In the future Porsche line-up, the 911 will stand alone.

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-tran...els-2023-07-26/

So Europe is struggling to keep the power grid up and bringing old power plants back on line, all the more reason to go EV.

Nothing against EV's, heck, in 1903 97% of vehicles on the road were electric. I even 50% owned one of the early Tesla Roadsters (fun car) with a buddy of mine years ago.

I do see a major grid issue though. I've seen EV's waiting in line to charge for 30-60 minutes? Hours?

On our little island, there is very limited chargers/dedicated spaces. Tourist season sees many EV's waiting around to charge.

There are places where they work, and places where they don't. I think over time, and not too far out - 10 to 20 years, charging stations will be like gas stations. And in 40 years gas stations will be like charging stations now - you have to look for them.

Porsche is leading the charge. Not a surprise given their relationship to VW, which is really pushing electric cars forward in Europe.

I hope to have my 4Runner for another 16 years. But when its time, I bet I'm shopping for an electric truck, not a gas one.

Zach

I just sold my 250,000 mile Silverado and bought a Honda Ridgeline, but I suspect it too will probably be the last gas one I have. Maybe not, but maybe.

Good luck with the EV world stopped at a Buc-ee's The other day I was pump # 264 and every pump was being used. I figure it takes 10 to 15 min to fill a standard car or truck. No way in hell is there or ever going to be 264 charging stations in one location. I'm not sure what future technology is available EV look to be a long shot.

How much do we know about the Shell racing fuel, I recently saw something in Pano about this fuel, not derived from the ground and very clean.

I am not sure EV is the answer?

He's a friend.

Ok, So my take on EV. If you own a house with a garage you will never visit a charging station unless you are on a trip of 300+ miles. Its like leaving your house with a full tank of gas every time you drive. If you do not own a house then you are at the mercy of where you can charge.
In my current life i drive most of my miles for work at about 15,000 miles a year (i do not commute to a office this is random locations about town for customer visits). I go 300+ miles a day about 6 times a year and 1200 miles 1 to 2 times a year. When I am going cross country (1200 miles for personal use) I rent a car. Renting for long distance travel ends up being less cost than the wear and tear on my own car ( based on general guidance of .55Cents per mile) and If my car breaks down I can swap for another from the rental company and I have road side assistance. I fully expect to have a EV in my future as a daily driver. With the demise of manual transmission cars I enjoy, I will have to enjoy my old manual transmission ICE cars when I am not driving the slog thru big city traffic or the 1-2 miles to the grocery store.

john

This is about where I am too. Maybe a few more road trips in the about 300 mile range.
On hunting weeks I'll likely need to get a solar setup to charge the truck while it sits since the cabin is 100% off grid.

I keep finding myself looking at the ID Buzz, but I know I'm not buying a new car right now.

Zach

We have a plug in hybrid.
In the northeast we have started to see some more places to plug in, but not nearly enough.
We have solar on the roof….so I am up for a pure electric, while keeping a gas car for any longer (rare) trips.

I would love to see much smaller cars.
Short around town grocery getters do not need to be massive, and would be faster to charge…..

But, I too am waiting to see when I can buy the IDBuzz

This is pretty much my life. Before bedtime, plug in car and cell phone. In the morning, both are ready for a full day. There's another perk too -- much, much less maintenance. No oil changes. Brakes last ages with regen doing most of the work. The only maintenance my (used, 99K miles) Tesla has had in the past 18 months is new tires, new wipers, new cabin air filter.

I have free supercharging and I still very rarely use public chargers. Overnight at home is just too convenient.

More condos & apartments are putting in charging accommodations too. Level 2 charging (AC 240v) is MUCH cheaper than DC fast charging to install and totally adequate in places where people park overnight.

Back on the original topic, I suspect we'll see a 911 with a full EV drivetrain selling alongside the combustion 911 for some years before the latter is phased out.

