Electric Vehicle critics

[Spiderman]

@YamatoTwinkie

Dunno about the nav question, but plugshare should be able to help answer your other questions.

For instance, if I zoom to my state, filter to “Supercharger, CCS/SAE and CHAdeMO” only (i.e, level 3 charging), and set the minimum power level to 50kW, I get 106 charging locations. 31 of which are Tesla superchargers.

However, setting the minimum power level to 70kW, I only get 41 charging locations. (31 of which are superchargers, the other 10 are CCS/SAE only). I think something like a Nissan Leaf uses CHAdeMO for DC fast charging, so I think you have zero options in my area above 50kW.

Around here public gas stations, by law, must have an attendant. Search YouTube & you’ll see videos of some idiot driving down the road with the gas hose still in their vehicle. Modern pumps have breakaway hoses so you don’t pull the whole pump with you & have gasoline spewing all over the place but that pump is now not usable until fixed. I can’t tell you how quickly it’ll be fixed but at least the attendant knows about it by the end of their shift.

How often is someone checking remote filling stations to ensure they work, either because of vandalism or driver incompetence? Who is responsible to fix them; the property owner, Tesla, varies based upon location? Some of the recharge stations along one of my routes only have one plug, & at least one (relatively nearby) is only open during the hours of the car dealership that it’s located at, meaning no nights or Sundays. If I get to one on Sat evening & it’s unusable, I may be SoL as there are no other available nearby.

Also, if I run out of gasoline, roadside assistance will give me a gallon or two, enough to get to the nearest gas station. Is it true that if you run out of charge you can’t get roadside juice; that you need to get towed to the nearest charger?

[Dr.Strangelove]

@Spiderman

Is it true that if you run out of charge you can’t get roadside juice; that you need to get towed to the nearest charger?

That’s the way it works today, unfortunately. I’m surprised no one’s built a mobile fast charger yet. I guess demand is too low.

There is an amusing alternative. EVs can regen at a serious rate–roughly on par with fast DC charging. You can thus tow an EV about 20% of the way to the next charger, and in that time it will have gotten enough charge to make it the rest of the way. For every mile of towing, the car can go something like 4-5 miles on the regen charge.

No one’s going to actually do this, due to safety issues with tow straps and the like… but it’s a fun idea.

[SamuelA]

@Spiderman

Also, if I run out of gasoline, roadside assistance will give me a gallon or two, enough to get to the nearest gas station. Is it true that if you run out of charge you can’t get roadside juice; that you need to get towed to the nearest charger?

As it is today, yes.

The tow truck would need to have onboard a battery pack about the size as the one in an EV, and an onboard DC fast charger. The technical detail that would make this work is the EV battery onboard the tow truck has a few more cells in series, giving it a higher DC voltage than the one in a typical EV. (then, the DC charger circuitry would turn FETs on and off to regulate the voltage back down to the voltage needed to DC fast-charge that particular EV)

This is a totally practical solution, and the charger would obviously be compatible with all 3 fast-charge standards. It would be capable of 150-250 kW, depending on the model of EV. At 250 kW (in the next few years every production EV will likely support that speed), you regain about 750 miles an hour, or, more realistically, you probably need about 50 miles to reach the nearest DC fast-charger or home in most scenarios. Or 5 minutes of charging.

Amusingly the tow-truck would probably still have a diesel engine and would recharge itself with an extra-large alternator on the route to the next customer.

Anyways, this doesn’t exist now and won’t until there are enough EVs on the road - and people running out of juice - to support this. In the model T days there weren’t tow trucks right at first, you’d have to get towed by a horse drawn wagon.

I think you could design this add-on to replace the equipment boxes on the sides of a typical tow truck and just retrofit existing ones.

[Dr.Strangelove]

@SamuelA

Amusingly the tow-truck would probably still have a diesel engine and would recharge itself with an extra-large alternator on the route to the next customer.

There’s no need for a big battery if the tow truck is a diesel. The latest F-350 turbo diesel is 450 hp, or 336 kW. Plenty of power available to turn a huge alternator/generator. Shit; you could almost just hook up a Tesla drivetrain with a power takeoff from the ICE engine, and pipe the output to the car that needs to be charged. Might need to software tweaks here and there, but the basic hardware is there.

[SamuelA]

@Dr.Strangelove

There’s no need for a big battery if the tow truck is a diesel. The latest F-350 turbo diesel is 450 hp, or 336 kW. Plenty of power available to turn a huge alternator/generator. Shit; you could almost just hook up a Tesla drivetrain with a power takeoff from the ICE engine, and pipe the output to the car that needs to be charged. Might need to software tweaks here and there, but the basic hardware is there.

That’s an interesting approach and possibly better than mine.

Cheapest way that involves the most off the shelf components might be a 300 kW diesel generator on the tow truck (separate from the drivetrain because cheaper to buy off the shelf) powering a 250 kW DC fast charger.

