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What the actual fuck⁈ “Batteries can catch on fire.” Sure, whatever could go wrong with a 1000l tank of FUCKING GASOLINE.
AAAaaaaHHhh I hate people!
Going with the “batteries catch on fire argument” is stupid. “Batteries are heavy and expensive” is probably more compelling. But yeah, wires are better solution for things going in fixed routes.
The ammount of water required to put out a normal car is infinitely less than the amount required to put out a battery fire.
Not to mention the extra weight, nor the retention loss per recharge meaning we need to change batteries every 2-4 years polluting a lot more, we ain’t even talking about the energy loss when doing the conversion to electric and then again to mechanical.
The electric transport is the way to go in the future, but firts it needs to have a solid foundation, and nuclear is the way to go at least in this moment. Otherwise we are only making things worse.
we need to change batteries every 2-4 years
Wait, what‽ No. We don’t need to change batteries every 2-4 years. That’s what you do with TV remote controls and temperature sensors, not electric car batteries, LOL!
Electric car batteries are made to last at least 7 years (from a warranty standpoint) but in reality it’s more like 10. Not only that but they’re not single, gigantic objects. They’re made of lots of “cells” so if one of them is going bad you can replace just that one bad cell.
Anecdote: The batteries in my Prius lasted 15 years before I had to replace one of the cells. Then a year later I had to replace another one. A year after that I sold it so I have no idea how the batteries are doing right now but I’m sure another cell would probably need to be replaced by now 19 years in service).
I’d also like to point out that the latest electric car batteries are vastly superior to the ones in my Prius.
Yeah, what I’ve heard is that water cooling the batteries (like almost every EV does now) massively extends the life. Early Prius batteries had no cooling and the heat degraded them faster. 15 years is a pretty good life still.
On the subject of battery warranty:
The federal government requires manufacturers to offer an eight-year/100,000-mile warranty on all EV batteries. California does one better, mandating a warranty of 10 years or 150,000 miles. Some companies will cover a battery only if it completely stops working, while others will replace the battery if it falls below a certain capacity, usually 70% of the original, while still under warranty.
It’s important to note, a degraded battery, even with 50% of its original capacity is still useful. Someone who doesn’t need the range could drive it, or the battery could be taken apart, and have the cells repurposed or recycled. Lithium and some of the other rare metals used in batteries are quite valuable for recycling, and our abilities to do so are getting better every year.
I didn’t mean it literally, but easily it could be considering how u lose performance if u use a battery powered vehicle in somewhere to hot, or to cold.
Also, look how much degradation suffers the battery’s https://www.geotab.com/blog/ev-battery-health/
According to Geotab a Tesla will be at 90% of it’s initial State of Health (SoH) after 5 years of use while a Leaf (which is well-known for shit thermal management and poor battery quality) will be at 80%. That’s worse than their other charts which show averages of 85% SoH in an equivalent amount of time.
Regardless, even operating at 80% after five years is completely fine. The curve isn’t really linear anyway so after about 10 years the batteries will likely be operating at about 70% of their original SoH in the worst case scenario.
Also consider that the price of lithium ion batteries has dropped consistently year over year for the past decade. There was a bit of a hiccup because of COVID but that’s over now and the price is continuing to drop. That means the cost of a replacement battery pack in 10 years will likely be 60-90% cheaper (if the current trend continues) than it is today.
So? First of all, my platina already has more than 12-13 years and if I lose any performance if I lose any at all, is gonna be maybe, MAYBE %3. And the real matter is all the implications of making those batteries, contamination, and NO FUCKING IMPROVEMENT OVER A NORMAL CAR, in any case it would be worse. What’s the point of making ur car battery dependent when the energy used to charge it comes from burning the same fossil fuel as before, but now losing energy in the conversions from one kind of energy to another.
That’s without even talking about all the draconian software locks, how companies r starting to lock functions wich already come with the vehicle, how they r trying to kill the right to repair, etc, etc, etc. We don’t even know if changing batteries is gonna be allowed or if its gonna be illegal in some way as apple shenanigans already did it in Mexico where its now illegal to even install linux in a computer u already buy it since it would be “alteration without agreement”. Want a real change and really helping the planet? we need better public transport and changing how we produce electric energy as a whole, because right now just putting a battery in a car and calling it a day is just additional problems to the already present ones in traditional cars.
Electric car batteries are made to last at least 7 years (from a warranty standpoint) but in reality it’s more like 10. Not only that but they’re not single, gigantic objects. They’re made of lots of “cells” so if one of them is going bad you can replace just that one bad cell.
