Until batteries or whatever other energy storage becomes lighter (and more cost effective), I want to see cars which use electric motors + range extender like the Mazda MX30 R-EV (or Chevrolet Volt or Fisker Karma… 🙃)
The problem is that these cars are a stopgap measure, and they're suboptimal hybrids (because of the weight).
For example, my Volt and Subaru Outback weigh almost the same (within one person's weight). They can get almost the same fuel economy, give or take 5 mpg).
For sure! I think the most suboptimal hybrid is the hybrid that uses the ICE to power the wheels as well - unfortunately none of the cars I want are sold in Canada so I bought my spouse a normal HEV😅 -
Yes, the Volt was a unicorn: it's the only PHEV I know of that operated first and solely as a short-range BEV, then has a gas-hybrid. Most other builds just automatically mixed the propulsion outputs as needed, and didn't let the driver pick.
I think a few PHEVs would MOSTLY let the driver pick, but would force the engine on if you demanded more power than the motor / battery could produce in that moment.
I mostly disagree with the author's conclusion here, I think I would definitely plug it in as well as use the convenience of petrol for range extension, but this is a good quick read.
I have a 2016 Volt and it is in the sweet spot for PHEVs. Chevy, in addition to abandoning them has made spare parts so expensive and so hard to get that one would almost think they a deliberately sabotaging support so as to incentive owners to get rid of them. It's one of the best cars GM ever made
They ended all hybrid production, not just the Volt. So it wasn't necessarily anything to do with the Volt, it's that it's expensive to produce and source parts for a car with two different propulsion systems. And now they're trying to transition to solely EVs.
There's never not going to be a reality where most Americans need cars. This is a big continent, and there's no fucking way we'll ever have leadership that puts more money into infrastructure than the DoD.
And ease of use; I did a roadtrip from Montreal to Kingston then back earlier this year, and DEAR DOG I created 3 different accounts to be able to charge my car.
Imagine having to create an account for each fuel company out there...
Just give me a credit card tap and be done with it. >_<
And that's if you use a regular plug. If you get a 220V outlet installed, you can recharge much faster (20-30 miles/hr) so plugging in once a week is probably enough.
Indeed. We only use superchargers on big road trips. Otherwise I just plug about once a week. The car charges overnight (when the grid is less swamped) and it's charged up in the morning.
Yes, but...
Chargepoint and it's roaming partners may have more stations.
Sure, they're crappy 1.2kw stations, but they will still add charge to your battery
I charged mine for over a year exclusively using a 120v standard outlet at my work. I had to park around the side of the building (in the shade 🤩) but had no "fuel" bill for ~17 months!!! I calculated the electricity cost for 2 months (boss was curious) company was out ~$2 per month. They were happy
There are others - I actually see more other than Tesla in my area. But Ford has an agreement with Tesla and is sending out free charging converters so Ford drivers can use Tesla charging stations. Backordered - expecting mine in Oct
Do you not plan to get a home charger? I know they are an added expense on top of the cost of a new car, but if you have the ability to charge at home and do not take long trips, you don’t need local chargers.
I'm currently an apartment dweller with an EV and even though my building has 1 whole functional charger I can get by fine using one of the fast chargers in the area weekly while running errands if necessary (although that eliminates a lot of the cost savings vs gas)
Yeah the EVSE brick that comes with every EV does a slow charge on 120/240v. It’s really just a fancy AC power cord, all the charging gear is built into the vehicle. There’s nothing wrong with using that, it’s just not a good idea to plug it into an indoor office outlet and toss it out the window.
Depends where you are. I’ve done multi-day, multi-state road trips in my EV, using non-Tesla charging stations. At home, if your clothes dryer is in your garage, you can get a Level 2 plug-in charger (coils up in a carrying case when not in use) and charge an EV overnight.
It’s easy. Plug it in before you go to sleep, and it’s done before you wake up. With standard around-town driving, I have to do that less than I used to have to stop at gas stations. (I just LOVE not having to stop at gas stations.)
If you're in the US, Electricity America has installed about 4000 stations around the country. There's about 4000 more fast chargers from other non-Tesla networks, plus tens of thousands of slower public chargers. Tesla still dominates chargers, so I'm glad to see those open up to other brands.
It's not an investment, but it certainly is a bummer that someone buying your car a year old has to take out a much smaller loan, and it also means having to carry gap insurance.
