[Elon] Musk said that he is thinking of a site where “the public can rate the core truth” of news stories, as well as track “the credibility score” of journalists and publications. The website would be called “Pravda,” the Russian word for “truth” and also the name of the official newspaper of the Soviet Union’s Communist Party.....Come on, media, drive traffic to my new website. You can do it!
“Come on media, you can do it!” Musk taunted. “Get more people to vote for you. You are literally the media.”
May 25, 2018
"The increasingly irascible Tesla chief executive went on a 24-hour, anti-media tirade from Wednesday to Thursday..."
"... culminating in an online poll that saw nearly 700,000 people showing their support for his plans to create a website to vet journalists’ credibility," the NY Post reports.
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140 comments:
I detect the faint aroma of flop sweat. (Or is that coming from Clapper, Brennan, and Comey?)
"increasingly irascible"
You would be too, if your lower-priced cars are crap and your tax-based business model is collapsing.
Elon Musk is going full Donald against the media.
Never go full Donald.
Unless, of course, you are Donald.
Not only crap, but crap he can't build. Flop sweat indeed. Hey buddy, you wanna buy one of them there $35K Tesla Model 3s? Have I got a deal for you! We're sorta fresh out of the $35K kind, but I can (and will) build you one for $78K.
Yup, that's the deal Elon is offering now to all those schlunks who put a thousand dollar deposit down to get in line to buy one of his Model 3s.
His new site should be called “LooseFish.com”
So, like Rate My Professor?
Aren't journalists usually in FAVOR of informing consumers?
The media seem highly afraid of such a site, based on the vitriol I've seen directed at him.
+1 Matt. Thanks for my morning laugh!
Tesla is coiled to strike, so to speak?
Elon Musk's cars have been beautiful examples of American design and ingenuity, some of the best in decades. His business model seems less well founded, which is now causing him problems.
If the idea behind the Pravda site is that random people would vote on the credibility of the stories/journalists, then the results will be crap.
I do think there is potential for an AI project that analyzes all stories, breaks them down into their component statements of fact, opinion, and analysis, and for each fact score it on if it is true, false, or uncertain ( with some probability assigned ). Analysis could be judged based on how well the underlying facts support the argument. Old stories could be continually reassessed as we later learn the truth/falseness of the facts they presented, or see how well the analysis holds up.
Journalists/news organizations can have their accuracy judged over time, and anyone can drill down to see the supporting/contradicting evidence used to score any particular article.
Of course, there will still be the question of how well do you trust the motive of the people operating such a system.
There is no bigger fan of Musk than me. If I was a woman I would want to have his baby.
But on somethings he's just nuts. He's a climate change alarmist for instance.
You would be too, if your lower-priced cars are crap and your tax-based business model is collapsing.
TESLA's problem is an inability to make cars fast enough for the people who want them. The other car makers would kill for that problem.
I have never understood why people attack Musk for responding to the tax incentives created by governments. That's why the governments created them in the first place, so that people like Musk would respond.
"Elon Musk's cars have been beautiful examples of American design and ingenuity, some of the best in decades. "
Consumer Reports top-rated Tesla's high-end car. But they just refused to endorse the Model 3, citing its unacceptably weak brakes. (Its braking distance was longer than that of an average pickup truck.)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2018/05/23/tesla-model-3-brakes-consumer-reports/636080002/
It’s a fantasy of mine to inhabit a parallel universe in which the media are subject to the same nitpicking as their quarry.
I'd like to know how much of his own money Musk put at risk in Tesla. Many of the established manufacturers are coming out with multiple EVs, so he's going to have a lot of competition by the time Tesla gets its 3(rd) act together.
BMW must be pissed at the thousands who aren't buying/leasing their 3 because of their $1,000. Then there are the Tesla depositors whose leases ran out before their new car arrived.
The big media only wants Facebook to monitor fake news. They don't want someone credible to monitor *them*!
Caroline Walker said...
It’s a fantasy of mine to inhabit a parallel universe in which the media are subject to the same nitpicking as their quarry.
Wish I had said it this way.
The best part is the reaction of journalists whose ignorance is exceeded only by their humorlessness. Click through to have your mind blown by the revelation that Pravda was the name of a Soviet rag and is a Russian word.
I'm not exaggerating. Headline: "In a Twitter rant, Elon Musk vowed to create a news credibility rating site called 'Pravda' — here's how that's connected to Russia".
Jesus, these people.
CR:
"Tesla's Model 3 sedan is the most affordable model offered by the electric-focused company, with a price that starts at $35,000 before tax incentives. However, early versions that are typically equipped are around $50,000. The cars with the long-range battery can go 310 miles. Standard battery versions have an EPA-rated 220-mile range. Tesla promises AWD models will arrive in late 2018. The long range battery takes 12 hours to charge on a 32-amp 240-volt connector. The acceleration is swift and its handling is remarkably agile. The interior is uncluttered and nicely finished, and the front seats are comfortable. However, the Model 3's stopping distances were much worse than the class. In addition, the ride is very stiff and choppy, and the rear seat sits uncomfortably low. The controls are very distracting, since many simple tasks, such as adjusting the mirrors, require spending time interacting with the large touch screen. The Autopilot suite of driver-assistance features can maintain the car's speed and keep it in its lane, but it isn't designed to react to all driving conditions, so drivers must remain constantly engaged."
Morningstar on Tesla, 2017-12:
Operating income: -1,632M
Earnings per share: -11.83
Working capital: -1,104M
And so on.
He’s right about journalists, but he should have hired some Japanese experts on setting up assembly lines if he truly wanted to sell the S at a fair price.
