PILOT SPIN
Spin Zone => Spin Zone => Topic started by: Anthony on June 22, 2017, 06:09:29 AM
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Well, what a surprise. I live in a pretty affluent area, and actually see a lot of Teslas on the road around here. It always confuses me why someone would pay over $100K for a battery powered car. I just don't get it. Does it make them FEEL better about themselves?
The car batteries used in a Tesla generate as much CO2 as driving a gasoline-powered car for eight years. And that’s before they even come off the production line.
This news, from a study by the Swedish Environmental Research Institute, will no doubt delight all those U.S. taxpayers who have been forking out billions of dollars to prop up Tesla’s share price having been assured by their government that subsidizing overpriced electric cars represents a vital step towards “combatting climate change.”
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/06/21/delingpole-tesla-car-batteries-co2-not-remotely-green-study-finds/
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Well, what a surprise. I live in a pretty affluent area, and actually see a lot of Teslas on the road around here. It always confuses me why someone would pay over $100K for a battery powered car. I just don't get it. Does it make them FEEL better about themselves?
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/06/21/delingpole-tesla-car-batteries-co2-not-remotely-green-study-finds/
To me, Tesla ownership says "I have enough money that I can throw away $100k on a silly toy".
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Follow the money.
The MMGW hoax is all about money. All one needs to do is look at who is profiting and how.
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Follow the money.
The MMGW hoax is all about money. All one needs to do is look at who is profiting and how.
Tesla, as well as other "green" companies have received massive amounts of government subsidies. Follow the money indeed. I'd like to tally up all the taxpayer dollars going to all these companies for no good reason whatsoever. We have so much clean fossil fuel it is ridiculous to waste money on these companies.
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Well, what a surprise. I live in a pretty affluent area, and actually see a lot of Teslas on the road around here. It always confuses me why someone would pay over $100K for a battery powered car. I just don't get it. Does it make them FEEL better about themselves?
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/06/21/delingpole-tesla-car-batteries-co2-not-remotely-green-study-finds/
Wouldn't you feel better about yourself when you hit 60MPH after 2.28 seconds?
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Wouldn't you feel better about yourself when you hit 60MPH after 2.28 seconds?
They do have tremendous torque for sure. I like hearing the rumble of a gasoline engine. :) I have no problem with people buying electric cars, or anything else they want. However, I do have a problem subsidizing them.
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This whole subject is a very, very big and complex calculus. From an engineering perspective, it's filled with caveats, limit restrictions, and a lot of presumptions.
Complete cycle calorimitry is almost impossible to do the same way twice. For every conversion that is taken into account, another one may be missed, or undercounted, or overcounted.
Having said that, there are some basics we can take into account to make some broad statements.
1. Minimize conversions - What this means is that; each time you convert an energy utility from one frame to another, there is always heat loss(unless heat it the primary goal). Example: The Otto cycle engine runs on refined petroleum. There is one and only one conversion here, from chemical energy stored in the fuel, to mechanical energy produced by the engine. Sadly, even the best most modern Otto cycle engines are only about 40% efficient. But - from a life cycle perspective, that 40% looks good. The waste products are not taken into account, which would ultimately make it worse, but here's where the debate begins. Waste product effects.
2. Lower heat transfer equals greater efficiency - Motors of the same torque run much, much cooler than engines of the same capacity. There are far lower friction transfers, far fewer moving parts, and the motor operates on a function of electrodynamic lines of force, that never physically touch. All this combines to make the electric motor much more power transfer efficient, due primarily to the lower heat exchange losses.
3. Use(transfer) molecular energy at the outer most shell of the molecule - This one is more for the physicist, than the engineer, but it's an important base energy model. In brief, a copper wire conducts electricity better than an aluminum wire because there are more avail valance electrons in copper than aluminum. From the nuclear field we can get huge amounts of energy release from the middle of the U or Pu atom, but the task of getting to it, and then harnessing it for useful power is a long, long, messy chain of energy conversions, limit boundaries(we don't want it to blow up spectacularly), and stepwise heat losses.
Trying to take all the cycle energy costs in moving meatsacks around on the ground or in the air is a big, messy job. Most people have a bare understanding that the electricity which powers their Tesla actually came from petroleum burning. The US relies heavily on petroleum power, including coal. Only a small percent of our power is provided by other means, and only a small part of that percent is from what is called 'green' sources.
Further to that, if we take the life cycle energy budget for a solar panel into account, for most panels it would have to provide sunlight produced energy for about 13 years before it pays back the energy budget used to produce it in the first place(including the glass cover, frame, connectors, etc). However, I have to admit that as more solar panels are built on a large scale, and the improvements in solar panel efficiency increase, this number may be below 10 years now. My research was done back in the late 90s, and is fairly stale. Even at 10 years, that's a long payback time for the lifecycle budget of an energy source.
