Tesla Thread

[tater]

 

[Rakaydos]

I want to know how cheaply Tesla could do a hypothetical "cyber coup"- 2 door and hatchback, single motor, rear facing back seats, 300 mile range, steel and glass from the cybertruck.

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

  

19 minutes ago, Rakaydos said:

rear facing back seats

The Tesla-Tachanka

 

[tater]

Spoiler

 

 

[dave1904]

I'll buy a tesla on the day I can charge it with 100% clean nuclear energy. Until then I do not get the point. 

[wumpus]

Just now, dave1904 said:

I'll buy a tesla on the day I can charge it with 100% clean nuclear energy. Until then I do not get the point. 

The perfect is the enemy of the good.  You're ignoring just how bad an ICE really is, and that a Tesla is more efficient even if the power plant is burning oil.  Typically, they burn natural gas which has less emission issues and may have less geopolitical issues as well.

You'll also have to wait a few decades before anybody will consider financing a nuclear power plant.  It doesn't make sense to tie up the money for as long as it takes to build a plant and potentially be obsoleted by solar improved by multiple generations (that evolved during constructing that nuke plant).

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

  

27 minutes ago, dave1904 said:

a tesla on the day I can charge it with 100% clean nuclear energy

Then it will be Corvesla

Spoiler

...or Tessl-ite

 

Edited February 3, 2020 by kerbiloid

[tater]

27 minutes ago, dave1904 said:

I'll buy a tesla on the day I can charge it with 100% clean nuclear energy. Until then I do not get the point. 

I'm all in for nukes, and yes, all a Tesla does is move the tailpipe to another neighborhood in most cases (minus transmission losses ). That said, having driven one, they're really nice. I want one not because I think it matters in any geological sense, I like acceleration so high you can feel your organs shifting inside your chest cavity. Our BMW in sport mode is slightly slower than the mid level Model 3, but it doesn't feel even close. Meaning there's like a 0.5 second difference in 0-60 between the Tesla and the BMW, but the tesla doesn't feel half a second faster, it feels almost frighteningly fast in comparison. I think it's the huge torque, and instant response vs shifting. I can't even imagine what 2.9s to 60 will feel like in the cybertruck.

Edited February 3, 2020 by tater

[Bill Phil]

7 minutes ago, wumpus said:

The perfect is the enemy of the good.  You're ignoring just how bad an ICE really is, and that a Tesla is more efficient even if the power plant is burning oil.  Typically, they burn natural gas which has less emission issues and may have less geopolitical issues as well.

You'll also have to wait a few decades before anybody will consider financing a nuclear power plant.  It doesn't make sense to tie up the money for as long as it takes to build a plant and potentially be obsoleted by solar improved by multiple generations (that evolved during constructing that nuke plant).

Perfect may be the enemy of good.

But while an ICE is bad, electrics aren’t inherently better. There are numerous reasons for this. I won’t go into them because there’s already quite a lot of literature on the subject.

Nuclear is better in almost every category than solar except for setup costs. Higher capacity factor, higher EROEI, less deaths per kwh, even less waste not to mention less required ground area. Meanwhile solar gets much more in subsidies per kwh despite not really being an effective power source.

For many places (like where I live) nuclear is really the only option for low emission power. Solar power just doesn’t work out well here. Neither does wind or geothermal. Hydro is already used quite a bit here but it’s not enough.

Thankfully we already have a nuclear plant - the first to generate a gigawatt of electricity and the second most powerful one in the US. 

Even the high setup costs may not be inherent with nuclear - a good chunk of the cost is the legal fees and so on associated with starting one. 

The issue isn’t oil - it’s coal. Oil isn’t actually all that common for electricity generation - about 1%. Coal is about 27%. 

And coal is much less efficient. If your EV is powered by coal then it’s worse than an ICE. 

If it’s powered by nuclear it’s far better.

