Cambridge Street Reconstruction II

statler said:
You are, of course, assuming there are no government subsidies of oil companies. I'm not sure that is actually the case.
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So because Lurker is against subsidizing EV's, he is for subsidizing oil?

Thats a 2004 Iraq-war-justification level of jump.
 
^ By Lurker logic, public transit is evil because it allows the environmentally smug to freeload off the poor taxpayers who have to commute to work by car. His only point is the generic libertarian claim that a tax is only justified if everyone who pays in benefits from it directly.
 
What part of paying for someone's PRIVATE VEHICLE'S FUEL COSTS with public money do you understand I have a problem with? The City of Boston, at the expense of Boston taxpayers, is likely paying for non residents to drive into Boston.

Subsidizing congestion, literally and figuratively at the expensive of those that actually live in the city, what a lovely concept!
 
I think this might just be an incentive for people to switch. At one point, the free charging services will be gone, however, and if possible (though not likely since the US is committed to protecting the big oil companies) replace gas station as more and more vehicles become electric. Consider it like a free sample you see at a super market.
 
Sort of.

It's really just the government trying to solve the chicken/egg problem with electric vehicles. Private enterprise isn't going to pony up the bucks for 'filling' stations to serve just a couple of EVs and consumers aren't going to buy EVs en mass if there aren't enough places to charge.
This is one of those situations that governments are uniquely qualified to handle.
That said, if this thing is still giving out free juice after an EV infrastructure has been put in place....
 
I remember reading that the 3 month trial period for these charging stations will only cost the City $15 in electricity costs. And whoever uses them is still paying the meters. It's not a lot of money, but yeah I'm not a fan of further subsidizing cars in the city.
 
Yesterday I had to go to cityhall I pulled into one of these spots(there was 2 of them) One had a city car sitting there the other a meter maid telling me I could'nt park there,so the city was paying someone to stand there all day and taking up another spot w/a city car,meanwhile turning aways cars(revenue) trying to park,another great Idea from the mayor,what are there maybe 50 of these cars in Boston compared to the thousands of regular cars just plain dum imo!
 
Folks what part of reality is not in your personal ontology

Electric Cars were the rage in 1900 then along came a far superior motive source the internal combustion engine -- the market flushed them within a decade

well despite the best efforts of the politicians the majority of the reasons for the demise of the original electric cars -- are still there:

1) batteries are much less efficient by volume or mass at storing energy than liquid fuel to be burned at high temperature -- think your average Honda Civic will go 300+ miles with its 10 gallons of gasoline -- the Chevy Volt will go about 40 miles on its collection of batteries

2) Filling a car takes seconds -- filling a battery takes hours

3) In this climate Internal Combustion Engine waste heat is a useful byproduct in the wintertime with EVs you need to waste precious energy stored in your battery just to make heat -- further cutting your range

4) in other climates (and occasionally here as well) you need to air condition -- this takes significant amounts of energy and will reduce the range of any vehicle -- BUT it is especially critical with EV's due to (1,2 and even 3 when you need the dehumidification and heat to defog the windshield)

There are additional issues (such as what do you use to generate the electricity to charge the batteries and how do you get the electricity to where you need it without wholesale rebuilding of the grid) --- but just 1-4 are sufficient to make EV's unlikely to penetrate the general market without major subsidies or coercion
 
whighlander said:
Electric Cars were the rage in 1900 then along came a far superior motive source the internal combustion engine -- the market flushed them within a decade

well despite the best efforts of the politicians the majority of the reasons for the demise of the original electric cars -- are still there:

1) batteries are much less efficient by volume or mass at storing energy than liquid fuel to be burned at high temperature -- think your average Honda Civic will go 300+ miles with its 10 gallons of gasoline -- the Chevy Volt will go about 40 miles on its collection of batteries

2) Filling a car takes seconds -- filling a battery takes hours

3) In this climate Internal Combustion Engine waste heat is a useful byproduct in the wintertime with EVs you need to waste precious energy stored in your battery just to make heat -- further cutting your range

4) in other climates (and occasionally here as well) you need to air condition -- this takes significant amounts of energy and will reduce the range of any vehicle -- BUT it is especially critical with EV's due to (1,2 and even 3 when you need the dehumidification and heat to defog the windshield)

There are additional issues (such as what do you use to generate the electricity to charge the batteries and how do you get the electricity to where you need it without wholesale rebuilding of the grid) --- but just 1-4 are sufficient to make EV's unlikely to penetrate the general market without major subsidies or coercion
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1) battery technology is the same now as it was in 1900? if not, why even bring it up?

