Cherrypicking, anecdotes as data, and “my post is my cite,” all on one post! Bravo! Bravo, I say!
Fallacies in someone’s arguments do not mean that the inverse of the argument is the truth. Limits on the data I can produce showing that Teslas are unreliable does not mean they are reliable.
Which is more likely to be true:
a. A new automaker, ignoring many conventional processes with high turnover, has managed to create a complex vehicle better than companies that have been methodically refining their process for 50 years
b. Teslas are unreliable
Fantasy usually doesn’t turn out to be true.
They’re conveniently few and far between the number of gas stations along the highway.
Electric vehicles are going to be inherently more reliable than ICEs. Fewer explosions in the engine for one thing. Complexity and reliability are correlated for the same technology, but not for different technologies. I know for a fact that a microprocessor with a billion transistor was far more reliable than a power supply that was much simpler.
I don’t even type. I just talk to my car and it tells me where to go, and where to charge along the way. And while I’m going, the car does most of the driving.
So what? They just have to be frequent enough.
You’re still misunderstanding how charging works. You don’t drive until you’re on empty and then go oh shit, the next charger is 50 miles away. Instead, you stop regularly and charge just enough to make it to the next convenient charger. In most places, that means you stop every 2 or 3 Supercharger stations, since they’re placed around 100 miles apart in less-populated areas. That’s a good interval for rest breaks, too.
It’s not complicated. The car does all the routing if you want, but even if not you just bring up a map and pick out the locations you want to stop at. It’s no more difficult than any of the other stuff one might do on a road trip, like stopping at hotels or landmarks.
Your location says, Dayton. Here’s a map of the superchargers in your area. That doesn’t include destination chargers, or other charging stations, or your house.
Less than gas stations certainly, but they don’t really need to compete with gas stations in quantity.
Hmmm. So at that price you mention (10-20k battery), you are estimating an typical EV car battery is 60 - 120 Kwh @$170/kWh. You have the current price per kWh correct, but I do not know of too many EV’s (other than high end Teslas) that have a battery larger than 60kWh. You seem to be focusing on Teslas as a comparator.
The Current EV battery price is indeed averaging $170/kWh in 2018. This has fallen every year. from $1160/kWh in 2010. The drop in pricing is certainly expected to continue. The article estimates $94/kWh by 2024 and $62/kWh by 2030
Battery technology is also improving at quite a good pace -this should continue as the market sees a huge potential in putting research money into this area. I don’t see Ford being content to continue to sell Horse n Buggies.
I am focusing on EVs you can buy right now. Only the most moronic reality denier would say that even with improved batteries and reliable EVs at low costs that EVs would still be bad.
But right NOW they are still a luxury for the upper middle class and above. They are expensive to buy and more expensive to maintain. Go look for used model 3s on CarGurus. Ouch, right? And that’s just the purchase price.
I think I need to add to my rants in the original post:
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“EV’s are as technologically as good as they are ever going to get. There will be no improvements to the batteries or range. Therefore EV’s are useless”
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“Charging infrastructure is not sufficient for me. There are plenty of gas stations. There will be no improvements to charging infrastructure in the future, so therefore, EV’s are useless.”
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“Tesla is the only EV manufacturer that I will refer to. Look how expensive they are! Other car manufacturers will never produce EV’s”
I’ve had EVs for about four years and my maintenance bills have gone down to basically zero. What am I doing wrong?
What the holy hell are you talking about? That Model 3s haven’t lost much value? Like, ten seconds ago, you were complaining that cars that lose too much residual value adds up to a hidden cost for car buyers.
Pick one lame horse to ride on at a time, please.
Well, dammit EP, what the hell are we supposed to use for comparison?
Teslas are the gold standard for an electric vehicle.
But Teslas are expensive.
There are less expensive alternatives.
But the less expensive alternatives have even more limitations.
Then you want a Tesla.
The way this thread is going, I’m slowly switching my POV from “electric vehicles aren’t there yet for me,” to “electric vehicles have to resolve serious limitations before they’re anything more than a niche product.”
People in this thread have talked about the need to drive long distances with few charging stations, particularly in the Midwest and Great Plains; concerns about cold weather performance; the scarcity of service facilities; and last but not least, the cost compared to an ICE vehicle. I don’t feel those concerns are being taken seriously.
By the way, about Tesla quality:
Toyota is slightly above the 91 problems per 100 cars level.
Tesla isn’t ranked in an apples-to-apples way, but if paint is the main problem right now, I’m not seeing how SamuelA is making any criticisms worth listening to.
If you need to drive long distances every day in the midwest/great plains, then perhaps an EV is not the car for you right now.
Concerns about cold weather performance are (IMO) overblown
Scarcity of service facilities? What? Where did this idea come from?
Cost - sure - they do cost more. Right now. But of course, people generally suck at looking at TCO (total cost of ownership) for cars and other products.
I’m sure you were really considering an EV before this thread changed your mind.
