Electric Vehicles AFTER WWIII?

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This is really "thinking outside the box" but let's see where it goes...

It's very likely that we are all headed towards WWIII. In WWIII there is likely going to be a full scale nuclear war between an Islamic/Russian/Chinese alliance verses the United States and Europe. For those "into" Nostradamus this is familiar territory and if you follow what's going on in the world it's not all that hard to imagine. So let's say the predictions come true... a nuclear war destroys the major cities of the US and we are faced with starting over.


:arrow: How could the electric vehicle assist in this future?
 
And I'll start with the very difficult issue of how does one replace things like batteries or solar cells when the cities that had the factories that built the products are all gone? If the future relies on a technology that is difficult to "rebuild" then how does one do it?
 
It's very likely that we are all headed towards WWIII. In WWIII there is likely going to be a full scale nuclear war between an Islamic/Russian/Chinese alliance verses the United States and Europe.

As we speak, the inescapable tentacles of capitalism are snaking their way through the last of the world's isolated economies, clutching former enemies, and enmeshing us all in a web of mutually beneficial trade.

The rich and powerful in every nation, like Trump on Apprentice, built their empires by luring others into a life of servitude to their exploitive masters. The rich and powerful aren't stupid though. If WWW3 occurs, those in power have the most to lose by far.

Hence, my bet is a pullback before apocalypse, as we're beginning to see with some corporations calling for action on global warming. I just hope we're not too late to take effective action against that existential risk.
 
xyster said:
...my bet is a pullback before apocalypse.

But that's avoiding the question:

"What 'if' WWIII really happens?"

...is there a future for electric vehicles?

I think it would be great if batteries lasted for 20 years because you could hide in your bomb shelter and after 2 weeks (the time it takes for fallout to cool) you could bring out your electric vehicle and start moving around again without needing the whole gasoline distribution system.

The problem as I see it is that the batteries will quickly die out (after a couple of years) and after that you are back to the stone age. (well, bicycles anyway)

Solar panels wear out after about 20 years.

If the battery could survive for 20 years then you could reasonably expect that new ones could begin to be made after 10-15 years as the recovery process is under way.

:arrow: See my point?

Battery durability has a larger significance than just economic, it might mean the difference between transportation or no transportation in the future...
 
Electro Magnetic Pulse - EMP

One other question is how well our controllers can handle the EMP effect when they explode a nuclear bomb at high altitude. The military tests everything they make in an "EMP Lab" to make sure that all their "essential" weapon systems can handle it. This was initiated during the "Cold War" because they knew about the risks associated with the EMP.

It's a simple test...

:arrow: Place an electric vehicle in a "EMP Lab" environment and see if the controllers become disabled.

After all, if your battery is fine, the wires are going to be fine, the motor "should" be fine (might want to test it though) you are left with the controller that might break.

I'd be curious about the results of such a test...

(and what about the Hall Effects sensor in your throttle... is that going to handle the EMP? Geez, mine broke just because of excess static electricity it seemed)


:idea: What if there was an EMP Certification sticker that said that the electric vehicle was designed to be able to withstand an EMP?
 
Some Edison nickel-iron batteries manufactured around the turn of last century are still in operating condition today. So far as I know, nickel-iron has the best longevity of any battery chemistry. So throw a palate or two of those into your bunker.

For generating electricity, perhaps a fossil fuel generator with lots of spare parts, and fuel stored in 55 gallon drums. Maybe a wind turbine, or a small hydro electric facility if you have a stream nearby. Both might give away your location to the invading army, or to the draft committee.... :shock:
 
Where you live also matters. I'm in Missouri not all that far from Whiteman Airforce Base and all the nuclear weapons silos south of here. This place is not the best place to be because it's a "hot spot" in military terms. Check out the map that gives an idea of the dangers:


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xyster said:
For generating electricity, perhaps a fossil fuel generator with lots of spare parts, and fuel stored in 55 gallon drums. Maybe a wind turbine, or a small hydro electric facility if you have a stream nearby.

Fossil fuels in drums won't last 20 years.

The main thing is to consider how well all parts of the system could hold up after the war. Could you make the case that choosing the electric vehicle is the ANSWER to how to be a survivor in the future?

There's little doubt things are going to get ugly, but how ugly we don't know. But once the nuclear terrorism gets going strong (and if you listen to what they keep saying and doing in the middle east it's pretty certain to happen) then the "inhibition" to nuclear war will go away.

