# Electric Vehicle critics **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 24, 2019, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-vehicle-critics/842254 "2019-10-24T20:43:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 36
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2019, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-vehicle-critics/842254/701 "2019-11-14T20:40:15Z")
The vibe I get from his arguments are like, “Are you telling me that NORMAL PEOPLE will get in a METAL TUBE and travel at EXTREME SPEEDS with NO STEERING WHEEL and PILOTS WILL HAVE TO REMEMBER TO REFUEL BECAUSE THERE’S NO MID-AIR TANKING and that people will pay MORE MONEY to do this than driving a car?!?! These are not normal people1!!! They have to plan their lives around DYING IN A FIREY CRSH!” Buddy, I would drive from whereversville North Carolina to Charleston ten times in my EV and not spend more than a minute worrying about the trip. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2019, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-vehicle-critics/842254/702 "2019-11-14T20:47:53Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > > [@Pantastic](#): > > > > Again, what’s absurd is that EV proponents insist that EVERYONE (not just them) charges every device every night or does not qualify as a functioning adult and should not be a part of modern society and that people who don’t always charge all of their devices are such an edge case that considering them when designing or adopting technology is unreasonable. > > A car isn’t a “device”. It’s your primary mode of transport. > > Functional adults don’t have to charge every device they own every night, they have to manage their devices so they don’t create a major disaster in their lives through inattentiveness. Deciding that a vehicle can’t work for you because you can’t be trusted to charge it every night is an indictment of your ability to adult. There were some construction guys in my office doing a small job. The first thing they did on arrival was to plug in a couple of chargers for the rechargeable tools they worked with. The point is that if the thing you’re relying on is rechargeable, you’re going to learn pretty quickly to keep it charged. ---
**Author:** ![YamatoTwinkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/cc9497/32.png) [@YamatoTwinkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YamatoTwinkie)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2019, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-vehicle-critics/842254/703 "2019-11-14T21:10:04Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > In other words, I’m correct that I would need to plan my life around the car, that the trip would take longer, and that it would have significantly more risk. That I’d need to plan my life around the car is… one of the complaints that EV proponents have been vigorously denying. I think your use of “plan my life around the car” is a little loaded, which is why i think many people here get a little spun up, especially when you use something as basic as “remembering to plug it in at night” as an example for “planning your life around”. Even if you forget to plug it in, you’re likely still going to have 200+ miles of range the next day. Anything you do in life involves some level of planning for, gas cars included. With an EV, I agree with you that you’re going to have to definitely do some adjustments (more if you are especially risk adverse) around the car for the kinds of trips that you’re undertaking, beyond half the range of the car (give or take) from home. The EV is going to dictate where and when you might have to stop for lunch (to coincide with a supercharger visit), or where you may want to book a hotel at. If you’re the type of person that can’t stand stopping on a long distance trip for any reason (lunch, bathroom breaks, etc. already) then this may be especially aggravating. I think what you’ve failed to acknowledge (or keep handwaving away) is that an EV is likely going to involve less “planning my life around the car” for your normal every day trips (commuting to work and back, errands, driving around town) than a gas car will. For anything less than 100 miles away, just get in your car and go. I don’t even glance at the charge level in the car. > [@Pantastic](#): > > A charger that is ‘coming soon’… doesn’t actually charge a car. Also they’ve got about 6 weeks left to make that 2019 target, so they best hurry! It’s almost like I used the real-world availability of chargers at the time of the real world trip I made in an ICE vehicle, how unreasonable of me. I thought it was important to point out that the charging infrastructure is rapidly improving, and that many of your concerns about your particular example will likely be addressed in 6 months or so, once a supercharger goes in at Charleston. If you don’t think this is relevant information worth bringing up, then carry on. > [@Pantastic](#): > > I don’t care to be stranded waiting for my car to slowly charge off of a regular outlet, so I really do need to sit down and check as I’m not going to trust the assumptions that some engineers in California made about the risks of the trip and availability of chargers. I really do need to “sit down and check” that the app is not trying to make me take an unacceptable level of risk. I’m not faulting you here for being extra cautious here around something new, your word choice left me with the impression that you thought you were going to have to break out a folded map, a calculator, and a ruler and have to calculate all this stuff yourself. Tesla nav does a pretty good job laying all of that out for you - you just have to say what your destination is. I’d suspect that the more