The Boring Future

[JohnS]

I laughed.  I just went to Safeway and was behind a Prius that had a sticker on the rear "Prius = Not Cool"

Of course I was in my totally cool 2018 "completely plastic" Honda Pilot.  😕

 

EDIT:  What's sad is that most common cars today are indeed considered an appliance.  That's the way I think about the three Hondas that my family owns.  I service them regularly, etc.  But do I really care about them, nope.  Do I care about the 2002s, yep.

Edited March 26 by JohnS

[2002iii]

2 hours ago, JohnS said:

I admit that I'm ignorant about the latest electric cars.  What happens to the batteries when they give up the ghost?  They don't last forever do they?  How much does it cost to replace the batteries?  Is it like rebuilding an engine in terms of cost?  Can they be recycled?

 

 

 

The batteries do go bad and can be melted down and recycled. But the recycling process puts off horrible fumes and you lose some of the material in the process.

 

Replacing the battery can be half the cost of the car or more.

[M4202]

On 3/24/2024 at 12:40 PM, Zak said:

Furthermore, big industry, which accounts for 88% of the water consumption, was not restrained while the residential sector, which consumes 12% of the water, was asked to conserve and slapped with stupid legislation.

yep cali stupidity 

[M4202]

On 3/24/2024 at 8:30 PM, Son of Marty said:

This looks pretty boring. Took them all of 40 feet to do it.

I helped build one of these back in the day they are stupid fast , if you have the right driver....... and the engine stays together ...., yea they will work if you have a competent team ala UT Arlington  who started the  fsae program and have a half a mill budget each year . 

[M4202]

12 hours ago, bob02 said:

SOM, my point is simply that there won’t be a message board dedicated to teslas or any other ev 50 years from now. 10 years and they’re obsolete the same way a laptop is. To me, buying any new car is an environmental crime. Ok, I’ll shut up now.

My apple 2e  disagrees with you ...... but it is the exception to the rule so your point still stands . 

[M4202]

11 hours ago, JohnS said:

I admit that I'm ignorant about the latest electric cars.  What happens to the batteries when they give up the ghost?  They don't last forever do they?  How much does it cost to replace the batteries?  Is it like rebuilding an engine in terms of cost?  Can they be recycled?

 

 

 

Its generally 20 plus grand for a new pack , from what I've heard through  the grapevine  they last about 10 years . I read a gen 1 chevy volt battery pack replacement from the stealership was 25 k and i saw  the quote . yea .......... the car if remember right was worth like 10k at most with a good battery pack ...........

[M4202]

11 hours ago, JohnS said:

I admit that I'm ignorant about the latest electric cars.  What happens to the batteries when they give up the ghost?  They don't last forever do they?  How much does it cost to replace the batteries?  Is it like rebuilding an engine in terms of cost?  Can they be recycled?

 

 

 

In terms of recycling there are some projects where they are using them in there weakened state for large infrastructure backup / grid power management  in auzzie land (if i remember correctly )  , there are plants stateside  that do process them and remove the rare earth minerals , and i assume they go into other batteries down the line , my knowledge on that subject is hazy at best , for the tesla packs the good cells can be sold off on the used market for custom projects and or piece meal replacing  bad tesla packs/ building off grid  power stations / custom backup power systems for the home  . The most used components from totaled tesla's are probably the drive assemblies .  

[TobyB]

Sadly, those old flooded lead- acid batteries that have such a miserable energy density also 

'reuse and recycle' at a very high percentage.  So when you take your golf cart batteries to

Dyno and exchange them for 'rebuilt' batteries, you're contributing very little pollution

to the planet, despite hauling around #400 of lead and acid on the green, two pretty unpleasant substances.

The cases are unsealed and reused, the acid reprocessed (mostly just filtered)

and the lead plates are resmelted IF needed.  Net waste, a few pounds, energy cost quite low.

 

The lithium 18650's in a Tesla, not so much.  We cut one (an 18650, not a Tesla) apart in the shop years ago,

and to get such a high density, the thing is packed full.  Mechanically, it's not designed to come apart, and 

once you get it apart, it doesn't lend itself to easy mechanical separation at all.  They can't be 'smelted'

as they'll just burn- once they catch fire, you may as well use the heat, because there's no stopping that.

