can use.
CONDENSED AIR CAR ON UA-cam COSTS NEXT TO NOTHING TO FUEL INVENTED BY FRENCHMAN IN EARLY 2000 NOW SOUPED UP TOO BOTH ARE ON UA-cam AND COST NEXT TO NOTHING TO FUEL
I just got solar, and your plan was my plan, but with current gas use of around $15/week, the inevitable battery replacement cost negates my savings. Furthermore, the price of the EV is more to begin with (not to mention the investment in the panels). I'm all for the environment, but relying on a relatively few amount of people to save the environment is not going to work. The solar/EV solution needs to be financially attractive to a lot of people.
Again, I'm all for the environment, and I'm glad that you're benefiting at the moment, but if this doesn't scale up in a sustainable way, it's going to hurt more than help.
@@chrisdonovan8795 "the inevitable battery replacement cost negates my savings." What are you thinking is the lifecycle of EV batteries?
My coworker has installed solar panels to his house which powers the house completely, charges both of his electric vehicles, and has sufficient power remaining to send power to the grid. He gets paid by the power company monthly for power return. Yes its expensive upfront ($30k) but with his 10 year warranty on the solar panels, he will come out ahead no doubt.
@@chrisdonovan8795 I may or may not break even. However, if the utilities scale up solar, there will be more than enough power for people to charge during the day (especially here in Phoenix). The Russian use of natural gas to blackmail Europe pushed me over the edge to get solar.
I think we should go back to horses I want a horse.
Horses totally disagree. They don't want to be transport for us.
Horses want to graze all day.
Get a horse because you love horses, sure. An hour or two several days per week of carrying a person over trails, or what not is suitable exercise for them.
You need a truck and trailer for the horse.
Horses are 365 days per year upkeep for over 30+ years.
Just a reminder before you get some horses. They need to be in a small herd, not kept alone. Herd animals, they are, for their well-being.
How about a motorcycle for transport, yes?
A motorcycle is easier upkeep, ha ha.
🚜👨🌾🛻🐴🐴🐴 🛵
You mean electric horses?
@@BackeB I WANNA BE A COWGIRL BAYBEEEEEEE
If you don't have the space to charge an EV you don't have the space to grow grass for your horse.
Mules are superior. I cannot be convinced otherwise.
I'm ancient so I remember when people said cell phones would never take off because cell towers were expensive so it would only be a device for people that live in large cities.
strawman argument, no comparasion at all.
@@lhurst9550 I don't know it seems like if you dig into the history of almost any technology there are always those people who will list all the reasons why some new technology will never take off.
@@channelsofash Once again you bring up a point that does not matter. I agree with new tech and people not wanting to change however this is not the topic, rather energy density is. A battery cannot replace a gas tank till it can hold as much energy at about the same weight. No matter how much you wish you cannot change the laws of physics. The electric vehicle is great for short trips, not doing a lot of work, which is what trucks do. You have to generate enough electrical energy to do the work required, transport it, and store it inside of a vehicle before EVs replace ICE. It too over a 100 years to build the infrasture to do it with gas, give it another 50-75 and maybe.....
@@lhurst9550That's not a strawman argument
@@vjanssens399 She changed to people not wanting to accept new tech, when the discussion is energy density. "A straw man fallacy (sometimes written as strawman) is the informal fallacy of refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion, .." So yes it is.
Yes, the acceleration is fun but that's not why I went went all electric. I was tired of waiting in line at gas stations in bad weather. I was also tired of expensive oil changes and air quality inspection stations. Now I only have to charge every week or so either at public charging stations as I did for the first three months or now at home which is super convenient and cheap. Plug-in hybrids were my second choice but they still come with higher maintenance costs.
lol who waits in line at gas stations?! I pity the fools.
So people aren’t waiting even longer at electric charging stations and electric batteries don’t carry extra costs. You’ve definitely drunk the koolaid
@@kurtdvet and you definately have not experienced the life of owning a Tesla. You will never understand until you do, due to a closed mind.
I don't know where you have to wait long to fill a petrol or diesel car? The longest time I have had to wait was 5 mins, and that has been once. And 5 mins is better than between half and three quarters of an hour. And that's just charging the damn stupid thing, that doesn't include waiting for a charger to be free.
There's no argument petrol and diesel cars are so much more better and fit for purpose than any electric car. Electric cars are fit for what? What are they good for? Environment? Ha! That's a laugh. We have become wise to that lie.
Yes there is one good thing about electric cars. The devolution of the vehicle.
@@dwilliamsnetosnet your narcissism is only exceeded by your ignorance of the real world
What I personally like the most is how quiet they are inside. For someone that doesn't like loud sounds it was a revelation to listen to the radio on a low volume inside my car.
I love that, but I also love the lack of fumey, fuelly smells. When I get in an ICE care these days, the smell is noticeable.
Yes, not everyone thinks gas-powered cars smell good. I think they smell putrid.
I literally carry a benzene gas mask through the parking lot to deal with today's herd of trucks and SUVs.
@@Scott_Hoge agree, every time I filled up my car in the past I could smell it on my hand for hours.
But at the same time, they are quite outside. Which can be very or extremely (!) dangerous. Old and infants do not hear and see anymore the car. Thus the rate of accidents can jump.
@@michen25 "As of 1 January 2014, most of the hybrids and plug-in electric and hybrids sold make warning noises using a speaker system" (when travelling at low speeds, before tyre noise takes over). Reference:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle_warning_sounds#Market_availability
I'm sure when the car was first invented people were like who is going to pay for all the roads.
When the telegraph was invented, who's going to pay for all those lines.
And when I was a kid "the Internet is growing too fast and it's going to crash"
The horse industry (that employed hundreds of thousands of people in the very early 20th century) tried their best to get gas cars outlawed. The horse industry is now dead, just like the gas car industry will be in a few years.
Wen the car was invented they used the same roads then horse-drawn carriages used. It took decades until the first roads specifically for cars were built.
It is also worth mentioning that for a few years (roughly 1890 to 1910) electric cars dominated the market although for sure the power grid at the time was also not that good. There were three main reasons why combustion cars took over. The invention of the starter removed the problem that combustion cars were cumbersome to start. Standard Oil was able to provide cheap fuel which btw. also led to other fuels like ethanol being wiped from the market. Finally the cars with gasoline had a superior range. The result was that within a short time the era of electric cars was over.
These 3 factors which are convenience, price and range are still the factors that will decide which type of car will be used. If the price of electric energy will go through the roof as the transition of the power grid needs to be payed then the life time of combustion engines might be longer then expected.
Yep, I agree. We have been driving the same way for over 100 years. I am sure 100 years from now, we will be teleporting or something because humans will cease to exist when AI takes over.
Sorry Wrong, it was a "HORSE Less" Carriage and used the same trails.
but you are on the correct path. This is WHY Westinghouse and Tesla went to WAR with Edison!
Edison was a scumbag who wanted DC and owned all the generation of DC, cared only of profits and power.
Westinghouse and Tesla wanted to Improve Mankind and our living standards.
Here in Slovenia over 2/3 of households can't connect their solar panels to the grid and sell electricity because power grid just isn't strong enough. Now we usually have 1x35A or 3x20A main fuzzes and after "green transition" when we should all heat our homes with heat pumps and drive electric cars 3x35A would be minimal.
Next question is how will people who can only park their vehicles on public parking spaces charge their cars. Charging it on public charging stations is already more expensive then filling your tank with diesel. People whose income is already below average will get even more poor.
"Gasoline smells good!" Loved that :))))))))
I was never a fan of the smell of gas.
@@JasonTaylor-po5xcit depends a lot on where and how you smell it. When I'm putting gas in a car at the pump it's oddly pleasant but if I get it on my hands or spill some indoors it's awful
I always thought horse manure smells pretty good.
Stick it in a tensor and conlude what you wish.
Bit like General Relativity.
American here: most of those fossil fuel power plants are old and worn out here, and renewables and/or nuclear were so much cheaper even before Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act that nobody really wanted to install fossil fuel power plants outside of parts of Alaska, where the harsh climate and lack of sun for half the year often make renewables (except geothermal) unviable anyway. Also, more and more people are doing things like installing heat pumps, getting rid of their cars or converting to electric or plug in hybrids, and for some people the transition to better lightbulbs and upgrades to energy efficiency in terms of appliances and insulation is ongoing. Basically, most people are moving a lot of their things over to more climate friendly habits that mean that while electricity consumption is likely to increase, this will at least partially be offset by improving energy efficiency.
bull. you buy the big enviro hype.Wake up.