"Elon Musk's cars have been beautiful examples of American design and ingenuity, some of the best in decades"
One of the problems is putting simple functions solved easily by buttons and knobs easily within reach of the driver on a touchscreen.
It's a two or three step process to adjust the climate control -- that's NOT good design.
Also, Musk is mistaken in his belief that he's in the car business and not the energy business.
A recent study said journalist, for the most part, are uneducated and drunk.
Known Unknown said...
One of the problems is putting simple functions solved easily by buttons and knobs easily within reach of the driver on a touchscreen.
I agree with this and drive older or simpler cars because of this. But, it seems to be driven by consumer preference, for the new and cool. BMW has had similar problems.
Elon Musk is a lot of fun. They recently announced that they would extend the range of their cars in the area of the Florida hurricane. How? Well, their batteries are set not to fill all the way, by software. It's cheaper for them than designing two different batteries.
You can pay them some money any time and they will free the rest of the battery. Or for the duration of an emergency they free it. Kind of an amazing idea. (Though we are used to it in regular software purchases, where some piece of software has only some functions enabled unless you enter and upgrade code or such.)
Anyhow, he has revolutionize several different industries; SpaceX is doing amazing things.
There is a growing list of really important liberals who don't like Donald Trump at all, but just can't stand the other side. Sam Harris is the most recent convert.
"One of the problems is putting simple functions solved easily by buttons and knobs easily within reach of the driver on a touchscreen." I liked this sentence, but I had a heck of a time parsing it.
Blogger Gahrie said...
"I have never understood why people attack Musk for responding to the tax incentives created by governments. That's why the governments created them in the first place, so that people like Musk would respond."
It isn't a question of "attacking Musk for responding". It's a matter of pointing out that his plans only make economic sense if you factor in the expectation that other people will be forced at gunpoint to pay for them. When they do it in Zimbabwe, it's called "crony capitalism". I guess in California you call it something different.
Known Unknown has it exactly right. I test drove Teslas, all three models, for an automotive engineering company, and the touchscreen is horrible. It's worse than texting.
The interiors are sleek, but crap compared to similarly priced(real price, not subsidized price) vehicle.
The A/C and heater are virtually non-functional. And, consume a lot of battery power.
Tesla’s real problem is that the big guns in auto manufacturing are gearing up to produce electric cars. I just had a ride in a Chevy Bolt. Nice car and 100% electric. When Toyota gets involved and the electricity supply problems get resolved Tesla will go poof.
glenn said...
Tesla’s real problem is that the big guns in auto manufacturing are gearing up to produce electric cars. I just had a ride in a Chevy Bolt. Nice car and 100% electric.
I also agree with this. Neighbor had a Tesla on lease and switched to the Bolt. Was happy with both cars.
BCARM: I agree with this and drive older or simpler cars because of this.
All our cars are "older and simpler", partly because we're frugal and drive what we buy until it's no longer cost effective to maintain them, and partly because our garage is too small for the current behemoths. If you want a laugh just watch me puzzling out "how the hell do I make this thing go", every time I find myself in a rental car.
it seems to be driven by consumer preference, for the new and cool. BMW has had similar problems.
Cadillac is moving back to moving buttons for climate control and maybe volume.
IIRC, in the 2007 law, the Federal subsidies phase out when the manufacturer passes certain thresholds of electric car sales, so Musk must be hoping for more mandates.
The whole idea of electric cars is stupidity on stilts and taxpayers should not be financing them.
For one thing, where does the electricity come from?
For the massive amounts of electricity needed, it can only come from coal, gas, oil and (hopefully) nuclear.
Solar won't cut it. Here is what a 5MW solar plant looks like beside a 454MW coal plant
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hT2oxxgFm5w/WkPaXzUzP3I/AAAAAAAAACE/COHjjKfB5dcmMCZaAqKHt-96hH15TtUpACPcBGAYYCw/s320/AES%2BGuayama.png
The solar plant dwarfs the coal plant.
If Wisconsin had 40m electric cars (about 2% of total cars) and each charged at about 8KW, that would be a total load of 320MW or most of the capacity of a small nuclear power plant.
Mostly occurring at 7PM or so when people get home and start charging their cars.
And, since it occurs at the peak time of normal electric usage, then does not occur during the rest of the day, it really screws up utility load factors.
Do you REALLY want to screw up the utility grid for a technology that, for a whole bunch of other reasons is mind numbingly stupid?
And, for all the virtue signaling, it doesn't even decrease CO2 emissions overall, probably increases them.
And you are happy with tax dollars funding this?
John Henry
On the other hand, hybrid technology such as the Prius has a long history. The US Navy was using it 100 years ago.
This is where the car has an engine and a small battery. The battery charges from the wall or from the engine. The engine runs at a steady state (maximum efficiency/minimum emissions) as needed to keep the battery charged. Put an electric motor at each wheel and eliminate the entire transmission mechanism.
I'd like to see more of this technology.
But I would not be signalling any virtue so it will get no subsidy.
John Henry
I've been in manufacturing more than 40 years. I know it from both the practical (plant floor) and theoretical (classroom)
When Elon said he was going to double his production output in a matter of a few months, I rolled on the floor laughing.
It can't be done.
I don't care how smart Elon is.
John Henry
Blogger Big Mike said...
He’s right about journalists, but he should have hired some Japanese experts on setting up assembly lines if he truly wanted to sell the S at a fair price.
No disrespect Mike but Bullshit.
We have manufacturing engineers who can run rings around Japanese engineers. We always have had.
