Range anxiety is overrated

[dremd]

Originally Posted by darcane

2) Smart phones have remarkable features that dumb phones can't compete with. I don't see that happening with EVs. Most features added to an EV can be added to a conventional car. A few things EVs are better at, but in general, EVs have reduced functionality (such as shorter range) but higher up front cost. Unless we have artificial incentives to encourage EV adoption, I think it will take a long time, if ever, for EVs to make up a significant market share. That said... our government is already adding artificial incentives, so maybe they would continue adding more.

Overall I agree with you except on your subsidies point, I think the correct route is to remove the current built in subsidies on fossil fuels by charging a fee to pollute. Then the free market will act accordingly to avoid the pollution not to be good, but to save $$

[Astro]

Originally Posted by darcane

1) There is a much larger disruption to your daily routine when your EV battery is drained vs your phone. Phone can be plugged into a charger nearly anywhere and almost immediately be returned to service. Charging your car in a random location can be a challenge and you must wait for a sufficient charge to be able to use it.

I see the current EV situation as similar to the smart phone transition.
Before smart phones people were often seen running around in distress because their mobile had died. And as most people did, they had left their charger at home.
Then began the frantic race around the office looking for somebody with the same brand (and sometimes model) of phone so they can charge their phone. "Do you have a Nokia, no it's a Samsung, how about you, your phone looks like mine, oh you left your charger at home too."
Then when they did find a charger they were then tethered to the desk because the charger barely added enough power to supply the current call. The mobile phone became very immobile
That's in an office situation with ready access to power points and a degree of security. Spend some time at the airport and see the crazy goings on driven by mobile phone flat batteries. People searching around the lounges looking for a power point to grab some power to resurrect their phone. Then unable to even go to the toilet because they can't leave their phone unguarded. Leaving it to the last minute to board their flight to try and maximise the amount of charge they get and risk missing the flight.
By comparison, EV charging is much less stressful. Plug it in, lock the doors and go and have a coffee, maybe make a few phone calls, go to the toilet. Come back rested, relieved and revitalised, ready to continue the journey.
Once everybody starts doing this it won't seem a hassle but rather just what you do.
People will look back at the experience of a 6 hour non-stop car trip with bewilderment. Why would you torture yourself like that, why would you miss out on the best bit of the trip. The recharge points. Where businesses, seeing a captive audience, created an experience designed to draw the commuter in (whilst artfully emptying their wallets of course).

Originally Posted by darcane

2) Smart phones have remarkable features that dumb phones can't compete with. I don't see that happening with EVs. Most features added to an EV can be added to a conventional car. A few things EVs are better at, but in general, EVs have reduced functionality (such as shorter range) but higher up front cost. Unless we have artificial incentives to encourage EV adoption, I think it will take a long time, if ever, for EVs to make up a significant market share. That said... our government is already adding artificial incentives, so maybe they would continue adding more.

The EV has many features that would be hard for a dino-burner to match. Here's a couple.
It's silence, both inside the cabin and out. As more and more motorways are created, as more and more housing is built closer and closer to those motorways i think the silent nature of EVs will be a big selling point. There may even be routes through highly populated areas where gas driven vehicles are restricted from operating during night time hours. Gas powered vehicles will be forced onto bypass routes just like heavy transport currently does.
Low ongoing costs, servicing, maintenance, etc.
Some people will point to the cost of eventual battery replacement but those batteries will not cost anything like what their price is today. Remember early mobile phones where an extra battery cost almost as much as the phone (another reason why people ran out of charge). Whereas now $10 gets you a replacement battery for your $500 phone. EVs will benefit from the same economies of scale.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Fat Charlie

Yes, outliers that need really long ranges won't be able to go full EV for a long time, but they're outliers, not the overall market.

You've got it just backwards. It's people who don't need really long ranges (relative to the actual range of reasonably-priced EVs on the market today), at least occasionally, who are the outliers. Of course this will change somewhat as the range of those EVs goes from about 80 miles to 200 or more, but it won't go away.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Astro

By comparison, EV charging is much less stressful. Plug it in, lock the doors and go and have a coffee, maybe make a few phone calls, go to the toilet.

Even at the worse, doing those things won't take more than 15 minutes or so. What do you do with the other several hours it's going to take to recharge?

It's silence, both inside the cabin and out.

Even with IC engines today, it's easily possible to have engine noise be less than tire & wind noise at cruise. I doubt this is much of a plus for a large segment of the car-buying public, else why would manufacturers make most of their vehicles much louder than necessary (diesel pickups, for instance)? Even then there's a large market for aftermarket mufflers & other exhaust components that are much louder than stock.

