French Startup Transition-One Plans a $5,600 Electric Makeover For Your Old Diesel Car (bloomberg.com) 149
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: About 5,000 euros ($5,600) are set to buy your 10-year-old combustion clunker an electric makeover -- and offer a cut-price way to avoid driving bans across European cities. French startup Transition-One has developed retrofitting technology that adds an electric engine, batteries and a connected dashboard into older models of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, Volkswagen AG, Renault SA and PSA Group for about 8,500 euros, or 5,000 euros after government subsidies in France.
In the prototype Twingo, three battery packs are fitted in front and two in what used to be the gas tank. The whole pack, bought from a Tesla Inc. parts reseller, weighs 120 kilograms (265 pounds). To compare, Renault's electric Zoe has a 290 kilogram battery for a 210 kilometer driving range. Prices start at around 23,000 euros excluding battery rental battery. The transition takes less than a day, leaving the original stick shift and gear box and installing the plug behind the hatch that drivers usually pop open to refill the tank. Founder Aymeric Libeau, whose previous experiences include co-founding software company Pentalog Group, has worked on retrofitting for two years, and tested the method with a French business school. He is looking to raise 6 million euros to build a factory he says would be capable of churning out as many as 4,000 vehicles next year.
Libeau expects French and European regulator approval by the end of the year and will start pre-orders in September to test demand.
In the prototype Twingo, three battery packs are fitted in front and two in what used to be the gas tank. The whole pack, bought from a Tesla Inc. parts reseller, weighs 120 kilograms (265 pounds). To compare, Renault's electric Zoe has a 290 kilogram battery for a 210 kilometer driving range. Prices start at around 23,000 euros excluding battery rental battery. The transition takes less than a day, leaving the original stick shift and gear box and installing the plug behind the hatch that drivers usually pop open to refill the tank. Founder Aymeric Libeau, whose previous experiences include co-founding software company Pentalog Group, has worked on retrofitting for two years, and tested the method with a French business school. He is looking to raise 6 million euros to build a factory he says would be capable of churning out as many as 4,000 vehicles next year.
Libeau expects French and European regulator approval by the end of the year and will start pre-orders in September to test demand.
Will it be profitable (Score:2)
It is unlikely to make any profit after taking into account the cost of battery, dashboard and motor. Plus they will be missing regenerative braking which will reduce the range. If they add regenerative braking, it will add more cost. It is better to invest this in making a new car instead of retrofitting an existing car.
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So the "makeover" will have a cost that will cover that amount.
The result will allow a person to keep driving in a EU city.
Re "reduce the range". Thats not a problem going to work and back home. The EU nations laws on what is allowed to still be used as transport is the problem.
Re "new car" Why buy a new car? People need transport to work. They know how to "drive" their car.
That meets new EU nations laws on what people are allowed to do in
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I can see that it helps people drive pollution-reduced vehicles into urban areas. I get that.
Suddenly, however, should this become popular, what of local grid demands? All those coulombs, coupled to the need for air conditioning like never before, dims the grid.
Charging your car upon arrival also means high demands for plug-in chargers, and although the EU has a few, certainly not enough-- which also increases grid demand in city centers/centres.
It also doesn't halt the problem of excessive contention for p
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Its France. Decades of gov backed nuclear power, hydro. At prices the gov can ensure people stay happy with.
France did not have oil but it did have big nuclear ideas
None of that "green" West German and German energy policy held back France and its energy production.
Re "high demands for plug-in chargers"
Work and city car parks will be asked by the gov to upgrade. Just like the upgrade to having to driv
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Its the EU. Then can demand that of a city and the power company.
Re "Vast majority of cars park outside."
Canada had the "Block heater" AC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] ie connected through a power cord.
Bringing power to an "outside" car can be done AC...
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Vehicle performance will improve over diesel. More low speed torque, and of course none of the juddering you get from a diesel.
