this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2025
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Electric Vehicles

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Electric Vehicles are a key part of our tomorrow and how we get there. If we can get all the fossil fuel vehicles off our roads, out of our seas and out of our skies, we'll have a much better environment. This community is where we discuss the various different vehicles and news stories regarding electric transportation.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm surprised it's as little as that. My understanding of trains is that the rolling resistance is very low and that all the energy is really for accelerating from standstill. That would be recovered during braking (mostly).

[–] copd 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Cabin climate and lighting, especially in warmer contries must be a good 10-20% of energy usage. But yeah a lot of energy is wasted into heat, the London underground is a perfect case study on it

[–] Daughter3546 1 points 1 week ago

I am now genuinely curious about the challenges of insulating things underground. Do you know a good article or a study that I can read?

[–] Treczoks 7 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I'm amazed that they only learn about this now. Using regenerative braking on trains was something we got taught about in school, and that's nearly 40 years ago.

[–] BigDiction 5 points 1 week ago

Until fall 2024 Caltrain ran on diesel engines. It just electrified so I don’t think returning energy was feasible for the line until just recently.

[–] ericjmorey 4 points 1 week ago

How would they learn that the newly installed system is more efficient than predicted before now?