This is the typical ball of the world our parents bought us when we were young. Somehow… it can symbolize the most immaterial heritage they leave us: the place where we live.
Today, this ball of the world I suppose will be digital, but…
Do you think that when you give this ball to your children or grandchildren… the ball will look better than the one you received? Or will it be worse?
This ball represents our planet obviously, and I think that today this worse, may look more modern, but physically is quite touched.
Human greed and selfishness over the last 100 years has made it difficult for us, but we still have one hope, and it’s called an electric vehicle. Anybody got one?
I work on renewable energy issues, and one of the things we do is chargers for electric cars. To be clear, we don’t make electric cars, and I’m not trying to sell you one. Although I am convinced that all of you will end up with one.
But it’s an issue that I think may generate interest, because it’s going to start changing our lives soon. In fact, we are already seeing this change: does it sound like the electric scooter was something from the 80’s? And suddenly in 3 months we can’t go on the quiet sidewalks because the electric scooters pass us by everywhere.
Well, something similar is going to happen with cars, buses, trucks… at the moment there are around 13,000 electric cars on the Spanish roads, and it is expected that in 2020 will be when the market finishes exploiting.
We don’t need combustion engines that emit CO2 into the atmosphere. These are the ones that need to be powered from gasoline or diesel, and they are quite inefficient by the way.
On the contrary, we have electric motors, which are capable of feeding themselves with electric energy and transforming it into mechanics to move an axle with wheels in a very efficient way, and we know that the electricity that will move our vehicles can be generated in many ways, mostly renewable or clean energy such as… solar energy, wind energy, waterfalls,…
Since the middle of the last century the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by about 80 parts per million (ppm), which is the same fluctuation that has occurred on Earth in at least the last 800,000 years. You don’t need to explain what this might mean.
The logical thing is what will happen from now on, and not what we have done in the last century. Does anyone know since when we have electric vehicles? …. 1839 created by Robert Anderson, was going to 6kM/h.
When Henry Ford began to manufacture the first cars with chain combustion engines in 1912, the electric car accounted for 33% of sales. Everything that happens from there to the appearance of the Tesla car brand in the 21st century, in my opinion, doesn’t make much sense. I am not going to expand on this point, but we have been made to believe that oil was that necessary evil. Even in 2006 George Bush went so far as to claim that the United States was addicted to oil.
Fortunately, in the same year, Tesla had its first prototype up and running. And I think it changes everything, because the company of Elon Musk has known how to create cars, which being high-end, have a power of attraction similar to what we can feel for Apple Iphones.
The state of the art at this time is as follows. Practically all brands already sell electric cars in Spain. The price? Still a little expensive, we are talking about 30-40.000€, with autonomies of something more than 250Km. I’m sure you have opinions about this… and it’s quite possible that some things will make you doubtful.
With regard to price, it is estimated that in China this 2018 will sell about 2 million. In China they are very polluted, and they are supplying their own demand right now. But it’s only a matter of time before they start selling us “unknown” cars at a good price.
On autonomy, it is true that some habits have to be changed. What percentage of the population drives more than 200km a day? 80%? And how many of you charge your cell phone every night? Well, this is the same thing. The car will be charged at home or at work every day/night, and most people will only charge in an electric station occasionally.
There are two most important facts. Today, the energy we would charge at night can be 5 times cheaper than gasoline so you can do the math. And in short, an electric car has half as many parts as a combustion one, that means “gross mode”, half as many chances of failure.
Without forgetting the phenomenal sensation that produces to drive it, without noises, conduction with an only pedal, much more force to all the powers,… And a long etc of positive things.
Let’s make a reflection to finish. Forty-five per cent of the world’s oil consumption is used to power the different modes of road transport. Therefore, the evolution towards electric mobility implies a drastic decrease in pollution at a global level.
