making electrified transport a reality
Electrified rail remains the most efficient form of transportation and has been available since the late 1800s......
People are just so obsessed with cars that they ignored the safest, most efficient, and environmentally friendly option for over a hundred years.
I guess the future is bound to be filled with dangerous traffic with even heavier cars, and filled with millions of batteries filled with lithium mined by impoverished children.
I don't think it's an "obsession with cars" or that people are "ignoring" electrified rail.
The problem is that there are things that are in your direct control, like buying a car and using the roads which exist. Then, there are things outside your direct control, like trying to get your government to install electrified rail. Even if you have a really responsive government that isn't captured by special interests, getting rail built and up and running can take a decade. And, if you need to get from A to B, you can't wait for a decade. Even if you're really pro-rail during that decade you still need to travel, so you're likely to be forced into getting a car. Once you have a car, then rail might become less of a priority because you are now a car user. Maybe eventually you'll still want to use the rail system, but for now you have a car, so your priorities are still going to include car priorities.
This all changes if you live somewhere where there's already great rail service. In that case, you might already have rail available when you move somewhere and all you need to do is encourage your local government to keep funding rail and not subsidizing cars. At that point, the car driver demographic is small and easy to ignore.
The problem is in switching from one system to the other. You need a government that is going to weather the complaints from drivers for years while the rail infrastructure is being put in place until you get to a point where drivers can start selling their cars and switching to rail. That's really hard to do though, because going from poor rail infrastructure to good rail infrastructure can take a decade, and politicians often have terms lasting only 4 years or so. That means that they have to take on the expense and pain of starting a rail project and then facing an election long before the system is up and running. It's actually surprising how many politicians are willing to do that, given that it's so hard on their political careers. It's unsurprising that most of them don't want to do it because it means getting re-elected is much more difficult than if they just stick with the status quo.
Meanwhile, the special interests like car companies, car dealerships, gas stations, etc. are all going to be lobbying against any rail projects. In North America it's even harder because car companies are local, whereas the companies that make trains are mostly European. So, the car-related lobby can talk all about the impact on local jobs, whereas the rail lobby has to deal with the jobs mostly being in Europe. Even without that, it's hard to change things because of the issue of diffuse costs and concentrated interests. Hundreds of thousands of commuters might benefit from a rail system, but it's probably not their #1 priority, it's something they care about, but at best it's #4 or #5. Meanwhile for car companies, etc. it's a top priority. While you might not want to go to every city council meeting where this is being discussed. It's almost certain that the auto lobby will ensure their voice is heard because it's at the top of their list.
In the end, it's a lot more complex than just people being obsessed with cars, or ignoring light rail.
And trolley buses, which are cheaper to install and more flexible for lower volumes of passengers. They don't need a battery either, alternatively can use a very small one, and this saves a lot of weight.
It's not just cars. Electric cars became somewhat widespread before electric scooters. Those are awesome for getting around town quickly and are only feasible because of how cheap batteries have gotten. Cars could hide the battery cost easier than scooters, which you expect to be cheap.
And of course other forms of electric mobility too.
The infrastructure to build and run would be enormous in most of the US. In smaller, more compact countries, sure. But in the area I live, I couldn't imagine this.
Not when compared to the maintenance and cost of installing the amount of multi lane interstate and highways we currently have in the US.
Electric rail isn't a solution for every commuter in the US, but it is the solution for most commuters, as 80% of Americans live in urban environments.
Also, the argument that America is too large to have rail isnt very logical when countries like Russia or China depend on it for the vast majority of their logistics.
And yet the US has an interstate highway network that requires constant maintenance far exceeding that of a railway network
And yet, EV prices stubbornly high in North America.
North America has little competition because of the tariffs on everything not made in USA.
AFAIK Canada is getting out of that shadow. I read an article about a month ago, how Canadian imports were routed through USA, and that it stifled EV adoption in Canada.
EV adoption was stifled by MAGA Premieres killing incentives and ripping out public chargers, while giving money to Detroit to keep building shitty trucks and muscle cars.
Meanwhile, to sell EVs in Europe, XPing is getting them made in Austria using Magna, a Canadian company. Why didn't Carney/Ford insist on this in Ontario?
BYD tried to build buses in Ontario but they were so shit they had to close the plant and pay a bunch of lawsuits. And BYD is hurting, they just laid off 100,000 worldwide.
BYD tried to build buses in Ontario but they were so shit they had to close the plant and pay a bunch of lawsuits.
Wow interesting I didn't know that, I've heard that China has too many car makers, and some of them would have to go. So this is probably just the beginning of an adjustment for Chinese makers.
This is actually one of the very few places that US tariffs make sense. (Not from a consumer perspective of course, but from a nationalist industry protection point of view.) The rest of the tariffs the US places are silly because there isn’t much other manufacturing in the US to protect.
The US manufactures more than ever. There are a lot less people in manufacturing than 70 years ago, but we make just as much. I know of one factory that went from 2000 employees in 1950 to 200 today - they make more product than in 1950 despite that. Automation has made a big change in the US.
Oil dependency is a national security issue for a lot of countries, tariffs on EVs have really backfired here while also increasing climate change
Nope. Tariffs reduce competition and you end up with a shitty local option that just costs more and sales die anyway.
This is actually one of the very few places that US tariffs make sense.
Not really if you want fair competition.
It's not fair competition if labor standards are far lower in the country being imported from.
Absolutely correct, we don't want a competition based on social dumping or highest subsidies.