Cargo ship with over 2,00 cars including 500 EVs loaded at Bremerhaven, Germany is on fire in the North Sea. No news on makes of cars. 1 crewman dead.

Earlier this month a car carrier burned in the Port of Newark. No electric cars were on board. 2 died.

Fires on cargo ships are an issue that is older then automobiles by several hundred years. We are constantly working to make our ships and the cargo they carry safer because its good for business and good for society as a whole.

I don't find a fire on a cargo ship to be a valid argument against electric vehicles.

Zach

I wasn't making an argument against electric vehicles; I was reporting on a fire on a car carrier loaded probably with German cars. Porsches? A crewman reported the fire started in an EV and it isn't yet under control. Just the facts as reported, no conclusions.

The word "SHIT" came from cargo ships blowing up and burning from the storage of dried cow dung (as fertilizer) in the holds of 17th century cargo ships.

The dung would get wet and release methane in the hold and when a crew member would go into said hold with a fire powered lantern the BOOM came out.

"Stow High In Transport" was printed on the sacks of dung and quickly became simplely "SHIT".

Buc-ee's would love to have you shopping an extra 15-30 minutes.

Remember, always follow the money!

That has to make the list for post of the year.

It's full of stow high in transport.

BTW: what does this have to do with cargo ships and fires?

Great information though

Of course, it's a bogus etymology. Just like the "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" one. Both amusing stories, both full of Stow High In Transport. Both words are older than the events that purport to be their origins.

--DD

I always thought it was Fornication Under Consent of the King.

That's the best one I've heard of for shit, and it has the ring of truth to it.

So many of our word today are mash-ups from the different world powers that held dominance.

Posh IMO came from Port outbound, starboard home.

British passengers on ships heading from England to India before the advent of air conditioning.

This was supposable the cooler side of the ship to be on.

I don't know if it's true either. None of us do...

You guys were talking about cargo ships burning and I was just trying to add a bit of humor to the discussion.

I believe there were ships lost to methane explosions from the early transport of dried dung in lower holds. The article I read mentioned LLoyds of London as a source of data.

Might be complete BS as well...

latest one burning.
its just off the coast of holland at present.
they are trying to tow it out of the shipping lanes.

confirmed. ev fire.
400EVs on board.
about 5,000 cars in total i believe.
infra red image.

Click to view attachment

its a bit of a problem.
yes petrol cars burn. mostly older ones? and lots more of them on road with suss fuel lines etc. but they burn when they are running.

these f#ckers burn turned off.

personally i would not have one in my garage, connected to my house.
nor would i live in an apartment building with these parked in basement garage.

i'm just saying.
batteries are fine. but the lithium ion batteries are not good tech.
they will get past this tech. but its not actually correct technology yet.
it will be.

anyway. i don't want one. i don't wan't to park next to one in the street.
its just too random? sure the odds are low. but..........

and i speak as an enthusiast of the original burner ----- the 914.
but they didn't sit in your garage and explode at midnight.

and as to car carriers burning.
i am a designer.
i get how car carriers are set up for fire regs.
its based on C02 flooding (previously Halon until ozone depletion came in) and its based on horizontal fire separation of decks and top down sprinklers.
none of which as measures can suppress a battery fire or a chain of battery fires.

same goes for your house or an apartment building you live in.
or if you are real fancy and live in an apartment building with a car stacker.

i am only a professional building designer. but if there are any fireman on this website i am sure they will chime in and back me up.

this stuff is truly problematic. and with accelerating EV take up its a real problem.

and you can solve problems.
but don't pretend for one minute its not serious, as a problem.

that is the commonly held explanation of "posh" down here mate.

and australia is the former epicentre of every cringing forelock tuggin bit of insecurity when it comes to the mutha country.

poms. variation on the theme. englishmen stranded in the prison colony.
prisoner of her/his majesty.

the general argument is correct. ships were always going off due to their cargo.
or in the case of apollo 13 while happily sailing to the moon happening to denotate their cargo of precious oxygen simply by giving it a bit of a stir with a spoon.

anyway. someone is going to have to figure out how to put out a battery fire in an ev in a jam packed cargo hold or we are all going to be paying a huge hefty premium surcharge to buy our ev cars. esp down here. all of them now arrive by ship since we unwisely decided to de-industrialise. i can't even figure out what people do down here anymore. they don't make anything. they just drive to bunnings (the big hardware store chain) and get chinese screws and bolts and assemble crap for their garden decorations?

