OT. Electric pickup introduction

You should get a portable turbine. You drrive to a stream, throw it in the current, and its connected to the car to charge the battery.

Good for rural areas.

A couple of weeks ago I drove a Chevy Bolt. Like everything else, it has good and bad points.

First bad point is cost. Any fuel savings are negated in the purchase price. Nest is the batteries. Obtaining lithium often involves child labor and poor working conditions. Maybe a better material is in the future.

Range is plenty for most of us as a daily driver with 200 to 300 miles. If you take longer trips you'd be better off with an IC engine with fuel available every couple of miles and fast. A couple of times a year I make a round trip of 2600 miles and don't want to make a dozen stops of about an hour to charge up.

Acceleration is great. Push that pedal and off you go. I was also impressed with the air conditioning. Of course, the more heat or AC you use the less miles you travel on a charge. No idea how well the heat works.

In the future they may have a place in many garages. Right now, power is still generated by coal, batteries still have chemicals to recycle and dispose of.

Keep an open mind. People never though the automobile would replace the horse.

Does it? Can you cite any references supporting this allegation?

While all mining has environmental impacts, I'm not aware of any child labor issues (most lithium comes from Tibet and South America).

Sulfer batteries and various flow batteries are in development.

Rent a car twice a year for your long trips . Let someone else pay for maintenance and depreciation.

The energy mix depends on your location. Only ~20% of electricity in the US is generated from burning coal (down from ~40% in 2014).

Googles give 3 million hits. You can spend a couple of days reading about if if you don't take my word for it.

That wouldn't be enough to run the radio

Coal is usually replaced by natural gas. That is better but still fossil fuel

And I don’t want to fart around waiting for it to be charged even when there are unused charging stations available I much prefer the much shorter time to fill the tank and the much lower price for the vehicle in the first place.

If they hadn't moved to cars so quickly, by now we'd have electric horses.

I agree and look at it as a niche market. Even Tesla with its rapid charging stations takes about 45 minutes. To go cross country you have to follow a route that takes you to their charge stations and figure on spending the time with meals.

After about 10 years when batteries are shot you might as well junk the vehicle as replacement cost of batteries could be over $5,000.

My car has a hybrid model reviewed by Consumer Reports who concluded it is not worth buying the hybrid which costs $10,000 more for the extra 3 mpg that you gain.

The usa has the second largest proven reserves of lithium in the world.

No it does not. Not even very often at all.

I have never done anything like that daily.

Not every couple of miles here, but often enough so that it isnt hard to never be without somewhere to fill. Unlike with a charger.

And I don’t want to queue for hours either. On the rare occasion when I do have to queue for a pump it isnt for long enough to matter.

Hopeless.

Just as true of the vehicle itself.

No thanks, its unlikely to change significantly before I die.

It wont before I die.

Did you even read your cites????? They are in reference to COBALT - which is NOT LITHIUM!!!! You really ARE as stupid as you appear (which must be a pretty difficult feat)

No thanks, much more convenient to use my regular car.

In fact you pay much more up front for the electric car.

Trivial to only use cobalt that doesn’t come from countrys that use any child labour in its production.

I enjoy following this guy for all his common sense:

Cobalt isn't lithium.

You haven't been paying attention the last couple of years. Renewables have been supplanting Coal recently, not CH4.

I should have been more specific. Lithium batteries use child labor to get the cobalt for them.

Lithium mining has other problems though. But hey, its a foreign country so we don't care.

Corse nothing like that happens with whats used in IC cars and pickups, eh ?

Not when its done elsewhere.

Corse nothing like that happens with whats used in IC cars and pickups, eh ?

Just as true of all mining, stupid.

Stupid cow. Bet she has a cellphone.