World class pedantic dickweedery
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@boomzilla said:
...incoherence and irrelevance...
Incoherence and irrelevance: the twin virtues of the climate hysterics.
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@fowkc said:
1. We should stop being so dickish to the environment in general, for reasons that I hope are obvious.
Yeah, but the question is "What does 'being less dickish' mean?" We've already done quite a lot over the last century to improve our relationship with nature.
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@TDWTF123 said:
I'm sure there's a name for that common logical fallacy, but I don't know what it is. It's equivalent to looking at the last guy in the Olympic 100m final and talking about how fast he runs. He's still last, precisely because, fast as he is, he's not as fast as others.
...except that that's not what I'm saying at all. To extend your rather tortured analogy, I'm saying "look at that guy that everyone's pointing out finished last in the Olympic 100m final. Everyone talks about how he came in last, but no one seems to notice that he's a 5-year-old child who made it to the Olympics! Just imagine how fast he'll run once he's as mature as the guys he's running against!"Other than that, you're completely ignorant of automotive history if you call current electric vehicles first-gen.
Oh, I'm well aware that people have been experimenting with battery powered vehicles for a long time. But they were science experiments, academic projects that were never in the same league as normal cars. But unless you can point to a previous electric car that comes anywhere even close to holding a candle to the Tesla Roadster, my statement stands.
But we knew that, given what you cited as the first car.
Ummm... what? OK, if Karl Benz's Motorwagen wasn't the first car, then what was?
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@Mason Wheeler said:
You destroy any and all credibility you might have had when you say something like that. We're programmers here. We're engineers. We understand the value, and the power, of iteration.
That's completely beside the point. Electric cars will probably be awesome, once someone develops good enough battery / capacitor technology. Of course, the electricity still has to come from somewhere...
No, the real point (to continue in an automotive vein) is whether we should use the coercive force of government to make people use shitty electric cars (and make us poorer and live a lower quality of life) or use cars that actually work.
@Mason Wheeler said:Imagine what electric vehicles will look like 130 years from now, if we continue researching the relevant technologies!
I can't think of any reason, short of giant meteor collision or Yellowstone super volcano eruption or
a nice game of chessglobal thermonuclear war that would prevent us from researching the relevant technologies.
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@TDWTF123 said:
No, that's fine. Mauna Loa is not the only measurement station, and the effects of the volcano are allowed-for.
I know it's not the only measurement station, but we're supposed to consider it a Very Important Measurement Station when it's sitting on top of a volcano? And I'm sure they try to massage the numbers to account for volcanic CO2, but that just makes me have even less faith in their measurements. It's like putting your thermometer over the stove and then trying to guess how warm it is inside the house after baking something.
@TDWTF123 said:
There's no real doubt atmospheric CO2 levels have risen.
I don't doubt they've risen over the last 50 years or so, but that's about as far as I'm willing to trust the extrapolations.
@TDWTF123 said:
Some people seem to find it implausible that we might have released enough CO2 to affect the amount in the air...
I don't doubt that we've released a lot of carbon into the air.
@TDWTF123 said:
Whether that has any effect on climate/weather, whether positive or negative, is still unestablished.
Yeah, that's the crux of the issue. What bothers me is the hysterics' models require extremely accurate data over centuries, and we just don't have it.
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@TDWTF123 said:
Some people seem to find it implausible that we might have released enough CO2 to affect the amount in the air, but if you consider what sort of scale of programme you'd propose in order to do that deliberately, the answer might well be something of a similar scale to the amount of fossil-fuel burning we've done.
Most people also don't realize how much of the atmosphere is actually CO2. They hear a measurement like 400ppm, and that sounds high because FOUR HUNDRED, but they forget to divide by a million, and don't realize that we're talking about a tiny fraction of one percent.
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@boomzilla said:
Electric cars will probably be awesome, once someone develops good enough battery / capacitor technology.
Or we could just make cars powered by magical faerie dust. I get what you're saying, but battery technology has always lagged far behind the demand for batteries. The energy density of (expensive) Li-ion batteries is abysmal when compared to hydrocarbon fuels. Maybe you're wrong, but I don't see someone creating in the next 30 years a battery which: has 10 times the energy density of Li-ion, recharges near-completely in a few minutes and which won't generate millions of tons of toxic waste or consume the world's entire supply of a relatively rare material.
@boomzilla said:
@Mason Wheeler said:
Imagine what electric vehicles will look like 130 years from now, if we continue researching the relevant technologies!
I can't think of any reason, short of giant meteor collision or Yellowstone super volcano eruption or
a nice game of chessglobal thermonuclear war that would prevent us from researching the relevant technologies.Man, I would hope we'd have moved beyond cars in 130 years, but you gotta hand it to the electric vehicle people: they set their sights high.
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@morbiuswilters said:
@boomzilla said:
Electric cars will probably be awesome, once someone develops good enough battery / capacitor technology.
Or we could just make cars powered by magical faerie dust. I get what you're saying, but battery technology has always lagged far behind the demand for batteries. The energy density of (expensive) Li-ion batteries is abysmal when compared to hydrocarbon fuels. Maybe you're wrong, but I don't see someone creating in the next 30 years a battery which: has 10 times the energy density of Li-ion, recharges near-completely in a few minutes and which won't generate millions of tons of toxic waste or consume the world's entire supply of a relatively rare material.
