What Is The Future of The Cobra Replica Industry?

[twobjshelbys]

Originally Posted by Tommy

In spite of its title, the OP spent most of his words lamenting "outsourcing" and the loss of USA based production and manufacturing. So I'll address this topic by asking all to remember the oil/gasoline price spike that occurred in 2012. That spurred fresh efforts by oil companies to find and develop new oil sources to take advantage of the high prices. They were successful. Oil supplies increased and prices dropped. That's the way things are supposed to work in a relatively free market economy. . . . Like it or not, we live in a world economy where a manufacturer in Pennsylvania must compete with one in Viet Nam. Customers vote with their dollars and most are far more concerned with saving a few bucks than the welfare of workers in another state or another country, or the potential impact the loss of control of local production will have in the future. The sad news is that the vast majority of people are far more concerned about what might happen today than what might happen a year from now. The good news is that in a relatively free market economy, if outsourcing does create economic problems someone will come forward to fill that need as they did when oil prices spiked.

Specialty car makers will continue to come and go as supply, demand and technology continue to change. I doubt anything I or anyone else has written here will change that even a little bit.

This planet will never run out of oil. The increase in price makes sources that weren't cost effective into cost effective - shale oil in Colorado, North Dakota and Canada being the last round. Methods such as fracking return depleted wells to producing. If we need it there are off-shore sources that can be activated.

But it won't matter. And the reason isn't that we discover new sources and methods but that it will become illegal to use it. The tree huggers will shut down the oil industry within 20 years. It will remain as a source of power for the fringe - mostly heavy equipment [I can't fathom the battery source for a D9 Cat]. But the volume produced will cause the price to be astronomical and most people won't use it for "sports" cars.

The same is already true of natural gas. There are cities that have already outlawed natural gas for use in heating and cooking. Use electricity. [Of course, they forget that most electricity is generated using natural gas now, but they cover their eyes.]

In 10 years the electric infrastructure will collapse because when everyone in a subdivision plugs in their electric car to charge the fuse will blow at the substation. But who ever thought of planning.

[t walgamuth]

Originally Posted by twobjshelbys

This planet will never run out of oil. The increase in price makes sources that weren't cost effective into cost effective - shale oil in Colorado, North Dakota and Canada being the last round. Methods such as fracking return depleted wells to producing. If we need it there are off-shore sources that can be activated.

But it won't matter. And the reason isn't that we discover new sources and methods but that it will become illegal to use it. The tree huggers will shut down the oil industry within 20 years. It will remain as a source of power for the fringe - mostly heavy equipment [I can't fathom the battery source for a D9 Cat]. But the volume produced will cause the price to be astronomical and most people won't use it for "sports" cars.

The same is already true of natural gas. There are cities that have already outlawed natural gas for use in heating and cooking. Use electricity. [Of course, they forget that most electricity is generated using natural gas now, but they cover their eyes.]

In 10 years the electric infrastructure will collapse because when everyone in a subdivision plugs in their electric car to charge the fuse will blow at the substation. But who ever thought of planning.

Is the last paragraph meant to be taken literally or is it sort of a dark joke?

[twobjshelbys]

Originally Posted by t walgamuth

Is the last paragraph meant to be taken literally or is it sort of a dark joke?

Literally. The electric infrastructure is not sized to replace the "watts produced by petroleum" with "watts produced by generators". Your house probably has a 150-200amp service. The transformers in your neighborhood are sized to that size of service multiplied by the number of units they service. So is the feed to the transformers. Now multiply that by 2 to service charging 3 or 4 EVs every night (how many people have just one car?) and you see that the infrastructure simply cannot handle distribution of 3-4x the power over the existing grid.

Think of it going the other way. How many dorms were flooded when everyone flushed their toilets at the same time?

Oh and expect electricity rates to increase to cover the cost of accelerated infrastructure upgrades.

[RodKnock]

Originally Posted by twobjshelbys

Literally. The electric infrastructure is not sized to replace the "watts produced by petroleum" with "watts produced by generators". Your house probably has a 150-200amp service. The transformers in your neighborhood are sized to that size of service multiplied by the number of units they service. So is the feed to the transformers. Now multiply that by 2 to service charging 3 or 4 EVs every night (how many people have just one car?) and you see that the infrastructure simply cannot handle distribution of 3-4x the power over the existing grid.

Think of it going the other way. How many dorms were flooded when everyone flushed their toilets at the same time?

Oh and expect electricity rates to increase to cover the cost of accelerated infrastructure upgrades.

I honestly don't know the real answer, but there are plenty of articles and plenty of people on the Internet that disagree and say that our current infrastructure can handle the increase of the number of EV's. They say that it's a myth that our current electric system can't handle many more EV's.

What I will say is that there are many, many, many homes in my neigborhood with 2-4 EV's charging everyday in our hot summer weather. And PG&E hasn't had any issue to my knowledge.

Again, I don't know who's BS'ing who.

[twobjshelbys]

Originally Posted by RodKnock

What I will say is that there are many, many, many homes in my neigborhood with 2-4 EV's charging everyday in our hot summer weather. And PG&E hasn't had any issue to my knowledge.

Again, I don't know who's BS'ing who.

No problems. yet. Wait until every house on every street tries it... Newer subdivisions might be OK with excess capacity, but those neighborhoods that were built in the 60s in CA that had 75A or 100A services that have been upgraded to 150 or 200A don't have the transformers for everyone to draw that much all the time and eventually the feed lines up stream will be too "small"...

Flush, flush, flush...

[twobjshelbys]

Originally Posted by RodKnock

What I will say is that there are many, many, many homes in my neigborhood with 2-4 EV's charging everyday in our hot summer weather.

So Tesla says their chargers need a 40 or 50A service for the charger and they recommend a minimum 200A service (this is just for one charger port). They don't say what the peak vs steady state, nor what the duty cycle is, but with 2 at a time at night with careful power management you might be able to run two charging simultaneously and still keep things like air conditioners (30A ea) and the pool pump (30A) running at the same time. Anyone running more than one 50A load has probably brought in a second load center from the transformer. Plus, my load center had had a breaker consolidation (dual breakers per slot) to make room for a 50A motor home and hot tub 220V pair, and my panel was full - I decommissioned that for my pool pump.

Maybe you make a dedicated solar/battery system just for EV charging but I don't know what kind of Amp-Hour supply they are.

I'm not saying it can't be done, just that the typical car buyer that goes and gets a Tesla for daddy and a Ford for mommy is likely going to be surprised with a fairly expensive power upgrade.

And I don't see new home builders in Nevada touting "ready for 4 EV charging stations"... Not yet. Some day.

[RodKnock]

Originally Posted by twobjshelbys

I'm not saying it can't be done, just that the typical car buyer that goes and gets a Tesla for daddy and a Ford for mommy is likely going to be surprised with a fairly expensive power upgrade.

And I don't see new home builders in Nevada touting "ready for 4 EV charging stations"... Not yet. Some day.

Here in Silicon Valley, I walk my dog past homes with multiple EV's charging. How they do it? I don't know, but my neighbors do have money.

The Tesla here is like a VW Bug back in the 1970's. They're everywhere, but the Taycan, Audi's, VW ID4's, etc. are popular too.

And the US just passed a $1 trillion infrastructure bill and EV charging infrastructure is included in there.

https://www.npr.org/2021/11/15/10558...-bill-into-law