2). And you can buy a RAM that gets 1,200 miles. How is that important? The average suburban american drives less than 40 miles a day. Bostown car owners probably no more than 20. Well within range.

3) Filling a battery does indeed take hours. Thats what nights are for, when electricity is being wasted.

4) You can heat your car while plugged in.

5) It doesnt take subsidies or coercion to get people to give up ICE cars. It takes $5+ gas.
 
^^ What this world really really really wants is a better battery. Something that is lighter, lasts longer, can store more energy, charges faster, and can be prodcued at an attractive price. Now I know I'm asking a lot. If one could actually build this or something that greatly improves on one or two of these ares, you'd be the richest man in the world in 10 years.
 
Battery tech is the biggest handicap on electric vehicles. Batteries really haven't had any serious improvements in 50-60 years other than the use of lithium. Since there isn't enough lithium easily available and it still isn't very efficient for large engines, there's still a significant hurdle to be cleared.

This is why a lot of researchers are looking at new capacitor technology with nanotubes and sorts of other specially engineered materials fabricated from commonly available resources. If an energy storage medium far better than current battery technology comes into existence it will allow for EVs to be common and cheap. Not to mention revolutionize the energy industry by allowing power companies to not waste fuel during off peak hours.

Petrol, natural gas, and coal will remain valuable for their durable industrial applications. However civilization will no longer be wasting these valuable resources for fuel.
 
jass said:
1) battery technology is the same now as it was in 1900? if not, why even bring it up?

2). And you can buy a RAM that gets 1,200 miles. How is that important? The average suburban american drives less than 40 miles a day. Bostown car owners probably no more than 20. Well within range.

3) Filling a battery does indeed take hours. Thats what nights are for, when electricity is being wasted.

4) You can heat your car while plugged in.

5) It doesnt take subsidies or coercion to get people to give up ICE cars. It takes $5+ gas.
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I agree with you on all points, however, you are shortselling #3.

Shai Agassi and his company, Project Better Place, in partnership with Renault/Nissan has the answer for #3. It goes live in Israel this year and in Denmark next year. Japan, Hawaii, Australia, SF Bay area, etc. within the next 3 years.

The key is battery switching stations using underground robots - - it takes less than 1 minute. Think a network of Jiffy Lubes. You buy a monthly subscription - like you do with cellphones.

And, YES, it does it in LESS time than a gas fillup.

http://www.betterplace.com/the-comp...etail/index/guid/better-place-electric-dreams

As Wayne Gretzky said, "Others skate to where the puck is. I skate to where the puck is going".
 
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Smess

I'll believe that one when I see it -- you know that the Indy and Nascar guys can change tires and fuel in well under a minute -- but I wouldn't expect that anytime soon at Sears Auto

There are many problems with the idea of changing batteries including:
1) Lack of Standardization -- all of the vendors will have different battery boxes, differently located and connected
2) These stations need to be everywhere since you don't know when you need to do the change without knowing where the other stations are located, depending on weather, road conditions, traffic
3) These batteries have to be recharged rapidly that takes high power, specialized cooling, etc

Clever but very unlikely to work except with fleets of identical vehicles (Taxis?, delivery vans, government cars, buses at Logan, perhaps ZipCar).

You need to come to terms with the fact that the Internal Combustion engines will be the dominant motive source for moving people for the next 3 or more decades in spite of any imaginable breakthroughs in batteries just due to the sheer numbers of cars in peoples hands
 
whighlander said:
Smess

I'll believe that one when I see it -- you know that the Indy and Nascar guys can change tires and fuel in well under a minute -- but I wouldn't expect that anytime soon at Sears Auto

There are many problems with the idea of changing batteries including:
1) Lack of Standardization -- all of the vendors will have different battery boxes, differently located and connected
2) These stations need to be everywhere since you don't know when you need to do the change without knowing where the other stations are located, depending on weather, road conditions, traffic
3) These batteries have to be recharged rapidly that takes high power, specialized cooling, etc

Clever but very unlikely to work except with fleets of identical vehicles (Taxis?, delivery vans, government cars, buses at Logan, perhaps ZipCar).

You need to come to terms with the fact that the Internal Combustion engines will be the dominant motive source for moving people for the next 3 or more decades in spite of any imaginable breakthroughs in batteries just due to the sheer numbers of cars in peoples hands
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No one is saying that this will happen in a mass way in the next 3 years.

#1 is a concern that is being worked out - - the same standardization had to eventually be worked out for tires, gas caps, spark plugs, windshield wipers, etc.