It's not like those sorts of trends aren't being carefully considered in peer-reviewed papers...
Good for those who can afford it and big business no doubt will make huge profits but I reckon for most ppl it means more debt misery.
The reason for reductions in building combustion plants is purely political. The government idiots incentivize behavior they want and punish behaviors they don't want. It's not driven by the market or the science, purely by those with an agenda. Trying to use this as evidence that the technology is better, easier, or competitive is a foolish argument, as nine of the renewable energy is justified in a truly free market. It's horribly expensive, it isn't reliable, it creates additional pollutants, causes oppression in mineral rich third world countries (not exactly new), and it can't survive unless it's shoved down our throats. This is why it's being shoved down our throats. It may work for some people's minimal needs, but there is no economy of scale. It's a farce, based on highly manipulated data.
@@professorquarter HA You make me laugh! How many "peer" reviewed papers latter have to be retracted or ammended. Also if all the "peers" buy into the ENVIRO-BS then they are going to pass on the lies too!!!
Question for you Sabine. How did all the trains and all the railroads become electrified? Why were there no hybrid locomotives left? Diesel electric
because nobody asked where the electricity for the trains is coming from. if people would ask where the electricity for the trains is coming from, all the trains in the world would stop immediately.
Because trains are powered via high voltage wires with no need for portable electricity or battery packs.
steam power in much more efficient, and a small 'submarine' type' reactor could power a steam locomotive for long time.
Electric trains came before diesel trains, that's why. Electric trains were invented in the late 19th century and were implemented heavily by the 1930s. The first diesel locomotives appeared in the 1920s and didn't fully replace steam locomotives until the 1960s. Also electric trains take their power directly off the wire and don't need batteries or any advanced tech at all.
Question to you: Have you ever seen battery-powered trains?
In the EU in 2025 new Hybrid vehicles will get new efficiency ratings because the existing ones are 3 to 5 times too optimistic, so they will consume more carbon credits.
And this is for the same reason BEV's aren't sold more than they are - people live in flats and cannot charge over night.
It would have been nice if you tubers like Sabine could have realized about the obvious and simple unanswered questions about electric cars from the beging. We should at least look a little smarter as a society.
Sabine, you did not mention smart charging or even bi-directional use of electric car batteries. The first technology is already available, the second will become available this year in Germany and both will substantially alleviate the stress on the electric power grid!
At least here in the U.S we don't necessarily need to update the gride itself, We need to encentivise home owners and apartments need to adops Solar pannels and Battery technology, keep the energy siloed where it needs to be instead of trying to ship electricity across the whole country.
Take a look at sand battery technology. It’s basically a very large community based thermal energy store. Once renewable electricity is above base load on the grid it makes a very cheap store for energy.
Yes, definitely. However, that still needs an upgrade to electricity supply networks, because existing networks are not designed to cope intelligently with that level of distributed generation. A full national integration of networks with smart distribution is needed.
You are incorrect in your conclusion. Data centers are eating up electricity capacity in the US. Look it up
No, even if you had perfect storage coverage and could drain a constant current from the grid you need something around double the capacity. This is not as impossible as it might sound as parts of the grid are designed to hold 2x or 4x of something.
The US consumes 1.6 billion kg of gasoline a day. At ~10kWh/kg that's 16 TWh a day and adds up to 5840 TWh per year for gasoline alone. Your power consumption in 2022 was 4128 TWh. Sure you need to consider the efficiency so you can divide the number in 2 or 3, but you have to add up diesel and gas. But the number still remains in the same order of magnitude, and doubling up or cutting in half of certain components is the only real option on the grid.
But it won't cost twice as much as power poles for example can have 4-8 lanes anyway but might only carry 1-6, so you can will them up first. And transformers can usually be stacked in the same building or area as the existing one.
Also building twice as many batteries, one for the car and one for storage isn't cheap at all compared to extending the grid. Even tho it is a great solution for those who can afford it.
B.S. You're wastefully trying to solve a Climate problem that doesn't exist. The end result: REAL PROBLEMS !!!!!!!!
I think horse and buggies are the future. But I think it will be a while before we reach that future.
2040 ish supposedly.
you mean WWIII is nigh??
Not so much time, probably. Germany already sells out it's steel production.
But we need to plant more trees anyhow. Plenty of wood for carriages.
And people here love horses.
Be the early adaptor! Buy a horse and carriage today!
@@MarshallMathersthe7th I'm waiting on the infrastructure to catch up.
Thank you, Sabine!
Two years ago me and my wife had to decide what vehicle to buy as our next familycar here in Germany.
We ordered a Ford Explorer PHEV, a plug-in-hybrid.
The range of electrical driving is max. 42 km, what ist absolutely OK for us.
Driving long distances is comfortabel, the battery is recharged by recuperation., so entering a town-we drive without noise or exhaust fumes.
The average fuel consumption is around 6-7 liters per 100 km.
Not so bad for a car with 7 seats and app. 450 hp...
By the way: Operating this car is smooth, despite some software-bugs. Fixing this took Ford engineers a real long time...
A 10 year old 7-seater VW Touran uses also 6-7 Liter per 100 km without hybrid. Wäre is the saving?
@@josefdittli9073 6-7 liters of gas-not Diesel. 230 top-speed, acceleration like a Porsche 911. Driving it the american way means: 2-3 liters... 🙂
If everyone were to drive plug-in hybrids, and most people’s daily driving is entirely in EV mode because the electric mileage is sufficient to accommodate it, then how does that significantly change the power grid needs? The average EV owner will likely drive the same miles as the plug-in electric owner and require the same amount of recharging.
I guess when the grid collapses (if that is the worry) the hybrid can drive on with gas.
Because they can charge at home most of the time, whereas an all electric is dependent on the availabilty away from home. Gas stations are ubiquitous, because they already put EV manufacturers out of business over a century ago so they could sell oil.
Unfortunately a recent report into the fuel efficiency of cars in Europe showed that PHEV drivers charge their cars far less often than expected, and end up using a lot of fuel. Emissions were hence 5x what was expected, from memory.
@@typhoon320i come on people, think! If the grid collapses, there won't be any gas, because the gas stations use ELECTRIC pumps!
When you try to sell it your in for a big shock, even dealers won't take one in px and if it needs repair it's an expensive specialist job, insurers write them off rather than pay for repairs that may be more than the cars worth😮
How long did it take to go from horse to car because the infrastructure was not there?
It took around 25-50 years for the transition from Horses to Cars depending on what % of horse vs cars user ratio you would consider for the transition to be complete. 25 years for horses to not be the main mode of transportation and around 50 for horses to be almost non-existent as a means of transport.
Also, it was actually horse-->bicycle/streetcar-->car. So not straight to cars...and significant overlap with streetcars through wwii
The infrastructure was there?
If you look back of photos of New York it took about 20 years, in 1890 horses everywhere, by 1912 mostly trucks and cars
@@nasser314 I think it was dependent on where you lived and economical circumstances. My parents were still using horses to get to school and to town into the early 50's. Neither had grid electricity until 1958.
One thing that people tend to forget is that fuel diversity is important. It should not be about changing to an entire different thing rather having many options to reduce the strain on one system and having options for when one gets too expensive.
Provided they're all zero co2.
I dont think world leaders want more options for citizens. More options means less control. If anything, the move to electric is some large percentage about making travel energy less fungible. With liquid petrol you can pack an extra 300 miles in the back, but with electric, your access, rates, and ability to redistribute are completely managable remotely.
Maybe when we can pick up a fresh battery as easy as a can of propane we will be in business...
You are not wrong.
However, from that perspective electricity gives a whole lot more of different fueling options ranging from Solar to Synthetics to Wave power to Nuclear power to Diesel to Coal to Biofuels.
Just buy one of many different available generators. Problem solved, and added range to that fuel to boot.
The majority of new EV owners immediately install solar panels reducing the load on the grid. So there is no issue, on the contrary. EV accelerates the green transition only making the grid more and more irrelevant.