The fabled Toyota Production System is probably what you are thinking of. That is nothing more than an adaptation of Henry Ford's principles detailed in his 1923 book My Life and Work. Taichi Ohno, credited with "invention" of the Toyota Production system, is pretty explicit about this.
Our problem is not engineers, it is managers. Including managers like Elon Musk.
John Henry
He must really hate the Wall Street Journal. They have almost daily stories showing that Tesla's share price makes no sense. When the Tesla bubble bursts, anyone who is caught in the detonation has no one to blame but themselves.
Darkisland said...
"Do you REALLY want to screw up the utility grid for a technology that, for a whole bunch of other reasons is mind numbingly stupid?"
That's why it's called a "disruptive technology"!
Although, it does kind of seem like recharging batteries is one of the few things solar might actually be good for. Too bad people don't do all their driving at night. I suppose if you could swap batteries ...
Blogger Big Mike said...
He’s right about journalists, but he should have hired some Japanese experts on setting up assembly lines if he truly wanted to sell the S at a fair price.
5/25/18, 9:24 AM
_______
My daughter is an engineer at his new Gigafactory. Musk has had plenty of extremely knowledgeable engineers working for him to set up his production lines. Unfortunately, he styles himself as a better engineer than the actual engineers and whenever someone tries to explain how various ideas he has for production won't actually work on this planet due to the laws of physics and whatnot they are fired. Daughter can't stand Musk but the work she is doing is extremely interesting so she stays. We'll see how long that lasts.
If the idea behind the Pravda site is that random people would vote on the credibility of the stories/journalists, then the results will be crap.
Voters will upvote stories that they like, not if the stories are truthful.
He must really hate the Wall Street Journal. They have almost daily stories showing that Tesla's share price makes no sense
Musk himself has said several times, from the beginning, that TESLA's stock was overvalued.
Auto manufacturing is a most capital intensive business and always has been- that's why there aren't new car companies. Lutz has said Tesla won't make it because the burn rate is just too high for a new entrant. I still think he'll be proven right.
I'd short Tesla stock but markets can remain irrational longer than I can stay solvent.
Jupiter,
I'm all for disruptive technologies in general. I am not for disruption for the sake of disruption with little to no forseeable benefit.
Where do you get the electricity to run all these electric cars?
You say solar might be an option. Do you know how many square miles of green has to be obliterated for the 300+MW of power if Wisconsin adopted 2% electric cars?
Then you have the timing problem. Most charging will be at night. Solar power is generated during the day.
And for every MW of solar, you still have to have a MW of coal/gas/oil/nuclear capacity on ready reserve for when the sun goes behind a cloud.
Massive batteries help some but do not come close to alleviating this problem.
More nukes now. Bring on the compact reactors!
John Henry
Musk is mistaken in his belief that he's in the car business and not the energy business.
He's in the battery business.
Where do you get the electricity to run all these electric cars?
You get it from time shifting existing capacity via batteries.
I'd like to know how much of his own money Musk put at risk in Tesla.
He took the $200 million he made from selling PayPal and split it between Tesla and SpaceX. At one point he had everything he owned invested in them and both nearly went bankrupt.
Re Tesla, Musk presents himself as a staunch fighter of carbon emissions.
Re SpaceX, there's zero concern about the tremendous carbon footprint.
It's not hypocrisy is you see it all as his big greedy ego trip.
Only way to charge cars in the day is if you can do it at work. Most people can't do that. Nor will they ever be able to.
Rehajm,
You nailed it. I think Musk has said that he is primarily in the battery business.
IF, and this is a huge if, large scale power storage can ever become viable, it will disrupt the utility business in a good way. It is already changing the way utilities run.
For example, instead of running high capacity power lines to meet peak demands in remote locations, utilities are putting batteries there to smooth out load demand.
Many utilities have expensive gas turbine "peaker" generators that only run for an hour, in some cases minutes, per day to meet peaks. Batteries help here, too.
IF, again that big if, Musk can develop cost effective batteries, he will revolutionize the utility industry.
Solar will begin to make more sense in some applications.
More importantly, building and siting of central plants will change. You will no longer need to build a 1,000MW plant to meet 1,000MW peak demand when average demand over the day is, perhaps 250MW. You can build a smaller plant and charge/discharge batteries.
Or other potential storage devices like hydrogen, pumped water, compressed air, ?.
Electric cars are still mind numbingly stupid in most of the US but if they serve to develop a battery business, they will do some good.
John Henry
I'd be interested to know how battery cars reduce carbon emissions.
Any car in decent condition, that can pass an emissions test, emits virtually NO carbon.
John Henry
I doubt that SpaceX emits any significant amount of carbon either.
John Henry
Elon is just riding the preference cascade.
The major media is in their death throws right now.
Re SpaceX, there's zero concern about the tremendous carbon footprint.
When electric car Plan A fails and the Earth becomes inhabitable Plan B is to populate Mars. EVERYONE knows that, silly goose...
(Of course whatever we use to make the atmosphere in Mars inhabitable we could use to reboot Earth's crappy atmosphere but let's not harsh on our righteous mellow, please.)
For the electric geeks, batteries are DC and utility power is, mostly, AC.
Converting the DC power to AC via inverters presents some issues with Power Factors and reactive current.
Nothing too difficult to overcome, especially in fairly small amounts as at present. Still, it does require some engineering magic.
If it ever becomes a really significant, it may cause significant problems. Hopefully, by the time it does, we will be able to deal with it.
I am not arguing against batteries, just pointing out an issue.
John Henry
he really thinks he's tony stark, he's not even Justin hammer,
"For the massive amounts of electricity needed, it can only come from coal, gas, oil and (hopefully) nuclear." Darkisland, this is just a mistake. You can produce power at a power plant at a far higher efficiency than burning it in a car. You just need less gas for the same result.
