I have wanted an electric vehicle forever. Before Tesla, I was looking at cars where they retrofitted a regular vehicle with an electric motor, and thinking "Man, that would be cool!"
Besides that, I also looked at off the grid living. Just because I love the idea of being completely self-contained. No power bill, no water bill, just live and enjoy life.
I'd love nothing more than to be able to be self-sufficient like that, to have enough renewable electricity generation on-site to be able to heat my home and cool my food, and travel with no marginal cost, but it turns out the reason we generally don't is that it's really hard, especially in places that are too cold rather than too hot, which is much of the world.
If it's -40C for a month, Everything changes. You won't get enough solar energy to heat a typical home with some solar panels on the roof. If you could, then it wouldn't be -40C out. Besides that, your car batteries are going to be drained. When you're driving you're going to be burning way more power heating your car so you don't die.
Driving across country can have huge problems too. For me, it's a 12 hour drive to the next city in each direction. That's being able to fill up my gas tank in 60 seconds. If you're in -40C and you're driving like that, your battery life has been massively cut down, and you're looking at a significant amount of your trip charging even if you manage to find a place to charge. Then there's the issue that if it takes more than 60 seconds to fill up your battery, then you can't just have a bunch of people line up and fuel up, they'll need much larger footprint facilities and a lot more chargers.
It's annoying because nobody wants the tech to be there more than me, but it just isn't.
Now, I do think a new type of vehicle that could be built today should be legalized: A city car that's basically 1/10th the size of an automobile, probably less than 100lbs, and probably has just some waterproof tarp to keep the elements out, and uses current battery tech. One, maybe two seats and a small storage compartment large enough for a couple bags of groceries, and a range of 100km tops that could be charged off a standard 120v plug relatively quickly. It wouldn't be allowed on highways, but could be used on streets, and if insurance is required it should be a dramatically smaller plan that costs basically nothing because such a vehicle can't hurt anyone since it has nothing to it. the price would be really low, no more than a few grand tops.
sj_zero@lotide.fbxl.net 2 years ago
I have wanted an electric vehicle forever. Before Tesla, I was looking at cars where they retrofitted a regular vehicle with an electric motor, and thinking "Man, that would be cool!"
Besides that, I also looked at off the grid living. Just because I love the idea of being completely self-contained. No power bill, no water bill, just live and enjoy life.
I'd love nothing more than to be able to be self-sufficient like that, to have enough renewable electricity generation on-site to be able to heat my home and cool my food, and travel with no marginal cost, but it turns out the reason we generally don't is that it's really hard, especially in places that are too cold rather than too hot, which is much of the world.
If it's -40C for a month, Everything changes. You won't get enough solar energy to heat a typical home with some solar panels on the roof. If you could, then it wouldn't be -40C out. Besides that, your car batteries are going to be drained. When you're driving you're going to be burning way more power heating your car so you don't die.
Driving across country can have huge problems too. For me, it's a 12 hour drive to the next city in each direction. That's being able to fill up my gas tank in 60 seconds. If you're in -40C and you're driving like that, your battery life has been massively cut down, and you're looking at a significant amount of your trip charging even if you manage to find a place to charge. Then there's the issue that if it takes more than 60 seconds to fill up your battery, then you can't just have a bunch of people line up and fuel up, they'll need much larger footprint facilities and a lot more chargers.
It's annoying because nobody wants the tech to be there more than me, but it just isn't.
Now, I do think a new type of vehicle that could be built today should be legalized: A city car that's basically 1/10th the size of an automobile, probably less than 100lbs, and probably has just some waterproof tarp to keep the elements out, and uses current battery tech. One, maybe two seats and a small storage compartment large enough for a couple bags of groceries, and a range of 100km tops that could be charged off a standard 120v plug relatively quickly. It wouldn't be allowed on highways, but could be used on streets, and if insurance is required it should be a dramatically smaller plan that costs basically nothing because such a vehicle can't hurt anyone since it has nothing to it. the price would be really low, no more than a few grand tops.