Raul Freitas

A bit of this, a bit of that

 

bit of that - milenio stadium

 

I’ve never believed in extremes. Tipping the scales too much to one side is just asking for trouble. In modern society, extremes are the order of the day, and with vehicles, we are in danger of following the same path. Actually, internal combustion engines are an extreme.

For decades, they were the only technology used to power our vehicles. The billions of engines produced over the last 100 years or so, have played a major role in the degradation of our planet and atmosphere. As electric vehicles began to emerge, they were marketed to us as the solution to these issues, but, at present, they might not be all that they’ve been propped up to be. I imagined what a world of EV’s would be like, and came out just as dismayed as when I went in. Picturing a city like Toronto, for example, (where the supply of electricity has been an issue for years), attempting to cope with many thousands of cars being plugged in every night, as people arrive home from work. I pictured piles of batteries next to the ever-existent piles of worn tires of today. Sure, stuff can be recycled, but even the process of recycling can also be an energy glutton. Since most of the R&D money over the last number of decades has gone into making more efficient combustion engines, current available battery technology is still in the dark ages.

A quick trip on the net revealed that the average weight of a battery for an EV is about 1000lbs, or 500 kilos! Add on the loss of efficiency due to heat, the ravaging of the land looking for Lithium…well you get the picture. We have computers in our pockets that can do just about anything, there’s a telescope in space capturing images from unimaginable distances, and Mars is now being spoken about as a future living space, and to propel a vehicle, a battery has to weigh as much as a ship’s anchor and take up practically the same amount of area. Lobbyists for oil companies have done a superb job. Wait, I haven’t yet delved into affordability.

At the moment, the mechanic down the street is not an option for anyone who drives an electric car. So, off to the dealership we go, where a battery for, let’s say, a Nissan Leaf can cost anywhere from 7 to 12 thousand dollars, if buying a new one, and 4 to 6, if reconditioned, and we all know batteries wear out. Yes, there are good warranties, but what does one do after it expires? Do you throw out the car? Give it away? Take out a mortgage? Who is going to buy it off you? Not surprisingly, vehicle manufacturers are touting EV’s as the way to go, because they’ve invested big. Most have bet on them to shore up their sales, as combustion engines cease to be produced. I just hope they know something we don’t. My hope is that the future will bring balance, with diversity.

Hydrogen, produced in a clean way, is definitely a strong alternative. Solar vehicles seem to be showing good results, and there must be other technologies out there that will also be able to stake a claim in the future.
What we need to be weary of are oil companies claiming that they are acting with us in mind. We know what’s on their mind. They want all our eggs in their basket, and for a good recipe, you can’t have too much of anything.
Fiquem bem.

Raul Freitas/MS

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