Sincere question, what happens with the second hand electric vehicle market? New electrics make a ton of sense, but in my mind the ‘used car’ market becomes essentially unobtainable for poor folk. If a 12 year old electric vehicle hits the market, eventually the second or third owner is going to have to replace the batteries and poor people can’t afford the 5000 plus labor to get new cells for it.
This isn’t a situation that affects me, at the moment, but there are millions of people around the globe who buy the $1000 car and drive it until it just doesn’t go anymore. I don’t see that being an option for electrics.
Sure, that replacement time isn’t 4 but 15-20 years (well, except early Leafs that didn’t have battery temperature management of any kind), but my 20 year old car’s gas tank fits just as much gas as it did 20 years ago.
If you think any ICE car is going to outlast an electric you’re mistaken. EVs have a fraction of the moving parts of an ICE car and as a result are expected to last a lot longer. 30+ years for an electric car isn’t out of the question. Especially the latest ones with their water cooled batteries.
The number of moving parts is just one (albeit a great big) factor as to why EVs are a lot more reliable and will last a lot longer than an ICE car. There’s other elements as well such as the regenerative braking… You basically have an expiration date that tells you when to replace the brake pads instead of a number of miles (or thickness). Because the brake pads themselves will never wear enough from normal driving to warrant replacement. Instead you have to figure out the replacement time based on exposure to natural radiation (LOL) and seasonal hot/cold cycles.
The magnets in the motors lose about 5% of their strength every 100 years. So again, the thing you’re accounting for when figuring out how long the motors will last is the exposure to natural radiation degrading the insulation of the wires (LOL).
I’m aware an ICE car requires more maintenance. But, two things. My gas tank doesn’t get smaller over time and good luck taking your Tesla or Chevy Bolt to an unauthorized repair shop and let them try to fix anything without access to OEM diagnostic tools. Yes, new ICE cars are also full of this bullshit, but hey, my 20 year old ICE car isn’t!
Good luck finding or affording gas in 20 years!
You’ll have to go down to the boat dock to fill up your ICE car because there won’t be gas stations anywhere else.
and nuclear is the way to go at least in this moment.
Nuclear is about to go away, looking at the statitics.
I thought he wanted nuclear energy in cars?
Why would I want a ducking bomb under me ? No, I want I city with solar+nuclear power energizing public transport and THEN maybe u could use a battery personal vehicle to move like an autonomous trolleybus.
My problem with “electric” cars right now is where the energy comes from.
Nuclear is about to go away FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK German government
Just remember that “good” solutions are still preferred over “bad” solutions, and there are never any “perfect” solutions. I see too many people think electric cars are terrible because of what they’ve been told, like the batteries. For me, it’s like “Yeah, but they’re still better than ICE vehicles”. They’ll get better, they’re definitely not perfect, but they are just better
Yup batteries are not the way. By the time the batteries need to be replaced you might have helped slightly but probably not. Batteries is a illusion to going green right now. Just another product that has a demand and an easy market for it.
What would be a better alternative if you exclude the use of fossil fuels?
fixed overhead wires, as OP suggested?
You’re aware that diesel is quite hard to catch on fire
No it’s not. It’s harder to catch fire than gasoline.
It still catches fire easily.
Gasoline doesn’t burn that easily, either. Cars with gas tanks don’t burst into flames while sitting powered off in a garage. Even when they get wrecked they don’t usually burst into flames.
On the other hand, gasoline is slowly causing the world to burst into flames…
Well yeah… You need a spark to cause a fire. To have ignition you need oxygen, fuel and a spark.
Nothing burns easily if there’s no spark.
You can toss a lit match into a puddle of diesel and the match will go out. Diesel burns, but since it doesn’t evaporate as fast as gasoline, you don’t have those flammable gases hanging in the air. A trail of diesel that’s being burned at one end will not spread, unlike gasoline.
Okay
That’s why he said gasoline tho
But that’s not relevant for busses
Gasoline and diesel can be extinguished relatively easily. Extinguishing an EV means throwing it into a tub of water for a day or two
Gasoline vehicles also don’t tend to catch fire spontaneously while parked. That risk exists with every unattended lithium-ion battery undergoing recharging. People technically shouldn’t be plugging their phones in at night and then going to sleep, but everyone does it anyway.
Doesn’t matter much for phones, but when talking EV charging… Night electricity tends to be cheaper when it’s not solar energy season.
Can’t wait for miles of 240V extension cords when EU makes even used non EVs illegal. Yes, millions of city dwellers in apartments totally have a garage to charge in.
