Electric Vehicles

[spooker]

As far as EV fires go, there have been a number of recent parked bus fires in the USA, Germany, China, and so forth. One bus ignites, then a string of them parked beside each other burst in to flames. Some issues resulted with cracking batteries and frames due to retrofitting rather than offering a new design. Buses are in a 'trial mode'. I wouldn't buy them quite yet until the bugs are worked out. The few cities that have electric buses don't expect to be completely electric until 2050. Not sure how or why a 100% plan needs to be in place for 2030. Seems like an un-informed rash rush.


https://climate-science.press/2021/06/1 ... n-damages/

https://www.greencarreports.com/news/10 ... -first-one

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-yor ... e-33273548

https://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/133622 ... ty-checks/

https://www.ejinsight.com/eji/article/id/1203088

Two of those links went to the same 2015 incident ... another incident in HK in 2015 ... the fourth was from 2011 ... and then the last was actually 2021, but it doesn't seem that there is any reporting that the fire was caused by the electric buses, only that in the case of fire they can be a hazard ...

The number of transit systems that are piloting programs as of 2020, typically for a 12-month period, shows that maybe the tech has matured to the right point where they can be considered reasonable alternatives ...

https://www.ridedart.com/electric-bus-pilot-program
https://www.sdmts.com/inside-mts-curren ... ot-program
https://www.cdta.org/news/electric-buses-roll-out
https://www.sfmta.com/projects/battery- ... us-program
https://www.ripta.com/projects/electric-bus/

And Vancouver has been running electric buses since 2019 and just ordered more ... https://globalnews.ca/news/7600410/batt ... vancouver/ ... any fires of note? or more news censorship?

[Glacier]

Vancouver has been running electric buses since like 1910. Oh, you mean without the wires... ya, the battery operated ones are more recent. The thing about new technology is that it takes time to become cost effective. Governments should be putting money into R&D, which they are. This is a far better solution than forcing my mom to buy an electric car or pay a massive carbon tax when she lives 250km from town in the middle of nowhere.

[Jlabute]

The number of transit systems that are piloting programs as of 2020, typically for a 12-month period, shows that maybe the tech has matured to the right point where they can be considered reasonable alternatives ...

https://www.ridedart.com/electric-bus-pilot-program
https://www.sdmts.com/inside-mts-curren ... ot-program
https://www.cdta.org/news/electric-buses-roll-out
https://www.sfmta.com/projects/battery- ... us-program
https://www.ripta.com/projects/electric-bus/

And Vancouver has been running electric buses since 2019 and just ordered more ... https://globalnews.ca/news/7600410/batt ... vancouver/ ... any fires of note? or more news censorship?

Three of the links indicate Proterra drivetrain buses which have cracking issues.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/07/19/ ... -shambles/

https://www.thefourth-revolution.com/bu ... ladelphia/

https://www.dailybulletin.com/2021/07/2 ... its-fleet/

Vancouver buses are from a Canadian company called GreenPower Motors Inc who get most of their sales from California and is subsidized about 74%. Last years revenue was down 40%. They could very well be re-branded Chinese buses since GreenPower is actually an importer/exporter.

https://whitediamondresearch.com/wp-con ... Report.pdf

Have any Chinese buses caught fire? Hard to get such information.


As said, it is an immature technology, whether you've heard anything or not. It'll be a matter of time. Even if you hear nothing, you've probably paid too much for it.

[OKkayak]

Vancouver buses are from a Canadian company called GreenPower Motors Inc who get most of their sales from California and is subsidized about 74%. Last years revenue was down 40%. They could very well be re-branded Chinese buses since GreenPower is actually an importer/exporter.

Translink's BEVs are from Nova Bus in Quebec and their trolley buses are from New Flyer in Manitoba.

Vancouver's initial BEV trials consisted of both Nova and New Flyer buses with the contract going to Nova now that the trial is completed. Route 100 will be completely BEV next year and the new Marpole Depot will be BEV dedicated, currently, only the Hamilton Depot (which is where the route 100 is assigned) has chargers installed and the Vancouver Depot is the only trolley depot and will be exclusively trolley once the new Marpole depot opens and the current trolley fleet is set to be replaced by new models in the next few years, also the older diesels are currently being replaced with various HEV models.

[I Think]

Tesla reports that "from 2012 to 2020 there was about one Tesla vehicle fire per 205 million miles traveled—versus one per 19 million miles traveled for all types, citing data from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and U.S. Department of Transportation."

[rustled]

Tesla reports that "from 2012 to 2020 there was about one Tesla vehicle fire per 205 million miles traveled—versus one per 19 million miles traveled for all types, citing data from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and U.S. Department of Transportation."

This seems to me to compare the number for Tesla alone to the number for all the vehicles on the road. That comparison would be illogical in many applications.