:arrow: I'd like to be able to say:

"Not only does the electric vehicle solve todays needs, but it REALLY IS the future once the war happens and oil supplies become unavailable."

The electric vehicle no longer is just the "utopian dream" but instead is attractive to the person looking to survive after the war... (we've all seen the "Road Warrior" movie with Mel Gibson... do you really want to fight for oil after the nuclear war?)


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Check out the map that gives an idea of the dangers:

Looks like a good reason for a missile defense shield. At least close for awhile one easy attack avenue.

do you really want to fight for oil after the nuclear war?

Scarcity begets conflict. I don't want to fight for oil now. Resources are best spent as investments towards a scarcity-free future, defending that which must be defended in order to get there.
 
But do you see the potential?

When WWIII takes place if the electric vehicle is "prepared for it" then the survivors (of which there will be millions) would be able to take that technology and start a new life.

:arrow: Utopia is great, but if reality is harsh (as it often can be) then wouldn't it be wise to prepare for that future? (geez, especially these days)


The main thing is to make certain that all electric vehicles can survive an EMP.... it's not that hard of a thing to do, the military does it already. It's a simple technical matter of making the electric vehicle sturdy enough for war.

Don't focus on the war itself, focus on the electric vehicle.... how does one design for that environment that the war induces on the vehicle?

Which component parts are going to break and why?
 
Lead acid battery and contactor/switch for speed control, electrics should survive electronics won't unless properly "toughened".
Wind generator based on the same level of tech. ie. the old fashioned relay voltage regultor.
Even if you store some spare controllers in a shielded safe how do you repair them?
I think a jump in small wars and terrorists are more likely than a WWIII, but who knows.
 
There's a reason why the Commies use lots of wound ferrite core and vacuum tube based electronics....

Not sure I'd want a speed controller based on that technology, unless you need the heat.

The local library has a mid'70's EV book - it's verrry tacky. There weren't a whole lot of integrated circuit/microcontroller speed controllers in that book.
 
Fuses are designed to prevent an overload of electrical systems. What I wonder is if the controller circuit could be SPECIFICALLY designed with a fuse so if there is an EMP the fuse blows, but the overall circuitry would remain workable? Replace the fuse and you are up and running again.

Would a fuse work?
 
Well, you can make a chip fryer out of a disposable camera with flash + a good coil wound where the film would have been (they use a normal 35mm film can thing) and connect the coil instead of the flash. Let it charge up, hold it close to the electronics to be fried and take a picture. Cheap and insconpicuous, works great for silencing RFID tags (don't get caught)

It'll only work on real small stuff. I doubt it could disable an ebike controller's FET's, but maybe it could fry the driver. An RFID chip *may* survive if it had something like a fuse between the antenna & chip, but either way the connections to it would still be fried, so it would still become useless.


A lightbulb in the microwave gives a good idea,
even a spent lightbulb will light up (and then explode):
http://www.youtube.com/v/wsU5MQ6poec
 
:arrow: I found this article:

One mistaken idea is that EMP is like a powerful bolt of lightning. While the two are alike in their end results--burning out electrical equipment with intense electronic surges--EMP is actually more akin to a super-powerful radio wave. Thus, strategies based on using lightning arrestors or lightning-rod grounding techniques are destined to failure in protecting equipment from EMP.

Another false concept is that EMP "out of the blue" will fry your brain and/or body the way lightning strikes do. In the levels created by a nuclear weapon, it would not pose a health hazard to plants, animals, or man PROVIDED it isn't concentrated.

EMP can be concentrated. That could happen if it were "pulled in" by a stretch of metal. If this happened, EMP would be dangerous to living things. It could become concentrated by metal girders, large stretches of wiring (including telephone lines), long antennas, or similar set ups. So--if a nuclear war were in the offing--you'd do well to avoid being very close to such concentrations. (A safe distance for nuclear-generated EMP would be at least 8 feet from such stretches of metal.)

This concentration of EMP by metal wiring is one reason that most electrical equipment and telephones would be destroyed by the electrical surge. It isn't that the equipment itself is really all that sensitive, but that the surge would be so concentrated that nothing working on low levels of electricity would survive.