There will be solutions by 2050 (the proposed timeframe for having a zero-emissions fleet). For an example, vehicles with combustion engines can still be newly registered after 2035 if they use only CO2-neutral fuels. I think EU would rather ban sale of fossil fuels than ban used cars that can technically burn fossil fuels. If only plant-based fuels are available, it doesn’t matter what the cars can technically burn.
The German big 3 are already developing cars that would only run on non-fossil fuels I believe.
Secondly, chargers near apartment buildings and on sidewalks can be added. We have plenty of time.
And I’m sure Germany will water down the regulations even more so in the end, I’m fairly sure they’ll consider new MHEVs fine after 2035.
And finally, those who can’t charge at home will do so at the charging stations. It’s not a huge issue if you have a battery with 500+ km of range. Might be an issue for i-miev and first gen Leaf owners though.
Unless we get mass producable, cheap fuel like CHOOH2, “cars can use co2 neutral fuels” is translation to “in reality no ICE cars for the mass population”
Secondly, chargers near apartment buildings and on sidewalks can be added. We have plenty of time.
And who will pay for those? My town can barely get enough money to maintain street lights, who will install and maintain the charging infrastructure on streets where it will inevitably get destroyed?
And finally, those who can’t charge at home will do so at the charging stations.
Oh yes, so now instead of 15 minute wait at a gas station I will only have to wait 2 hours before a space is available and then 30 minutes to charge, all while thinking “how much is this quick charge degrading my battery”
There’s 27 years to go till EU’s predicted (not required by law) end of ICE cars. There’s time to invest, time to innovate and hopefully time for your town to reduce crime and gain more resources.
Also HVO is pretty affordable nowadays. Maybe 20% more than regular diesel fuel at most. It is claimed to be carbon neutral. I’m sure something similar will be developed for otto cycle engines.
Also unless you’re planning to use a first gen leaf past the 2050s, quick charging isn’t very bad. All modern EVs have battery cooling and will also throttle charging when the temperature rises. The don’t full on go 350kW for 20 minutes straight.
Waiting 2 hours is solved by installing more chargers. Clearly a regional issue with fuel pumps as well because I never have to wait over 2-3 minutes.
Please don’t put lithium in water; that will make it worse.
Tell that to firefighters.
But cables ugly/s
And the same people who gripe about overhead cables apparently have no trouble staring at a street full of idling, polluting, and noisy cars. It’s really impressive.
This is just a tram without the tracks? Guessing it is just for charging otherwise why not just have a tram which is much safer, more space and can basically drive itself
It has some benefits if they are worth or not I am not so sure.
It’s easier to change the routes, either permanent or temporally. In the case of temporally if it has a second source of power like battery or non electrical engine it can like use a non electrified street if there is some emergency or construction or whatever.
You can change routes for special days easily without junctions or whatever is needed for trams without big issues.
And even if it needs to electrify a new zone it, it probably much faster than the work for adding new rails and junctions.
Exactly, you don’t need to build tram tracks, and you can easily build routes uphill/downhill. I’m no expert on trams but I think it’s pretty complicated to have them go through versatile environments without having to build tunnel systems etc, so building a network that makes even more remote corners of a city accessible is much easier.
Because diesel catching on fire is totally unheard of.
Because diesel catching on fire is totally unheard of.
On it’s own? Pretty much unheard of. Usually is a leak and something else set it on fire.
Batteries on the other hand plenty of cases where the battery itself was the starting point. Is usually cause by a bad design or external factors? Yes, not saying otherwise.
And tbh Diesel is the worse example you could put as requires either high pressure or a continuous exposure to a flame as you could throw a lit match on it and it wouldn’t set it on fire. Petrol/Gasoline on the other hand…
Both cases are “external factors causing a fire”
Imagine your car catching fire while you are pumping fuel…
I don’t have to imagine, I saw it with my own eyes. Although it was a bike. Some random spark somewhere ignited the fumes, scary shit.
Honestly, for growing places, or places with bad public transit, diesel busses are the way to go. They are the cheapest and require almost no new infrastructure so it can offset car emissions quicker than the other options. Established bus routes that are popular should be converted to tram lines or BRT.
Diesel busses should be considered the last alternative though, out of all the mass transit options they are still the worst for the environment. Not unless a city has exhuasted all other options should they look into them, or truly have no money for alternatives.
Downtown areas can easily be canternaried for electrified busses, and battery busses are great for trips within cities.
