30 thoughts on “EV madness. We are definitely being pushed.”

1. The electric shovel is connected full time to a power cord, it’s like the electric hydraulic fracturing fleets they have now, any high torque application is an electric motor sweet spot. Useful stuff like this will never be battery driven.

   • Yeah, just what I was going to say – Plug-In Power Tools. Electric Excavators have been around since the 1950’s, and some of the Biggest Shovels and Dragline Excavators ever built were/are Electric. Not sure what the Feed Voltage in the Extension Cord is, maybe 29 or 33 KV, the Motors in the Machine are likely “Medium Voltage” 4800 V. 3-Phase types.

     This Liebherr unit looks like one of their standard Hydraulic Machines, it was a Cheap-n-Easy Conversion just by Replacing the two Diesel Engines with maybe four or six Electric Motors, probably using the very same Hydraulic Pumps, as a big Diesel runs about 1800 RPM, same as most 3-Phase Motors.

     And, “Solar Powered”? that entire Open-Pit Mine could be covered with Solar Panels, and it still wouldn’t be Enough. Plus, Miners like to work 24/7 Shifts.

     • I too was going to mention that electric shovels and draglines have been around forever.

       All trains, other than a few switchers and tourist steamers are electric in the US. They get their power from onboard diesel generators but could easily run off of batteries on railroad cars.

       If there was a way to charge the batteries that was more efficient than running diesel-gennies

2. And the electricity comes from…………………..

   • Unicorn facts are magically transformed into electricity by the grand wizard of OZ…but you knew that already…right?

3. I was kinda hoping that the Hydrogen powered cars would kill the rest of the EV’s. Looks like just the opposite is happening. I’m just wondering if there’s not some reason, besides the reported fuel availability and other infrastructure problems being reported, like the current amount of investment in EV infrastructure around the world that is killing hydrogen infrastructure investment. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I’d be willing to bet that .gov is not pouring money into hydrogen tech investment incentive the same way they did with EV tech investment incentive.

   IMHO, hydrogen is the way to go for a whole lot of reasons, especially when considering the strain already being imposed on the electricity grid by the small amount of EV’s already on the road.

   As to EV’s themselves, I own property in a neighboring state that is out in the puckerbrush. It’s 150+ miles from my home. There are NO EV charging stations in the little town with two gas stations where the property is. The nearest one is about 50 miles away from what I’ve been able to determine.

   During the eclipse, which passed through the far Northern reaches of my state, the police chiefs in the towns where the event was to take place told EV owners to leave their EV’s at home, as there were no charging station within 50 miles of their town.

   • We solved the “No charging stations available” problem at Commuter Cars over 10 years ago.

     Tow a small turbo diesel generator.

     • Or… OR… drive an ICE-powered car!

   • I’m not an EV fan by any means, I’d really like to see expanded LP gas infrastructure built out…

     The issues with hydrogen are primarily surrounding safe storage/transport. IIRC, you need to store the stuff at around 3500 psi to get a reasonable energy density for use in a car or truck. This means you’re toting around a bomb that happens to release flammable gas when it explodes.

     Designing a crash worthy tank for LP gas is hard enough at 350 psi. Working with hydrogen pressures an order of magnitude higher is damn near impossible.

     • Another thing with hydrogen is tank and piping leakage. Hydrogen is smaller than the space in metal tanks and lines, it will leak past and dissipate. I occasionally drove liquid hydrogen tanker when my O2 tanker was in for certifying or repair/updating. Full tank of hydrogen left on a Friday would see an eighth of loss on Monday morning. That was with dense stainless steel tank that weigh more than the product. To build a dense and safe enough for a light duty pick up or car would weigh too much.

       • Yep. Hydrogen is slippery, difficult to handle and store.

         And when you crash, even a cracked fitting or pipe is gonna be……………. messy.

         • Ahh, but hydrogen is the lightest element, so it flames up………….

4. I’d rather french kiss a light socket.

5. nope, nope and the hell f*ck no.

6. CederQ, The GuStrlink is just a higher-altitude cellular tower. OF COURSE they are going to use it to spy on you and me.
   Let’s all switch to cellular packet radio and tell the Gubmint and the Carriers to go pound sand.

7. Fuck them one and all.
   I see the public charging stations at the library & places like that. When do we get our public gas pumps for everybody’s use, paid for out of our taxes?
   No, I don’t want such a thing; there shouldn’t be public charging stations at all.

8. I still ain’t interested in one. It’s bad enough to having a computer in my car.

9. My 2016 F350 6.7L diesel with 2 4kw inverters can power my house continuously for 5 days on a tank of fuel. With an hour on/hour off stretches’ it out to 10 days. A truck is for work. An electric truck is a toy.

10. Many, if not most, mining excavators are electric and have been for many years. They don’t move far and consume immense amounts of energy. A very practical use for electric vehicles.
    The trucks that they fill are all diesel driven.

    • I think the mine haul trucks are diesel electric. At least some of them are.

      In at least one mine they use overhead electric cables and pantographs to assist the trucks.

      Looking for info just now, it seems like it is a standard Caterpillar option. So perhaps more common than I had realized.

      https://www.cat.com/en_US/by-industry/mining/surface-mining/surface-equipment/mining-trucks/trolley.html

11. “EV batteries should last 20 years” Yeah, they should, but they don’t.

    There’s tons of things that should be better than they are, but aren’t. “Should” is a meaningless statement.

    • I heard yesterday on Erick Erickson’s show that Ford’s electric vehicle division reports losing over $100k on average for each of the EVs it sold last year (around 10000 vehicles total, down about 20%from 2022). His words “that is not sustainable”.
      I assume that number is based on total costs for the EV div less revenue divided by cars sold and not on the individual vehicle production unit cost.

    • Exactly. Call me back in 20 years and let me know if it’s still good.

      I bought a high end cordless drill and driver set. Original batteries lasted about 5 years, with only light duty use. However I liked the set so I bought replacement batteries. Some original, some no-name generics. Neither lasted longer than a year or two. Again only light duty. While these are useful, I still have a corded power tool for every cordless, just in case the battery runs out. When you can make a cordless drill battery last 20 years, maybe, just maybe, I’ll think about something bigger.

12. Do a search on “hydrogen embrittlement” for another reason to avoid esoteric power production.

13. I was going to to make a couple of points, but you guys covered them all.

14. Sweden will be fine with that as long as it doesn’t get cold there.

15. That’s one seriously clean logging truck. Why does it need the huge fairing on the roof?

16. “EV batteries should last 20 years….” Yeah, and our “government” should be defending and upholding the Constitution… Your point is, “Study?”

17. For an idea of relative scale of a coal vs solar generating plant, AES has a 454MW coal fired plant in Guayama PR. It can run at 454MW for weeks or perhaps months at a time.

    They also, on the same site, have a 20MW (nominal) solar installation. The solar installation takes up more room than the coal plant, coal piles, access roads and so on and generates 20MW only at noon on a cloudless day. It averages 4MW over the course of a year.

    Here’s a picture of the two from Google Earth https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRja_8wVu5TOe6CoPGnN4vDQZH29e7n7NjMLW73LTAZ9IJwpQCc3Xsypq7SwuPx-yzk5BE5Q84D0DNCmo31XWMDG58XXXNMA-RK8VFTAEUdePp7oDE0_gM1QTMbFz1FHN2L3gDWbnbRiw/s320/AES+Guayama.png

18. I love the idea of electric cars. They have a lot of advantages. I hate the idea of battery cars.

    When we can have the first without the second at a purchase and operating cost similar to a gas car, I’ll be all in.

    Not holding my breath, though.

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