[tater]

 

 

[dave1904]

1 hour ago, tater said:

I'm all in for nukes, and yes, all a Tesla does is move the tailpipe to another neighborhood in most cases (minus transmission losses ). That said, having driven one, they're really nice. I want one not because I think it matters in any geological sense, I like acceleration so high you can feel your organs shifting inside your chest cavity. Our BMW in sport mode is slightly slower than the mid level Model 3, but it doesn't feel even close. Meaning there's like a 0.5 second difference in 0-60 between the Tesla and the BMW, but the tesla doesn't feel half a second faster, it feels almost frighteningly fast in comparison. I think it's the huge torque, and instant response vs shifting. I can't even imagine what 2.9s to 60 will feel like in the cybertruck.

If someone buys a tesla because they do 0-60 3 secs I understand. A friend of mine got one because they are cool. They are even reliable from what I hear so why not. I just do not like the delusional people that think it makes a difference. Not that I am dismissing anything but that currently we are not doing anything other than pretending to care. 

[dave1904]

3 hours ago, wumpus said:

The perfect is the enemy of the good.  You're ignoring just how bad an ICE really is, and that a Tesla is more efficient even if the power plant is burning oil.  Typically, they burn natural gas which has less emission issues and may have less geopolitical issues as well.

You'll also have to wait a few decades before anybody will consider financing a nuclear power plant.  It doesn't make sense to tie up the money for as long as it takes to build a plant and potentially be obsoleted by solar improved by multiple generations (that evolved during constructing that nuke plant).

Just because people are stupid does not mean solar is better. Its politics and not a matter of science. There is no comparison between nuclear and solar. If you are willing to give solar a few generations why not nuclear? By then we might have fusion and then its gg. 

[dave1904]

3 hours ago, wumpus said:

The perfect is the enemy of the good. 

That saying only applies when perfect doesn't exist. Nuclear exists. That being said neither are perfect but one is better. 

[tater]

1 hour ago, dave1904 said:

If someone buys a tesla because they do 0-60 3 secs I understand. A friend of mine got one because they are cool. They are even reliable from what I hear so why not. I just do not like the delusional people that think it makes a difference. Not that I am dismissing anything but that currently we are not doing anything other than pretending to care. 

Yeah, I'm sure some of their appeal is signalling.

Some economists in CA (Stanford or Berkeley) looked at hybrid cars and found that in Bay Area zip codes, the Prius dominated, but a Honda hybrid with virtually identical specs sold about equally well to the Prius in zip codes in TX. The Honda looked just like a regular Civic, so didn't announce it's eco-friendly nature enough. They also found that solar panels in the Bay Area were more likely than they should be to face the street than in less, um, Bay Area zip codes. Ie: they face the street even if that is the wrong direction to point panels---because neighbors need to see the panels or you have not shown you are a friend of the Earth, presumably, lol.

Teslas are nice looking cars. They are fast. The experience of being in them is nice. They have a decently low TCO (I've seen analysis that shows a Model 3 is $2000 cheaper to own over some years (can't remember if it was 5 or 10) than a Toyota Camry that initially costs 12k less than the Tesla. Now that solar is pretty cheap, panels start making sense as well---from a purely economic standpoint. Certainly here in the SW where AC bills in summer are sorta high, and we have 300+ sunny days a year.

 

 

[dave1904]

15 minutes ago, tater said:

Yeah, I'm sure some of their appeal is signalling.

Some economists in CA (Stanford or Berkeley) looked at hybrid cars and found that in Bay Area zip codes, the Prius dominated, but a Honda hybrid with virtually identical specs sold about equally well to the Prius in zip codes in TX. The Honda looked just like a regular Civic, so didn't announce it's eco-friendly nature enough. They also found that solar panels in the Bay Area were more likely than they should be to face the street than in less, um, Bay Area zip codes. Ie: they face the street even if that is the wrong direction to point panels---because neighbors need to see the panels or you have not shown you are a friend of the Earth, presumably, lol.

Teslas are nice looking cars. They are fast. The experience of being in them is nice. They have a decently low TCO (I've seen analysis that shows a Model 3 is $2000 cheaper to own over some years (can't remember if it was 5 or 10) than a Toyota Camry that initially costs 12k less than the Tesla. Now that solar is pretty cheap, panels start making sense as well---from a purely economic standpoint. Certainly here in the SW where AC bills in summer are sorta high, and we have 300+ sunny days a year.

