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An idling gas engine may be annoyingly loud, but that’s the price you pay for having WAY less torque available at a standstill.
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The reason I’m pretty much undecided about EVs is the rare metals in the batteries. The pollution by gathering and the inhumane treatment of the workers who extract these resources. I’m still hoping for better alternatives in the energy storage medium
The motors have never been the problem, it’s always been the battery. See train engines, they are a diesel generator with electric motors.
This is where history pisses me off. We should have been headlong into battery research after the oil embargoes. Could have been 40 years faster.
Not really. Battery tech has always been advancing. Even today electric vehicles have barely come up with anything new, battery wise. Everyone wants something better than lithium base. No one can get anything to market.
It advanced at a glacier pace because there was no massive driving force. It only kicked off a bit with cell phones and then in any substantial way with laptops. (Yes in case you try to suggest I’m saying otherwise, batteries existed before that aha for different things, but there was no massive driving force.) Now imagine what would have happened if we funded it starting in the 1970s.
Didn’t sodium batteries start getting marketed recently?
Yes, but no one’s even glancing at it for use in vehicles. The one that’s finally getting into production is 70wh/Kg. Not nearly energy dense enough yet for ev’s. Lithium batteries are closer to 300wh/Kg. In other words, they take up 1/4th the space and weight. EV’s are already a thousand pounds heavier than non ev’s and that’s already causing extra tire pollution issues and having to overbuild suspension parts and bearings. Making them another 3,000 pounds heavier than that is just out of the question. Let alone making the space to fit the battery.
Sodium is going to change the world with its power storage capabilities connected to solar. Anyone on like 75% of the planet could 100% live off the electric grid problem free with enough solar panels and a big sodium storage battery.
Wasn’t aware that EVs were already that heavy. Then yeah, I guess that’s definitely not feasible, at least not at the moment.
Yep. A size of vehicle wise comparison would be that a tesla model s sedan weighs around 4,600 pounds. A toyota Corolla weighs around 1,600 pounds less at around 3,000 pounds.
Even the newest and most powerful mass produced American made car ever, the “C8 Corvette Z06” with its big V8 gas engine with 670 horsepower weighs in at around 3,650 pounds.
Oil is honestly an amazing product, chemistry wise there is so much we can do with it and energy wise it’s a extremely concentrated and easily transported form of energy.
Energy wise one liter of oil is equivalent to 10 person working for a day !
I repeat, using one liter of oil is like having 10 “slaves” working for us for a day.
Its easy to see why oil became the base of our modern civilization, and easy to see why we don’t manage to stop using it even though it’s destroying us.
I hope you are not talking about battery locomotives.
With overhead wires the train has a practically unlimited battery capacity.
There are use cases for battery trains. In remote, mountainous locations where the cost for electrifying a track is very high it is not uncommon to use electric trains with batteries. Here in Germany we have several regions where diesel trains have been replaced by them.
Exactly this. Imagine if gas powered motor could recharge in mere 12 hours and run for up to half the distance. Ah, that would be the dream.
And if you and 5 of your neighbors decide to refuel at the same time during peak hours you have a real chance of overloading your neighborhood grid. And your fuel tank is dead in 5 years, replacing which is more than half of your used cars cost.
Everything non-portable uses electric motors from the time the first wire was invented.
Boy it sure is easy to win a debate when you use fictional information
When you look at fueleconomy.gov you will see that the furthest a compact ev can go is 149 miles while the furthest a ice compact car can go is 594 miles
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/01/why-the-ev-boom-could-put-a-major-strain-on-our-power-grid.html You can read cnbcs article on how the grid is already pretty spread thinn with us already increasing our power demand by almost 3,000% in the last decade without even considering ev charging
https://www.motortrend.com/features/how-long-does-it-take-to-charge-an-ev/
According to motor trend DC charging is the fastest way to charge your EV and it still takes just under two hours Couldn’t find a source that studied how long a ice takes to recharge but considering how ices are currently extremely common you can easily test that yourself and probably already know it’s so quick you don’t even think about it
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a31875141/electric-car-battery-life/
According to car and driver those lithium ion batteries you mentioned while yes they can last a decade most cars typically stay on the road for give or take 30-35 years and lithium ion batteries are inherently expensive and prone to thermal cascading ie catching fire also full charge and depletion wears the battery down over time
https://www.edmunds.com/electric-car/articles/electric-car-battery-replacement-costs.html According to Edmunds.com the average cost of ev battery replacement costs anywhere from 5,000$ to 15,000$ So what point was made up
You have all kinds of nonsense in your post. Like you limit it to just compact cars for no reason. When you don’t limit it to just compact cars then you get EVs with 516 mile range
And charging a car for 15 minutes gives you hundreds of miles of range
https://www.tesla.com/supercharger
Etc.
I am being serious - can you factually counter those points? I’d like to know the truth of the matter.
I can. Electric car batteries last 10+ years, often longer than the body work of the car. Lookup Lithium Iron Phosphate, this has around 5-10x the cycle life of conventional lithium batteries. Combine this with the complex heating and cooling systems, battery and charging management in modern EVs and you have something that lasts as long or longer than even a diesel engine.
Cell phone batteries die quickly because both their construction and the way they are managed favour capacity, cost, and charging speed over longevity. Car battery design is much more focused on longevity by comparison. They are also cycled more often and more completely than most EVs.
Grid issues are a real problem. Cars can be used to make this worse or better depending on how they are deployed. If they are charged during peak energy production from solar they can actually help rather than hurt the grid.
You can also rapid charge a car in like 30 minutes. You don’t need 12 hours.
Thanks, I’m not sure why I was downvoted for asking a legitimate question.