#2 is not a problem - that is what Project Better Place is - - it's an infrastructure company (and, btw, one with over $2 billion in backing from Renault-Nissan, Morgan Stanley, HSBC Financial and GE -we're not talking pipe dreamers here). They don't make the cars. They make the national grid of service stations - - and their onboard GPS-like system currently displays ongoing battery capacity, locations of nearest stations, etc.

I certainly am not running out to buy this today. But it is coming.

I'll be happy with a global non-petroleum automobile rate of 10% by 2020, 30% by 2030 and majority by 2040.

In the meantime, T Boone Pickens idea for all trucking to be Natural Gas by 2020 should be taken as well.
 
Charge time is actually improving at a decent pace. Tesla's Model S will be available in a 300 mile variety. The charging infrastructure is not yet in place nor is the scale required to make advanced electric vehicles affordable for the lower-middle class, but these are both underway and slowly beginning to feed on one another. It's only a matter of time before charging stations are ubiquitous. Unlike a gas station these can be placed anywhere; in your garage at home, at work, anywhere you stop to eat, etc. Oil costs will go up and down as always, but will continue to trend upward while the terribly inefficient combustion engine limps toward obsolescence.
 
Justin7 said:
Charge time is actually improving at a decent pace. Tesla's Model S will be available in a 300 mile variety. The charging infrastructure is not yet in place nor is the scale required to make advanced electric vehicles affordable for the lower-middle class, but these are both underway and slowly beginning to feed on one another. It's only a matter of time before charging stations are ubiquitous. Unlike a gas station these can be placed anywhere; in your garage at home, at work, anywhere you stop to eat, etc. Oil costs will go up and down as always, but will continue to trend upward while the terribly inefficient combustion engine limps toward obsolescence.
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Problem is -- it is not one amenable to "can improve at a decent rate"

Charge time is all about energy transfer and that is inherently limited by heat dissipation (batteries get hot when you charge them) and having the input power

Make a simple computation -- say that a EV and a ICE V are essentially equivalent in efficiency -- to go 40 miles (EV) will take about 1 gallon of gasoline equivalent in energy

1 gallon of gasoline when burned yields 33 kWhr -- see the wikipedia for a table of energy equivalents

Fuel GGE BTU/unit kWh/Unit
Gasoline (base)[2] 1 US gallon 114,000 BTU/gal 33.41

Their in lies the rub -- a typical 110 VAC home circuit can safely deliver 2+ kW = 15 hours
Home circuits exist for electric central heating, central air conditioning water heating, electric ovens, ranges, which are multi KW -- but even these are 4 kW or less (central air conditioner) = 7 Hours of charging

The only exception to the above is the now rare home with central electric heating furnace which can exceed 15 kW when in operation == 2 hours

However, the homes which are wired to deliver 15 KW to a single load are quite rare (that would be 150 A at 110 or 70+ A at 220)

Even more importantly --- the electric grid in very few neighborhoods are designed to deliver that kind of power to a large number of homes continuously -- and changing these things are not like upgrading your cell phone to the latest 4G
 
The other miss statement is about terribly inefficient Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) limping to obscurity

First -- to charge the EV we have to have electricity generation not just distribution and for the foreseeable future -- electric generation is going to involve either burning "fossil fuels" (coal, natural gas) or fissioning Uranium -- these sources operate in the same temperature regime as the ICE -- in fact except for aircraft-type gas turbine peaking units and combined-cycle plants the steam plants operate at a lower input temperature and hence lower efficiency than the automotive ICE

2nd --the use of sensors, actuators and computers in the past 2 decades has made the ICE much more efficient as its operations are continuously adapting to operating conditions -- this process will continue as MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) proliferate delivering ever more precise control in ever lower cost packages

3rd EV's will forever be burdened with the need to carry energy for heating and cooling which doesn't contribute to your range although it might contribute to the comfort -- you can't get around this need and it hurts -- that is why the old-time EV's used an alcohol burning heater

EV's are fine for specialized uses such as delivery vans, taxis, buses at Logan -- but I'm willing to bet that they will not exceed 10% of the residential car market by 2050 without government coercion or bribery -- Of course I didn't think Bulger would ever be caught -- LOL
 
Saw someone charging up a Volt fleet car on Cambridge St.

Volts are kinda ugly little things, huh?
 
Have you seen many? I don't think they look bad in photos, but I'm still waiting for my first encounter with one.
 
That was the first I've seen in person. I liked them enough in photos. I was a bit disappointed to see it in the flesh.
 
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