Electric Vehicles
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@dogmeat @dogmeat I know it's not ethanol, we've looked at renewable diesel from discarded fats also here in Oz. Still not super simple - the Neste website even says "developing our unique refinery platform" which are words you hate to hear as a financier! And still really hard to get to scale if you're talking about massive productio scale (collection alone takes heaps of effort). Maybe Neste have their own supply of fats which would make a huge different.
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The batteries in our vehicles are warranted to 10 years. This means they are guaranteed to reach a minimum level of charge for that time (i think it's 70% but it might actually be higher, that's for the tech guys). That level of charge is still far and away enough to have domestic use for a long time after that. The initial thoughts (and we are still a fair way off the first battery pack change-over) is that batteries will be repurposed for domestic storage.
This stuff is a big consideration, and while all the answers aren't available now, there is time to work out the details.
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@mariner4life said in Electric Vehicles:
This stuff is a big consideration, and while all the answers aren't available now, there is time to work out the details.
more importantly, batteries allow the focus to be on generating power, not so much on timing.
Separately, was chatting to someone about new construction sites. They had been working on a site where powered tools were banned - all the tools had to be battery. This eliminated the subcontractor power cord tangles ... seemed overkill to me, but the front end of this sort of change.
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@nzzp said in Electric Vehicles:
Separately, was chatting to someone about new construction sites. They had been working on a site where powered tools were banned - all the tools had to be battery. This eliminated the subcontractor power cord tangles ... seemed overkill to me, but the front end of this sort of change.
Will be interesting if they want to do core drilling etc.
There are a few electric vehicles coming out in construction e.g. https://www.bobcat.com/eu/company-info/news-media/e10-electric
Important for enclosed spaces, but also loaders that can work longer hours because they don't breach noise provisions.
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Thinking about one of these for the wife:
https://www.ford.com/suvs/mach-e/I think that I have mentioned that our roads are unsealed shit (several times, possibly hundreds) - so the AWD. Lose a few kms range but still would do us nicely.
Wife is very keen on that machine so I have a balance:
I still read "Jobby" when I see that so it may well be be a turd.
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@snowy like a few of these things, looks really interesting. The question will be whether it actually takes off or not (excuse the pun)
also, generation costs with renewables will often run a surplus (be almost free!) at times ... so operating costs on these bad boys could be really low.
Interested in your opinion as a pilot, too. Six electrical motors seems to have an awful lot more redundancy than 1-2 ICE. Would you feel comfortable in one of these things?
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@nzzp said in Electric Vehicles:
Interested in your opinion as a pilot, too. Six electrical motors seems to have an awful lot more redundancy than 1-2 ICE. Would you feel comfortable in one of these things?
Short answer - yes.
The motors will be far more reliable than reciprocating engines - fewer moving parts. It is something like 20 to 2000 ratio of bits moving around.
Great that there are lots of motors, always the more the merrier.I'm not sure about asymmetry issues if you had multiple motor failures but the odds are pretty low of that happening unless you run out of electricity at different times. That shouldn't be possible (not gone into the power feeds for each motor). Fuel has the same problem in aeroplanes, and is a failure that is really quite avoidable. Don't run out.
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@snowy said in Electric Vehicles:
Fuel has the same problem in aeroplanes, and is a failure that is really quite avoidable. Don't run out.
Only real difference being your takeoff and landing weights are the same.
For a small aircraft tho, that is negligible I suppose. On bigger units would need consideration.
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@nta said in Electric Vehicles:
@snowy said in Electric Vehicles:
Fuel has the same problem in aeroplanes, and is a failure that is really quite avoidable. Don't run out.
Only real difference being your takeoff and landing weights are the same.
For a small aircraft tho, that is negligible I suppose. On bigger units would need consideration.
Actually makes it really simple.
Big aircraft burn more fuel the heavier they are, so pilots are always being pushed to carry less fuel - which is stressful. Trying to balance commercial pressures and safety, especially with weather considerations enroute or at destination.
Having MLDG weight = MTOW is perfect. No holding to burn off fuel, or jettison (if fitted) in the event of a diversion or return to landing due to a failure.
Pilot's salaries would be cut bigtime without all of that stuff to work out and judgement calls to make. Not that anybody has a job anymore, due to covid. Very glad that I am out of the commercial stuff.
We are a long way from large aircraft being electric, I suspect, so all a bit pie in the sky rather than battery in the sky but I would love to see small electric craft very soon.