Maybe you're okay with having over payed for a car by 20k, but I think it would suck. It isn't a year out, it's 3 years out and the guy who bought it used has it payed off and you're still 20k in. How fun. And have fun buying gap insurance. Sometimes your situation changes and you want a new car.
Electric motors are great. The issues are everything around it. Cars cost at least twice as much. Environmental issues with batteries (Tho, that can change), charging network inconsistencies. Also, I don't live somewhere where I can plug one in at home. It is why I still see a future for ICE cars.
car cost is largely automakers targeting a particular (high end) market. there are and have been evs in the midrange of the market. batteries are recyclable unlike gas. as more early gen evs age out of the market recycling will obviously increase. as for not being able to charge at home, rip pal.
My favorite motor is the linear kind. And specifically ones that are coupled to a large cone-like shape made of fiber & paper with a substantial air differential between the front & back. Now those, with a powerful enough motor, & large enough cone, can do some real disturbing of the neighbors
Electric works better than a gas in cold temps; the downside is that an electric motor doesn't produce heat as a waste-byproduct, or anyways, enough to heat low-density air to "warm" temperatures. So most range lost is due to badly converting electricity into ambient heat.
There was a big issue earlier this year where a bunch of Telsa drivers didn't plan correctly in really extreme Temps (-20F) this past winter and they're cars got stuck and couldn't charge. I think other EV models weren't affected but could be wrong.
I don't know the specifics, but there are few reasons (pretty much all related to carelessness) that may strand your car in cold.
However, I have a 2019 Volt with a 18 kwh battery - its so durable that the only time the battery warmer came on was after being in -10 degree temps for 9 hours.
Ya I've got a 2023 bolt EUV. I also don't live anywhere where it gets close to -20, and never want to. I think it was related to Telsa specifically and very extreme Temps. I lost some range this winter but was by no means in danger of not being able to charge.
There is SOME difference; in summer heat with AC on blast I'll have greater highway range than a 30-40 degree day where I'm just using the seat heaters to preserve power. Haven't had to drive through sub-zero temps, but the good news is that those will be less prevalent globally soon, so 🤷🏻♂️
Yeah, my point was just that the difference / issue with temp is, again, unrelated to the propulsion system (electric motor) and has more to do with the battery (fuel tank), and even then, it's mostly because of the need for a warm human driver. Turn off the cabin heat, you'll have most of range.
You'll still lose some range if the battery needs to warm itself (only in extreme cold temps, and if left unplugged), and from inefficient driving, and from the cold just making inter operational friction higher.
Ok - correct that it's a battery issue, but that's true of pretty much EVERY issue with EVs. The motors are stupid simple, and as Randall points out, have superior power delivery to ICEs. If batteries had the power density and ease of recharge of a tank of gas, this wouldn't even be a discussion.
The presumption is that the first company to drop a 500, 600 mile range sedan with fast charging at a price not much more than an equivalent ICE sedan is going to kill all gas cars. That will be the death knell.
Cold charging is abysmal...friend visiting with a Model Y and stayed for about 10 days plugged into our front porch my circuit power monitoring said it used ~150kWH of power...and then they STILL had to go and sit for nearly 40 minutes at the Supercharger a few miles away to charge enough to leave.
Lithium chemistries can't charge below freezing without being damaged so that would apply to any of the OEMs that use Lithium based packs (which I think is most now?) that it has to suck up huge amounts of power to heat the battery and charge slow as a result
Lithium is not water, charging creates heat because unless we're talking about cryogenically chilled superconductors, there is loss in transmission, and most cars have integrated warming coils that only need to keep the battery above a minimum temperature, not "warm".
This was back around January so temps were sitting around teens-to-20s at night and 30s-40s daytime. When they sat at the supercharger it took so long because it also couldn't precondition sufficiently so it was like 30-40kW charge rate on the superchargers.
Not true. A heat pump compresses refrigerant, moves it out to somewhere with heat (i.e. outside), the refrigerant absorbs the heat, boils and expands, the heat pump moves that inside, where it cools, releasing the heat.
The only wires involved are the ones supplying power to the pump :-)
Or on a long trip; did a 1000+ mile round-trip last weekend, and only had to refuel once (twice if you count end-of-trip). If I'd taken our EV, I'd estimate there'd be two stops each way, at 30-60 minutes apiece, with unknown high-speed charging infrastructure, when we were already pressed for time.
You definitely benefitted from more than a century of improvement for combustion engines. What vehicle were you driving? You're definitely going to have more hassles driving an EV long distances, that much is for sure.
