Will Electric Vehicles Be Viable? When?

[Zynerji]

That seems reasonable. How much does an engine cost the car manufacturer? We know that buying the engine separately as Joe Public can be expensive - if you buy all of the parts to build a car it will cost a lot more than the cost of the built car from a dealership, after all - but how much does a typical V8 cost GM themselves, for example? We'll likely never know, of course.

I've seen the dealership cost of a replacement BMW N54 engine charged at $800. Obviously, the dealership charged the customer $4400 for it to be installed.... I expect it costs BMW about $400 to make if they sell to dealers for that price.

That seems like excellent value. Land Rover charge around £15k for a replacement 3.0 V6 diesel. But they are money grabbing bar stewards...

When I was contracted to fix that dealership, I was blown away that even with 41M$/yr in car sales, 77% of the TOTAL income came from the Service Department!

Most of that was due to 8 out of 10 brand new cars from the dock needed to be "fixed" before it could be sold...

[Just_a_fan]

For car's that can fit a V8, you have to see it in reverse. They are designed with a V8, what money is saved putting in a 4L. A GM pushrod is of course a lot cheaper then a low volume DOHC dual turbo AMG V8.
A stacked 4L with integrated gearbox and diff, that is mass produced is a way lot cheaper then a heavy V8, trans, prop and diff (and extra subframes to mount suspension etc).

I disagree. It's much more expensive to design and build tightly packaged, highly engineered power units, than big simple stuff that hasn't changed much over the years. Add in the complexity of packaging emissions control systems in to that tightly packaged inline 4 FWD engine bay, and you're looking at a headache. Then you have to design a chassis that can hold all of that stuff in a compact volume and still deliver modern crash survivability. A big simple V8 in a big engine bay is going to be a lot cheaper to engineer.

[Just_a_fan]

I've seen the dealership cost of a replacement BMW N54 engine charged at $800. Obviously, the dealership charged the customer $4400 for it to be installed.... I expect it costs BMW about $400 to make if they sell to dealers for that price.

That seems like excellent value. Land Rover charge around £15k for a replacement 3.0 V6 diesel. But they are money grabbing bar stewards...

When I was contracted to fix that dealership, I was blown away that even with 41M$/yr in car sales, 77% of the TOTAL income came from the Service Department!

Most of that was due to 8 out of 10 brand new cars from the dock needed to be "fixed" before it could be sold...

I think that would be common the world over. Selling a new / used car just gives you a given bit of mark up on the sale. Servicing / repairing it gives you mark up on every component and mechanic's time on every customer visit. Remembering that manufacturer's warranty work is also income for the dealership.

Going back to Land Rover - it's not unknown for them to want a grand to replace the brakes. What's the profit margin in that little scam? Absolute daylight robbery.

What's amazing is that people still go to these same dealerships and pay these prices.

[Big Tea]

This above draws attention on what is the most hurtful of the Bezos excursion into space, not the actual pollution or general boosting of his wealth (to be honest, all that order from his company are in one way or another complicit as well, we gave him that wealth), but no.

The biggest challenge we face that the wealthy part of the world, the first world nations, have to individually change their behaviour. And now, because of stupid @ss Bezos everybody is pointing at him as the problem, diverting the problems from their own consumption.

Thanks Jeff. Not!

(o/t again )
Don't know how many on here follow it, but it may well be closer to being irrelevant than wo could have guessed.
There was yet another collision between 2 military satellites last week which resulted in a huge debris field which is still spreading. If you know of the Kessler syndrome, where by debris create more debris etc, and we have a 'shell' of impassable junk for a couple of thousand to tens of thousands of years, may not be just a scare story.

No GPS, Satellite TV, Satellite internet, weather and disaster monitoring, shipping, phones you name it.

[Just_a_fan]

(o/t again )
Don't know how many on here follow it, but it may well be closer to being irrelevant than wo could have guessed.
There was yet another collision between 2 military satellites last week which resulted in a huge debris field which is still spreading. If you know of the Kessler syndrome, where by debris create more debris etc, and we have a 'shell' of impassable junk for a couple of thousand to tens of thousands of years, may not be just a scare story.

No GPS, Satellite TV, Satellite internet, weather and disaster monitoring, shipping, phones you name it.

There is a lot of activity at the moment on systems for removing space debris. Small satellites that capture and deorbit junk - be that pieces or whole satellites. Seems to me that the countries and companies that are putting the junk up there should pay to get it cleaned up. I don't see agreement on that happening, however.

[Big Tea]

(o/t again )
Don't know how many on here follow it, but it may well be closer to being irrelevant than wo could have guessed.
There was yet another collision between 2 military satellites last week which resulted in a huge debris field which is still spreading. If you know of the Kessler syndrome, where by debris create more debris etc, and we have a 'shell' of impassable junk for a couple of thousand to tens of thousands of years, may not be just a scare story.

No GPS, Satellite TV, Satellite internet, weather and disaster monitoring, shipping, phones you name it.

There is a lot of activity at the moment on systems for removing space debris. Small satellites that capture and deorbit junk - be that pieces or whole satellites. Seems to me that the countries and companies that are putting the junk up there should pay to get it cleaned up. I don't see agreement on that happening, however.

Unless they get it together quicker than they originally planned, they may be far enough behind the curve that they can not get objects into the orbit they need to use these 'sweepers'.

