what's the futur for gasoline van/RV/camper

[rruff]

I am not saying mass-scale electrification of our mobile infrastructure and logistics system will never happen. I am saying it WILL NOT happen in the lifetimes of most of the members here who are past let's say, 50, and are wondering if a gas-powered RV or camper van is a valid purchase.

Totally in agreement there....

 

[RonDean]

I am not saying mass-scale electrification of our mobile infrastructure and logistics system will never happen. I am saying it WILL NOT happen in the lifetimes of most of the members here who are past let's say, 50, and are wondering if a gas-powered RV or camper van is a valid purchase.

The politicians and lawmakers would have us believe that we should keep them in office because they are promising a 'green future'. BS. Its really about getting re-elected.

As far as solar and wind power in the sticks...YEP! Give that man a cigar! Now...how ya gonna get all that power you are producing out in the boonies transported to the population centers? Oh yeah...those things I mentioned...you know...massive pieces of metal infrastructure to transport the energy to the people who want to keep having lights when they flip a switch. Cuz you sure ain't gonna build a 1000 acre solar farm or mega windfarm in the middle of downtown Manhattan or on Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles.

As far as trains...yeah, efficiency. They got that. What they don't have is speed. It can take 2 weeks to a month (maybe more!) to ship bulk amounts of something by rail across the country.

Good luck with that if the lettuce loaded on a box car in the 105degree heat outside Phoenix, or the boxed beef shoved onto a refer car in Kansas needs to get to a food warehouse in say, Rochester NY in under 5 days.

You do like your meat and veggies, edible? Right?

1. Some of us care about things that might happen to our kids, even if we can't live to see them. That's assuming we can't get it done faster.
2. If we stopped listening to the folks getting rich from fossil fuels maybe we would already have the changes made. But, if we keep listening, it certainly will take longer.
3. For every yah-but I have seen here there is a solution. We (as individuals and society) just have to make it happen.
4. Energy production... Solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, nuclear (assuming we solve the waste problem, better electric storage, etc. will all be better than burning coal and oil. Nor do I worry about what any of them look like as much as I worry about all the crap fossil fuel pumps out that I can see, or even worse - the stuff I can't see.
5. Trains and more ... Whenever I see videos of trains in Europe, I see these wires hanging over the tracks. Maybe not everywhere, but mostly. I'm willing to bet they just might carry the electricity that powers those trains. I seem to remember seeing pics of train rails in and wires over US streets back in the day. I bet we had some sort of electric public transportation before some farsighted folks decided selling each of us an ICE vehicle was a better idea.

F150 EV Camper is looking better every time I think about it. I bet I can get that in MY lifetime.

 

[tx2sturgis]

Well sure...you can buy EVs right now...2 years from now, and 10 years from now. Obviously.

But gas and diesel powered vehicles of all types and sizes will still be with us for decades.

 

[Calaverasgrande]

Diesel is probably going to go first. It has it's advantages to be sure. But the VW scandal kind of belied the clean diesel concept.
I expect a few forward thinking European countries are going to outlaw diesel in favor of electric or gas. I know a few cities in Europe like Hamburg have already banned diesel. Some put forward the idea of electric trains to move goods in from the suburbs to the city center and vice versa.
Sounds crazy right?
Well the NYC MTA runs the Long Island Railroad and Metro North in addition to the regular subway you know from TV and movies.
Where my mom used to live before she passed, in Long Island was on the outskirts of the electric route. It actually a regular gauge railroad. So electric trains cover about a 40 mile radius outside of NYC metro, diesel takes over after that. In some rare cases they run diesel from end to end. Such as during storms.
But it's totally possible. You don't even need an incredibly sophisticated infrastructure like they do with some light rail set ups.
LIRR is just regular rails for the cathode, and a parallel elevated 3rd rail for the anode. Basically the same as the subways.

As far as the will to change;
So long as politicians regardless of party or conservative-liberal inclination are owned by fossil fuel interests our nations will continue to do what is good for fossil fuel companies, not for us regular people or the planet.
I know I'm kind of an outlier being a guy that lives in a van and reviles fossil fuels. But like I told my friend last week, I camp out all the time because it's cheaper than rent.
I may like driving my van around but I don't like that the entire geopolitical arrangement of the planet is oriented towards making a few people very wealthy at the expense of our health and long term viability.

 

[poetinsf]

Earlier in the thread, I said that most EVs are essentially coal-powered now. So if that is not workable into the future, where will the alternative power come from?

I have no idea what you meant by "essentially coal-powered", but coal accounts for 20% of the US electricity source, with renewables accounting for the biggest increases.