If a city is growing then it’s the perfect time to lay down rail and plan it out properly before road infrastructure gets in the way, and rail always pays off in the long run.For longer trips then fine, diesel, but only if 1) It’s out of range for electrified busses and 2) there is not ridership enough for rail. (but even then, look at the UK’s request stop numbers and I’d say that argument is pretty flimsy)
When I was there I found those busses really cool. But to my knowledge, they’re being phased out. They essentially combine the worst of bus and tram:
- relies on special infrastructure and thus cannot go anywhere, is more expensive than bus
- often shares the street with other cars being more vulnerable to traffic, uses tires (leading to fine particles)
Trams are surely better, but the simple infrastructure and relative simplicity of the drive train make trolley often cheaper than a diesel bus. Trolley buses with a small battery can also deviate from standard lines or bridge small areas between trolley lines.
Trolleybuses are the best compromise because they can (and in my country/city do) work as diesel/battery buses
Best solution: trams (or streetcars, for Americans)
The fact that “streetcar” means something unrelated to both a street and a car is above my IQ
I see it the other way. Trolleybuses (with either battery or diesel backup) are the best of both worlds. Much cheaper to built (compared to a tram) and doesn’t pollute in the city (compared to a full diesel bus)
Meanwhile in Australia:
Bitch I’m a truss
What am I looking at? A diesel bus on rails?
Pretty much. This is the O-Bahn in Adelaide. More info (and the original picture I shamelessly ganked) here: Wikipedia link
Missed opportunity not have these as 3rd rail trolleybuses on these segments
That looks pretty sick ngl
It didn’t suck as a solution when it was implemented. The buses function like small diesel trains; they don’t have to deal with traffic, and can travel faster because they kinda lock in to the rails. It didn’t need as much land as a freeway or cost as much as a dedicated train line because you could just retrofit old buses. Plus the advantage of being able to run a standard bus route at each end of the line, no need for connecting services.
We have something similar in the UK, guided busses.
Holy shit, I didn’t know that. I always thought the O-Bahn was a unique piece of Adelaide weirdness. Adelaide has a lot of weirdness.
Yikes
People need to learn the difference between „Doesn’t catch fire“ and „Doesn’t burn AS EASY AS gasoline“.
The problem with battery fires is that most batteries are made out of lithium which reacts with pretty much everything and is extremely difficult to put out.
In addition obtaining the rare earth metals for these batteries ecologically is a real challenge and it will only get worse the more we use.
I’m not saying we should abandon electric cars but we should know the benefits and drawbacks of each option before making a decision.
I didn’t mean batteries, I was talking about diesel. Should have made that clearer, my bad.
Depends on battery tech. LFP batteries dont use cobalt and manganese, and have have much less chance of fire when punctured for example
Obviously diesel burns and batteries don’t really explode, but the only way to put out an EV fire is to dunk the car for a few days in a tub of water. And how many of those will a fire department have? 1-5?
Wait this isn’t a thing in the west?
We have them in at least one city in Austria (Linz), although it’s only one or two bus lines out of a few dozen I think.
In my city in Spain I remember them from when I was a child. They were removed during the early 2000s. But ten years ago, last time I visited, they still had some in Seville.
I like them because they are much quieter than buses and honestly it makes so much sense… buses rarely have to go out of their route
They are being phased out in most places. I think in favor of train and electric buses.
Buses are lame. They combine the cons of public transit with the cons of driving a car in a city. I believe in tram surpremacy.
I love trams, light rail, and subway systems. I’ve had to think long and hard about why. Busses have notable advantages for flexibility and redundancy in the system, so why do I prefer to use a railed transit solution?
For light rail, grade separated trams, and subways it’s easy: they’re faster in the city. Like… WAY faster. They don’t fight traffic so I wait a few minutes (at most) in any city with real transit solutions, ride for a short bit, hop off, and I’m there. Not having to deal with my car is freedom.
So… trams… why trams over busses?
First of all they’re bigger. There’s more elbow room and it’s easier to get on and off. It’s easier for a group of people (see: me and the kids) to all climb on and make room. The doors are larger and it’s easier to use multiple doors to load a large group so the people getting on and off a tram can go much faster. There is less shuffling along trying to wedge yourselves into the tram like you’re forced to do on a bus.
Second, they’re predictable and have a visible route. When I’m walking around, I can tell where the tram will be because I can follow the rails. I don’t have to guess what the route will be or where I should go to meet it. Yes, busses have signs every so often, but it’s not nearly the same as seeing the rails and knowing I’m on the route. This is especially true if they do move the bus route (which is what everyone who advocates for busses says is a good thing), and I don’t know it. The bus is just gone.
Thirdly, the tram drives in a predictable path. I can be near it and know where it’s going to go. In fact, whole big crowds of people do it all the time in plazas in Europe. You can walk near the rails and know that you’re still safe. Check out the plaza in front of the main train station in Amsterdam. They chose to run the trams right through it, but not allow busses since they weren’t safe and predictable enough.