I suspect people just assumed you were the same person who wrote the sarcastic comment before the one you replied to and that you were just being combative
15 minute recharge adds hundreds of miles of range
No, you see, that’s not how it works. The battery needs to be filled to 100%, just like a gas tank. And you should only ever charge once you’re under 10-20%, just like a gas tank (it’s silly to top up every day, that’s just a waste of time). We must be able to exactly replicate the current paradigm for people to be able to adjust.
I drive about 150 miles a week and get gas every couple of weeks. It takes 5 minutes. If I have to go to a charger I’ll be there for hours. It’s absurd.
Tap for /s
/s
Well.
To fully charge a leaf at a public fast charging station takes an hour. https://www.nissanusa.com/experience-nissan/news-and-events/nissan-leaf-charging-101.html
My up! can get about 260 miles out of its 30ish liter tank. That is about 1/3rd more than a new leaf. Hardly half the distance.
The electric grid will be fine. This is not the first time it’s expanded because of new technological demand. And I’ve never heard of 5 EVs overloading the grid.
And if the person above could read they’d see that all of these are battery problems, something the original comment said we should have put our focus improving on long ago.
Batteries don’t fail after 5 years, for starters. Source: literally any used car site
I think people forget that petroleum is consented and distilled solar energy. One gallon of gasoline is the results of years of solar energy.
oops you posted irrelevant pedantics that verge on misinformation 😧
sure it’s distilled solar energy that cannot be renewed. relevant language highligted. no one “forgets,” this. literally no one. it’s just not relevant to a timespan less than millions of years. cheers! ☀️
Petroleum can’t be renewed, but biofuels can be.
v true but i also dislike how biofuels get smorked into yet more CO2 which is kind of a problem rn
Biofuels are carbon-neutral. They release CO2 when burned, but it doesn’t matter because that same CO2 had recently been sucked out of the atmosphere by the plant they came from.
In theory true. In reality not true.
While U.S. biofuel use rose from 0.37 to 1.34 EJ/yr over this period, additional carbon uptake on cropland was enough to offset only 37 % of the biofuel-related biogenic CO2emissions. This result falsifies the assumption of a full offset made by LCA and other GHG accounting methods that assume biofuel carbon neutrality. Once estimates from the literature for process emissions and displacement effects including land-use change are considered, the conclusion is that U.S. biofuel use to date is associated with a net increase rather than a net decrease in CO2emissions. study
Not passing judgement on anything, just putting the facts out there that I happen to know :) Biofuel may or may not be a good tool to move toward more sustainability, and it’s certainly better than petrol.
My biofuel of choice is biodiesel produced from byproducts of chicken rendering that would otherwise become waste/pollution anyway. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The way I see it, we should electrify all the things that can be (urban driving, both freight and passenger trains, etc.), maximize the use of those things (e.g. by shifting long-haul freight away from trucking and back towards rail, and shifting airline travel to high-speed rail), and then use biofuels for the relatively-niche stuff that’s left instead of spending excessive effort trying to get electric to cover 100% of cases.
Um piss off. It is not irrelevant or misinformation. That is exactly what petroleum is.
You clearly can’t understand a factual statement from an opinion I never said it was good I never said it was bad I just said it was. If you’d bother to take a moment to think about it. You would realize that I was referring to the fact that petroleum is extremely energy dense. For the very reason I stated. That is fundamentally why petroleum has become a successful energy source and why it’s been so difficult to replace.
You’re welcome to point out where I said it was renewable. I think you’re going to have a difficult time finding that statement.
As for being a pedantic ass that’s clearly your territory. A pedantic ass that it likes to put words in other people’s mouths.
Your post was bordering on irrelevant to the original comment. In light of that the information you provided can really only be interpreted is as pro-fossil fuel.
mean comment alert 🚨 opinion invalidated
Non renewable solar energy unfortunately.
Happy cake day!
A lot of people have been having their cake days recently. Guess it’s the first anniversary of the Reddit exodus.
Energy density is a huge advantage which most people find hard to give up especially when the biggest problem that we face is invisible to most people. We can’t fix a problem if we ignore the cause.
No, it’s renewable. But… not in any practical timeframe.
I think I read somewhere that oil will not be produced anymore because now bacteria can break down that biomass that it previously didn’t. Hence, non-renewable even on long timescales.
Only if we bring back the dinosaurs. There are six movies (and counting!) explaining why this is not a good idea.
Technically no. Only if we erase bacteria capable of breaking down trees.
That’s not the definition of renewable.
It is iv we use it sustainably.
Not really. Its trees from a time before micro organisms evolved the ability to eat dead trees. These days, the solar energy collected by trees will get used to power the metabolisms of fungi before those trees can get buried and eventually become new coal & petroleum.
I suppose an impact from a sufficiently large asteroid could turn the entire crust of the planet into magma, sterilizing it and therefore opening the possibility that new oil might be created some day.
IIRC it is actually mostly from algea. A small amount from some fern-like plants. By the time trees existed, they were being broken down by bacteria.
Renewable fuels exist and are used today, but the efficiency and pollution aspects still apply.
If you’re making your diesel from CO2 pulled from the air, pollution aspects don’t really apply (at least, CO2 emission issues don’t, there’s still NOx, but that’s what cat piss is for).
Problem is, converting atmospheric CO2 back into fuel makes the efficiency issue drastically worse. Maybe with enough solar panels and windmills, and use the Fischer–Tropsch process with the excess energy that the grid isn’t consuming.
Of course, that would be for mobile fuel, if solar plants were going to do anything like that for later use generating electricity during peaks, making diesel is dumb; you’d want to use hydrogen or ammonia for in-place energy storage.
I was thinking about fuels like HVO. They work well, but have their own ecological implications.