you use it, the more comfortable you’d get around trusting the nav. Abetterrouteplanner does a pretty good job too, you can put in all of your pessimistic assumptions into it and it’ll spit you out a route too. > [@Pantastic](#): > > Even assuming the long range 2019 model (which costs about 3x what the ICE car in the comparison did 3 years ago), there’s simply no way that I’m taking that kind of risk of getting stranded. I’m not leaving the Santee station for Charleston with less than 150 miles of range on the car, as I want to be able to make the trip to Charleston, some local driving, and back to the last supercharger without trouble if there is an issue at the hotel. And I’m going to put enough charge on the car at Lumberton to make the entire Lumberton-Charleston trip if there’s a problem with the Santee station, though that does mean relying on finding charging at the destination. Yeah, I’m still not seeing anything near what you’re talking about. I suspect you’re ignoring that the extra conservative charge that you put on the car in Lumberton doesn’t magically vanish once you reach your second supercharger destination, and then you just doubled everything for your return trip without bothering to check the assumptions. Seriously, how are you getting 3 hours of charging? Even assuming there was no charging at the hotel, how are you driving 600 miles, starting with ~250+, and having to charge around 900 miles en route? ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2019, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-vehicle-critics/842254/704 "2019-11-14T21:20:11Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > I have made the argument that people’s use cases for EVs are unrealistic, as I don’t believe that a handful of fanatical EV proponents on the SDMB are typical people… As an a-typical, crazed fanatical EV proponent, whose ideas of EV’s are so totally unrealistic, I’d just like to repeat: Please, you should never, ever get an EV. You should not drive in one, even as a passenger. You should not associate with anyone who owns one. You should avoid any contact with the Ford Motor Company henceforth. If an advertisement comes on TV for an EV, you should turn it off. NEVER BUY ONE. EVER. This has been a public service announcement. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2019, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-vehicle-critics/842254/705 "2019-11-14T21:30:52Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > Are you saying that Tesla’s map of their own chargers is ‘bullshit’? Because that’s what I was using for reference about charger locations. Otherwise the only bullshit here is yours. I’m saying that your absurd claims that people will have to be automatons to successfully find an electric gas station are all such obvious bullshit that they detonate any remaining shreds of credibility you might have had otherwise. > [@Pantastic](#): > > Gas stations are so frequent that finding one is not a significant difficulty. If I drive down the interstate, I’m going to find multiple exits with multiple gas stations right off the exit within 20 miles of wherever I am. As I pointed out, on the actual literal trip that I took to a city with 3/4 million population, I ended up 70 miles away from the nearest supercharger. And there’s only one single one in that city, not 2-6 at multiple exits around the city. Also, gas stations don’t take 40 minutes to fill a tank to 80% full. > > I’m sure there are areas of the country where gas station availability is a problem, but it really, really isn’t anywhere that I’m likely to drive a car that I own. Look, you’ve made it clear that you think it’s too complicated to EVER look at your power gauge. I can only conclude that you run out of gas all the time, no matter _how_ many gas pumps are surrounding you - literally any other conclusion would unavoidably prove that your arguments are complete bullshit. Because, as you and I both know, any person with the brains to look at their fuel gauge now and then will not be running out of power because they forget to fuel up. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2019, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-vehicle-critics/842254/706 "2019-11-14T22:36:43Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > Using an actual real world trip and real world numbers is not ‘exaggeration’. OTOH, according to the reference site I listed earlier a 30 minute charge gives 150 miles of range to that model of Tesla. General articles about charging Teslas seem to put it at about 40 minutes of charge to do 80% of a battery and you’re claiming 30 minutes to do 85%, so I think what you’re doing qualifies as exaggerating. I didn’t start at 0% charge. I’m not sure which numbers you’re looking at, but presumably they did start at 0% or close to it. The numbers _are_ approximate. The peak charge numbers are easy to estimate (8 miles per minute in the real world), but the charge rate scales down as you reach a full charge. If you want to mentally add 5-10 minutes to the stops, I won’t say you’re wrong. But it’s a negligible amount on a 10 hour trip. It’s certainly nowhere close to the _three_ extra hours you added. _That_ is a massive exaggeration. > [@Pantastic](#): > > I’m getting tired of all of these EV proponents telling me that I’m wrong for using actual reference numbers instead of some kind of over-optimistic estimates. I drive a Model 3, so I have a good idea how long charging takes. And I can tell you that a round trip from Raleigh to Charleston doesn’t take an extra three fucking hours in a decent EV, nor does it require choosing a special hotel or any of the other bullshit you mentioned. > [@Pantastic](#): > > that’s a further example