A later-model full-size pickup with a 3.0 L turbodiesel. Big damn tank, flirts with 30 mpg hwy. Routinely get a 750 mile range on a fill-up, and if you stay off the throttle and keep it below 65, I bet you could squeeze 1000 miles out of it. Pretty much an ideal long-range cruiser for us.
On the other hand there's trillions of dollars of interests losing their stranglehold on gas and oil resources... Probably looking to buy up all the fresh water
The only downside to electric motors is that they require giant heavy batteries. I think those fancy Rivian SUVs are like 3 tons. That's gonna obliterate anything it hits.
so are all the (lifted as always) trucks and gas suvs filling the roads... vehicles have become huge over the past few decades in the chase for perceived safety. (and to skirt cafe)
But once a electric car gets into an accident they are considered total. There are no mechanics to repair them. AND, when they catch fire the firemen won't get near them because of the MULTIPLE explosions from the batteries, gas doesn't do that.
yeah, too bad some of us live places it gets too cold to bike for a significant part of the year! and a whole other season, it's raining daily! bikes are great some places, evs are great others. ice will continue to be needed in others, whether that's phev, range extenders, or regular cars.
centralized generation, even fossil fuel based, is far more efficient than a car engine. and very very few places are still 100% fossil fuel electric generation.
You're right until you realize that ICE vehicles get the benefit of extremely good energy density that works well at a fairly wide range of temps, and doesn't combust 5 times from a crash.
I want personal EVs to be good, but bikes and public transit are better.
Which still greatly out-beats a Li-Ion EV car in terms of reliability and performance and scales quite well. Don't get me wrong, I do hope that we move away form using fossil fuels into something better... But it ain't it right now. Probably won't be for a good while, since EVs are not new tech.
Folks today seem to think that EVs have to excel in EVERY category. If they can identify one area where ICE has an edge over EVs, it's seen as a death knell for EV adoption. The comic points out the 2 features that should spur EV adoption by the masses, but naysayers ignore those because... reasons
Anyone who was around at the dawn of cell phones know that cell phone service was TERRIBLE!!! Terrible sound quality, 90% of calls dropped. Batteries lasted for ~1 hr talk time, ~8 hr standby. They cost 40¢/min on-peak, 25¢ off-peak, $1/minute roaming out of town, etc.
I’ll put my 220 HP electric car up against any gas powered car off the line. All of my horses are in play the second I put my foot down. No need to wait for the engine to torque up to full power.
Loved the look on the Vette driver’s face who tried me at the light,a few weeks back!
In Canada, it makes sense in cities but Canada is a huge place and once you're outside of cities the charge stations aren't nearly plentiful enough for Canada road trip driving. I mean you probably could but you'd have to meticulously plan your route ahead of time. Especially out west.
Exactly. Because the big advantage of gas over electric is energy density - you can pack an awful lot of energy into a fuel tank, but much less into a battery pack. The way to solve this is to deliver the energy by wire. Thus: trains and trolley buses.
I know I'm 5 months late but this isn't an EV thing, it's a general enshittification thing. Louis Rossmann has a video that explains everything really nicely https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMSIdqdIldw
Fuel is horrible. Fuel needs to go. I'm saying that batteries are not all they're cracked up to be either and we need to find better solutions. Or at very least acknowledge the literal child slavery that is going on and stop using it if we want a truly just and sustainable present & future.
The "more powerful" is causing more crashes, and the results of those crashes are worse because electric cars weigh significantly more than gas powerd cars. The extra weight also causes more damage to the roads
cool, you like on an island and don't own a car, im happy for you. but for many of us, we cannot simply uproot and move somewhere that's so friendly to the carless, and until public transit gets proper funding and expansion (it won't) we still need to live somewhere, work somewhere, shop somewhere.
If you think a 3500 lb EV is doing more damage to the road, let me tell you about the 7500 lb gas or diesel pickup trucks. Oh and can't forget the semis that could be up to 80,000 lbs
Let's compare apples to apples. An electric Hyundai Kona SE weighs about 3500lbs (3571). The gas powered Kona SE weighs 3005lbs. The generalized fourth power law (3571/3005)^4, shows that the EV inflicts twice as much damage on the pavement
The most common pickup is the Ford F-150. The F-150 Lightning SuperCrew weighs 6150lbs The gas powered F-150 XL SuperCrew, in its heaviest config (5.0L) weighs 5122lbs. (6150/5122)^4 = Double the damage.