A fireman said recently- "about the only thing that could burn this place down is 4 Teslas parked nose to tail."

 

Used lithium batteries are very expensive to re-purpose safely- each cell has to be monitored, since

each used cell has a different capacity.  Overcharging or over- depleting one cell can make it go Sony,

and then the whole pack joins in from the intense heat.  I've been working on this- it's fun, but not trivial.

Tesla's larger 2170 is pretty much the same as a 18650, but no idea if scale will help at all with disassembly,

or if maybe (yeah, I'm not optimistic) they're built to be dismantled, as Dyno's lead- acids are.

Last I heard they are trying an even- larger 4680, but as diameter increases, cooling problems exponentiate*,

so given that an S would overheat its pack after 3 laps, I skeptic from my couch.

 

I suspect in a few more years, it's going to become a real solid waste issue.  I also suspect some manufacturers

are going to prove to be really messy (Tesla) and others, not so bad, as

the larger Toyota, Mercedes and Nissan prismatic cells may be better, from a reuse and recycling standpoint.

They are certainly easier to re- purpose and reshuffle, as the larger, square cell size makes monitoring and re- packing

very much easier, and the square shape helps with liquid cooling, as well.

 

I'm a huge electric car fan- but sugar- coating them isn't doing anyone any favors.  They're a big step forward, 

but that doesn't mean that there aren't real problems with them.  We're a bit more experienced now than we

were with petrol engined cars, so mitigating the problems early makes so much more sense than blindly dashing

in with moustaches waxed and 6- shooters blazing.  They're never going to work for everything and everyone, and

with significant luck and hard work, eventually they'll be a stepping stone to something even better (Mr. Fusion(tm)?)

I'm not holding my breath, because trains were far better in almost all regards,

and yet, who wants to ride a train?  Oh, wait- if there was one, I would... 

But they didn't make rich people richer easy enough, so they were 'depreciated'.

 

Thank you for listening to my Tedex Talkex.

 

t

*I just affixed that up.  It made me happy.

[popovm]

23 hours ago, JohnS said:

I admit that I'm ignorant about the latest electric cars.  What happens to the batteries when they give up the ghost?  They don't last forever do they?  How much does it cost to replace the batteries?  Is it like rebuilding an engine in terms of cost?  Can they be recycled?

 

 

 

What happens to the batteries when they give up the ghost?  Replacement. They don't last forever do they?  No. How much does it cost to replace the batteries? A lot. Is it like rebuilding an engine in terms of cost? Yes. Can they be recycled? Yes. 

 

https://www.recurrentauto.com/research/costs-ev-battery-replacement

https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a44022888/electric-car-battery-recycling/

 

[conkitchen]

We are all doomed 

[tech71]

1 hour ago, conkitchen said:

We are all doomed 

Most of us anyway

Environmental degradation, burgeoning numbers,  dwindling resources, looming global conflict, mass insanity....

Appears the big brain, opposable thumb biped is a total fail evolution wise.

No worries though, just a blip in geological time and not even quantifiable in the cosmological time frame.

Think I will go clean my garage.....

Edited March 27 by tech71

[conkitchen]

3 minutes ago, tech71 said:

Think I will go clean my garage.....

Be certain to use a real caustic solution to degrease the floors and then wash it all into the sewer system.  

[tech71]

1 minute ago, conkitchen said:

Be certain to use a real caustic solution to degrease the floors and then wash it all into the sewer system.

No municipal sewer system out here in the country so I thought I would just let it all settle into the ground water...

[conkitchen]

2 minutes ago, tech71 said:

No municipal sewer system out here in the country so I thought I would just let it all settle into the ground water...

Good idea, that way it can help dissolve all the used EV batteries that get buried.  

[AceAndrew]

13 hours ago, M4202 said:

yep cali stupidity 

 

ooh ... my favorite recent discovery.

 

I was writing a paper for a required "engineering ethics" class and chose to cover the closing of the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant following environmental outcry.  Turns out that the power output lost by closing down San Onofre was/continues-to-be supplemented primarily by coal plants.  The CO2 emissions generated from the loss of nuclear power? .... the equivalent to what is produced annually by all of the cars in LA/OC.