That's why you make tariffs to compensate for that like the EU does, but EU has higher standards than USA, and is hit by tariffs in USA anyway, and although China has state subsidies, the 150% tariff doesn't make the competition fair, it simply excludes any car made in China from being sold in USA.
A la corporate profits.
There is a reason why the United States government blocks the sale of Chinese EVs. It would destroy the American car sector.
It should be destroyed
People will literally take any excuse not to pay attention while driving. All this iPad on wheels stuff has gone too far. I was driving a newer car recently, in a foreign country, on unfamiliar roads, and had to figure out how to use the defrost VIA THE FUCKING TOUCHSCREEN while driving. A moment longer an I would have been driving with my head out the window trying to find a space to pull over. Give me a spedo, tachometer, and some knobs for the air and I'll be set. What beats the good old three knob (direction, fan speed, temp) combo? It's practically perfect. All these distractions should be banned. If there is a radio, steering wheel controls should be mandatory and they should test them by putting average folks in the driver seat and asking them to perform basic functions. If it's not intuitive, if it's not distracting, it shouldn't get manufactured.
If only prices were related to costs ... 😄
There are plenty of EVs below the median price Americans are paying for new cars ~$50k. People aren't buying EVs because they don't like them / the dealerships aren't pushing them, not the price as they're willing to shell out even more for a top of the line pickup.
There isn’t an EV for sale in America I want. Almost all are SUVs and the ones that aren’t still have iPads instead of dashboards and data tracking.
There is one that I want in Europe but I can’t have it because I’m a free American.
People will literally take any excuse not to pay attention while driving. All this iPad on wheels stuff has gone too far. I was driving a newer car recently, in a foreign country, on unfamiliar roads, and had to figure out how to use the defrost VIA THE FUCKING TOUCHSCREEN while driving. A moment longer an I would have been driving with my head out the window trying to find a space to pull over. Give me a spedo, tachometer, and some knobs for the air and I'll be set. What beats the good old three knob (direction, fan speed, temp) combo? It's practically perfect. All these distractions should be banned. If there is a radio, steering wheel controls should be mandatory and they should test them by putting average folks in the driver seat and asking them to perform basic functions. If it's not intuitive, if it's not distracting, it shouldn't get manufactured.
It's amazing how much batteries have decreased in price, we now not only have mid range cars that can be electric, the lower range sub compacts have been entering the EV market too.
Among all the shit happening today, this is actually a bright spot, making an EV more affordable to normal households.
Maybe except USA that is clearly behind now, despite Tesla was a major influence in the early days of EV.
In 1991, lithium-ion batteries cost around $9,200 per kilowatt-hour — 33 years later, they cost just $78.
Where can I get lithium-ion batteries for $78 per kilowatt-hour?
We all dream of electric open source vehicles and public transit!
Like electric bicycles with controllers that can be easily swapped, programmed, and tinkered with?
The price of the batteries was never really the issue, it was their weight versus their capacity with some consideration towards size and robustness.
As far as I can tell, today the biggest hurdle is charging.
You obviously weren't buying batteries in the 70's or the 80's or the 90's.
So my guess is that you are younger than 40.
As it happens, actually I was buying batteries in the 1970's. They were massive and lasted plenty long enough to play audio cassettes for several days.
Edit: I'd also point out that three decades is 1996, not 1976, that's five decades.
Nonono that is outright false, even 6 of the big D batteries, would last only a few hours in even a small ghetto blaster of the late 70's. Radio yes, tape no. The tapes took massive amounts of power even in a small player for the time.
But apart from that all other uses of batteries were a pain, like in flashlights that weren't even very good by today's standards, or bicycle lights where batteries were a joke so we had to use dynamos.
Your memory is simply wrong.
IDK if they have declined 99%, but for sure batteries today are both 10 times better and only a tenth the price compared to the 70's.
Although they are just fake numbers that seem right, it actually fits with the 99%
Althoug 3 decades only brings us back to the mid 90's, I think that at least in some cases it is true.
Batteries are way cheaper and better now, whether it's 80% or 99% IDK, but for sure iẗ́s more than 80%.
Having had a mono radio cassette player in my bedroom in 1976, running off D-cells, that was not my experience.
The biggest drain was the volume, not the cassette player. You noticed it getting slower and slower, but the drain came from playing it loud.
My Sony Walkman a few years later ran forever on its batteries.
The energy density steadily increased over time while prices decreased: This article includes some interesting background info and the following chart.
Blame Shell.
Lol. Although this claim might be technically true, comparing the cost of the first prototype lithium ion battery with a modern mass produced batteries is apples to oranges.
The grid... Cannot sustain in the US.
Pulling oil from the ground is so much less sustainable, and it will only get more expensive
Even if that is the case, I would argue the grid could sustain people charging EVs at various times during the day or setting up off-peak charging schedule than it can sustain all the AI slop being generated 24-7.
Yet the people I hear complaining about the theoretical load EVs could technically put onto the grid have nothing to say about the AI data centers that are actively raising energy costs and demanding more power than the local infrastructure can actually provide.
And really, it could sustain if we would have leadership that would support efforts to do so instead of trying to hinder renewables deployment in favor of more fossil fuels that are also going up in price because of their bullshit.
The grid could under real leadership. Your vampire squid parasitic infection is the problem here.
Buy SLDP. Solid state battery company It's the next big thing.
I've been losing money on Dragonfly for months. Unfortunately, the market can be irrational longer than you can be solvent.
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