We will never get away from petroleum produced energy. Take the big three into account when deciding on your efficiency, and try not to fall for the marketing claims. They are often misleading, and in some cases flat out lies.
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My next door neighbor put solar panels on his roof. He and is brother, both licensed, union electricians did the install themselves. He said it only made sense if they did the install to save money. I forgot to ask him what his payback period was.
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My next door neighbor put solar panels on his roof. He and is brother, both licensed, union electricians did the install themselves. He said it only made sense if they did the install to save money. I forgot to ask him what his payback period was.
And how their time is "free".
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And how their time is "free".
True. There is an Opportunity Cost to consider. The other thing I forgot to mention is that it looks like bloody hell on his roof.
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Wouldn't you feel better about yourself when you hit 60MPH after 2.28 seconds?
Not quite that quick, but my motorcycle does 2.8 while getting 44mpg. And the $80k I saved over the Tesla will also buy a nice e car and a whole lot of gas.
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Don't forget that almost every solar panel sold in the US, no matter where it's made has significant federal and sometimes state rebates applied to it. So, when you take out the 'free'(really, taxpayer funded) money from rebates, the solar payback is quite a long time. I've put two solar system in on off-grid situations, and both still have gas(propane) generators for running the small washing machine, and when we want to vacuum. It would cost triple what I spent to get a bigger set of panels, batts, inverters, charge controllers, etc. to power the motors in those products. Far cheaper and easier to fall back on gas powered elect supply.
Ever seen a gasoline powered washing machine? Cool history for car/plane/engineer folk:
http://www.stationaryengine.org/maytag_barleylands_2003.jpg
Yes, that is a small 2 stroke engine powering that washer! Maytag sold a shit-ton of these back in the day when electricity wasn't avail out in the rural areas. The history of the deal was so cool. Maytag would go into a rural or farming community, and find one buyer who would get it at a steep, steep discount, if they would agree to have the neighbor wives over to show it off. Of course, the new 'automatic' washer would be crowed about over the fence line, in the market, at the movie, in the cafe. After one was sold, orders from other wives would FLOOD in to Maytag! It's like a hit of cocaine, the first one is free!
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Not quite that quick, but my motorcycle does 2.8 while getting 44mpg. And the $80k I saved over the Tesla will also buy a nice e car and a whole lot of gas.
Your bike gets beat by a luxury sedan. 😋
I think Tesla makes a vehicle worthy of my money, so I'm considering the Model 3 when it comes out.
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Your bike gets beat by a luxury sedan. 😋
In a straight line, yes. Actually with only a few tenths between them, the guy with the better reflexes gets the win.
That said, no way in hell will a Tesla keep up with me on a run thru the dragon at Deals Gap.
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In a straight line, yes. Actually with only a few tenths between them, the guy with the better reflexes gets the win.
That said, no way in hell will a Tesla keep up with me on a run thru the dragon at Deals Gap.
If I ever get my b*lls back, and get another motorcycle, I'll buy an Aprilia S4, and go do that.
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If I ever get my b*lls back, and get another motorcycle, I'll buy an Aprilia S4, and go do that.
The new RSV4 is getting great reviews. A guy I met on a forum happens to live 20 minutes from me and we've worked on my little project bike a few times. He loves the older Aprilia 2 strokes. He's got 4 Aprilias in various stages of repair or completion - one is an Aprilia RS250 which was in some folks' opinions the last great 2 stroke sport bike.
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The new RSV4 is getting great reviews. A guy I met on a forum happens to live 20 minutes from me and we've worked on my little project bike a few times. He loves the older Aprilia 2 strokes. He's got 4 Aprilias in various stages of repair or completion - one is an Aprilia RS250 which was in some folks' opinions the last great 2 stroke sport bike.
I meant the RSV4. Thanks. Yeah, I like them more than the Ducs. I never had a two stroke bike, but they were popular in the dirt bike arena long ago.
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In a straight line, yes. Actually with only a few tenths between them, the guy with the better reflexes gets the win.
That said, no way in hell will a Tesla keep up with me on a run thru the dragon at Deals Gap.
Once I get my little 75cc Derbi fixed up, I want to try that some day.
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I meant the RSV4. Thanks. Yeah, I like them more than the Ducs. I never had a two stroke bike, but they were popular in the dirt bike arena long ago.
Article on the Aprilia RS250 (http://newatlas.com/go/2542/) (no longer made).
Also, as an aside, this is a really neat articl (http://www.odd-bike.com/2013/04/konig-500-gp-outboard-powered-underdog.html)e about a guy and his custom-built race bike with a marine outboard engine, that defied the odds and beat the race bikes of its time. Sad ending, though.