How true The longer you stay more you spend just think if they put in beer garden bubba food and beer you might stay long enough to get 100% charge.

My youngest son Michael was a Track Marshall for MSR (Motorsport Ranch) up in Cresson for 3 years.
One of his jobs was fire suppression.

The little baby Li-on batteries make a car fire un-controllable. Usually take entire car and the garage it's parked in with it.

Best way to combat a Li-on fire is to bury it.

Only thing worse is a magnesium fire but that stuff is HARD to ignite in the first place and is never the source of the fire. It's the second stage of the fire.

The batteries are the source, for no good reason.

These batteries weigh less then 5 lbs and they wipe the car out. 100 lbs + only adds to the yield.

Ya'll will get a chuckle.

The nick name for Porsches (mostly 911s) is "fire lizard" for the guys at MSR.

They slither off the track and catch the grass on fire...

Car doesn't usually burn but they are pyromaniacs for the environment.

+1

Imagine a parking garage with 500 vehicles, and just one EV decides to ignite, and then all the chaos with people trying to get out through the bottle neck.

Mercedes EV destroys home

Porsche EV Devaluation

I hear from a car handler in Germany, who works for Porsche, is that people don't want to buy elektrischen Porsches. But when a customer wants to buy a 911 or other petrol car, and they give a Taycan in as trade, they must take it in. But, they are hard to sell used, and in his words, he had 10 used Taycans standing there which noone wants.

I fully agree the Lithium ion batteries are bad tech. I suspect they will phase out shortly or be legislated away. Battery tech will improve. It already has with the LiFePo4 tech which is MUCH safer concerning fire or explosion.

I literally loose sleep over all the little Li-ion batteries in the house in forgotten kids toys. :-/

Zach

check out the latest on the fremantle highway.
the ship that was burning off holland that they finally dregged to port.

too dangerous to get the electric cars out of it that are below the decks that burned.
full of electric bmws, mercs and vw group cars.

the one full of porsches that sunk in the middle of the atlantic a little while back took its problems to the bottom with itself..........but not this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqvm2HEp4Uk

I worked in the electric utility industry for 30 years. Our electric grid can't handle all the AC units when we have a prolonged heatwave. One major power supply in the midwest going down will cascade the entire east coast with no power. We came very close a couple of times. Our grid can not even begin to handle EV replacements for every vehicle. The worst part is there is absolutely no reason to change them over to EV.

So EV is supposed to help the environment…..as long as you don’t consider the mining of stuff that goes into the batteries, disposal of batteries AND electrical capacity to charge them. Sorry but hard to buy into the “story”……..
Oh let’s burn some condos down with garage fires. …….seriously?

Car companies will sell the cars that consumers buy. Remember that...

I don't agree with that. The free market use to work that way. Now the car companies are told how to built the new cars "EPA". Ford did not want to do and or lose all that money on electric cars"700 million". They were forced into it. Not by the consumers at all. I have a 10 year old Chevy 1500 with the frame rusted to the point it wont pass inspection. Consumers do not want that either, but chevy does.
Don't get me wrong here ... Electric cars are great. I just don't want it shoved down my throat like it is along with a few other social sins like pride.

Matt

I was wrong Ford lost 4.5 billion.