Ah. I’m generally skeptical of any plant-based ‘green fuel’ because they generally take up agricultural capacity that would otherwise be producing food
pretty sure most trains are powered by either overhead wires or third rails? considering that urban rail systems are always electrified and those have A LOT of trains.
Not in America
okay? i’m talking about the world though, so typical for people to just assume america is all that matters lmao
The point is about utilization of electric motors, if it happens anywhere on earth it’s possible. You’re trying to insinuate that it isn’t true. And it is. Being American has nothing to do with you dunce
Yeah they’re great. Just gotta pull out a diesel generator to charge them when it’s minus 40
The price. The price is the problem for all us poors.
An interesting article about the Muskmelon, Tesla, and fuel cells. []https://energynews.biz/will-tesla-release-hydrogen-car/ (take the article with a spoonful of salt I think) It’s perhaps another attempt at a pump and dump stock fraud as he does need money for twitter. But, I’ve seen a couple of these blurbs lately and I can’t find where they originate from.
Even the ketamine wonder wants to sound like he thinks Tesla is going to abandon pure EVs and build and sell something with a hydrogen fuel cell evidently. If so,and you can’t rule out it out completely yet, the ICE engine might not be done yet - just swapping a fuel source.
“On the other hand gas has a much higher energy density than batteries and a much faster refuel rate.”
If you don’t drive for work–and I mean get paid to drive hundreds of miles every day, not just a long commute–or take a road trip every month, and have a place to charge at night (most people do, at least in North America), then an EV is just better.
Otherwise, a plug-in hybrid or a “gasoline boosted EV” like a Volt is sufficient. ICE cars for regular people shouldn’t have even existed once the Volt proof of concept was proven!
On the one hand the Nokia 3310’s battery lasts a week. On the other hand the iPhone 15…
Just plug your car in when you’re not using it like you’d charge your phone overnight. It’s only a problem if you can’t charge at home (due to on street parking and no charging facilities on that street) and you can’t charge somewhere you usually take your car (eg a workplace).
Nope,it’s a problem in many other scenarios
If i ride to vacation to a country with no charging infrastucture, if I want to ride to the mountains where it is subzero and my range drops dramatically, if I go to a place where it’s 38 deree celsius and I need AC my range is pretty much fucked up… (not to mention that close to remote places like cool beaches there is no charging station)
If I want to have a road trip… i suddenly becomes a planning issue
There are still so many things that are complicated by having a EV, and I don’t need the extra complications
So you agree that we should heavily invest in building EV charging infrastructure?
We should slowly invest and push for transition, but the current status quo is for early adopters and enthusiasts IMO
Dude…
Norway is incredibly sparsely populated and has an adoption rate of 80%+. We also have stupid cold winters, loads of fucking mountains and require AC in summer.
I’ve driven through Europe twice with no more than 2 minutes of planning in an app.Your comment makes me think you have no experience with EV’s at all and are spreding false claims.
There are literally two scenarios where an EV is not better than ICE (if purchased new today).
One is for people frequently traveling far beyond the cars range and the other is for people without access to AC charging at all.
And no, I’m not a EV lower/gasoline hater. I ride a motorcycle powered by dinosaur juice too. I just like having 400+ BHP and 700 Nm of torque in a car priced like a Toyota Avensis, and a full tank every single time I leave my driveway with said full tank costing me <$5.
You should want that too unless you belong to one of the two exeption groups above.
My issue with EVs isn’t the EV itself, it’s that they’re all smart cars. Granted, most new ICE cars are being overladen with bull shit too so I think I’m just stuck with cars from the 2010s.
That is a perfectly reasonable argument.
Is it because of costly repairs down the line or potentially being spied on you dislike?
Personally I quite enjoy the newer features for safety and usage, but I get wanting stuff that is simpler to wrench on.
Both tbh. I also just don’t like the usability and looks of everything being a screen. I really hate digital dashboards. The newer cars feel like they were designed to be disposable like a smart phone, where long term use isn’t a consideration.
I have seen some services that convert ICE cars to EV, so I may just do that when my engine needs replaced
The reason I single out the 2010s is because that’s when I could get a touch screen with car play, but still have HVAC controls as a button and no digital dashboards.
Are those two things actually important?
Electric motors are a lot more efficient, and battery technology is quickly approaching the place where you can get the same range with an electric motor as with an ICE.
As for refuel rate, I spend no time waiting for my car to charge because it charges at home while I’m sleeping, so the refuel rate doesn’t matter.
Plus the technology to battery swap is well in use for electric vehicles (see Nio, who have thousands of battery swap stations in China and some in Europe too). 3 mins and you have a full battery.
Are those two things actually important?
yes, they are. they make difference between actually usable technology and engineer’s dream.
Electric motors are a lot more efficient, and battery technology is quickly approaching the place where you can get the same range with an electric motor as with an ICE.
i doubt we even have enough rare metals for 8 or 16 billion batteries. most of them are being mined in politically unstable or to western civilization unfriendly countries, with terrible effect on the environment.
efficiency matters, it is not a question of how good single battery is.
As for refuel rate, I spend no time waiting for my car to charge because it charges at home while I’m sleeping, so the refuel rate doesn’t matter.
oh good. YOU have it solved, so the rest of the world does not matter, i assume…? fuck all these people, right?
most of them are being mined in politically unstable or to western civilization unfriendly countries, with terrible effect on the environment.
Has that ever stopped everyone, though?
Hey mate I’m just here for some friendly discussion, I’m not here to argue until I’m blue in the face.
There is a difference between your above points and the original claim.
Fuel density doesn’t matter, what matters is how far you can drive on a charge.
Charge time doesn’t matter if you can swap a battery in 3 minutes instead of waiting to charge.
