I drove my first EV

[K4fxd]

Agree with all except oil and gas for next 100 years.

What will replace it? Fusion is the only alternative and it will be at least 100 more years.

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[MartyM]

What will replace it? Fusion is the only alternative and it will be at least 100 more years.

Nuclear is coming back cleaner and safer. Don't forget Wind and solar.

 

[sk47]

Nuclear is coming back cleaner and safer.

Hello; Watched a program promoting nuclear recently. One item of interest was a comparison of deaths attributed to fossil fuels and those to nuclear accidents/mishaps. The program was pro nuclear. The comparison was biased to be sure but not actually incorrect. They threw in deaths from air pollution and the like and chalked them up to fossil fuels.

I do get that there are, so far, few serious nuclear accidents. The ones that have happened have been doozies. Not so much in death totals. More in other ways. Chernobyl wound up with essentially an entombment in concrete and off limits for decades.
The big unresolved issue is storage of nuclear waste. spent fuel and other such waste. Some low level waste was being buried in South Carolina a few decades ago and will need to be monitored for a long time.
Lots of the hotter & more risky spent fuel rods are being kept in what is essentially swimming pools. This stuff will be hot for centuries I believe. There is the rub so to speak. True enough day to day operation is cleaner than burning fossil fuels. We could be using nuclear to replace fossil fuels and have generally cleaner air.

Even if no more nuclear powerplant accidents happen a downside will be all that waste. it will be hot for a long time. I have used this analogy. Say there was nuclear power back at the time of Christ and that energy ran lightbulbs then. We would still have to watch over and keep track of the spent fuel 2024 years later. The spent fuel can be targeted in terrorist attacks and such.

A thing is we have painted ourselves into a corner or few. Our population numbers and lifestyles require lots of energy. Mush of that energy is used to feed us and help us keep from freezing. I get that fossil fuels have problems. I get that nuclear has problems. I get that solar & wind & other green energy have problems. We need to look at nuclear & green energy with the same sort of scrutiny applied to fossil fuels. Each has risks. So far i favor keeping fossil fuels in play for a long time until the green stuff can be proven reliable.
Nuclear is good in the same way an EV does not have tailpipe emissions. if you do not look past the daily emissions nuclear appears very clean. Since we do not have a choice other than to keep using tremendous amounts of energy, I can see gambling with nuclear.

 

[LOL WUT]

Hello; Watched a program promoting nuclear recently. One item of interest was a comparison of deaths attributed to fossil fuels and those to nuclear accidents/mishaps. The program was pro nuclear. The comparison was biased to be sure but not actually incorrect. They threw in deaths from air pollution and the like and chalked them up to fossil fuels.

I do get that there are, so far, few serious nuclear accidents. The ones that have happened have been doozies. Not so much in death totals. More in other ways. Chernobyl wound up with essentially an entombment in concrete and off limits for decades.
The big unresolved issue is storage of nuclear waste. spent fuel and other such waste. Some low level waste was being buried in South Carolina a few decades ago and will need to be monitored for a long time.
Lots of the hotter & more risky spent fuel rods are being kept in what is essentially swimming pools. This stuff will be hot for centuries I believe. There is the rub so to speak. True enough day to day operation is cleaner than burning fossil fuels. We could be using nuclear to replace fossil fuels and have generally cleaner air.

Even if no more nuclear powerplant accidents happen a downside will be all that waste. it will be hot for a long time. I have used this analogy. Say there was nuclear power back at the time of Christ and that energy ran lightbulbs then. We would still have to watch over and keep track of the spent fuel 2024 years later. The spent fuel can be targeted in terrorist attacks and such.

A thing is we have painted ourselves into a corner or few. Our population numbers and lifestyles require lots of energy. Mush of that energy is used to feed us and help us keep from freezing. I get that fossil fuels have problems. I get that nuclear has problems. I get that solar & wind & other green energy have problems. We need to look at nuclear & green energy with the same sort of scrutiny applied to fossil fuels. Each has risks. So far i favor keeping fossil fuels in play for a long time until the green stuff can be proven reliable.
Nuclear is good in the same way an EV does not have tailpipe emissions. if you do not look past the daily emissions nuclear appears very clean. Since we do not have a choice other than to keep using tremendous amounts of energy, I can see gambling with nuclear.

The spent nuclear fuel is stored in fuel pools on site at nuclear facilities until it can be transferred into dry cask storage units which remain onsite. The space needed to house 50 years of spent fuel from a dual reactor plant is less than half a football field. There is space to hold hundreds of years of spent fuel on site at most facilities if needed.

 

[sk47]

The spent nuclear fuel is stored in fuel pools on site at nuclear facilities until it can be transferred into dry cask storage units which remain onsite. The space needed to house 50 years of spent fuel from a dual reactor plant is less than half a football field. There is space to hold hundreds of years of spent fuel on site at most facilities if needed.

Hello; I saw one of the storage pools at Oak Ridge TN back in the 1970's. Would not be too surprised if those old fuel rods are still there. I have seen videos of the torture tests the shipping "caskets" go thru. Old & hot fuel is and has been a political hot potato for decades. Not clear that states still will not allow the shipping of the containers within their borders, but such was the case. This prevented the containers from being stored in a deep mountain site.

It is not the size/volume of the hot material that is a concern. More that it is hot for a very long time. Again, the electricity you may use today from such a plant will result in spent fuel rods that must be contained and watched over for thousands of years.

Another potential risk of the spent fuel as it is stored currently is accidents, terrorism and containment failure. Is this very likely? I do not have a way to gauge that. However such must be considered possible. When we judge fuel sources to generate electricity the pros and the cons need must be considered.
I am willing to gamble with nuclear rather than do without adequate or unreliable power. To put it simply I want to understand all parts of the gamble and not have the risks dismissed. None of the generation plans are risk free. At least one (wind & solar) have serious capacity and reliability questions yet to be answered along with serious environmental impacts.

