EV alternative for light/medium duty trucks

JRscooby wrote:

valhalla360 wrote:

The best return on the dollar spent by a long shot is in increased efficiency but better windows and lights don't get snazzy marketing campaigns.

Is it deliberate that you don't mention the fuel efficiency mandates made cars go much farther on gallon of fuel? And some of that tech is transferred to EV.

An important item people forget about is fuel is only a portion of what we use crude oil for. If we were to cut fuel consumption in half, all the other products that use oil as a feed stock would skyrocket in cost. Take asphalt concrete as an example. It's relatively cheap but we use a lot of it for building and refurbishing roads. If we cut the supply in half, road construction costs would probably quadruple. It would also cause more damage to cars/trucks as road maintenance is put off.

Skyrocketing cost? Yes much of the crude is used for non-fuel products, much is plastic. Now, with much of the cost of getting oil to market paid for by motorist, it is cheaper to make new plastic packaging, instead of out of recycled, or even better reusing the containers. (You remember taking pop bottles back to store? IIRC, much of what we bought then was in glass jars. Glass containers can be cleaned/reused) If the cost of getting rid of the container/harm done to environment, was included in price of bottle pancake syrup, would it be cheaper to clean glass bottle?
And for decades the percentage of asphalt recycled has increased. As the price of the oil has gone up, technology to recycle has improved. Now I know some city/state contracts require a percentage of "virgin" material, but that can change. And if it is recycled, it is not in a fill.

Actually, mandates haven't had a lot of impact. Most of the big jumps in efficiency happened when fuel prices spiked and the customers chose to buy higher MPG vehicles. Mandates without a fuel price spike have typically resulted in circumvention of the rules...Example: the proliferation of the mighty SUV "truck" that is for all practical purposes just a station wagon rebranded.

Yes, it does play into the cost of plastics. I was simply pointing out the collateral impact. Far to many think the only thing that comes out of a barrel of crude oil is gasoline and diesel.

Working in the industry, recycled asphalt is very limited on roadway projects and that's where the vast majority is used. The problem is as the asphalt ages, it "dries out" and becomes less effective as a binder in the asphalt concrete. When it's used, it's typically more for political reasons as opposed to engineering and capped at 5-10%, so as not to impact the quality of the pavement too much. Reducing the amount of virgin asphalt used by 50% but having to repave twice as often, doesn't provide much benefit. Ground up it does make a nice gravel for driveways.