For your new point of rare earth materials, this isn’t related to the original energy density or charge time points, but high density batteries that don’t use rare earth metals already exist, the problem is cost. That will change over time.
Also you’re ignoring that fossil fuels are also dug out of the ground.
Fuel density doesn’t matter, what matters is how far you can drive on a charge.
Charge time doesn’t matter if you can swap a battery in 3 minutes instead of waiting to charge.
- they matter for the reason i explained. you are acting like we can simply build as much batteries as we want, which is not true
- and change them as conveniently as filling up the gas tank, which is also not true.
- and the whole “just swap the battery” concept leads to need of more batteries -> go to (1)
Also you’re ignoring that fossil fuels are also dug out of the ground
i am not, i am not defending fossil fuel, i am just pointing out that the ev concept has problems that are not widely talked about.
just because some other strategy has problems doesn’t mean your strategy is problem free.
Are those two things actually important?
For some people? Absolutely.
It matters to people who drive more during the day than their range allows. They don’t want to wait 20 minutes for the car to charge every time they venture 300km out and back /s
Why /s? Road trips are a thing, and you’d be hard pressed to find a combo restaurant/charging station that’s along your path.
restaurant/charging station combo
The people providing the charging infrastructure here haven’t figured out this important point yet. Gas stations are a terrible place to put chargers, no one wants to stop at a gas station for fifteen minutes to an hour at a time. Charging stations need to be in places people will be stopping anyway, or at the very least places that provide something to do while waiting. Restaurants, shopping centres, tourist traps, whatever.
Here it’s exacerbated by the fact that the fastest chargers we have only deliver about 60kW. Not even close to the 200+ some EVs need to get the fast charging times they advertise. But that 60kW would be perfectly fine if I could spend the time in a restaurant instead of standing around at a gas bar in the middle of nowhere.
Hell, even cheap (or free) “level 2” chargers outside restaurants and shopping malls would be a huge help.
I live in Denmark, here the chargers are placed where people park anyway. Grocery stores, parking lots, rest stops…
It’s getting so easy to find a fast charger/resto combo, that we don’t even plan it from home.
I’ve seen few 200+ watts chargers without looking for them, but the car is ready faster than I am anyway.
As it should be, and I agree that those crazy fast 200+ kW chargers are rarely necessary.
It’s kind of a weird reaction to consumer hesitation and people complaining that they don’t want to wait for charge times as compared to the time it takes to fill a tank. Making charging as fast as possible to address the complaint (while still being one or two orders of magnitude slower at best), because that’s easier than getting people to change their driving habits, or making them realise that they’re always going to start the day with a full charge at home.
Even if all you have is relatively paltry north american 110V at home you need to drive way more than average per day for that not to keep up.
I’m so glad here in Germany they do that more often now. We have a quite a few large charging parks next to restaurants and bakeries. I just made a 9 hour trip to Denmark and it was a pretty nice experience overall. Only downside is you have to plan ahead if you want this convenience because the majority is still spots with 1-2 occupied chargers at some ugly, smelly Autobahn rest area.
Road trips are a tiny fraction of all vehicle use, it’s fine to relegate them to specialty vehicles.
Quick Google says a great majority of Americans take road trips. Even though it’s a tiny fraction of their driving, it’s still a deciding factor for many when choosing a car. Not all people have the luxury of affording a second car just for road trips.
Public transportation would be good, but there’s less flexibility to it. For example, just yesterday, on a return from a roadtrip, I got stomach sick and had to request frequent stops. That wouldn’t fly on a train.
I’d love it if we had affordable and flexible public transport for getting all across the country, though.
Unless you’re taking road trips literally every other week you could just rent a gas vehicle when it’s time for a road trip. Rather than make the decision of the car you’re going to drive every single day based on something you only do maybe once a year.
It’s why I don’t own a pickup truck, I actually do haul cars, help people move and all that shit that people say is why they need a pickup truck but I just go to fucking U-Haul and rent either the Sprinter van or the pickup truck for 30 bucks plus mileage when I need one. And I do actually keep track of my financial records with a double Ledger Finance app I just went and looked and I’m still nowhere near the cost of a used pickup truck from all of that renting
Good idea. I hadn’t thought of that.
I take road trips in my EV. It’s fine. You get to pee and walk the dog. The extra time isn’t much and it’s actually way more relaxing
It’s weird how defensive people get over their cannonball road trips. It’s great to take a few minutes on a break while taking a long trip.
That sounds good.
Take road trips how often? Once a year? Maybe twice?
Yeah, but road trips can be expensive. Suppose you want to go from Harrisburg PA to Rockford IL with 2 adults and 1 teenager from November 15 to 22.
- By car that’s about 1500 miles. An average car gets 21 mpg, so that’s about 71 gallons. Gas is around $3.5 per gallon, so the trip costs about $250 in gas. You’ll need a hotel. I picked a random one in Ohio. $110 for the way up, $185 for the way back. I guess that’s a Thanksgiving price hike. $545 total.
- By train, let’s say Amtrak because that came up first. $438 up, and that includes boarding a train at midnight and sleeping on the train, and then riding a bus from Chicago to Rockford for 2 hours. $483 back down, and this time when you sleep on the train you have to wake up by 5 AM to get off. Also this is coach class, and those seats aren’t great for sleeping. At least you don’t need a hotel. $921 total.
- By plane, it’s $650 round trip, simple as, but you have to leave at 6 AM on the way up and 5 AM on the way back. It can cost $200 more to get a more convenient time, but let’s assume you’re going for economy alone. $650 total.
That’s not accounting for food prices along the way. That could bring the car ride up to the same price as the plane if you don’t pack food, but if you’re spending extra on convenience there, you’re probably willing to spend extra for convenience on the plane too.