TFA talks about the weight of the battery pack, but even some of that will be offset by removing all the ICE stuff. Engine, petrol tank, exhaust system. Gearbox will probably stay if it is manual (just leave it in 2nd gear) or removed/modified if it is automatic.
For people who can't charge at home, there is on-street charging and charging at work.
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I don't get juddering from the diesel engine in my car, or the car I owned before that, or the previous one.
Improved vehicle performance will be for around 50 miles, then you'll have to stop for a few hours. Of course your brakes wont be rated for that improved performance so you're more likely to crash too.
But it's all irrelevant because on-street charging and charging at work are both so under-provisioned that most people wont be able to charge it anyway, leaving them with no performance because their han
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All diesel engines judder, even the latest ones. That's one reason why diesels were unpopular - people thought they sounded and felt like a bus or a truck. The French had to offer big incentives to get people to switch.
These cars are not designed for long distances, they are designed for commuting to work. 50 miles is well under what most people do every day. Brakes will be supplemented by regen and upgraded if needed.
Many people are able to charge at home in France too. There are incentives to install work
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All diesel engines judder, even the latest ones.
By the time the engine movements reach the driver they're represented by minor vibration at most, greatly outweighed by the sensations provided by the road surface. When stationary I can't easily tell the engine is even running.
I'm driving a modern car not a Russian T34 built in 1942.
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What car specifically?
My experience of current model diesel cars from BMW, Skoda and Honda is that you very much can feel the vibration when they are stationary, as well as hear it.
There was some effort made to make diesel hybrids to fix that, but as diesel is dying anyway for passenger cars they probably won't ever be big sellers.
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Hours to charge. Short distances.
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The original Leaf was 24kWh and the maximum regen was about 45kW.
I found that to be pretty good, in fact most of the time I didn't need to use the friction brakes at all.
I drove that car for years. People kept telling me it was useless and I couldn't go anywhere in it. Regularly did 130 mile round trips in fact. Probably my favourite car, of all the ones I've owned so far.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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Hmm, must have been a US thing. They seemed to have more issues with those ones, which were built in a different factory. I owned mine in 2014 and there was no recall.
It had the B mode too, so you could choose between D and B, with B having max regen when you lifted off the accelerator. I drive in B almost all the time.
Regularly charged it at 1C too, maybe once or twice week for about a year and then maybe once or twice a month after that. Didn't lose any bars in 5 years of ownership, although I didn't get
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In the UK the 24kWh models had B mode too, although only on the top "Tekna" spec that also had the Bose sound system and 360 cameras. The only difference with the 30kWh packs, apart from the size, was that they removed the "long life mode" that limited charge to 80%.
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The official reason for removing 80% mode was that they found charging to 100% didn't really have any effect on pack longevity. In fact balancing the cells periodically helped. That seems borne out with used 24kWh Leafs - those that haven't been left unused for long periods suffer very little degradation.
In any case, the max regen is less than the sustained rapid charge power. Since sustained rapid charging doesn't harm the pack (there are taxi companies that rapid charge twice a day and their 24kWh cars an
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I drove that car for years. People kept telling me it was useless and I couldn't go anywhere in it. Regularly did 130 mile round trips in fact. Probably my favourite car, of all the ones I've owned so far.
Most people drive like crap. I'd like to put a Leaf powertrain into a 240Z, although that ship has sailed. The only ones I could get my hands on now would be approximately 70% rust. A 240SX would be a fun EV swap as well, but I'd want more beef for that than you'd get from a Leaf. Any Tesla swap, for example, would do. The 240Z weighed about 2150 wet.
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Vehicle performance will improve over diesel. More low speed torque, and of course none of the juddering you get from a diesel.
Performance could improve, but they have a small pack, so they probably will have a small motor too. Might as well, if you're keeping the gears; you can. It won't be as efficient at low speeds, but the penalty for a good manual gearbox isn't as much as people think. Most western EVs have a reduction drive anyway.