Mike,
That is somewhat true, especially with modern plants. It is completely true with cogeneration (now called CHP) plants. CHP can get you up to about 80% efficiency in some cases.
Without CHP, a central steam plant runs at about 40% efficiency. Gas turbines (powered by natural gas or oil) run at perhaps 50% efficiency.
Then you lose 10-20% of the power stepping it up, transmitting it, and stepping it down to point of use. You also have efficiency losses in converting the electrical power into and out of a battery then into a motor and out as mechanical power.
Modern car engines run at 40-50% efficiency.
From a pure thermal efficiency standpoint, all fossil fuel engines are similar.
There are some laws of physics at play here. The Carnot cycle applies to cars and and gas or steam turbines.
So perhaps a bit more efficiency burning the fuel remotely, but not much.
John Henry.
All I know is; don't buy a Tesla on the secondary market. You have to purchase a whole new warranty and even then it wont cover everything
Blogger Darkisland said...
Converting the DC power to AC via inverters presents some issues with Power Factors and reactive current.
I should have said that converting the DC to AC and injecting it into the utility grid presents some issues.
John Henry
”Re SpaceX, there's zero concern about the tremendous carbon footprint.”
The Falcon 9 burns coal?
Who knew?
he should have hired some Japanese experts on setting up assembly lines
He was given a Japanese-designed assembly line built for GM-Toyota joint venture in Fremont. Too bad he didn't use it.
@DarkIsland: Put an electric motor at each wheel and eliminate the entire transmission mechanism.
That is not how hybrids work, though.
They have a transaxle. Hybrids operate in different modes depending on the situation, but one of the modes is the engine driving the wheels through the transaxle; depending on load it might also charge the battery at the same time.
Sometimes it uses both the battery + traction motors and the transaxle simultaneously.
An HSD transaxle contains a planetary gear set that adjusts and blends the amount of torque from the engine and motor(s) as it’s needed by the front wheels. It is a sophisticated and complicated combination of gearing, electrical motor-generators, and computer-controlled electronic controls. One of the motor-generators, MG2, is connected to the output shaft, and thus couples torque into or out of the drive shafts; feeding electricity into MG2 adds torque at the wheels. The engine end of the drive shaft has a second differential; one leg of this differential is attached to the internal combustion engine and the other leg is attached to a second motor-generator, MG1. The differential relates the rotation speed of the wheels to the rotation speeds of the engine and MG1, with MG1 used to absorb the difference between wheel and engine speed. The differential is an epicyclic gear set (also called a "power split device"); that and the two motor-generators are all contained in a single transaxle housing that is bolted to the engine. Special couplings and sensors monitor rotation speed of each shaft and the total torque on the drive shafts, for feedback to the control computer.
He was originally going to automate most of the production, but much of that didn't work out, so he's had to hire lots more people in a high cost, business-unfriendly state.
”I have never understood why people attack Musk for responding to the tax incentives created by governments. That's why the governments created them in the first place, so that people like Musk would respond.”
I don’t blame Musk. I blame the politicians.
Oh that should work out great, look what happens when the public reviews products online, like on amazon, you end up with fake reviews, paid reviews, "the public" in the internet world can easily be faked.
I mentioned the grid load from electric cars.
Here's an article that I had remembered from last year
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/how-electric-cars-could-sink-the-texas-grid
Simultaneous charging of just 60,000 next-generation electric vehicles could one day threaten the Texas grid, an analysis has shown.
Based on a 100-kilowatt EV battery with a 5-minute charge time, which could potentially be the standard for EVs in three or four years, demand from 60,000 cars charging at once would equate to 70 gigawatts, said analysts from GTM’s parent company, Wood Mackenzie.
A large nuke plant is around 1GW or 1,000MW
John Henry
Tesla never made any economic sense. I am about 100% sure it will go into bankruptcy, and any valuable pieces will get bought in liquidation by automotive companies like Toyota etc., or power generation companies- either producers or equipment manufacturers. I would short the stock myself if I had any confidence in the when it goes bankrupt. But the stock could easily go up ten fold here before it goes to zero, so I wouldn't touch it with either a short or a long position.
@Darkisland:Based on a 100-kilowatt EV battery with a 5-minute charge time, which could potentially be the standard for EVs in three or four years, demand from 60,000 cars charging at once would equate to 70 gigawatts, said analysts from GTM’s parent company, Wood Mackenzie.
Your source is scientifically illiterate. "100 KW" is not a measure of a battery's capacity. If it's a measure of the power drawn while the battery charges, then the 5 minute charging time is irrelevant, and each of the 60,000 cars would draw 100 KW while charging, whether for 5 minutes or 5 days. That's 6 GW, not 70 GW.
I don't have the time to work the calculation backward to see where the mistake is. But this is why I cannot rely on popular media for anything to do with energy.
See also "Gell-Mann amnesia".
Angle-Dyne, Angelic Buzzard said...
If you want a laugh just watch me puzzling out "how the hell do I make this thing go", every time I find myself in a rental car.
I have my issues as well. I was very proud of myself when I figured out the Bluetooth audio in one model.
By the way, Sam Harris and I guess Elon Musk are having epiphany number one: Realizing that the Left are a bunch of evil authoritarians _too_. They have not yet arrived at epiphany number two: Given that the Left are a bunch of evil authoritarians, those of us fighting against them might be justified in what we do.
