The guy is a genius, sometimes the line between brilliance and madness can be blurred.
apollo11,
Aug 5, 6:27am
And he was probably being tongue in cheek, not a good idea with dour humourless mongs like Helen Clark around.
s_nz,
Aug 5, 7:19am
The EECA had commissioned an independent & peer reviewed life cycle assessment of electric vehicles in a New Zealand context. The last paragraph of the executive summary is as follows:
"Overall, the comparative life-cycle assessments indicated that there are very worthwhile gains to be made by encouraging the uptake of PEV vehicle technologies in New Zealand, particularly with regard to reducing the carbon intensity of the New Zealand economy."
Little need to rely on non peer reviewed articles focused on other countries.
Be careful using forbes.com as a source. While the Forbes magazine is well respected, forbes.com used the "contributor model" in short, pretty much anybody can sign up, and essentially use forbes.com as their personal blog (abiding by the rules of forbes.com of course). forbes.com pay's per traffic attracted, so "contributors" are incentive's to write from viewpoints that attract more traffic and to stir controversy.
serf407,
Aug 8, 9:44pm
Technology is always evolving. What is written about technology one day, can be proven to be partially or totally wrong the next day. It is challenging enough for many scientists to keep up with global developments in their own specialist field, let alone the global developments across a number of scientific fields.
Emissions of and from the finished product, (the car), might be minimal, but what happened to get to that point ?
intrade,
Aug 9, 3:46am
i got another news info in my phone spam where massive ultra massive polution is generated. Everyone who wants stuff for cheap is responsible for that to happen as cost has to be cut to be cheap. i go see if i find it on my phone.
Jeez I'd pay double for something made in NZ instead of China, the problem is almost nothing is made here.
blueviking,
Aug 9, 6:20am
So to make 1kg of lithium makes 99kg of toxic waste. There are areas now of China and India that will be uninhabitable for 100's of yrs.But hey, what you don't see don't harm. Sort of like when they 1st discovered asbestos.
s_nz,
Aug 9, 6:42am
My EECA links above have gone dead. Here is a new one:
The issues with VW diesel's in question was local air quality, rather than global warning. In cheat mode (activated when the cars programming suggested they were being tested), the cars are a little slower & use a little more fuel (and hence emit more carbon), in order to reduce NO2 output.
NO2 is a major contributor to smog, which is a big issue in California. Quite reasonable for officials in this area to be concerned about it.
While industrial pollution is also a significant issue (interesting article BTW), it's existence doesn't mean the world should give up
apollo11,
Aug 9, 6:43am
"To begin with, about half the lifetime carbon-dioxide emissions from an electric car come from the energy used to produce the car, especially in the mining and processing of raw materials needed for the battery. This compares unfavorably with the manufacture of a gasoline-powered car which accounts for 17% of the car’s lifetime carbon-dioxide emissions. When a new EV appears in the show-room, it has already caused 30,000 pounds of carbon-dioxide emission. The equivalent amount for manufacturing a conventional car is 14,000 pounds." Can anyone else spot the flaw in the logic of this article?
Tesla's next (solid state) battery which stems from their purchase of Maxwell technologies is 25% more energy dense, uses no cobalt, is 20% cheaper to produce and will last twice as long. It will no longer have organic solvents that make normal li-ions a fire hazard. The quickest way to reduce cost and pollution associated with the manufacture of ev's is to cut the amount of material going into the battery pack.
s_nz,
Aug 9, 6:55am
Where do you get this stuff?
The vast majority of Lithium extraction is from Australia (42,000T), and Chile (18,000T). China comes in in distance third place at 7,500T. I don't think India even has any Lithium mine's, but they have started scoping out their reserves.
kcf,
Aug 9, 8:35am
People search for information that confirms their existing bias.
bitsnpieces2020,
Aug 9, 7:48pm
So the environmentally friendly thing to do is wait for the better cheaper version. Probably a decade away, so lets just wait for them to be self driving too.
ronaldo8,
Aug 11, 12:44am
Naaa. The people he employs are geniuses, he's just another twonk in a suit taking the credit for their work.
A successful businessman, not an engineer.
ronaldo8,
Aug 11, 1:01am
EVs undeniably are nastier to make, noone that has looked at it denies this. What the OP's articles author claims, with absolutely zero evidence apart from an uncited article (how many times have you heard that one) is that the impact over the vehicles lifetime is also greater. This is BS, its also widely studied BS.
Even with the greater impact during manufacturing the impact over the ev vehicles entire life as compared to its ice counterpart is SIGNIFICATLY lower. Which is why they exist and ever manufacturer that doesn't have its head up its jacksy is noticing. A comparison that is only getting worse with each development of the related tecnologies, of which there are a continual supply.
Meanwhile the hopeful luddite brigade wave their fists and cry conspiracy, anxious the boats they currently drive around in don't get rocked. Because apparently time and change aren't, won't and shouldn't happen to them, laugh out loud Idiots, the same idiot mindset that attacked textile machines two centuries ago.
ronaldo8,
Aug 11, 1:11am
Yes of course, because it will spring fully formed from the ground at some indeterminate future date without need of investment or development funds.
Hell we should all just roll over and go back to sleep, when we wake up somewhen will have perfected fusion.
drog,
Aug 11, 1:16am
This. This. This.
apollo11,
Aug 11, 1:52am
Hey Ronnie, how you be? I've known people like Musk when working in manufacturing. They are very good at looking at problems at different angles and making decisions that go against established norms. But I do agree that the engineering won't have been his work. I knew John Britten when he was working on the Britten 1000, John had the far-out ideas and his engineering team had to rope him in a lot, but a lot of the ideas were from the talented team he had working for him. .
ronaldo8,
Aug 11, 10:03pm
I'm good, funny you should say that. I'm working in a similar situation/project myself at the mo, its good and I have much respect for the team but I find myself frequently being the guy that's saying " hold on a minute ". My payback for being the source of eyerolling on projects past perhaps. I'm not so sure re Musk, he rubs me the wrong way, that dropping out of physics after 2 weeks to go be a biz boy doesn't sit well.
apollo11,
Dec 9, 3:51am
Yeah that 'visionary' type of personality can be abrasive. Some of us have to deal with the vagaries of the real world. Sometimes people don't want to work 80 hours a week to get a job out, or a machine just won't do what it should do in theory. They can be an utter nightmare to work for, always reaching for the next huge leap in progress while the team stumbles and flaps to keep up.
Since the public registrations are closed, you must have an invite from a current member to be able to register and post in this thread.
Have an account? Login here.