Low ongoing costs, servicing, maintenance, etc.

IC related maintenance is already trivially low on well-designed modern cars: oil & filter change around 10K miles, spark plugs at 100K. The non-engine parts of an EV - tires & suspension, A/C. wipers, &c - will need just as much maintenance as an IC-engined car. Maybe more, if you burn a lot of rubber in ludicrous mode :-)

[LittleBlackDuck]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

IC related maintenance is already trivially low on well-designed modern cars: oil & filter change around 10K miles, spark plugs at 100K. The non-engine parts of an EV - tires & suspension, A/C. wipers, &c - will need just as much maintenance as an IC-engined car. Maybe more, if you burn a lot of rubber in ludicrous mode :-)

Yep. For a bit of entertainment, Google "tesla milling"

Simon

[Astro]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Even at the worse, doing those things won't take more than 15 minutes or so. What do you do with the other several hours it's going to take to recharge?

I think several hours may be a bit more than is required.
Depending on the distance remaining on your trip 15 minutes may be more than enough. 30 minutes gets you 170 miles.
https://www.tesla.com/supercharger
And i imagine there will be many reasons to take longer than 15 minutes. Currently service stations are designed around grabbing the customers attention while they stand in line to pay and convince them to buy a pack of Jerky.
Imagine all the 15 to 30 minute tasks that could be marketed to customers.
Why take 30 minutes out of somewhere else in your day when you could get a haircut while your EV charges. Get your nails done, Probably not those things exactly but that sort of idea. Who knows what business minds will come up with once they see a market.

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Even with IC engines today, it's easily possible to have engine noise be less than tire & wind noise at cruise. I doubt this is much of a plus for a large segment of the car-buying public, else why would manufacturers make most of their vehicles much louder than necessary (diesel pickups, for instance)? Even then there's a large market for aftermarket mufflers & other exhaust components that are much louder than stock.

Making pickups louder than is technically required is just marketing. Appealing to the owner that wants their vehicle to sound louder than everyone else's or at least to sound like the engine is bigger than it actually is. There has always been a market for making owners feel like theirs is bigger than the next guys.
I am sure they will do the same for EVs. After market badges that make it look like you bought the more expensive long range battery pack. Hub caps that look like in wheel electric motors.

Originally Posted by jamesqf

IC related maintenance is already trivially low on well-designed modern cars: oil & filter change around 10K miles, spark plugs at 100K. The non-engine parts of an EV - tires & suspension, A/C. wipers, &c - will need just as much maintenance as an IC-engined car. Maybe more, if you burn a lot of rubber in ludicrous mode :-)

Spark plugs for my car that last 100K are over $20 a plug so there is $160.
Oil is around $40 for enough to do an oil change.
Oil filter is cheap, about $5
But that is still ~$610 in materials if you do the service yourself, add in a mechanics labour cost for most drivers. (estimates in AUD$)
Then at different intervals there is the fuel filter, air filter, coolant, thermostat, fan belt, timing belt, lead acid battery, catalytic converter, transmission fluid, trans filter.
And that is just off the top of my head, there are probably heaps more listed at the back of the vehicles service book.
Then factor in all the accelerated degradation of just about everything else under the bonnet due to exposure to 100degreeC temperatures (more for things near the exhaust) and most cars end up giving everything a liberal coating of oil as well.
Hoses degrade and fail, plastics harden and get brittle.
Under the bonnet of an ICE powered vehicle is not a pleasant place.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Astro

Depending on the distance remaining on your trip 15 minutes may be more than enough. 30 minutes gets you 170 miles.

What's required to put more than a very few cars on such a charging station? Assume a reasonable 5 minute average to fill a gas tank, and immediately you need 6 times as much area. Then with such large intermittent current loads, you'd have problems with distribution powerflow & stability drawing that need to be addressed. (Overnight charging works because it's lower current at a time when system load is low.)

Tesla can do its superchargers for free/cheap, because there are only a few, and only a few cars to use them. I don't see how it'd be economically viable to scale up to handle a significant portion of the fleet.

Also, their superchargers point up an as yet unsolved problem facing mass adoption of EVs. How do you supercharge your Leaf, Spark EV, or other non-Tesla vehicle?

Currently service stations are designed around grabbing the customers attention while they stand in line to pay...

