mmarshall

Won't that depend on the length of your present lease-contract? Or did you purchase the LC this time?

sdls

Are you positing that windmills use more energy to manufacture, install and maintain than the total amount of energy they produce over their useful lifespan? I’d like to see the study that came up with that number if that’s the case. Or are you talking about their performance degradation from when new?

4TehNguyen

iTrader: (1)

read post #38. There isnt a shortage of plants but there is a shortage of plants that are warmed up and ready to handle a demand surge. You cant just flip a switch on a plant thats been completely shutdown and have it running, it could take days to bring one up from a black start assuming you even have a trained operations crew that knows how that one power plant works.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

Respectfully, really none of your business, and maybe my next purchase has nothing to do with my LC, which was purchased. The only vehicle i've leased is the g90. It goes back next month unless i decide to buy it. I also have the camry (purchased) that's perfectly adequate for daily work stuff.

mmarshall

I think you misunderstood my motive. I only asked about a lease-contract because, from your posts, I was (perhaps mistakenly) under the impression that you no longer had the G90 and/or exchanged it for the LC. That's all. But, yes, if you want to keep and operate three vehicles, that is indeed your business, and not necessarily ours unless you want to discuss it.

winterturb

I no longer have all the data as I didn't keep the hard copy I was provided with. Here is what I remember. the Lifecycle of a windmill is 25 years, yet the inverter and blades don't last that long, so there is no payback on the windmill. without tax incentives or the carbon offset they provide to major oil producers they are not economical. If I recall correctly it takes 220 tons of coal to generate enough heat to smelt the steel to make the tower, that includes from mining it to producing it., then there's the concrete required for footings, the amount of transportation, dirt moving, steel etc uses immense amounts of energy. So when all of the costs are considered and the amount of energy required to produce one windmill its a net loss of energy compared to what the windmill can produce over its useful life. They would simply have been better off generating the electricity with the hydrocarbons they used to build the windmill.


They are not economical on their own. IF they were private investment would be pouring into the whole industry and that is just not happening.

This doesnt take into account the damage the electromagnetic field is causing to the surrounding soil. For instances earthworms cannot live within a 600 ft radius of a windmill, so the microbial damage to the soil is significant. We don't yet know how significant, but we do know significant. The farmers I know who have them in their land have noticed a drop in both quality and volume of crops in the areas around the windmills. Time will tell.

sdls

Thanks for the response winterturb. Perhaps a mitigating factor would be the windmills providing electricity generation to areas that are otherwise resource sparse, such as Hawaii.

Hameed

I personally don't think a company like GM can go in all electric by 2035. This effectively means having to significantly retool all existing factories/build new factories etc, retrain a significant proportion of their workers (all the parts of an ICE that will no longer be relevant - engines, transmissions, etc), develop a whole new generation of parts suppliers etc.

This announcement is really about giving the impression to their stockholders (institutional investors) that they are still relevant and keep the price of the stock at a reasonable level.

UDel

I don't believe it either, so in 15 or so years which is not that long they think they are replacing 95+% of their ICE vehicles/sales with electrics, will change just about every factory/build new ones and pour billions they don't really have into developing all EV's which they don't really have the image to sell? Does not sound feasible at all especially with their big selling SUV's/Pickups where towing is a major selling point to many and daily driven electric vehicles towing heavy loads in adverse conditions is not yet even proven. I have a feeling they are going to expect a very big loan/bailout from the gov/taxpayers for trying this move and there will still be a exclusion for their big SUV's/Pickups to stay with ICE.

None of this is going to change/help the climate/weather of the planet either and will likely create more problems then it is supposed to solve not to mention it will give China a huge advantage in the automotive market.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

the original iphone was launched in 2007, almost 14 years ago. 2035 is 14 years from now. apple is now on their 14th generation of iPhones.
List of iOS and iPadOS devices - Wikipedia

i think gm cam change a WHOLE LOT in the same time frame.

Bob04

Until EVs can drive as far and refuel as fast as ICE autos, adoption is going to be slow. A lot of people want to keep their ICE vehicles, and GM won't abandon those customers because they can't afford to do that, especially in the full size pickup and SUV market. EVs will be relegated to secondary vehicles for most until the technology gets way past where it is today. No way they are all EV in 14 years unless the gov bans ICE, which wouldn't surprise me in the least.

Bob04

Let's not forget that the UAW isn't exactly excited about EVs, since fewer parts and jobs are needed to produce EVs. Lots of EVs components sources from overseas for much less and UAW workers aren't going to take pay cuts needs to allow those parts to be produced here for even close to the same price.

Hameed

Oh I have absolutely no doubt a WHOLE LOT WILL change in 14 years, just not GM (or any big equivalent legacy ICE manufacturer) producing only EV's by then.

And comparing any phone company's ability to update hardware and software on a consistent annual basis to a legacy ICE manufacturer makes absolutely no sense - respectfully my friend.

