Harley E bike

[RustyGold]

Fuel cell -> Electricity

Super efficient small turbo diesels w/ cvt-ish transmissions (+biodiesel)

Most everything else is just bait and switch...replacing a current 'bad' thing with an apparent 'good' thing... ignoring all the bad things that come with the 'good' thing.

To me, what is most practical and sustainable over the longest time...methanol...from methane hydrates on the ocean floor. The current infrastructure can be leveraged for the transformation and existing vehicles can be retrofitted to run methanol.

 

[RustyGold]

View attachment 146332

Yes...this is my passion...and I will cling to them as long as I can. But, my answer mostly is for after I'm dead and gone.

 

[RustyGold]

I have a virtual folder full of notes, diagrams, and links for a pneumatic motorcycle I want to build someday...goal is a 40mile range at fun highway speeds.

 

[Kevin B]

I stumbled onto this article and many others like it a while back. It makes me think at best we're being duped, at the worst we help facilitate exploitation of minor miners.Forbes article

 

[sandman]

 

[MattiThundrrr]

View attachment 146334

All we have to do is potty training for cows. But yeah, there are better ways. We need to embrace them

 

[RustyGold]

I stumbled onto this article and many others like it a while back. It makes me think at best we're being duped, at the worst we help facilitate exploitation of minor miners.Forbes article

That was a depressing read .

I was aware of all those issues on the periphery...but tend to dismiss them as discussion points because the effort to compile most of that data is huge...intimadatingly so. So, I usually just stick with the simplest data, which isn't touched on in the article, load vs capacity on the electric infrastructure. California had rolling blackouts in August due to a heat wave and supply couldn't meet demand. California passed legislation that they will be at 50% renewable by 2025… 60% by 2030…100% by 2045 (this legislation is the reason for most of the electrical line caused wildfires over the last few years). California passed legislation that all new vehicles sold will need to be zero emissions by 2035. California imports a third of it's energy from the PNW and SW states. California already has some of the most expensive electricity in the states. California's capacity has declined ~15% since 2006.

None of these puzzle pieces fit together. Demand is going up (much of it for the charging of EVs), supply is shrinking and getting more expensive. EV sales are increasing everywhere, at what point does the PNW and SW states say sorry...no more juice for you! (trick question, as Cali will pay more for electricity than we do, they will make us have roaming blackouts and sell our electricity at a profit ).

This isn't the only nightmare scenario playing out across the States...just one of the dumbest.

 

[MattiThundrrr]

Yeah, I get that. We have a massive hydro electric dam in my town. Everyone should get the juice for free. Instead government sells it, and the people have to pay for power from the next province over. Everything is stupid, getting stupider, stupidest is yet to come

 

[Verrt]

A big problem you bring up with the alternate energy movement, @RustyGold is politicians and marketers treating people like idiots. Maybe they are idiots, or at least want to be treated like idiots, I dunno, but both politicians and marketers are very hesitant to say the complicated message of "look, this thing we're proposing, it's got problems we haven't figured out yet, but we will, and we're now at point when we have to move before those problems are solved, because we've been screwing things up for years and doing nothing about it"
Instead we get the simple but untrue message, "this is the perfect solution in every way, and in no way the downsides bite us in the butt in 20 years"
Which then makes it easy for others with a financial stake in yesterday's technology to say "aha, but what about poisonous landfill? See, you better stick with your old pal Mr. Coal! These guys are lying to you"

Which leads to smart guys like yourself going, "none of these clowns are being straight with me, I'm out."

You'd think we'd have learned from promising baby boomers clean free nuclear power with no downsides.
And that we'd learn that lesson again, looking at our 40 year old nuclear stations, and three decades of stifled nuclear research, because nuclear went on the naughty list after the downsides that were covered up got in our face.

Comparable example could be EV vehicle manufacturers and battery producers trying to keep from being directly connected to resource production, to avoid potentially bad press. When they should be diving in, getting their hands dirty in a dirty industry, and cleaning it up.

As for California, I definitely don't have a lot of faith in their's or any state government, but I do know that those kind of regulations are what will make companies change their practices, and invest money into reaesrching better ways of doing things. There's obviously problems in the short term, like blackouts, and it's probably not the best way of influencing change, but it will definitely change things.

Decades ago Australia massively reduced its annual landfill by mandating that all garbage dumps had to charge a fee for people dumping stuff. People complained, and it was annoying, expensive, and inconvenient, but people also started reusing, refurbishing, and reselling more than they ever had.
This is obviously a much simpler problem than supplying 40 million people in the most energy hungry state, in the most energy hungry country in the world, with power that doesn't wreck up the place, but it's still a neat example of irritating legislation that achieved its aim.

The problems we're dealing with now are at a global scale, so for the United States to really play its best part at that level we probably need to be a lot less statey, and a lot more united.
Gee, it's a good thing there's no important and visible figure around right now shaking people's faith in the federal government and generally causing division among the people.