I suspect capacitors will displace chemical batteries. But we have a long way to go to get something as energy dense and safe and easy to deal with as gasoline. I suspect some kind of algae synthetic gasoline is at least as likely as electric cars. And it gets to use the existing infrastructure, alongside the normal stuff, so it doesn't have any sort of chicken and egg problem.
Still, there's at least one good reason why electric car research cannot be considered wasted: golf.
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@Mason Wheeler said:
...except that that's not what I'm saying at all. To extend your rather tortured analogy, I'm saying "look at that guy that everyone's pointing out finished last in the Olympic 100m final. Everyone talks about how he came in last, but no one seems to notice that he's a 5-year-old child who made it to the Olympics! Just imagine how fast he'll run once he's as mature as the guys he's running against!"
Yes, that's one point. You're pointing to a full-grown adult and calling it a five year old child. You're also ignoring the fact that others are moving faster.@Mason Wheeler said:
Oh, I'm well aware that people have been experimenting with battery powered vehicles for a long time. But they were science experiments, academic projects that were never in the same league as normal cars.
Nonsense. Please, do your research. Electric vehicles were more popular than ICE-powered, at one point early on. Killed by battery issues, not particularly surprisingly. Despite that, in certain niche applications battery-powered electric vehicles never went away, and have been developed continuously.
, for example. Or, well, all of these: http://earlyelectric.com/carcompanies.html
@Mason Wheeler said:unless you can point to a previous electric car that comes anywhere even close to holding a candle to the Tesla Roadster, my statement stands.
Only if you first establish that ICE-powered cars have stopped improving.
@Mason Wheeler said:OK, if Karl Benz's Motorwagen wasn't the first car, then what was?
You should read Setright on the subject. Benz's claim's strongest support is that Germans take great pride in it and build lots of cars. He built the first automobile produced as a commercial venture, but that doesn't mean much. There's a notable link between the rise of the Nazis, and the pressing of Benz's claim in the thirties over that of the (Jewish) Siegfried Marcus, who'd built the first petrol-engined automobiles a few years earlier (but without any intention to sell them).
Here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Drive-Social-History-Motor-Car/dp/1862076987 - click look inside and read Setright's introduction. (Although, to be fair, he makes the case that it doesn't actually matter who was first.)
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@morbiuswilters said:
@TDWTF123 said:
I forget the details, but I looked into that a while back. It's not a problem at all, even if one is being rigorously skeptical, due to steps that are taken which I can't remember. So, not so much 'trust me' as 'you'd really better go check this one'.No, that's fine. Mauna Loa is not the only measurement station, and the effects of the volcano are allowed-for.
I know it's not the only measurement station, but we're supposed to consider it a Very Important Measurement Station when it's sitting on top of a volcano? And I'm sure they try to massage the numbers to account for volcanic CO2, but that just makes me have even less faith in their measurements. It's like putting your thermometer over the stove and then trying to guess how warm it is inside the house after baking something.
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@boomzilla said:
Most people also don't realize how much of the atmosphere is actually CO2. They hear a measurement like 400ppm, and that sounds high because FOUR HUNDRED, but they forget to divide by a million, and don't realize that we're talking about a tiny fraction of one percent.
I've never understood why that's supposed to matter. It's relative levels that are the issue.
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@boomzilla said:
But we have a long way to go to get something as energy dense and safe and easy to deal with as gasoline.
Yes.
@boomzilla said:
I suspect some kind of algae synthetic gasoline is at least as likely as electric cars. And it gets to use the existing infrastructure, alongside the normal stuff, so it doesn't have any sort of chicken and egg problem.
I do predict synthetic hydrocarbons being what we end up with. Probably fuel cells.
@boomzilla said:
golf.
A good walk ruined.
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@TDWTF123 said:
I forget the details, but I looked into that a while back. It's not a problem at all, even if one is being rigorously skeptical, due to steps that are taken which I can't remember. So, not so much 'trust me' as 'you'd really better go check this one'.
You'll forgive me if I don't have a lot of faith in most climate scientists.
One thing that seems most interesting to me isn't just the shoddy and/or inconclusive science (although that has some WTFs in and of itself): it's the attitude of the people involved. It's so patently unscientific. Shit like "We're not going to give you access to our raw data or our models because you might just use them to try to disprove us." I've had several people go into indignant histrionics when I had the gall to suggest that climate scientists might be motivated more by recognition and grants than by a desire to uncover the truth, as if scientists were a new priest class, above such material concerns.
Ever since the mid-90s the policy of the hysterics has been to shut down debate and ostracize "denialists". Now, that kind of stuff isn't completely unheard of in scientific fields, but it's grown to an extent that is astounding. The culture has become "Shun the non-believers, call them names and accuse them of personal weakness, but never try to debate them on even ground!" which is precisely how religious dark ages function.
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Just to keep the argument going:
@morbiuswilters said:
5) generate tons of toxic batteries.
Batteries are a hell of a lot easier to capture, sequester and recycle than world-wide distributed air-borne carbon.
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@TDWTF123 said:
@boomzilla said:
Most people also don't realize how much of the atmosphere is actually CO2. They hear a measurement like 400ppm, and that sounds high because FOUR HUNDRED, but they forget to divide by a million, and don't realize that we're talking about a tiny fraction of one percent.
I've never understood why that's supposed to matter. It's relative levels that are the issue.Yes and no. I mean, "climate sensitivity" is reported with respect to doubling the amount of CO2. But absolute amounts are still important. Some people get the idea that we're about to be asphyxiated by CO2 unless we start driving electric powered cars and shit like that.
