What are your thoughts on electric cars?

@ShadowWolf

Really. The best yield is oil palm at 5950 litre/hectare, 635 gallon US per acre. I doubt that it will grow in most the US.

Assuming that you can use it in place of diesel fuel perhaps you could get 30 mpg out of it. Assuming that you could plant, tend, and harvest an acre of oil palm you might drive 20 000 miles on a years production from one acre. But you will have to use a thirty year old Mercedes unless you are willing to do a lot of processing on the oil to make it suitable for new fuel injected engines.

If you choose a more plausible crop like rape then the yield goes down to 1190 litre/hectare, 127 gallon US/acre giving a range of only 3800 miles per year per acre.

How many acres of suitable land do you own? One acre is 4047 square metre in case anyone outside the US is wondering.

Source: https://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html

@ninalanyon Ethanol is a substitute, even for gas. In my case, I own mostly older vehicles that don't use direct injection. And have all the required components for Ethanol. None of my vehicles are diesel. You have missed the point however. The gov controls the grid. At least I have the option of flexible fuel sources with IC.

@ShadowWolf The government also regulates land use. And you can't grow ethanol. Bio-ethanol is a product of a complex process that uses oil crops as the input. You can bet that those processes are expensive to start up, complicated to manage, and regulated by the government.

Here's a flow chart of the process
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Schematic-flow-diagram-of-bio-ethanol-production-process-15_fig4_339235336

@ninalanyon @ninalanyon I'm sorry, but in the USA (you are in Norway), we aren't nearly as regulated as you EU countries. We actually can produce our own fuel, and where I live, land use is not regulated. Ethanol fuel is not nearly as complex to produce as you make it out to be. Our boys during prohibition made it just fine.

@ShadowWolf With solar panels and an in-house battery storage, YOU control the grid!

The cheapest way to power your own transportation is with something like a sonnenCore battery or or Enphase IQ battery or Tesla powerwall or equivalent.

BTW, another great thing about lithium batteries is they recycle so well.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/recycled-batteries-good-as-newly-mined

They also last quite long:

You can still tinker though - bearings need lube, brake pads need changing - though not nearly as often because regenerative braking does most of the work thus saving brake pads.

@ElwoodBlues True, through solar one could "control the grid" But you'd need a decent solar panel array.

I disagree with tinkering. Brake pads and lubing aren't tinkering to me. That's maintenance. I'm talking about actual tuning, bolt on power, gear ratios etc.

@ShadowWolf Electric motors have maximum torque at minimum rpms, so bolt-on power is not needed at normal highway speeds. Tuning is, frankly, a byproduct of the defects of internal combustion engines; you are welcome to it!

Gear ratios - most electric cars only need 1 gear because they have very wide torque curves. 4WD teslas have different gear ratios front & back for better top speed; Porsche Taycan has a two-speed gearbox, but it won't do much for you at US highway speeds.

Torque comparison:
Note that horsepower is torque X rpms.

@ElwoodBlues I’m aware in how electric cars work man. I prefer to wrench and improve a vehicle with character. I like the idea of making something my own. I like the roar of a V8. It’s a personal preference.

@ShadowWolf I like to breathe clean air. It’s a personal preference.

@ElwoodBlues You act as if smog and NoX emissions are still an issue. Co2 doesn’t effect your ability to breathe. Most all tailpipe emissions now are Co2 and water. Do you hate water and tree food?

@ShadowWolf Because they are. Did you see any photos of LA during lockdown? Almost all the smog went away.
https://ktla.com/news/local-news/l-a-sees-longest-recorded-stretch-of-clean-air-as-covid-19-lockdowns-result-in-unprecedented-reductions-in-air-pollution-across-globe/

@ElwoodBlues You post from a biased news source. CA media is notoriously anti car, and pro climate change agenda.
Also CA is a unique geographical situation. In the rest of the country the jet stream blows any pollution away.

@ShadowWolf Is this the point where you say you have better data supporting your claim but make excuses and don't post it?

@ElwoodBlues You disagree that CA is a unique situation geographically? Mountain ranges encasing it? It’s a valley? CA is well known everywhere as the strictest state on cars, he’ll they just banned all semi trucks pre 2010!

@ShadowWolf LA proves that modern cars still put out smog. You're trying to tell me I should be OK with the smog. But I like to breathe clean air. It’s a personal preference.

@ElwoodBlues The valley hold any accumulation of any pollution form any source. Parts per millon is how emissions such as those are measured, and they are minuscule amounts. Because you choose to live in a bad geographic area, the effects of the minuscule amounts are multiplied because the particles accumulate over time. It is not like the smog of the 70s. Do not dictate, like CA tries to do, to the rest of the country what we can and cannot drive. What works for CA, does not work necessarily for the rest of the country. Don't worry, my V8s aren't affecting your air quality. I choose not to live on the West coast :)

@ShadowWolf What happened to personal preference? You're trying to dictate how dirty the air is that I breathe! And you do it just so you an enjoy your personal preference for roaring V8s!! Freedom for thee but not for me, LOL!!!

@ElwoodBlues Yet you would ban all gas powered cars and force people into electric. So don't be so smug. And my V8s arent dirtying your air. I'm far far away from you and the Jetstream moves east, not west fool.

@ShadowWolf Did I say " ban all gas powered cars"? Did I say "force people into electric"? BTW, I live in the Northeast. I picked LA because it's the canary in the coal mine for smog.

@ElwoodBlues It was implied dude. For either of our personal preferences to be met, one cannot exist. Rather, my V8s affect you a lot less than your leftist cohorts banning my hobby. How would YOU like it if I tried to get your favorite hobby banned? How the he'll is that freedom?

@ShadowWolf Well if my hobby were manufacturing chlorine gas in the back yard, I expect you WOULD get my hobby banned!! Not all hobbies are benign for the neighborhood. And I never said "ban all gas powered cars" nor did I say "force people into electric." I work with incentives, dude, it's the capitalist way.

@ElwoodBlues You cannot possibly compare driving a V8 powered car to manufacturing something like that next door. You didn't say ban or force, but artificially raising gas prices, state regulations by lefties, and outright bans such as in CA, are not incentives, but are government trying to influence the market, and dictate what we can and can't drive. Which it shouldn't be.

@ShadowWolf Dude, government is ALWAYS influencing the market. Go to the store and buy a steak - oops, needs USDA inspection. Buy a can of soup - oops canning factory has to meet all kinds of government testing and cleanliness regulations. Put money in the bank; buy a stock; all these activities are regulated. Why? Because sad experience has shown that without oversight, people are too likely to sell crap and cheat you of your money.

I know you believe "that government is best that governs least." Dude, that's life in Somalia these days! Is Somalia a libertarian paradise??

@ElwoodBlues There's a difference between creating an environment for business to flourish, and actually trying to influence the private sector. Government's job is to protect it's citizens from foreign and domestic threats, and to create an environment for a free market to thrive. Nothing more.

@ShadowWolf Dirty polluted air is a domestic threat.