Diesels have great performance these days. They may peter out at high speeds (and they usually do) but the low-end torque of a small turbo diesel is phenomenal, especially with a VGT. Obviously this
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People need a car that meets EU nation regulations and laws.
No people need to elect leaders that won't impose stupid rules taking away their livelihood on them. Its one thing to set requirements for "new" cars its utter BS to tell someone they have to quit using the transportation they depend on, that they already worked hard to pay for an maintain. Glad I don't live in Europe if I did I'd probably dawn a yellow vest and set something belonging to the elitist political class on fire..
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Their government has been warning on climate change, there has been ample opportunity to switch, but drivers chose business as usual. This is on them.
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They're in France. The only reason you need to evacuate an area in France is if Germany invade; they don't get the serious weather and natural disasters that cause problems in places like America.
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I don't see how you come to that conclusion. Most any electric motor, including any motor you would use for an electric car, can be back-driven to generate electric power. The batteries are rechargeable. The power electronics (motor drive, battery management system) can have power flowing in either direction. Where do you think there is added cost in having regenerative b
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Teslas have fabulous regen, but you don't need that if you alter your driving style. Start slowing down earlier, and you will get more of the charge into the packs. This will irritate everyone else, but it's more efficient. In fact it's generally most efficient no matter what you're driving to accelerate much more generously than you decelerate. Many modern ICEs are capable of fueling all the way down to 0% when you are engine braking, and are most efficient under moderate acceleration. So is the electric m
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Re:Dumbasses (Score:5, Insightful)
If it was economically a good idea then subsidies wouldn't be needed. Lefties: "Well its a new industry they need help" Just like Samuel Colt needed subsidies. Apple needed subsidies. Intel subsidies. GM, Ford?
Nuclear energy in France is subsidised in fact most nuclear energy is subsidised in some way, so is the fossil fuel industry in the US and last time I looked so was every red state in the USA except Texas.
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How about we talk about return on investment instead of just being a partisan cunt? Oh, I know.... because you can't.
Yes, let's talk about return on investment. How much energy can we get out for the energy put in?
I did a search on what provides a good return and it took a while to find someone willing to give numbers. Here's a couple I found. https://www.world-nuclear.org/... [world-nuclear.org] https://www.forbes.com/sites/j... [forbes.com]
Why is it so hard to find these numbers from anyone other than a supporter of nuclear power? My guess is that it's because no other energy sources can compare so they'd rather not mention it and hope you don't notice.
We can hide the true costs of energy in subsidies and creative accounting. What cannot be hidden is the energy return on investment. This will become apparent in time as our industry and economy slowly grinds down to a stop.
Bio-fuel, solar, geothermal, and in some cases wind, will leave us in the dark. We need nuclear power or the lights will go out.
What really matters is the levelled cost of energy. Interestingly solar farms are now cheaper than even un-subsidised nuclear where the government covers the insurance and safety costs. The following are French numbers from 2018 but they reflect what is basically true for all nuclear sites, the LCOE of un-subsidised nuclear power is between 2-3 times that of solar and terrestrial wind farms:
Hydro power: 20 Eur/MWh
Nuclear with State-covered insurance costs (in other words, subsidised): 50 Eur/MWh
Nucle
Re:Dumbasses (Score:5, Insightful)
What really matters is the levelled cost of energy. Interestingly solar farms are now cheaper than even un-subsidised nuclear where the government covers the insurance and safety costs.
How much does that solar power cost at local midnight?
The LCOE is the reason there is no tsunami of investor money flowing into nuclear power and the baggage nuclear has is why nobody wants to insure it.
I disagree. The LCOE shows that utilities place greater value in reliable sources of energy. Nuclear power sells at a higher price because it is worth more.