 

[526 HRSE]

I wouldn't call an Audi a good "bang for the buck." Yes, nice luxury car.... But Audi also makes some of the best and amazing all wheel drive luxury sedans/coupes ever made. Buy one of those while you still can.... BTW, EVs are going on the decline. Toyota can sit back and smugly observe that hybrid-electric (and PHEV) are the future.... EVs are not. The infrastructure doesn't exists on the planet and for at least 70% of the world's population will NEVER exist adequately to support billions of electric cars. NEVER. We will be using oil and gas for the next 100 years. Minimum.

I have an SQ5. It's a great car, but i would never buy them new. Any company that has high monthly lease prices, has zero confidence that their product will retain it's value when driven off the lot. That is a fact and it's how lease pricing is determined.

 

[ZeroTX]

I have an SQ5. It's a great car, but i would never buy them new. Any company that has high monthly lease prices, has zero confidence that their product will retain it's value when driven off the lot. That is a fact and it's how lease pricing is determined.

Yup. Precisely why you can lease a Corolla for next to nothing, heh. They'll get it back off lease and still make bank on it and it'll sell in 20 minutes.

 

[Gnatsum21]

If I could afford a second car it would be a Mustang EV. I like those.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

If I could afford a second car it would be a Mustang EV. I like those.

They don't look bad but the legacy car makers are so far behind Tesla you might want to research that.

Don't know if you are familiar with Munro but they're a company that buys vehicles, tears them down and sells their analysis to competing automakers. Most or all manufacturers use them.

Legacy automakers have a LOT of investment in how they got to where they are and they keep prices down by not reinventing the wheel. But the problem is the "wheels" are completely outdated. New manufactures start with clean sheets of paper with full knowledge of what is inefficient in legacy competition.

Below is a Munro video comparing the Mach E cooling components to a Tesla Model Y. The differences are staggering and apply to most other systems in vehicles. Videos like this are what led me to purchase a Tesla Model 3 Performance. In the video, Munro mentions that regarding cooling, the Mach E cooling systems are probably the 2nd best among EVs but they're absolutely stone age compared to Tesla's.

The cooling components for the Mach E completely cover a HUGE table, guessing 10' by 4'. The equivalent Tesla components are about the size of a picnic cooler.

 

[sk47]

They don't look bad but the legacy car makers are so far behind Tesla you might want to research that.

Don't know if you are familiar with Munro but they're a company that buys vehicles, tears them down and sells their analysis to competing automakers. Most or all manufacturers use them.

Legacy automakers have a LOT of investment in how they got to where they are and they keep prices down by not reinventing the wheel. But the problem is the "wheels" are completely outdated. New manufactures start with clean sheets of paper with full knowledge of what is inefficient in legacy competition.

Below is a Munro video comparing the Mach E cooling components to a Tesla Model Y. The differences are staggering and apply to most other systems in vehicles. Videos like this are what led me to purchase a Tesla Model 3 Performance. In the video, Munro mentions that regarding cooling, the Mach E cooling systems are probably the 2nd best among EVs but they're absolutely stone age compared to Tesla's.

The cooling components for the Mach E completely cover a HUGE table, guessing 10' by 4'. The equivalent Tesla components are about the size of a picnic cooler.

Hello; Well, I watched the supplied video. Not quite so clear cut. First was when they dumped the Ford hoses out of a cardboard box. Next was when they put a 12 volt battery in the ford pile along with a battery box and some other parts, then stated the battery and associated parts had nothing to do with the comparison. I guess adding these extra parts was to enhance the difference visually.
They even threw a radiator/condenser part on the Ford table but failed to show the equivalent Tesla parts. It was stated the Tesla used a heat pump system early on in the video so logically a radiator/condenser type part will be needed but was not shown.
Last thing of note was the Tesla unit was shown assembled as a unit. While the Ford was shown as spread out parts. Not exactly a fair comparison method.

That said the Tesla may indeed be a better design even without the bias of the video. I personally do not have an opinion as i have not worked on either type vehicle. My more sincere hope is the intricate nature of a Ford EV & Tesla EV will be more of an academic study rather than something i will need to know when considering a vehicle purchase.

Since you are one of the few who post on this site who owns an EV I do hope you keep us informed about personal real world experiences.

 

[junits15]

any time I see that black van i know what I'm about to read

 

[K4fxd]

I'm just going to point out I've never heard of Muck E turning into a BBQ or locking it's passengers in it while it burns.

Owner swears it drove itself into the pole.

 

[526 HRSE]

Yup. Precisely why you can lease a Corolla for next to nothing, heh. They'll get it back off lease and still make bank on it and it'll sell in 20 minutes.

Toyota and Honda were always good on lease pricing.

Whenever someone wants to buy a new car, look at the lease prices. Calculate the payment by the term and you'll get pretty close to the price of the car. (without determining money factor) Audi is a nice car, but it will definitely lose 50% of it's value in the first 3 years.

On a lease, your payments are based on depreciation.

 

[526 HRSE]

any time I see that black van i know what I'm about to read

Likely, wisdom.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

any time I see that black van i know what I'm about to read

But to be fair, in this case he said he watched the video but never said he LISTENED to the video. If he had, he would not have been confused. Example: they "EXPLAINED" they included the Ford's battery and box to make it apples to apples because the comparatively tiny Tesla configuration was even more remarkable because it also included the Tesla battery and box. And he would have heard that the part SK called a radiator is the Mach E's CONDENSER. The Tesla's condenser was also shown and described attached to several other components. They BOTH also have a RADIATOR which were NOT shown or discussed.

There are none so deaf as those who will not hear.

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