|
Probably now.
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 03:51
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2024 19:21 |
|
|
I guess current EVs aren't really desgined for this, but I thought the idea was that you'd eventually have stations that pulled whole battery packs out when depleted and plugged in new batteries. Otherwise, like C. Everett Koop said, the future road trip is going to involve a lot of time kicking around charging stops.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 03:52
|
|
|
I'm not familiar enough with EVs, but my impression is there's still major variance in battery pack design such that the presumably preferable stop-n-swap approach isn't viable with some sort of mandated harmonization.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 03:54
|
|
|
In my head restaurants are a good fit meal and a charge.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 03:54
|
|
|
There are also these things called trains.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 03:59
|
|
|
Bar Ran Dun posted:In my head restaurants are a good fit meal and a charge. There's a reason chargers are going into grocery store parking lots everywhere too Swapping the entire battery, even if the cars were redesigned for it, introduces so many questions about liability and ownership that I can't imagine it becoming reality for many decades if at all
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 04:04
|
|
|
Xiahou Dun posted:There are also these things called trains. In the US? No.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 04:04
|
|
|
Discendo Vox posted:I'm not familiar enough with EVs, but my impression is there's still major variance in battery pack design such that the presumably preferable stop-n-swap approach isn't viable with some sort of mandated harmonization. Even if battery packs were uniform batteries aren't fungible. They have a lifespan and wear out over time and constitute a large fraction of the value of the EV. A battery pack from a new car is "better" than one with age on it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 04:07
|
|
|
cr0y posted:In the US? No. The entire country used to be covered with train tracks. They tore them out to build roads. There is no intrinsic reason the US can’t have a functioning railroad network, just like every other developed nation. This is the same American exceptionalism bullshit, just with transportation infrastructure instead.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 04:10
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:Even if battery packs were uniform batteries aren't fungible. They have a lifespan and wear out over time and constitute a large fraction of the value of the EV. A battery pack from a new car is "better" than one with age on it. In itself that's pretty easily resolved by selling service contracts for batteries rather than selling them with the vehicle. I know you felt a tingling sensation when you read that sentence, too.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 04:11
|
|
|
Xiahou Dun posted:The entire country used to be covered with train tracks. They tore them out to build roads. That’s not true. They’re just all now freight rail. Dead rail tracks into trails are also usually dead freight rail lines. We do need new rail. We also need intermodal passenger service, where you can get a ticket that has bus, rail, and or plane components as needed.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 04:15
|
|
|
Two things can be equally true: -The United States desperately needs more and more reliable mass transit infrastructure, particularly in urban and suburban corridors. -The country is so large and spread out that "more trains" is not a be-all, end all solution.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 04:23
|
|
|
I do think the idea of a national rail system is worth considering in greater depth; my recollection is one big challenge created by car infra is the existing lack of dense land use means that rail systems require way more transitional transport infra in a lot of the country. edit: acebuckeye13 just made the point better from the other direction.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 04:23
|
|
|
And street cars. Pedestrian-only zones with even a half decent street car system are the best.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 04:24
|
|
|
Infrastructure costs are way too expensive in the US, in order to have a large networks of passenger trains you need to be able to build such a system affordably and quickly, but unfortunately that doesn't seem like it's going to occur any time soon. An example of this is the new gateway project that was just announced recently in NY. Costs have ballooned to be more than $16 billion dollars and the project will take more than a decade to build. In NYC just maintaining the aging subway system is a monumental task seemingly far beyond the expertise of the MTA. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/03/nyregion/gateway-tunnel-amtrak-hudson-river.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_Program_(Northeast_Corridor)
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 05:16