So it’s probably safe to say that, for this group, the car saves about $100 per year, but helping to protect the environment is worth that price. On the other hand, there’s something to be said for the flexibility and ease of planning on a car. For a bigger family, cars would be a way better option, and for a family without kids or a lone traveler, planes are the way better option. Trains are right out.
Why do people still pretend it takes longer than 20 minutes to get a 50% charge increase?
Wait, I’m confused (out of date??) I thought it took hours to charge. Has that changed?
fast charging on modern HV battery packs will get you to 80% from 0 in like 15-20 minutes. I’ve seen lower, but it’s really fucking usable now.
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I don’t have enough charge for my trip. I’m also thirsty.
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I go to a grocery store with a fast charger.
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I buy a drink.
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I have enough charge.
If it’s a long trip where I need more charge, I choose a car snack, and I’ll have enough.
If I’m on an actual long car trip and I want to charge all the way from the warning light to 100%, I will need to eat a meal anyway. I just find a McDonald’s/cafe,/restaurant/whatever with a fast charger, and it’ll be full before I’m done.
But finding a store/eating place with a fast charger is still waaaay less convenient than just finding a place where I can get diesel in seconds, and find a different place to get drinks/food/snacks.
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Most cars will charge to 80% pretty fast. 20%-70% is really fast on most.
Fast chargers can fully charge my car (range ~400mi) in about an hour
Because it’s currently easier to find a gas station than a charger that will do that performance. Now I’m willing to wait 8 hrs for 10%, but others certainly aren’t.
You must live in a red state or the middle of nowhere. It’s easy to find chargers everywhere I’ve been.
My parents live in the sticks, in a red state, and I have no problem finding charging stations within twenty miles from them.
Yes, my point. I have to charge my car at home because of charging stations are either far, or Tesla owners park in them to do shopping.
Saying I live somewhere shit doesn’t disprove my point that gas is more readily available.
Yeah because the conservative government of those areas is actively suppressing them from being built.
Although own an electric car, I believe range is still an issue. I was specifically addressing fuel density and charging time. EVs have their issues, but I believe they will be solved over time even though they are unlikely to beat an ICE in fuel density or charge rate for a long time. But I don’t think those things are actually important, because the problem is solved in a different way.
Yes, for people who can’t charge at home. I’d love to swap to electric, but 1 hour trip to go charge the car at the nearest charging station is not realistic - especially since I’d need to do it twice as often as 10min trip to refuel.
Also there’s the EV prices, starting at 2-3 times more than my current whip lol
My point is that we should be focused on the outcomes we want. It isn’t really important that fossil fuels are a lot more energy dense if the electric cars can travel twice as far. They can’t, but I’d be willing to bet we will get to that point with fossil fuels still being more energy dense.
But also as I mentioned in the comment you relied to, Nio have a vast network of battery swap stations where you can get a full charge in a couple of minutes, the same as filling up at a gas station.
The price of EVs are a problem, and not the only problem, but my point was that the specific things mentioned don’t stop us having better EVs than ICEs, because we will get the same outcome in a different way.
I absolutely agree that we should work on improving EVs, charging network and whatever technologies makes it better and more suitable for more people. But every person in need of a car has unique hard requirements for the car that can’t be ignored as “inconvenience” - and many of those people have to drive with fossil fuels still.
Also, battery swap stations being available in X location doesn’t matter to people living in Y location, nor should people in Y location buy EV in hopes that it will be better in Z years
Yes, somewhat.
Not as much, to most people, as most people think though.
I wonder if looking at the system as a whole for both systems would reveal a different difference. (infra needed to transport and fill those gas station tanks vs infra needed for level 3 charging stations)
PHEVs for the win.
It’s exactly this. Convenience. We’ve become accustomed to how convenient it is and don’t want to be put out.
On the other hand, it’s super convenient to never go to a gas station again, and to wake up to a full tank. So if you drive less than 60 miles a day, and have acess to another car for long trips, an electric is even more convenient.
That’s basically 90% of every car owner.
It’s one of those things where people feel like they’re going to take a road trip every weekend, but most people are just using their car to commute to and from work and maybe take one or two longer trips per year. The time saved by not having to stop at a gas station throughout the the year is less than the additional time taken at a fast charging station for the rare road trip.
It’s wild how little you end up actually needing more than 50 mi range. Even in a spread out California city, I rare use the ICE in my Volt
Volt, nice choice. I wish there were more plug-in hybrids to choose from. Logically 50 miles on battery would suffice for most of my trips.
PHEV should’ve been the norm with ICE as a rare, overly expensive option. Since 2014 or earlier.
Unfortunately, people tend to buy vehicles to best accomplish 1% of their driving. I live in the suburbs and almost every house has a giant pickup parked in front. Not because people are in the construction business and need to haul a lot of stuff, but because once a year they might go to Home Depot and it feels good to put their two bags of mulch in the back.
Part of the problem is not having the money or space for an extra vehicle.
I drive an SUV, I don’t particularly like driving an SUV, I get a lot of use out of having a larger vehicle, I’m an avid DIYer who makes frequent trips to the hardware store to pick up lumber and such, I have a lot of outdoor hobbies and usually end up being the one who drives so I’m carrying gear for several people, I don’t exactly go off roading, but those hobbies sometimes take me on some poorly maintained, deeply rutted, muddy roads and 4wd has gotten me out of some jams, I occasionally drive onto the beach to go fishing, usually find myself towing a small trailer a couple times a year, and I’m an essential employee that lives in an area that gets snow with a weird schedule that usually has me commuting before the snow plows have gotten through everywhere.
But even though I probably get more actual use out of an SUV than most people, most often I’m still only driving about 20 miles or less a day, on paved roads, in weather that doesn’t require anything more than working headlights, wipers, and tires that aren’t totally bald.