of planning my life around the car and exactly the kind of thing that EV proponents have said I don’t need to do. Well, at least you’re acknowledging that you consider even the tiniest change in behavior to be “planning your life around the car”. It’s an unbelievably stupid position to take, but at least you’ve been consistent. Let me clear. I am not really responding to you at all. As I and others have said, you should not buy an EV under any circumstances–you’ve acknowledged that you aren’t able to make the small changes needed for an EV to be useful. The reason I laid out the trip is so that any other readers can take a look and see that the trip you mentioned hardly takes any longer than a gas car when the constraints are accounted for. It’s just not that big a deal. The “planning” takes all of two minutes, and all the information needed is there inside the car. Including if the Supercharging stations are undergoing maintenance, the occupancy, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2019, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-vehicle-critics/842254/707 "2019-11-15T20:29:41Z")
> [@YamatoTwinkie](#): > > especially when you use something as basic as “remembering to plug it in at night” as an example for “planning your life around”. > [@begbert2](#): > > I’m saying that your absurd claims that people will have to be automatons to successfully find an electric gas station are all such obvious bullshit that they detonate any remaining shreds of credibility you might have had otherwise. > > Look, you’ve made it clear that you think it’s too complicated to EVER look at your power gauge. I can only conclude that you run out of gas all the time, no matter _how_ many gas pumps are surrounding you - literally any other conclusion would unavoidably prove that your arguments are complete bullshit. Because, as you and I both know, any person with the brains to look at their fuel gauge now and then will not be running out of power because they forget to fuel up. > [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Well, at least you’re acknowledging that you consider even the tiniest change in behavior to be “planning your life around the car”. It’s an unbelievably stupid position to take, but at least you’ve been consistent. I will point out that I didn’t make any of the claims in the quoted material above, at all. I’m not going to keep repeating what’s already posted in this thread, so until I get bored I will just point out where EV proponents are making patently false claims about what I said. I’m certainly not going to pretend that any of you who keep creating strawman arguments and declaring victory over them are engaged in actual discussion. > [@YamatoTwinkie](#): > > I’m not faulting you here for being extra cautious here around something new, your word choice left me with the impression that you thought you were going to have to break out a folded map, a calculator, and a ruler and have to calculate all this stuff yourself. Nothing in “sit down and plan out a route” excludes using electronic devices, and there’s no reason to assume that someone who’s already been established as having a smart phone in this thread eschews internet mapping for paper maps and rules. The fact that I planned the route in question on an online message board using Tesla’s website and google maps but you’re claiming that ‘sit down and plan out a route’ somehow implies using paper maps says a lot about the people making the claim. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2019, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-vehicle-critics/842254/708 "2019-11-15T20:33:08Z")
> [@YamatoTwinkie](#): > > I think your use of “plan my life around the car” is a little loaded, which is why i think many people here get a little spun up… > > The EV is going to dictate where and when you might have to stop for lunch (to coincide with a supercharger visit), or where you may want to book a hotel at. If you’re the type of person that can’t stand stopping on a long distance trip for any reason (lunch, bathroom breaks, etc. already) then this may be especially aggravating. In this case, you seem to be engaging in the fallacy of the excluded middle. There is a lot of ground between ‘wish to have my bathroom, exercise, and food stops decided by the needs of an electric vehicle’ and ‘can’t stand stopping on a long distance trip for any reason’. The fact that a long trip would become a matter of doing what the car wants for breaks instead of doing what I want for breaks is a prime example of planning your life around the car instead of having the car support your life. > [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I think it’s weird that you use the phrase “planning your life around the car”. Do you consider the need to refuel your ICE vehicle “planning your life around the car”? Does the human need to consume food, eliminate waste and sleep constitute planning your life around the kitchen, the toilet and the bed? Perhaps you do; I just consider those things part of life. Read what YamatoTwinkie said above. According to at least one of the people on your side of the argument, "The EV is going to dictate where and when you might have to stop for lunch (to coincide with a supercharger visit), or where you may want to book a hotel at. ". Having the car dictate when and where I take breaks, eat lunch and what I eat, and where I can stay while taking a trip are all examples of what I mean by ‘planning my life around the car’. As I’ve said over and over, I don’t have to do any of this with an ICE vehicle, as the range is longer and the ‘recharging infrastructure’ is quicker to operate and much more abundantly placed. “Planning my life around the car” means that I have to plan routes, places to stay, places to eat, breaks on the road, and the like around the capabilities of the EV instead of my own preferences. It’s really pretty simple. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2019, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-vehicle-critics/842254/709 "2019-11-15T20:34:10Z")
