Ford in a Model T Moment? Jim Farley Rings the Alarm Bells about Tesla

[Richard]

Ford and South Korean battery manufacturer SK Innovation will spend a combined $11.4 billion to build several new factories in the Tennessee and Kentucky focused on the development and production of electric vehicles and the batteries that power them.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/27/22696427/ford-ev-battery-factory-tennessee-kentucky-investment


Now go back 1 year when Ford said it was not economically feasible to ship Ev batteries across country because of their weight.

Detroit is littered with factories that became obsolete as the technology advanced and it was cheaper to build a newer factory in order to take advantage of that technology.

If it is not economically feasible to ship batteries across the country to the factory for installation,one would figure the next step would be to locate the factory near the battery production factory.

[Jimaz]

In today's news: Some Teslas have been caught rolling through stop signs. "Tesla is expected to disable the feature."

Oh, so rolling through stop signs is now a feature?!

This is a perfect example of that old joke among software developers: "That's not a bug. That's a feature!"

• I meant to do that.

---

The next time you get pulled over for speeding, when the cop asks you if you know how fast you were driving, ask her if she knows that, right now, just by standing there, she's traveling at 492,126 MPH through the universe.

That's 492,081 over in a 45 zone.

[CassTechGrad]

Great grandpa drove a Fordette. They shoulda' never stopped makin' them.

[Henry Whalley]

Am I the only one who suspects that production of electric vehicles will pollute the earth in new and amazing ways, primarily through the mining of minerals used in batteries?

[Rocket]

Am I the only one who suspects that production of electric vehicles will pollute the earth in new and amazing ways, primarily through the mining of minerals used in batteries?

Pretty much a given at this point.

There's no real plan on what do do with the toxic batteries when they're come to the end of their useful life [same with solar cells [and to some degree, wind towers]].

The also have no idea where they're going to get the electricity from. [The ONLY viable clean solution is to build lots of nuke plants like France did. And on the opposite end of the sanity spectrum is Angle Merkel, that is ridding Germany of them, so they're having to continue to use coal, and are becoming ever more reliant on natural gas imported from Russia, via the new pipe-line].

Everyone having an elec car also means nearly doubling the electric power grid [mega bux].

And electric cars are only really viable for people that have houses, where they can plug their cars in at home, either under a car port, or in a garage.

Elec cars are fine, but the notion of mass adoption and replacing ICE cars is terribly flawed at best.

[Jimaz]

....

That's from

Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle - Love {1919}

[Henry Whalley]

Pretty much a given at this point.

Agreed, the fact that mother earth is running out of fossil fuel is the only good rationale for going electric. It's definitely not green energy.

[Rocket]

Agreed, the fact that mother earth is running out of fossil fuel is the only good rationale for going electric. It's definitely not green energy.

And even that's questionable.

100 years ago we were going to run out of oil in 7 years. In the 50's we were going to run out in 10 years. In the 80's we were going to run out in 15 years. Now they say we are going to run out in 20 years.

Reality is, the Tar Sands in Canada have enough oil for the world for 100 years. [You know, the one Pres Biden shut down the pipeline from]


Another issue is that we can't make the batteries.

They rely on rare minerals [sometimes called conflict minerals], of which we can't ever get enough to make even one generation of cars. Like no where near enough to make a billion cars [which is about how many currently are in use].

So then what? we use up all of those minerals in the Earth to make 1/4 of one generation of cars? Then what?

It's all just silly. Fools and their money, which is fun enough to scoff at, but often times they've stolen our money in the form of subsidies.

[Gistok]

^Rocket... folks in Nevada found plenty of the rare earths we need... just got some small bits of fighting by the "Greens"... they should be able to get a lot of battery materials.

[Henry Whalley]

... folks in Nevada found plenty of the rare earths we need...

Hopefully, the mining process is not hydro-intensive.

[Richard]

^Rocket... folks in Nevada found plenty of the rare earths we need... just got some small bits of fighting by the "Greens"... they should be able to get a lot of battery materials.

I would buy tickets to watch the Greens fighting the Greens and even place bets on how many show up with plastic water bottles and leave them laying on the ground when they leave.

[Richard]

Hopefully, the mining process is not hydro-intensive.

Haven’t you heard,climate change,by that time Arizona will be ocean front and have plenty of water.