A FRENCHMAN INVENTED AN CONDENSED AIR CAR AND IT'S ON UA-cam EARLY IN 2000 ON THE SCIENCE CHANNEL THERE ARE REALLY SOUPED UP ONES ON UA-cam NOW AS WELL AND IT COSTS NEXT TO NOTHING TO FUEL IT TOO IT WENT AT FIRST UP TO 72 MI PER HOUR
I have walked or cycled or taken the train my whole adult life. Im nearly 30 and live in a village in England. But its becoming too difficult and inconvenient to keep this up. Ive now decided to get a car...
Why is it becoming too difficult and inconvenient, just out of curiosity. I'm not car shaming, I have one in the US because i have to go crazy distances.. Is it your age (30 is not even prime walking age yet) or is it your lifestyle has changed (kids? faraway job? )
@@boonskis Train services in the UK are very bad especially if you live in the north/midlands. Trains here are hourly and are slow trains, often you're standing up with little to grab onto. There's been lots of rail strikes too. Trains are often delayed. If they're cancelled sometimes you're waiting 1+ hours. Trains are also very very expensive. Flying to another country is actually cheaper.
A lot of jobs here are scattered across the villages and small town; you're required to own a car for a lot jobs simply down to a reliance factor regardless of if driving is actually part of the job or not.
I forgot to mention. If I want to go to a major city, say Birmingham I'd have to take my train from a village to another city. The train could be like 30 mins, then the change over time could be 45 mins then I can finally get the train to the city which might be just over an hour. It's taking nearly 3 hours one way if everything goes smoothly.
Please let us know how your new car holds up regarding maintenance, repairs, replacements parts etc. I'm still concerned that having a hybrid system increases the number of parts that can malfunction and also increases maintenance cost.
You have a 20 trillion dollar economy and need to spend 500 billion to upgrade your grid. That should be a rounding error.
According to IMF figures, Globally $7 trillion per year is spent subsidising fossil fuels. Image the grid that could be belt using that money there instead.
@@C0wCakes No one "spent" 7 trillions in 2022. IMF counts "impact on the world" as subsidy, but it doesn't mean that someone actually paid this much money.
The estimated cost for upgrading the US grid for ev’s, new and upcoming data centers, crypto mining, mandated electric appliances is actually more like $3.7 trillion. Who’s going to pay for that, you Lt. Weinberg??
@@C0wCakes where do you think money for making of this video come from? they are part of those $7 trillions
@@robertherman1146 who paid for creation of current us grid, dummy? electricity consumers. sale of electricity is profitable business.
If the problem is bureaucracy then change the system, not the ambition that comes from necessity to convert the transportation and home devices to electric and raise the percentage of renewable production added to the grid.
It's not even about bureaucracy... it's just economics. USA sources only 20% from renewable.... the conversion process is slow. First transistor was invented in 1947 it took 50 years for home computers to start to take off along with the internet. Infrastructure can not transform that quickly. The main reason is people don't want to pay for it unless it pays for itself through natural and sustainable revenues.
The bearocracy that stifles innovation will fail spectacularly, and in such an event what typically follows is reform
Gridscale energy storage deployment is indeed self funding due to the high margins, and the load reduction on existing infrastructure means you can effectively upgrade our existing systems without having to make as many expansions as you'd otherwise expect
Also, regarding acceleration of infrastructure development, that is exactly what can, will, and is already happening, won't be easy ofc, but gridscale and local energy storage is basically the solution
Haha, change the system... oh young one
Fikretyet,
it is not bureaucracy, that's the error.
The biggest mistake is in thinking you can power a grid, and hence a country, with renewable generation.
To electrify transport and heating is simply compounding that error.
Renewables are not an equivalent to conventional generation, they cannot control output feeding a system that has to be finely controlled on an instantaneous basis. Then intermittency is another and in my view the most significant obstacle that will not be overcome. It is infeasible to have sufficient battery capacity to meet that deficiency.
Then there are technical deficiencies, no inertia, no reactive power input, no short circuit current level input and also in view of all those deficiencies, renewables are not capable of a black start to restore power when the inevitable grid trip happens.
Sabine thank you for being among the best science communicators I've ever encountered. You are a treasure to the world and thank you for your ability to be dispassionately swayed by actual facts.
Unless Europe wants to start drilling for oil...I suggest to take the finger out and start working out how to do it, instead of describing how it's not to and stepping on the breaks while choosing the most expensive inefficient Hybrid? (aka the SUV of Powertrains)
I think battery prices will continue to fall. They will be 50% of what they are today in 2 years.
This completely changes the economics.
Hybrids will no longer be a price compromise between BEV and ICE.
BEV will be the least expensive to purchase. ICE will be next. The powertrain cost for a BEV will be less than the powertrain cost for an ICE.
It will cost more money to build a car with two inexpensive powertrains, leading to hybrids being the most expensive option.
As we add grid batteries to the system we can collect all that excess power that was not needed when it was produced. Power prices will go down compared to gasoline prices.
People vote with their wallets.
People pay more money for the better product. And when there is no charging option at every parking spot, this technology will never hit the market as a mass product. Your smartphone would not be a mass product if you could only charge it at home, and only if you have your own dedicated charger. And even if you had, if outside your home hundreds of phones would have to share one charging station and only one per time, you can guess that nobody would use smartphones.
This product fails by design. You would not ride a horse that you can't feed food and water anywhere, why would you? And 50% of what they cost today is another thing that will make it fail. It would need to be the third of the cost of a basic gasoline car of today to compensate for all the pitfalls that come with the product.
And you forget that the most regions on earth make it physically impossible to use electric vehicles, neither the climate, the weather, nor the infrastructure would ever allow it. Even in developed countries it will never be fully useable. Just one major power outage and everyone will abandon their electric cars and demand fossils to return. You can see how often electronic devices fail, even things like paying with credit card isn't possible every once in a while.
For elementary things like mobility the analogue systems have nothing that could replace them.
@@lars5288
//...when there is no charging option at every parking spot, this technology will never hit the market as a mass product.
I disagree - there is a great deal of money to be made by allowing customers to use a slow charger for free while shopping. 15kw chargers could easily be put up along streets and parking lots. if you drive 40 miles a day or less that is under 1 hour of charging.
1% of cars are EVs - just because of the lifespan of cars, this cannot change by more than about 5-10% per year. that is 20 years before we need to be completed.
//Your smartphone would not be a mass product if you could only charge it at home, and only if you have your own dedicated charger.
I think we have 20 years to build up capacity to support a 100% EV fleet, and that evaluating things based on the first year is a mistake..
We can manage what we have now - and we can easily add 5% capacity per year.
//50% of what they cost today is another thing that will make it fail. It would need to be the third of the cost of a basic gasoline car of today to compensate for all the pitfalls that come with the product.
I disagree. You only need to consider the powertrain because the rest of the car uses common components and processes. Labor is greatly reduced on the EV powertrain, and materials cost will soon be lower as well.
//And you forget that the most regions on earth make it physically impossible to use electric vehicles, neither the climate, the weather, nor the infrastructure would ever allow it.
No. It is much easier to produce a solar infrastructure than a gasoline infrastructure. An electric infrastructure is needed by society, but a gasoline infrastructure is not. People in the cold land of Finland are very happy with their electric cars - 70%.
//Even in developed countries it will never be fully useable.
You are predicting the future - I disagree with your prediction.
Just one major power outage and everyone will abandon their electric cars and demand fossils to return.
With many grad batteries in place there will be no more power outages.
If there is a power outage, can you pump gasoline?
If it gets so bad that you cannot charge your car, you also will not be able to find gasoline. People can make electricity, but people cannot make their own gasoline. (unless you want run your own biodiesel factory).
//You can see how often electronic devices fail, even things like paying with credit card isn't possible every once in a while.
Yes you can. Itis called MTBF - Mean Time Between Failure. Electromechanical systems are on the order of 10,000 hours. Elechtrochemical systems are on the order of 1,000 hours.
if you assume 30 miles per hours, 1,000 hours would be 30,000 miles - your first service check. For an EV you check the oil in the gearboxes at 150,000...
//For elementary things like mobility the analogue systems have nothing that could replace them.
Electrical systems are about twice as energy efficient. if this fuel were used in power plants instead of incars we would use far less fuel.