I stumbled onto this article and many others like it a while back. It makes me think at best we're being duped, at the worst we help facilitate exploitation of minor miners.Forbes article

It's an interesting article, with serious points that need to be addressed. But the overall message the article serves up would be easier to digest if the author's journalistic neutrality wasn't so obviously straining at the belt, trying to contain a giant hairy belly of gas and oil stoogeness
Regardless, I do feel like EV car manufacturers are missing a beat by keeping their mineral sources at an arm's length, when they could be going into the DRC united with their billions and saying the corruption and the human rights problems, they have to stop, and we'll slow down production for the entire world until they do.

Like Google and Salesforce setting up in Kenya, bringing jobs and millions, but saying if the governmental corruption doesn't end, we'll leave.

 

[MazdaFlyer]

Dang it’s just an overpriced bicycle with an electric motor and battery. All about branding and dollars. Too much thought process going on here.
Collecting some parts for a mid drive assist of my own rat rod concoction. I guess it will be politically and socially incorrect as most of my builds have been. I’m too old to care what people think these days.

 

[MattiThundrrr]

the overall message the article serves up would be easier to digest if the author's journalistic neutrality wasn't so obviously straining at the belt, trying to contain a giant hairy belly of gas and oil stoogeness.

That's a good metaphor right there.

 

[Verrt]

Collecting some parts for a mid drive assist of my own rat rod concoction. I guess it will be politically and socially incorrect as most of my builds have been.

What makes me chuckle about that, is the people who will be most excited that you're building an ebike, are not the ones usually known for complaining about everything being too politically correct.

Seems like there's probably an important lesson in that about how we view ourselves and the world around us. But I'll be lambed if I know what it is.

That's a good metaphor right there.

Hahaha. I was pretty pleased with it

 

[Dominicus]

I live in the San Diego with about the worst energy and transportation costs in the nation. We also have one of the highest ozone levels in the country. Go team. Those are all related because it is almost impossible to exist here without a car. So because we have to drive more we pay more for fuel. I hate to say it as a car guy but the reliance on the car completely ruins this place. Local mass transit is beholden to the clogged roads so add an extra two hours to get anywhere.

Local power co. doesn’t help, SDGE got sued for price gouging then had to raise rates to pay. Then there were the wildfires caused by their lines...raise rates. CA and other states sell power to each other and sometimes, like heat events, CA sells more than other states can produce back when we need it. Besides creating the constant possibility of blackouts think about the energy wasted to heat by sending it back & forth...also the power we buy back may not have been as green as what we sold ‘em. Old ideas running an old grid and an old transportation network.

Some old ideas work, diesel hybrid trains have been around since the 30’s and rail still has the lowest $/mile per pound. If our SD Trolley was as extensive as the BART or run along the freeways that would do wonders...the irony is our city was designed by the electric railway robber barons. The busses showed up, they paved over the old rail NOW because you can’t get around they’re looking to put them back.

Back to bikes I’d love a mid hub ebike to take on rail that gets relatively close to work so I could ditch the car. But here naturally that involves two rail systems and going miles the wrong way.

 

[Duchess]

Unlike hydrocarbons, the lithium in batteries is recyclable (although the infrastructure is limited at the moment, it has value, so it's legit recyclable, unlike municipal "recycle" bin recycling where much of it often ends up in a landfill). Geothermal lithium extraction would go a long way to mitigating the environmental and human toll of mining and there may be other improvements in the future (perhaps an efficient way to extract it from seawater). Or maybe there will be another, better chemistry entirely that comes out later. There is no way to make hydrocarbon extraction better and fracking is a step backwards. Electrification is a start, not an end, and there are already multiple options for its generation, with likely more to come along with improvements to present methods, and these solutions can be tailored to best match the local environments. I think the future of electrical generation will be smaller grids tied in with individual generation. Internal combustion is reaching its end and I'm glad for it even after having spent so many years of my life studying and working with it (and largely trying to think up ways to improve its lack of thermal efficiency).

 

[Verrt]

Electrification is a start, not an end, and there are already multiple options for its generation, with likely more to come along with improvements to present methods, and these solutions can be tailored to best match the local environments.

You're highlighting an inherent design advantage of EVs.

If you remove the names associated with all the different methods of generating energy for personal transport, and look at the design system alone. You're looking at one system where every personal transport generates its own power on board, and another system where power is generated at a centralized location and stored on the transport.
Both have advantages and disadvantages, but a big advantage of the second system is when you upgrade the centralized power generation to better tech it instantly and totally for free upgrades all of the vehicles that rely on it.

The same can't be said for vehicles that generate their own power, each has to be modified, retrofitted, or replaced to take advantage of newer power generation methods.

If you buy a Tesla in Estonia today and run it from the grid, you essentially have a coal powered car. But in 20 years when Estonia's power comes down the space elevator from the global solar array, that 20 year old Tesla will be more efficient than the day you bought it.

*I realize I'm using an overly simplified model of energy generation/storage/conversion and both the ice and ev are converting potential energy to kinetic energy on board, but it still holds water.