|
|
|
Sure but it’s not like the US has a magic field that makes infrastructure expensive.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 05:26
|
|
|
Of course we could have gotten started on it a decade earlier and been near completion now if Chris Christie hadn’t canceled the first version for conservative points
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 05:26
|
|
|
Don't forget that rear end in a top hat Scott Walker cancelling the high speed rail from Minneapolis to Chicago through Milwaukee and then being shocked when the company that moved to Milwaukee to build it left the state with all the jobs they were bringing in. I'll never stop being pissed at that rear end in a top hat for that.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 05:38
|
|
|
Xiahou Dun posted:Sure but it’s not like the US has a magic field that makes infrastructure expensive. Actually it kinda does. Lower population density and the spread out layout of American cities effectively permanently forces the prices up dramatically and means that revenues from tickets (if you're talking about trains and such) are going to be garbage nearly everywhere. So financially they'd have to be run at a loss, and on public support, for a long long time. Think a decade or more easily in the few areas where you could guarantee enough people would ride them to get enough revenue in. Many would never become financially self supporting from ticket fare and would permanently be on public support. You'd effectively have to rebuild most US cities and greatly increase the pop. density to fix this. Get rid of the suburbs at a minimum. That is flat out not going to happen. Attempts to try and increase pop. density in the cities has basically gone nowhere these last 10yr or so. People in general just don't want it, the cities are often too expensive anyways and quite frankly suck to live in for the most part, and people will aggressively vote out politicians and city planners who try to make it happen. The best you can do at this point is go hard on electric buses unfortunately. Which isn't a very good solution IMO but its better than nothing.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 05:38
|
|
|
PC LOAD LETTER posted:Actually it kinda does. Lower population density and the spread out layout of American cities effectively permanently forces the prices up dramatically and means that revenues from tickets (if you're talking about trains and such) are going to be garbage nearly everywhere. So financially they'd have to be run at a loss, and on public support, for a long long time. Think a decade or more easily in the few areas where you could guarantee enough people would ride them to get enough revenue in. Many would never become financially self supporting from ticket fare and would permanently be on public support. Yes, people have stupid views and we’re stuck with bad infrastructure. No that is not a magic causative field. There’s nothing about North American geography that dictates it be used in a lovely way. This is an entirely, 100% human made problem and the exact kind of thing you can convince people over time. We can change this. We already need to replace everything because it’s falling apart and killing us.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 05:50
|
|
|
Xiahou Dun posted:Sure but it’s not like the US has a magic field that makes infrastructure expensive. One of the "magic fields" that keeps infrastructure costs prohibitively high in the US is the fact that city, state, and federal agencies usually rely on extremely expensive outside consulting firms to design and plan infrastructure projects, instead of relying on in-house expertise. This is one of the major reasons why relatively poorer cities like Barcelona or nations like Morocco have utterly surpassed the US in train infrastructure- they rely their own talent and not consultants for their infrastructure designs, so their costs don't explode out of control and constant delays. The pace of infrastructure construction in this country is pitifully slow as a result of this. quote:Morocco now has Africa's fastest trains, 300km/h (186mph) Al Boraq high-speed trains based on France's TGV, linking Tangier, Rabat & Casablanca every hour over a new high-speed line. Classic trains link Tangier & Casablanca with Meknes, Fes & Marrakech. The fastest train in the richest most advanced nation in the history of the world (Amtrak Acela) can barely travel at 150 MPH and only links like half a dozen cities in the East Coast. haveblue posted:Of course we could have gotten started on it a decade earlier and been near completion now if Chris Christie hadn’t canceled the first version for conservative points You seem to be confusing the ARC project with the Gateway project. It also bears repeating that pedestrian deaths and injuries from automobiles have hit a record high in recent decades and this trend doesn't seem to be slowing down, so the reliance on automobiles in the US is not just bad for the environment but also bad for everyone that doesn't drive. Americans driving fast and heavy electric SUVs is not going to make this any better. 
