WRITING IS ON THE WALL

[Michigander]

Just now, TnRiver46 said:

My brother calls that steering, not driving .....

 

he just got a brand new stick shift car

Then call me a steerer. LoL. Used to drive manual semi trucks for the Army through the Alps, that's enough for my whole lifetime. 

[Deephaven]

3 hours ago, throttleplate said:

So are you ok with the carmakers and the govt hiding the truth from the public about how damaging the electric vehicle is to the environment?

Lol, not what I said.  Was answering solely based on the consumer side.  

[throttleplate]

13 hours ago, Deephaven said:

Lol, not what I said.  Was answering solely based on the consumer side.  

So do you want to answer the question or let us assume what your silence tells us?

Raw materials can be problematic

Like many other batteries, the lithium-ion cells that power most electric vehicles rely on raw materials — like cobalt, lithium and rare earth elements — that have been linked to grave environmental and human rights concerns. Cobalt has been especially problematic.

Mining cobalt produces hazardous tailings and slags that can leach into the environment, and studies have found high exposure in nearby communities, especially among children, to cobalt and other metals. Extracting the metals from their ores also requires a process called smelting, which can emit sulfur oxide and other harmful air pollution.

And as much as 70 percent of the world’s cobalt supply is mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a substantial proportion in unregulated “artisanal” mines where workers — including many children — dig the metal from the earth using only hand tools at great risk to their health and safety, human rights groups warn.

The world’s lithium is either mined in Australia or from salt flats in the Andean regions of Argentina, Bolivia and Chile, operations that use large amounts of groundwater to pump out the brines, drawing down the water available to Indigenous farmers and herders. The water required for producing batteries has meant that manufacturing electric vehicles is about 50 percent more water intensive than traditional internal combustion engines. Deposits of rare earths, concentrated in China, often contain radioactive substances that can emit radioactive water and dust.

Recycling could be better

As earlier generations of electric vehicles start to reach the end of their lives, preventing a pileup of spent batteries looms as a challenge.

Most of today’s electric vehicles use lithium-ion batteries, which can store more energy in the same space than older, more commonly-used lead-acid battery technology. But while 99 percent of lead-acid batteries are recycled in the United States, estimated recycling rates for lithium-ion batteries are about 5 percent.

 

Experts point out that spent batteries contain valuable metals and other materials that can be recovered and reused. Depending on the process used, battery recycling can also use large amounts of water, or emit air pollutants.

“The percentage of lithium batteries being recycled is very low, but with time and innovation, that’s going to increase,” said Radenka Maric, a professor at the University of Connecticut’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

 

A different, promising approach to tackling used electric vehicle batteries is finding them a second life in storage and other applications. “For cars, when the battery goes below say 80 percent of its capacity, the range is reduced,” said Amol Phadke, a senior scientist at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. “But that’s not a constraint for stationary storage.”

 

Various automakers, including Nissan and BMW, have piloted the use of old electric vehicle batteries for grid storage. General Motors has said it designed its battery packs with second-life use in mind. But there are challenges: Reusing lithium-ion batteries requires extensive testing and upgrades to make sure they perform reliably.

 

[galyonj]

14 hours ago, Michigander said:

Then call me a steerer. LoL. Used to drive manual semi trucks for the Army through the Alps, that's enough for my whole lifetime. 

 

For what it's worth, I drive a stickshift because I think it's fun. But I don't have any illusions.

 

From a pure performance standpoint, automatics are always gonna be faster. Faster off the line. Faster through the apex, faster down the straight.

 

I believe Porsche is the only high-dollar sportscar maker that even offers a stick anymore, and that's in their halo model (the 911 GT3), but I'm too lazy to look at other current manufacturers and am prepared to be wrong. Even the new Corvette is only offered in an automatic -- a first in the entire 68-year history of the model.

 

The reason is very simple, of course. The current generation double-clutch automatic gearboxes will always shift faster and more accurately than we can. Always. And it allows the driver can focus on all the other aspects of controlling the vehicle.

 

Even for cheap daily drivers, it's really hard to find a new car with a stick. So few people in the US are shopping for and buying cars with a manual transmission that manufacturers just don't bother offering them anymore.

