Automotive technology: desire vs reality.

I've wanted to be the owner of an electric car since the very first, very expensive Tesla roadster came on the market. Cool factor for one thing and yeah, saving the planet. We have to move away from fossil fuels at some point. There is only a finite amount of them and as population increases and we need more energy to power our gadgets there will be less and less to share. The oil, gas and coal will eventually run out. Before we found new technologies to extract more of those precious resources from the ground, many were predicting we'd run out in 20 to 40 years. We've gotten a bit of a reprieve but ultimately they will run out. 

Then there is the issue of greenhouse gases from car emissions. The EPA estimates that cars contribute about 29% of the CO2 generated that contributes to global warming. 

Sure the manufacturing of an EV (electric vehicle) and batteries add some gases but far less than internal combustion engines (ICE).

Switching over to all EVs would definitely help but the infrastructure and the power grid to support the charging demands is a huge issue. Maybe in another five or ten years, the battery and charging technology will improve enough and we'll have enough charging stations that range anxiety will be a thing of the past and fade into the fog of memory. Just not yet. And a lot depends on your driving. Here in America we love our road trips. A former colleague who was an immigrant took his family on cross country road trips visiting national parks and museums during the summer when school was out. I loved and envied his posts. He went to places I have yet to visit. Mapping out a trip like that with an EV would take a lot more work.

So what is this about? The lease on our car is up later this year and we had pondered going all out electric. The wife had acquiesced and said we could get an EV as the next car. We don't make a lot of road trips. We do travel to Florida as snowbirds to hide from winter and it is currently roughly a thousand miles. Likely would turn into a four day trip with charging stops.

At this point, I've given up on the EV dream and have turned my searchlight to plug in hybrids (PHEVs). For in town trips most have a range of about 20 to 30 miles so a run to a grocery store or to visit friends would allow the car to be in the all out electric mode. Gasoline engine wouldn't engage if you were fully charged. My head space is considering that as a compromise.  The engineer part of my brain says: "Whoa! Do you know how much more complicated those vehicles are? An ICE and and electrical engine. EV's mostly don't have what we'd really call a transmission, that complex thing that converts the rotational energy of the engine through various gear combinations and converters to move that power to the wheels. I have not yet mastered all the intricacies of what that entails. At least one vehicle I looked at, has a separate transmission, others share the same transmission but you still gotta switch seamlessly from electric to ICE. Way more complex. And with complexity comes the possibility of more things going awry.  Who is trained to work on these beasts? Unless you have a really old car, the day of the Saturday mechanic is an anachronism.  I've seen estimates that there are over 1000 IC chips in a car. Some of these are full blown microcomputers, others are for specific functions, basically a one-off logic circuit. How do you work on these vehicles? 

There is so much more to talk about in this kingdom. More later.