BUUNNI fucked around with this message at 06:15 on Nov 5, 2023 |
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 05:51
|
|
|
Xiahou Dun posted:Yes, people have stupid views and we’re stuck with bad infrastructure. Here's the problem: Are they actually stupid, on an individual basis? Because in this realm, I don't think they are. At this point in my life, I've lived in a pretty wide variety of areas. I grew up in suburbs, I've lived in cities, and I've also in deeply rural areas where it takes an hour just to drive to the nearest grocery store. I've driven cross-country multiple times, taken regional both regional and urban rail on a regular basis, and currently ride a combo of train and bus for my daily commute. I've also ridden mass transit in both Toronto and Paris, so I've got a pretty wide experience in getting around various places. And all of this is to say: Mass transit, for the most part, is just more of a pain in the rear end to use than simply having your own car. Yeah, traffic sucks — but you know what else sucks? Having to run screaming after a bus because it blew past you without stopping, walking to a train station and finding out it's closed because of a city holiday, or just having to remain standing after a long and lovely day of work because the seats on the bus are all full. When I have a car, it's easy to sit down, crank up the A/C, and turn on a podcast or some music. And if there's no traffic, I genuinely enjoy driving, especially if it's in a rural area with some nice, twisting roads. And having a car also makes it a hell of a lot easier to get groceries, run errands, or go places on my on time, on my own schedule — as opposed to sitting, sweating, and waiting for a bus that was supposed to get here ten minutes ago but never loving arrived, so I guess I may as well just loving walk instead. Building more mass transit is important. Car-centric infrastructure, in most cases, is both bad for people and the environment. But most people will still pick cars over mass transit because cars are still typically the less lovely option for themselves, personally, and when the solution is to make using a car more lovely so the mass transit is more appealing... it's not a surprise that people aren't thrilled with those solutions.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 07:00
|
|
|
Xiahou Dun posted:No that is not a magic causative field. Xiahou Dun posted:There’s nothing about North American geography that dictates it be used in a lovely way. Land isn't the problem and wasn't mentioned as one by me at all. If you think it was then you're misreading what I wrote. Its a combo of politics, society, existing infrastructure, and economics that are the issue. Xiahou Dun posted:This is an entirely, 100% human made problem and the exact kind of thing you can convince people over time. We can change this. We already need to replace everything because it’s falling apart and killing us. It'll take decade or more just for enough Repubs to die off to have a thin shot at realistically doing something like nationwide electric bus mass transit. A full blown reorganization of the cities and suburbs to make mass rail practical, and then pay and build said mass rail, will still be politically + economically + socially impossible even then. I don't like that this is the way things are but to deny that is to try and deny reality.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 07:11
|
|
|
Acebuckeye13 posted:Here's the problem: Are they actually stupid, on an individual basis? Because in this realm, I don't think they are. Making public transit lovely is a deliberate choice that we make and it only serves the owners of car dealerships and fossil fuel companies at the expense of literally everyone else and the environment. In places like NYC the majority of people don’t even need to own a car because transit is convenient and much more affordable than a car payment, insurance, gas money, and parking. Other industrialized nations invest in public transit so their levels of car ownership are not as high, and they have much healthier lives as a result. There is an interesting psychological phenomenon called motor normativity that can help explain why people who use cars literally have their brains rewired to ignore the negative externalities that stem from car dependency. https://twitter.com/TheWarOnCars/status/1620405536843010048 BUUNNI fucked around with this message at 07:17 on Nov 5, 2023 |
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 07:14
|
|
|
This is tied pretty closely to the urban planning thread, as the challenges of setting up the infra are linked to the problems of land use and zoning- and the 50 state, gazillion-jurisdiction problem of density.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 07:16
|
|
|
Where’s the urban planning thread? I have Thoughts.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 07:24
|
|
|
BUUNNI posted:Making public transit lovely is a deliberate choice that we make and it only serves the owners of car dealerships and fossil fuel companies at the expense of literally everyone else and the environment. I mean, don't get me wrong - I think public transportation is good, and I was very happy using the DC metro for the year and a half I lived there (when it wasn't on fire.) In urban areas especially where it can truly be faster and more convenient than taking a car, we need to expand these systems as much as we can. I'll personally always be bitter that Detroit doesn't have a good public transportation system, despite a literal century of attempts to create one. on the other hand, I've never had to deal with someone pooping in my car. Not the case in my experience with the New York Subway!
