I had not heard that. I wonder if they did that in response to government regs & subsidies (meaning a dedicated EV division might qualify for everything offered) , and not to any real business need. Mazda has just got into the EV business through a joint venture with Toyota. They recently opened a joint manufacturing facility in Alabama, but I don't know if this is a distinct business entity. One big upside to all this is the research that will go into battery technology. Not only would improvements make solar more practical, but if most homes had cheap electricity storage capabilities, then all sorts of benefits would fall out of that when "peak demand" could be supplemented from systems automatically switching over to local battery power. Power outages would also be less catastrophic, since our backup power would be always charged. I can imagine appliances coming out with DC versions to make offline power more practical. Cooling (food & structures) and heating (water & structures) are the challenges.
Electric Battery powered cars and even heavy trucks such as this early 1900s GMC. I can only imagine the mileage it was capable of. I took the original image and added a few things but the vehicle is correct as it was printed. Notice it is a chain drive and no doubt a geared sprag for reverse. My first thought when I saw the picture was how do they drive it in bad weather, they have rolled tarp that is strapped but I don't think at the time they had clear plastic that one could see thru. I like to look at old photos of the late 1800s and early 1900s, I can tell if a building was probably built pre civil war, like the multi-storied buildings with the red brick. It is a dead give a way if you see external electrical wiring running here and there with no conduit. They few regulations and there was no mass destruction of the buildings they were using.. I will get the url for the albums and post it. There are some wonderful photos of the American march to prosperity and happiness. The kids were going to school barefoot, and those that had shoes or boots had them one size too large so they were able to use them longer before needing new ones. Children all worked to help put food on the table and have a roof over their heads. I wish I had been born back in that era. https://www.shorpy.com/
We all want 'clean' energy and to save the planet, in theory. I tried solar in the '80's (the NINETEEN '80's) one of the first active solar homes in Wisconsin. It did not work! after all the gov't subsidies and rebates. Why? Because we lived in WISCONSIN and to bring the storage up to heating temperature it took than two days straight of sunshine.--in winter we don't generally GET two consecutive days of sunshine. The government can't bring us to what it says on a timeline. We have to vote with our feet by buying things that work! I saw an interesting solar display by a guy from the Ukraine before this Russian invasion. It was very simply made and inexpensive for DIY people. Pretty impressive how it could heat water and was causing some electricity. If he got backers, I might buy into a kit. But If the gov't REALLY wanted to help our planet, it would throw in with those trying to clean up the plastic islands in the oceans. The longer we wait, the more plastic is actually in our seafood and ourselves. THAT is horrible to watch.
Libs never have made sense. I feel sorry for the young and ignorant , the dept of indoctrination has deceived .
Yep. Everyone should stand in line for those electric vehicles. This just in, from the Texas Grid Operator (and it's just MAY, people).... HOUSTON (Reuters) -The state of Texas' power-grid operator on Friday called on residents to cut their electricity use this weekend after six generating plants fell offline in a heat wave. Record temperatures have pushed up demand for air conditioning, contributing to soaring wholesale prices this week. The call for residents to conserve came after prices soared to more than $4,000 per megawatt hour (MWH) in Houston briefly on Friday afternoon, from less than $6 MWH earlier. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said six generation plants, providing 2,900 megawatts (MW), tripped offline on Friday afternoon. All of the grid's generation facilities had resumed operation, Interim ERCOT Chief Executive Brad Jones said in a revised statement. https://www.yahoo.com/news/texas-grid-operator-calls-power-222142469.html Oh great. Now we'll get more of the "GLOBAL WARMING!!!" pearl clutchers.
Only half way thru May, it was brutal yesterday here in swampland. Myself and 3 cats all stretched out under the air conditioner and it was still hot. I even have one of those windshield aluminum shields in my bedroom window to keep that western sun down heat out. It was only about 4 years ago I was able to cope with the heat much better, now it just takes me down so quick. Today the front coming down from the east fired off a nice rain storm and hopefully thru the night on and off. I can stand the rain a heck of lot easier than the high 90s and 100 per cent humidity.
I wonder how rapidly the A/C drains batteries in electric cars. Talk about going backwards: -Don't turn on the heat! -Don't turn on the A/C! -Turn off the radio! -We're on a straightaway and there's a full moon...kill the headlights! -What's that noise? Oh, it's just the assholes who forced this on us flying over in their Lear Jets.
Some years ago they were working on an air conditioning system for automotive use that used water not refrigerants. Water does not compress and just about every sky scraper of days past and today still use chilled water, circulating through a 4 inch conduit and taken out to a radiator tower to cool the water recirculating. When I was a young boy in Houston my Grandfather drove a gasoline tanker for CrowFlite. We would drive to the truck yard and pick him up every evening at closing and I still remember sitting under the giant water tower that was used to cool the office building. You could feel the cold spray dropping down on the car and coming in thru the windows of the old 54 Ford. No air conditioning in that old car. Anyway the water air conditioner for the automotive industry did not take off simply because it was noisy. It takes a lot of horse power to run a conventional air conditioner for a car. Some high performance cars like the Audii RX series don't have air conditioners, and I'm talking about the V-10 rear engine drives. I guess we're all soft now but I haven't had a working air on my Truck for over 15 years. It was working when I left Nevada and returned to Houston in 2005 but it sit in the front yard for almost 3 years and I guess it rotted because it never cooled again and the really strange thing was after moving back to La the front bearing on the clutch even went bad. Still haven't figured that one out yet for the bearing to go bad when you weren't even running the air or a load. I finally just removed the whole system and thru it into the back of the truck in case some day when I am reincarnated I might want to fix it.
I know a little about chillers. I used to install building-wide security & access control systems in office buildings, and we would tie into the monitoring points in the mechanical room. I thought one downside of those water-based systems was that they do not remove humidity. You see the plans for homemade cool-mist a/c rigs on the web. They're great for Arizona, but not so much for the southeast.
Water conserving toilets you have to flush 3 times to get stuff moving, energy saving appliances, electric cars---all for taking good working items away from us. The mother board went out on my new washer and they wanted $500 to fix/replace it. I got an old slosh, slosh, shlosh, spinnnnnnn--frigidare on craigslist. My new stove is pretty annoying. It takes forever to heat up. But the heat when you turn things off still has to dissipate, cuz it's electric! The old coils were fine. If we want to pay for electricity, we should be able to buy it as we need it, not as the gov't wants us to use it. If we still hear our fathers yelling in our head Turn Off The Light!!!! So be it. But I'm betting that smart appliances will have the gov't turning stuff off on us when THEY want.