Yeah until we run out of lithium and have to mine it from sea water
You are talking about a future that doesn't exist in the present moment. BEVs had more than 15 years to prove their sustainability and practicality. And now people have decided the improvements they've made is not enough. So it's hybrids for the foreseeable future.
@nuwanpremarathne1759
As an engineer, it is my job to predict when technologies will be available at a price point.
Of course, ai am talking about a future that does not exist yet. I do it all the time - I am extremely good at these predictions. This is why I state them confidently - my track record of success.
No - BEVs have not been around for 15 years in the same way as they are today. 15 years ago Li-ion batteries included solvents that would boil at about 130F and they would pop when hot. That technology hasn't been used since 2012.
There have been significant advancements in power electronics, batteries, motors, braking, manufacturing, software, etc every few years over the last 15 years.
It is like you were suggesting that today's smartphone is just like the phone of 15 years ago.
Major improvements continue to happen every few years. This scares people.
It has a name from the 80s - the Osborne Effect. You start talking about how much better the next version will be and people decide to wait. You lose business by doing this... you also cause people to stop buying the competition...
Funny because Hybrids still have crazy expensive batteries. I found out the hard way by buying a used hybrid. The battery lasts 150,000 miles, then its to the recyclers because it wont be worth the 5000+ investment in a replacement.
Chris Fix has a video on how to replace the Prius battery yourself for substantially less money.
Hybrids are not the way forward. They have many more parts than EVs, and that's an understatement. So they also break down more, and are a big expense over their lifetime. They also catch fire much more often than EVs, making more pollution.
@@FLPhotoCatcher expensive repairs are not the answer.
@@FLPhotoCatcher We've owned a Prius for ten years and the only repairs have been scheduled maintenance and recalls to update the hybrid system firmware. Having owned three Toyotas in the past 15 years, none have needed any major repairs other than scheduled maintenance and recalls.
@@FLPhotoCatcher You are WRONG about breaking down more often. My wife has a Chevy Volt with 110,000 miles on it and its engine is doing great. The reason is the engine has only driven 30,000 of those miles and it is very lightly used when it does. We have 100+ years of experience with designing ICE engines and they have been well-researched and optimized in that time.
EV cars just are not ready yet.
Hybrids are complicated, having both ICE and electric components. Hybrids, even plug in hybrids still require a trip to the gas station. And, depending on the type of hybrid drive train, they may even be less efficient than plain old ICE cars.
Reducing the numbers of cars is a lot more important than changing their energy source
Robotaxis.
@@tonyduncan9852 trams.
On a tram RN and it's amazing, i can read UA-cam comments or play on my steam deck instead of controlling a dangerous vehicle
When I stated college I drove four hundred miles of two lane highway, one each way, built in the 1920s, previously a dirt road for stage coaches and wagons. It was not at any point level or straight and had two gas stations for that distance, neither at the mid point, so you stopped at both to do that stretch. If you mismanaged it no tow truck coming, but the once or twice a day state highway patrol would carry a few spare gallons for you.
Even then you were still short 290 miles from college, but in more occupied areas. Basically a three stop journey at least taking about ten hours. Assuming your radiator didn't give out on a 100 plus day on a tar black road of about 150 degrees in the summer. Without AC, just very hot wind blowing through your car. I could mention more potential problems like washed out roads, dust storms, head on wrecks, loose animals on the road as you topped the rise a hundred feet away, etc.
It took two years of that stretch to finish Interstate 10. There were workers camps set up in the drastic remote area to accommodate this national agenda started by President Eisenhower. All goods, water, etc was trucked to these camps on the same and only narrow two lanes. If a large truck came down one lane he was bigger than the lane, so everyone pulled over to let him continue before proceeding now in single file at the speed of the slowest vehicle which always ends up in front automatically.
So, when people complain about change, aggravation, alternatives, theories, altering future history, how bad things are or were, while having no accurate knowledge of history or experience with it, I think of wimps, mindless peons, spoiled youth and lack of education from real teachers instead of propaganda sellers. 😮
It makes no matter what I or anyone thinks about EVs or AI or robotaxis or economics or climate change or renewable energy replacing fossil fuels, etc. It's unavoidable and inevitable and debating it is mostly pointless. It has to happen. It's predictable and logical and if you don't like it too bad. It's fun to ride horses, but their pets now and not the mandatory necessity they once were.
EVs are themselves only a transition to what comes next which is already bearing down on us. There are more changes lined up for this century alone just in transportation as an industry.
People are living in a former world, clutching desperately for something dying and the end already known. No history stands still or unchanged and now the world is in a rapidly accelerating future, like a snow sled careening faster and faster. You can't stop it and barely steer it. You can only hold on and face it like a man or an animal.
Me? I'm excited, happy, like challenges and accept evolution of the adaption of species or extinction. 😊. Those that can't won't matter. 😮. That's the nature of life.
Wow, amazingly written!
@@diegoolivarez1 Thanks. I take pride in my education since every skill depends on clear speaking, very good writing and understanding exact understanding of reading, not unclear interpretation. Those three foundations determine everything else.🤔
Or……people simply live more locally. Not all structures get bigger, better and more efficient, often they cease to exist because they become too big, too complex and too dispersed. History provides us with many examples.
Hell, you're right. Now I'm eighty, it's quite a blast. WTF
Electric car owner here. It’s true, Sabine. Electric cars do accelerate faster. Much faster.
They have to have *something* going for them.
And deplete that battery quite nicely with that
@@joesterling4299They are also quieter and cost less to drive, they also have fewer parts, and therefore less wear and tear, so they break down much less.
And in a handful of years I am convinced that the infrastructure will be fully operational to accomodate, meaning no more range anxiety.
@@texanplayer7651 "so they break down much less"
and when they do they'll be a write off, bit funny bit its true now isn't it, less parts as in a glued in battery for smartphones.
So do trams.
Few cars have a drivetrain like this : you pump up the gas , but that gas , like a generator I guess, powers the electric motor which gives power to the wheels. So you still have advantage of fast acceleration but commodity of gasoline fast pumping...
That little clip of Buster Keaton's car falling apart is solid gold -
Possibly, but at least in the U.K. I listened to a senior grid engineer say that upgrades to cope were planned and adequate.
I think the rest of the world will just be fine coping with electric cars. Apart from Germany Where red tape is more important than progress.
Of course they do. It's likewise in Germany.
Gouvernment doesn't consider it appropriate to keep the level of individual traffic as high as it currently is.
So, make it unappealing to buy cars like we used to in the past is part of the plan.
Then the grid will be sufficient in 2035, that's what they did tell us in their great wisdom.
At least in Germany. But i'd think, the UK gouvernment has at least the same level of wisdom.
Where will the electricity come from?
Its fun to plan but someone has to pay for it and that's where things fall apart.
can confirm - UK grid is very much on track.
This argument seems to be, let's keep burning fossil fuel in combustion engines.
You can call them hybrid cars if you want, but they are still irrevocably tied to the fossil fuel industry and a total reliance of fuel burning technology.
Hybrid cars are petrol cars with a lot of extra, complex, heavy technology strapped to them.
Brilliant technological step during the 2000's and the first step away from 100% reliance of inefficient fuel burning combustion engines.
Now. A dormant and pointless technology.
Hossenfelder lists of strings of huge numbers related to how much grid expansion is needed in the next 20 to 30 years. It's billions. She did, as always, entirely ignore the amount of money leaving the EU to pay for importing liquid hydrocarbons to burn in these hybrids.
According to Statista, in 2022 the EU burned 18.7 million barrels of oil a day, which at current oil prices of $88 a barrel, is one billion six hundred forty-five million dollars a day. Every day.
But you know, carry on pushing fuel burning combustion vehicles, Germany's economy is built around the combustion car industry, they make very good cars.
Guess what....
Electric vehicles still rely heavily on "fossil fuels."
The quality of those cars is debatable. The cost to repair/maintain BMW or Mercedes is considerably more than a tesla
How much grid expansion is needed? Cost?
What about electricity production capacity? For now EU is struggling to force fossils out of electricity production to cover CURRENT ELECTRICITY needs but you are talking about moving away from fossils in all energy sector? It is crazy as it would take not even 10 times more renewable production but closer to 30 times more. It is impossible in the next several decades regardless.
