This is the sixth book by Ms. Fukada, including her co-authored book. A book about IT was written, and I read it with interest because it contained information that I wouldn't understand unless I was familiar with the industry, and recently my co-authoring with Mr. Morinaga also mentioned her upbringing, etc., and I felt like I had caught a glimpse of her hardships.
Well, this book is about the future of electric cars, which I continue to be interested in even after I retire. Currently, electric cars are said to be the trump card for decarbonization, but details that are difficult to be reported on TV and newspapers are clearly written, such as using electricity and batteries deteriorating over a few years, and it is difficult to dispose of waste from cars that have been used up.
Below are the points I was concerned about.
・Due to the shortage of semiconductors that occurred in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic (actually, TSMC switched to China, p36), it became difficult for automobile manufacturers in Japan, Europe, and the United States to procure automotive semiconductors, and on the other hand, the number of automobiles exported by China around 2020 was about 1 million units, but in 2023 it was 4.9 million units (leading over Japan, p34), and it was Europe that ate the bubble. Europe plans to defeat Japan by promoting EVs, but I noticed that the market was taken over by China (p19) gas costs soared due to natural gas import sanctions against Russia, electricity bills also soared, and the image strategy of “running with electricity is cheaper than gasoline” also collapsed (p19)
・Infrastructure costs of at least 14 trillion yen to a maximum of 37 trillion yen are required to expand charging stations, and since charge/discharge tests are applied to complete tests of EVs, when converted to 500,000 factories per year that require 1 week's worth of electricity per EV, electricity that emits CO2 from thermal power generation is spent every day (p22). Japanese EVs at the time of shipment emit more than twice as much carbon as gasoline cars, and gasoline cars emit 110,000 kilometers more carbon than EVs EVs need to replace batteries every few years after running, and carbon emissions from battery manufacturing are added (p23)
・EVs are particularly difficult to extinguish fires than gasoline cars, and the amount of water required to extinguish a fire is 45 to 90 times, lithium-ion batteries mounted on EVs are unstable and flammable, the electrolyte is flammable, and the positive electrode also has many combustible substances, so when the separator inside the battery breaks, it shorts and starts burning when it spontaneously ignites; when lithium-ion burns, the electrodes pyrolyze to generate oxygen by itself (p27-8)
・The reason why EV subsidies were forced to be cut in Germany was because German energy depended on Russia, electricity bills soared and public backlash was strong, and budgets of trillions of yen were invested in reducing electricity bills in order to calm public anger (p59)
・Future issues related to EVs include charging congestion, fires due to spontaneous combustion, and large amounts of discarded batteries causing other environmental problems; the problem is that lithium-ion batteries are liquid, and manufacturers are aiming to introduce all individual battery vehicles around 2027, but safety has not been resolved (p62)
・Autonomous driving accidents caused by autonomous driving taxis under the umbrella of GM in the US have occurred one after another, and some even led to a situation where the autonomous car stopped and did not work on the woman after pulling the woman, so in California, in 2023/10, at almost the same timing, Honda partnered with a cruise company and announced that it aims to develop unmanned taxi services in central Tokyo from 2026 (p69)
・The reason animals have two left and right eyes is because there is a parallax in the image reflected in the right eye and left eye, and a three-dimensional space is created in the brain by calculating the distance from that parallax, so if you have one eye, you can't grasp the sense of distance, and you'll feel danger (p75) Animals, including humans, always predict danger from sensory information, so instead of recognizing it like a computer and calculating it from t to produce results, it's quick and reflective when detecting some kind of movement The act of avoiding danger is instinctive, and it is a technique that consists of moving the body without using the head without going through the prefrontal cortex (computer CPU, GPU) (p77)
・Basically, sensors are vulnerable to bad weather, but since water is an electromagnetic wave absorber, rain, snow, etc. absorb radio waves flying from in-vehicle sensors and do not reflect them, so it is difficult to measure ToF (counting the time until it is reflected back by itself on an object that emits electromagnetic waves, sound waves, and invisible light). Therefore, sensors often do not work well during fog, snow, or heavy rain. Conversely, when electromagnetic waves or ultrasonic waves of the same wavelength are emitted from the oncoming vehicle side, it causes misrecognition (p79)
・If you want the future of autonomous driving, it would be difficult if you don't think of centralized autonomous driving with sensors embedded on the infrastructure side such as the roadway side or traffic lights as a national project (like China) (p81) (p81) In America, the car alone “ran to develop autonomous driving type autonomous driving solutions, but China leverages its strengths as a powerful nation to link cars and roads, and as a result, innovation in this field progressed I mean (p93)