Protecting electrical equipment is simple if it can be unplugged from AC outlets, phone systems, or long antennas. But that assumes that you won't be using it when the EMP strikes. That isn't all that practical and--if a nuclear war were drawn out or an attack occurred in waves spread over hours or days-- you'd have to either risk damage to equipment or do without it until things had settled down for sure.

One simple solution is to use battery-operated equipment which has cords or antennas of only 30 inches or less in length. This short stretch of metal puts the device within the troughs of the nuclear-generated EMP wave and will keep the equipment from getting a damaging concentration of electrons. Provided the equipment isn't operated close to some other metal object (i.e., within 8 feet of a metal girder, telephone line, etc.), it should survive without any other precautions being taken with it.

If you don't want to buy a wealth of batteries for every appliance you own or use a radio set up with longer than 30-inch antenna, then you'll need to use equipment that is "hardened" against EMP.

The trick is that it must REALLY be hardened from the real thing, not just EMP-proof on paper. This isn't all that easy; the National Academy of Sciences recently stated that tailored hardening is "not only deceptively difficult, but also very poorly understood by the defence-electronics community." Even the US Military has equipment which might not survive a nuclear attack, even though it is designed to do just that.

That said, there are some methods which will help to protect circuits from EMP and give you an edge if you must operate ham radios or the like when a nuclear attack occurs. Design considerations include the use of tree formation circuits (rather than standard loop formations); the use of induction shielding around components; the use of self-contained battery packs; the use of loop antennas; and (with solid-state components) the use of Zener diodes. These design elements can eliminate the chance an EMP surge from power lines or long antennas damaging your equipment. Another useful strategy is to use grounding wires for each separate instrument which is coupled into a system so that EMP has more paths to take in grounding itself.

A new device which may soon be on the market holds promise in allowing electronic equipment to be EMP hardened. Called the "Ovonic threshold device", it has been created by Energy Conversion Devices of Troy, MI. The Ovonic threshold device is a solid-state switch capable of quickly opening a path to ground when a circuit receives a massive surge of EMP. Use of this or a similar device would assure survival of equipment during a massive surge of electricity.

Some electrical equipment is innately EMP-resistant. This includes large electric motors, vacuum tube equipment, electrical generators, transformers, relays, and the like. These might even survive a massive surge of EMP and would likely to survive if a few of the above precautions were taking in their design and deployment.

At the other end of the scale of EMP resistance are some really sensitive electrical parts. These include IC circuits, microwave transistors, and Field Effect Transistors (FET's). If you have electrical equipment with such components, it must be very well protected if it is to survive EMP.

One "survival system" for such sensitive equipment is the Faraday box....
(continued)


http://www.aussurvivalist.com/nuclear/empprotection.htm
 
:idea: My comment is that they are saying that the electric motor and batteries would be fine, but the FET's are very vulnerable. Seems that if there was a way to include one of those protective transistors mentioned you could pretty much "harden" the electrical vehicle to EMP. (as long as it's not being charged at the moment things happen because the surge would come through the power line, but that could be protected with a regular lightning surge protector)

This was another interesting point: (from above)

"One simple solution is to use battery-operated equipment which has cords or antennas of only 30 inches or less in length."
 
And look on the bright side... after a nuclear war there are no speed or power limits to electric vehicles! :D


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Lessss said:
Commies used that because it's what they could get their hands on.

For a while, yes!

I had the pleasure of working with an ex-Czech cold war officer who was in charge of a group of anti-aircraft low level field tracking system. It's intended target was the A-10A. They used archaic hardware for EMP purposes - the Red Army was scared to death of our PershingII and other tactical nukes whose sole purpose was to knock out their command and control systems - something the CND protesters hadn't a clue about. If I remember right, the pocket calculator he had at the time was "smarter" than the tracking computer.

What was funny was that I was an A-10A mechanic in Europe at the time he was doing that. Comparing notes 15 years later was eye opening. That WWIII never happened.
 
rohorn said:
Comparing notes 15 years later was eye opening. That WWIII never happened.

This could easily get lost in many topics not related to the electrical issues with EMP, but if you are into any kind of religious/spiritual/psychic kind of stuff and know about Nostradamus then this coming war can be given a rough outline. Basically the Muslims rise up, join up with the Russians and Chinese and attack America and Europe. Later, out of Europe, rises a leader who is sort of a "new Hitler" that kills off all the Muslims in Europe and then peace returns. So it's pretty grim all around with lot's of nuclear bombs going off.