In Australia, cars contribute to less than 10% of the total carbon emissions. I assume it's similar in the rest of the world. Seems quite ridiculous that so much mental energy is dedicated to 10% of the problem.
@@MrElvis1971 Worldwide, ground transport vehicles amount to about half the emissions, so yes it is a huge factor.
It’s amazing so many people think allowing politicians to manage transition to EVs is a good idea. Fewer and fewer Americans are buying EVs because they are becoming more aware of the problems and expense involved in owning the “accelerating faster than internal combustion” technology.
In addition to grid expansion issues, there is the lithium mining expansion issue - all those EVs mean more batteries, However all the large lithium mining companies do not have plans to expand production at anything like what is needed. Now we are starting to hear about sodium batteries - but it is likely that there are similar production scale issues hiding there too.
Near Pittsburgh, they tore down a power plant and left the old "low" voltage transmission lines. So old, and so low voltage (short insulators) then had to run 6 lines across 3 towers. These wires span heavily populated areas and highways. They aren't connected at the remains of the power station which is now demolished. These towers and lines are abandoned. My new hobby is not bird watching, but grid watching. It's very interesting. And I even found a substation where a transmission line terminates with no visible outgoing lines - it has a set of large fan cooled units with nothat that resembles a transformer.
What about all these massive leaps in battery price reductions?
They have flattened out. The battery-making capacity can only grow so quickly. People don't take into account how "dirty" the process is getting from raw lithium to battery feedstock on the coal-powered Chinese grid where most of this is done.
@@alansnyder8448sodium batteries
@@alansnyder8448Shall we talk about how dirty fossil fuel mining is?
For every tonne of raw mineral product mined to make an electric car, 100 tonnes of raw mineral product needed to be pumped to power a combustion car
Not going to happen, Big Oil is/will be Big Lithium (or whatever new tech) and they like profits.
@@alansnyder8448 You need lithium for cars only (and even that may change). The batteries for house owners do not have to be light, cheap is enough. These batteries will help the grid a lot.
So we should all give up on EVs because Sabine lives in an apartment and her country is not expanding the grid fast enough? Man that's great science.
Thank you, I thought I was the only one who looked through the video and found little reason within it. Especially knowing how little energy is wasted on EV compared to petrol
The clip for “The transition isn’t going as smoothly as hoped” is pretty fun.
As a Hybrid owner, battery replacement costs makes them much less attractive.
At least that's not a problem with electric cars. It's extremely unlikely you'll ever need to replace a battery on an electric car (Exclude the 12 volt battery)
Why would you be replacing the battery?
There are many Teslas that have done over 500k miles and one that's done a million with only 75% degradation
@@BaybieK The batteries need to be replaced when they will no longer hold a charge, or too many have shorted out. The Lithium Batteries don't last forever. If I remember right, the typical life is around 7-10 years.
No, you are confusing typical life and guaranteed life.
@@jgreen9361 I'm not confused when the Dealer said it would cost $7,000 to replace the batteries, parts and labor on a 2001 Toyota Prius.
According to insurance numbers in the US, per 100K sold, EVs are only involved in ~25 fires. That number jumps to ~1,500 for ICE vehicles, and all the way to ~3,000 for hybrids. Are you sure you want a hybrid?
I don't want a hybrid. I'm just saying I think this is how things will develop.
@@SabineHossenfelderBut you also liked the comment: “I cannot believe vehicles carrying a ton of batteries will ever be a good idea”. That’s kind of how EVs work for the foreseeable future.
What about the new prototypes of hydrogen engines? The production of green, blue and white hydrogen is constantly increasing.
@@SabineHossenfelder According to project drawdown the cheapest way to lower carbon emissions is to build bicycle infrastructure, i think this video should be tempered by maybe covering some of their suggestions for fighting climate change.
That's a misleading statistic as many cars are set on fire as they are stolen vehicles, false insurance claims, or acts of revenge. The cause of the fire is not what is being reported in insurance data, but the cause of the damage to the car is.
i believe you think the infrastructure scale wrong.
we don't need a centralized grid that makes loading possible for everyone, everywhere.
most driving is commuting/shopping/visiting close by friends.
You can do all that with PV on your roof that loads your ev while you are at home/your friends home.
the whole make energy at spot X, transfer it through half the country, and then use it is simply a wrong approach that will be fixed in the future.
That's rubbish 70% of Germans don't have their own house. The wind blows in the north of Germany. But the industry and the people are in the south. We need a southern link. Solar and wind in the south can only minimise the problem but not solve it.
obviously you havent worked the numbers. it would take more PV panels than could fit on 5 EVs to even slow charge one.
Buses and trains are the future.
Is this a re-do? I think you did this video before, or it has been a really long day, and I am remembering this morning.
Hybrids are expensive to repair.
As are EVs, should anything go wrong (usually, the ultra-expensive battery). Plug-in hybrids are BEVs with an auxiliary ICE generator that kicks in when the battery runs low. They're no more complex than a battery-electric pickup truck hauling a generator on its bed.
@@joesterling4299 PHEVs have two powertrains that can break, and need to be maintained and repaired. To your point, PHEV are like a BEV + generator. But, only the generator part needs constant maintenance, and trips to the station to fill up. In addition to all this, the most efficient PHEV have a separate bypass mode that provides a direct coupling for constant highway speed operation.
How about this. Take a PHEV, simplify it, and put the generator at home or in "gas stations", and just beef up the battery... further simplify the system and just replace the generator with a charger....lo and behold, you've got a BEV.
Gas cars are expensive to maintain.
@@surkh Constant maintenance of the engine? Idk what world you live, but my 20 year old cars engine doesn't need ''constant maintenance'' it just needs an oil change every 15k km and a new airfilter..
@@joesterling4299 My EV has actually been really cheap to maintain compared to any ICE that I have ever owned. There is actually resources that show the maintenance is a lot cheaper as well. It is very rare to have a drivetrain battery go wrong on a BEV. PHEV are more susceptible to battery issues.
The lack of recycling of EV batteries, is going to be an ecological disaster for Europe's water supply.
Thanks so much for creating and sharing this informative video. Great job. Keep it up.
Should we talk about the demand on mining of rare earth elements for the electronics, batteries, magnets? recovery from written-off EVs to recycle?
which are all getting recycled.
I’m in a 2015 Nissan Leaf- 70mi range, and I’ll NEVER go back. BUT- I have a 25mi commute to work, can slow charge at work, and have a level 2 charger in my garage. Once you have easy access to a charger near home you will suddenly lose all interest in maintaining a vehicle with two separate power trains.
But most people want the same vehicle to also be used for longer trips especially on the weekends and holidays😊
but you cannot tow a hanger with 17 horses for 1500km without any stop when you drive to you vacation spot. i am not an expert but that seems to be the minimum requirement these days.
i don't know what to do with 17 horses at my vacation spot and how i can drive 1500km without wetting my pants, but as i said, i am not an expert.
We have 100 cars in the parking lot at work and only 2 electrical chargers. Never going to happen.
@@lamaistulYou can charge it at home on a normal power point. Just a couple of hours of charging required after a typical daily commute.
@@graerindley6312 Most EVs will go much further than a Leaf. It’s a pretty old model. 500km on a charge is pretty normal these days. Most people wouldn’t drive that far regularly, and even if they did, probably need a driving break every few 100km.
So happy my apartment complex is replete with rooftop solar panels. We basically charge for free (part of lease, so obviously baked in) but their costs match others around so we safe tons not using gas. I will NEVER go back to gas. Hybrids are an ok option if you don’t have charging available. They will eventually become obsolete
I'll never buy anything with pistons again, and that includes hybrids. If it's got pistons, it's crap. It's a money sucking, poison spewing piece of junk.
@@therealctoo4183 You should check out your battery life-cycle. Talk about money sucking, poison spewing pieces of junk. And heaven help you if your battery catches fire...
The politicians never talk about what the heck we're going to do with extremely toxic and dangerous dead batteries.
@@therealctoo4183 True. But that money sucking/poison spewing piece of junk will still run after the grid collapses via natural disaster, etc. It would seem electrics would last longer and have fewer problems, but the data show they presently have about 80% more problems than internal combustion vehicles. And lithium iron batteries have their own toxic/environmental problems and need an entire new infrastructure just to deal with that. Plus, there's the issue of the environmental impact of renewables/fission nuclear and expanding the grid. So it's not a slam dunk for either technology.
