Rowan Atkinson on EVs: "I feel duped"
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"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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Read something a guy working at an auto manufacturing parts subcontractor wrote... They know the EV stuff is just so much bullshit in America. Their contracts and their tooling projects reflect that fact. People in the industry know that there is no way possible to go all electric within the next decade. They can only go along with the government, play the game and milk the government for as much money as possible. There will be EV's, just only where they make sense for the people that can afford them.
“Cry havoc and let slip the DOGE of war!”
Those who cheered as J-6 American prisoners were locked in solitary for 18 months without trial, now suddenly fight tooth and nail for foreign terrorists’ "due process". — Buck Sexton
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Read something a guy working at an auto manufacturing parts subcontractor wrote... They know the EV stuff is just so much bullshit in America. Their contracts and their tooling projects reflect that fact. People in the industry know that there is no way possible to go all electric within the next decade. They can only go along with the government, play the game and milk the government for as much money as possible. There will be EV's, just only where they make sense for the people that can afford them.
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And another thing mentioned in the column...I wish we were plowing as much R&D money into hydrogen as into battery technology.
Not to mention something else Atkinson touched on, which is durability and what happens after the useful cycle of the vehicle. We don't need disposable cars. We need cars that are durable, long-lasting and easy to make cheap repairs...That's another facet of the problem worthy of common sense solutions that could be implemented fairly quickly.
“Cry havoc and let slip the DOGE of war!”
Those who cheered as J-6 American prisoners were locked in solitary for 18 months without trial, now suddenly fight tooth and nail for foreign terrorists’ "due process". — Buck Sexton
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Hydrogen is just another form of electricity storage, hydrogen cars have electric motors in them.
And at scale, it will always be cheaper and easier to move electrons than atoms. Impontualidade see how hydrogen could compete long term.
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Not easy to move electrons where you need them in West Texas or Wyoming...
“Cry havoc and let slip the DOGE of war!”
Those who cheered as J-6 American prisoners were locked in solitary for 18 months without trial, now suddenly fight tooth and nail for foreign terrorists’ "due process". — Buck Sexton
-
Hydrogen is just another form of electricity storage, hydrogen cars have electric motors in them.
And at scale, it will always be cheaper and easier to move electrons than atoms. Impontualidade see how hydrogen could compete long term.
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Hydrogen is just another form of electricity storage, hydrogen cars have electric motors in them.
And at scale, it will always be cheaper and easier to move electrons than atoms. Impontualidade see how hydrogen could compete long term.
@Jon said in Rowan Atkinson on EVs: "I feel duped":
Impontualidade see how hydrogen could compete long term.
Yes. We've talked about it many times before. Wasn't it Toyota that had made a major push at hydrogen fuel cells? I believe they gave up, and I have to wonder why. Was it that it was too expensive to develop, and if so, wasn't that the case with batteries a decade and a half ago?
With the proper will, I can see how that would work.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
-
And another thing mentioned in the column...I wish we were plowing as much R&D money into hydrogen as into battery technology.
Not to mention something else Atkinson touched on, which is durability and what happens after the useful cycle of the vehicle. We don't need disposable cars. We need cars that are durable, long-lasting and easy to make cheap repairs...That's another facet of the problem worthy of common sense solutions that could be implemented fairly quickly.
@Jolly said in Rowan Atkinson on EVs: "I feel duped":
And another thing mentioned in the column...I wish we were plowing as much R&D money into hydrogen as into battery technology.
Many times I have seen you advocating for hydrogen, but haven't seen you articulate the reasons why you think hydrogen would be better than hybrid or all electric. On what is your enthusiasm for hydrogen fuel based?
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@George-K said in Rowan Atkinson on EVs: "I feel duped":
Ok, just finished reading it. My own thoughts on EV mostly align with what Atkinson wrote. Where it's completely up to me, I am down with driving an old car and driving less. Haven't form an opinion yet about hydrogen because I haven't looked much into hydrogen.
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Wow, honestly it didn't make much sense.
Here's his main point re the downside of EVs: They may have fewer emissions when driving, but the emissions during manufacture are 70% higher than ICEs.
So? Is that important or trivial?
What percentage of my Mazda's total emissions come from manufacturing as opposed to the 15 years it will get driven with its 18mpg turbo hog engine? For his complaint to be dispositive the manufacture of my Mazda would have to create more emissions than 200k miles of driving the finished product.
That seems really unlikely to me.
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Wow, honestly it didn't make much sense.
Here's his main point re the downside of EVs: They may have fewer emissions when driving, but the emissions during manufacture are 70% higher than ICEs.
So? Is that important or trivial?
What percentage of my Mazda's total emissions come from manufacturing as opposed to the 15 years it will get driven with its 18mpg turbo hog engine? For his complaint to be dispositive the manufacture of my Mazda would have to create more emissions than 200k miles of driving the finished product.
That seems really unlikely to me.
https://about.bnef.com/blog/the-lifecycle-emissions-of-electric-vehicles/
An older study doing the sort of lifecycle carbon footprint comparisons between EV and ICEV that I think you alluded to.
Yeah, when comparing driving an EV for many years to driving an ICEV for many years for the same amount of distance, the EV wins. But when comparing them with fewer years and (much) fewer miles, ICEV wins.
The reason I align with Atkinson is in large part because increasingly I drive less and less, so for me the carbon footprint of manufacturing dominates.
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Gotta get fiber optic out there first. That's actually needed and one of the few good ideas The Resident has had.
“Cry havoc and let slip the DOGE of war!”
Those who cheered as J-6 American prisoners were locked in solitary for 18 months without trial, now suddenly fight tooth and nail for foreign terrorists’ "due process". — Buck Sexton
-
@Jon said in Rowan Atkinson on EVs: "I feel duped":
Impontualidade see how hydrogen could compete long term.
Yes. We've talked about it many times before. Wasn't it Toyota that had made a major push at hydrogen fuel cells? I believe they gave up, and I have to wonder why. Was it that it was too expensive to develop, and if so, wasn't that the case with batteries a decade and a half ago?
With the proper will, I can see how that would work.
@George-K said in Rowan Atkinson on EVs: "I feel duped":
Wasn't it Toyota that had made a major push at hydrogen fuel cells? I believe they gave up, and I have to wonder why.
I believe that they are investing quite a bit in this technology and think it definitely is a alternative to battery electric.
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Gotta get fiber optic out there first. That's actually needed and one of the few good ideas The Resident has had.
@Jolly said in Rowan Atkinson on EVs: "I feel duped":
Gotta get fiber optic out there first.
Wireless technology is getting better. It won't be long before many applications won't need fiber or any other wired connection.
If you grew up with Ma Bell and highly reliable redundant wired networks, that might seem reckless. But many, maybe most, applications can live without high reliability.