I personally think that prophecy is "real" because I've had premonitions come true. (I had a dream my brother was going to get into an auto accident and even told him about it... 17 days later it happened and he nearly died) There are many other stories too, but "whatever" is the thing to say if you aren't into it. :wink:

My "gut" says we are headed for war.... in the past we got close, but the Russians aren't "insane" like these Muslims... they really don't care if the world gets screwed up.

So this topic might be more "real" than we currently accept...
 
I'm sure as heck not going to put vacuum tubes in my controller.

The wiring in a scooter or bike is fairly short and will only pick up a limited amount of energy from an EMP. Unless you have the charger plugged in, then all bets are off. You could keep a spare controller and charger stashed inside a metal box. Quick connnectors for a fast change, and you're off into the wasteland.

What I have heard of in more than one report is a voltage spike coming through the power line, through the battery charger, and into the controller resulting in a blown FET and WOT.

It must scare the crap out of someone when their scooter just takes off full throttle across the room for no apparent reason.

Some good surge protection on the input of a charger would be a good idea. Unplugging everything when there's lightning around is also a good idea.
 
They said that wires less than 30 inches long would not be able to build up much in the way of a current. So it does look like other than the charger being connected to the power lines (which will behave like getting hit by lightning) things are probably going to be okay.

This would be "good to know".

While war is not "fun" it does seem to happen on a regular basis throughout history. In America we've been lucky to have been able to avoid it, but this time around I doubt we will be able to be completely free of it.

Also, it's possible that just a handful of nukes go off because of terrorism (sort of the "24" scenario) and it's possible that oil might get cut off one way or another. Heck even a hurricane that was a routine thing to expect caused lot's of disruptions.

:arrow: The idea of electric vehicle as "survival tool" seems like a good one.
 
I think y'all are missing the point. There ain't going to be anyone around if there is a proper, f*ck you up, full scale nuclear war. Oh sure people will survive the initial blasts, but between the resultant collapse of society and radioactivity thoroughly penetrating the food chain, atmosphere and water table, I don't see those poor unfortunate bastards living long and fullfilling lives. Personally, I feel that if those crazy MF's actually do start airbursting nukes over cities, the folks who are vapourised at ground zero will be the lucky ones.

Anyway, if people do turn out to be stupid enough to initiate good old M.A.D then, in my not so humble opinion, the human race was not deserving of survival (i.e. too stupid to continue breeding) and Darwin's theory of evolution plays out it's inevitable conclusion. Sure, it's bringing it down to the lowest common denominator (politicians) and punishing us all, but we should be used to that by now.

Personally, I don't go in for all that Nostradoofus stuff. There's plenty of sabre rattling going on now, but I'd say the closest we came to nukes at 10 paces recently was the sinking of the Kursk by the US Navy. What's going on in the world right now though (one example of hundreds) http://www.journeyman.tv/?lid=56149 is laying the foundations for some serious, serious repercussions in the next 10-15 years (if that).
 
http://www.journeyman.tv/?lid=56149

Thats really sad.I remember the neocons saying before the war how Amercia would make a better job of reconstruction efforts than UN: As it would not be hamstrung UN bureaucracy and decsion making. If that link is anything to go by it seems they've eclipsed any UN misadminstration by a pretty spectacular margin.
 
:idea: All I know is that I began learning Nostradamus a few years ago and realized "wow" that's exactly what's happening. The story is simple, Muslims attack, the West gets "serious" (in a neo-nazi kind of way) and fights back (shall we say "cleansing"? :wink: ) and eventually it all does end and people do survive and get on with living. Radioactivity decays within two weeks of a nuclear bomb UNLESS you are in the center of the blast in which case it doesn't for years. (so an underground shelter is only good away from the city to be used for the two weeks) Most people in the midwest have "storm rooms" for tornado's and that's good enough for a two week stay. (remember your "duct tape" :D )

So it's possible that millions of people will survive while millions will not. If you live in a city... forget it... you're toast anyway so no need to worry about it. But if you are a "survivor type" (even a "Road Warrior" type) you need to live out in the middle of nowhere and find ways to get around and keep yourself alive for the first few years afterwards.

City people should just "not bother" because they won't be around to worry about survival anyway.

:arrow: The highest form of "altruism" would be to prepare the technology for the "new world" even if we personally don't get to live in it. Wouldn't it?
 
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