One thing that I should have added to my reply to @nzzp about safety - that machine should be able to auto-rotate like a helicopter.
"The longest autorotation in history was performed by Jean Boulet in 1972 when he reached a record altitude of 12,440 m (40,814 ft) in an Aérospatiale SA 315B Lama. Because of a −63 °C (−81.4 °F) temperature at that altitude, as soon as he reduced power the engine flamed out and could not be restarted. By using autorotation he was able to land the aircraft safely."Otherwise something like I have in my wee plane:
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@snowy said in Electric Vehicles:
that machine should be able to auto-rotate like a helicopter.
Exactly what I was thinking - the ultimate emergency fallback IF the VTOL rotation works
You'd think tho that on power loss, all servos would release and allow the nacelles to point upward.
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@nta said in Electric Vehicles:
@snowy said in Electric Vehicles:
that machine should be able to auto-rotate like a helicopter.
Exactly what I was thinking - the ultimate emergency fallback IF the VTOL rotation works
You'd think tho that on power loss, all servos would release and allow the nacelles to point upward.
Yep, exactly.
I don't know for sure, but I assume that the nacelles would be held by positive hydraulic pressure in the more horizontal position so a failure would default in the vertical mode.It may need some airspeed to make it all work. There could be a "dead man's curve" like a chopper with H-V (height / velocity) before an auto is possible, but the reliability of electricity and motors makes it a very unlikely event.
Translational lift comes into it too and I don't know enough about tilt rotor craft (in this case VTOL) to know how they overcome time delays for tilt, but that machine has two fixed forward facing conventional motors as well so the H-V would seem to have most contingencies engineered into it and the graph would have a small red zone.
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@snowy said in Electric Vehicles:
Translational lift comes into it too and I don't know enough about tilt rotor craft (in this case VTOL) to know how they overcome time delays for tilt
You better not be talking about that bullshit 90-degree delay law for common-sense in helicopters.
That shit makes me wild. Like... boats going faster than the wind, bullshit.
Everybody knows, if you want a helicopter to turn left, you'd have maximum tilt on rotors on the right-hand-side, minimum on the left. Not maximum 90° BEFORE it gets to the right hand side. That's fucked. AC75 fucked. -
@snowy said in Electric Vehicles:
Thinking about one of these for the wife:
https://www.ford.com/suvs/mach-e/I think that I have mentioned that our roads are unsealed shit (several times, possibly hundreds) - so the AWD. Lose a few kms range but still would do us nicely.
Wife is very keen on that machine so I have a balance:
I still read "Jobby" when I see that so it may well be be a turd.
The only thing wrong with thatFord is the name. It's not a Mustang, and drags down real Mustangs!
They are pushing the new Audi E-Tron GT's here. Sister car to the Taycan, and in my view, much better for it (wheel design aside). This looks stunning. Stunning price too
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@majorrage said in Electric Vehicles:
The only thing wrong with thatFord is the name. It's not a Mustang, and drags down real Mustangs!
They are pushing the new Audi E-Tron GT's here. Sister car to the Taycan, and in my view, much better for it (wheel design aside). This looks stunning. Stunning price too
https://www.audi.co.uk/e-tron-gt.htmlAgreed on the Ford and the name, trying to make it something it's not just with the branding. Still seems to be pretty good though.
We are getting heaps of the Audi E-Tron GT ads as well, and yes the wheels look awful but you probably get a choice. Looks like my father will get one as his current e-Tron is a huge car for what he needs. That was a hefty price to match the size of the car.
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@catogrande I think the tesla 3 long range is about 300 miles? Arguably not the best but not too bad.
What would worry me about Teslas:
-the build quality (improved I hear)
-parts and service
-the wife driving it (she doesn't like complex cars)
-oh and me too, I doubt it is a car I can tinker around with at home.. -
@nostrildamus said in Investing - Property/Shares:
@catogrande I think the tesla 3 long range is about 300 miles? Arguably not the best but not too bad.
What would worry me about Teslas:
-the build quality (improved I hear)
-parts and service
-the wife driving it (she doesn't like complex cars)
-oh and me too, I doubt it is a car I can tinker around with at home..300 miles is pretty good but it’s not just that. How long to re-charge the thing? Not that I’m bashing e cars, I’ve come to agree that it is likely to be the way forward but that it will take many more steps in feasibility to get there. It’s the future but not yet the answer.
Joby Aviation | Joby
