My cousin just bought a Prius. When he was telling me about it, he mentioned he had to get his house rewired, because the electrical couldn't handle EV charging as it was before he bought the car. A lot of people I talk to have said they got their houses tested, and found out they'd have to do the same thing. Most of the houses in my mid-Michigan city were built in the first half of the 1900s, and have been scarcely updated since. Hell, most of the outlets in my house still only have 2 holes instead of 3. I got my house tested, and surprise surprise, it was also unfit for an EV charger.
This is a huge problem, and it doesn't seem to be getting addressed all that thoroughly by people pushing electric vehicle, nor does the issue of batteries just going into landfills and leeching chemicals into the environment seem to be getting addressed. I believe that if we're deadset on going with electric vehicles, rather than pursuing more environmentally friendly liquid fuels, such as hydrogen, we should at least provide a government assistance program that completely covers a home owner/renter/landlord's cost of rewiring a house, to be more fit for electric vehicle charging.
As for the environmental concerns, I believe we should be looking more seriously into liquid hydrogen, and if the technology isn't ready, use electric vehicles as a stepping stone. I really don't see a way to make the battery problem not be a problem, without just not using them.
At some point when all vehicles are electric how do we as a planet get rid of the batteries that will eventually require replacement?
Edit: what I’m getting is that EV are awesome after they are made until end life; but mining the Lithium for the batteries is worse for the land(arguable) and the recycling will end up like the current model where eventually they will stop and the sizable batteries will stack somewhere. Did I miss something?
- Ford to bring electric zero-emission vehicles at scale to American customers with the largest, most advanced, most efficient auto production complex in its 118-year history
- Called Blue Oval City, the complex will be constructed on a nearly 6-square-mile site in west Tennessee and build next-generation electric F-Series pickups and advanced batteries
- Moreover, a new BlueOvalSK Battery Park is to be built in central Kentucky consisting of twin battery plants that will power a new lineup of Ford and Lincoln EVs
- Ford and SK Innovation plan to invest $11.4 billion and create nearly 11,000 new jobs – close to 6,000 in Stanton, Tennessee, and 5,000 in Glendale, Kentucky; production of the new electric vehicles and advanced lithium-ion batteries will begin in 2025
- Three new BlueOvalSK battery plants – two in Kentucky and one in Tennessee – will enable 129 gigawatt hours a year of U.S. production capacity for Ford
- These investments build on Ford’s recent announcements that it will work with Redwood Materials on closed-loop domestic battery recycling and make a new investment to increase production of the F-150 Lightning pickup in Dearborn, Michigan, starting next year
- Ford is investing $90 million in Texas – $525 million total in the U.S. to train skilled technicians to service connected, electric zero-emission vehicles
I guess the best way to think about this is a Hershey Chocolate bar---break off a piece for the energy needed in the moment for whatever is needed in the moment. Imagine an all electric lawn mowing service which might need to power four or five devices. If the range of the truck was, say, 200 miles, that's probably a lot further than it's going to travel in a day. If the battery to the vehicle were modular in the way I'm imagining, it could power the electric lawn mower, hedge trimmer, weed eater, leaf blower, etc. And on days off, that power would be available to power the vehicle. Of course, that power could be used to power endless number of useful electric things. Thoughts?
Or do all batteries just lose their max capacity over time?
Electric cars aren’t just vehicles. They’re big batteries.
Quote " Most Americans, ... talk about electric vehicles solely as modes of transport — which is understandable, given they have motors and wheels and get us around. But they are so much more than cars: they’re batteries, and batteries have uses far beyond transport. Done right, integrating EVs into American society could help prevent power blackouts, stabilize the US’s crumbling electric grid, and make solar and wind energy more reliable sources of power for more people. The first step is to stop thinking about electric vehicles as cars that happen to be powered by batteries, and instead see them as batteries that happen to be inside cars."
This paradigm shift bodes especially well for Quantumscape! ALL IN!