It's really a pretty insignificant greenhouse gas. Alarmists would like you to think that doubling the amount of CO2 is likely to mean an average 4 degrees C increase in global temperature (and let's ignore the trouble about even defining such a thing, let alone measuring it). The mechanism is really indirect though, and relies on water vapor doing the actual work. As time goes on, though, we've learned that there are some questionable things about how previous estimates were created (stuff like using a uniform prior distribution), and newer estimates keep revising the number downward. Current literature puts the likely top end around 2 degrees, and the reality is that 2 is probably still too high.
But also, like I said before, the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are relatively low, which is the opposite of relatively high. Why do people want to keep starving plants, anyways?
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@morbiuswilters said:
You'll forgive me if I don't have a lot of faith in most climate scientists.
That's partially justified, but partially unfair. Most climate scientists are reasonable competent. Of course, they also mostly don't make ridiculous alarmist claims - that's a small minority. The bad behaviour you describe is certainly not limited to climate science, but rather is a standard feature of science. It's only that a few very vocal idiots insist, as you correctly say, that scientist are infallible, and simply being peer-reviewed makes something true - without even understanding what peer review actually is, normally.
Bear in mind that the IPCC's current consensus has climate sensitivity only slightly above the level at which any climate change is going to be positive - and falling all the time as the dafter outliers get shown up as outliers.
You can tell the whole thing has little to do with the science because of the daft non-solutions proposed to deal with the 'problem'.
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@Lorne Kates said:
Batteries are a hell of a lot easier to capture, sequester and recycle than world-wide distributed air-borne carbon.
Sure, capture and sequester, but recycle? Recycling batteries generates a lot of toxic waste. And you're once again assuming that air-borne carbon is somehow dangerous.
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@TDWTF123 said:
Most climate scientists are reasonable competent. Of course, they also mostly don't make ridiculous alarmist claims - that's a small minority.
I understand that. But faith doesn't have much place in science to begin with, and I'd say climate science has been sullied by this entire affair. I'm not disparaging the climate scientists who are just working to find the truth, whatever it may be.
@TDWTF123 said:
It's only that a few very vocal idiots insist, as you correctly say, that scientist are infallible, and simply being peer-reviewed makes something true - without even understanding what peer review actually is, normally.
If science really was settled by consensus, then we'd still have phlogiston theory and quantum mechanics would have died out a century ago.
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@Mason Wheeler said:
You destroy any and all credibility you might have had
Oh come on, you're not new here, you know how much he had.
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@spamcourt said:
@Mason Wheeler said:
You destroy any and all credibility you might have had
Oh come on, you're not new here, you know how much he had.
Please explain how electric cars are going to improve enough over the next two decades to be even remotely competitive with ICEs.
Or were you just being a retarded troll with nothing of value to add?
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@morbiuswilters said:
@spamcourt said:
@Mason Wheeler said:
You destroy any and all credibility you might have had
Oh come on, you're not new here, you know how much he had.
Please explain how electric cars are going to improve enough over the next two decades to be even remotely competitive with ICEs.
According to Consumer Reports, they're already there, and in fact well beyond "remotely competitive." There are two major issues that still need to be worked on: buiding out charging infrastructure (which technically isn't a problem with the car itself) and bringing the prices down. Tesla's hard at work on the second point, and considering how they really come more from a tech-company background than a car-company background, it doesn't require much imagination to think they'll succeed at it. That's one of the things our industry does best: make expensive technology more and more affordable over time. And once electric cars become affordable to the general public, simple supply and demand will take care of the infrastructure.
Plus, electric cars in general already have one serious performance problem beaten in a way that is simply impossible for ICEs to emulate. On an ICE, most of the driving you do is likely to be in local traffic, and even when you get out on the highways, congestion means you'll have plenty of stop-and-go, which screws up your gas mileage. But with an electric motor, you can use regenerative braking, which means that not only does stop-and-go traffic not ruin your milage, it can actually improve it!
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@morbiuswilters said:
Please explain how electric cars are going to improve enough over the next two decades to be even remotely competitive with ICEs.
I don't know why you're asking the idiots who clearly know nothing about cars.If it's going to happen, it'll be through specialisation and lighter weight. Electric can compete - even win massively - with current technology in fairly limited situations. For single-person short-range urban commuter vehicles, it wins hands-down. You wouldn't want to drive something like that on the roads with current traffic, but then the same goes for riding bikes. That doesn't mean cars are a good way to get lots of people to work, though, just that we really need to sort out some space on the road for light vehicles. Electric also works pretty well for urban light deliveries. Generally, it's a good way to get emissions out of the city, it's quiet, it's good for stop-start traffic and low speeds, and bad for long-range stuff. In cities, there's a lot to be said for electric vehicles, so I'm not against that at all - just the idea that we have to build electric 'cars' rather than solving the specific problem electric-power is good for solving.
That said, it's really hard to predict technology on a decadal timescale. It's uncertainty, not probability, so we can't really make any valid predictions. This article gives an interesting example of knowing things are about to change and still being unable to predict how.
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@Mason Wheeler said:
Plus, electric cars in general already have one serious performance problem beaten in a way that is simply impossible for ICEs to emulate. On an ICE, most of the driving you do is likely to be in local traffic, and even when you get out on the highways, congestion means you'll have plenty of stop-and-go, which screws up your gas mileage. But with an electric motor, you can use regenerative braking, which means that not only does stop-and-go traffic not ruin your milage, it can actually improve it!