This take is so sensible I first thought it might be satire.
The point that she doesn't understand is that many hours in a giving day, the grid is sub utilized - maybe during the day in winter, overnight during summer. What is going to happen is that electricity companies are going to incentivize take some control to the charge hours of the cars with reducing electric bills. Like you set your car to be 80% at 8am every day and the electricity companies will intelligently charge your car. The vast majority of people will do that. Do you need a charge right now? No problem, you are going to pay the normal rate. HVAC (in US) is way more problematic, because everybody turns that on at the same time (hottest time of the day). The power companies figured that out.
She also makes it sound like increasing the growth rate by 20% is a lot. It isn't. Instead of gowthing by 2%, it needs to grow by 2.4%. Growth rates in the past have been much bigger than this. The way she presents the data makes it sound way worse than it actually is.
Sure but this will only do so much. Do you really think that the institutions who say that the grid upgrade is necessary don't know that?
Will the vast majority of people have their own parking spot with a charger, so that their car is plugged in when it's convenient for the grid to charge the car?
@@SabineHossenfelder Demand following will make a huge difference since it can significantly reduce the impact of unusual events where the sun and the wind both are unavailable. If you predict this and then turn off some factories and stop charging cars for a day, you significantly reduce the battery storage required. This already happens to some extent.
The people/businesses who are willing to do this will get cheaper electricity, and the rest will pay a premium for the infrastructure.
@@SabineHossenfelder If the institution is the IEA then they probably don't know that. Look at the IEA's PV increase predictions for the past 20 years. For most of those years they forecasted that PV installations would fall the next year. PV installation rose every year. [edit] I found a source with the IEA PV production forecast from 2022. In 2022 IEA forecast that PV production would reach 180 GW in 2035. It reached 224 GW in 2023. It 2 years to reach IEA's 15 year forecast. To see the source google "iea-forecasts-wrong-again"
I have had an electric vehicle for nearly three years. I have a 7 kw charger at home. It costs me £12 €15 every 14 days and I don't use public charging stations.
They can be very useful for driving about a town or perhaps a county where the weather is moderate.
Good for you. Works nice for your situation.
@@richardkammerer2814 define moderate. We use our EV all year round including snow&ice and hot summer. No issues so far. The range when freezing cold drops a bit, but it’s still plenty for what we need. Still we should’ve bought a PHEV, is what I think now. Because then we wouldn’t need a third car. Now we do.
@@Gemini_0815can you see stats about how much the car uses energy to keep the battery warm when there are -20c at the outside?
@@Gemini_0815 When we go to the family reunion 600 miles away in state park territory, that’s a moderate drive.
I'm gonna drive my Jags, come hell or high water. And they are hybrids even: having a car battery!
Impossible things never happen. What a surprise. Congratulations on your first tentative, faltering steps toward reconnecting with reality.
So I understand that Electric Cars ARE STILL the Future, but with challenges in the transition.
Probably, yes. I guess it will depend on how the cost of synthetic fuel and batteries develops.
@@SabineHossenfelder Thanks for responding,, Sabine. I truly enjoy your videos and hope to see you lecturing in Vancouver, BC!
My feeling is that sodium ion batteries will take over for EVs, but battery tech is improving and getting cheaper at a breakneck pace, so who knows Lol. Respectfully, Sebastien
@@SabineHossenfelderSynthetic fuels have a massive cost problem relative to pure electric. First, you have efficiency loss in production. Even a high efficiency process is likely only 50% efficient (25% is probably more realistic). So it takes 2-4 units of electric energy for one unit of fuel energy. After that, combustion engines/drivetrains are seriously inefficient - less than 20% of the energy burned turns to motion in practice. The rest is waste heat, driving the compression cycle, etc. EV drivetrains are over 80% efficient in practice. (A gallon of gasoline is about 35kWh of energy; a typical EV has the energy storage of about two gallons, so you really see the efficiency difference.) So we’re looking at 8-16x more electric consumption for a synthetic-fueled combustion car, relative to an EV. And, if your synthetic fuel is anything but gasoline, then it won’t work in most existing cars or in the existing fueling stations or distribution network. You need new cars, new storage, new distribution, all of which are going to be more complex and expensive than the problems of expanding EVs.
I think there will be a future for synthetic fuels at small scale, in classic cars and things like aircraft that are hard to electrify. But for normal purpose cars and trucks, they’re terrible compared to just going electric.
@@SabineHossenfelder the cost of synthetic fuel will be too expensive and EVs are getting 1000...1500€ cheaper and better every year.
@@SabineHossenfelder Why investing 5 (6? 7?) times the engery to get synthetic fuel and burn it instead of driving with this energy?
More things that put me off: all EVs are internet connected, data mined and can be disabled remotely (future lockdown, congestion charges, can’t drive here, metered). Theres a future tax charge per mile being touted here in the UK at least to make up for tax revenue lost at the pumps (metered). Trading in a lot of freedoms.
all future cars will be internet connected etc. the only freedom you are trading in is a freedom to be brainwashed
Yeah, people don't think about these aspects but, if we ever reach the end of this bridge, I presume most will ponder how did we ever get here.
If a very hot summer or a very cold winter still causes blackouts just because ACs or heaters… 🤷🏻♂️
True, but we could also ask, what if there's a major war in the Middle East and supplies of oil remind us of 1974.
I have always been wondering if Terminator wants to sit there waiting to be charged and attacked or carry a gas-powered engine that can keep him constantly moving.
"Gasoline smells good"? What gasoline are you smelling?
Avoid inhaling gas as it can lead to addiction and pose serious health risks.
in my small test group about a half likes the gasoline smell and the other one likes spray-paint smell. these two groups don't overlap.
I built an illegal electric "light motorcycle" with a 1500W motor and a 2kWh battery. Absolutely nothing beats its efficiency, including pedaling, because the battery was always charged directly by solar panels.
That's a really good insight into issues for using an EV which sort of mirrors less developed countries like Malaysia where I am from. Most of the new electric infrastructure is concentrated in the urban areas where commercially viable demand is situated but not so in the outer rural areas which remains severely under-developed. Good luck using a full EV in those areas. As always I look forward the upcoming views from your channel.
My household is hybrid in a way. One EV one ICE vehicle. I think in the U.S EVs are pretty practical in major cities. Charging is easy at home and superchargers are abundant.
It's really hard to beat the combination of energy density and easy room-temperature storage that you get with liquid hydrocarbons. Maybe all this money being spent on other fuel technologies would be better spent on scrubbing CO2 from the atmosphere. Those facilities can be optimized for performance since they don't have tradeoffs due to having to be heavy and mobile and carry delicate passengers around at 100 kph.
...and when the lovely liquid hydrocarbs run out in about 30 -40 years max? What then?
_"scrubbing CO2 from the atmosphere"_ - Trees and phytoplankton have the necessary experience.
Gasoline doesn't smell as good as it did when it was leaded. LOL
I have said the same thing. Modern petrol is more acrid smelling. On the other hand, I don't miss TEL.
As an automotive engineer, transportation is in a dilemma right now. A car has an expected lifecycle of 10-30 years. With an exponentially decaying value from a new car until it breaks. Most car deals are between 5-10k and as the lifecycle expects only 1/10-1/30th of the deals are new cars. There are some tricks with leasing where a manufacturer sells 1-3 year old cars but as that's a big net loss you can only do this that much. So the shortest timeframe for a change to affect the whole market is 10 years +.
From the manufacturer's perspective, it's not much better. Especially with EVs, we scale certain markets in magnitudes of the previous global net production. The battery for a car is between 200-700kg, the battery in a phone is 20-70g, and a laptop is 200-700g. Also, you can't easily double your production to make a change happen in 5 years. At least not in Germany where building a new site takes many many years and you don't get rid of your employees once the change is made.
Pure ICEs are a very efficient system, despite the engine being a suboptimal process. EVs are the optimal process and will become the most efficient system once we have scaled battery technology to useful sizes and weights. The Hybrids are a much-needed compromise to bridge the 10-30-year timeframe we are still in to transform the most resource-intensive industry besides construction.
Not to worry, Sabine, you can't get everything right!
Cars just aren't the right solution to the problem. You don't need to carry around tons of metal, glass and plastic to get to the grocery store and back, and you really shouldn't have to live so far from work where you need to be driving back and forth.
