business

Going electric: Carmakers make the switch

13 Comments
By Katia DOLMADJIAN and Marine LAOUCHEZ

The requested article has expired, and is no longer available. Any related articles, and user comments are shown below.

© 2021 AFP

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.


13 Comments
Login to comment

What I want to know why not trucks

Range and recharge time. Trucking runs on tight schedules. One driver driving, the other sleeping, taking turns behind the wheel to keep the truck running all day and all night. Stops are kept to the bare minimum. Fuel tanks tend to be huge so the trucks don't need to stop for fuel often. Battery power just will not work for long haul transcontinental trucking. All is not lost however. The maritime industry is testing versions of existing marine diesels to use a fuel that is a mixture of ammonia with a little hydrogen. Wartsila is leading this effort and has a prototype running now. That fuel may end up solving the problems of running long haul trucks, trains, ships and maybe some cars and motorcycles.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

leading car manufacturer are not behind the 2030 push to go full electric. It is a EU law pass last week. All EU member will not be allow register any kind of fossil fuelled passage cars or be excluded, not risk but will be excluded from the EU. Where do they make these batteries ? not in the EU. The EU pollution laws will prevent any EU member in producing these batteries. India are the biggest producer of batteries. Why? because of the amount of pollution involve in producing these batteries. Plus where do the materials come from to produce these batteries. Australia. Ok now ask yourselves what would be the carbon foot print involve in all of this. First getting the material from Australia to India to produce these batteries. Then getting these batteries to Europe ports then from the ports to the Manufacturers. The EU will reach it Zero carbon target by 2050 at the expense of Other countries. Then the EU will place a carbon tax on these countries importing produce any product into Europe because they have not reach a zero carbon target by 2050.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

2030 is the years the EC have ban all petrol and deseil cars. What I want to know why not trucks. Europe will be in 2040 and beyond looking for somewhere to dump all it e-waste. It going to be a huge problem for this Union of Green Nation. The EU has brain wash themselves into all of this. Japan is not going down the E-car line. All their pennies are on H-cars by 2030.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

The "idea" of electric vehicles is a great one conceptually, but the reality of them is quite another matter. On the practical side, if one drives exclusively within 30% of the vehicle's actual range, then it might be practical for such a person. That simply doesn't work for me.

Electric vehicles will be useless in places like much of Australia outside their few major cities, much of Canada outside their major cities, Alaska and the intermountain west in the US and rural areas of South America and Africa. Consider that my friend's Tesla sucks up half of its charge just to keep the batteries warm in the winter. The maritime industry is in the process of perfecting a hydrogenated ammonia fuel that can run in conventional internal combustion engines and I think that tech will end up being applied to ground transportation.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

The exterior panels covering EV's should be solar panels to suppliment the "green" value of the vehicles. They will provide a lifetime of additional mileage and if you ever run out of power they will keep charging your battery to get you extra range to get home or to get to a refueling station.

Have you ever seen the cars entered in the big solar powered car race held each summer in Australia? They need to be extremely light as do their drivers, are not very fast and especially do not accelerate very quickly because solar panels do not yet provide enough current to use a normal size and equipped car in a normal manner.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

The "idea" of electric vehicles is a great one conceptually, but the reality of them is quite another matter. On the practical side, if one drives exclusively within 30% of the vehicle's actual range, then it might be practical for such a person. That simply doesn't work for me.

Moreover, it's a myth that BEVs are "green". A conservative estimate is that BEVs come with a 20%~25% higher carbon footprint when coming off the production line, largely due to the tremendous amount of energy (from mining, refinement, and manufacturing of the massive battery systems for each vehicle) necessary to build the vehicle. The battery units themselves also begin to degrade soon, and within relatively short span of time (depends on the frequency of charge/discharge and rates of charge) begin to reduce the usable range of the vehicle, rendering the vehicle useless much sooner than an ICE(Internal Combustion Engine) vehicle. The battery pack, which is also much heavier and more expensive to replace, would have to be replaced before the carbon equity point is reached.

The other elephant in the room is the planned shift to BEVs is going to exceed the production capacity of the batteries in a short period of time (before 2025). The makers are effectively running headlong towards the edge of a cliff.

I'll stick with ICE vehicles, thanks.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

The reality is that these vehicles are almost certainly going to act as a distributed storage system for solar, wind, and biogas generated electricity, meaning that, for the first time, a parked car will be more than just taking up space in the city.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

The exterior panels covering EV's should be solar panels to suppliment the "green" value of the vehicles. They will provide a lifetime of additional mileage and if you ever run out of power they will keep charging your battery to get you extra range to get home or to get to a refueling station.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Japanese automakers seem very reluctant to go all electric. We have a solar powered house and an 'eCar' would be essentially free to run for us, but finding one in Japan is no easy challenge (the Nissan Leaf excepted).

2 ( +2 / -0 )

So instead of the fossil fuels being burned by your car, they will be burned at the power plant that generates the electricity that powers the electric car.

Right wingers are always looking for reasons not to do anything, instead of reasons to do it. It's because of their unreasonable expectation that something most be perfect before it can be considered.

When in reality, existing infrastructure has to be used to bootstrap new infrastructure, then is replaced by the new infrastructure.

But right-wingers would rather peddle in fear. They live afraid. If we followed their fear in the past, we'd never have the internet, or really most current technology.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

So instead of the fossil fuels being burned by your car, they will be burned at the power plant that generates the electricity that powers the electric car. That is what people call progress in the global war against the climate. There is also the fact that manufacturing an electric automobile has a greater carbon footprint than a conventional car. Once again the solution is worse than the problem. But at least the proud owner of the pricey government subsidized “green” vehicle can blame someone else for destroying the planet.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

I'm going to miss gasoline powered cars, despite their environmental impact. The throaty roar of an engine is irreplaceable.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Login to leave a comment

Facebook users

Use your Facebook account to login or register with JapanToday. By doing so, you will also receive an email inviting you to receive our news alerts.

Facebook Connect

Login with your JapanToday account

User registration

Articles, Offers & Useful Resources

A mix of what's trending on our other sites