"A gasoline engine will drive all day at -45C; on the other hand, a gasoline engine will also make you don't freeze to death you hit the ditch during a blizzard. It's hard to say."
The Achilles heel of electric is that batteries are so expensive, and environmentally problematic. Not just cars, but solar for the home has the same problem.
I love the idea of electric cars, but the terrible situation with charging kills it. It doesn’t take but 10 minutes to fill up and get in and out of a gas station.
You can charge using a standard 120 volt outlet, and if it's at night, and you're not going out, 7 to 10 hours of charging will recover most, if not all, of a pretty standard commute.
I can’t afford to keep an extra vehicle specifically for around town use tho, and those numbers don’t work for staying in motion on the highway. I can’t justify seeing the sights for an hour every time I stop for an 80% fill 😕
Yeah, from informal polling I did years back, most people with a BEV also have either an ICE or a hybrid for road trips and utility purposes. For most people, especially between the coasts, the EV is a commuter car.
I mean, I already keep an “extra” vehicle because the big Tundra that does my work is too much of a pig for my moral compass to let me also use it as a regular commuter. I’m already stretched thin there, the little car needs to make good highway time.🤷♂️
They’ll come around to being more useful to more people, and I’m looking forward to it, but there are still folks with needs they don’t yet fit to a satisfactory degree.
Pester your apartment management company (or condo board, or city if you have only on-street parking)) to install chargers. Might take a while, but the sooner people start doing that, the sooner it’ll happen.
The issue we need to address immediately is that our current grid infrastructure does not lend itself to continuous duty or sustained electrical loads. Most homes in the US and their infrastructure were designed for a continuous demand of 40-60 amps.
This is SEVERELY undersized for an electric home
Due to the relatively higher efficiency of large fixed plants, even if you burned the exact same gasoline in power plants, and even accounting for all transmission and charging losses, you'd see about a 30% reduction in carbon emissions.
If, like almost all new fossil fuel generation, its combined cycle natural gas, that reduction is closer to 50%. Then you can stack the increasing percentage of renewables on top of that.
A power plant is a lot more efficient than a small engine. Economies of scale mean small efficiency savings become worthwhile, and they run hotter, which through simple laws of physics make them more efficient.
An electric car is so much more efficient that even if you fire a plant with diesel to make electric power you get further with a certain amount of diesel than using that diesel in a diesel car.
Plus,the power mix is not 100% fossil.With each MWh of solar of wind power above comparison gets better.
Just about any modern mix of renewables & fossil fuel electricity is going to be cleaner than the gasoline pipeline to an ICE car, and electricity power production is getting cleaner all the time in a way an ICE vehicle never will.
The upside (and downside) of EVs is that they don’t care how the energy is generated. In a way, If a coal plant is swapped out for solar, every car charging from it, now has a smaller carbon footprint
Yep, EVs still have a huge amount of embodied carbon from manufacture. The real climate solution is to have far fewer cars but politicians get scared of investing in public transport and active travel instead of prioritising the convenience of drivers and the profits of car manufacturers
Wait until you find out that all the steps required to get gasoline into your car also require electricity and a lot more of it than it takes to recharge an electric car 😱
Even in the worst case scenario with 100% power generated using coal an EV is still cleaner than a gas car. Not much cleaner, but it's still better. But if you look at the fuel mix for various ISOs there is no one powering cars with just coal.
as someone who’s not a member of what one person called the ev crowd, here’s what i worry about: where’s the e coming from, how can i charge, what’s going to happen to my battery when it dies, what’s going to happen to those aged-out wind turbines… i don’t want to replace one problem with another
unironically the power plant IS cleaner and more efficient because of economy of scale and no longer needing to minimize weight as a design constraint. one giant diesel plant is way better than the same wattage in little diesel engines.
yeah, since a power plant doesn’t have to throw itself down a highway, thermal recapture devices can weigh as much as possible and still increase efficiency
Also EVs are incredibly efficient at turning stored energy into movement, unlike ICEs where >80% of the energy in the fuel doesn't even reach the wheels
What do you think is involved in production of petrol? From the point you extract oil from the Earth to the petrol you put in your car a lot of stuff has to happen too.
While electricity can be made sustainably. For example: Scotland produces two Scotland-worths of its required energy from wind.
But it is concentrated and more efficient then it is divided among millions of individual burning inefficient engines.
