Re: Global commodities/mining consequences of electric cars
What about when doing, say 70mph down hill. In an ICE car you can just about take your foot of the accelerator and pretty much maintain speed for almost no fuel usage. Can an EV do that too or would that be like stepping on the brakes?
You just ease off the accelerator a bit with half an eye on the speedo, or an ear for the tyre/wind noise, and you'll see the power draw go negative. Actually, the accelerator is quite a lot like "I want this speed", and you hardly have to adjust going up or down hills if they're not that steep. And if downhill you take your foot off you will still slow down a lot, but at low speeds there's just too little regen braking to compensate for the gravity so you won't stop unless you use the pad brakes..
About eco driving, our Kangoo has a switch for that limiting the maximum power draw. You do notice that in less forceful acceleration, and going uphill you will lose speed if that hill would normally put the power meter in the red at the speed you're doing. I suppose most EVs have such a switch, or one with several settings
I'm not sure if your last sentence would imply that you expect an EV to still have a gearbox, or that it's meant to mean "analogous to an ICE car in gear": the ones I know don't have gearboxes at all. It's like driving an automatic, or rather a CVT.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