 

[PepiCo]

Gonna have a pry my 7.3L Turbo diesel steering wheel from my cold, inanimate hands. Nahmsayn?

 

[tx2sturgis]

I have no idea what you meant by "essentially coal-powered", but coal accounts for 20% of the US electricity source, with renewables accounting for the biggest increases.

Depending on what year, what month, and what state we are talking about, coal power can be as low as 20% or as high as 40% and 50%. Lets agree that it is a fairly high percentage of every kilowatt we use.

At night when most personal EVs are being charged, (at home) renewable (wind and solar) power production drops to nothing (or almost nothing) in most places. The fall back to base-level power generation is usually coal or natural gas. Those kilowatts being fed into the hightech EV battery ARE primarily from coal and natural gas in most cases.

Increasing solar or wind power from 1% to 3% is a huge increase. Yep. But total renewable power going into the average EV these days is typically a couple of percent of the total power consumed by the vehicle.

There are certainly exceptions, as always. Some off-grid homes are totally solar power, (a LOT of it) and can recharge electric vehicles with power from the sun. I have even seen some large mobile off-grid systems that can do the same thing. But these rare instances don't affect the averages much at all.

 

[rruff]

At night when most personal EVs are being charged, (at home) renewable (wind and solar) power production drops to nothing (or almost nothing) in most places.

That's why they'll instead be charged during the day, and sell power back to the grid at night.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

Predicting the future is a fools game. For a laugh go back and look at what futurists were saying about us 20, 30, or 40 years ago. Doubt any of us bought Pfizer or Moderna stock 5 years ago.

Someone is going to make money off our energy consumption and it aint us. You just change one set of billionaires for another.

China and India are adding coal fired power plants faster than we are shutting them down. The global mix of fossil fuel power generation is going up, not down.

Electric trolleys and busses were abandoned in the '50's; mostly because they were inflexible and expensive to operate. ICE power'd can go anywhere there is a road.
People decided they wanted private transportation, not some government agency. People decide for themselves in a democracy, governments mandate in a dictatorship.

Electric high speed trains make sense. But our governments can't seem to build anything anymore. Example: California's high speed rail.

IMO I don't see day charge/night discharge as a viable solution. Too many problems.

Ford has pricing for their F-150 Lightning and E-Transport online. You can build your dream vehicle and see if you can afford it (I can't). And historic trends have the price keep going up, not down.

 

[RonDean]

Predicting the future is a fools game. For a laugh go back and look at what futurists were saying about us 20, 30, or 40 years ago. Doubt any of us bought Pfizer or Moderna stock 5 years ago.

Someone is going to make money off our energy consumption and it aint us. You just change one set of billionaires for another.

China and India are adding coal fired power plants faster than we are shutting them down. The global mix of fossil fuel power generation is going up, not down.

Electric trolleys and busses were abandoned in the '50's; mostly because they were inflexible and expensive to operate. ICE power'd can go anywhere there is a road.
People decided they wanted private transportation, not some government agency. People decide for themselves in a democracy, governments mandate in a dictatorship.

Electric high speed trains make sense. But our governments can't seem to build anything anymore. Example: California's high speed rail.

IMO I don't see day charge/night discharge as a viable solution. Too many problems.

Ford has pricing for their F-150 Lightning and E-Transport online. You can build your dream vehicle and see if you can afford it (I can't). And historic trends have the price keep going up, not down.

This will probably be my last post in this thread. I don't see much real discussion. Just people staking out positions. Myself included.

I DID do a search on YouTube for EV RVs and found they may be here sooner than I realized. IMO - that's a good thing. If I or you can afford them or not, I think that's another issue about wealth and income disparity that deserves its own thread.

I would say the same about "which billionaires we want to pay off." For myself, it would be the ones not contributing to global warming or air pollution.

 

[rruff]

Depending on what year, what month, and what state we are talking about, coal power can be as low as 20% or as high as 40% and 50%. Lets agree that it is a fairly high percentage of every kilowatt we use.

Coal was 20% for the country in 2020. Nuclear 20%. Natural gas 40%. https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

 

[JulianWol]

I've watched a documentary recently where automobile industry experts compared gasoline cars with a horse wagon. Saying that in 10-20 years people who drive gas vehicles will be like those who drive the horse-drawn carriage now.

 

[rruff]

I've watched a documentary recently where automobile industry experts compared gasoline cars with a horse wagon. Saying that in 10-20 years people who drive gas vehicles will be like those who drive the horse-drawn carriage now.

That's some pretty poor and silly propaganda.

28% of our total energy use is for transportation, and nearly all of that is now powered by fossil fuels. 36% of our energy use is electric. Switching all of our transportation to electric will be a huge task. About a 80% increase in production, plus distribution and all the other charging and infrastructure changes. 50 years at least to phase out ICEs.