Electricity is a unique commodity because it's not something someone can buy and then just keep in a warehouse until needed. It has to be produced as it is used. There are technologies that can store this electricity but it has a cost that is far higher than just a warehouse, because these cannot be built with just lumber and sheet metal. Every electrical storage technology comes with a non-trivial loss, and this costs money.
What is happening now is that this electrical storage is predominately in natural gas. When we need more electrical power then we burn more gas. As demand for electrical power drops then the gas is throttled back. The prices will reflect this value of being on demand.
I fully expect prices for electricity from nuclear and natural gas to continue to rise because of the real value they offer. The prices for nuclear power will begin to fall once the politicians finally realize that they can't legislate the wind to blow or the sun to shine. Then they will be forced to allow more nuclear power, allow it to compete in the market, and the prices will come down.
Electric cars will lose their value and convenience real quick if there are rolling blackouts because of a lack of generating capacity. If France wants these cars to gain any market then they need to keep their electricity inexpensive and reliable. If they want to keep the air quality high then this electricity needs to be from something that isn't burned. That means nuclear power.
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Nuclear power sells at a higher price because it is worth more.
No, nuclear sells at a higher price because they demanded a guarantee (i.e. subsidy) in order to build it.
If it was simply a case of being reliable and predictable then wind, and especially wind + battery would be attracting the same insane prices. But as I pointed out to you multiple times already, in Europe offshore wind has an unsubsidised cost that is about HALF the subsidised nuclear cost.
And that's the buy price, not the LCOE which has to factor in the free unlimited insurance and security that nuclea
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What really matters is the levelled cost of energy. Interestingly solar farms are now cheaper than even un-subsidised nuclear where the government covers the insurance and safety costs.
How much does that solar power cost at local midnight?
That would depend on your grid storage, how much wind power you have in your mix and how intelligently your grid has been designed. solar power does not exist in isolation it is always mixed with wind, hydro tidal or other methods of generation and it will be mixed in with grid level storage and redesigned smart grid technology.
The LCOE is the reason there is no tsunami of investor money flowing into nuclear power and the baggage nuclear has is why nobody wants to insure it.
I disagree. The LCOE shows that utilities place greater value in reliable sources of energy. Nuclear power sells at a higher price because it is worth more.
You have no idea of what LCOE is. To quote wikipedia: The levelized cost of energy (LCOE) is a measure of a power source that allows comparison of different methods of electricity ge
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It is, and relatively speaking, the amount stored is tiny. In the UK the hydro storage capacity would last for about 5 minutes if all other forms of generation stopped working (2.8GW of hydro capacity, right now the UK is using 35GW)
Its only used for peak levelling, not for "storage" as many understand it.
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The fossil fuel industry also has the hidden subsidy of the military force we keep on tap, partly to keep the fossil fuel supply stable.
The "hidden subsidy" on the fossil fuel industry is shared by all international trade. This includes the solar PV cells from China. If you want to keep solar power costs stable then we need to have the US Navy and US Coast Guard properly funded to keep trade safe.
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The Coast Guard was part of the Iraq wars?
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The fossil fuel industry also has the hidden subsidy of the military force we keep on tap, partly to keep the fossil fuel supply stable.
The "hidden subsidy" on the fossil fuel industry is shared by all international trade. This includes the solar PV cells from China. If you want to keep solar power costs stable then we need to have the US Navy and US Coast Guard properly funded to keep trade safe.
Yes, but the environmental damage of using fossil fuels is much greater than manufacturing and using PV Cells from China, the USA or anywhere else. For PVs upstream processes generate between 80% to just over 95% of the emissions in a PV power plant’s lifecycle. What that means is that once you are done manufacturing them PVs have a tiny carbon footprint over several decades of lifespan, currently something like 12g per kWh. Compare this to a plant burning coal where you've got a carbon footprint of 9
Re: Dumbasses (Score:1)
if it was economically a good idea then subsidies wouldn't be needed
Unfortunately and embarassingly for us all, the world economy isn't as simple as you seem to think it is. Here is an entryway [wikipedia.org] into the rabbithole of complexities that plague economic analyses of even the most basic markets, much to our chagrin as a species fighting to balance the rights of the individual vs the rights of humanity as a whole.
