More anti-ev gibberish

[Dan5]

Got Peterson on his own logic flaws:

"If you want to play the metals game, please mention that there are only 130 tons/yr of platinum manufactured. This is used in normal cars catalytic convertors, along with many other uses- some of which have no chance of being recycled (cis-platinum comes to mind). Barring any other uses, this is only enough for <40 million cars per year (not even enough to cover half the yearly population increase from 2009-2011)."

[AnOutsider]

Got Peterson on his own logic flaws:

"If you want to play the metals game, please mention that there are only 130 tons/yr of platinum manufactured. This is used in normal cars catalytic convertors, along with many other uses- some of which have no chance of being recycled (cis-platinum comes to mind). Barring any other uses, this is only enough for &lt;40 million cars per year (not even enough to cover half the yearly population increase from 2009-2011)."

Do you really think it will matter? He feigns logic, but hes only interested in the facts that suit his needs.

[Dan5]

Yeah, I know I called him out on it and he goes into saying that burning coal is wasteful etc, etc and that the whole world wants cars when I explicitly mentioned the Amish, tribal peoples, and that people that are working just for food.

[Norbert]

Yeah, I know I called him out on it and he goes into saying that burning coal is wasteful etc, etc and that the whole world wants cars when I explicitly mentioned the Amish, tribal peoples, and that people that are working just for food.

Well, it seems that more and more of the world wants cars. But they wouldn't all buy a Prius, which is one of the very few hybrids that, in a worst case scenario for EVs, are less wasteful.

However I'm still thinking about getting a better approach to the 'EVs = marginal-power = coal' argument. The utilities' decision process for which energy source to use for marginal power, predates EVs. It seems mostly for slight cost advantages, in ignorance of the external costs of pollution. This affects general night time electricity, of which adding EV charging will be just a tiny portion for quite some time... more than balanced, I think, by the positive effects EVs have on the support for renewable energy sources.

More significant numbers of electric cars *in operation* might develop just in time to better utilize the fast-growing wind power at night-time.

[vfx]

Tesla is included with all the other EVs
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_16...flexGridModule

To get to one million, the White House pinned its hopes on 11 models of electric vehicles -- including the Karma. Our CBS News investigation found that six of the 11 -- Ford Focus, Ford Transit Connect, Fisker Nina/Atlantic, Tesla Model S, Tesla Roadster and Think City -- either haven't made their first delivery or are already out of business

[AnOutsider]

some investigation...

[Robert.Boston]

I'll take some slim comfort in seeing that CBS discounted the DOE's sales numbers for every EV manufacturer except Tesla. They failed, however, to include the Model X.

[ckessel]

To be honest, I'd expect early EV manufacturers to die off by and large. That'd mimic the early die off in a lot of industries before a technology proves itself.

[mfarendt]

It should not be all that surprising to see a number of companies in the EV space either consolidate or disappear. In 1927, the number of American companies involved in automobile production went from 108 to 44.

[Norbert]

I think the Model X is missing simply because the DOE numbers were based on manufacturer's sales projections at that time, which didn't include numbers for unannounced products. Same for VIA and new Nissan/Infinity EVs. That's probably also why the numbers don't change between 2013 and 2015: There were no sales projections reaching that far (except Leaf because of Smyrna). So they simply extended the 2013 numbers. But we may hope they increase after 2013 even though some numbers were lower than expected in 2011 and following. BTW, Leafs sold more than 6,000 in 2011.