Gabriel,
Did the writer of the article just leave out part of the unit? For example, did he mean 100 KilowattHour instead of 100Kilawatt? Isn't the first the capacity of the battery, then? So, then, isn't 60,000 100kwh batteries charging in 5 minutes simultaneously drawing 72 Gigawatts? Where am I wrong here? Maybe I should do this on paper....
100000W x 12 x 60,000= 72,000,000,000
Gabriel said...
Your source is scientifically illiterate.
The other issue with this claim is that, with a 5 minute charge time, there is no reason to charge them all at the same time, as you would if they took all night to charge. Assuming people are at home from ~8pm to ~6am, that's ten hours * 12 five-minute slots per hour, for ~1200 non-overlapping time slots. Thus, with proper scheduling, you would only need capacity to charge 50 cars at a time. Or, if you had capacity for 60,000 cars charging simultaneously, you could support charging 72,000,000 cars overnight.
Of course, scheduling will not be perfect, so maybe you have to cut those numbers in half, or a quarter, and implement some mechanism for the power company to determine when, during the overnight, your car got charged. Add a surcharge to your electric bill if you want it charged on-demand, and a discount for people who can have their cars charged during off hours.
I'm not saying this makes plug-in electric vehicles a good option. Just saying that the quote about just 60,000 next-generation electric vehicles makes the problem sound much less manageable than it actually is.
"Mostly occurring at 7PM or so when people get home and start charging their cars."
When there get to be enough electric cars, we just won't do that. EVs already have programmable charging schedules. Set a target time to have your car charged by, and let the computer take care of it. Override it if you're in a hurry. Many power companies already offer EV owners discounts on electricity used between midnight and 6 am. There might need to be some sort of coordination managed something like the anti-brownout boxes power companies offer now.
100 kwh batteries may be common soon, but why would you fast charge them all. That's nuts. You'd Level 2 charge them over several hours unless you're going somewhere right now.
Ignorance is Bliss wrote:
"The other issue with this claim is that, with a 5 minute charge time, there is no reason to charge them all at the same time, as you would if they took all night to charge."
While I can't yet firmly defend the article's math (I am a chemist, not an electrical engineer), I think the point of the article is to illustrate the problem you face when there aren't just 60,000 EVs out there charging at night. In other words, at any given time during the day, how many cars are being refueled with gasoline at the same time on the interstate system? Is a person on I-40 travelling from Memphis to Oklahoma City not going to use the fastest charging rate during the day? Or, to go another direction, what happens when there are 2,000,000 EVs in Texas being charged overnight?
There are enormous and ignored capital investment costs involved in switching over to EVs. Right now you can use a 12 cent/Kwh cost for EVs when there are so few of them, but what happens to that cost when they are half the automobile population? Just for shits and giggles, I did a rough calculation just now to compare the energy consumption of gasoline versus electrical power consumption in the US, and it looks like gasoline consumption on an energy basis is just slightly larger than that consumed in electricity each year.
I mean, I can easily imagine a future where all cars are EVs, and we are producing electrical power by burning liquid hydrocarbons because of the lost demand for gasoline from internal combustion cars. Really, the only reason we don't do this today is because methane and coal are cheaper than oil because of oil's demand from automobiles.
@Yancey Ward:Did the writer of the article just leave out part of the unit?
As I said above, didn't have time to work it backward to see. Let's assume that:
100 Kw-hr capacity = 360 MJ
5 minutes = 300 s
Draw of one charging battery: 1.2 MW
60,000 plugged in simultaneously would draw 72 GW.
So the analyst did the calculation correctly. It's the journalist who wrote the absurdity. Saying "100 KW" for "100 KW hr" is like saying that from here to Kennesaw is 60 mi/ hr.
Remember too that the grid will have batteries that will store excess power generated during the day- power that is wasted on a grid without storage capacity. So if we all convert to electric vehicles we won't necessarily need to generate all that power at once, we'll draw down the excess being held by grid batteries.
Five minute charging? Did I miss a breakthrough?
Darkisland said...
"Any car in decent condition, that can pass an emissions test, emits virtually NO carbon."
What? Dude, cars run on hydrocarbons, basically (CH2)N. Carbon has 12 times the mass of hydrogen, so most of the mass is carbon. They combine the hydrocarbons with oxygen to make CO2 and H2O. Where do you think the carbon goes, into the catalytic converter? Emissions testing is not about CO2.
If people will give me a thousand bucks I'll promise to build them a $35,000 car too. Scam the consumer, scam the gummint! What a racket!
Five minute charging? Did I miss a breakthrough?
No kidding. Before clicking through I'd reckon they needed to invent a few things to make their math sound plausible. Most of those 60K cars will be home charging on something akin to a NEMA 14-50. Under the extreme assumption every car has an empty battery charging is going to take a while.
"Any car in decent condition, that can pass an emissions test, emits virtually NO carbon."
Um. No.
The cars, Teslas, are very expensive novelties.
It's not hypocrisy is you see it all as his big greedy ego trip.
The man moved to the United States practically penniless, became a citizen and transformed the world. Among other things he helped create PayPal which has allowed Althouse to generate additional wealth.
He could have taken his $200 million from PayPal and taken the rest of his life off. Instead he invested all of it in Tesla and SpaceX. And came incredibly close to going bankrupt.
The mongrels have been nipping at his heels ever since.
After the electric meltdown, there is cause for a reevaluation of green methods, processes, and motivations. Also, whether the technology is viable in real-world environments, with real-word colorful clumps of cells.
Here is what a 5MW solar plant looks like beside a 454MW coal plant
Low density production, unreliable energy conversion, suitable for niche applications... the artificial green blight... from China to America and back.
As a "wild man" of business he is a piker.
