Endless Sphere

Only a fool would ignor the warranty conditions on a new car..especially one that could require a $10k + battery replacement. Let alone the numerous safety checks. Based on the acumen you've shown here, I will take that as a compliment! The point is ...the MYTH that EVs do not require expensive ser...

...and from the Leaf service manual (which you apparently didnt bother reading during those 7 years . . . I read it; I just didn't want to waste money on that stuff. (And I never needed it.) I bet car dealerships love you! You bring your car in every 7500 miles to the dealer for an oil change, a ca...

How many sqr kms of solar farm, or how many wind turbines, do you need to produce the same power as one coal plant ? Easy. Plant Scherer is a large coal plant in the US. 3.5 gigawatts, capacity factor 61% - so 2.1 gigawatts average output. 3500 acres for the plant. It uses 11 million tons of coal a...

It varies depends where you live, Gov rebates , tax concessions etc etc. Absolutely. (True for all kinds of cars.) i hope you mean zero cost, not zero maintenance ? Most maintenance on modern cars is just inspection ( labour cost).. you might avoid the cost ( free service deals, etc) , but you cann...

Not exactly a myth but a misconception: All bateries need to be kept full all the time and will develop a memory if you dont keep them topped off. That's an odd one. I think it surfaced during the time that nicads were used often, and they had a problem with lower than normal discharge voltages - i...

Accellerated installations beyond previous achievements ..how ? By hiring more people (= more employment) building more factories to produce turbines, PV and batteries, and installing more grid infrastructure. Solar investment has practically dried up since the rebate schemes were cut, and wind is ...

DanGT86 wrote: ↑

Jul 16, 2018 9:22 am

Many also try to tell me that we'll fight wars over lithium resources the way we do with oil.

We might. California might invade Wyoming. (Or Nevada; after all, they are closer.)

Here are a few.. * EVs are economical to own and run Lots of people here got on board with the recent Volt deal - $214 a month, $611 cashback. Ended up being $191 a month over the term of the lease. * EVs are cheap to service. Yes, they are. Zero maintenance on the Leaf I had for seven years. Zero....

City buses are another sector that will be very quickly electrified once the battery cost tipping point is breached. With fairly minimal incentives this is already happening in China with whole cities now entirely electrified. Margins on bus routes are slim, any decrease in vehicle running costs ca...

The point is, don't trust racers when they tell you what works. They are contractually obligated to be shills whether they like it or not. Yep. But the racers that win, in general, have the combination of equipment/training/attitude/perseverance that works. And those people, more and more often, ar...

You understand how sponsorship works, right? People pay you money to use their stuff if you win a lot of races. Of course, first you have to win a lot of races. Which is why so many TdF racers are switching to discs. Some reasons, from Bicycling Magazine: Winning. Stage winners for the TdF are star...

Greg Herbold, John Tomac, and the other competitors in the then-new sport of MTB downhill racing at the turn of the '90s seemed to do fine with rim brakes. Disc brakes were available to them if they wanted. Shimano's came out in 1975. And now every single competitor uses discs. Every. Single. One. ...

This sounds like it might be the direction to go. Unfortunately electronics are well beyond my pay grade...but I can follow directions pretty well. I'm running QS Motors hub wheels with KTY83-122 sensors (1000-1020 ohm, Positive Temperature Coefficient). What size semiconductor resistors would I us...

Now I am not a lawyer, either, but . . . What works as a waiver of liability varies by a lot, from state to state. Make any mistake there, and all you will have is a sheet of paper. That's a bit of a misconception. You don't need a secret formula to write up and sign an agreement. The standard is "...

Disc brakes existed for several decades on motorcycles before making their way to bicycles, if rim brakes were so deficient I think this would have happened much sooner. They're not so deficient, and are plenty to stop most bikes. But keep in mind that ebikes are now approaching motorcycle speeds, ...

vja4Him wrote: ↑

Jul 06, 2018 6:32 pm

Which laptop would you recommend for bicycle touring ?

Dell XPS13. Very light/small, solid state drive, great display. Available with a range of drive sizes/screen resolutions.

The fingers wrote: ↑

Jul 10, 2018 10:21 pm

Maybe there will be a resurgence in hitch hiking.

Or greater popularity of ridesharing apps like rdvouz.

Nope. Instrumented tests by German bike magazines have demonstrated that only the very best disc brakes perform as well as normal rim brakes at energy dissipation, and unlike rim brakes they can't be upgraded with a heavier rim. So you can't upgrade a 160mm disk to something better/heavier? Really?...

I wonder if it makes the cells themselves more prone to overheating though? Perhaps. In commercial/residential solar installations, leaving an air gap behind the panels is critical. Several installations have had problems because the panels were directly on top of a roof or other structure, which a...

Chalo wrote: ↑

Jul 08, 2018 2:06 pm

Neither do most suspension fork riders today.

Which is a great reason to get a good suspension fork.

As bicycle design matured, it almost completely went away because the drawbacks outweighed the benefits. And because bikes got lighter and roads got better. Maybe someday a 1kwhr battery will weigh mere ounces - but as of today, converting to an ebike means the bike gets _much_ heavier. Do you thin...

Ahh, bill...give it up ! You have already said in your previous post, " after 9pm its on fossil fuels" ...even with your batteries ! Nope. When I am on batteries 100% I don't need fossil fuels. At all. But remember we are talking about a GRID SUPPLY. ..that can support all demand , commercial, indu...

I assume you heard they skipped doing the rolling road , brake tests , on those M3 cars last week of the quarter,.. ...as well as the 300 odd spot welds they decided were not needed . Makes you wonder what other shortcuts they took , that we have not heard about yet, to make the number in time ? Pr...

For non-isolated converters, that's correct.

People keep saying this, and it keeps being untrue. At high speed you need good brakes, not necessarily disc brakes. Some, not all, disc brakes are good. Some, not all, rim brakes are good. But I will say this-- the strongest rim brakes are stronger than the strongest disc brakes. Why wouldn't they...