[spooker]

Tesla reports that "from 2012 to 2020 there was about one Tesla vehicle fire per 205 million miles traveled—versus one per 19 million miles traveled for all types, citing data from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and U.S. Department of Transportation."

This seems to me to compare the number for Tesla alone to the number for all the vehicles on the road. That comparison would be illogical in many applications.

Why would it be illogical? Would you say the same when they compare the fact that Telsa on autopilot has had had fewer incidents per million miles than other cars with some safety measures and even fewer vs cars with purely human drivers only?

You're not comparing the number of cars on the road vs the number of Teslas ... you're comparing them based on the miles travelled ... it's the same comparison when you look at cost of ownership, per a certain distance traveled how much maintenance is required in a regular ICE vehicle vs a Tesla, which is lower for the Tesla as there are fewer moving parts and less consumables (fluids) ...

One might think that ICE vehicles are not prone to fires since they're based on a more mature technology ... but that doesn't seem to be the case when looking at it ...

[rustled]

This seems to me to compare the number for Tesla alone to the number for all the vehicles on the road. That comparison would be illogical in many applications.

Why would it be illogical?

I said it would be illogical in many applications. Here's some analysis:

https://insideevs.com/news/501729/numbe ... ires-2020/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brookecrot ... 0c62365af8

[Jlabute]

GM is warning people not to park their Bolts beside anything they care about, or at least not within 50 feet of other vehicles. This pretty much nullifies the idea of using one in an urban setting.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/09/16/ ... are-about/


Another article tells us that charging stations can be automatically shut-off to avoid blackouts in the UK. Continually chipping away at the convenience of ownership, states and countries that depend more and more on renewable energy sources are finding themselves restricting access to EV charging. It'll be A LOT longer than 20 years before everyone has one. There is a lot of mileage left in gas.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/09/13/ ... blackouts/

[spooker]

Why would it be illogical?

I said it would be illogical in many applications.

Can you expand? ... I Think posted a quote from an article that was easily sourced, it made a specific claim ... but you made a vague response about how it would be illogical "in many applications" ... how does that apply to the post you originally quoted?

https://insideevs.com/news/501729/numbe ... ires-2020/

[spooker]

GM is warning people not to park their Bolts beside anything they care about, or at least not within 50 feet of other vehicles. This pretty much nullifies the idea of using one in an urban setting.

They started those warnings back in July ...

Another article tells us that charging stations can be automatically shut-off to avoid blackouts in the UK. Continually chipping away at the convenience of ownership, states and countries that depend more and more on renewable energy sources are finding themselves restricting access to EV charging. It'll be A LOT longer than 20 years before everyone has one. There is a lot of mileage left in gas.

As long as the cheap gas keeps flowing ... no one is saying that ICE is going away tomorrow ... just that if we continue to wait for another day to start finding new solutions we're going to be screwed ... grid size battery systems help smooth out the renewable ups-and-downs ...

[rustled]

I said it would be illogical in many applications.

Can you expand?

If your interest is to understand why it would be illogical in many applications, I have already provided some analysis from better informed sources for you to peruse - including the piece you've linked to.

[Jlabute]

They started those warnings back in July ...

As long as the cheap gas keeps flowing ... no one is saying that ICE is going away tomorrow ... just that if we continue to wait for another day to start finding new solutions we're going to be screwed ... grid size battery systems help smooth out the renewable ups-and-downs ...

GM has pretty much been re-iterating their warnings. This is from September. There have been 12 confirmed fires.

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/busin ... 355134002/

Even grid sized battery storage has issues. These are all new products with unsolved problems. As far as 'being screwed' observational evidence and science does not suggest what 'screwed' might even mean. 'Screwed' is mostly a product of bad modeling and science of which Canadian models are the worst. Grid size mega packs actually command a micro portion of energy needed to keep a grid up for any significant time. Like CO2 capture technologies, one needs to spend a horrendous amount of money on something which is ultimately inadequate. So I personally don't believe the future should be hundreds of millions of mega pack batteries, and hundreds of millions of chargers, and hundreds of millions of power inverters, solar panels, and wind turbines, and micromanaging every coulomb. Too wasteful and complex. Certainly we will have ICE and fuel stations far past the 2030/40/50 bans. Thankfully there is time to find better energy solutions rather than knee-jerking our way in to a wasteful future.

Musk is already facing a shortage of battery cells so nothing is going to come quick even if paid for.

[I Think]

GM says it has the problem solved and is building battery packs apace to get them into vehicles asap.
Tesla is building batteries and is building factories to build more batteries.
And Tesla is a good source of comparatives since they monitor each tesla's every move and use ai to improve the cars as new learnings become available.

[nepal]

Some straight talk on EVs