He has done somewhat to Donald Trumpize his personal life, what with numerous women generally of a type, but even here he is not at the top of that competition.
John McAfee is the real deal.
Trailer for "Gringo"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjBgNwAVLWQ
Worth a watch.
Rusty, Jupiter, perhaps others,
Cars emit carbon dioxide, which contains carbon so technically you are correct. But they do not emit "carbon" and the "carbon footprint" of anything is not a problem.
What is alleged to be a problem is carbon dioxide getting into the atmosphere. (I say alleged. Well, you all know my thoughts on this scam so I'll leave it at that)
The problem for the propagandists is that people know what CO2 is. It is fertilizaer for plants, it is consumed in soft drinks and donuts, it is used in fire extinguishers. Everyone knows it is non-poisonous (though it will suffocate you). In other words, CO2 is friendly.
Carbon, on the other hand, is mostly thought of as being coal. Perhaps graphite in pencils. Dirty stuff. People think of coal emitting a lot of smoke as it burns.
Carbon is widely viewed as bad, although carbon is also a girl's best friend according to some.
So the propagandists, having given up on people seeing carbon dioxide as a problem now talk of plain old carbon.
I find it dishonest and annoying. Of course I find pretty much everything about the global warming scam dishonest and annoying.
I was trolling Ann and caught you too.
John Henry
Blogger Gabriel said...
So the analyst did the calculation correctly. It's the journalist who wrote the absurdity. Saying "100 KW" for "100 KW hr" is like saying that from here to Kennesaw is 60 mi/ hr.
Thank you Gabriel.
I should have pointed out the stupidity of the Journalists confusion between KW and KWH but other than that, the article and calculation seems to be correct.
It is for peak, not continuous, power, too. I thought that was clear from what I was saying but perhaps not.
Even so, even if as several have mentioned, including me, the consumption can be shifted to off peak time, switching from gasoline to electricity in any kind of scale will require massive amounts of new generation and distribution.
As I have asked several time without response:
WHERE DOES THE ELECTRICITY TO CHARGE BATTERY CARS COME FROM?
Saying other batteries, doesn't answer the question. Stationary batteries do not create power, they merely help with management and peakyness.
Don't be too hard on the journo. He probably went to J school and doesn't know a battery from a batch file. But to be fair, many, perhaps most, people get confused between KW (a rate) and KWH (a quantity)
John Henry
Buwaya,
I second your nomination of the McAffee flick.
That is not to say that I admire McAffee. But he is a wildman.
I do admire what Musk has accomplished.
I still think battery cars are stupid in most applications.
John Henry
Or maybe a better question would be
WHERE WILL THE ELECTRICITY TO RUN ELECTRIC CARS COME FROM?"
John Henry
”WHERE WILL THE ELECTRICITY TO RUN ELECTRIC CARS COME FROM?"
Solar and wind farms covering the entire US West. I can’t wait.
@Darkisland:WHERE WILL THE ELECTRICITY TO RUN ELECTRIC CARS COME FROM?"
Same place it comes from now: coal, hydro, nuclear, natural gas.
Wind makes much more economic sense coupled with storage. But storage in the form of electric vehicles is only available some times (people are not driving). Storage to make wind effective would need to be available all the time.
Solar is a lot farther from economic sense.
The tiny Chevy Bolt has a 60 Kwh battery pack, which is what the Tesla S originally had (now begins at 70).
EPA rated at 200 mi/charge.
Has anybody figured out how to attach road taxes to vehicular electricity, or do electric vehicles get a free ride ?
Darkisland said...
Or maybe a better question would be
WHERE WILL THE ELECTRICITY TO RUN ELECTRIC CARS COME FROM?"
John Henry
I think Elon realizes the truth of the situation.
Harping on the truth you bring up is unnecessary and distracts. Only retards think they are saving the environment with EV's. There are a lot of those but you have to realize they are tools and not really important.
I think you see this.
You should be looking at next steps. EV's have numerous advantages and one huge shortcoming. When storage density of battery storage ceases to be an issue EV's are cheaper to produce, maintain, more powerful and consistent at every level, and more efficient. No oil changes. Very few moving parts.
These things are all necessary for a more efficient transportation system.
You can fight the river of history if you want. It will not be long before vehicles are required to be driverless and have an IoT function where they can connect to a grid. It will happen faster than seat belt laws.
What you all need to be focusing on is making sure these grid transportation systems are open source and transparent. Secure. etc.
tcrosse said...
Has anybody figured out how to attach road taxes to vehicular electricity, or do electric vehicles get a free ride ?
This is very simple.
It takes amp's to charge the batteries. There is no real difference between amp's of electricity and gallons of gas. In fact if you burn gas in a generator you quite literally get amp hours out of it.
Measuring amp's used to charge is easy stuff.
Oh and the answer to where the electricity will come from is Nuclear.
Medium term it is the only energy source plentiful and dense enough.
Maybe closer to the sun there will be enough energy in solar. But not for every person on the planet to have an EV.
@DarkIsland said:
f Wisconsin had 40m electric cars (about 2% of total cars) and each charged at about 8KW, that would be a total load of 320MW or most of the capacity of a small nuclear power plant.
There are currently about 2.15 million cars registered in Wisconsin, so your numbers are about 20 times too high.
"Oh and the answer to where the electricity will come from is Nuclear. "
True. All the delays, so far, in getting to this true optimum technology have been very costly. And nowhere so much as in California.
Jeff,
I had looked it up before I posted that and found 2.10 million
40m is about 2% of that.
John Henry
Jeff, John Henry uses the old-fashioned notation of "m" for thousand and "mm" for million.