I would be absolutely delighted if you were to find a better solution than this current labyrinthine system codified in interminable volumes of rules and regulations.
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Fantastic post -- I appreciate the effort you put into it, knowing as you must that the OP would likely ignore it or engage with it only idiotically
Read the fine print (Score:2)
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Where does it say that? Not that it's impossible, but nowhere in TFA that I can see. The actual cost is 8,500 EUR (5k is with subsidies) so that ought to be enough to cover some batteries for a short-ish range.
A standardized EV conversion kit isn't a bad idea but I'm a bit skeptical that this will work out that great in practice. Even if you have the EV drivetrain and charging crap handy, there's a ton of work to get it to work in a car. Lots of things will have to be replaced. All belt or vacuum powered ac
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Speed sensors are in the wheel bearings, cars with ABS have one on each wheel.
There are sensors on the wheels, but they aren't always used to drive the speedometer or by the ECU, just the ABS. My Miata, the RX-8, as well as at least some econoboxes like the Golf get the readings from the transmission. I'm sure there are some cars that do use the wheel sensors of course, but really this is kind of nitpicky, isn't it :)
exactly (Score:2)
Plenty of people are happy with their beaters. This companies success can only increase the retrofit industry, which then could be broadened out to other cars. And then it follows cheaper aftermarket parts on the internet and high quality instructions.
There is literally no down side to this. Most people in cities drive less than 30km per day.
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Most people in cities drive less than 30km per day.
Most people in cities can't afford* to store more than one car. So that car will have to be usable for long road trips as well as short trips around town. While one can make do with an IC car for daily errands, electric is not nearly as usable for long trips. Guess which most people will choose for that one parking precious space?
*In Seattle, the latest move is to approve the construction of apartments and condos with no parking. This turns the surrounding neighborhoods into a shit-show as people try to gr
Re: exactly (Score:1)
Exactly. That's why my daily drive vehicle is an ambulance. Sure it isn't as convenient as an electric car, but once in a while you need the extra medical care you can only get in an ambulance. Sure, the EMTs in back cost a little extra each month, but it isn't like I could hire one for those rate medically demanding trips.
Naturally I park it inside my triple trailer tractor trailer, which itself is parked in my shuttle, mounted atop an old Saturn V. /s
I guess (Score:2)
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You don't get a few more years out of it. The point is that the cats are being banned in many cities. Retrofitting to improve emissions is a rising business for people with older cars and without the double digit thousands to spend.
back of the envelope calculations. (Score:2)
A few years ago I calculated that a kWh of battery would cost about EUR 300. That may have come down a bit, but not an order-of-magnitude.
If you convert all of that EUR 5000 into batteries you get about 20kWh. (I'm being twice generous here, to compensate for the old EUR 300 figure). At 200Wh/km you're going to have a range of about 100km.
That's probably way to generous because 1) there is money in the conversion and other parts like the motor. 2) 200Wh/km is optimistic for an optimized car like a tesla. Wh
My car cost less than $2000 (Score:2)
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The French haven't known shit about making a car since they used two strokes.
FCA would have gone out of business already if it weren't for Jeep.
Renault would have gone out of business by now if not for Nissan technology.
I wouldn't let the French even LOOK at my car if I had a choice.
much better (Score:2)
much better solution to turn an old but still decent car into an electrical vehicle then building a new expensive car and destroying the old one.
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Only about a third of a car's lifetime energy consumption is in its production. That's why you can actually reduce pollution by buying a newer, cleaner car, at least if the old one is a decade old or more. The improvements to emissions made in the last two decades are significant.
What's a "Battery rental battery"? (Score:3)
Battery rental?
