What would we do if there's an apocalypse?

genuine question, if the power grids go out how would we survive and drive if we only own an EV6? my father has solar panels for charging but that’s all I can think of lol

How would someone with an ICE survive? Gasoline has to be refined. Once the existing supplies get used up, it’s gone. That won’t happen immediately, but those solar panels will continue producing power long after the gasoline dries up.

@Adi
so realistically we are better off long term but not short term?

Sai said:
@Adi
so realistically we are better off long term but not short term?

I’d say so.

Solar panels + inverter. Better pray the inverters don’t die otherwise you’re SOL. Microinverters should last years and years and years though. Hopefully long enough for the surviving nerds to reverse engineer these systems and start production back up.

@Zhi
Yeah, there’s some good quality stuff on the market today for being able to set up your own solar charging rig without needing to be an electrician. As batteries, solar panels, and other tech improve, it should get even better.

@Zhi
Wouldn’t it be more efficient to just have raw DC feeding into your EV?

Indra said:
@Zhi
Wouldn’t it be more efficient to just have raw DC feeding into your EV?

Yes, but DC chargers start at like $20-30k. You can’t just connect a solar panel to the charge port or the battery. You need 400-500 or 800-1000 volts with carefully controlled current.

Indra said:
@Zhi
Wouldn’t it be more efficient to just have raw DC feeding into your EV?

Yes, but also no. DC charging requires much, much higher voltage. You’d have to either reverse engineer the DC charging communication standard and everything, and build a 1000V variable output power supply.

So yes, in theory there would be some efficiency gain at HUGELY increased complexity. Not worth it. The car has its own built-in DC power supply for the battery that just needs 240VAC input. Far less complex

Can’t pump gas without electricity either, so, not much different.

Micah said:
Can’t pump gas without electricity either, so, not much different.

but people can use cans right?

Sai said:

Micah said:
Can’t pump gas without electricity either, so, not much different.

but people can use cans right?

Gasoline has a shelf life.

Nori said:

Sai said:
Micah said:
Can’t pump gas without electricity either, so, not much different.

but people can use cans right?

Gasoline has a shelf life.

That’s a peeve I have about zombie movies. Everyone’s driving around in noisy cars that rely on fuel that would spoil.

In a more realistic scenario, everyone would be riding bicycles. You can get around very efficiently. They only need a bit of maintenance, and they make very little noise.

Nori said:

Sai said:
Micah said:
Can’t pump gas without electricity either, so, not much different.

but people can use cans right?

Gasoline has a shelf life.

Yeah, this. You’d have to cycle through it once every few months, and it drives up your personal fire risk more than its worth, really. I never did even when I had an ICE car. And you have to remember even if you filled to full when not that empty, on average your car would have, what, 60% fuel in it?

Sai said:

Micah said:
Can’t pump gas without electricity either, so, not much different.

but people can use cans right?

Where’d you buy it in cans, without a pump that runs on electricity? You could charge your EV using a generator. :grinning: If there’s an apocalypse your problem won’t be what your car runs on. You would probably be killed trying to snatch gas from somewhere. Your best bet is a bike.

Sai said:

Micah said:
Can’t pump gas without electricity either, so, not much different.

but people can use cans right?

Where would you get the gas from? Pumps and refineries need power to run.

If the power is gone, all gas would be gone within a couple of weeks.

@Mai
Faster than a few weeks I reckon - there would be insane levels of hoarding going on, and people willing to shoot looters.

Parker said:
@Mai
Faster than a few weeks I reckon - there would be insane levels of hoarding going on, and people willing to shoot looters.

It would be like a swarm of locusts sweeping the land.

We don’t have anything stored anymore, it’s all just in time delivery. People would run out of bullets before they ran out of looters to shoot.

In an apocalypse you die. Your car won’t matter.

Ali said:
In an apocalypse you die. Your car won’t matter.

Yup. Chances are, in the zombie movie, you’re one of the thousands of zombies in the pile, not Brad Pitt. Almost like we should take care of society and each other instead of regressing toward ‘every person for themselves’ mentality.

Replace zombie with ‘one of the 99% of people that die instead of the protagonist that survives until the end for the plot’ for any kind of disaster.