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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35348 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023

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The busses just need to be designed so that batteries can be swapped in a few minutes.

This understates the actual challenge given the location, size, and complexity of batteries which hold enough charge for Buses. You're assuming away the hardest part of the process.

https://www.heavydutyslide.com/upload/Admin/images/OREOS-4X-batteries.gif

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ko5z6M_o85U/UQBMK4IhNbI/AAAAAAAAAZA/sqOsGUv53dk/s1600/Laval+electric+bus.jpg

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a668f1080bd5e34d18a7e76/1562049452197-F6CDV67PWQ8TSOMSH5PL/TS_How_Electric_Bus_Works_InfoGraphic_02.jpg?format=1000w

Also see the link about the busses literally cracking due to the increased weight.

And solving for those issues increases the expense of the product. Surmountable does not, in any way, mean practical when there's an obviously superior solution already in use. It's literally a choice between gas pumps, which are, again, one of the simplest and well-understood techs, vs. new battery swap tech, which even in the best case is ADDITIONAL infrastructure that must be maintained.

It's closer, comparatively, to having to swap out the engine on an ICE bus every day. It's laughable to suggest such an option when the existing tech works well.

If Tesla hasn't even got that tech working yet I'm not particularly expecting it to reach adoption for busses anytime soon.

And, I cannot overemphasize the issue of spontaneous fires

So this still falls on the "counting on massive tech innovations in short order" problem.

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