300kW Diesel Generator

Though, umm. Well the first one I looked up is gonna prevent the tow truck from towing anything with that generator eating up all the space and then some back there.

This looks a smidge smaller.

C9 (60 HZ) | 180-300 kW Diesel Generator | Cat | Caterpillar

[Euphonious_Polemic]

Have you people learned nothing from this thread?

Clearly, if viable, common options to charge an EV with a portable truck do not exist RIGHT NOW, then they are impossible, and will never exist.

[galen_ubal]

Following this thread with interest…

Y’know, I’d love to have an EV, but there are a couple of sticking points - one pretty minor, one less so. I’m in Australia, by the way.

I’d be happy to get one that fit my 99% use - commuting to and from work, a total of 10km tops. I’ll only drive further maybe six times a year, either to the nearest large airport, or 450km* to visit the in-laws. The first is much less necessary now, as regular passenger service has started at the local airport; the second is doable, but I’d have to depend on only a few charging stations en route, and assume that they’re functioning properly. I’d be okay with, and would rather, rent a car, or take the train.

First sticking point - we rent, and the owner is unlikely to front for a charging station. That’s okay for my 99% use case, as even a level one (plain outlet) will charge up 7+ km per hour, so I’ll have my commute accounted for within an hour and a half.
Second sticking point, and it’s the dealbreaker.
Right now, the least expensive EV is a Nissan Leaf, at around 55,000 AUD. A nicely equipped Mazda 2, a car I currently own and like, clocks in at around 21,000 AUD. I’d be willing to pay a premium for the smug factor - but not 2 and a half times as much. Half again, tops.
When EVs come down to around 30,000 AUD, I’ll give them a second look. Bring over a small city commuter car, and I’ll be happy. Until then, I just can’t justify it, even with the savings of an EV over an ICE.

In sum, for me, at this point, an EV isn’t practical. This in no way disputes the OP, of course.

(Couple of other notes - I don’t actually like the Leaf, as it’s a bit larger than I like to drive in town. It also only fits my 99% use case, unless I count on charging along the way. Given that there’s only a couple of charging stations between home and the inlaw’s place, I don’t know if I’d want to chance it. Tesla 3 has the range to do it in one jump, but that’s looking like 70,000 AUD, even harder to justify.)

*applying 10% fudge factor.

[Magiver]

@Euphonious_Polemic

Have you people learned nothing from this thread?

Clearly, if viable, common options to charge an EV with a portable truck do not exist RIGHT NOW, then they are impossible, and will never exist.

Just put a trailer hitch on your EV and tow a generator with a gen __ charging station. Then you can fill up at gas stations if needed. Or maybe Musk can sell a couple of power walls that look like surfboards and you can put them on a roof rack. Call it the Beach Boys option.

[Euphonious_Polemic]

@galen_ubal

Right now, the least expensive EV is a Nissan Leaf, at around 55,000 AUD. A nicely equipped Mazda 2, a car I currently own and like, clocks in at around 21,000 AUD. I’d be willing to pay a premium for the smug factor - but not 2 and a half times as much. Half again, tops.
When EVs come down to around 30,000 AUD, I’ll give them a second look. Bring over a small city commuter car, and I’ll be happy. Until then, I just can’t justify it, even with the savings of an EV over an ICE.

I have seen (on a LEAF forum I frequent) that EV’s including the LEAF seem to be horrendously expensive in Australia. This probably would have been a dealbreaker for me as well. I could currently get a brand new LEAF for $41,500 AUD (converted from CAD) and a 2016 with 40,000 km for $17,700 AUD (converted from CAD). Lots of used LEAF’s around me, but probably vanishingly few near you.

[galen_ubal]

@Euphonious_Polemic

I have seen (on a LEAF forum I frequent) that EV’s including the LEAF seem to be horrendously expensive in Australia. This probably would have been a dealbreaker for me as well. I could currently get a brand new LEAF for $41,500 AUD (converted from CAD) and a 2016 with 40,000 km for $17,700 AUD (converted from CAD). Lots of used LEAF’s around me, but probably vanishingly few near you.

Here’s the Australian page for the Nissan Leaf. And the one for the Tesla Model 3.
I imagine that the problem is the horrendous exchange rate at the moment - 1 AUD=.69 USD. Heck, even the Bolt (which looks good to me) would come to 56,000AUD.
There’s no Australian domestic car production - so all new cars cars are imported.
Additionally, so far as I know, there are no government incentives for buying EVs, and under this government I don’t expect any.
I haven’t looked for any used, but as you say, I’d expect them to be vanishingly rare.

Just about everything costs more in Aus - we call it the “Australia tax”.

[Ravenman]

@Spiderman

The above is from your OP. However, you’re doing the opposite side of the coin of what you’re bitching about in your OP. If they work for you, great! However, they don’t work for everyone.
They don’t work for people who don’t have dedicated (powered) parking spots at home &/or work, including city dwellers & many apartment residents.

