GM going "all Electric"

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PackardV8
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Re: GM going "all Electric"

Post by PackardV8 »

The macro trends are inexorable. Most smaller towns are dying and the largest cities have gained population to the point traffic congestion and parking have made owning a car too expensive and too much a hassle for many of the younger generation. They're already into Uber/Lyft/public transit/ride sharing for daily use. They will be using driverless vehicles in the near future.
That would require me to own another vehicle for those 18 days a year, or drastically change my life. So, even at your 1% estimate, the average person will need to find another form of transportation 3-4 days a year. This would kill a lot of the tourism industry.
Not really; traveling nationally and internationally whether for business or pleasure, flying and renting a vehicle is so easy and seamless, one soon doesn't even notice doing it. For those few long trips per year, flying and/or renting a vehicle is already the younger generation's preferred mode of vacation travel.

The New York-Newark metro area is still the nation's most populous, with 18,351,295 residents. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim is still the second, with 12,150,996, and the Chicago area is still third, with 8,608,208.the top 48 urbanized areas account for more than half of the entire urban population. The country is undeniably urban, and the urban majority is counted by population, and too many of them are ready to give up owning cars and trucks.

We troglodytes who persist in living in smaller cities/towns and/or privately owning one or more vehicles will become the exceptions.

When China says it's going to BEVs, it becomes a matter of only how the rest of the world gets there too and how soon.

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Re: GM going "all Electric"

Post by Newold1 »

Mike, your argument about the electrical grid system not being able to supply the charging needs of a large contingent of EV's is not quite on point. As Jack has pointed out most EV's as there counterpart ICE's only take short trips about 95% of the time. Home trickle charging will be done most of the time at home at night when electrical demand is usually at it's lowest. The newer and planned EV's coming to market are going to have to meet that 300-400 mile range on a full battery charge to meet the consumers need for those 5% trips and that will happen, those longer higher rate charges will be on the road and but the use time per EV vehicle service in no charge modes will make that added electrical power demand a small almost insignificant added requirement.

The argument that our electrical system cannot provide the power needs of the coming EV expansion is not a valid one if one really applies how the EV charging states really are used. Just think about the decreased power demands that will take place at refineries producing gasoline and diesel and the pipeline electrical pump demand decrease from pumping less gasoline and diesel. The point here is that you have to consider the overall affect of going from ICE to EV vehicles and that affect on all areas of power and its production and uses.

I for one am not to fearful to enter the new EV generation of vehicles for my needs. I have ordered a. new Rivian EV pickup truck with it's 400 mile range and great towing capacity and features and I hope its delivered in early 2020 as planned. I will at that point be faced with buying a new crew cab 4 wheel drive 3/4 ton gas truck in a nice luxury version and I am sure we are talking a $56K plus purchase , so spending about $65K for the new EV pickup at this point does not deter me from going EV. Call me a fool, that's OK , only time will tell but I am an optimist about technology advancement!
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Re: GM going "all Electric"

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Newold1, do you work in electrical power distribution? Do you know the condition of the system in densely populated older residential areas? Utility companies run their wires and transformers well over 100 percent right now. The power used by refiners has nothing to do with residential systems..I am familiar with it, and it is a mess...I'm not saying it'll blow up but it is marginal but perhaps in 20 years improvements to battery charging and the grid will make it a non issue...But right now the system has problems handling AC loads in many areas...Current Testla's charging load is about the same as a house AC load....late afternoon the home owner arrives, cranks up the AC and plugs in the EV...
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Re: GM going "all Electric"

Post by Newold1 »

I don't work in the power industry and I don't consider my self knowledgeable enough to get into serious fact, figures, system capability at various areas and uses but I know there has been a tremendous amount of technology improvement in the GRID and its control and ,management to know that a lot of the old "brown outs" overdraw and such are much harder to take place now that we are in a grid system where its the computers making the shifts and redistributions of power and capacity that eliminate when old Nate used to doze at the control panel and be a little late in making the adjustments!
With peaker plants online now and capacitance storage and battery storage being set up and used on solar and wind energy supplies to help meet peak demand increases, I think our power supply capability and management is and will over the introduction of larger EV charging demand provide the necessary power without the system "browning out" The Sky is not going to fall!
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Re: GM going "all Electric"

Post by Truckedup »

I have worked local power distribution repairs after ice storms have ripped down the wires. It is not high tech at all, just a hodgepodge of circuitry, most of it run at or beyond maximum capacity...I'm not saying it will fail instantly but it's a lot worse than many utility companies will admit..
Last edited by Truckedup on Tue Feb 12, 2019 6:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: GM going "all Electric"

Post by Truckedup »

Double post
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Re: GM going "all Electric"

Post by Newold1 »

I live and work in the Northeast and I have my own whole house and a shop standby generators because I have been exposed to years of ice storms, wind storms, snow fall and trees down on power lines so many times I've lost count!!