I have seen several companies in Scandinavia, Scotland and Oz with prototypes almost ready, but if they can not get them up soon enough they will be little use.
There are 27000 objects large enough to track, plus millions small enough to make a hole through a ship or person.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stat ... ebris.html

[Just_a_fan]

There are 27000 objects large enough to track, plus millions small enough to make a hole through a ship or person.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stat ... ebris.html

I want to preface this with the statement that I agree that space junk is a problem that needs to be sorted as soon as possible.

But it also worth remembering that we are talking about huge volumes in which the debris is moving. The images always make it appear as if there is a veritable blanket of junk around the planet. The reality is that there is a lot of empty space between much of the junk. The images do help to get the message across that it needs dealing with and so I'm happy to see them used.

The issue isn't so much the big stuff which is easily tracked. The issue is the very small, bullet sized, pieces that will whizz in to a craft and hole it without anyone seeing it coming.

The whole issue should also be a useful push for the various space agencies / companies to develop protection systems. Not just for near Earth junk but also for asteroid junk that will be a threat to craft transiting between Earth and the Moon (and Mars when we do finally go that way).

[Big Tea]

There are 27000 objects large enough to track, plus millions small enough to make a hole through a ship or person.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stat ... ebris.html

I want to preface this with the statement that I agree that space junk is a problem that needs to be sorted as soon as possible.

But it also worth remembering that we are talking about huge volumes in which the debris is moving. The images always make it appear as if there is a veritable blanket of junk around the planet. The reality is that there is a lot of empty space between much of the junk. The images do help to get the message across that it needs dealing with and so I'm happy to see them used.

The issue isn't so much the big stuff which is easily tracked. The issue is the very small, bullet sized, pieces that will whizz in to a craft and hole it without anyone seeing it coming.

The whole issue should also be a useful push for the various space agencies / companies to develop protection systems. Not just for near Earth junk but also for asteroid junk that will be a threat to craft transiting between Earth and the Moon (and Mars when we do finally go that way).

Yes, at the moment it is exceedingly unlikely that anything would hit you anywhere in space but the 'thinking' behind Kessler is that 2 10 ton objects collide (both those they collided last week were around that mark) traveling anywhere between 7000 and 10000 mph it can easily create 20000 objects traveling at high speed in many directions.
If just one of them hit another 10 ton object there is another 10000 chances to hit the next one etc, and the original 30000 could still be flying around in an expanding field for thousands of years.


I have known of and read of it for quite some, but time and shrugged it off. Lately though it is beginning to look a little scary. There are still objects up there from project mercury
The film (is it?) gravity? starts off with this, but in 'Hollywood' so ignore that.

[Ferry]

Going back to Land Rover - it's not unknown for them to want a grand to replace the brakes.

BMW wanted NOK 14.300,- (1.400 Euro) to change 4 discs w/pads on my BMW i3. Bought the parts myself for 270 Euro, and did the job in 3 hours, saving 1.100 Euro Best hourly payment I've ever had..

To stay on topic:


Total share for BEV cars bought for private use is now approx. 79%

[Just_a_fan]

Total share for BEV cars bought for private use is now approx. 79%

Is there an incentive to buy EV? For example, is an EV taxed less at purchase?

[Ferry]

Is there an incentive to buy EV? For example, is an EV taxed less at purchase?

Oh yeah, massively! Cars in Norway have heavy taxation to begin with. 25% VAT, plus a good chunk og tax based on weight, horsepower and CO2. So to promote EVs, they don't pay any tax, and no VAT. In addition to cheap parking, driving in the bus lanes in certain places etc. So lots of incentives in total. The ambition is to sell only zero emission cars here by 2025. And I think we will be close. We have come to the point where you have to be almost a little bit crazy to buy a new diesel car nowadays. I think it was only 8% fossil fuel cars in august.
The subsidization (lack of tax) has been under criticism. VAT will certainly be back at some stage, but probably taking small steps over several years. When the authorities set the goal of zero emissions only, they had to give something to achieve it. People don't buy EVs "just for fun", or just to be "a good citizen".
I have been driving BEV for 7 years now. And not looking back. Still keen on that 911 GT3 though

[Andres125sx]

How much extra does it cost to build and fit a V8 compared with a smaller engine? There are many people who would be interested in accurate figures on this.

No idea what is the cost, but the price difference between a ICE commuter and the sport version of same car with a more powerful engine is far from a few hundreds, it´s quite noticeable and a big percentage of car price

[Greg Locock]

Ah, so your argument was based on cost to the OEM and then you admit you have no idea. Thought so.

[Ferry]

Article about cars sales in Norway
https://insideevs.com/news/530558/norwa ... ugust2021/

[Andres125sx]

Ah, so your argument was based on cost to the OEM and then you admit you have no idea. Thought so.

Sorry to say cost when I was obviously refering to price. Anycase both should be proportional, shouldn´t they? And even if not, that does not change the argument

I forgot to mention for an EV, if you add enough battery to get decent range as Tesla do, then installing a powerfull motor is peanuts, it´s not like ICEs that a big v8 or similar increases the cost drastically, with electric motors the motor cost is very very small.

Electric setups does need both a powerful motor and a huge battery to provide insane power, but since the battery is already installed because they want to provide huge range, then it would be stupid to not make use of it installing also a powerful motor

But if you think difference between a standard electric motor and a powerful one is similar to the difference between an L4 and a V8 (or even a V6) I´ll be glad to read your arguments Greg