More evidence that EVs simply cannot be made to work for these people. It just isn’t possible, ever.

[Gorsnak]

@Ravenman

More evidence that EVs simply cannot be made to work for these people. It just isn’t possible, ever.

That’s quite clever. Even if the existing wiring for the streetlight is insufficient for the charging load (not sure about that, wouldn’t be surprised either way) there’s existing buried conduit to allow for easy installation. That’s the hard part of the infrastructure work already done.

[swampspruce]

Funny you should mention towing a Tesla. This just came up in my Youtube feed this morning. Can You Charge A Tesla By Towing It? (With Ford Raptor) - YouTube

Probably the most environmentally unfriendly way to charge short of your own coal fired generator but looked wayy fun!

[Pantastic]

@Dr.Strangelove

There’s a longer article here. The data comes from a forum thread, so not as scientific as one might like, but the raw data is available and appears to be collected in a reasonable manner.

Couple of interesting things there: according to the full article, the engineer working Tesla recommends only charging the battery to 70% each day, not the 100% that EV proponents in this thread recommend and assume for use cases. Tesla will not warranty the 90% figure that’s being claimed, but only warranties that the battery will maintain 70% capacity (significantly lower than I was assuming). Bolt and Leaf are worse, only warrantying 60% or 66%.

I think it’s absurd to criticize me for using the figure that Tesla themselves claim one can expect (“greater than 80%”) and a figure that is significantly higher than Tesla is willing to put money behind (warranty is only 70%). If the retention numbers that some forum members are anecdotally gathering are true then good for end users, but I don’t think that they’re anywhere near well enough established that using Tesla’s capacity is somehow incorrect.

And the fact that no manufacturer offers a battery capacity warranty anywhere near as good as the figure I was using says volumes to me about what real-world users should expect.

[Pantastic]

@TroutMan

You really are going all-in on this argument that EVs won’t work because people will forget to plug in their cars, despite all the real people in this thread who have EVs, telling you they don’t forget.

I have literally never made that argument, much less gone “all-in” on it. 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. I actually don’t think the SDMB is typical of ANYONE, there is a lot of weird stuff on here.

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.

@begbert2

Seriously, the bullshit about having to look up a charger. You also have to find gas stations. What, you say you can just drive until you pass one? Like that’s any easier than just having your car tell you where to find one. Absurd.

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.

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.

[Ravenman]

Oh, I didn’t realize that warranties are more authoritative than actual data.

Guess all of my household appliances are gonna crap out after one year.

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.

Again, I’m curious as to how often your cell phone runs out of charge.

[Pantastic]

@YamatoTwinkie

Yes, this sort of spontaneous trip would be more difficult to plan for with a Tesla, take extra time, and with more risk of things going wrong (hotel charging availability at arrival is probably the biggest concern) I’d like to point out, that:

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.

1. Regarding the lack of a supercharger servicing the Charleston, SC area, it’s almost like Tesla heard your concerns, and have one with target opening in 2019!

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.

2. You don’t really have to “sit down and check” the map, since this is all planned within the car’s navigation for you, showing supercharger destinations and other destination chargers, including data on how many spots are available.

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.

3. No idea where you’re getting 3 hours of charging from. Just for reference, I have a Long Range Model 3, which per your reference, has 273 miles of range when driven at 80mph, and 417 miles when driven at 55 mph. Even assuming driving at 80mph, charging stop time at Santee, SC is going to be ~10 minutes to get enough range to make it to Charleston.

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.

@Dr.Strangelove

Yet again you’ve exaggerated your case.

You spend 30 minutes there and add 200 miles of range,

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’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.

Let’s also assume you drive at 65 mph. I know you like to drive 80, but that’s to save time. But in an EV, driving faster doesn’t necessarily save time. So let’s stick to 65. You might even avoid a ticket!

No, we’re not going to assume that I drive at grandma speeds. I did the trip with cruise locked in at 79 on the ICE, if I have to drive super slow with an EV to compensate for it’s battery issues, 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. It’s not ‘exaggeration’ to try to make the same trip that I did in an ICE car with an EV car. Also I haven’t gotten a speeding ticket this millennium and was getting passed routinely while cruising at that speed, so the ‘you might even avoid a ticket’ doesn’t really ring true.

[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.

[Dewey_Finn]

@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 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.

[echoreply]

@Pantastic

Couple of interesting things there: according to the full article, the engineer working Tesla recommends only charging the battery to 70% each day, not the 100% that EV proponents in this thread recommend and assume for use cases. Tesla will not warranty the 90% figure that’s being claimed, but only warranties that the battery will maintain 70% capacity (significantly lower than I was assuming). Bolt and Leaf are worse, only warrantying 60% or 66%.

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.

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.