[Deephaven]

9 hours ago, throttleplate said:

So do you want to answer the question or let us assume what your silence tells us?

I answered, you chose to read what you wanted from my post instead of what I was saying.  Never once did I ever mean to imply that the current policies or the current state of battery tech is enough.  What I was stating is that from a consumer perspective regardless of that the technology is rather exciting and logical.  There are a lot of growing pains to make it sustainable, but it is heading that way and there will be new tech that makes that possible.  I support a ton of upcoming battery developments that will change that paradigm.  The current units are far from "green" but there will be a day not that far off where that balance will shift.  All it takes is a drive and it'll make you want one.  Regrettably the current real choices are mostly Tesla's or dumb downed slow cars and the Tesla build quality is almost surpassing 1980 VW's.  Took them off my list for now, but if that weren't the case I would definitely have one as my daily errand car.

25 minutes ago, galyonj said:

I believe Porsche is the only high-dollar sportscar maker that even offers a stick anymore, and that's in their halo model (the 911 GT3), but I'm too lazy to look at other current manufacturers and am prepared to be wrong.

The new CTx-Blackwings (albeit sedans and not sportscars) are offering a manual.  Wish they wouldn't have sold out before I could get an order in.

[Michigander]

24 minutes ago, galyonj said:

For what it's worth, I drive a stickshift because I think it's fun. But I don't have any illusions.

You do you! I know a lot of people that find manual to be enjoyable to drive so you certainly are not alone. I drive like a grandpa most of the time so speed and optimized acceleration is none of my concern. LoL

[Guitarfish]

My 1971 is manual everything, brakes, steering and shifting.  I expect it to be my main putt putt for Home Depot runs after I move.

[galyonj]

59 minutes ago, Deephaven said:

The new CTx-Blackwings (albeit sedans and not sportscars) are offering a manual.  Wish they wouldn't have sold out before I could get an order in.

 

I think I'd heard that those were gonna be offered in a manual a la the first and second generation CTS-V models, but I never followed up. I would really love to have one of those in a wagon, though.

 

Cadillac always has to be a special snowflake, though, and it has a habit of blowing up in their faces.

 

cough Northstar cough

 

I'm afraid the Blackwing will be, but it looks like they've switched to supercharging (almost certainly an Eaton-type) from the twin-turbocharging that they teased early on. Which is good, because putting the turbos in the engine vee like I'd read they wanted to do is beyond stupid.

 

56 minutes ago, Michigander said:

You do you! I know a lot of people that find manual to be enjoyable to drive so you certainly are not alone. I drive like a grandpa most of the time so speed and optimized acceleration is none of my concern. LoL

 

Absolutely! I just wanted to provide some fun car-nerd context.

[throttleplate]

3 hours ago, Deephaven said:

I answered, you chose to read what you wanted from my post instead of what I was saying.  Never once did I ever mean to imply that the current policies or the current state of battery tech is enough.  What I was stating is that from a consumer perspective regardless of that the technology is rather exciting and logical.  There are a lot of growing pains to make it sustainable, but it is heading that way and there will be new tech that makes that possible.  I support a ton of upcoming battery developments that will change that paradigm.  The current units are far from "green" but there will be a day not that far off where that balance will shift.  All it takes is a drive and it'll make you want one.  Regrettably the current real choices are mostly Tesla's or dumb downed slow cars and the Tesla build quality is almost surpassing 1980 VW's.  Took them off my list for now, but if that weren't the case I would definitely have one as my daily errand car.

The new CTx-Blackwings (albeit sedans and not sportscars) are offering a manual.  Wish they wouldn't have sold out before I could get an order in.

thankyou for the reply

[TnRiver46]

Here’s a beautiful machine one of our party brought camping this week 

#thingsyoucantdriveinnewyork

[MN Fisher]

3 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

Here’s a beautiful machine one of our party brought camping this week 

Darn - the interior of that looks like the 1962 Chevy C-10 I owned for a while when in high-school.

[TnRiver46]

2 hours ago, MN Fisher said:

Darn - the interior of that looks like the 1962 Chevy C-10 I owned for a while when in high-school.

It’s pretty awesome, he installed the motor himself (350)

 

A couple years ago he put that motor in an old lays potato chip delivery  truck and used it as a camper