[Zacha341]

Do we [the US] still have full ownership and control of these 'rare earth' resources? Or were they also somehow negotiated away in some former, or pending deal of poli-tricks?

^Rocket... folks in Nevada found plenty of the rare earths we need... just got some small bits of fighting by the "Greens"... they should be able to get a lot of battery materials.

[Honky Tonk]

Yep, destroy the land, pollute the water tables, dump exhausted batteries into land fills, and drive around in your electric car announcing to the world you're saving the planet.

[Gistok]

The existing company that produces 15.8% of the world's supply...

https://mpmaterials.com/about/

But geologists are discovering other locations in the Mohave Desert on the California/Nevada border...

http://www.sci-news.com/geology/moun...sit-07987.html

[Richard]

Yep, destroy the land, pollute the water tables, dump exhausted batteries into land fills, and drive around in your electric car announcing to the world you're saving the planet.

There is a company that says they can recycle up to 95% of EV batteries,but when you really think about it,the hundreds of millions of batteries needed,not only for EVs but the minerals needed for everything else related,yes,by the time it comes to actually recycle the batteries,everything else will have been destroyed.

Thats the hypocrisy behind it all,people fought tooth and nail in the 70s to eliminate taconite and coal strip mining in this country,they protest and boycott against slavery and child labor and people having to work under inhumane conditions,here in the states,but when it comes to other countries,it’s okay as long as we do not see it,all in the name of saving the planet,but who exactly are they saving it for?

Sooner or later some rambunctious lawyer is going to represent those people in a class action and shut it all down,sense there seems to be so much support for holding everybody accountable down the line.

You cannot sell a blood diamond,but you can wear blood clothes,use blood cell phones,blood laptops,blood EVs and the list goes on,it’s mind boggling what is justifiable,it’s okay for you to send your 8 year old kid into a mine 16 hours per day,just do not ask me to send mine,that would be horrible.

The DR Congo provides 60% of the world’s cobalt that is used in lithium ion batteries and every electronic device,with a 23 Trillion dollar reserve.

That money is used to fund an ongoing 20 year war that wipes entire villages out,everybody slaughtered in their sleep,the only difference between cobalt and diamonds?

Companies like Tesla,Apple and Microsoft changed the classification of it so it does not fall under the same mineral as the diamonds.

2 days ago,Russia pulled an estimated 60,000 private contractors out of there in order to send them to the Ukraine,that was binding the country together so the minerals could still be mined,those contractors were protecting the mining companies who were giving kickbacks to the war lords.

Talk about chip shortages now,an entire nation now becomes enslaved just to mine cobalt,that’s what they do,go to a village,round people up,kill those who resist,the rest get sent to the mines.

The ones that used to get paid $11 per day,now work for free and if you do not fill your quota for the day,you get beat and deprived of your daily ration.

Everybody is diverting all the private contractor army’s out of that region over to the baltics ,places like Tunisia,the Congo,Kena,Uganda everything over there is going to turn into a free for all and every wannabe despot warlord is going to go after turf at any cost.

That happens and highly unlikely we will see any new tech for quite some time,while we throw trillions into an empty cave.

If we do not start mining it here,we will have to spend billions more in order to restore order back over there,where we just spent billions in order to get to where we are at,over 150,000 innocent lives wasted in the last 5 years and thousands of armed personal gone,and we are heading right back to square one,like nothing ever happened.

Its the world we live in.

[DetroiterOnTheWestCoast]

From today’s Desert Sun:

”An estimated 15 million metric tons of lithium, in addition to other rare minerals, are available for extraction in Imperial County, home to one of the largest lithium deposits in the world. That's enough lithium to satisfy more than one-third of today's global lithium demand. ”

[Jimaz]

Dead Teslas pack Chicago area Supercharger station due to frigid temps

A lot of EV owners were stuck in a parking lot due to charging woes.

Is this problem expected with a Tesla?
Would that "battery precondition button" really prevent this problem?

[Lowell]

I happened to be in Chicago on Jan. 20, 1985 when it recorded is lowest temp ever, -27. With gusting winds it was said to have windchills of something like -70. The following morning I, and members of a band who had convoyed there in four ICE cars, could not start any of our cars. Only when one bought a new battery were we able to jump start each other.