The answer isn't electric cars or hybrid cars, it's better urban design
How much C02 can you tolerate to rebuild everything out of concrete. There are no quick fixes.
@simontemplar404 Yes, rebuilding things when they wear out is how it will work for most all changes. Doesn't mean we don't need to quickly get our current regulations lined up to make the future more liveable for future generations.
Amen
Utopia thinking and impossible, you can't have everyone in mega-cities it's just not possible. What about the heavy industrie (factories) farmers powerplants etc.. Do you also want those in these mega-cities? I wouldn't.. Especially not the nuclear powerplants and loud industry.
Cars are the answer, it simply is the best mode of transportation since it's all purpose, you can drive it to work, AND take your family with you, and haul heavy loads etc. And yes, ideally with combustion engine, but a hybrid is fine too.
People could use a motorcycle for longer commutes, but it's not cheap to buy a motorcycle and maintain 2 vehicles. Also, cold icy weather exists etc.
We are doing fine, i am lucky to live closeby my work, so i can actually cycle there. But i understand the people who work further away either they really have no choice, or they can earn more. We all need to make a living.
You have a better change of having all work done by robots.
I think Urban designers realize this but the reality is that you have a street design and infrastructure in place. I think there has been some movement in that the modern technology allows for more at home work now. E-bikes and mobility is also helping along with some redesign to allow for more alternatives but it is still difficult.
Hybrids have the issue that the battery is charged full and depleted much more often than a full EV that mostly is used between 10%90% which causes a lot more wear on the hybrid batteries compared to the EV batteries that doesn't loose capacity nearly as fast as the hybrid ones.
Hybrids are engineerd to be stupid with their batteries.
My wife's Chevy Volt has 110,000 miles on it and the battery is still doing great and the ICE engine has barely more than 30,000 miles on it. This car is going to last for a while.
Exactly. And it doesn't help that a lot of the older hybrids have old battery technology that doesn't age well
?? No, that's backwards. The problem with batteries is that unless you charge and discharge them completely they will develop hysteresis and they'll end up not being able to take a full charge. This is commonly seen on laptop batteries, phone batteries, etc. where when they are new they last a long time but if you don't stick to a rigid schedule of waiting until the device is almost dead to charge it, and then charging it completely, then the time between charges gets shorter and shorter.
@@artiefischel2579 That depends on the battery chemistry. Fully discharging and charging lithium Ion reduces it's life expectancy. Nickel Metal batteries behave as you described, as do NiCad's, though not for the reason you think, (see battery memory effect) and they can be "reset" through full charge/discharge cycles. Lithium Ion batteries do not work this way. When you fully discharge Lithium batteries the instance of corrosion on the cells accelerates when below 20% capacity, and when charging above 80%.
I sympathize with bureaucrats here, I am pretty sure these charging station companies have no clue whether the local grid can actually handle the added demand. Transformers aren't magical y'know
Sabine, i think one of the biggest issues is that Eu and USA consumers and manufactures build big heavy cars with hundreds of km of Range while most people drive less than 50km a day. One Mercedes Eqs 108kwh battery could power 4.5!! Renault twingos. Smaller cars charge fast, consume less energy and fit on the space a longitudinal parking evil cyclist uses to park his bike.
The extra cost of the electric grid will come from the people charging their BEV cars. For example, I charge my car at night (which puts absolutely zero extra load on the grid) and I pay an extra $60 per month to my power bill. Multiply this by a few million BEV cars and there will be plenty of money to upgrade the grid.
"absolutely zero extra load on the grid"
Best laugh I've had all day.
until 50 mln cars do exactly the same and then we can talk about loads.
If everyone recharged their car at night, (which they don't) then it will be actually quite beneficial for the grid, since demand is overall low at night, the industries are shut down and everyone sleeps.
@@joesterling4299 What he means is that he doesn't add any more PEAK load to the grid. EVs don't need to charge at peak time. Some people might do it anyway, but power companies and consumers both will have a massive incentive to install smart meters at EV owner's houses, so that they can offer discounts at off-peak times.
And EVs still don't pay for the roads EVs are using. The tax is coming so EVs will look even less appealing.
in norway 1/4 of all cars are elektric: they have no problem with the grid.!!!!!!
Look at the map... hydro power everywhere over there.
@@czarekcz1097 ok? then let's just install more hydro lol (even tho I think solar/wind is better)
@@reweiv Hydro works if you have the mountains and water, otherwise, solar, wind and even nuclear power is better. Oil and gas will run out, and we will have to come up with sustainable replacements, and electric cars are the best option. Hydrogen power don't make any sense.
All cars heavily subsidized by oil money. Else no one could afford them.
@@lamaistul And who pays for fuel? I thought consumer! Are you suggesting we are subsidizing ourselves? Then I have no issue with it!
In the 90s, I thought cell phones were the future. What happened to them? Oh, they just became indispensable little gadgets that run our lives now. They evolved from clunky bricks to sleek supercomputers, and now we can't seem to function without them. So, not much.
My only issues that changed my mind is battery replacement costs and thermal runaway
The Toyota Prius is still the king of hybrids. Never had any issues with it and the fuel economy is excellent.
I have an MG ZS EV. when I first started charging it cost me more than a combustion engine, and kept running out of charge. Three months on, I can work for 12 hours and still have 50% battery. The cost of charging is now about 352 miles for less than £10. You just have to understand the capabilities of the car.
And the “electric continuous variable transmission” is a thing of mechanical simplicity and elegance where 1 + 1 is something like 1.2 ! But EV advocates don’t understand that, but that is to be expected.
and now having their peak, sales slowly start to decline because EVs are getting cheaper and better.
Hybrids are the worse. Double complexity, more parts to fail. Also, neither engine/battery work at optimal conditions, so more prone to failure as is.
That's when she lost my faith in her objective scientific research. Hybrids are the worst possible decision. If she is recommending them, it shows that she isn't doing neutral analysis anymore. Either she's trying to appeal to the majority of electric car sceptics or her research team has made a grave mistake and she doesn't have the time anymore to realize and fix it. In any case this video will be an ugly blemish in her track record.
@@olafarlt2 talk to taxi drivers about maintenance with hybrids - I don't know about other auto makers but Toyota hybrids are extremely low maintenance cost compared to ICE cars and last forever...some taxi drivers have 500K miles and still going strong! However, NONE of them liked pure EV's
@@holysmoke3201 How is having two engines to be maintained instead of one being cheaper? Plus EVs need much less maintenance since there are no spark plugs and no engine oil that need to be changed on a regular basis.
I have talked to taxi drivers for example in Kopenhagen, where a lot of them are already driving in pure EVs. The driver said he needs to charge his car once a day and can do that either over night or during quiet times.
And from a CO2 perspective, Hybrids aren't solving any problems. You're still burning finite and climate-damaging fossil fuels to get them to move.
There is a difference between PHEV and traditional hybirds. Traditional hybrids demonstratably reduce fuel consumption of ICE. My Prius V (bigger, heavier) car uses less petrol than my Corolla.
@@olafarlt2 Proof is in the pudding!! SEVERAL taxi drivers I've talked to LOVE their Toyota hybrids and all of them say its wayyyy lower maintenance than an ICE car - you can google it yourself!!
My boss at an automotive company always told me that cars are a passing fad.
I remember him every time I overtake another car on the highway.
Hybrid cars are a good idea in theory, but a lot of people just use them as a gas car.
In the UK, the National Grid keep saying that the grid can cope and I don't see any reason to disbelieve them. The UK has new international interconnector too. This spreads the load. In the UK about 25% of all electricity generated is used to refine and move fossil fuels so there's a lot of power for nothing as we reduce fossil fuel use. Also 40% of all large shipping is moving fossil fuels.
Much of the planning is to cover the highest peak of power needs, but that can be smoothed out as is already happening. The best way to charge a car is at home, at night. That is when electricity is currently over supplied - the wind still blows in the North Sea. This no only leads to very cheap charging but spreads energy use to lower the peaks.
Have a word with Greg Jackson at Octopus Energy, he knows the real picture, not the FUD spread by BigOil.
"Have a word with Greg Jackson at Octopus Energy, he knows the real picture, not the FUD spread by BigOil."
That's good for the UK.
It won't work in the US.