・In order for humans to recognize objects, in addition to sensor information such as sight, touch, hearing, smell, taste, etc. obtained through experience up to that point, information abstracted with language information is held as multiple “constants,” so even if new information comes in there, it can be determined that “this is 00” (p96)
・I am pleased that the government promotes cutting-edge chips with low power consumption during use, but realistic solutions should be presented on how to cover the electricity of factories that consume 10 times more electricity than before during production (p98)
・Compared to thermal power generation and nuclear power generation, solar panels require 100 times more land to generate the same amount of power, fields and forests are destroyed to secure that much land, large amounts of herbicides are scattered to level the ground, and land contamination is inevitable (p108). Solar panels are generally said to have a lifespan of 20 to 30 years, and while reaching their lifespan, they are facing waste problems. Since it cannot be burned as garbage, it can be built underground, but depending on the type of panel, there is a risk that toxic metals such as lead, selenium, and cadmium will flow out and pollute groundwater, and peak around 2038-40 in Japan (p110)
・In 2017/2, ASKUL's logistics warehouse caught fire, and it was reported that large-scale solar panels were installed on the roof of the warehouse, which took 12 days to put out the fire, and since there was a risk of electric shock, water could not be poured on it, and it was reported that it took a lot of time and effort. There is no choice but to wait for them to burn out, and doing nothing is a source of anxiety full of anxiety (p112)
・Most new power sources that do not have their own power generation facilities procure surplus electricity from major electric power companies through JEPX (Japan Wholesale Electric Power Exchange), and even if the purchase cost of new power increases, it cannot be passed on to electricity charges. Cancellations will occur one after another, and as a result, if you forego buying at a high price where the purchase cost exceeds the electricity bill (p130), you will now pay a penalty called an “imbalance” due to not supplying electricity, which causes continuous bankruptcy (p131)
・Representatives of politicians, bureaucrats, multinational companies, and foundations attend, and it has a dual structure where the Davos Conference (annual general meeting of the “World Economic Forum” held once a year in Davos, Switzerland, which is a pillar of the G7) promotes the agenda (action plan) shown at completely private meetings (Bilderberg meetings) held once a year in various parts of North America and Europe (p150)
・It was reported that three additional countries, Egypt, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, will join BRICS, and before that, Iran and Argentina received support from China and applied for membership. Five countries such as Russia, Belarus, and North Korea opposed it at the 2022 United Nations conference criticizing Russia's invasion of Ukraine and calling for immediate withdrawal, and 35 countries such as China, India, and South Africa abstained, and these resource-country forces are called the “Global South,” and they are trying to strengthen cohesion. Saudi Arabia sells crude oil collected in its own country to Western countries at market prices, and consumes Russian-made petroleum that can be bought at a low price domestically (p152)
・Various incidents occurred one after another in oil-producing countries around the world, and the supply of petroleum was insufficient, but oil prices did not actually rise. This is because the hole where production was cut was filled by the increase in American shale oil production. From around 2013, America's crude oil production per day surpassed that of Russia and Saudi Arabia. The weakening of the Middle East can also be achieved, and it is two birds with one stone that our own oil revenues will rise (p156)
・The United States used shale mining technology to mine shale gas in Kharkiv and Donetsk regions in eastern Ukraine, and it is a Ukrainian natural gas business where President Biden's son (hunter) was an executive (p158) The reason why Russia's invasion of Ukraine is still in turmoil more than 2 years later is one of the reasons why the shale gas issue (p161)
・Even when Russia received SWIFT sanctions by America, it found a different loophole, announced an exchange for gold even when the currency crashed, stopped the crash, sold oil at a 30% discount to countries that did not synchronize with sanctions imposed by Western countries, and Saudi Arabia and the like jumped at (p166)
・Germany criticized China for “exporting deflation with solar panels and EVs” as if it had returned the palm of its hand, and since Europe cannot rely on natural gas due to Russian threats and cannot be defeated by China, I don't want to promote EVs any further. We have begun to steer in the direction of drastically accelerating the development of hydrogen technology, which has been slowly progressing until now (p195)
・Cars in this day and age are now in an age where it is no longer possible to fix them with sheet metal, and sensors are installed everywhere in the car, and sheet metal causes problems (p218)
・Companies that purchased EVs are not able to dispose of inventory, and even if they say they give them away for free, there are no buyers, and there is no other way other than leaving them unattended (p220) The reality that EVs “only make money in China” before being eco-friendly has been revealed, and they are being abandoned by European politicians (p221)
