Welcome to the first EV Tuesday from the EV Revolutions group. We will look at every kind of electric vehicle, from scooters to ships and spacecraft, and how EVs can save the planet, with assistance from other technologies covered in Renewable Friday Diaries. There wasn't room in Renewable Fridays for all of the topics that have been coming up, as we start to take a serious bite out of the Global Warming crisis.
Mokurai and Rei are authors to start with, and we welcome more volunteers. PM Mokurai to get started.
And once in a while, we will look at cats finding new ways to ride Roombas. It isn't only hoomanz who can show ingenuity, you know.
What We'll Cover
- Lawnmowers: Any hardware store or farm supply store, brick and mortar or online. Push mowers, power mowers, riding mowers; Consumer Reports and such, farm and landscaping magazines and Web sites. If you buy two batteries, you can charge one while mowing with the other.
- Scooters: Amazon, Best buy, the usual suspects; It's amazing how many Web sites publish scooter reviews
- Bicycles: electricbikereview.com, and all of the others
- Motorcycles: Harley-Davidson suspended its electric motorcycle production yesterday. Lots of other manufacturers; lots of consumer and trade publications
Manufacturer tells customers to not charge LiveWire bike at home
Talk to your dealer. More when we know more.
- Cars: Everybody listed in Renewable Friday: Electric Cars, and Renewable Friday: Charging Stations Everywhere, But Not Yet; all of the consumer and trade auto publications, and analysts like Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF); Have you seen the Volvo and Jaguar electric car ads on TV? Jaguar brags about its electricness nonstop in the ads, while Volvo sneaks in two seconds of unhooking the charger without saying anything about it.
- Pickup Trucks: Just promises so far, from Rivian, Bollinger, Tesla, Ford, GM (Chevy, of course); Consumer and farm and business and trade publications and Web sites. Production promised in 2020.
- Farm equipment, such as tractors: John Deere and the rest; Farm and trade publications and Web sites.
- Mid-Sized Trucks: Panel trucks, all sorts of specialized trucks such as cherry pickers and glass trucks; lots of business and trade publications and Web sites
- Buses: As in Renewable Friday: Electric Buses
- 18-Wheelers: Here are all the companies besides Tesla that are building trucks of the future
- Armored cars: I just now went looking, and yup, there they are. Brinks is buying theirs from Workhorse Group.
- Military vehicles: Likewise. No, not electric tanks. Do you know how much diesel a regular tank guzzles? An M1 Abrams gets about 0.6 mpg. Armored electric cars and personnel carriers, so far.
- Airplanes: Only short hop planes with modest passenger space so far, plus the NASA X-57 experimental plane, which is just now starting on-the-ground testing
- Trains: We have had lots of electric trains for ages. Now we are talking about installing wind and solar and battery backup and transmission lines along railroad rights of way.
- Ships: Electric Container Ships Are Stuck on the Horizon; There is only one very short-haul, low-capacity electric container ship in operation. We need to shrink batteries by a factor of 15 to make them practical for large, long-haul container ships.
- Space Probes: With solar panels and ion impulse engines, or thermal fission power, or light sails (not electric, but we aren't that picky). (Nuclear power in space) Also battery-powered space suits with tiny thrusters for spacewalks.
I must have left something out. Let me know in the comments.
How We Will Cover It
- Teh Goggle knows all, tells all
- YouTube, likewise
- Consumer publications
- Trade publications
- Industry analysts
- Where possible, try them out ourselves and do our own analysis
We will talk about the usual topics concerning each type of vehicle, and also about their potential to save carbon emissions.
EPA: Transportation GHG Emission
28.9 percent of 2017 greenhouse gas emissions – The transportation sector generates the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gas emissions from transportation primarily come from burning fossil fuel for our cars, trucks, ships, trains, and planes. Over 90 percent of the fuel used for transportation is petroleum based, which includes primarily gasoline and diesel.2
Then there is corn and sugar ethanol, biodiesel (mainly from palm oil), and other minor contributors.
The number of vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by light-duty motor vehicles (passenger cars and light-duty trucks) increased by 45.9 percent from 1990 to 2017, as a result of a confluence of factors including population growth, economic growth, urban sprawl, and periods of low fuel prices. Between 1990 and 2004, average fuel economy among new vehicles sold annually declined, as sales of light-duty trucks increased. Starting in 2005, average new vehicle fuel economy began to increase while light-duty VMT grew only modestly for much of the period. Average new vehicle fuel economy has improved almost every year since 2005, and the truck share is about 45 percent of new vehicles in model year 2016.
Examples
Yes, all right, let's get this out of the way right now.
Blue Bird, Cummins pass 100 electric school bus orders
The 8 Best Electric Motorcycles
Real blue lights home made balsa wood and duct tape electric car.
Solutionary Rail bills itself a grassroots campaign to electrify US railroads and open rail corridors for renewable energy transmission. It proposes a Steel Interstate modeled in part on the interstate highway system. This would require an Act of Congress, with buyin from affected states.
Amazon orders 100,000 electric vehicles from this Michigan startup [Rivian]