The idiots in charge of the grid, refuse to invest in necessary upgrades.
Rather than spending a portion of the monthly bill customers pay, they are waiting to get funded by taxpayer dollars so they can keep their higher profits and keep pretending that they are doing a good job.
It also doesn't help that some State governments have mandated a percentage of solar and wind energy and have not mandated grid upgrades.
Thank you for that insightful post! I had no idea that so much power was used to refine fossil fuel, that is ludicrous.
In Italy too the grid operator has always maintained that they see no particular trouble ahead about upgrading the grid for mass adoption of EVs. As far as I understand, it will be a minuscule tweak compared to what was done in the years of rapid post-war industrialization.
You think everyone will be able to charge a car overnight "night" on a calm day...Not a chance in hell.
In the UK,the National Grid is digging tunnels to accommodate the cables, removing the pillons running around the country. In the cities, the car is being discouraged by restricting it to main roads. You would have noticed that your satnav never takes you through a residential road if a main road is available. Tower blocks no longer have parking bays, and street parking is at a premium. The charging points on lampposts only have 3.5kWh with a 2 hour time limit. To own an electric car you need a driveway with a charging point. If not, then the cost per mile is almost double that of fossil fuel, as well as the pleasure of sitting in your car for at least one hour while it charges.
There is no profit in charging points compared to petrol stations. For example, one car can take 5 minutes to fill up and go, £70. 12 cars *£70=£840per hour. An EV takes one hour for a reasonable charge, £50. What company in its right mind will want to earn £50 per hour.
If companies cannot turn a profit then the infrastructure can never bear fruitition. Building the grid is one thing. Finding companies to bear the extremely low profit margin is another.
USA spends $106B per year on oil extraction. This is totally feasible. But somehow, spending this much spread over 10 years, on upgrading the grid, is impossible.
Back of the napkin calculations reveal that, relative to USA GDP, the US spent what would currently anount to **over $70 Trillion** fighting WWII. So that’s approximately what we can afford if we really, really cared about an existential issue.
Maths are from Nobel Economist Paul Krugman in NYT discussing lend-lease program to UK before we entered WWII. “at about $60 billion [ukrainian aid package] is less than one-fourth of 1 percent of G.D.P. - around one-fortieth the size of the initial Lend-Lease appropriation. Anyone claiming that spending on this scale will break the budget, or that it will seriously interfere with other priorities, is innumerate, disingenuous or both.”
13 billion was 10% of gdp in WWII. We spent a total of 340 billion in the war. That’s over 250% of gdp. With today’s gdp of 27 trillion, that would be the equivalent of $70 trillion.
i mean its obvious, when you don't think about it
FYI 85% of "the Gride" RUNS on OIL, Coal, and Natural Gas. So? Ya! Invest in Oil! even the E autos run on 100% of the 85% oil, coal, natural gas "gride"" so again? Ya! Invest in OIL!
...and completely unnecessary...
@@davefellhoelter1343 not sure what your point is.
Finally, some reasonable analysis, which was so obvious to anyone of knowledge.
I think this video would be better supported by some basic maths on whether the electricity available now and each year in the next 10 years can support the expected number of electric cars in each country rather than more speculation.
Sabine, let's just switch to bicycles.
Especially for long distances with heavy cargo.
Didn't you hear the news? Europe's warming happens twice as fast as the rest of the world, they say.
No bicycle is offered with an air condition option.
And i can tell you from own experience, as soon as air temperature in the shadow reaches 41°C, which already happened several times around here, biking is no fun any more, since the wind is feverish hot already.
You do that, we prefer to be able to travel BEYOND our cities.
@@werner.x tell me where you live, i want to move there
@@werner.x you are allowed to use electric bikes. The wind will cool you sufficiently when you don't have to put much power into the pedals yourself.
The Aptera Solar ev is a good solution for this problem. It is super efficient and gets 10 miles per kWh, almost 3 times what other EVs get! The 700w on board Solar charges up to 40 miles per day which is more than the average commute for both the EU and USA. You can charge around 150 miles overnight on a 110v outlet. The car is now in preproduction and should be available early next year.
I have a strong believe that if we don't increase the pressure to upgrade the infrastructure now but taking a slow transition via hybrids, we will still buring dinosaur's in the next centuries and miss every possible climate goal on the way.
Engine guys have known for many years that the "onboard engine-generator supplying power to electric motors" model is the way to go. This is the way diesel-electric trains have operated since the early 20th century.
I feel the true hard social/economic problems to solve, are the ones that doesn't allow local market gradient descent to solve the problem. In this case, the density of charging station need to reach a threshold before a phase transition where people start to overwhelmingly prefer EV. Before this transition, increasing the number of charging station is an uphill battle not solvable by gradient descent.
I don't feel the grid problem is hard to solve. When more people buy EV and the demand of electricity increases, the grid should be able to improve to adapt this local change. The local market forces should allow a gradient descent that adapt to increase of demand.
In contrast, when the density of charging station is low (roughly speaking), no more people would want to buy EV...so there is no further incentive to increase charging station. This is a situation where one needs to put large upfront investment to increase the density of charging station (beyond current demand) over a critical threshold before the bulk of population start to transition to EV. This large up front investment is fighting an uphill battle against local market forces. This is the hard part, I think.
I'm no expert whatsoever on EV...so I can easily be wrong by the way.
Where I am, charging at a charging station is more expensive than gas. They have scheduled price increases, over the next few years, to help compensate for all the new demand. What you’re saying (the gradient decent) can only work without corrupt local governments supporting monopolies.
One variable to throw in here would be the range and charging speed of the cars battery. With the improvement in battery technology there will be less charging stations needed per car. Having a vehicle that can take you 1,000 - 2,000 km in one go would make a big difference to desirability. The worst thing about having an ev where I am (Australia) is not being able to get somewhere because of the large distances we have between towns. Other than that, I have found my ev to be way better than any ice car that I have owned. (I am 70, so I've had a few).
What the “experts” who forecast power grid requirements constantly get wrong is the opportunity that two way charging and local solar can actually take advantage of electric cars to avoid grid upgrades. If you have enough electric cars plugged in (which is most cars most of the time) and the grid managers can talk to them (all electric cars do have smart controllers that are wirelessly connected) you can manage an existing grid in a far far far more competent way. Do the numbers and you can see that far from overtaxing the grid a relatively small expense in AI control over power management of a countries electric car fleet could make heavy infrastructure grid upgrades almost unnecessary.
I don't know what "experts" Sabine is even referring to. The Bundesnetzagentur in Germany sees no problem for grid-expansion to keep up with demand.
Progress held back by 0.003” of wood fiber.
Windmills are hella dangerous for those that maintain them.
The grid was fine in the US when everyone started to install AC in houses/Building/etc. Those are energy intense appliances and yet the grid grew to take care of that. With EV I just program mine to charge early in the morning so it’s ready when I leave.
There's still rolling blackouts on days with heat waves.
The thing is EVs don’t actually create that much extra energy demand on an electricity grid. Most houses in Australia would use more energy to heat their water electrically (10kWh/day) than they would to charge an EV after the average daily commute (6kWh/day for 36km). Swapping a resistance water heater for a heat pump water heater to reduce the energy needed by 75% would save about as much energy as the EV would need, meaning no net grid improvement needed (to charge EVs slowly at the same power as hot water, ~3.5kW).
The UK National Grid disagrees with you regarding requirements to upgrade grid. The LED lightbulb has lead to spare capacity. The other mitigation is that oil refineries consume large amounts of electricity.
It's curious how when I graduated High School in 1973 and began studying ALTERNATIVE energy production and the popular solutions were ALL HYBRID for cars and homes. The reasoning was to fit production to individual sites. It was much later when corporations began to suck up most of the government grant money to focus on massive farms which is far from the scientists and engineers of the 50s, 60s and 70s who embraced the ideal of setting the homeowner FREE from the monthly power bill. I believe they did it for two reasons.
1. to take the focus off of the pollution they produce.
2.To create a system where they could keep the monthly bills going.
BTW, the switch from lead acid (totally recyclable) batteries to lithium has a purpose as well. Imagine you are a wealthy energy company and you produce oil which is an easy to control source for price fixing and profit making. You see an opportunity to switch to another energy souce even more rare and easily controlled and that my friends is lithium.