If I had the budget and parking space I’d probably have the cheapest base model EV I could find for most of my commuting and small errands and save the SUV for my days off and when it snows. That’s not the case though.
A PHEV SUV would do wonders.
I am so ready to hop on the PHEV or even full electric bandwagon.
I do have 2 major hurdles though.
First is there aren’t a lot of vehicles out there, at an affordable price point for me that quite fit my needs. I’ve pretty much dialed in that a midsized SUV or small pickup truck is just right for me. There’s some exciting options coming down the pipeline, but none that are out there have quite hit the sweet spot for me yet. (I am champing at the bit for Ford to release a PHEV AWD maverick with a midgate to make up for that short bed. That’s basically my ideal vehicle, I’d also be stoked for Toyota to do a plug in 4runner, my current car is a 4runner and I like it a lot, if either of those happen before I’m ready for my next car theres a good chance that’s what I’m getting)
Second is charging, I live in a townhome with no garage or driveway, so if I want to charge at home I’m pretty much stuck running about a 30ft extension cord across my front lawn and sidewalk. That’s less than ideal, and my HOA hasn’t exactly been friendly to others in my neighborhood who have gone electric who have done that. I can probably work around that though, the way my schedule works, unless I go in for overtime I usually don’t work more than 3 days in a row, so if battery-only range gets a little better for PHEVs (which hopefully they will by the time I’m able to budget for a new car in a few years) I can probably do most of my commuting on one charge and find an hour or two on my days off to go somewhere with a fast charger.
In the meantime, I just try to get my wife to do as much of the driving as possible when we’re both off since she has a prius, our schedules don’t always align, but when they do I only drive if we need my bigger car for something.
It’s a long way off, but we also fantasize about the possibilities of self-driving cars someday when all of the problems are worked out. Since we have different schedules (she works a regular 9-5, I work 3pm-3am on a 2-2-3 schedule,) we could have one self driving car for most of our commuting and errands, it could take her to work, come home and take me to work, pick her up and take her home, and pick me up at the end of my shift, and go charge itself in-between.
But 100% of the time they feel like they’ve got big ‘ole balls.
If they use a camper or heavy trailer even four times per year, fine whatever keep your truck. The other millions of Americans should’ve just rented a vehicle when they needed it, and it would’ve been far cheaper and more convenient to have their daily driver as a regular sized sedan.
It took me a while to take the plunge, but I’m never going back
The last time I heard someone say that, they were taking about bidets, and it was life changing.
it’s super convenient to never go to a gas station again, and to wake up to a full tank
But, to make that possible, you basically have to have a “gas station” at home. If you own your own house you can modify it to install a charging spot. If you rent, you might not have that option.
All EVs come with Level 1 chargers that plug in to your standard house outlet, NEMA 5-15R. If there’s an outlet nearby you can charge your car.
That can still be difficult for apartment renters, but there’s no need to modify your house.
All EVs come with Level 1 chargers that plug in to your standard house outlet.
Sure, but if you use those it takes a very long time to charge. Like, from empty it can take 40+ hours to charge a battery EV from empty to 80%. If you’re using your car to commute and your commute is anywhere near the max range of your car, that isn’t a viable option.
Or just use the clothes dryer circuit… Charge the car overnight… Get all the range.
You don’t even need the clothes dryer circuit, the vast majority of people don’t drive enough in a day to need anything more than a standard 15a outlet
Tech Connections showed this pretty well.
Extremely rare XKCD L
Edit: downvote me all you want, it won’t make electric cars charge any faster, have any more range, be any more affordable, work any better in the cold, or be any more fixable by their owners.
He is not wrong, but he is not adressing the actual criticism of electric vehicles, so it is kind of pointless.
I’m big into motorcycles and all the electric motorcycles are like 100 lbs more and go through tires like once a year compared to my gas powered motorcycle changing tires twice a year and can go fraction of the distance. Idk I want to think electric is the future but with these limits I’m still not too interested. If hydrogen ever comes to motorcycles like Kawasaki, Honda, Yamaha and Suzuki want, I’ll definitely get one of those but I can’t recommend any electric motorcycles right now and before you say anything I would recommend a Surron if you check your welds before you buy those are great commuters but probably not a motorcycle.
all the electric motorcycles are like 100 lbs more and go through tires like once a year
compared to my gas powered motorcycle changing tires twice a year
…so, you’re changing tires less on an electric motorcycle? I don’t see the issue
Sorry I edited the post poorly 😞
Long them we’ll get lighter batteries.
That’s what people keep telling me
And over time power density in batteries has increased. So far.
Graphically: https://www.epectec.com/images/battery-comparison-energy-density.jpg
From ArsTechnica: https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/05/eternally-five-years-away-no-batteries-are-improving-under-your-nose/
And from Cleantechnica as of January 2024: https://cleantechnica.com/2024/01/30/the-rise-of-batteries-in-6-charts-not-too-many-numbers/
People just won’t stop telling you this, it seems. ;-)
I’m genuinely confused - why are you going through tires so quickly?
Sorry for not being clear, I change tires on my gas powered commuter motorcycle about once every two years. Electric motorcycles seem to go through tires much faster it was explained to me that the bikes are heavier and most tires aren’t designed for electric motorcycles.
that just sounds like too much throttle because you’re not familiar with the extra torque from take off.
nothing to do with a little extra weight.
my last two bikes were over 1L, with a curb weight of something like 280kg, maybe. 45kg extra in batteries is like a child or a big dog. it’s not much.
not enough to double your wear rate.
