Same for me, with the added issue of how well electric cars work in -35 C.
I live right in a city right on the Trans-Canada Highway, and so far I’ve only seen two charging stations in the city, one Tesla and one something else. There are lots of gas stations. Nor have I noticed any charging stations on the highway to Saskatoon, the largest city in the province.
I imagine the situation will get better somehow- either extended range, or more available charging stations. I mean, if range doesn’t increase, I foresee just about everywhere having charging stations available- restaurants, stores, convenience stores (especially those with gas stations attached) and so forth.
Right now it’s something of a pain in the ass that’s easily circumvented by buying a regular car.
I would think an extended range hybrid would fill the gap nicely for people away from charging stations or prone to power outages.
Out of genuine curiosity, if I were to switch from an ICE car to an EV, what upsides would be quickly obvious to me?
I don’t know you from a hole in the wall, but will take a stab at the average Joe who is considering one of the advantages they would see for most of their driving.
The first one would be lower fuel costs, and somewhat immunity to energy supply issues, the second one, would be not having to stop to fill up as you would wake up with a full tank. 3rd would be more power/torque. 4th lower maintenance requirements.
Toyota Mirai is already here in California. Hydrogen fuel stations are going up all over the place (Warehouses already have them)
So for people who have range anxiety, Hydrogen cars will remove that shortcoming. Hydrogen cars are EVs with a Hydrogen fuel cell inplace of a Lithium battery. They fill up in less than 3 mintues and go around the same miles as a regular gasoline car.
One of the best upsides I noticed years back was power, especially when you start up from a complete stop, even an average EV will have pickup like a muscle car.
The other is maintenance - virtually no engine oil changes, transmission oil flushes, etc etc
The biggest downside I have seen is tires. I have gotten an unfair number of flats on my Tesla and tires have been expensive compared to regular cars.
Yeah, people figured that out decades ago as the best compromise for the current situation. That’s why I bought my PHEV, so that I fill with gas about once every two months but if I need to leave town I have a 560 mile range, plus a couple of dozen miles cushion to find a station if I run out of gas.
But that’s emphatically not the point. EVs are necessary to break the dependence on fossil fuels. Over the next ten years, let alone the next generation, even the blindest, most in denial, cognitive dissonance mainlining pro-fossil fuel maniacs are going to have the reality of the consequences of global climate change stuffed down their throats. To mitigate those consequences just the bit sufficient to make the future livable - it’s way too late to push it back to the mere overload of fires, floods, droughts, storms, shore erosion, and extreme temperatures we see today - EVs have to be part of the million changes we need to collectively make. As EVs hit closest to home, convincing the tens of millions of new car buyers that EVs are good for them personally will ease society into a new attitude that fossil fuels are good for nobody, thereby speeding and funding those other million changes.
Will there be some small minority that will not equally benefit? (That is, from an EV: they will certainly benefit by less freak weather.) Undoubtedly. No change can be perfect or even preferable for everybody. It is equally true, however, that making no change to the status quo can be perfect or even preferable for everybody. Change will happen. The only issue is which changes, to what extent, when, and how many people you are comfortable with letting die while you make up your mind.
Yeah I’m probably something of an anomaly when it comes to car ownership. We have one car but I commute either by bike or bus and have done so for almost my entire working life.
If I was single, or married to someone else, I wouldn’t even have a car, and I’ll be retiring in about two years. So as a “what next” car decision, it’s an interesting conundrum for me. My wife, however, will be making the main decision.
My guess is that hydrogen fueling stations are even rarer than EV supercharging stations. And an EV can be recharged at home, even if slowly using a 110V outlet. So I think a hydrogen car owner would have greater range anxiety than an EV owner.
Agreed if you are looking at today, but thats the future that we are working towards. A lot of funding is going into Hydrogen hubs both in the US and Canada. Canada is actually further along than the US.
And in the future there will be more EV supercharging stations.
Could be - if enough Lithium is found or if enough water is available to harvest it (Lithium mining is extremely water consuming) or if a new battery technology is available.
Based on the available data, Industry is betting on Hydrogen in the longer term but also hedging with Battery EVs. Hydrogen looks better than EVs in the power economics since you can generate hydrogen when the sun shines or he wind blows and store it in caverns for use when needed later.
Lithium batteries are never going to be that big to store power at a grid level.
am77494: Interesting. I’ve heard literally nothing about fuel cell vehicles in the last several years. The Mirai claims a range of 400 miles, which is about what I get in the Prius. It’s certainly enough to get me to the office and back (about 243 miles round-trip). Once there are easily-accessible hydrogen stations 200 miles or less apart, that would be a good car to look into.
You may like this map of fueling stations for alternative fuels : Biodiesel, Hydrogen, Electric, LNG, CNG, E85, …
It also has a trip planning feature where it will locate the fueling stations for your cross country trip for you :
https://afdc.energy.gov/stations/#/find/nearest
I believe lithium is very common and this seems to bear it out: “It is the 33rd most abundant element in nature”. from https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/lithium#:~:text=Lithium%20is%20present%20in%20the,%2C%20ground%2C%20and%20sea%20waters.
More lithium reserves are being discovered, including in US. Lithium was just not a major player and mostly a byproduct of mining other materials till recently. So things have not ramped up to the levels required but the material seems to be there in abundance.
Yes it is currently water intensive and the best places are dry, though again it’s early in it being a main material to mine.
True some manufacturers are hedging with hydrogen, but as a lifeline to the ICE, and I have not seen much in fuel cells. But I don’t share your view that is what is expected to come.
And while it can be a opportunity to store energy where there is a excess of power, it’s not all that efficient and more of a utilization of a byproduct, which would fill a nitch.
On a industrial level probably not but on a individual level with bi-directional charging (car to grid), and the average EV having power to power a home for 3 days, we just might have such a ability as the EV owner can sell back power. This also has been proposed as a secondary market for used EV battery packs which are no longer viable for EV’s.
Either way there is a need for storage.
From your own source : “It is the 33rd most abundant element in nature and is distributed widely in trace amounts in rocks, soils, and surface, ground, and sea waters.” (bolding mine)
It is estimated that Sea Waters carry around 5000 times that has been identified, but currently it is not feasible to extract from sea water
Lithium In Geochemistry.
Agreed and I have colleagues working on the mining projects in NV and UT. Very interesting and great times - great news from South America too.
That’s okay - I do not share your view either. What I see as a definite win for hydrogen over EV is :
From the web page:
Battery: 72 kWh (24 kWh x 3)
In fact, all fuel-cell vehicles (AFAIK) have a battery. You can see why from the other two specs on that truck:
Stack: 180 kW
Motor: 350 kW
The fuel-cell stacks supply only half the max power. The rest is supplied by the battery. The theory is that you only need peak power for acceleration and uphill, and the rest of the time the fuel cells can trickle-charge the battery.
And probably true on relatively flat ground, but if the area is remotely mountainous, that battery capacity won’t be sufficient, and the fuel cells will only have enough power to crawl up the hill (worse than typical diesel trucks).
A pure EV with a giant battery has power to spare, though. It can put in a much larger motor and never reaches a point where that power can’t be used.
A fuel-cell vehicle could put in more stacks… but those are expensive. So instead you get this middle ground where there is still a battery (not as large as with a full EV, but not small either).
Alas, no hydrogen until Sacramento, 863 miles away.
Nothing on the 5 from the Canadian border to there.
I think that others have mostly gone over them, but I’ll summarize and expand a bit. Some of these may be slightly Tesla-centric, but not exclusively:
Overall, EVs massively decrease the cruftiness of cars. There’s a bunch of extra stuff that ICEs need to function that just completely goes away.