 

 

The only reason electric cars are cheap is because fossil fuels are cheap. Once everything but solar and wind is gone people will be paying the same or more. CA are thinking long term probably. They want to be the new Saudi Arabia with batteries instead of oil. Elon musk illuminati confirmed! 

[tater]

12 minutes ago, dave1904 said:

The only reason electric cars are cheap is because fossil fuels are cheap. Once everything but solar and wind is gone people will be paying the same or more. CA are thinking long term probably. They want to be the new Saudi Arabia with batteries instead of oil. Elon musk illuminati confirmed! 

Certainly part of it. On the energy front, clearly the optimal path would be to expand nuclear power. The initial costs could be mitigated with standardized designs, which would also increase safety (for an industry that is already incredibly safe, deaths per terawatt hour are incredibly low with fission power). For those very concerned about carbon, no one would be very concerned about carbon if the same sort of people who are now overly concerned about carbon had NOT be wrongly concerned about nuclear back in the day. In short a counterfactual history where the US pushes for 80% or more power from nukes is a better place, and EVs look much better, too.

[Kerbart]

4 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

The issue isn’t oil - it’s coal. Oil isn’t actually all that common for electricity generation - about 1%. Coal is about 27%. 

And coal is much less efficient. If your EV is powered by coal then it’s worse than an ICE. 

If it’s powered by nuclear it’s far better.

The discussion “driving electric simply moves the exhaust pipe elsewhere” only holds true when that electricity is generated by burning fossil fuel.

The difference with a high efficiency ICE car is that five years from now, that car is still burning fossil fuel. The electric car might at that point be driving on a 50/30/20 mix of solar, nuclear and fossil.

Coal is rapidly dropping as a means to produce electricity. The problem is always the chicken and the egg; you can’t switch to 100% renewable energy sources overnight and neither does an infrastructure that relies on electric (battery) power sprout up overnight.

What the best way to meet demand for electricity will be in the future, time will tell, but it’s becoming increasingly likely that it’s not going to be coal, and unlikely that it’s going to  be relying on other fossil fuels for the majority as well.

Assuming “the best” technology will be used is risky. The market preferred VHS over Betamax.

[farmerben]

I absolutely love the Ford F series trucks and E series vans.  It totally makes sense to design a van and a truck on the same chassis.  Let's face it bed covers are dumb.  And 90% of the time you want to protect your cargo from rain and thieves.   

The year I bought my farm I also bought a ford E-350 van and a utility trailer.  That combo is better for hauling most things (like machinery) and I have used it for bulk (sand and wood chips).  After a number of years I also bought a ford F-250 truck.  I prefer to use the truck whenever possible, it is more convenient, more maneuverable, and superior off road.  Gooseneck trailers are also superior to rear end trailers, though I don't have one.  

So in my humble opinion, 99% of people would find a work van more useful than pick-up truck.  But to pick up chicks, I want a chrome El Camino with doors like a Delorean.  

Edited February 3, 2020 by farmerben

[tater]

37 minutes ago, farmerben said:

So in my humble opinion, 99% of people would find a work van more useful than pick-up truck.  But to pick up chicks, I want a chrome El Camino with doors like a Delorean.  

I agree with all your takes on trucks actually used for work. That's not the Cybertruck market, however. A few weeks ago I counted just the first 100 pickup trucks I saw in the morning (didn't take long, PUs are a large % of vehicles here in NM). Over 90% were shortbed crewcabs. The few full bed (sheet lumber in the closed bed sized) I saw were mostly older, regular PUs. Of the 90+% that were crewcabs, I'd wager 90% of them had never once had anything "dirty" put in the bed, lol (unless you count a xmas tree ). A decent number were 4x4 versions, aggressive tires, stuff like F-150 Raptors. A decent % of those had likely never been on anything worse than a residential dirt road in Santa Fe (nice neighborhoods in SF have dirt streets, keeps the riff raff out, presumably). Many of those that do go off road probably do not for work, but for leisure. Hiking, camping, hunting, etc.

