[PLUG-TALK] Today's most accurate headline

[John Jason Jordan]

On Mon, 28 Dec 2020 19:39:18 -0800 (PST)
Paul Heinlein <heinlein at madboa.com> dijo:

>I also suspect that, like just about every human invention, they will
>not be an unalloyed good. I'm still interested to know how unrecycled
>batteries will impact the environment when disposed (in what could be
>very large quantities over time). Also, unlike 20 gallons of gasoline,
>which rarely becomes a weapon in its own right in a collision,
>batteries have a potentially dangerous combination of mass and
>chemicals:

'20 gallons of gasoline ...' - you just proved my point. People are
afraid of batteries because they have little experience with them.
Gasoline is far more dangerous, not to mention the climate concerns,
but we're used to it, so we think it is safer. Fear of the unknown can
be a good thing; that's why evolution built it into us, but it's not
always a good idea.

Right now I can buy third party li-ion batteries for phones, computers
and yard tools (I have several of them now). And all the people I
bought them from will take my old batteries. I'm not sure what they do
with them, but having been to the local garbage recycling place they
also have recycling for li-ion batteries. Again, I don't know what they
do with the batteries, but lithium, while in abundant supply in the
earth's crust, remains expensive for political reasons, so surely
recycling is possible and available. Anyway, li-ion batteries didn't
exist 30 years ago, and in another 20 years there will be a new, even
better technology providing power to self-driving cars. Technology will
continue to advance.

>Finally, I'm surely not alone in thinking that as electric vehicles
>advance technologically, manufacturers will use those advances to
>limit consumers' abilities to repair or modify their own vehicles.

Nothing new there. And third parties will make replacement parts and
furnish instructions for their installation. My old Ranger pickup needed
a replacement brake master cylinder, and in addition to the Ford item I
could buy one from three different third party manufacturers, and for
two thirds the price Ford wanted for theirs.

With increasing electronics, manufacturers will try to require that you
use their parts or the vehicle will refuse to run, and then the US
Department of Justice will declare the practice illegal under restraint
of trade and monopoly practices. The more popular the car you buy the
less such restraint you will experience