I'm a fan/convert as well but totally agree that battery tech and power generation needs to keep progressing and in many areas the power grid needs serious maintenance and upgrading. Here in the LA burbs I have never so far in 2 years needed to charge my Tesla away from home, and it's been working out great for commuting and errands. Looking forward to what Porsche does with EV sportscar platforms ie the new Cayman. That being said I don't see fully giving up combustion engines in my lifetime and I hope synthetic or hybrid fuel tech also moves ahead so there's less reason for the politicians to try confiscating our ICE vehicles.

Tom only has 30 years experience, he just might know a thing or two.

Problem is, nobody is listening.

EV may have advantages, but we do need to look at the whole picture

$4.5 billion probably chump change for Mr Ford

My guess, this will all pass

I'm a 40-year experience gear head who loves hydrocarbon burning engines...

I believe the electrics are the way of the future.
Thier torque curve makes them stupid fun to drive.
They are quiet and emit basically nothing during their operation.
They have greater design variants. By the time the motors move into the wheels you can have a basically flat chassis that has all of the weight low.
Sky's the limit as to what you put on said chassis.

Two things have got to happen to make it work.

Electricity production will need to double or better. MSR reactors may be a path along with lots of re-newables. I like solar panels too.

Someone need to come up with a way to store electromagnetic energy is huge amounts, with zero fire risk, in a lightweight container that can accept and discharge large amounts of energy without effort.
The person who comes up with this "power cell" will be the next richest person on the planet.

Now, you're going to pry the keys to my ICE powered vehicles from my cold dead hands..
But,
Having an electric car for appliance car duty is perfectly fine in my book.

100%


My refrigerator runs on electricity and it too is an appliance.

ICE vehicles are like sex - the noise and the smells add to the experience. EVs are a bit too clinical.

Have a very similar use case, and very similar outlook.

Can't see my old stick-shift 914 going anywhere, and its simple/analog experience is only becoming more valuable to me given where the car world is going (and has already gone). If you think about sports cars from the standpoints of size, balance, form factor, materials quality, and support, the 914 is very, very hard to beat. It also stands up in terms of the quality and fun of its driving experience when compared to some of the greatest Porsche sports and racing cars of all time. Didn't expect that, back when I thought I wanted to move on and up from the 914.



^ We recently changed our family car to a PHEV, our first toe in, and also have rooftop solar + battery (both done for non-EV reasons).

For a "get-around" vehicle, it's pretty fantastic for the reasons others have stated in this thread: Even on a Level 1 / 120V charger, we aren't using much gasoline anymore—and longer intervals for brake linings on a daily car is very appealing. All that kinetic energy, for all those years, wasted in both $ and materials disposal. Particularly on the heavier family cars of today. In fact, the engine comes on so rarely I can see wanting to run it occasionally on purpose just to run it once we install a Level 2 charger. If it had 20~ more miles range on EV mode, I'm not sure we'd even bother with a Level 2 charger for daily use.

Would also love to see more small car options. Things to get around in don't need to be so big & heavy, and small size can be its own luxury—but I'd like to see the battery tech and safety improve first.



^ Great post, and agree with much of this.

Like you, I don't want an EV or PHEV inside of home's structure—and I definitely would not want to live in the apartment we rented when we were first married if an EV was charged or even just parked down there. Relatively low % chance of fire? Sure. But that's kind of like the low % chance with an M96 or M97 engine. While we had great luck with our M96, and my brother now has 236,000 trouble-free miles on it, we've lived through a house fire.

We've been thinking about a dedicated parking pad for a long time, which would be spaced from the house as well as our neighbor's by a fair bit and away from trees but near a wood fence we'd likely replace, and will definitely add a Level 2/3 charger when the time comes. As a designer, maybe you know: Have fire suppression systems been considered for EV charging points, whether indoors or out? Can see a point where enough of those car transport boats are lost that the floors will get something, and 02 evacuation will become a thing, or a better thing.

I'm going to wait for the imaginary "power cell" I referred to.