It's about efficiency, centralizing, and slowing/reversing the average growth of CO2 byproducts in the atmosphere. Not eliminating them. Which is impossible.
Based upon what? Because it seems highly sus that the world's largest automaker, and the company that all but created hybrid cars, would just be sitting on their hands.
I'd heard they're R&Ding solid state. So they may be ignoring current BEV builds in favor of leap-frogging later.
Well that's what they have been doing, going down dead ends like hydrogen & focusing on developing more efficient petrol engines. They are nowhere compared toTesla or BYD. The chairman thinks only 30% of cars will be EVs.
All kinds of scientists are out there working on all kinds of new battery technologies to sort that one out. Not sure when we'll see it in vehicles but when we do it's gonna be pretty sweet.
i hate to be the one to inform you that they're actually doing this. of course it's for the new Dodge retro muscle cars. this should be illegal if it makes noise outside the car.
Comments
For example, my Volt and Subaru Outback weigh almost the same (within one person's weight). They can get almost the same fuel economy, give or take 5 mpg).
so at least the Volt didn’t do that.
https://insideevs.com/reviews/712120/mazda-mx-30-range-extender/
great little car but I traded it in for a full EV
Imagine having to create an account for each fuel company out there...
Just give me a credit card tap and be done with it. >_<
Plus, there's practically no electric refill stations in my town.
Chargepoint and it's roaming partners may have more stations.
Sure, they're crappy 1.2kw stations, but they will still add charge to your battery
The garage is nice, but not absolutely necessary.
But whatever you do, don’t hang it out the window on an extension cord. My office had to remind employees of the many reasons why that is a bad idea.
Took me all of 4 days to get the routine going. And now, it's basically second nature.
It really sounds worse than it actually is.
Remember why we converted from horses to cars? Looks kinda like the same reasons, doesn't it? 🤔
why??
genuinely confused by this prong of your argument
However, I have a 2019 Volt with a 18 kwh battery - its so durable that the only time the battery warmer came on was after being in -10 degree temps for 9 hours.
However, due to physics, there is just no good way to convert electricity to heat without basically running it through low-conduction wires.
The only wires involved are the ones supplying power to the pump :-)
Hint: the weight of your today one EV battery in fossil fuel would get you up to ~12,000 km range. (7,800 miles) in my Audi
(Which has a 279 km/h - 173 mph top speed)
I wonder how viable synthetic fuels could be, something that could be used in all gas powered engines with little or no modifications.
and there absolutely are mechanics that will work on evs
and they catch fire much less often than gas
I want personal EVs to be good, but bikes and public transit are better.
But they took over anyway 🤨
god I love lithium. it's so delicious.
Loved the look on the Vette driver’s face who tried me at the light,a few weeks back!
Let there be open face and convenient options of choice
If they were more like petrol cars in construction - they might be better. Even PC's.
I've patched and swapped so many random parts on my car to keep it running.
I've enough angry people in my life as it is.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/02/01/1152893248/red-cobalt-congo-drc-mining-siddharth-kara
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/01/Child-labour-behind-smart-phone-and-electric-car-batteries/
If efficiency is important, bike your short trips
Gonna need some sources on that.
This is SEVERELY undersized for an electric home
Alt text: https://explainxkcd.com/2948#Transcript
And also, almost no grid in the States is 100% coal. Maybe a few places in the Mountain States, but that's it.
Plus,the power mix is not 100% fossil.With each MWh of solar of wind power above comparison gets better.
There is a single coal-based power plant in the U.K., and it’s being decommissioned.
https://www.energy.gov/eere/renewable-energy20in%20history.
Gas can NEVER be clean.
And given the rate at which renewables are being adopted (faster than projected) it won't be long before most energy will be produced renewably.
We need to transistion at some point, why KEEP waiting? We've waited 40+ years already.
While electricity can be made sustainably. For example: Scotland produces two Scotland-worths of its required energy from wind.
It's about efficiency, centralizing, and slowing/reversing the average growth of CO2 byproducts in the atmosphere. Not eliminating them. Which is impossible.
need to work on that part
I'd heard they're R&Ding solid state. So they may be ignoring current BEV builds in favor of leap-frogging later.
In Europe 100% of sales have to be EV by 2035.
https://insideevs.com/news/705724/akio-toyoda-toyota-ev-cap/
(I don't have specifics but check out videos on https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnTSM-ORSgi51JjqvxlP0JTYSU0-910Ks )