IMHO, Tesla is aiming at the market segment of leisure PU users, and people who want the abstract ability to haul stuff, but who will likely never really need it.

[dave1904]

50 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

The discussion “driving electric simply moves the exhaust pipe elsewhere” only holds true when that electricity is generated by burning fossil fuel.

The difference with a high efficiency ICE car is that five years from now, that car is still burning fossil fuel. The electric car might at that point be driving on a 50/30/20 mix of solar, nuclear and fossil.

Coal is rapidly dropping as a means to produce electricity. The problem is always the chicken and the egg; you can’t switch to 100% renewable energy sources overnight and neither does an infrastructure that relies on electric (battery) power sprout up overnight.

What the best way to meet demand for electricity will be in the future, time will tell, but it’s becoming increasingly likely that it’s not going to be coal, and unlikely that it’s going to  be relying on other fossil fuels for the majority as well.

Assuming “the best” technology will be used is risky. The market preferred VHS over Betamax.

5 years from now we will be using more fossil fuel and not less. BTW cars are not even a problem. They are something like 5% of the global pollution? Ok instead of the world ending in 100 years it will be in 105.....

[tater]

Yeah, the bulk is from power production and manufacturing, right?

Locally, the large % of visible pollution most places is probably from vehicles, though (traffic smog). I'd be for cutting emissions just to make seeing better, frankly.

Electrics are here to stay, and I think it can drive interesting tech developments. Heck, I don't live in a real city, but I really like a good "walking city" (NYC/Boston/San Francisco/London/etc), and any dense urban area would be improved by electric vs ICE vehicles (particularly delivery trucks belching diesel smoke). Again, just from a "quality of life" standpoint (my current SUV is a gas guzzler, and the sedan is a manual (because we like shifting) lol).

Edited February 3, 2020 by tater

[wumpus]

7 hours ago, tater said:

I'm all in for nukes, and yes, all a Tesla does is move the tailpipe to another neighborhood in most cases (minus transmission losses ). That said, having driven one, they're really nice. I want one not because I think it matters in any geological sense, I like acceleration so high you can feel your organs shifting inside your chest cavity. Our BMW in sport mode is slightly slower than the mid level Model 3, but it doesn't feel even close. Meaning there's like a 0.5 second difference in 0-60 between the Tesla and the BMW, but the tesla doesn't feel half a second faster, it feels almost frighteningly fast in comparison. I think it's the huge torque, and instant response vs shifting. I can't even imagine what 2.9s to 60 will feel like in the cybertruck.

Electric cars certainly do more than just move the tailpipe to another neighborhood.  High power electric motors are far more efficient than any ICE (typically at least a factor of 2), let alone their high-powered competition.  Hybrids are another story, and allow high efficient/low power ICE engines to combine with electric motors (which could be high power).

4 hours ago, dave1904 said:

Just because people are stupid does not mean solar is better. Its politics and not a matter of science. There is no comparison between nuclear and solar. If you are willing to give solar a few generations why not nuclear? By then we might have fusion and then its gg. 

The problem is "a few generations of nukes" could be an entire century.  "A few generations of solar" could be a decade (probably less generations, but still a far, far, faster turnover).  One nuke plant is a huge commitment, and it isn't clear who is going to front the money.  That said, I've heard there is work being done in India and I can hope for the best.

2 hours ago, dave1904 said:

5 years from now we will be using more fossil fuel and not less. BTW cars are not even a problem. They are something like 5% of the global pollution? Ok instead of the world ending in 100 years it will be in 105.....

EU data says that "transportation" creates 25% of the CO₂ in Europe (power generation 33%).  But "transportation" also produces 60+% of the smog.  Granted, as long as China (and Germany*?) burns coal for power that will likely be the main cause of all air pollution (although cars won't help).

https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/2599XXX/page010.html

* Because nuke plants chill your kidneys** or something, so Germany had to close them down and switch to fossil fuel.  And apparently the softest/worst coal they could find.