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 07:25
|
|
|
Xiahou Dun posted:Where’s the urban planning thread? I have Thoughts. Thisaway. You will need at least one posting passenger to use this link during peak hours.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 07:27
|
|
|
Acebuckeye13 posted:Here's the problem: Are they actually stupid, on an individual basis? Because in this realm, I don't think they are. I think that you're getting at here and something people miss about the 'more mass transit!' discussion is that the problem in the US is holistic and can't be attacked by just adding more busses or trains. To start with, our whole economy basically hates anything that is a net expenditure, nevermind that getting states or cities to agree, all at the same time, to link up with new and better transit options is a non-starter in many US cities. There's also the fact that getting people to agree not only to do this but also to make it a public expense rather than a private one is notoriously difficult. Then, once you've achieved this herculean task - getting multiple cities to agree to build more expensive transit options the exist on tax revenue - you've got to look at the design. In many cities, busses took a major hit as cities cut whole routes and slashed available times to reduce costs. This is of course stupid because the entire point of a functioning mass transit system is that sometimes, your bus is going to be empty. And it should be, because that means that the option existed. Instead, take a city like Seattle. You pretty much can't navigate our bus system without a phone app to assist you, because you never know where you need to be to catch your bus (it might be half a mile away or more) and what time you need to be there. When you do get there, the bus will be completely packed, because the bus you need might run once an hour. That's assuming the bus doesn't blow past you because the driver has decided they are full and I guess it's your problem that the next bus won't be there for another hour. Then let's assume you now have a functioning, intuitive bus system that runs regularly and isn't massively inefficient and overloaded. Now you're still in traffic, because even allowing for the fact that transit is now marginally more attractive, many Americans do not live close enough to their job to quickly and easily take a bus. So now you've got to address to sheer amount of space most Americans have in their commute or else there are going to be cars no matter what you try to do. You can partially address this with rail - if you have a very good rail line that connected to your very good bus system, you could support one community per rail line. Assuming you make both the busses and trains comfortable, fast, affordable, and intuitive. Really anything that increases your commute time for an additional 30 minutes when you're already looking at a 45 minute commute is not attractive to most Americans. If you want effective, attractive transit options, you need to look at why people don't use it, which is down to it's cost, availability, and inconvenience. When I lived in Amherst Massachusetts I could take a bus from outside my apartment and be in a neighboring town within 20 minutes without any apps or pre-planning required. Living in Seattle, going from one town to another can add an hour to your commute in a world where hour long traffic jams are already a problem.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 08:16
|
|
|
Cimber posted:Yes but how are the national electric grids going to handle it when 200 million households all plug in their cars at night to charge? For California the extra load from BEVs in 2035 is forecast to be about ten to fifteen percent of overall consumption (see Figures 14 and 23). It assumes in the highest case that about half the light-duty fleet is BEV or PHEV by 2035. Given that there's a huge generation reserve at night and it's certainly doable with proper planning. Building out energy storage will help as well.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 08:22
|
|
|
Acebuckeye13 posted:
Never transporting drunks or kids doesn't seem very American.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 08:51
|
|
|
Mass transit should be faster than driving (because trains and buses and stuff shouldn't get stuck in traffic) and should be frequent enough that you don't have to worry about timing it for most trips. If it's slower than driving and not running every 10 minutes or less during rush hour, your city is loving up. (Every US city is loving up.)
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 09:15
|
|
|
Hello from Denmark 
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 09:30
|
|
|
'Electric buses' well yeah no wonder the US has a problem with mass transit when nobody remembers the real solution is trams.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 09:30
|
|
|
Tayter Swift posted:For California the extra load from BEVs in 2035 is forecast to be about ten to fifteen percent of overall consumption (see Figures 14 and 23). It assumes in the highest case that about half the light-duty fleet is BEV or PHEV by 2035. Given that there's a huge generation reserve at night and it's certainly doable with proper planning. Building out energy storage will help as well. Plus under the right circumstances, the BEV fleet *is* the built out energy storage.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 09:33
|
|
|