I think we've already firmly established that you know absolutely nothing about how cars work, so there's really no need for you to go on embarassing yourself. Still, it's nice that you found a way to work in that you also don't know how to drive properly, and even better, didn't notice that something you've written violates the first law of thermodynamics.
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@Mason Wheeler said:
According to Consumer Reports, they're already there, and in fact well beyond "remotely competitive."
Bullshit. You've ignored every single point I raised. They suck at range, such for recharging, are an ecological disaster..
@Mason Wheeler said:
...and considering how they really come more from a tech-company background than a car-company background, it doesn't require much imagination to think they'll succeed at it.
This is the dumbest fucking thing you've ever said, and that's quite a content. "Yeah, electric cars are just like making microchips, so surely Tesla will succeed at this." Tesla's a fucking welfare baby, nothing more. Nothing they're doing or selling is remotely revolutionary or even interesting. They're just a whore, suck politicians' dicks for money; a cancer on our country.
@Mason Wheeler said:
Plus, electric cars in general already have one serious performance problem beaten in a way that is simply impossible for ICEs to emulate.
I see you've never heard of a "hybrid". Not surprising, given the ignorance you've displayed thus far.
Of course, there are all of the things I've mentioned, which ICEs have in spades and electric cars haven't been able to match in over a century. But, hey, I'm sure the next century will make them viable!
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@TDWTF123 said:
I don't know why you're asking the idiots who clearly know nothing about cars.
What can I say? I'm a glutton for stupidity.
@TDWTF123 said:
If it's going to happen, it'll be through specialisation and lighter weight. Electric can compete - even win massively - with current technology in fairly limited situations. For single-person short-range urban commuter vehicles, it wins hands-down. You wouldn't want to drive something like that on the roads with current traffic, but then the same goes for riding bikes. That doesn't mean cars are a good way to get lots of people to work, though, just that we really need to sort out some space on the road for light vehicles. Electric also works pretty well for urban light deliveries. Generally, it's a good way to get emissions out of the city, it's quiet, it's good for stop-start traffic and low speeds, and bad for long-range stuff. In cities, there's a lot to be said for electric vehicles, so I'm not against that at all - just the idea that we have to build electric 'cars' rather than solving the specific problem electric-power is good for solving.
Agreed. Electric can be useful in some limited examples, but is mostly a joke. It's certainly nowhere close to overtaking ICEs (either objectively or in sales..)
@TDWTF123 said:
This article gives an interesting example of knowing things are about to change and still being unable to predict how.
Interesting article. I know people have been trying to economically reprocess slag for some time, but it's good to know something is coming of it (assuming the article isn't just hype.) He's right that it will be very fascinating to see what people do with vast quantities of cheap metals that have historically been semi-precious.
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@TDWTF123 said:
@Mason Wheeler said:
Plus, electric cars in general already have one serious performance problem beaten in a way that is simply impossible for ICEs to emulate. On an ICE, most of the driving you do is likely to be in local traffic, and even when you get out on the highways, congestion means you'll have plenty of stop-and-go, which screws up your gas mileage. But with an electric motor, you can use regenerative braking, which means that not only does stop-and-go traffic not ruin your milage, it can actually improve it!
I think we've already firmly established that you know absolutely nothing about how cars work, so there's really no need for you to go on embarassing yourself. Still, it's nice that you found a way to work in that you also don't know how to drive properly, and even better, didn't notice that something you've written violates the first law of thermodynamics.I've said nothing that violates the First Law. For example, I did not say that regenerative braking puts more energy back into your battery than getting up to the speed you're braking from took out of it. That would violate the First Law. Saying that it improves your milage does not, and is in fact an intuitively obvious conclusion if you have any idea how regenerative braking works.
And what does any of that have to do with me "not knowing how to drive properly?"
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@TDWTF123 said:
...and even better, didn't notice that something you've written violates the first law of thermodynamics.
En esta casa nosotros obedecemos las leyes de la termodinámica!!
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@Mason Wheeler said:
I've said nothing that violates the First Law.
Yes you did. You said that regenerative breaking would change the effect of stop-and-go from ruining your mileage to improving it (in other words, giving an improvement over normal, continuous driving.) Now clearly regenerative braking still reduces your mileage when compared to continuous driving, although it's still better than just using friction braking.
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@morbiuswilters said:
@Mason Wheeler said:
According to Consumer Reports, they're already there, and in fact well beyond "remotely competitive."
Bullshit. You've ignored every single point I raised. They suck at range, such for recharging, are an ecological disaster.
Range: My current car is a 2013 Ford Focus. I picked it in large part because it gets really good gas milage for a pure-ICE car, and I couldn't afford anything electric. It gets between 200-300 miles on a full tank, depending on conditions. So does the Tesla Model S.
Recharging: Sure, even the "fast charging" system is slower than filling up at the pump, but when you have more than enough range for a single day's driving, and the recharge takes less than one night, that's a non-issue for the most common use cases. You wouldn't want to drive one across the country just yet, but a few years worth of iteration will take care of that.