** Something about German motorcycle riders being afraid of chilling their kidneys.  Different places have different superstitions, and the one weird thing I could think of that I've heard Germans believed was "chilled kidneys".

[farmerben]

1 hour ago, tater said:

 Of the 90+% that were crewcabs, I'd wager 90% of them had never once had anything "dirty" put in the bed, lol (unless you count a xmas tree ). A decent number were 4x4 versions, aggressive tires, stuff like F-150 Raptors. A decent % of those had likely never been on anything worse than a residential dirt road in Santa Fe (nice neighborhoods in SF have dirt streets, keeps the riff raff out, presumably).

That's kinda funny.  In the center of the county, the nice paved roads with lines on them attract dudes in crewcabs who plunk down half million dollar McMansions and get a bass boat they need as often as their 4x4.  Mud is almost the main situation where you really need 4wd, and that is nearly always off public roads (except some public lands NF, etc).  Nearly all the generation X friends I know who bought acerage, did so along crappy roads.  Prices are much lower, and nature is often better.  

However the culture, of teenagers especially, loves driving in mud.  It's more popular than deer hunting because it's a group activity you can do every week.  The riff raff comes out of local high schools.  Unfortunately burglaries happen a lot on remote crummy roads in broad daylight when people are not home, and the neighbors never even notice.  

 

 

[tater]

31 minutes ago, wumpus said:

Electric cars certainly do more than just move the tailpipe to another neighborhood.  High power electric motors are far more efficient than any ICE (typically at least a factor of 2), let alone their high-powered competition.  Hybrids are another story, and allow high efficient/low power ICE engines to combine with electric motors (which could be high power).

This is simply untrue. You are examining a system. The total system is the car (certainly more efficient in terms of power to KE), AND the powerplant that supplies the electricity to the car (which is under the hood of the ICE). So if the EV is being charged by coal, then you need top account for the coal emissions to generate the power used, minus transmission losses. Yes, there are economies of scale with power generation, so maybe the EV still comes out ahead. If you live in LA, from a local pollution standpoint all you have done is move your tailpipe to NW New Mexico (the Four Corners coal plant sells power to CA). The amount might be less, but each car's worth is pollution in NM done by people in CA.

31 minutes ago, wumpus said:

The problem is "a few generations of nukes" could be an entire century.  "A few generations of solar" could be a decade (probably less generations, but still a far, far, faster turnover).  One nuke plant is a huge commitment, and it isn't clear who is going to front the money.  That said, I've heard there is work being done in India and I can hope for the best.

Not really. We're already at Generation 3+, and Gen 4 designs exist. the only issue is regulatory and lawsuits. Solar is battery limited, nuclear is very scalable. I have PVs, BTW, but I consider PVs a great distributed tech, and all central power should be nukes, and should have been decades ago. Anyone who claims to care about carbon who isn't pro-nuke is either lying, or can't do math, IMO.

 

31 minutes ago, wumpus said:

EU data says that "transportation" creates 25% of the CO₂ in Europe (power generation 33%).  But "transportation" also produces 60+% of the smog.  Granted, as long as China (and Germany*?) burns coal for power that will likely be the main cause of all air pollution (although cars won't help).

https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/2599XXX/page010.html

* Because nuke plants chill your kidneys** or something, so Germany had to close them down and switch to fossil fuel.  And apparently the softest/worst coal they could find.

** Something about German motorcycle riders being afraid of chilling their kidneys.  Different places have different superstitions, and the one weird thing I could think of that I've heard Germans believed was "chilled kidneys".

LOL. My wife says Russians think they get urinary tract infections from sitting on cold benches.

[Bill Phil]

5 hours ago, Kerbart said:

The discussion “driving electric simply moves the exhaust pipe elsewhere” only holds true when that electricity is generated by burning fossil fuel.

The difference with a high efficiency ICE car is that five years from now, that car is still burning fossil fuel. The electric car might at that point be driving on a 50/30/20 mix of solar, nuclear and fossil.