FlamingLiberal posted:Yes and now we're just pretending that health care is no longer an issue, I guess Biden did do a bunch of smaller things about healthcare costs, and the Dems have pushed hard for expanding Medicaid and negotiating drug prices, but any major reform is impossible while the margins in Congress are so thin. PC LOAD LETTER posted:Actually it kinda does. Lower population density and the spread out layout of American cities effectively permanently forces the prices up dramatically and means that revenues from tickets (if you're talking about trains and such) are going to be garbage nearly everywhere. So financially they'd have to be run at a loss, and on public support, for a long long time. Think a decade or more easily in the few areas where you could guarantee enough people would ride them to get enough revenue in. Many would never become financially self supporting from ticket fare and would permanently be on public support. Building train tracks in low-density areas is relatively cheap. The expensive part is building it in the high-density, high-traffic areas which are in very high demand. It's easy to buy up some right-of-way in Nowheresville, and it's not going to be a big deal if you close a few roads there for a while and dig a tunnel or two. In a highly dense urban area, all the land is already in use and priced pretty high, and the disruption caused by construction is much higher as well.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 09:58
|
|
|
Main Paineframe posted:Building train tracks in low-density areas is relatively cheap. The land is cheaper with low density areas but you have to lay more rail, since you have to go farther, to service less people since everything is more spread out. You'll end up spending, easily, 10's of billions just to lay the rail to service a few communities of a few thousand to few 10 thousand apiece that are 10's of miles apart in multiple directions. It just doesn't work out financially. If its not high a high pop. density area you have no hope of doing it in a financially sustainable way. And if its not financially sustainable right now you have no hope of getting funding through on a state or national level. The political will to lose money on up keep, forever, and spend many trillions (yes it'd easily cost that much, even if the costs are spread out over a few decades it'll be mind blowingly huge) on a new national rail transport program just isn't there. Even something like a national electric bus program will go nowhere right now and that is drastically easier and cheaper to do. There won't be enough people riding the train daily to justify it economically from a up keep much less a initial build cost perspective. That is why there are only a few relatively high population areas that are going to be getting any high speed rail at all in the US and cost is going to be insanely high to do it. Over $1 trillion after you factor out various up keep programs that Amtrak wants to do on existing rail and infrastructure that desperately needs it. Ms Adequate posted:the real solution is trams. Most of the variability in pricing comes from the ground and zoning you're putting the rail in. The big factor in pricing is the ground work you have to do to get them installed. The more work you have to do grading and installing the rail the more the price skyrockets. Fundamentally its the main issue with any rail, even heavy rail, believe it or not. The metal rail itself is not that expensive over all. PC LOAD LETTER fucked around with this message at 10:52 on Nov 5, 2023 |
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 10:43
|
|
|
Acebuckeye13 posted:on the other hand, I've never had to deal with someone pooping in my car. Not the case in my experience with the New York Subway! This isn’t a universal human problem, it’s a problem with your country’s culture. . BUUNNI fucked around with this message at 11:34 on Nov 5, 2023 |
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 11:32
|
|
|
PC LOAD LETTER posted:Not really. I don't think anyone is really talking about integrating the entire country into one high speed, or just reliable, passenger rail system. Especially since we're continuing to see population concentration from rural to established urban/suburban areas. A couple or three hubs of large cities within 600 miles of the center would probably cover 90% of individual travel needs if paired with actual public transportation options in those cities. People would be more than willing to drive to the closest city to catch a high speed train. They already do it for flights. The issue isn't really the cost for the US. We can handle tossing a handful of military jets at the issue. Our issue is the fragmented governmental structures of the nation which means that you've got to get 12 cities, 5 states and the Feds to agree and work together on something. Florida in the last 20 years has gone from totally having high speed rail, to gently caress that poo poo, to hell yeah, to gently caress your money, Obama. You can throw all the money you want at the problem, but you're not laying a single rail tie if next election the new President, Governor, or Mayor tosses up the double birds because that was what the previous guy wanted.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 11:34
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2024 19:21 |
|
|
Gyges posted:I don't think anyone is really talking about integrating the entire country into one high speed, or just reliable, passenger rail system. But even if you want to only stick to in city, or close city, rail its still going to be too expensive to do it extensively in those areas. Even if you stick to low speed heavy rail, or in city light rail only, its too expensive. Gyges posted:Especially since we're continuing to see population concentration from rural to established urban/suburban areas. The whole "people are moving to the cities now" thing was a media pumped flash in the pan from a decade ago that never went anywhere. Its deader than the tiny house movement. Gyges posted:The issue isn't really the cost for the US. You're looking at spending at least several trillion to do it on a very localized level, lets face it probably north of $10 trillion to do this half way properly on a national level, people will absolutely pay attention to that. Fragmentation on a local or state level does matter but that is why nearly all of these major infrastructure projects end up being paid for by the federal govt instead. There is near 0 hope for any of this going through on a state or city level. They just don't have the money up front or for up keep in the long run.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2023 11:59
|
|