The torque off the start is so much higher in EVs vs. ICE. I’m not sure from u/blindbunny 's post if they’ve ridden an EV motorcyle. I’m pretty sure they haven’t owned one. They sound like an ICE shill. My bicycle’s torque of the start is pretty low, and dependent on this old school “neuro-musculo-skeletal” system. It’s kinda jankety, but I’m too cheap to upgrade.
Many motorcycles (not bicycles, those are irrelevant to the comparison) already have more torque off the line than the available traction can handle, so that benefit from electric motors is less critical. The wear is a concern because motorcycles are already more sensitive to tire wear than cars, and simply switching to a harder compound to account for the extra weight has other ramifications that are far less severe in electric cars.
Fair. I’ve been comparing ICE vs EV cars wrt tire wear. And some folks, depending on driving style, find that the tires wear faster on EVs. Slow off the line should moderate that.
I wish I was a shill I’d probably have more money to buy more motorcycles. I’ve rode a Surron bee? and a Stark VARG and I kinda like how quite they are especially dual sporting. But it takes almost half a day to charge the Stark VARG and the longest I’ve rode a Surron was about ~20 miles before it needed to charge.
Yeah, a general “electric vs. gas” comparison which elides the two big disadvantages of electric in familiar applications (which aren’t to be found in the motor) seems slightly subpar for xkcd. It’s valid from a certain narrow engineering perspective but not too helpful if what you’re thinking about is motorcycles.
If fossil fuels were so easy to give up we’d have done it by now.
Cool but they sound like shit. No aesthetics in evs. You don’t feel connected to the car. Don’t feel the engagement. But hey, cars are all about stats, right, right??
Edit: ok so I get downvoted for having a differing opinion from the majority of Lemmy users here. I’m wrong in saying that EV engines sound like shit?PLEASE one downvoter, explain to me how such a statement deserves a downvote?
Majority of you probably just use your car as a means of transportation. I don’t. I also drive to have fun. That’s also why I never drive automatic as it is (to me) more engaging and challenging with a manual gear box. Let me give you another example: weight. EVs are heavy, always. I don’t like heavily cars because I don’t find them enjoyable to drive on small roads.
Please understand that there is more to the world of cars than numbers.
On the other other hand, gas car makers have regulators by the ballsack. So we’ve got that going for us which is nice
Well maybe in your 3-rd world they do.
It’s true. But a v-twin motorcycle like a Ducati or Moto Guzzi ignites your balls like no electric motor can.
This comic is clearly about lawn mowers people. Who discusses cars when wearing a hat like that?
Gas engine makes good noises. Checkmate.
The ioniq 5 N has that covered, evidently: https://youtu.be/DSIguemKIbQ?si=Do2diTJm8-_Hb9Ro
Or playing cards in the wheels
Lol i would definitely buy that. And i don’t own a car…but if i would
Think of the most annoying sound you know. Whether it’s country music, rap, lawnmower before 8am on sat, etc that is your “good noises” sound like.
There is a huge difference between a finely tuned V8 with an appropriate muffler versus a gas lawnmower, but to each there own.
Great username btw
Mr. Monkey subjectively your finely tuned v8 sounds like a 400lb basement dwelling gorilla someone has fed laxatives and recorded from the bottom of a well used coachella porta potty.
In today’s edition of lemmy: poetry.
I dunno, I’m “team electric is objectively better in every way” but I gotta agree, a fancy tuned racecar engine sounds like angry beast and that’s pretty sexy.
The jolt of max acceleration of an electric motor in complete silence is also extremely sexy, though.
Lol ok I get it you’re all Car-o-sexuals. It’s cool but can you guys just keep it to your bedrooms and rest stops?
I don’t care much about cars overall but I do like angry beasts…
You just gonna sit there and yuck the mainstream yum like your opinions are better than everyone else’s?
Think of the nicest sound you know. A well-tuned instrument performing a delicate melody, a passionate singer performing their heart out, a cacophony of songbirds. That’s what my good noises sound like when done right.
Obviously nobody wants to hear a fart can Honda Civic at 4am, but a fantastically engineered Italian V10 has its own melody that can’t really be replicated otherwise. These examples will be missed, and the survivors will be sought after like a vintage violin.
So total fucking silence? I swear to God it’s like the call to stroke each other off for you guys.
Huh?
Between the fart can and the Lambo, which are you more likely to hear?
It’s incredible how certain people are conditioned to think the sound of a gas motor and shifting because your puny motor is out of optimal rpm range are manly.
There you go pointlessly gendering again!
“Good” = “manly” to you? Wow. Sexist.
I’m a car guy and far from manly. I drive a loud annoying stick shift because it’s fun and life is too short to be bored while driving.
Life is too short to have to fucking drive everywhere.
Yeh, but unless I uproot my life and move to a different country, I’m stuck doing it, so I can either bitch and moan about how much I hate it, or have the best time I can doing it 🤷🏾♂️
For sure, I used to drive stick when I drove, but I also argued for town planning that would make driving optional. Personal choices to deal with the reality you’re given, public policy activism for the reality you want.
Vroom vroom is fun.
Shifting is fun.
Fun is good.
Yeah, I guess all those professional female race car drivers are doing it to feel “manly”
Never said anything about it being manly, but it can sound good.
I don’t see how making noise is good. I live in a street that doesn’t get much traffic, but even one car is loud enough to be bothering.
I don’t want to pause my music and conversations just because someone decided that vroom vroom sounds were more important than me hearing literally anything else.
Even more that noise pollution is definitely a thing, and affect both mental health and physical one.
Vehicles making noise actually is good, for pedestrians’ sake, but yeah ICE vehicles make far more than they need to. Some (? many? I’m not sure how standard it is) electric vehicles make a sort of beeping sound for that reason.
If you’re in an area where pedestrians may be crossing the road, traffic should be slow enough to use permeable brick pavers, which increase road noise, help with rainwater drainage, and add a little green to the road if find right.