From that report, it appears the cars run just fine but the charging Tesla's infrastructure failed. Those with home-charging likely fared better.

[K-slice]

Sounds to me like the batteries were too cold to charge. Basically the car's computer wouldn't allow the battery to receive energy due to it's temperature. Suddenly introducing current into a battery that's frozen solid can be pretty catastrophic.

I'm not sure what there is the fail in a charger itself, they are made out of pretty standard electrical components.

[Richard]

Dead Teslas pack Chicago area Supercharger station due to frigid temps

Is this problem expected with a Tesla?
Would that "battery precondition button" really prevent this problem?

They should have installed a battery fire button,so when you get stranded out in the middle of nowhere you can push the button and the batteries burn,giving you warmth in order to survive.

At least you would be in control of when your EV actually burns.

They could not have thought about testing these things in extreme real world conditions that the buying public actually experiences before selling them?

Sorry forgot this is all a part of the test process to see what works or not,they must have saved millions by putting the task on the buyers.

[Jimaz]

Elsewhere I learned the "battery precondition button" heats the battery so it can better accept a charge. Now I'm wondering why such a feature would need a manual button. Hmm.

Here's a discussion of the issue at the Tesla Motors Club:
Chicago area superchargers failing in cold

[Richard]

When I was in Minnesota,I had a 73 VW bug because I had to travel a lot between stores,when it got -20 -30 I used to put lit sterno cans under the engine to heat up the oil so it would crank.

I knew people that worked on the Alaskan pipeline also in the 70s and their vehicles ran 24/7 because it was so cold if you shut them off you would never be able to start them again.

The thing is with Tesla,I am not sure why they are getting away with so many issues because of not testing before delivering to the public,any other manufacturer’s butt would be in the wringer if they tried pulling half of what Tesla gets away with.

But anybody that lives in cold weather knows that extreme cold kills batteries,so how could they not know ?

They are saying a couple of different things,precondition is heating the cabin up which in turn heats the battery up.

But also when hooking up to charge,the charger preconditions the battery,or prepares it to charge,but that seems like how you charge a completely dead acid battery,very low charge until it builds up then you can increase the charging rates or amps.

From the link it appears like it is more of an infrastructure problem then the actual car problem,the outages were city wide.

But that just follows the whole - Let’s put the cart before the horse and see how it works,we can figure the rest out later,the problem in this case,somebody can freeze to death in the process.

Somebody with a gas powered generator probably could have made good money fast by going to those lines and charging $50 so the EVs could get enough juice in order to make it home,cheaper then a tow truck.

[Rocket]

Elsewhere I learned the "battery precondition button" heats the battery so it can better accept a charge. Now I'm wondering why such a feature would need a manual button.

Using that button drains a lot of energy from the same battery you're wanting to charge, so you don't want to press it until you're near a charger that you've verified is working and available.

Then press it, sit there and wait 30-45 minutes, then plug in.

The problem that people are having is they wait until they're at 20% charge before going to a charger. But if they have to wait 1-3 hours in line to get to a charger, they'll have used up all the battery staying warm. Then the battery pre-conditioner won't work.

Now they need to call a tow truck and have the car flat-bedded to the dealer. Then take an Uber home and figure out how to get to work in the morning.


In cold weather you want to find a working charger when you get down to 50% charge, which means in reality charging nearly every single day.

30% to 80% gives a range of 20-50 miles in cold weather, depending on model.

So drive for 30 min to an hour, then wait in line / charge for an hour.

[Rocket]

The absurdity of electric fast chargers.

Think about this.

A costco has 16 gas pumps. It takes about 4.5 minutes to fill an ICE car for 8 days of driving. But it takes 45 min to do fill [[20% - 80%) for an electric car. That means you'll need 10x the 16 pumps,.. or 160 rapid chargers and parking spaces.

BUT, the electric car needs to be charged every other day, not every 8. SO you need 4x the 160 chargers, or 640 chargers and spaces.

BUT, on average about 25% of rapid chargers don't work, so in reality you'll need 800 rapid chargers and spaces to replace a single Costco gas station.

AND 100 transformers the size of a 6 yard dumpster to feed them, AND a high tension power line to feed those, and a natural gas power plant to feed that.

It's beyond silly. Criminally idiotic.