Electric cars - a arguement for them, an argument against them

[KeyboardDemon]

So at my local Supermarket today, I saw this:



Here's the bigger picture:



The probably only parked there, using up the only two electric car charging points because the store had most likely run out of parking bays for parents with young children and disabled slots, but things like this won't help persuade the general public to move into electric cars, despite knowing that for my family an electric car would make a lot of sense as our average journey is less than five miles and the longest journey we make has a round trip that most electric cars can complete in a single charge. Assuming, that is, we can find a place to charge it.

[kalniel]

You could always park them in and leave a note saying 'back when charged.. see you in 8 hours'

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Wow,thats electrifying!!

[TheAnimus]

Shocking!

[Agent]

Couldn't even get it in once space.

[Knoxville]

Kinda pointless really unless you intend on doing 8 - 12 hours shopping :-/

[DDY]

Kinda pointless really unless you intend on doing 8 - 12 hours shopping :-/

Typical weekend with the other half amirite?

[Sputnik]

I saw this yesterday too. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-18631444


So on the basis of that, 1 hour at the supermarket will give you enough charge for 10miles but, Is it really worth it?

Isn't partial charging of batteries a bad thing ?

[Tumble]

Not necessarily. The batteries in most smartphones these days are very resilient to mapping - that technology is going to translate to cars and laptops and almost anything that runs on rechargeable batteries. Mostly it's the way the batteries are constructed, materials etc, but there's also a lot of work been done recently on charging circuits and the software that controls them, with the primary purpose of not destroying the battery. Even my mountain bike light has a sophisticated charging ciprcuit that allows it to be plugged in and out, part charged and topped up after a part use without damaging hte battery. Still gives me 4hours at max output, just like when it was new 3 years ago.

[MrNeil]

Not really good for the planet really !!If everyone has an electric car then you would need more power stations ..To make the cars the parts come from all over the world so that means more energy being consumed, then some of the parts are moved again to be put together then taken back to the car factory.Most of the metals come from china and they are digging up miles wides hole's which are mega deep and blah,blah you get the message We can't win really

[finlay666]

Not really good for the planet really !!If everyone has an electric car then you would need more power stations ..To make the cars the parts come from all over the world so that means more energy being consumed, then some of the parts are moved again to be put together then taken back to the car factory.Most of the metals come from china and they are digging up miles wides hole's which are mega deep and blah,blah you get the message We can't win really

IIRC the metal for the batteries is mined in Canada

More power stations isnt a bad thing, renewable/long term moves from fossil fuel dependency to things such as tidal, wind and even nuclear are viable alternatives

When they switch from traditional batteries to capacitor based systems you could be looking at a couple of hours for a full charge

[jimbouk]

I did giggle at the charge points at the service station on the M5. It's going to take a long time to get from Birmingham to Exeter in an electric car, and how long do they expect people to sit around at a service station? They charge you after 2 hours usually...

They may be the future, but it's not the future yet!

[MrNeil]

By the time we pull our fingers out of our bums it will be to late !
Human nature to leave things to late !

[MrNeil]

A small artical :


Electric cars impact on Rhodium Demand
February 16th, 2012 | Posted by octafinance in Commodities | Portfolio | Precious Metals | Rhodium

In this article I will share with you some more details about the impact of electric and hybrid cars to the rhodium demand, which will also be important for investors in the PGMs (platinum, palladium).

I received an email today from a reader who was worried what will happen to the rhodium demand and investments in the metal, if electric or hybrid cars production increase. In his opinion because more than 80% of the rhodium market demand is from catalytic converters, and in the long run fuel engines are doomed we have to pay attention to the electric cars development.

That’s why I will post here my reply to him as it’s a part of an analysis that I didn’t share with you in my previous writings. I will start with my own opinion that fuel engines are not doomed even in the long-run and that is because of the supply and existence of rare earth metals.

Now, let’s start with a little introduction. Hybrid cars are required to have catalytic converters because they have fuel engines along with electric engines. Hybrids do have catalytic converters and are not a threat to the rhodium demand.

Electric cars don’t need catalytic converter but here are my three main points why electric cars will never be of a much importance to the rhodium demand:

1. Rare Earth Metals in electric cars. There are not enough rare metals in the world to produce much electric cars. About 95% of all rare earth metals come from China, which lowered its export quote to world in attempt to save its resources for the decades ahead and for its own production. For example, electric cars use rare earth metals in their electric motors and car batteries like neodymium which is in deficit even at this increase of electric cars and other tech stuff.

Currently, every Toyota Prius uses 2.2 lbs (1 kg) of neodymium in each motor, while the hybrid batteries each pack 22-33 lbs. (10-15 kg) of lanthanium (another earth metal in short supply). In summary, even if we find more rare earth metals, they will be much more expensive which will make these cars much more noncompetitive to normal. Even now, electric cars are more expensive than gas because such rare metals.

2. Electric cars production. Even if you are not yet sure that I’m right in my assessment about the future of electric cars and their impact to the rhodium demand (which I believe will be very little), let me refer you to this: President Obama’s goal of putting 1 million electric cars on the road in the U.S. by 2015. Pike Research Forecasts 1 Million Plug-in Electric Cars by 2016. That’s not even 1% of the car market. How will such small share have significant impact to the rhodium demand?

For example, according to CSM Worldwide Inc. (IHS Global Insight Automotive), February 2011, if there is no recession and Asia keep buying cars as fast as now, just for one year the world will buy in 2012 – 81 million vehicles from 77.6 million in 2011, or 3.4 million vehicles more. That is just for one year. IDC predicts there will be 885,000 electric cars in North America, 780,000 in Europe and 2.7 million worldwide by the year 2015. So, basically in 4-5 years we will have approx 3 million vehicles without catalytic converters, while just between 2011 and 2012, the world will need 3.4 million vehicles more. It seems the world will not need more than 1 million electric cars per year in the next 5 years, so that can’t even absorb 33% of the annual world car demand increase, and is not even 1.5% of the world car production.

3. Impact of electric cars. If we have too many electric cars, we will probably run out of electricity. In order to increase rapidly the share of such vehicles, we will need to also increase the electricity production significantly. Of course that will offset some of the benefits of electric cars, and will probably create another problem – need for more electricity. I won’t go in more details, why it’s not so easy to produce much more electricity than now … I have covered solar, wind, nuclear, coal and other sources… In this point I just want to show you that no idea, no matter how good comes for free and will change the world much. Every idea has its own price. Don’t think that electric cars that are emission free and will save us money for fuel are so efficient for our world and future.

[pauleden]

See how the electric car driver can't even get their POS Vauxhall in the space properly? Why should we think they've made a sensible and considered choice of powertrain for the car?

[KeyboardDemon]

See how the electric car driver can't even get their POS Vauxhall in the space properly? Why should we think they've made a sensible and considered choice of powertrain for the car?

If you look at the second picture, you will see something that an all electric car doesn't need, the exhaust pipe. Therefore the idiot driving the POS vauxhall is parked blocking two bays for electric cars, in a non electric vehicle. Which was sort of my point from the start, that sort of thing frustrates me, it frustrates me more though when I take my mum shopping and can't find a disabled parking spot as all the disabled bays are filled and most of the cars in them don't have blue badges on display in their windows.