Regarding the cost of Tesla cars, this should not be a surprise to anyone old enough to remember when VCRs or CD players or DVD players or flatscreen TVs were new products. They started off expensive (a thousand or more for a VCR or DVD player, perhaps $5-10,000 for a flatscreen TV) so only “early adopters” bought them (see this Wikipedia article for an explanation). Later, these things got cheaper and more people bought them. I remember reading that the magic price point for CD or DVD players was around $200; at that price point, the mass market was buying them.
I think Tesla has said that they deliberately started by targeting the high end of the market. In part, that’s because they needed the high profit margins of expensive cars to help recoup the massive initial investment in setting up the company. (And actually the first car wasn’t the Model S but the Roadster. I think the idea was to show that an EV could be a fast sports car, not just a boring slow compact car.)
I highly recommend you read Yann Martel’s High Mountains of Portugal. Although it’s fictional it definitely reminds me a lot of this thread. the protagonist is trying to buy gas for his car in 1904 in rural Portugal and a lot of the angst here is present in the book. It’s also a great novel, FWIW.
Yes, if you are in an area where level 3 charging stations are rare, you’'ll need to do some planning. Push come to shove though, anywhere there’s a welding shop or a garage will have a plug for level 2.
Cold weather driving? Have a look at Norway and the market penetration for EVs there. It gets a lot friggin colder there than most of the US and they don’t have issues, or, they plan for inclement weather!
If you’re not driving a Big Three vehicle where are you going to get maintenance done in small town USA? Plus, at least in Tesla’s case they send a mechanic to you!
As noted, the upfront cost of an EV is higher but the overall cost as noted much more elegantly upthread is lower.
It’s only going to get better as we go along but ultimately you as the consumer have to decide whether an EV will work for you. I live in a small city in N.Alberta and had the Model 3 LR been available as an option when I bought my new car I would have pulled the trigger. I’m aware of the trade offs and I guarantee my next car will be an EV.
As for price, the Model 3 is competively priced to other similarly equipped entry level luxury cars. Today, a Model 3 long range, dual motor (all wheel drive) with full self driving option would cost me about $49,000. An Audi A3 quattro, which is a smaller car, is about $43,500 MSRP. An A4 quattro, which is similar in size, is going to be over $51,000 MSRP.
The cheapest configurable Model 3 would cost me about $33,000, which is below the average new car price of $36,000.
I keep saying “me,” because Colorado has a $5000 tax rebate for EV purchases, so adjust EV prices as appropriate for where you live.
It’s totally legitimate for somebody to decide they don’t care about all the stuff that makes the high end cars more expensive, and get a $24,000 base model Camry. It’s also just whining to complain that the $24,000 car doesn’t have all the features of the $50,000 car.
Several years ago, I was curious about how the price of the Tesla Model S compared to the flagship luxury sedans of some ICE manufacturers. The Mercedes S600 was about $180,000, the Lexus LS600 was about $120,000 and the Hyundai Genesis was about $60-70,000. Meanwhile the Tesla Model S was about $80,000. (All of these numbers are from memory so please excuse me if any are wrong.) My point is that the Tesla was priced to compete with other cars in its class. And I recognize that all of these cars are much more expensive than the average or what most of us spend on cars, but that just means they’re not for you (or me).
I made my initial concerns clear inpost #8 and again inpost #19
It’s not like I came in at post #300 and started threadshitting.
You say my concerns about cold weather performance are overrated? Then show me some data from Tesla, Ford, Toyota, *Motor Trend *magazine or someone who’s actually done a performance test in 0-32F weather - which is what we have in the upper Midwest four months or more each year.
I started out in this thread thinking I could charge an EV at home in maybe 12-14 hours. Turns out I was wrong. I can’t do that with a 120V circuit, so I have to pay an electrician to come in and run a 240V line from my circuit box in the basement to my garage.
Of course, that’s assuming you have a garage and enough juice for a 240V line. My kids who live in apartments don’t have hookups for an electric range or dryer, so I really don’t know how heavy their wiring is, or how they’re supposed to convince their landlords to install 240V lines to their parking lots, so they can pay for a charger.
Scarcity of service facilities? I’m going to assume that if my Toyota EV breaks down, my local dealer can get parts in a day or so, if there’s someone at the local dealership who knows what to do once they get them.
But Tesla? According to their own map, there are entire states that don’t have a service facility. And Tesla’s statement about mobile service
manages to weasel three times in two sentences.
Several posters have compared electric vehicles to gasoline powered buggies in the early 20th Century, making the point that we’re too short-sighted to see the future. But this overlooks that gasoline buggies won out over several competing technologies, includingsteam power, crude lead-acid batteries and, later on, turbine power. When I had Ford as a client in the 80s and 90s, they were looking at electric, natural gas, fuel cells, methanol and probably a lot of other alternative vehicles that I’ve forgotten. What’s with this absolute assurance that a vehicle hauling a 1,200 lb. battery pack that costs $3,000 to replace is the anointed successor to gasoline and diesel?
How are the other alternative technologies doing now? If you’re floating the idea that something else will knock those 1,200 lb. battery packs off their pedestal, I presume you’re aware of some contenders. Right? Because otherwise absolute assurance doesn’t seem so dumb.