Ecology: The battery issue has already been addressed: they're much easier to capture and recycle than the emissions on an ICE car. The other main objection I hear raised is that most of the electricy that powers an electric car comes from power plants that run on fossil fuels, so they're "just as dirty" anyway. This is an obvious strawman, since anyone familiar with the concept of economies of scale would need about three minutes to poke a hole in that argument big enough to drive a car through.
@Mason Wheeler said:
Plus, electric cars in general already have one serious performance problem beaten in a way that is simply impossible for ICEs to emulate.
I see you've never heard of a "hybrid". Not surprising, given the ignorance you've displayed thus far.
I didn't say anything about hybrids. I said that you can't do regenerative braking on an ICE. If you have a hybrid that's running off the battery (and not all of them do; there are several different ways to set up a hybrid power system on a car) then yeah, that will work. But please stop trying to put words in my mouth that I never actually said. It just makes you look bad.
Of course, there are all of the things I've mentioned, which ICEs have in spades and electric cars haven't been able to match in over a century. But, hey, I'm sure the next century will make them viable!
Over a century in which no one has really tried, due in large part to oil companies suppressing relevant research in order to preserve the status quo. When Elon Musk decided to really try, it took a surprisingly short amount of time to produce something that worked incredibly well, and it's still new enough to count as early-generation research, with plenty of room available for iteration to improve on the engineering.
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@morbiuswilters said:
Tesla's a fucking welfare baby, nothing more. They're just a whore, suck politicians' dicks for money; a cancer on our country.
Factually incorrect. Welfare involves handouts, whereas Tesla received loans from the government that needed to be repaid... and have been already, 9 years early.
Nothing they're doing or selling is remotely revolutionary or even interesting.
You may say I don't understand cars, but when the guys who definitively understand cars stop just short of calling the Tesla Model S the best car of all time, and then you say something ridiculous like that, it strongly suggests that I am not the one here who doesn't understand cars.
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@morbiuswilters said:
@Mason Wheeler said:
I've said nothing that violates the First Law.
Yes you did. You said that regenerative breaking would change the effect of stop-and-go from ruining your mileage to improving it (in other words, giving an improvement over normal, continuous driving.) Now clearly regenerative braking still reduces your mileage when compared to continuous driving, although it's still better than just using friction braking.
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@Mason Wheeler said:
@morbiuswilters said:
@Mason Wheeler said:
I've said nothing that violates the First Law.
Yes you did. You said that regenerative breaking would change the effect of stop-and-go from ruining your mileage to improving it (in other words, giving an improvement over normal, continuous driving.) Now clearly regenerative braking still reduces your mileage when compared to continuous driving, although it's still better than just using friction braking.
Oh, let me try.
What you said: "But with an electric motor, you can use regenerative braking, which means that not only does stop-and-go traffic not ruin your milage, it can actually improve it!"
For this to be true, the same car, driven over the same road, would have to get better gas mileage driving stop and go then a steady pace.
This does not happen.
What does happen- Regenerative braking (Which is not limited to electric motors), does reduce the loss of gas mileage due to stop and go driving.
Citation- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_law_of_thermodynamics
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@Mason Wheeler said:
According to Consumer Reports, they're already there, and in fact well beyond "remotely competitive." There are two major issues that still need to be worked on: buiding out charging infrastructure (which technically isn't a problem with the car itself) and bringing the prices down.
Sorry, but refueling in about a half hour after only 200 miles is not remotely competitive. Especially not for the prices required just to get that piss poor performance.
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@cdosrun said:
@Mason Wheeler said:
@morbiuswilters said:
@Mason Wheeler said:
I've said nothing that violates the First Law.
Yes you did. You said that regenerative breaking would change the effect of stop-and-go from ruining your mileage to improving it (in other words, giving an improvement over normal, continuous driving.) Now clearly regenerative braking still reduces your mileage when compared to continuous driving, although it's still better than just using friction braking.
Oh, let me try.
What you said: "But with an electric motor, you can use regenerative braking, which means that not only does stop-and-go traffic not ruin your milage, it can actually improve it!"
For this to be true, the same car, driven over the same road, would have to get better gas mileage driving stop and go then a steady pace.
This does not happen.
From the linked report that you did not bother to read:
- The electric 2013 Nissan Leaf returns the mpg equivalent of 129 in city driving and 102 on the highway.
- The 2012 Nissan Leaf returns the mpg equivalent of 106 in city driving and 92 on the highway.
...you were saying?
Again, none of this violates the First Law. What's happening is that regenerative braking allows you to put (essentially) the same energy to productive use more than once. With gas, once you've burned it, it's gone. But regenerative braking gives you some of the energy back to use again. Not all of it, and certainly not more than you put in, (which would violate the Second and First Laws, respectively,) but a non-trivial fraction of it
(On a side note, why is it that people who clearly have no understanding of how the Laws of Thermodynamics actually work are so fond of trotting them out to try to disprove scientific claims that they don't like the political implications of? It feels like it's right up there with Godwin's Law sometimes...)
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So, How long until we run out of fossil fuels to make CO2 from anyway?
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@boomzilla said:
@Mason Wheeler said:
According to Consumer Reports, they're already there, and in fact well beyond "remotely competitive." There are two major issues that still need to be worked on: buiding out charging infrastructure (which technically isn't a problem with the car itself) and bringing the prices down.
Sorry, but refueling in about a half hour after only 200 miles is not remotely competitive. Especially not for the prices required just to get that piss poor performance.
Wow, it's like you didn't read a thing I said when I specifically addressed those very issues.
