GigaFactory

Mind-boggling development : **LINK**

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57382472?xtor=ES-208-[44865_NEWS_NLB_ACT_WK25_Tue_15_Jun]-20210614-[bbcnews_batteries_newsworld_sweden]

Battery factory … tucked-away in the woods

MichaelG.

We are going to have to create some giga-mines to dig up all the materials to supply these places

Plus a few giga-chemical extraction plants

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The dystopian lake filled by the world’s tech lust

**LINK**

Edited By Ady1 on 15/06/2021 08:40:18

And if we want China to get rid of all their coal fired power stations then they get first dibs on the rare earth metals

Meanwhile, here in 'Clean Green New Zealand' [laughter], the government has just announced it will tax fossil-fuel-burning vehicles, and provide cash bribes to slightly reduce the price of e-vehicles, so that, before you can say "greenwashing catches votes" we will be driving electric vehicles. It's also been reported that coal use for electricity generation has hit record levels, and the hydro lakes aren't as full as they 'should' be. No wind farms are being built. So where is all the extra, 'carbon-neutral' electricity going to come from? In rural NZ, it's wise to have a generator, to keep things going when the power-outages occur.

And if we want China to get rid of all their coal fired power stations then they get first dibs on the rare earth metals

I was under the impression that China was the largest supplier of rare earth metals , the extraction & processing of which cause huge amounts of pollution.

But that pollution is "not here" - so that seems to make it OK.

Nigel B.

"Greenwashing" is the right word

I wouldn't mind if the media just told the truth but our modern world isn't about what they do tell us

its about what they don't tell us

And Britain's answer is..........destroy Coventry Airport together with all the established industries located therein and cover it with a Gigafactory!!

The alternative may be a trip back to a rural 1960 when you could pump your water out of the well by hand. Lights were paraffin and you walked to the end of the lane and paid to get your glass lead acid batteries charged by someone who had power. The Elsan got emptied into the midden.

Personally I would rather not.

I saw this the other day.

**LINK**

Say that quickly, without thinking and somehow the f and t really want to swap...

(sorry..)

So that battery factory is in such a cold location that it will take extra power to heat it, and the workforce has to travel long distances to get there. Allof the raw materials have further to go and the finished product also.

Yes makes me laugh ( a hollow one) when I see the green brigade banging on about green energy, emission free vehicles etc. I wish the media would really spell out the bigger picture, i.e. end to end pollution not just the end result.

Bill D.

Redundant Petrol stations will become prime real estate because they have what any business needs

PARKING

I'm not sure they will become redundant, because they could replace their liquid fuel pumps with a few of the many thousands of charging-points needed. Many rural garages gave up selling petrol & diesel a long time ago anyway, to concentrate on reapirs and sales, because the profit margin to the retailer is miniscule to the point of loss. Replacing the pumps, or the spots on which the pumps stood, with chargers would make sense....

Assuming of course that in time the tax and wholesale cost on the electricity doesn't make that just as uneconomical....

Why go to a charging station when you can charge at home or in the parking at your destination? These facilities are only needed on trunk roads for the long distance travellers.

Sorry Bazyle but that idea is just not tenable for many thousands of people who like me could not re-charge a car at home, and in many cases may not be able to do so at their destinations either.

What of all those who live in large blocks of flats, flats above town-centre shops; terraced houses built before motor-cars were common, or even invented? (As I do)

In homes built without drives, on banks well above or below the road level?

In trendy modern housing-estates built to resemble olde-worlde villages, with limited and scattered parking areas?The vague hope was that such pseudo-villages, like the Middle Farm estate (so-called ' Poundbury ' ) near Dorchester, in Dorset, would include or be very close to the places of employment etc. of residents, whom would appear assumed not to have lives outside of home and work. I think it was Government policy not so long ago to encourage such developments precisely to discourage car ownership.

Such motorists have to take pot-luck on where they park; so will need ready access to convenient public charging-points just as most (though by no means all) presently have ready access to convenient filling-stations. And the time to wait in long, long queues.

'

I think vast numbers of people will be forced off the roads by cost and practicality

Electric cars are very, very expensive new, and not very likely to drop sufficiently in price for any but those who can also afford homes with private drives and chargers. Low-price second-hand battery-electric cars are likely to be too expensive for many because the low price is due to its costly batteries having about expired. Sooner or later the revenue lost by reduced liquid-fuel sales will likely force the government to tax car electricity, and that possibility may be why if you have a high-power charger at home it has to have its own meter.

Practicality? Well, as above. If you cannot charge the car at home you are forced to use public chargers, and what takes 5 minutes now will take (by equivalence) 15 minutes or more, per car - and for less range, so something needing very careful thought.

How do you pay, too? I have seen no charging-points with card-readers, apparently intending paying the unstated cost by "smart"-phone... assuming all motorists have or will want such a 'phone, good 'phone signals, and you don't mind the added 'phone contract and middle-man fees. It assumes the only charger for miles around on a dark cold wet night will be a) working, b) not in a radio shadow, c) compatible with your car and phone - the government making no attempt to enforce both easy payment and single-standard electrics.

For example, from my home in the South of England to my caving-club in Yorkshire is 300 miles / 8 hours by petrol car, with about 100 miles on ordinary roads. To my brother near Glasgow is some 400miles, 8/9 hrs, about 80 miles non-motorway. These would become expeditions, especially in Winter when I would need prepare for far longer times and take warm clothing, hot drinks, and even a precautionary sleeping-bag. At least if I did not carry much with me, both are accessible by train, via Bristol - the club is close to a station on the Leeds-Settle-Carlisle line.

.

I think many people's lives will become very limited or even very isolated; and all sorts of leisure and social activities, groups, venues etc. will be curtailed or ended, at great financial and cultural cost to the country with little real return for the overall good; climate-change notwithstanding.

Edited By Nigel Graham 2 on 16/06/2021 00:45:55

And no mention of the cost to replace a single "rogue" cell in the floor section of the vehicle.

Regards Ian.

Replacing cells in batteries is already a thing for cordless tools which use four cells and cost £60. Anybody who thinks that won't happen when there are 800 in a pack that costs several thousand £ is an idiot.

As mentioned above, charging at home(or work!) won't be possible for a lot of users, so banks of chargers at convenient locations will be a necessity. That sounds very like a petrol station to me!

The people who already run petrol stations would love to get rid of the expensive and short lived fuelling equipment; replacing the tanks, pumps etc with chargers is just the thing they're looking for.

There was a brief item on BBC ‘Click’ about swapping vehicle batteries:

Seems to work very well with Scooters, but they also showed a robotic ‘pit-stop’ for a car

MichaelG.

Nigel, Your letter has outlined very practical thinking on the future of the coming electric car era and matches a lot of my own thinking, and as you say a lot of peoples motoring lives will change, I live in a area where to get to the motorway system and major trunk roads there will be for the electric car some power sapping hills to climb, and with that will be the stress of the thought will I get to the next charging point.

However I'm at that age that I won't have to bother about the coming change to motoring.

MichaelR

Edited By MichaelR on 16/06/2021 09:43:30