UDel

UAW just goes with where they are told to go politically so they are more or less forced to support EV's along with Corporate GM/Ford no matter what. EV's have smaller profit margins too unless they are priced really high which means they won't get many sales. This could and likely will be a disaster for them but they have likely been promised big bailouts, gov funding, etc to keep them going if/when it doesn't work out. The market/buyer should really be determining what cars/engines they want, not politicians/gov and it is clearly not EV's and likely won't be for a while. They are not going to have the success like Tesla, Tesla sells more on image then the actual cars, it was the same with Prius, it was the image, not the car that sold made it a success, similar hybrids and electrics have failed/have meager sales. Look at the Lexus CT, basically a Prius clone that was luxurious yet it was a failure because it did not have a green image, same with all Lexus and German hybrids. It's fine to offer hybrids and electrics but to just kill all your ICE for image/political reasons is just ridiculous and short sighted.

EZZ

Bottom line...EVs will be cheaper to manufacture and cost much less than ICE. It seems most development is now focused on EVs... "The companies have essentially stopped investing in advanced internal combustion engine research," Smith said.







https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/04/busin...-cost-savings/

Automakers are going green to save money, not just the planet

By Chris Isidore, CNN Business

Updated 1:41 PM ET, Thu February 4, 2021
New York (CNN Business)Virtually all of the world's major automakers are shifting to an all-electric future — and that's as much about the bottom line as it is the environment.

Volkswagen (VLKPF) plans to launch roughly 70 pure electric models by 2030 and has already overtaken Tesla in electric vehicle sales in many European markets. General Motors (GM) said last week it hopes to sell only zero-emission cars by 2035. There isn't a major automaker that isn't committed to developing zero-emission vehicles.

There's good reason for that radical change:EVs are not only key to complying with tougher environmental regulations,but they are also far cheaper to manufacture.

Electric vehicles come with several inherent cost advantages — with no internal combustion engine, they have far fewer moving parts, and they require far less labor to assemble.

Ford estimates that an EV will take 30% fewer hours of labor to assemble than a traditional gasoline-powered car.

And the propulsion systems of EVs are much simpler to share across different models than the engines and transmissions that power gasoline vehicles, further increasing efficiency and reducing costs.

GM currently uses more than 500 different powertrain combinations in its lineup of traditional cars. It could have fewer than two dozen combinations powering all the EVs it plans to build.

"EVs are simpler to make, more profitable, and higher growth," Adam Jonas, auto analyst at Morgan Stanley, said in a note to clients last year.

The lower cost of assembling EVsleave major automakers with little choice but to make the switch, said Daniel Ives, technology analyst with Wedbush Securities.

"The traditional automakers, they can't go a half-step towards EVs. It has to be all in," he said.

And while the cost of building EVs is expected to continue to drop, the cost of building gasoline-powered vehicles is likely to increase because of the difficulty of complying with stricter emissions regulations coming into effect around the world.

"Internal combustion engines are going to get more and more expensive to meet environmental regulations," said Ken Morris, vice president in charge of electric vehicles at GM. "I think it will be harder to find internal combustion engine suppliers, and the parts necessary to comply with regulation, compared to the ubiquity of EV components."

The only thing keeping EVs from being cheaper already is the cost of various components, especially the batteries.

But EV component costs have been falling, with battery prices down about 85% over the past 20 years, according to industry estimates.

Costs are expected to continue falling as battery production becomes more efficient and demand rises. Tesla said last fall it is looking at a 56% reduction in battery costs on a per-kilowatt-hour basis in the coming few years.

"The battery technology is getting much more cost-effective. It's going to continue to get better," said Brett Smith, director of technology at the Center for Automotive Research, a Michigan think tank.

Smith said the changing economics of the auto industry means that car companies can't continue to bet their future on gasoline powered cars, even though EVs make up well less than 5% of global sales today.

"The companies have essentially stopped investing in advanced internal combustion engine research," Smith said.

Morris said GM will continue to spend money developing gasoline-powered vehicles because the company will keep building them for more than a decade -- even if it achieves its most ambitious emissions goals. But he also said that 60% of GM's research and development spending is now directed to EVs. The company has previously said it will invest $27 billion in developing EVs. Volkswagen is committing to invest even more -- €35 billion, or some $43 billion.Ives said another key factor driving traditional automakers to make the shift is the huge increase in Tesla's (TSLA) share price. Even though the electric car maker sold only 500,000 cars in 2020, a tiny sliver of the more than 70 million cars and light trucks sold last year, Tesla shares climbed 743% and now are worth more than the combined value of the top 12 global automakers.

"Every board of every automaker has watched the Tesla share run," Ives said. "Maybe they were skeptical two years ago. But its performance since has cemented in the mind of every automaker that it has to go this way."