Hence the confusion.
More Wisconsin auto math:
Assume:
2mm cars (rounded)
Each burns 100kwh of gasoline per day (a bit less than 3 gallons)
Assume efficiencies are roughly similar and ignore
Total electrical equivalent of replacing all those cars with battery cars 2,000,000 X 100 = 200,000,000 kwh/day = 200,000 mwh/day.
Divide by 24 to get average load = 8,333 MW. (That magic number, 33!)
That is average. The equivalent of more than 8 nukes for converting to all electric cars in a single, medium size, state.
For no good reason.
It is a very rough calculation but is well within the ballpark.
Oh, and:
Ann Althouse said...
Re Tesla, Musk presents himself as a staunch fighter of carbon emissions.
Re SpaceX, there's zero concern about the tremendous carbon footprint.
Oh, right, you hate space and want it to die. Like you hate God and want Him to die. Basically you hate anything that is greater than you.
It's not hypocrisy i[f] you see it all as his big greedy ego trip.
See, there's with the "big" again. Did a big man scare you one time? Maybe a big car, a big dog, big sandwich?
I know - a big house! That explains everything!!!
average load = 8,333 MW
well Big Deal!! so we add 4 (or 5) big nuke plants, for the whole country!
4 (or 5) big nuke plants; to take care of ALL TRANSPORTATION for THE WHOLE COUNTRY!!!
what's that? It's 8,300 Megawatts Just for Wisconsin?
never mind :)
Achilles, and others,
I agree about nuclear. It is the only clean, dense, reliable power source on the horizon. Other than fossil fuels.
There is no other large scale alternative.
There are plenty of, relatively, small scale alternatives. Hydro, for example. Hoover Dam, and the 100 mile Lake Meade (How the Hell did he get naming rights?) have a capacity of about 500mw. 0.5 nukes. Niagara Falls 2,500mw nameplate capacity but probably less in actuality. Landfill gas, OTEC, geothermal, are some others. All are a drop in the bucket and are very site specific.
the problem is that most of the same people who think that battery cars are a good thing are the same ones who think nuclear power is a sin against gaia.
John Henry
Musk is also trying to make electric semi trucks, which will have to carry their own nuclear power plant.
When storage density of battery storage ceases to be an issue...
Truer words Never uttered.
Of course, the classic "If pigs had wings, they could fly south for the winter" is still pretty ironclad as well.
or, the old standby: If ifs and buts were candies and nuts.
There is absolutely no doubt that When storage density of battery storage ceases to be an issue; things will change
Oh! how about this one?
How to be a millionaire 1st, get a million dollars
Blogger Bad Lieutenant said...
Jeff, John Henry uses the old-fashioned notation of "m" for thousand and "mm" for million.
Actually, John Henry uses the still common AMERICAN notation of m or M for thousand and mm or MM for million.
Anyone who reads m for million does not even understand the metric system. m is for milli or 1/1000. Mega, for million, is always M.
John Henry
A bit off subject but Benedict Evans writes an interesting newsletter and last year was on Russ Roberts' EconTalk talking about self driving/autonomous vehicles.
One of the things he mentioned that fascinated me, since I am in the packaging biz, is the effect they will have on salty snacks (potato chips, pretzels, cheetos etc) and packaging design and materials.
His thinking was that a large percentage of salty snack sales occur at convenience stores while buying gas. Particularly true for the smaller size packages. They are primarily impulse sales.
Autonomous vehicles will not stop at gas stations, therefore the rider will not go into the attached c store, therefor they will not impulse buy chips. Or cheese curds in Wisconsin, I guess. Those are what always get me and I eat way too many.
He also talked about how the fundamentally different design of electric cars (wires instead of shafts, motors instead of an engine and so on) would affect the entire auto manufacturing industry rendering much of the current engineering technology obsolete.
Interesting podcast throughout. http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/08/benedict_evans.html
I've long been fascinated with the democratization or distribution of energy. We went from a single huge steam engine powering an entire plant via lineshafts, to smaller, by still large, electric motors powering groups or lines of machines to smaller, but still large, motors powering a single machine, to multiple, small, sometimes fractional horsepower, motors individually powering machine elements.
I wrote a column in Food & Drug Packaging Magazine about it a number of years ago and it is still on line:
https://www.packagingstrategies.com/articles/83876-servo-motors?v=preview
John Henry
Saying other batteries, doesn't answer the question.
Actually it does when you understand the current capacity of how the power grid works. Add up these points- over 30% ConEd’s generating capacity sits idle for 50 weeks a year, to be used only on those hot afternoons in July and August when those air conditioners are cranking. We don’t consume much power when we’re asleep. We spike big chunks of power during the day when it isn’t consumed the instant it’s produced. Most of us drive less than 50 miles a day during the commute. Add that up and it means we won’t have to add 300 miles of charge a day to every electric vehicle, we can store power that’s currently wasted and there’s extraordinary generation capacity already in place when needed...
Rehajm,
I already discussed how utility scale batteries are already a huge game changer by levelizing loads and reducing/eliminating the need for peaking power.
See my 10:57 where I said Blogger Darkisland said...
Rehajm,
You nailed it. I think Musk has said that he is primarily in the battery business.
IF, and this is a huge if, large scale power storage can ever become viable, it will disrupt the utility business in a good way. It is already changing the way utilities run.
But that is an improvement in efficiency. It changes how energy is used, and you are right that there are huge amounts of idle capacity much of the time.
I am a huge fan of utility scale batteries as well as other storage technologies. THAT is where I see Tesla's benefit, not in the cars.
