Will electric vehicles doom your neighborhood auto mechanic?

[MaxPete]

Yup, those potlickers will always find a way to get into your pockets and your pants (and not in a good way..).

The fact has recently come to light here in Canada that the government collects BILLIONS of CDN dollars in fuel taxes (we pay about $1.25/litre which is about $3.50 US / US gallon). Apparently, about 60-70% of the pump price is tax (as is the case in most countries). The fun fact is that if everyone drove an EV, none of those fuel taxes would be paid - and so the story is that the manadarins are now working furiously to figure out how to gouge us on electricity charges to make up the difference.

...no wonder they use MY taxes to bribe other people buy an EV. I wish the govt would use YOUR tax money to help me with my motorcycle habit.

Oh well, I guess they’ll get me on the fuel taxes and eventually, they get the EV folks on the electricity prices.

Cool eh?

All seriousness aside, I think the Bloomberg has it right. The present generation of EV technology is simply not competitive with IC engines - and it is going to take some years before that gap closes (I’d say about a decade as stated by Bloomberg). In the meantime, investment in IC technology is still substantial with nearly every OEM continuing to develop advanced technology engines.

You have to read announcements like the one from Volvo carefully. It does NOT say they are abandoning IC engines but rather that the mix of IC and hybrid/EV technology is evolving. Car companies know a lot about P.R.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Pete

 

[Jim]

It ain't just the automotive world that's going electric...

 

[Jim]

And this one....

 

[MaxPete]

Indeed - the progress brought about by lithium polymer batteries is amazing (and in an aircraft, the costs are easier to bury than in an automobile).

I fly RC planes and mine are all electric now. Very few people use the old glow-engine technology due to noise and mess plus there is now no compromise in performance at all. The downside is that the batteries are costly <surprise!!> and by the time you buy a motor and a controller plus the battery, you’re not far ahead - if at all. I suspect the same is the case for the full sized aircraft such as Jim has shown us. The other issue is range/flight duration - which is much lower in an electric aircraft just as it with an electric car.

The big upside is that they will be very clean and quiet in operation, fuelling is much cheaper and the E-ac likely will require less maintenance plus, an electric motor has full torque at zero RPM and so you can likely use more aggressive propellor pitch settings to get better climb rates (just check out the prop blade geometry on that neat little Pipestril trainer).

The video is a great illustration of the technology and FYI, when they talk about kilowatts, there is an easy conversion to horsepower: 1 HP = 746 watts or 0.746 KW. Thus, 76 KW is just over 100 HP - a typical value for a small plane on takeoff.