Fourth, they’re quiet. Trolley Busses get this too, but trams have had it a long time. They can co-exist with a people-oriented space without being too disruptive. When you sit in a cafe talking with your friends and the tram goes by it’s no big deal. When a diesel bus goes by it’s incredibly noisy.
Lastly, they’re a community commitment. When a city installs a tram, the whole city knows that the route it travels will be supported for a long time. If you choose to live near a stop, you’ll have transit. If you’re choosing to start a business, you’ll want to be close to the tram line so customers can easily get there. The same isn’t nearly as true for a bus line. I haven’t really pinned down why yet, but there’s a very different feel to rolling along on a tram while looking at businesses to visit, and rolling along on a bus. You just don’t have the same kind of connection to the street around you on a bus that you do on a tram.
You. You get it.
The tram supremacy doesn’t lie in the inherent nature of the technology but in the way we treat it! Trams get:
- their own lane
- dedicated signals at intersections (often even priority)
- infrastructure money and thus planning effort
In short, they are (usually) treated like public transport. Busses on the other hand are too often treated like just another car that’s thrown in with the rest but also has the obligations of public transport. If you treated trams like that (sharing the road, waiting behind cars) they would be even worse than busses.
I think someone else mentioned that San Francisco has these. I also wanted to throw in that Seattle has got them too. Maybe it’s a West Coast thing in the USA? I’d be curious to know if other parts of the country have them too.
The best thing trolleybuses have going for them is their relatively low dependence on rare earth elements in production in contrast with BEV buses with their large batteries. Trolleybuses environmental toll is way smaller and it makes producers and operators way less dependent on third world countries devastating the environment with slave labor.
There’s also the centralization advantage and long lifespan. Centralized power generation is nearly always most efficient, and EV batteries degrade relatively quickly, while there are real life examples of 30 year old trolleybuses still operating fine.
Those 30 year old trolleybuses die when power dies, but even semi modern ones (aka 15-10 year olds) can still have diesel backup. New ones always have battery backup.
That’s true but still those batteries are significantly smaller than those of BEV buses - usually trolleybuses with batteries have 5-15km of range compared to 200-350 km of equivalent BEV buses which also means that the trolleybuses are significantly lighter than BEV buses, which helps with efficiency of electricity utilisation. Another efficiency factor is that not having to charge and deplete a huge battery will save quite significant ammnount of power that is lost as heat during battery operation.
batteries are significantly smaller than those of BEV buses
And that is an advantage. Lower cost and lower weight.
No argument here. We need more trolleybuses.
Meanwhile on the Autobahn:
More about this from Tom Scott
Steel rails have even less friction
This is a very nitche application. Tom Scott did a video on it.
I’m very aware of that Tom Scott video, don’t worry. It is an okay middleground, but look at the people in comments pointing out the wear on the trolley.
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Is this a trial or is it getting installed all over? It’s the best solution to electrify goods transport by road. Only a small battery required for off grid to delivery point and back
It is a trial atm. On 5 highways in different areas, a few trucks.
WTF Germany how did I not know this was a thing and why aren’t we doing it here in the US?
Question though. Obviously the wires can’t cover every road and the truck sometimes has to drive off the wired road. Do they have small batteries to carry them between the wires?
The wires aren’t for propulsion, but for recharging electric trucks.
We’ve had these in Boston since I was a kid, but recently they’ve been taking down the wires.
Aren’t those fro the T though? Or did bus routes use them too?
The busses out of Harvard station used them (71, 73, 75? and some others).
Silver line to the airport too, right?
There are 5 testing areas for this atm and only a handful of trucks which use that. These are hybrid trucks having batteries and electrical engines besides the main traditional diesel engine. So it’s far from an widely adopted tech right now.
A beauty
San Francisco has a fair number of overhead electric busses, too.
I assumed they were pretty common in cities. I don’t know how practical they would be in suburbs.
Down here in NZ my city used to have these too! Apparently it was the last commercial trolleybus network in Oceania. But as a mostly suburban kind of city environment (not quite American suburbia but still low density), their utility definitely was quite limited by the predefined routes. Eventually more and more routes weren’t even using them. But they were still servicing the old main road high frequency routes, so they were still very useful in those instances. Much better than the diesel buses, too, which were so loud you could hear them coming from several stops away! Eventually they phased the trolleys out in 2017, citing all the usual rubbish like maintenance costs and such. But we hadn’t yet electrified our bus fleet, so for a while we had to borrow a bunch more diesel buses. Still on the road to having a fully electric fleet, and I imagine it will be a good while yet before that happens.