It can recharge overnight, so when you can burn those "only 200 miles" in a day, then you have something to complain about. But unless you're driving cross-country, which most people don't do all that often, that's irrelevant.
It's called "optimized for the common use case," and they've done a very good job of it, especially considering this is still early-generation technology! Give the engineers a few years to refine and improve on the less common use cases, and watch the remaining objections vanish, one by one...
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@Mason Wheeler said:
Range: My current car is a 2013 Ford Focus. I picked it in large part because it gets really good gas milage for a pure-ICE car, and I couldn't afford anything electric. It gets between 200-300 miles on a full tank, depending on conditions. So does the Tesla Model S.
So you bought a car with an 8 gallon gas tank and somehow this makes the range of an electric car acceptable? My Jeep gets 200-300 MPG and it only gets something like 12 MPG.
@Mason Wheeler said:
You wouldn't want to drive one across the country just yet, but a few years worth of iteration will take care of that.
I can see you don't understand how batteries or recharging or home electrical systems work.
@Mason Wheeler said:
Ecology: The battery issue has already been addressed: they're much easier to capture and recycle than the emissions on an ICE car.
A modern car with a cat barely even has emissions, unless you are for some reason frightened of CO2. And, no, being easy to recapture does not make them easy to recycle. Once again, you clearly do not fucking understand battery production or recycling.
@Mason Wheeler said:
The other main objection I hear raised is that most of the electricy that powers an electric car comes from power plants that run on fossil fuels, so they're "just as dirty" anyway. This is an obvious strawman, since anyone familiar with the concept of economies of scale would need about three minutes to poke a hole in that argument big enough to drive a car through.
They're probably dirtier, although it depends on the source. A lot of electricity is generated from coal, and coal is fucking filthy, economies of scale be damned. And then there's nuclear, which we still lack facilities for long-term storage. At this point, both are probably worse for the environment than burning gasoline or diesel.
@Mason Wheeler said:
I didn't say anything about hybrids. I said that you can't do regenerative braking on an ICE. If you have a hybrid that's running off the battery (and not all of them do; there are several different ways to set up a hybrid power system on a car) then yeah, that will work. But please stop trying to put words in my mouth that I never actually said. It just makes you look bad.
A hybrid clearly isn't an electric car, though; it's a hybrid. Your statement was that ICEs can't take advantage of regenerative braking, and while the engine itself cannot, clearly cars powered by ICEs can. So your statement was dumb.
@Mason Wheeler said:
Over a century in which no one has really tried, due in large part to oil companies suppressing relevant research in order to preserve the status quo.
Bullshit. Nobody pursued electric cars because they were a bad idea. And, as I've already fucking pointed out you moron, research into batteries and electric motors didn't stand still.
@Mason Wheeler said:
...Elon Musk...
Jesus Fucking Christ, are you getting blowjobs and hundred dollar bills from Tesla or something? They built an overpriced, unimpressive electric car that's inferior to even a shitty ICE car (like your Focus) and have spent the rest of their time trying to convince ignorant fools that they did something amazing. They did not.
@Mason Wheeler said:
...and it's still new enough to count as early-generation research, with plenty of room available for iteration to improve on the engineering.
I am punching you in the face over the Internet. You clearly don't understand how engineering (especially automotive engineering) works. This isn't the beginning of some great, untapped field of research. This is the end-result of a century of furious development of electric motors, batteries, rapid charging and light-weight automobile components. All of this shit has been continuously worked on and improved upon over the last century. This isn't some new fucking field that your ass-buddy Elon Musk invented, you mentally-stunted idiot man-child.
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@Mason Wheeler said:
Factually incorrect. Welfare involves handouts, whereas Tesla received loans from the government that needed to be repaid... and have been already, 9 years early.
They got a sweetheart loan from the government. How is that not a fucking handout?
@Mason Wheeler said:
...but when the guys who definitively understand cars stop just short of calling the Tesla Model S the best car of all time...
Who the fuck is that? Consumer Reports? You do realize that outside of moronic, slack-jawed suburban garbage like yourself nobody takes them seriously, right? They don't "understand cars"; they sell a glossy sales brochure to ignorant consumers who think they aren't being ignorant consumers.
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@Mason Wheeler said:
@morbiuswilters said:
@Mason Wheeler said:
I've said nothing that violates the First Law.
Yes you did. You said that regenerative breaking would change the effect of stop-and-go from ruining your mileage to improving it (in other words, giving an improvement over normal, continuous driving.) Now clearly regenerative braking still reduces your mileage when compared to continuous driving, although it's still better than just using friction braking.
Are you actually doubling-down on saying that it violates the First Law of Thermodynamics?
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@Mason Wheeler said:
From the linked report that you did not bother to read:
- The electric 2013 Nissan Leaf returns the mpg equivalent of 129 in city driving and 102 on the highway.
- The 2012 Nissan Leaf returns the mpg equivalent of 106 in city driving and 92 on the highway.
...you were saying?
Again, none of this violates the First Law. What's happening is that regenerative braking allows you to put (essentially) the same energy to productive use more than once. With gas, once you've burned it, it's gone. But regenerative braking gives you some of the energy back to use again. Not all of it, and certainly not more than you put in, (which would violate the Second and First Laws, respectively,) but a non-trivial fraction of it
(On a side note, why is it that people who clearly have no understanding of how the Laws of Thermodynamics actually work are so fond of trotting them out to try to disprove scientific claims that they don't like the political implications of? It feels like it's right up there with Godwin's Law sometimes...)