A fire suppression system that can handle a full-on Li-ion battery fire will be a bad assed MOFO.


I have a real Halon extinguisher on my bench; a big one. It's 35 years old.

It will ONLY be used when ALL of the other extinguishers do not work...

I also have 8+ old style chemical extinguishers to go through first.


My buddy punched a small halon off into a fully engulfed Ford Explorer dash fire.

This thing had 10-foot flames coming out of the open doors.

His comment now is "Halon extinguishers will put out the SUN!".

Saved that Explorer...

i like the way you are thinking.

maybe the problem on these car ships is because they can't use halon anymore they are are in a world of pain.

its catch 22.

alan arkin where are you?
typical problem our scientific world gets into.
hedged into a corner.
anyway.
problems.........
are there to be solved.

there will be an answer to this at some point.

in the meantime, i don't know.
a good smoke detector.
whatever.
but be cautious sleeping next to one.
while you are out to the world is when you are most vulnerable.
again speaking as a designer.
you need enough time to escape whatever catastrophe unfolds, which if not of your own making while you are wide awake looking at it going "oh fark" you have enough time to do.
......time to start running.
but asleep its a different matter.

Very true and generally underappreciated. It's one of the reasons I like my detached garage and further spaced shed for fuel storage. Separation of hazards from my house while sleeping or away.

The challenge with EV batteries is that manufacturers want the battery encased in an armored shell to prevent damage due to impact, penetration, or accidents. That same armored shell makes it almost impossible for a fire department to fully douse a battery with thermal runaway. It's made more difficult by the fact that batteries fires don't require an external oxygen source.

That said, the incidence of BEV fires is way lower than the incidence of fires in combustion-engined vehicles (source).

One of the most vulnerable times for a vehicle to catch fire is during refueling... whether that's at the local gas station, on pit lane at a track, or at an EV charger, but only one of those is typically found in a residential building. And almost universally, refueling fires are the result of a screw-up... smoking at the pump, spilling fuel on an exhaust manifold, or having improperly wired/installed charge setups.

My Tesla charges overnight in the attached garage, which it shares with my 914. Between the two, there's only one I feel I need to check on a few minutes after driving to make sure it's not smoldering. It's not the Tesla.

We are very aware of this, as that was nearly our situation with our house fire.

We'd been up for maybe 30min, our 10yo was still asleep. Thankful the fire didn't start 30-40min earlier…not sure what would have happened.

Cause was electrical, ironically related to bringing the house up to code, and discovered by its smell well before the first fire alarm alerted. We have them throughout the house, all modern and interconnected.

Would the smell have awakened us? Not so sure...

Interesting twist, if this is confirmed. Of course it won't get nearly as much media coverage as the "EV-carrying ship on fire" headlines a couple weeks ago.

https://thedriven.io/2023/08/14/sorry-ev-ha...-electric-cars/

TL;DR: According to the salvage company working the Fremantle Highway, all of the EVs aboard were parked on a low deck that was essentially spared from fire damage. The fire appears to have started on a high deck that contained no EVs.

I've been driving some kind of EV as my in town daily for 10 years now and never bought anything but tires for them. I also never charge anywhere but home and since it's pretty rare to drive more than 250 miles in one day range is almost never an issue. I do have a gas car for the rare long trip though. I realize that not everyone can have two cars and a place to charge an EV but if you can, it's pretty hard to argue against them.

It's just a matter of time before the power grid expands and everything normalizes and considering how dirty oil extraction is both physically and politically I think we're moving forward by switching to EVs. Hopefully home solar will become even more common along the way and we can keep our vintage gas cars going for fun longer because of the gains we make switching over to EVs.

Might want to investigate where those rare earth, raw materials for Lithium-ion batteries are coming from and how they are obtained.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2...-siddharth-kara


https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/02/01/s...electric-future

Click to view attachment

Recycling of Lithium battery’s is just around the corner . . . Along with that grid upgrade.