> [@echoreply](#): > > Nobody here would recommend daily charging to 100%. Teslas will put up a warning on the screen if you do that. The 70% charge recommendation is two years old. The current recommendation is to charge to 90%, because that is the maximum daily charging limit, and nothing is gained in battery longevity by limiting to a lower charge. When a 100% charge is necessary for a trip, then do it. Charging to 100% occasionally will also not do anything one way or the other for battery longevity. Every person discussing range in an EV that I can recall has discussed starting the car with a 100% charge, including during regular commuting. I was berated for pointing out that an older EV might start a regular day with only 80-90% of it’s charge, yet here you’re saying that one should assume at most a 90% charge even on a brand new EV unless one is planning a specific trip in advance. At this point, I REALLY don’t believe any of the numbers EV proponents are tossing around in this thread. According to the thread, chargers work faster than any reference point or article that I’ve seen and I’m a terrible person for using published references instead of believing biased anecdotes from interested parties. According to the thread, I’m terrible for assuming that an older EV might only have 80-90% of new maximum capacity, but also nobody here would recommend daily charging a vehicle above 90% capacity. According to this thread I’m terrible if I don’t assume that there is a supercharger on my route and an L2 charger at every shopping center, even though Tesla’s own website says that the nearest SC to my route is 20 minutes away and L2 chargers are also sparse. Two examples for reference: > [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Nevertheless, as noted by myself and others, this 235 mile trip is still perfectly doable with most of the latest batch of EVs. And ones that are \<$40k, maybe even $30k in some cases with discounts. > > A Model 3 SR+ costs \<$40k, and has 250 miles range. So even if you’ve forgotten to plug in, it’ll _still_ work fine on your cited trip without any extra stops. There’s no need to plan anything aside from maybe not forgetting to plug in twice in a row. > [@Ravenman](#): > > So when you wrote this: … you were actually talking about 235 miles of driving over multiple days? Just about every new EV on the market can handle that, even in winter. In the scenario, if the 250-mile range car was following the 90% maximum daily charging limit that you say everyone would advocate, it would only have 225 miles of range available as it would start at 90%, not 100%, and therefore should not be expected to make the 235 mile trip. So people don’t seem to be presuming that you should regularly charge to only 90%, but that you should always have max range available on any given day. It’s not some ‘make or break’ thing about electric cars themselves, but it smacks of less than full disclosure from the people making the claims, and casts doubt on any other numbers that they use. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2019, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-vehicle-critics/842254/710 "2019-11-15T22:19:48Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > I will point out that I didn’t make any of the claims in the quoted material above, at all. I’m not going to keep repeating what’s already posted in this thread, so until I get bored I will just point out where EV proponents are making patently false claims about what I said. I’m certainly not going to pretend that any of you who keep creating strawman arguments and declaring victory over them are engaged in actual discussion. Here’s what you actually are doing: 1. You’re ignoring what everyone who has actually used an EV to travel says about the experience. Your fiction is more important to you than their reality. 2. You’ve made a rather substantial deal of forgetting to plug the car in, to an absurd and laughable degree. In real life, of course, people who know they are going to be driving a long way the next day will not just reflexively plug in, they’d reflexively _check twice_. Just like we do for everything else even remotely important. ---
**Author:** ![swampspruce](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/swampspruce/32/261_2.png) [@swampspruce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swampspruce)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2019, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-vehicle-critics/842254/711 "2019-11-15T22:25:27Z")
**Pantastic** , I’m linking this article from[Quartz](https://qz.com/1737145/the-economics-of-driving-seven-teslas-for-2-5-million-miles/?utm_source=pocket-newtab) as you are not believing the owners of various EVs here. Argue as you will but if you really want to see what the long term looks like owning a Tesla, this would be a good starting point. This quote in particular seems pertinent: " Sonnad says although the batteries have proved durable, despite degradation, they were swapped out due to factory or installation issues. One Tesloop Model X has seen its original battery’s range fall from 260 miles (23%) to 200 miles after covering 330,000 miles (for comparison, pooled data from Tesla owners shows batteries losing about 10% of their charge after 155,00 miles)." Most people are looking at new cars by the time they have that much mileage under their belt. Further, they say, "Sonnad said the repairs, while unexpected, were not surprising after such heavy use of a new product. ”The early design iterations are still a liability,” he said. “But they all are remedied by the Model 3.” Sonnad is now switching his fleet to Tesla’s latest vehicle and expects the Model 3 to not only bring down maintenance costs, but ultimately half ownership costs compared to the pricier Model S or X. " ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2019, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-vehicle-critics/842254/712 "2019-11-16T01:44:21Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > At this point, I REALLY don’t believe any of the numbers EV proponents are tossing around in this thread. Do you disbelieve that every EV owner in this thread has driven 250 miles over two days with literally no issues? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2019, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-vehicle-critics/842254/713 "2019-11-16T02:12:28Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > In the scenario, if the 250-mile range car was following the 90% maximum daily charging limit that you say everyone would advocate, it would only have 225 miles of range available as it would start at 90%, not 100%, and therefore should not be expected to make the 235 mile trip. So people don’t seem to be presuming that you should regularly charge to only 90%, but that you should always have max range available on any given day. This is a fair point, even if is predicated on an unreasonable scenario. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with charging up to 100% for weekend trips or the like. The battery doesn’t really take wear from the charge, per se–it wears from sustaining that high charge level. So you don’t want to top it off to 100% every night and keep it there. In your scenario, which is where someone forgot to plug in the night before, we can plausibly assume that they also did not charge to 100%. For planned trips, the full 100% is going to be available but not if the user forgot to plug in. So yes, in your specific case a 250 mile range car is not quite sufficient. Of course, most people will have plenty of workarounds available: - stop at an L2 or L3 charger somewhere along the way (it almost doesn’t matter where) - top off at work - swing by home first to top off - drive a little more slowly Other possibilities are that you have a 300 mile car (long range Model 3, the new Ford Mach-E), or that you just remember to plug in before long trips. Another possibility is a new feature in the Tesla software: scheduled departure. You can set the charging to complete at a certain target time. This means the battery spends very little time at the 100% level, because you drive away as soon as it reaches that point. You still don’t want to use it all the time, but it means you can be a little more aggressive in charging to the high level. If there’s some uncertainty about your trips in the near future, you can set it to 100% and not worry so much. You just want to “burn off” the top 10% before too much time has passed. I know you’re going to say that all of this is “planning your life around the car”, but it’s all really easy and takes no more mental energy than planning gas stops. If you’re already plugged in, you can configure all this stuff in your jammies from bed. If you’re in an area with zero public charging infrastructure, and regularly make trips at the edge of your range–sure, an EV isn’t right for you. But very few people (percentage wise) are in that situation. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2019, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-vehicle-critics/842254/714 "2019-11-16T02:20:37Z")
this whole thing has reminded me to not get into discussions about specs with geeks. Geeks will pound specs into the ground even though nobody else cares about them. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2019, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-vehicle-critics/842254/715 "2019-11-16T14:29:22Z")
> [@echoreply](#): > > Before you get all bent up about now having to monitor the charging limit, remember that the car takes care of all of it. Set the car’s charge limit to 90% once, plug in, and don’t ever worry about it again. The iPace limits charging to 90% behind the scenes. In other words, what shows up as “100% charged” is 90% of the battery capacity. It’s one reason the range is only about 230 instead of around 250. I think I prefer the Tesla approach, but it doesn’t really matter to me (I’ve never once been below 30% charge, and normally between 60 and 90 at the end of the day). ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2019, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-vehicle-critics/842254/716 "2019-11-16T15:39:16Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > The iPace limits charging to 90% behind the scenes. In other words, what shows up as “100% charged” is 90% of the battery capacity. It’s one reason the range is only about 230 instead of around 250. I think I prefer the Tesla approach, but it doesn’t really matter to me (I’ve never once been below 30% charge, and normally between 60 and 90 at the end of the day). charging to 100% (actual 100% cell capacity) is kind of hard on them, and you don’t really want to do it that often if you care about longevity of the battery. I’ve been in R/C for a while and I’ve seen (and backed away from) more swollen LiPo packs than I care to mention. ---
