unfortunately, the slow sales of everything not-Tesla doesn’t bode well… the market for EVs needs to be bigger than the Elon Musk Fan Club.
Jesus Christ, can you quit it with the ridiculous “automaton” argument?
If you have an electric vehicle you plug it in at night. It’s what you do. It’s no more a weird edge case to charge it every night than it is to close the garage door every night.
The thing about life is that it’s full of tradeoffs. The problem with your argument is that you devalue everything potentially positive about EVs and infinitely value the single thing that differentiates an ICEV from an EV.
EVs are still very new. The infrastructure is being added incrementally, the utility is being improved incrementally, the market share will increase incrementally as well. However, as the OP said, there’s a group (including you) who will just say What If… over and over again as if that proves EVs don’t work.
Yeah, if you don’t charge it, if you decide to make a bunch of long trips in a row without charging it, you’ll have a problem. Just like if I drive my ICE car after the oil light comes it the engine will destroy itself. When I was young, I had a car that wouldn’t start in the cold, one that would stall on hills, one that wouldn’t start if the engine was too hot, one that tended to overheat… Twice I had cars throw fan belts, once I had a timing belt break, a broken fuel pump, I had a bad starter strand me in a parking lot. Guess what every one of these “I got my ass stranded somewhere” problems has in common*. Then guess what kind of car never has a problem with the fuel pump or starter, doesn’t break fan belts or timing belts, doesn’t overheat or stall**.
But, but, but I have to remember to plug it in!
*Besides they were all ICE cars, I will also accept the cars were all old pieces of crap. (thank you AAA)
**Besides EVs, I will also accept a car that’s not an old piece of crap.
Yes, yes, yes! The irony is that Elon surely seeks wide-scale acceptance of EVs, and yet a good number of his disciples actively spread FUD about every non-Tesla EV. It’s awful.
The ones that went to fancy private schools in New England:D
Moderator Note - A word accidentally inserted by autocorrect has been fixed, both in the original and in the quoted versions, so some of the comments on the original may seem a little odd now.
I thought those were Subarus.
I agree with EV supporters. I really do.
It’s the way things will be. That’s fine. And the market will drive what outliers like myself and my Wife need. Not want. Not desire. Need.
Build one with the same capabilities of a 2019 Toyota TRD Off Road Premium, and we’ll talk. The same 4x4 ability and also a good road car. I’m 58 years old. I drive over the continental divide twice every day. I know 4x4s. I’ve had 6 (that includes two plow trucks). My Wife is on her 4th. I used to drive a rag top CJ7. Was the only thing I could afford at the time that would get me to work and home. My Labrador retriever hated it (her name was Alpine, I’m enipla. That dog saved my ass she did). I grew to hate the CJ as well. But you do what you HAVE to do.
Others, please do buy EV’s. It will get the infrastructure and tech more in place. I’m 100% behind you.
Just don’t take away things that others need. Yes, that’s a concern. We exist. The Suburbanite that drives an F-250 pisses me off as much as you.
It seems to me that “EV critics” can be divided into a few categories:
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Those who make up or repeat absolute crap and lies in order to disparage EV’s. For example, posting pictures of an open pit copper mine, and say “here is a lithium mine” or saying that EV batteries only last 2 years and then can never be recycled. Thankfully, there are none of this category here on the SDMB
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“Edge case” folks who genuinely would have difficulty in purchasing/using an EV today. This would include people who live in extreme conditions of remoteness or weather. If you have to navigate 4 feet of snow for 200 miles to get to work, an EV will not be a good choice for you. Probably you need a specialized 4WD. If you live in a downtown condo in Manhatten with no access to parking at all, an EV probably will not work for you. You’d be better off using transit. Other, not so extreme examples are also certainly valid. I’m not sure why they would post their personal limitations about transportation in this thread, and think that they would apply to everyone, but there you go. For a not-insignificant proportion of the driving public, EV’s are not a good option at this time. And that’s OK. You don’t have to get one. But for a very large proportion of the public, EV’s ARE a good option.
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Folks who like to argue for the sake of arguing. Often this can be seen by the moving goalposts. A 100 mile commute becomes a 400 mile commute when it’s pointed out that the range of EV’s has increased lately. Suddenly, home charging is impossible, or too expensive, or long vacations must be taken after along commute. Something else always pops up to make an EV impractical. Cherry picking also occurs. The most expensive EV is used to show that EV’s are too expensive. The most expensive charging price is used to show that not much money is saved by EV’s. The shortest range of an EV is used to show that all EV ranges are too short.
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Some who genuinely cannot grasp that EV’s are “fueled” in a fundamentally different way. That if you have home charging, you may never need to visit an external charger. We’re so accustomed to our ICE cars and visiting a gas station regularly, that it’s hard to make the leap to thinking of a car where you NEVER have to go anywhere to get “fuel” Likewise, it’s hard for those who have never driven an EV to realize what a great experience it is.
Also, folks who cannot grasp that EV’s are changing and evolving for the better at a rapid rate. Ranges are going up. Prices are coming down. The charging network is getting better and better. An EV may not work for you TODAY. But check them in a few years when you’re looking for a car - they may work for you THEN.
Is ANYbody, here or elsewhere discussing “taking things away that others need”???
