CNBC Says only racing enthusiasts buy manuals, let’s correct them

[freebeard]

Reaching into the past — July the Thirtieth:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8IMk4fNh4I

In today’s video we look at Tesla and Elon Musk focusing their technological innovations on a new product development sometime in the next decade or so. This would be in Tesla creating a battery electric autonomous Charter Bus for riders to pay for. It would be synonymous to Tesla’s traditional proprietary robotaxi fleet for vehicles like Model Y, Model 3, Cybertruck, Model Y, and Semi Truck. This product development would likely disrupt the airline industry, train industry, and transfer more of that monetary wealth/market share to Tesla’s more efficient battery autonomous vehicle model.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Assuming an efficiency of 1.5 miles per kWh, it would cost about $840/yr for electricity.

The real exciting feature would be vehicle to grid ability to buffer the grid. If the utility could benefit from this, they could contribute to the purchase price by whatever amount their operating savings would be.

Having 300 buses with 200 kWh batteries means 60 MWh available. Would be a huge benefit to supplement peak production which occurs around 6pm.

As noted in my post above that is what Dominion Energy did. They paid the additional cost for a pilot program with 50 buses. For that ~$500K invested they are getting about 11 MWh of battery storage.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by JSH

The largest order for the Joule so far came with the help of Dominion Energy. They paid the extra upfront cost in exchange for the school district allowing the buses to be used for Vehicle-to-Grid battery backup.

The possibility of resorting to EV batteries as a backup is another reason why I would rather bet on plug-in hybrids as a long-term option. Not only because of range-anxiety, but also to eventually resort to it instead of having to rely on a genset. Well, maybe a portable genset would still be desirable sometimes...

[Fat Charlie]

Originally Posted by JSH

The "sin" is driving. Consuming gasoline isn't required to drive and even with a gasoline vehicle it isn't proportional to the amount of mile driven. My 15 mpg Astro Van takes up the same amount of road space as my 35 mpg VW Sportwagen.

If we don't want people to drive then charge them by the mile.

Your VW doesn't "pound the pavement" the same way your Astro does. Charge them by the pound/mile. GVW.

Originally Posted by JSH

The fuel tax isn't cutting it and it hasn't matched transportation infrastructure costs for decades. Charging some one that drives a 20 mpg vehicle twice as much as someone that drives a 40 mpg vehicle is fundamentally unfair. It is time for a change.

The fuel tax has been the same cents per gallon since either 93 or 98. It needs to go up. And my Fit hurts the road less per mile than a Suburban, so I'm okay with SUVs paying more than I do. They could have bought something less damaging.

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by Fat Charlie

And my Fit hurts the road less per mile than a Suburban, so I'm okay with SUVs paying more than I do. They could have bought something less damaging.

Exactly your fit hurts the road, parking, traffic and pollution less than the suburban

Fuel taxes incentivize thrift and enable legal avoidance of taxes for lower income tiers.

Fuel tax is also one of a very few efficient taxes.
The effort required to collect a 1/10 of a percent more tax via elaborate schemes is quite wasteful and unnecessary in most states

[JSH]

Originally Posted by Fat Charlie

Your VW doesn't "pound the pavement" the same way your Astro does. Charge them by the pound/mile. GVW.

The fuel tax has been the same cents per gallon since either 93 or 98. It needs to go up. And my Fit hurts the road less per mile than a Suburban, so I'm okay with SUVs paying more than I do. They could have bought something less damaging.

The difference in damage done by a my VW vs my Astro is trivial.

1. The VW weighs 3330 lbs and the Astro weighs 4300 lbs
2. Passenger cars in general do very little damage to modern roads. The vast majority of damage is done by heavy trucks.

If you look at the Load Equivalency Factors the load by a passenger car or light truck is tiny compared to a heavy duty truck.

https://pavementinteractive.org/refe...gle-axle-load/

Most relevant to this discussion:

Heavy trucks and buses are responsible for a majority of pavement damage. Considering that a typical automobile weighs between 2,000 and 7,000 lbs (curb weight), even a fully loaded large passenger van will only generate about 0.003 ESALs while a fully loaded tractor-semi trailer can generate up to about 3 ESALs (depending upon pavement type, structure and terminal serviceability).

Or there is the Federal Highway Administration's Highway Cost Allocation study that shows a passenger car cost 0.1 cents per mile mile while a 80K lb 5-axle semi costs 40.9 cents per mile

FHWAÂ’s Highway Cost Allocation Study

https://ssti.us/wp/wp-content/upload...ce%20Costs.pdf
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/otps/costallocation.cfm


Of course road damage is just one part of road usage. The other is space. The Astro and VW take up the same space on the road. Why should one pay more than the other? The primary infrastructure problem today is congestion. Too many vehicles for our current road capacity. Or most specifically too many vehicle at specific times and specific intersections. Fuel economy is irrelevant to this problem.

[redpoint5]

How damaging are studded tires? I see people running them during the summer.

If they are very damaging, they should carry a high sales tax to recoup the damage over the course of the service life.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

I don't know about studded tires, but winter tires are usually more prone to get damaged while driving on warmer weather. Second-hand ones have been imported to my country a few times and sold as a "half-life" performance option, but it was totally unsuitable to most local conditions.

[redpoint5]

I ran studdless winter tires year-round that were given to me back when I was so poor I couldn't afford tires. Hot/dry weather is a single season here, so they performed pretty well the other 3 seasons.

My company car is approved for new tires, so I'm thinking winter rated all-seasons next time it's in the shop. I've decided I'm not flying to Idaho anymore, and probably won't fly to Montana unless it's a direct flight and weather isn't likely to keep me in Billings all weekend.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

winter rated all-seasons

That's another story. I wouldn't expect all-seasons to disintegrate at high speed in the springtime.