Huh? At all the ones I've used lately, you just stick your credit card in the reader, enter your ZIP code, and fill. No need to even go into the convenience store unless you actually want that jerky :-)

Why take 30 minutes out of somewhere else in your day when you could get a haircut while your EV charges.

Recharge 2-3 times per day on a long trip vs aircut every couple of months. And I think most of us probably prefer to go to our favorite local haircutting place, instead of picking one at random. Same logic for most 30-minute tasks.

Making pickups louder than is technically required is just marketing.

Yes, as I said. How do you market quiet EVs to people who want loud pipes? Unless (like the Lotus hybrid, you play fake engine sounds: Evora 414E Hybrid | Lotus Cars )

Spark plugs for my car that last 100K are over $20 a plug so there is $160.

Perhaps your car has too many cylinders? Same plugs would cost me $60. Likewise oil - even fancy 0W20 synthetic - is about $10-15. (US dollars, of course: I'm too lazy to look up the current exchange rate :-))

Then at different intervals there is the fuel filter, air filter, coolant, thermostat, fan belt, timing belt, lead acid battery, catalytic converter, transmission fluid, trans filter.

Most of those last far longer than most people will own the car, if the car even has them. In any case, this all seems irrelevant to the lack of practical range.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Astro

I think that if an EV had the ability to connect to another EV and transfer some energy at a fast charge rate, then i think that would go a long way towards removing the range anxiety.

That is a fantastic idea; one that I hadn't ever considered.

It might take some additional circuitry to implement, but there is a possibility that 2 cars with the same rated DC voltage could just do a DC fast charge from one to the other with very limited extra circuitry. The car with more charge would also have a higher voltage, and be able to transfer some of the energy to the other vehicle.

This would be way more convenient than trying to assist someone that is out of petrol. I can't even siphon gas out of my vehicle due to the anti-theft design, and besides, I don't carry around a siphon. The best I can do is drive to the nearest petrol station with a spare gas can, buy a little fuel, and then drive back to the stranded driver.

If there was a universal car to car charging design, this would make any EV capable of helping a stranded driver.

Originally Posted by jamesqf

What's required to put more than a very few cars on such a charging station? Assume a reasonable 5 minute average to fill a gas tank, and immediately you need 6 times as much area. Then with such large intermittent current loads, you'd have problems with distribution powerflow & stability drawing that need to be addressed. (Overnight charging works because it's lower current at a time when system load is low.)

Additional charging points would easily fit since the isolated fuel filling "island" that services just a few vehicles would no longer be necessary. Instead, the island would be replaced by regularly spaced parking spots. A charging tower would service 2-4 vehicles. No more waiting in a super long Costco fuel line because if there is a parking spot, there is a charging spot.

Of course, these EV charging stations would only get a fraction of the business that petrol stations do because most everyone would be charging at home. The only people stopping at these stations would be those on longer distance trips, with the daily drivers not needing to utilize the public charging stations. You wouldn't have 4 of these stations on the same corner either, because while the petroleum industry has successfully convinced consumers that one brand of petrol is better than another, nobody will believe that "electrons with Techron" is a better product.

Also, their superchargers point up an as yet unsolved problem facing mass adoption of EVs. How do you supercharge your Leaf, Spark EV, or other non-Tesla vehicle?

The cell phone charging analogy applies here. There is a lack of universal standard at the moment, but eventually the market will demand a universal specification. I'll bet fuel nozzles weren't standardized at first too, but necessity caused them to adopt a standard eventually.

[NeilBlanchard]

Charging stations need to be well distributed, and we need to get real-time status information.

But, since you can charge at home, you won't need as many charging stations as gas pumps. With our two EV's over the ~1.5 years we have had them, we have charged at PUBLIC chargers (both Level 2 and 3) about 12-15 times. And several of those were before we got our home charger.

IF there were more well placed Level 3 stations, AND IF we were not limited by our leases - we may have doubled that number.

Changing your mindset about driving an EV, comes down to getting used to charging at home. It saves a LOT of time, never having to visit a gas station.

[RedDevil]

Just a thought.

Some fool who wanted to commit suicide drove his car at high speed into the huge A12-side gas station "De Andel" late at night a couple of weeks ago. A fire broke out that engulfed the whole station in seconds, destroying it completely. It will take months to rebuild.
The fool survived and nobody else was injured - but it could have been a massacre.

If the fool had driven an EV at high speed into a charging station, it would be unlikely to do that much damage.

Because of the extent of the damage authorities have closed off the whole area, so the adjacent EV charging station and park area are now off limits as well...

Gas burns.