Overhead power lines are probably some of the most antiquated power infrastructure in the US today!

Great job security for you although I don't envy your working conditions during and after storms and natural disasters.

These are issues that need to be upgraded and improved by light years, but energy companies will be trying to fix a mess that's been allowed to ferment for over a 100 years.

California and other western states enacted PUESSER 70 years ago and most have completely undergrounded their electric systems. This allowed utility companies to collect a small charge on each electric bill and use those funds exclusively to pay for the cost of undergrounding.

Almost to late for the northeast to do something like this with today's inflated costs. Just part of the sad state of infrastructure upgrade, replace and repair efforts here in the US!
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Re: GM going "all Electric"

Post by gruntguru »

CamKing wrote: Sun Feb 10, 2019 12:37 pm The first thing that would need to be done, would be to quadruple our power grid capacity($10 trillion? $40 trillion? )
Not sure where that stat comes from. A quick check shows that the US consumes 140 x 10^9 gallons of gasoline per year. That is about 16 x 10^18 Joules of energy. About 20% of that goes into driving the car ie 3.2 x 10^18 J. With EV efficiency at say 60%, this would require 3.2/0.6 x 10^18 J
= 5.3 x 10^18 J of extra electricity.

Electricity production (2017) was 4 x 10^12 kW.hr = 14.4 x 10^18 J.

So electricity production would need to increase by 37% to replace gasoline vehicle requirement (not 500%). Diesel would be additional of course.

Let me know if you find any errors.
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Re: GM going "all Electric"

Post by CamKing »

gruntguru wrote: Tue Feb 26, 2019 12:59 am About 20% of that goes into driving the car
Where did you pull that out of ?
You have to replace 100% of the fuel, no matter what it's used for. You need electricity to run the AC in the car. You need it to run the computers. You need it for the lights. When you're sitting at a red light, you will still be using electricity.
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Re: GM going "all Electric"

Post by gruntguru »

The energy content of gasoline (about 41 MJ/kg) is the heat energy released when you burn it. The average gasoline engine on the road has a peak thermal efficiency of 30 - 35% but in city cycle spends most of its time at much lower efficiencies - down to 0% when idling at a standstill. The vast majority of the fuel goes to propelling (I said "driving") the vehicle, the other stuff (ancillaries) is tiny - regardless of whether the car is gas or electric.

Thermal efficiency ("heat engine" stuff) applies to the power station that makes the electricity where perhaps 40% of the heat energy in the coal (or 40% - 60% for NG) is converted to electrical energy. The electric motor in the EV is probably 90% efficient, my conservative guesstimate of 60% for the EV includes charge/discharge losses, ancillaries etc.

EV's (and hybrids) have a huge advantage in city stop/start where a lot of the braking energy can be recovered for re-use rather than dissipated as heat.
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Re: GM going "all Electric"

Post by Newold1 »

My new thoughts are, save the dollars where we can with EV vehicle transportation and use those dollars to have fun in the ICE performance cars and sports!
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Re: GM going "all electric" and shutting down GM Performance Powertrain

Post by HDBD »

CamKing wrote: Sat Feb 09, 2019 2:14 pm Makes perfect sense. The biggest failure GM has had in the last 50 years, is the Volt. :lol:
Have a look at old sparkle, 477k miles

https://www.google.com/amp/s/gm-volt.co ... 0519&amp=1
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Re: GM going "all Electric"

Post by Newold1 »

Understand some of the basis for your calculations but I think you left out some of the credit in big electrical power used to extract oil, transport that oil, refine that oil (big KW usage), pump that refined fuel, ship the fuel, power the dispensing stations excetera. We all need to be really careful to make apples to exact apples to apples comparisons and not apples to oranges.
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