Oh. My. God. How can you be so stupid? You are actually claiming it's violating the First Law of Thermodynamics and you are too fucking ignorant to understand it. My God, I wish people like you would just fucking die in a car crash so the collective IQ would go up.
Yes, the Leaf gets better mileage at slower speeds, because there is less air resistance. Regenerative braking is giving back a fraction of the energy that is wasted when you have to come to a stop. But you are actually trying to claim that it adds more energy back in, that it somehow results in a net energy gain over driving at the same speed and not braking repeatedly.
This shows you have no clue how physics works. None. You would fail out of a 6th Grade science class, you goddamn Neanderthal.
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@morbiuswilters said:
But you are actually trying to claim that it adds more energy back in, that it somehow results in a net energy gain over driving at the same speed and not braking repeatedly.
This is the first time I have seen this in this thread.
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@Ben L. said:
@morbiuswilters said:
But you are actually trying to claim that it adds more energy back in, that it somehow results in a net energy gain over driving at the same speed and not braking repeatedly.
This is the first time I have seen this in this thread.
That's what he said. He claimed regenerative braking would not only decrease the loss of mileage efficiency due to braking, but would also actually improve mileage. Then he linked to something showing that the Leaf has better city mileage than highway, trying to show that this is because of regenerative braking, which is just crazy.
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@morbiuswilters said:
@Mason Wheeler said:
@morbiuswilters said:
@Mason Wheeler said:
I've said nothing that violates the First Law.
Yes you did. You said that regenerative breaking would change the effect of stop-and-go from ruining your mileage to improving it (in other words, giving an improvement over normal, continuous driving.) Now clearly regenerative braking still reduces your mileage when compared to continuous driving, although it's still better than just using friction braking.
Are you actually doubling-down on saying that it violates the First Law of Thermodynamics?
Are you actually doubling down on your ridiculous levels of reading comprehension fail?
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@morbiuswilters said:
Oh. My. God. How can you be so stupid? You are actually claiming it's violating the First Law of Thermodynamics and you are too fucking ignorant to understand it.
...yup, looks like you are. That's the exact opposite of what I'm saying, and you're too ridiculously obtuse to realize that.
Yes, the Leaf gets better mileage at slower speeds, because there is less air resistance. Regenerative braking is giving back a fraction of the energy that is wasted when you have to come to a stop.
If air resistance was all there was to it, then all cars would get better milage in city driving. But they don't; gas-powered cars get significantly worse milage in city driving.
But you are actually trying to claim that it adds more energy back in,
No, I've explicitly denied that, multiple times.
This shows you have no clue how physics works. None. You would fail out of a 6th Grade science class, you goddamn Neanderthal.
...says the global warming denier.
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@Mason Wheeler said:
Are you actually doubling down on your ridiculous levels of reading comprehension fail?
You've said several times now that regenerative braking not only decreases losses of MPG, but actually increases MPG when compared to driving at a continuous speed, no? Are you wishing to retract that statement?
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@Mason Wheeler said:
If air resistance was all there was to it, then all cars would get better milage in city driving. But they don't; gas-powered cars get significantly worse milage in city driving.
Um.. obviously I was talking about the Leaf, not a gas-powered car. Gas-powered cars get worse city MPG than highway because they spend so much time idling or outside of the ideal range of their torque curve while accelerating.
Electric cars get better city MPG than highway because they don't sit and idle and they don't really have a torque curve, just a sorta downward slant. So if you're creeping through gridlock in an electric vehicle, the thing is running at near-peak efficiency, whereas that's the worst conditions for an ICE.
On a highway, you're getting peak efficiency out of an ICE, but not an electric car. As such, wind resistance rears its ugly head and you get a noticeable decline in MPG when driving on the highway.
Note: none of this has anything to do with regenerative braking. The only real thing that gives you is you can reclaim a small part of the energy that would normally be lost as heat with friction braking. It's improving the efficiency slightly over friction braking, but that's not all you claimed.. let's review the tape:
@Mason Wheeler said:
But with an electric motor, you can use regenerative braking, which means that not only does stop-and-go traffic not ruin your milage, it can actually improve it!
"Not only" does it "not ruin your mileage, it can actually improve it!" If you hadn't said "it can actually improve it!" you would have been fine, but you did. And added to the "not only" and the "not ruin your mileage", it's clear you were saying there was a benefit above and beyond reclaiming a small percentage of the energy that would be lost to heat in friction braking--you were claiming an additional improvement in MPG.
So, since your "not ruin your mileage" comment was clearly using friction braking as a baseline, what was your "it can actually improve it!" comment referring to? Clearly, there is only one way to interpret that sentence, which is that stopping-and-starting with regenerative braking gives an efficiency improvement over driving at a steady speed. And that is clearly a violation of the FL 'o T.
Now, I was originally willing to conclude that you just suck at writing and you didn't really mean to say "it can actually improve it!" But since you've now doubled- and tripled-down on this whole "more efficient when braking" thing, I almost have to wonder if it was a writing mistake at all, or whether you actually believe that an electric car that has regenerative braking is going to get better MPG accelerating to 20mph and then stopping and then accelerating back to 20mph and then stopping and so on, than a car which drives at a steady 20mph.