Well that sounds cool; what about those of us who live in conservative hellscapes? I’m pretty sure ‘road maintenance’ is a sin here
I dunno, maybe take their conservative advice and violently overthrow your government?
Real talk, you’ll have a hell of a time arguing for the upgrades, but even so, I only suggest switching to bricks when the road needs to be resurfaced anyway. The road works well enough as-is, this is just an improvement.
Oh, the road needs resurfacing, most of them here do. Decades of conservative government will do that
When you’ve inevitably barricaded yourself in city hall, just remember: we never met, this conversation didn’t happen. Revan? Never heard of 'em.
The majority of sound for cars are not the motor but the wheels compressing air, after I think 50kph, the sound of an ev or a ic is basically the same.
Well, in a neighborhood, cars won’t always be driving 50 km/h. And the engine will be especially loud, when they need to accelerate after a turn or whatever.
Either way, I do hear the difference when an electric car goes by.
When accelerating my Leaf makes a “woooooooooooOOOOOOOOP” noise I’ve seen described as the “UFO sound”
Tbh I like it a lot more than the vroom of even my motorcycle cuz it’s funny
I do love the whine of the drive units when going full throttle on EVs, it reminds me how much current is surging through those wires
Only thing stopping me having one is cost.
Will go down in the next years.
Sure hope so., Moores law being what it is
Sadly, battery companies are quite greedy.
A 2 year old Polestar 2 with 12,000 miles just cost my buddy slightly less than $25k. You can’t even get an Accord with that age and mileage that cheap these days! Hertz dumped a bunch of them on the market recently, they were too much fun to be a profitable rental so they’re absurdly cheap right now
When I was looking recently I was shocked at how cheap used polestars are. Such nice cars.
Sounds good until you have to replace the battery. I want one of the rivian rts but they are still too pricy even used.
How about you start looking at actual cars instead?
Regarding battery degradation - I’ve owned my EV for 4.5 years now, and its battery is still at 93% of its original capacity. That equates to maybe 10 miles of range lost, from an original range of around 230 miles. At that rate, it’ll still be giving usable range in 10, 15 years from now. It’s even warrantied to keep over 75% of its original capacity for 8 years / 100,000 miles - if it fails to achieve this (likely due to some defect), it’s replaced for free.
And when it does eventually need replacing, it can be recycled into something like a home storage battery - where the power demand is not as high, but still more than enough to power everything in your home for days. Meanwhile, the car can be upgraded to a brand new battery, which will likely last even longer.
Edit: In fact, I tell a lie - I did have to replace a battery on my EV recently. The 12v lead-acid battery, that ICE cars also rely on.
you drive your cars for 300000 miles?
Lots of people BUY their cars with 300k miles.
well maybe in 3rd world like USA they do
Plenty of countries out there with lower income levels than the US, including much of Europe tbh.
yeah, but all of those 400-500 kkm cars get bought up by Kazakhstan and similar country importers.
My 2010 wagon has 180k and I can still take it to the mountains and not worry about finding a broken charge port on the way home.
How the hell would you break a charge port? If you managed that then no vehicle is safe.
Oh, the charging station. Charging port I think would mean the port it plugs into on your car. Yeah, I guess that could be an issue, but it’s not really something that needs to be considered by a consumer. The fact that you’re much less likely to have mechanical issues I think more than makes up for the rare case of vandalism, which can happen to any piece of the infrastructure, for gas and electric.
My current ice vehicle has 320k on it now
“Electric cars are too expensive!”
“I’m only interested in the most expensive of electric cars!”
Yeah good thing ICE cars don’t have anything expensive that breaks after 300,000 miles like an engine or a transmission…
Well, mine has gone through 1 set of rear axle bearings,one stupid oem heater bypass pipe assembly thst i swapped out for a stainless steel replacement, and two propeller shafts
For me it’s cost and having a place to charge since I rent.
Unless you take road trips often having a place to charge is literally any random Outlet. You don’t need a fancy dedicated fast charger if you drive less than 100 miles in a day. Think about how many hours your car is just sitting at home, it has that many hours to charge it doesn’t matter if it charges in 1 and 1/2 hours or 9 hours as long as it gets charged
When I rented I only had street parking. In that situation an electric car is just another thing to manage. If you’ve got a garage to park in, sure, even with a basic 220V outlet.
As long as you have a driveway or garage, yes. Which a lot of people (most?) don’t have.
Yeah I live in an apt with a dedicated off-street parking spot, but the lot still isn’t close to any outlets.
I have an EV and charge at home. I love it. That said, I’ve lived in tons of rentals in college and immediately after. Not one of them would’ve had a practical option to charge, even on a regular outlet.
I’m not who you replied to, but you are assuming a lot of the living situations for millions and millions of people. I live in a building built in the 40s and only have street parking. I do have a pretty damn good public transit system at my disposal, though. That’s within reach for my short travel needs today.
The cost, the fact that I don’t have a parking space at my apartment, and the fact that insurance is expensive.
Parking space i have. The expense is in the truck i want at 90k or more and the hookup of the home charger, which i can do myself but the code inspection might differ
I don’t have a parking space at my apartment
A way to charge it at home is also a major issue for anybody who lives in an apartment.
Not really. The cities across the world are introducing public chargers in lamp posts and at the kerb. While it is kind of an issue today, it won’t be tomorrow.
Hopefully it won’t be, but charging an electric car is still not a standard thing for apartment buildings to offer tenants. So, for the moment, that’s a major reason for renters to not take the plunge.
My apartment block in London has underground parking with allocated chargers. There are multiple lamp post chargers over here and other types of chargers. So, for the moment it’s already fine.
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