Battery separate?
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When you buy a Renault Zoe you can either buy the whole car outright, or you can rent the battery. Renting the battery saves you some up-front cost but tends to cost more overall, and affects resale value. If you change your mind you can buy the battery out later.
It was done initially as something of an experiment to see if it would help with people worrying about the battery dying. There was a lot of FUD flying around, nonsense about the battery needing replacement after 3-4 years (!) and costing 10k Euro.
Retrofit not cost effective or even close. (Score:2)
Diesel autos aren't valuable enough to convert into a bad BEV. The mechanically ignorant imagine this a good idea. The flood of OT and clueless comments bear that out. Using the existing gearbox adds drag vs. hub motors and there's no regenerative braking. Modern EVs are designed as a package with a platform very different than ICE drivetrains use. This limits batter space available for conversion.
Vehicles over ten years old (with a few exceptions which prove the rule) are shredder bait. This begs the que
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Diesel autos aren't valuable enough to convert into a bad BEV.
Probably true. However...
Using the existing gearbox adds drag
...yes, this is true, but it's very little. Most EVs have a reduction gear, so they are already adding drag. In 1:1 gear, a manual transmission is barely less efficient than a reduction gear. It's only in low gears that there is a significant difference...
vs. hub motors
...which are useful only in the smallest vehicles. The new-generation hub motors (integrated into the hub itself) aren't being used on most vehicles yet, and large old-school hub motors egregiously increase unsprung mass and ruin h
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The interior in my 80s benz is already shot because of their shitty butyl window seal front, and shitty rubber window seal rear. I need to get after it before the next season or I fear rust will set in. The seats are miraculously still good, but the headliner is shot, and the dash is cracked. I'd get rid of it except it has the best of all the engines, and runs like a dream.
I can do my own suspension work, so that's not a dealbreaker for me. I have the tools to fully rebuild the suspension, including a pres
ICE Bans in cities (Score:2)
Forget the electric motor in a beater. Where can I get an LS swap for a Tesla? Keeping it on record as an EV, but having a useful car.
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You can buy a karma with an ls motor from Bob Lutz. Close enough? Most people think it has better styling than a Tesla.
I m interested to own the dealership (Score:1)
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Why would I ruin a perfectly good car by turning it in to a piece of shit electric?
If only there were some way that you could extract the answer to your question, say from the lead sentence of the article summary.
Re: Why? (Score:2)
And also that car has been built already, it's quite possibly the greenest option available , taking into account the manufacturing carbon offset of NOT adding a new car to the roads.
Now the only thing possibly better is adding a small 2 cylinder ICE for emergency long distance drives, or charging on the go, no you won't be tearing up the highways with it, but it will get you to your long distance destination .
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yes they do, a particular genre of eurotrash over there
Re: Why? (Score:1)
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Some of them do. Just because they don't let every moron carry a gun, doesn't mean they don't know how to deal with them, or have anyone trained in using them.
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Some do, and they seem to be able to use it better than the average ammosexual: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45419445
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Because they are being banned in European cities. If you happen to live in one, it may be the only way to keep your car.
Or you could put that money into moving expenses and live in a less nanny state......
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I wondered if I put the electric motor and batteries in the boot, could I then say it was a "hybrid" and still get to drive around? :)
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Why use synthetic hydrocarbons for transportation? Because electric airplanes are a fantasy.
Airplanes that fly with engines that burn kerosene exist in the here and now. Airplanes that fly with electric motors, and actually carry people and cargo a meaningful distance, exist only in opium dreams.
Re: Why? (Score:2)
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"Why use synthetic hydrocarbons for transportation? Because electric airplanes are a fantasy."
In a world where you can make biofuel from algae grown in ultra-cheap, ultra-safe open raceway ponds, the idea that it makes sense to make synfuel using ultra-expensive, polluting nuclear power is the fantasy. Keep dreaming, I guess.