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@boomzilla said:
@flabdablet said:
@boomzilla said:
Of course, you have to ignore studies that show that these creatures actually do better when they have more carbon available to use to make their shells.
cite please
Not only does the article you linked not support the claim you made; it doesn't even support the claim it makes.
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@flabdablet said:
@boomzilla said:
@flabdablet said:
@boomzilla said:
Of course, you have to ignore studies that show that these creatures actually do better when they have more carbon available to use to make their shells.
cite please
Not only does the article you linked not support the claim you made; it doesn't even support the claim it makes.
That site has the ANCIENT WordPress 2.0 default theme. I can't trust anything it says.
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@morbiuswilters said:
@Mason Wheeler said:
If air resistance was all there was to it, then all cars would get better milage in city driving. But they don't; gas-powered cars get significantly worse milage in city driving.
Um.. obviously I was talking about the Leaf, not a gas-powered car. Gas-powered cars get worse city MPG than highway because they spend so much time idling or outside of the ideal range of their torque curve while accelerating.
Electric cars get better city MPG than highway because they don't sit and idle and they don't really have a torque curve, just a sorta downward slant. So if you're creeping through gridlock in an electric vehicle, the thing is running at near-peak efficiency, whereas that's the worst conditions for an ICE.
So far, so good...
On a highway, you're getting peak efficiency out of an ICE, but not an electric car. As such, wind resistance rears its ugly head and you get a noticeable decline in MPG when driving on the highway.
...but wait, it's more ridiculousness, right on cue! What does the type of power source have to do with wind resistance? Wind resistance is a function of the vehicle's speed and the body's aerodynamics, so unless you're putting the engine on the exterior of the car for some reason, it shouldn't be a noticeably worse problem with an electric car than with an ICE car at equal speeds.
Also, whence the claim that "on a highway, you're not getting peak efficiency out of an electric car"? Do you have any numbers to back that up?
@Mason Wheeler said:
But with an electric motor, you can use regenerative braking, which means that not only does stop-and-go traffic not ruin your milage, it can actually improve it!
"Not only" does it "not ruin your mileage, it can actually improve it!" If you hadn't said "it can actually improve it!" you would have been fine, but you did. And added to the "not only" and the "not ruin your mileage", it's clear you were saying there was a benefit above and beyond reclaiming a small percentage of the energy that would be lost to heat in friction braking--you were claiming an additional improvement in MPG.
So, since your "not ruin your mileage" comment was clearly using friction braking as a baseline, what was your "it can actually improve it!" comment referring to? Clearly, there is only one way to interpret that sentence, which is that stopping-and-starting with regenerative braking gives an efficiency improvement over driving at a steady speed. And that is clearly a violation of the FL 'o T.
Clearly there is only one way in your mind to interpret something that you want to be false, and that's in whatever way you can find to contort it into something that casts it in the worst possible light. That doesn't change the fact that you're putting words in my mouth in order to ridicule me, which is invariably the mark of one who knows he has an unsustainable position and wishes to distract the audience from his plight.
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@Mason Wheeler said:
On a highway, you're getting peak efficiency out of an ICE, but not an electric car. As such, wind resistance rears its ugly head and you get a noticeable decline in MPG when driving on the highway.
...but wait, it's more ridiculousness, right on cue! What does the type of power source have to do with wind resistance? Wind resistance is a function of the vehicle's speed and the body's aerodynamics, so unless you're putting the engine on the exterior of the car for some reason, it shouldn't be a noticeably worse problem with an electric car than with an ICE car at equal speeds.
What.. no.. how did you.. no. Obviously wind resistance affects both types of vehicle. At low speeds, wind resistance is negligible, so when driving in a city you get better mileage with an electric than on the highway. However, ICEs are not efficient in the city; whatever gains you get from not having to deal with wind resistance are more than lost to idling and working the engine outside its ideal torque range. That's why electric cars get better mileage in the city than on the highway, but it's the opposite for ICEs.
@Mason Wheeler said:
Also, whence the claim that "on a highway, you're not getting peak efficiency out of an electric car"? Do you have any numbers to back that up?
Yes, the numbers you yourself posted: highway efficiency is lower, due to wind resistance (and not, as you tried to claim, regenerative braking..)
@Mason Wheeler said:
Clearly there is only one way in your mind to interpret something that you want to be false, and that's in whatever way you can find to contort it into something that casts it in the worst possible light. That doesn't change the fact that you're putting words in my mouth in order to ridicule me, which is invariably the mark of one who knows he has an unsustainable position and wishes to distract the audience from his plight.
No, you said regenerative braking "not only" does "not ruin your mileage" but "it can actually improve it!" Those are not words I put into your mouth. Those are the words you said. If you think I'm putting words in your mouth, then please answer the following questions:
- By "not ruin your mileage" you meant that regenerative braking would reclaim a portion of the energy that would be lost to heat from friction braking. Is that correct?
- What did you then mean by "it can actually improve it!"? What were you referencing as a baseline? Because your first statement was about reclaiming some of the energy lost to heat from friction braking, right? Then what the hell were you referring to in the second part of your statement?
- Is it unreasonable to assume that you were simply restating your first claim (about reclaiming energy from regenerative braking versus friction braking), in a very confusing, clumsy, poorly-worded manner?
- If that's not what you were talking about, what other possible improvement were you referencing? Because both myself and someone else who read your post interpreted it as saying you would get better efficiency from driving stop-and-go with regenerative braking than you would at a constant speed.
Studebaker Electric - Wikipedia