Coal is rapidly dropping as a means to produce electricity. The problem is always the chicken and the egg; you can’t switch to 100% renewable energy sources overnight and neither does an infrastructure that relies on electric (battery) power sprout up overnight.

What the best way to meet demand for electricity will be in the future, time will tell, but it’s becoming increasingly likely that it’s not going to be coal, and unlikely that it’s going to  be relying on other fossil fuels for the majority as well.

Assuming “the best” technology will be used is risky. The market preferred VHS over Betamax.

Driving electric doesn't simply move the exhaust pipe everywhere - it's complicated and highly dependent on location.

Coal is losing share as an electricity supply, but it is still in use in many areas.

Fossil fuels are usually how electric demand is met - almost all renewable systems are too intermittent to provide baseload power. Only hydro and geothermal are capable of that.

1 hour ago, wumpus said:

Electric cars certainly do more than just move the tailpipe to another neighborhood.  High power electric motors are far more efficient than any ICE (typically at least a factor of 2), let alone their high-powered competition.  Hybrids are another story, and allow high efficient/low power ICE engines to combine with electric motors (which could be high power).

Efficiency?

Uh oh.

You see, higher efficiency has an interesting consequence - higher consumption. This is almost always the case, even has a name. Jevons paradox. 

So more efficient cars in the form of electrics will create an increase in demand for electric power - new capacity will need to be installed. There's about 270 million motor vehicles in the US. Electrifying a decent chunk of the market will lead to more demand for electricity. This is far more likely to be met by natural gas than any renewable system. Once range issues are dealt with this increase in efficiency might also lead to an increase in driving miles, or perhaps an increase in average speed. This will likely lead to an increase in carbon emissions due to an increase in the total power consumed by the grid through EVs.

Electrifying other industries will likely have the same affect.

Even energy storage systems benefit fossil fuel plants far more than renewable plants - coal and natural gas will be able to operate at or near their maximum capacity factor for the duration of their lifespan minus downtime. This will also lead to an increase in carbon emissions.

Unless we do what France did and migrate to a majority nuclear power infrastructure. Efficiency will not save the world. This has to be addressed at every point in the process or it will literally be worse than it is now.

1 hour ago, wumpus said:

The problem is "a few generations of nukes" could be an entire century.  "A few generations of solar" could be a decade (probably less generations, but still a far, far, faster turnover).  One nuke plant is a huge commitment, and it isn't clear who is going to front the money.  That said, I've heard there is work being done in India and I can hope for the best.

We don't need to wait a few generations. The technology we have now is well suited to baseload power requirements. We let our nuclear industry die off in the past - it's no wonder new plants are so difficult to start up.

1 hour ago, wumpus said:

EU data says that "transportation" creates 25% of the CO₂ in Europe (power generation 33%).  But "transportation" also produces 60+% of the smog.  Granted, as long as China (and Germany*?) burns coal for power that will likely be the main cause of all air pollution (although cars won't help).

https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/2599XXX/page010.html

* Because nuke plants chill your kidneys** or something, so Germany had to close them down and switch to fossil fuel.  And apparently the softest/worst coal they could find.

** Something about German motorcycle riders being afraid of chilling their kidneys.  Different places have different superstitions, and the one weird thing I could think of that I've heard Germans believed was "chilled kidneys".

Keep in mind that that "transportation" data likely includes many other sources beyond passenger vehicles. Indeed, semi trucks were responsible for 12.5% of US GHG emissions in 2013. Airplanes and shipping vessels are also large problems globally.

Again, Jevons paradox applies. Electrifying semi trucks will likely lead to an increase in the use of semi trucks, and if the ultimate source of that energy is still fossil fuels (as it is likely to be) then total emissions are likely to still increase, potentially even faster.

Interestingly Germany has been trying to develop their renewable industry - and the amount they've spent likely could have been used to build a large nuclear industry for most of the country. It's actually quite disheartening. Renewables are not the solution to our problems.

Edited February 4, 2020 by Bill Phil