Of course you’ll still need a specialized vehicle to do what you do. Why on earth would I think that I should dictate that you can’t have it?
I can only infer that he’s worried that all the gas stations will go out of business due to lack of demand.
Which could happen. If the scenario occurs where in most areas EVs conquer the market but in some areas ICEVs remain in use because of environmental conditions, owners of ICEVs could find themselves no longer able to make those cross-country drives due to there not being any gas stations outside of the frozen north. Which would be a bit of an ironic reversal - having to rent an EV car when you want to take a trip, because your ICEV doesn’t have the range.
Well sure, but don’t blame ME if market forces make it so that your transportation of choice becomes niche and more difficult.
It’s also really silly that when people pretend that a whole bunch of really ordinary separate events, when combined together, don’t start getting statistically less likely to occur.
Your birthday is a somewhat rare occasion. Mondays happen pretty regularly. Telemarketers may call you randomly every other day. You may wear red socks once every 10 days, on average.
But you receiving a Monday telemarketer call while wearing red socks on your birthday happens about once every 140 years.
I’m not going to say that your example was some sort of weird edge case. What you’ve described are perfectly normal events, and they may actually happen to line up every week for you and for many others. That’s fine. No-one here from the “EV fanatics” side here has said that they are a one-size-fits all approach, and I can find dozens of examples within this thread affirming the opposite.
ICEs definitely have the advantage in the “Oh crap, I drove 200 miles yesterday, I’m on empty, I forgot to fuel last night, and I have to leave for the airport in 15 min to catch a flight! department”, and they may always do so (at least, until gas stations start to disappear)
But as mentioned, they have other advantages (full “tank” every morning at home, low cost of fueling, less moving parts to have potential maintenance issues, no transmission shifting/jerkiness, instant torque, larger crumple zone for safety, better traction control response, no engine noise, no gas/exhaust fumes) that may be worth the trade-off for many, or even most drivers, especially as battery prices fall, are capable of supporting faster charging rates, and Level 3 charger coverage gets better.
I see it. But of course it’s driven by the market. Crossovers being called SUV’s for instance.
Crossovers are smallish AWD hatchbacks. That’s OK. They are what they are.
This marketing is driven by the people that own vehicles that they don’t need. 'Cause they want an SUV. These new Crossovers are pretty capable, but you best not bang them around much.
I see F-250s in Denver. Half of those folks may have a need for one. Maybe.
It seems to be working out pretty well I think. A decent 4x is still available, but they are becoming more rare every year. Ironically, this may end up forcing me into a full sized pick-up for my daily driver. I already have a pick up (my second) it’s my plow truck. And trucks suck for lots of reasons.
Sorry I guess I’m not being very clear. I DO like the push towards EV’s. I do hate that some very capable vehicles are being pushed out though.
Actual people, as opposed to automatons sometimes come home, need to pee badly, so zip into the house to hit the bathroom rather than do car stuff, then since it’s comfy inside stay inside. And sometimes they just don’t plug in a device like a phone or vape even though it’s going to run out of juice later. For the garage door thing, the vast majority of people that I know either do not have a garage, or don’t use it to store a car so don’t close the door every night. And for people that do, if they don’t have an automatic garage door opener to close the door at the push of a button, they do in fact fail to close the garage door sometimes. Or is there an automatic car-plugger-inner that I’m unaware of?
If EV proponents are going to insist that people (or maybe just ‘people with EVs’) act like automatons that follow a proscribed routine every night without fail, I’m going to point out that real people aren’t automatons.
What argument do you even think I’m making? You seem to be engaging with a pretty heavy duty strawman.
You’re not going to admit that you’re saying it, but that’s what you are implying even if you won’t be open about it. You’re trying to pretend that the set of events ‘Went out late Thursday, didn’t plug the charger in, decided to take a short trip to visit a friend on the weekend, while driving my usual commute to work’ is a confluence of extremely unlikely and unrelated events like ‘receiving a Monday telemarketer call while wearing red socks on your birthday’.
You are absolutely hilarious.
If you are seriously arguing that you can’t remember to to basic things like plug an important appliance in…
Your kids may want to start looking for a home for you, because life in a modern society has clearly gotten too complex for you. Start looking now for one of those simple telephones with the really big buttons.
Actually, that exists, although I don’t think it’s something that they intend people to have at home. Another option is inductive charging, where the car starts to charge when it sits above a charging pad.
You know, I’ve had my Bolt for about seven months now. The number of times combined that either I or my wife have forgotten to plug the car in: zero
That zero also represents the number of times in that same seven months that we’ve forgotten to set the parking brake, take the keys out of the car, lock the car, shut the garage door, turn the stove off, walk the dog, etc.
Sadly I don’t think the inherent inefficiences of inductive chargers will make it feasible for the charge rates required for EVs. Would be super cool if it were workable, though. You’d need at the very least a retractable charge plate that would drop to the floor to get a better inductive coupling, and zero gravel/snow type debris between the plate and the floor. Very significant heating from the inductive losses, though, probably to the point of being completely impractical.
That’s as often than I forget to plug in my block heater in winter, and it doesn’t even particularly matter if I forget most days.
Responsible adults are not automatons, they’re just adults.