 

[JulianWol]

That's some pretty poor and silly propaganda.

28% of our total energy use is for transportation, and nearly all of that is now powered by fossil fuels. 36% of our energy use is electric. Switching all of our transportation to electric will be a huge task. About a 80% increase in production, plus distribution and all the other charging and infrastructure changes. 50 years at least to phase out ICEs.

I'm convinced in a few years the number of gas vehicles will be lower because we defiantly run out of fossil fuels. It became harder and more expensive to extract fossil fuels. The usage of the electro car will rise nevertheless.

 

[rruff]

I'm convinced in a few years the number of gas vehicles will be lower because we defiantly run out of fossil fuels. It became harder and more expensive to extract fossil fuels. The usage of the electro car will rise nevertheless.

We currently have about 50 years of *known* oil reserves at current use levels.

 

[John in Montreal]

I have no idea what you meant by "essentially coal-powered", but coal accounts for 20% of the US electricity source, with renewables accounting for the biggest increases.

Depending on what year, what month, and what state we are talking about, coal power can be as low as 20% or as high as 40% and 50%. Lets agree that it is a fairly high percentage of every kilowatt we use.

Not true. There are several states that get very little of their electricity from coal. So let's agree the US as a whole gets about 20% of its electrical power from coal because that is the actual number.

total renewable power going into the average EV these days is typically a couple of percent of the total power consumed by the vehicle.

This statement is false too. The US gets over 20% of its power from renewables. And in California which has 42% of the nation's EV registrations almost half their electrical power comes from renewables and large hydro.

 

[tx2sturgis]

Not true. There are several states that get very little of their electricity from coal. So let's agree the US as a whole gets about 20% of its electrical power from coal because that is the actual number.


This statement is false too. The US gets over 20% of its power from renewables. And in California which has 42% of the nation's EV registrations almost half their electrical power comes from renewables and large hydro.

Ah grasshoppah, if you wish to mix up the data to result in your desired outcome, then have fun with that. Paraphrasing Mark Twain: There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

But even (or especially) in California, most EVs are charged at night, at home, when renewables typically supply much less electricity to the grid compared to 'base level' power (mostly coal and gas).

California imports a huge portion of its electricity from other states, and most of that energy is coming from, as California puts it "non-renewables".

33.09% renewable energy (solar, hydro, wind, etc) 66.91% non renewables (coal, nat gas, nuclear, etc) and a huge portion of that energy from all out of state sources is coal and natural gas. And again, at night when your typical EV is plugged in, the flexible sources of wind and solar drop to almost nothing. That's just the way it is.

Source:

https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-repo...ty-data/2020-total-system-electric-generation
Now. Since we are probably wasting server bandwidth with all this arm-twisting back and forth, and apparently no more relevant, on-topic information is being supplied to the OP, and we are very likely boring the reader, not to mention the OP, we should probably move on. and call it a 'wash'.

This is just about the time that HDR would have deemed this one: 'Thread Closed'.

But since he's no longer with us, I suppose the thread is likely going to flounder and produce nothing more of value regarding the OP question: The future of gas powered RVs and vans, campers, etc.

However, I now exercise the choice of no longer participating in the bickering.

Have fun.

 

[poetinsf]

Before any more misinformation gets thrown around about the US electricity sources, here is an excellent interactive article about it.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive...eneration-changed-in-your-state-election.html
To summarize the article: "Coal’s decline has accelerated in recent years.. Today, natural gas is dominant but renewable sources like wind and solar are growing quickly, too."

 

[PepiCo]

When I lived in San Francisco I never saw a single solar panel. Not in my backyard?

 

[Calaverasgrande]

Electric trolleys and busses were abandoned in the '50's; mostly because they were inflexible and expensive to operate. ICE power'd can go anywhere there is a road.
People decided they wanted private transportation, not some government agency. People decide for themselves in a democracy, governments mandate in a dictatorship.

Actually it's pretty famously the fault of colluding US automakers, fossil fuel companies and a tire maker. I think it was Firestone, Ford, GM and Standard oil? Anyway, back in the 50's they went around and convinced a bunch of major metro areas their electric light rail was obsolete and the future was diesel powered busses!
You see you don't even pay for the tires, you rent them!
The grand strategy was to make public transit unbearable so everyone who could afford to would get a car.
This easily fell under the monopoly, consipiracy anti-trust and a few other laws.
They got busted, found guilty. Nobody went to jail, and they were fined a couple hundred thousand IIRC.
Basically part of the cost of doing business, when business is deliberately wrecking public transit for profit.