PSA: Fill up your gas tanks-world events

[Ombligo]

Only 11% of US oil consumption is imported, of that about 9% is from Saudi Arabia. So this affects roughly 1% of our oil and should have no effect.

To put it another way, expect gas prices to go up 30%-40% by Monday morning.

[Blankity Blank]

How realistic is a large scale conversion to EVs until the average person has charging accommodations where they live (or charging technology reaches a point where a reasonable recharge takes about as long as a current pump refill)? I just read that there are plans for all new housing built in Britain to have charging stations, haven’t heard a whisper of such thing here.

I’ve also heard some say EVs are in fact a false start, and hydrogen fuel cells will be the workable route.

I guess it’s not too soon to start getting educated on the choices.

[mattkime]

Blankity Blank wrote:
How realistic is a large scale conversion to EVs

Basically impossible ;until people decide they want to change. Then it will happen very quickly.

[Thrift Store Scott]

Blankity Blank wrote:
How realistic is a large scale conversion to EVs until the average person has charging accommodations where they live (or charging technology reaches a point where a reasonable recharge takes about as long as a current pump refill)? I just read that there are plans for all new housing built in Britain to have charging stations, haven’t heard a whisper of such thing here.

I have no link to confirm this, but I do seem to remember reading about a new housing development in California that included charging stations in every garage among other "green" innovations. I want to say this was somewhere in Northern California, possibly in the general Silicon Valley area. Whether this was just a plan or was actually under construction I can't remember.

Blankity Blank wrote:
I’ve also heard some say EVs are in fact a false start, and hydrogen fuel cells will be the workable route.

BMW have, at least in the past, led the way in hydrogen fuel technology and development for cars including the ones with fuel cells and they've been claiming market-ready hydrogen-fueled cars were "just around the corner, 3-5 years max" since at least the late 1970s, but they're not in the dealer showrooms yet. Also, even if hydrogen-fueled cars became available tomorrow you'd still want to give them five years or so of sales and production to work out any hidden kinks before buying one.

Blankity Blank wrote:
I guess it’s not too soon to start getting educated on the choices.

True.

[Acer]

I dunno what the energy per unit is for hydrogen, but for natural gas it sucks. We have a NG Civic at work. Gas tank takes up most of the trunk, but gives you half the range of a liquid fuel.

[wave rider]

Noted no increase in prices when I topped off this afternoon during my Costco excursion.

[Ombligo]

I have a feeling that hydrogen will be the automotive Sony Betamax. A superior technology rejected by the uneducated public for mundane reasons.

We are still many years away from EV being the rule, not the exception. The average car lasts eight years, that means half of all cars last longer. So if the sale of ICE cars ended this year, it would still be the late 20's before most cars were EV.

[sekker]

EVs are the next wave of transportation tech. Whether Hydrogen ever matures as commercial tech will entirely depend on a carbon neutral source of energy. So far, it’s all from electrical conversion of water.

EVs have largely solved the range and charging rate issues. Our next new car is an EV.

[Rolando]

Might be a good time to buy testla stock? AFAIK they are selling everything they can build...

[Sarcany]

Ombligo wrote:
I have a feeling that hydrogen will be the automotive Sony Betamax. A superior technology rejected by the uneducated public for mundane reasons.

Reasons like for a couple of generations of the product a full-length movie wouldn't fit on a single tape. Yeah. Stupid consumers.

The hydrogen economy is waiting on technological breakthroughs.

We have no good way to transport hydrogen for ordinary consumer-purposes. There are big tankers and pipelines for commercial facilities, but they are very expensive and are not efficient for getting hydrogen to your corner gas station. Compressing hydrogen for bulk-transport is apparently very energy-consumptive and compressed hydrogen is allegedly less efficient than gasoline as a fuel. Every year there are more "breakthrough in hydrogen storage and transportation" articles, but they are all "5-10 years away" stories.