Batteries do not create or generate power.
John Henry
gilbar said...
When storage density of battery storage ceases to be an issue...
Truer words Never uttered.
Of course, the classic "If pigs had wings, they could fly south for the winter" is still pretty ironclad as well.
or, the old standby: If ifs and buts were candies and nuts.
Snark aside I agree I papered over that one a bit.
It will have more to do with charge time than actual capacity.
A 300 mile battery will pretty easily fit in a vehicle. It is the multi-hour charge time that makes things difficult.
There is some pretty crazy stuff as far as inductive chargers and capacitor like charge times in prototype right now.
People never understand how this stuff is coming out faster and faster or why.
But we will be looking at the end of gas engine vehicles and human driving outside of theme parks relatively soon.
i don't wonder If they can do it; i wonder if people will be able to afford it
JH, moderns use "k" for thousand ie kilo. Or "K." On blogs, not picky about capitalization. Yes, a thousand kilometers is a Mm, not a mm.
Then again, The Economist may have gotten to me...
More importantly, batteries en masse can't be taken seriously until we get out of the realm of exotic materials like lithium.
No disrespect Mike but Bullshit.
@John Henry, my point being that what I am reading claims that there is a great deal of careful hand fitting that goes into building a Tesla S. Apparently — and here I am trusting writers who may not know how to change a spark plug, much less assemble a car — the car has not been designed to be manufactured efficiently.
Big Mike,
Apologies, I did miss your point. I thought you were speaking of the manufacturing engineers who designed the plant and production process. We, America, have some pretty good ones and don't need to take a back seat to anyone. I don't know if Tesla has actually been able to hire any but I would assume that it would be, in some senses, a dream job for a certain type of creative engineer. If they are allowed to do the job.
That was my comment about management.
Your point about it not being designed for manufacturing is also likely true. The design of a car where you expect to produce thousands or tens of thousands has to be very different from the design of a car you expect to produce in the hundreds of thousands.
But here again, we have world class design engineers who could do it. We don't need Japanese engineers though news, outside, ideas are always useful.
the problem is management not seeing the need for a different design and manufacturing philosophy.
Most Toyota products sold in the US are designed by American designers and made by American workers in American plants designed by American engineers.
the difference between GM and Toyota is that Toyota management is run by people who understand manufacturing. GM is run by people who understand numbers.
John Henry
John Henry
Bad LT,
Most of my clients, mostly in American manufacturing, use m for thousand. Using M for million would confuse them and probably lead to some unfortunate decisions.
Agree about sloppiness between metric M and m on blogs. Perhaps I am being pedantic to point it out. It is generally, though not always, evident from context.
If people are going to use metric, they should use it correctly.
I am very familiar with metric, living in PR. Distances are in KM, addresses are frequently in KM 7 Hm eg Road 31, km 17 hm 4, milk, gasoline and other things are sold by the liter and to on. Many of my clients are pharma and medical with everything expressed in metric. I work on lots of european machinery whee everything is metric.
In other words, my distaste for metric is not based on ignorance of the system. If God had meant for us to be metric, he would not have made the king's foot 12 inches long. I don't like imperial measures either.
John Henry
Heh heh. As I'm sure you are aware, there are two kinds of countries. Countries on the metric system, and countries which have landed a man on the moon.
I always watch with amusement when people misunderstand the ms and Ms. I use to proactively explain it when someone like Darkisland would use them in numbers, but it turned out to be a waste of time. Most Americans do grasp what K stands for, which is odd to me now that I am thinking about it- really, why is that the case?
We won't be seeing the end of gas vehicles any time soon. Battery vehicles are too expensive and inefficient.
300 mile battery?
I have a challenge to a Tesla owner friend of mine. A race from Chicago to LA by the shortest route. I will drive my 2003 Nissan Pathfinder. He will drive his Tesla. I will beat him by at least six hours.
No. In order for electric vehicles to be a game changer there has to be a vehicle ready 1000 mile battery. IOW an electric F150 that can do what a current F150 can do. A thousand pound payload. Two passengers. The AC/heater going along with the radio and satnav. AND get a 400 mile driving range.
If you can't do that you're just jerking off.
What we are going to se is much more sophisticated hybrids. A Toyota Landcruiser with a four cylinder gas engines charging a battery powering an electric motor in each wheel.
People aren't going to change to electric vehicles until the vehicle can match their lifestyle.
John.
In my experience it's helpful to be able to switch between the two. I have both types of measuring tools. Even though I can just scan a print in an Autodesk product and convert between one or the other.
" What's the difference between SAE and metric?
Well. One landed us on the moon."
I appreciate and agree with his criticisms of the media, but this idea seems misguided - more technology is not the answer, because technology solutions put full faith and trust in the human designers to do everything right, including leaving their political biases behind.
Who trusts today's Silicon Valley "elites" to do that? I'll pass, thanks.
A smarter, better informed civic-minded citizenry with enough background knowledge and context to sniff out fake news is preferred, although obviously we are nowhere close to that today, and the rise of social media as news aggregator for intellectually lazy, poorly-educated people is destroying our society by the day.
Most Americans do grasp what K stands for, which is odd to me now that I am thinking about it- really, why is that the case?
Track meets and the military.
Sorry LT. Didn't see youthere
Lol, Rusty, no huhu.
All-electrics have a place. In the silicon valley area, I was reasonably happy with a Fiat 500e, which got a reliable 100 miles. I'm currently much happier with a Chevy Bolt, getting a solid 230 miles.
But serious national sales volume? Not yet.
BL,
See you at Raffles, failing that HKL tube station.
Adam Selene
QX, cobber.
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