EVs Are Great Around Town, But.......

[RedDevil]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

OTOH, sensible design would make the battery out of smaller, identical modules, so you could put say 6, 8, or 10 of them in a car. And really sensible design would standardize the size and connectors between manufacturers, the same way that AAA, AA, C, and D sized batteries, or the way you can easily upgrade say the disk drive in your computer without having to buy a manufacturer-specific model. (Well, unless you bought an Apple product :-()

The battery layout is optimized for performance, weight, cooling and crash safety. It is hard to combine those qualities with a modular, expandable design.

It may be doable to have 3 different battery sizes - but the less variation, the better for the process.

Originally Posted by jamesqf

IDK. I think a lot of the problems are down to his decisions. It seems as though for every good idea he comes up with, he has to do something really dumb to balance things.

If anything, the biggest fault Tesla made was to rely on outside suppliers. So now they make most of what they need themselves, or they simply buy the supplier (like Grohmann) to get things right - even flying in the tools (instead of shipping) to speed up production.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

IDK. I think a lot of the problems are down to his decisions. It seems as though for every good idea he comes up with, he has to do something really dumb to balance things.

That's the price of innovation. Musk's competence comes from not having to try too many dumb things before finding success.

Seems crazy to criticize someone for having taken risk (with his own money no less), had some setbacks along the way, and ultimately persevered.

I'm critical of his Trumpian-like need to respond to haters via Tweets. Should have learned in his youth it's best to ignore mean people and concentrate on being awesome.

[NeilBlanchard]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

The battery problems are exactly as bad as represented. It takes a lot of "saving" to make up for the extra $12,000 expense of the fuel tank, something that costs like $100 on a regular ICE vehicle.

I'm using the Bolt EV as an example since it's among the best and most affordable EVs. It seems to lose about 1% capacity for every 8,000 miles, which is not too bad compared to previous generation EVs. That represents only a 12.5% loss in capacity over 100,000 miles. It's still not nothing, and might be part of the reason EVs suffer catastrophic depreciation.

Any EV owner that regularly makes use of public chargers has anecdotes of charging attempts that were inconvenient; either by being in use by other vehicles, ICEd, broken, not within range, or slow to charge. EVs are not good long distance vehicles.

Cost per mile is amortized over the lifetime of vehicle ownership. When you go to sell the vehicle, the difference in purchase price and sale price is depreciation. Then add in any amount spent on electricity including the amortized cost of solar, and any maintenance. That final amount divided by total miles driven is the cost per mile, and it's way, way higher than 1 cent per mile.

EVs are great around town as a daily driver, but there are real reasons they aren't dominating sales.

Tesla batteries are holding up very well, generally.

So, whatever cost you think the pack costs is moot. By the time you MIGHT need to replace it, they probably can do that for a much lower cost.

You save lots of money driving an EV.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Tesla batteries are holding up very well, generally.

So, whatever cost you think the pack costs is moot. By the time you MIGHT need to replace it, they probably can do that for a much lower cost.

You save lots of money driving an EV.

I'm not even mentioning replacement; I'm talking acquiring it in the first place.

EVs will be the performance AND budget choice if/when battery costs come down.

In the meantime, people don't like driving stripper $40k cars that are good for local driving and a huge hassle for road trips.

In economic theory, the EVs have a suitable replacement (ICE vehicles) since they can accomplish the same tasks. ICE vehicles don't have a suitable replacement from EVs for those long drives.

[Isaac Zackary]

Originally Posted by JSH

TPair an EV with a hybrid or conventional ICE vehicle and the range doesn't matter. Most couples could own at least 1 EV but it would take a new way of thinking about things.

Exactly. Or an EV and rent or fly when you want to go far. Or just plan from station to station charging for those once in a while trips. There are plenty of people who could live fine with an EV. But they'd have to change the way they think.

[oil pan 4]

For less than the price of a rental car my small local air port will fly me to DFW.

People would just have to think a little to adapt to driving an EV.

[Snax]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

The battery problems are exactly as bad as represented. It takes a lot of "saving" to make up for the extra $12,000 expense of the fuel tank, something that costs like $100 on a regular ICE vehicle.

I feel compelled to reject that as a false equivalence, as the battery on an EV is part of a power delivery system, not just a place to store energy. And relative to an ICE which may internally destroy itself at any given time, electric motors are largely bulletproof for decades and potentially 7 digit mileage (Hard to say if the latter will hold true however for consumer vehicles.) So cherry-picking that out on a cost basis just isn't a realistic comparison.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Snax

I feel compelled to reject that as a false equivalence, as the battery on an EV is part of a power delivery system, not just a place to store energy. And relative to an ICE which may internally destroy itself at any given time, electric motors are largely bulletproof for decades and potentially 7 digit mileage (Hard to say if the latter will hold true however for consumer vehicles.) So cherry-picking that out on a cost basis just isn't a realistic comparison.

A fuel tank and a battery are exactly equivalent. It's just as correct to say a fuel tank is part of a power delivery system, so that doesn't negate the comparison.

ICE engines go 200,000 trouble free miles these days, unless one buys from a brand known to have poor reliability or gets extremely unlucky. Most things that need replacement on an ICE cost ~$100, with the major parts costing around ~$1,000. If you need a new battery, that's ~$12,000, so who cares if the motor lasts a million miles.

Cherry picking the battery is appropriate to the discussion of why EVs are great around town but not long distance travel. That's actually how you argue something; chose things relevant to discuss.

So I ask you; if the battery is not the achilles heel of EVs, why are only 1% of vehicle sales EVs, despite having a $7,500-$10,000 tax advantage?

[NeilBlanchard]

ICE cars have expensive transmissions, exhaust systems, and fuel systems, and cooling systems, not required by electric cars. They have thousands of moving parts vs about 2 dozen. They require regular maintenance every 3-5K miles, and you have to go to a gas station to fill the tank.

Electric cars can use renewable energy. In my area of the country, an EV gets the equivalent of 103MPG, all told. We are saving about $2K per year, at least. And we have cut our utility bills by a lot, at the same time.

Sales of EV's is growing very quickly, and as we get more models to choose from, they will take over the market. How quickly did cars replace horses?

[RedDevil]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

How quickly did cars replace horses?

What?





Search the web, you'll find it, however unlikely