Electric + Human-Powered Vehicles

[stevebrooks]

Too much autonomy?



https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scot ... r-31099702

More autonomous vehicle japery!

https://www.drive.com.au/news/erratic-r ... assengers/

How many? Nobody knows!

The notoriety of General Motors' Cruise programming failures became more widespread after an incident in October. In this incident, a pedestrian was hit by a driver, thrown into another lane, and then hit a second time by the self-driving vehicle. The vehicle dragged her twenty feet and eventually came to a stop on top of her.

https://boingboing.net/2023/11/15/no-on ... rians.html

Yeah the problem with autonomous is they simply aren't, they are systems designed to deal with a finite number of events according to certain inputs. Most autonomous cars are programmed to simply pull over to the side of the road if they encounter situations they aren't programmed for, but what happens if this is the wrong thing to do. Humans can react even to novel situations. For instance you are driving on a low level road and suddenly the surface is covered with water running from left to roght, you look to the left and there's a wall of water coming at you down the stream bed. The human, never encountered this before, knows to put his foot down and drive down the remembered road to escape, he may make it, he may not, be he can react, he is an autonomous individual. What does the so-called autonomous car do? Your guess is as good as mine, but it isn't aware of the wall of water because that's not something it's programmed to know about, the road has vanished so it can't drive down the road, does it just stop?

Calling them autonomous is a stretch of the imagination, they are self guiding maybe but they don't have free will, freedom of action, they can't do anything outside their programming so they don't have free will. A human will react in every situation, even if it's only to freeze, there's a reaction, sometimes it's the wrong reaction, sometimes it isn't, but they will respond to any situation, an autonomous car will just stop, that's what they are designed to do.

[Irrev-Black]

Is the four-wheeled behemoth really necessary?

We hop in the car to get groceries or drop kids at school. But while the car is convenient, these short trips add up in terms of emissions, pollution and petrol cost.

Close to half (44%) of all Australian commuter trips are by car – and under 10km. Of Perth’s 4.2 million daily car trips, 2.8 are for distances of less than 2km.

This is common in wealthier countries. In the United States, a staggering 60% of all car trips cover less than 10km.

So what’s the best solution? You might think switching to an electric vehicle is the natural step. In fact, for short trips, an electric bike or moped might be better for you – and for the planet. That’s because these forms of transport – collectively known as electric micromobility – are cheaper to buy and run.

But it’s more than that – they are actually displacing four times as much demand for oil as all the world’s electric cars at present, due to their staggering uptake in China and other nations where mopeds are a common form of transport.

https://theconversation.com/the-worlds- ... ars-213870

[stevebrooks]

Is the four-wheeled behemoth really necessary?

We hop in the car to get groceries or drop kids at school. But while the car is convenient, these short trips add up in terms of emissions, pollution and petrol cost.

Close to half (44%) of all Australian commuter trips are by car – and under 10km. Of Perth’s 4.2 million daily car trips, 2.8 are for distances of less than 2km.

This is common in wealthier countries. In the United States, a staggering 60% of all car trips cover less than 10km.

So what’s the best solution? You might think switching to an electric vehicle is the natural step. In fact, for short trips, an electric bike or moped might be better for you – and for the planet. That’s because these forms of transport – collectively known as electric micromobility – are cheaper to buy and run.

But it’s more than that – they are actually displacing four times as much demand for oil as all the world’s electric cars at present, due to their staggering uptake in China and other nations where mopeds are a common form of transport.

https://theconversation.com/the-worlds- ... ars-213870

For my use around town certainly not, but it's an isolated town so travel further afield will require a proper EV, the only other method is flying. I currently have a diesel Hyundai i30 that's 26 years old, and an even older 4x4 for the beach, given a EV 4x4 with decent range I could replace two ICE cars with a scooter and a EV 4x4.

And now here's another new battery tech I haven't heard much about;



Just had a quick look around and wikipedia says this;

Al has 50 times (23.5 megawatt-hours m-3) the energy density of Li and is even higher than coal.

[Irrev-Black]

It seems that dead Teslas have a respawn point in Ukraine.

https://www.wired.com/story/why-teslas- ... n-ukraine/

[joele]

Interesting, Toyota formed a partnership with BYD to get their first EV out onto the streets..

The collaboration with BYD led to the creation of the bZ3 sedan, showcasing BYD's Blade batteries, motor, and electric control system. It was a project marked by continuous innovation and adaptation, breaking away from Toyota's traditional development process.

https://www.carsauce.com/car-news/toyot ... innovation

[Irrev-Black]

A bit of news from the sharp edge of EV development. Oz leading - yay!

https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/nation ... 5eezc.html

[Irrev-Black]

A call to include lighter electric transportation in the Grand Scheme Of Things.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-19/ ... /103120546

[stevebrooks]

Interesting, Toyota had formed a partnership with BYD to get their first EV out onto the streets..

The collaboration with BYD led to the creation of the bZ3 sedan, showcasing BYD's Blade batteries, motor, and electric control system. It was a project marked by continuous innovation and adaptation, breaking away from Toyota's traditional development process.

https://www.carsauce.com/car-news/toyot ... innovation

Yeah it's funny, I keep seeing things like "Toyota's hydrogen tech will be the doom of EV's" and "BMW's hydrogen tech will be the doom of EV's,", and it just won't. Sure I can see hydrogen being useful in some areas, maybe replacing diesel/electric locomotives with hydrogen/electric, but the investment in hydrogen infrastructure to replace fossil fuel infrastructure for consumer vehicles is absolute zero, there is none, and with hydrogen starting so far behind EV infrastructure I just can't see any hope for it. It may exist in some niche areas where EV technology has limited application but it will never replace it for consumer cars, it's just to far behind in the race.

The fact the Toyota can say their hydrogen tech is great is all very, but you can see from the above they are not hesitating with BEV tech and I can very well see them abandoning hydrogen for passenger cars once it becomes clear there won't be the mass market incentive for continuing with them.

[joele]

Mazda on the other hand are saying they are bailing out and sticking with ICE for the next 5 years at least..

The one EV they did was a joke, the MX30 had a claimed (WLTP) range of only 200km, with the smallest battery (35kwh) available in Australia but was rather expensive for that measly performance (price started at 65k + on-roads).

https://www.carsguide.com.au/car-news/w ... r-comments

[stevebrooks]

Mazda on the other hand are saying they are bailing out and sticking with ICE for the next 5 years at least..

The one EV they did was a joke, the MX30 had a claimed (WLTP) range of only 200km, with the smallest battery (35kwh) available in Australia but was rather expensive for that measly performance (price started at 65k + on-roads).

https://www.carsguide.com.au/car-news/w ... r-comments

Seriously that's not a bad plan though, wait until all the big players get batteries and etc sorted, make sure the first EV you release is a really good one. By waiting and licensing the tech, or even just re-badging good EV's from other companies, it could save them a lot of money in the long term. Do they need to spend a lot of money developing battery tech? Nope, wait until it's ready and go then. Whether it's 5 years or more, or even less, not every company needs to develop their own tech.