**Author:** ![YamatoTwinkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/cc9497/32.png) [@YamatoTwinkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YamatoTwinkie)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2019, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-vehicle-critics/842254/717 "2019-11-16T17:16:06Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > In this case, you seem to be engaging in the fallacy of the excluded middle. There is a lot of ground between ‘wish to have my bathroom, exercise, and food stops decided by the needs of an electric vehicle’ and ‘can’t stand stopping on a long distance trip for any reason’. I think if you seriously went back through this thread, you’ll see multiple times I (and many others here) have repeatedly stressed exactly what you’re complaining about- there’s an excluded middle here. For two car households with garages, EV adoption is likely going to be pretty painless, and may even be more convenient than having two gas cars. For single car apartment dwellers that drive several hundred miles every weekend to rural destinations and hate stopping, owning an EV is simply not feasible right now. Ditto for everyone that simply can not afford $40k on a new vehicle. Everyone else is somewhere in the middle spectrum. As battery costs come down and charging infrastructure gets better, EV annoyances are going to get less and less, until their inherent advantages (powertrain, full tank every morning convenience, lack of moving parts or oil changes, low brake wear, quiet, cheap cost of fuel) are likely going to be enough to balance out their shortcomings for many/most drivers. I don’t think any of that is in question. We’re just arguing about how many make up the middle right now, and how long it’s going to take. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2019, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-vehicle-critics/842254/718 "2019-11-16T17:21:42Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > So yes, in your specific case a 250 mile range car is not quite sufficient. Of course, most people will have plenty of workarounds available: > > - stop at an L2 or L3 charger somewhere along the way (it almost doesn’t matter where) > - top off at work > - swing by home first to top off > - drive a little more slowly > [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > I know you’re going to say that all of this is “planning your life around the car”, but it’s all really easy and takes no more mental energy than planning gas stops. If you’re already plugged in, you can configure all this stuff in your jammies from bed. It’s amazing to read both paragraphs above and not shake your head in disbelief. Very few, and I mean VERY few people can top off at work. Almost everybody can fill their gas tank, anytime, anywhere. Suggesting people return home so they can wait while the car tops off is just bizarre as is driving more slowly. Planning to take delays like you suggest may be easy to figure out but the execution is time consuming. It means you are compensating for the shortfalls of the car. As for the mental energy used to plan gas stops that’s outright hilarious. I don’t know how much gas is in my car, and I don’t care. It can sit out in the freezing cold or hot indefinitely and I don’t care. Fuel planning involves getting in the car and driving away. There’s gas 24/7 everywhere I go. If I lived in a location prone to weather or fire emergencies I would keep (2) 5 gallon gas cans in the garage. That gets me hundreds of miles away even if my car is on empty. I already keep fuel oil on hand in case the power goes off. The bottom line, by your own admission, EV’s and the supporting infrastructure have gaps in user functionality that require additional resources and that resource is usually time. As battery and infrastructure improve the gaps will shrink. Your posts seem to focus on the ability to compensate for the shortfalls b ut they are not presented as shortfalls. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2019, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-vehicle-critics/842254/719 "2019-11-16T17:22:31Z")
> [@YamatoTwinkie](#): > > Ditto for everyone that simply can not afford $40k on a new vehicle. Good post. I’ll just point out though that I am in the group that cannot afford $40k on a new vehicle (I have never bought a new vehicle) I spent under $15,000 CAD ($11,300USD) on a LEAF that was just off lease. It had 23,000 km (14,000 miles) on the odometer. It was the newest, lowest mileage car I have ever bought. It now has nearly 60,000 km on the clock, and has been a dream to drive. I will need new tires shortly, but other than that, have spent $0 on maintenance. As more new cars enter the market, more cars will come into the used market. Right now there are few EV’s on the used market - because FEW PEOPLE ARE SELLING THEM. This tells you something. The LEAF was a big seller in 2013-2016, particularly leases. These are the majority of used EV’s available now. This will change. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2019, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-vehicle-critics/842254/720 "2019-11-16T17:28:47Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > It’s amazing to read both paragraphs above and not shake your head in disbelief. > > Very few, and I mean VERY few people can top off at work. Almost everybody can fill their gas tank, anytime, anywhere. Suggesting people return home so they can wait while the car tops off is just bizarre as is driving more slowly. I’m trying to think of a situation where an EV with ~250 mile range can’t get you to work, your after work errand(s,) then back home to recharge. Why is it when the topic is EVs suddenly everyone in this country has to drive 400 miles every day? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-vehicle-critics/842254.md?page=35) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electric-vehicle-critics/842254.md?page=37)