Are we on the brink of an electric car revolution?

[Forever_Winter]

Videos like this, whilst a pointless gimmick for almost everyone, will sell Cybertruck:
https://youtu.be/Pj2jMhwKuv4?si=COTO73IIOTHE4d2L

Indeed. The Cybertruck will probably be bankrolled by the other Tesla models. Btw my previous post said pulling a Horse it meant to say pulling a Porsche, which is pretty incredible given the fact it was up against a Porsche.

[BritDownUnder]

It's a funny looking thing but it will sell well in America maybe even to Law Enforcement if it is as bulletproof as Tesla claims.

I think what damages people when hit by cars or light trucks is not the shape of the front but the height of the front that hits you. At a certain height only your legs get hit and the rest of you gets swept onto the bonnet and windshield causing less injuries. Higher up (and much lower than that if you are a child) like a SUV or van and your vital organs get hit by the front of the truck. Maybe the sharp shape will carve you up a bit more.

[Ralphw2]

In Europe cars are meant to be designed to minimise pedestrian injuries between about 20mph and 40mph. Above that you’re probably dead anyway. The idea is to have a low point of contact, below the knee, where broken bones are easier to fix, and pivot you onto the r.ounded bonnet with preferably 6 inches of crumple space to reduce the deceleration, and for your head not to hit anything too hard before you are tossed to one side or the other of the car. The cyber truck appears to have a high, absolutely rigid right angle bonnet lip from stainless steel which will stop a (low speed soft nosed) bullet, and is pretty much guaranteed to break any bone it comes into contact with, and when the pedestrian does rotate, their head will hit the rigid bonnet with almost instantaneous deceleration. A glancing blow will hit the rigid corner which would inflict deep soft tissue injuries and rupture any internal organ in its path.

Edit

Also, it appears that it does not have crumple zones to cushion the deceleration of the occupants in a head on collision. Obviously, being 3 tons in mass means that the deceleration will be far worse in the Fiat 500 it is colliding with, but in a fair fight the cyber truck occupants are likely dead in a 35mph head on with a very heavy object or concrete barrier.

[clv101]

It's a bizarre creation, I guess being a 'truck' mean it gets a pass on all these sensible safety features. It's like something out of the 1960s. Says a lot about the management at Tesla, that this is the direction they went down. The Tesla 2 is the more interesting vehicle - and still leaves room for a truly light weight, city focused, Tesla 1.

[Potemkin Villager]

It's a funny looking thing but it will sell well in America maybe even to Law Enforcement if it is as bulletproof as Tesla claims.

Yes it does seem to have been designed as an impressive looking killing machine primarily.

You could see this sort of thing mutating into some sort of AI controlled Robotank!

[emordnilap]

I was asked this question and didn't have a definitive answer for it, which is where you come in.

"Has a car with a generator ever been tried? That is, to generate electricity to drive electric motors on each wheel?"

It might be obviously a daft question (as you'd have to carry fuel/generator/electric motors and (presumably) batteries), so my answer was, "It'd probably too heavy."

However, diesel locomotives work like this, but could it be scaled down?

[clv101]

Yes, the BMW i3 range extender is a small petrol engine that works as a generator to charge the i3's battery while driving. It doesn't directly power the wheels; instead, it kicks in when the battery charge gets low, providing electricity to extend the car's range. Essentially, it acts as a backup power source to increase the overall distance the i3 can travel on a single charge.

[Ralphw2]

The new Nissan hybrids are generator based, called Epower. They are generally less efficient than traditional hybrids, but offer some of the driving advantages of Evs like no gears, and use a smaller engine than the equivalent ice. However, Nissan seems to have spent a lot of money developing a technology dead end, and they introduced the vehicles with very little advertising. They have a small battery, only 2KWh, between the generator and motor, to provide the power for rapid acceleration.

[emordnilap]

So it's feasible? But are they efficient?

[Ralphw2]

It is feasible. You can buy one today. They are not particularly efficient. Possibly no more efficient than a conventional ice car. Of course, driving style has a lot to do with overall efficiency, but evs are 3 to 4 times more efficient in pure energy terms.

[Default0ptions]

“The New Blue Screen Of Death? "Your Vehicle Cannot Be Driven"”

“The more things change, the more they stay the same. Gone are the days of Windows 95; heading into the year 2024, there's an entirely new "blue screen of death" people apparently need to be watching out for - in their cars.

“This week a photo went viral on social media purporting to show a Ford vehicle displaying a "your vehicle cannot be driven" message after a failed software update. "Please call customer support," the screen urges. ”

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/new-b ... -be-driven

[northernmonkey]

The problem the world faces is a lack of adequate supply of portable energy in the face of increasing demand. This is as true of electric vehicles as it is of ICE vehicles.

It's true to say that electric vehicles allow for a more diverse supply of initial energy inputs. But, only at the significant expense of energy transfer losses turning them into electricity and with no real dent being put into the fundamental energy supply problem. Then, there are the more practical logistical considerations of, in the UK at least, the entire national grid needing to be massively strengthened if the national fleet of just the domestic vehicles was to be entirely transferred to electric.

But, I don't think the people in charge (assuming anyone really is truly in charge) are planning to have us all transfer to electric vehicles. Instead, those who can afford to (a minority) will do so and those who cannot (the majority) will be back on to public transport. The majority just don't know it yet.

From a personal standpoint, I have done what I can to protect myself and do all my daily commuting on a diesel motorcycle. It gives 200mpg and will, if push comes to shove, run on pretty much anything that burns and can be pushed down a pipe.

I mustn't need to be in a hurry however. It has a top speed of 50mph.

[Ralphw2]

I don't think the people in charge think more than 5 years ahead, and most have no reason not to believe that economic growth will continue indefinitely, making problems like decarbonising the economy a matter of technology and time, a transition management issue, not a fundamental constraint.

Even the likes of Musk and tesla clearly do not see material constraints to growth. Musk has just revealed the latest iteration of his humanoid robot, with full body and hand articulation and pressure sensitive feedback in the fingers, etc, and has basically plans to use them to replace most of his human workforce in his factories, in the next few years. The embedded energy in these devices must be huge., not to mention the running costs

[Ralphw2]

Bev share of UK car market stalled in 2023, declining 0.1%, after the government withdrew the last consumer grants to subsidise purchases. Most evs are now bought as part of employee salary sacrifice tax schemes.

The number of evs in my neighbourhood continues to rocket as I am in an affluent young demographic area. About one house in 4 has at least one ev.

[Potemkin Villager]

Musk has just revealed the latest iteration of his humanoid robot, with full body and hand articulation and pressure sensitive feedback in the fingers, etc, and has basically plans to use them to replace most of his human workforce in his factories, in the next few years. The embedded energy in these devices must be huge., not to mention the running costs

Sounds like a cross between Robocop and Terminator.
All we need now is for the AIdroid known as Musk to announce that Skynet has gone live.......