I bet the engine really purrs, though.
Ever heard the sound of a catfight?
Unfortunately, that.
Which will be offset by the anti-bird brigade, who will be developing wind-powered cats.
I’m also not sure where they are getting the “divided by 25 miles” part. Are they saying that the car can only go 25 miles on a full charge?
Because there’s another order of magnitude off.
And then there’s the fact that they are comparing it to a car that gets 32 mpg, which I doubt many who are taking that side of the argument has. (Also, gas isn’t $3.19 anymore.)
So, that takes it down to less than a penny per mile for EV, compared to their gas guzzling SUV, which is probably closer to a quarter per mile.
They were talking about the Volt, a plug in hybrid that gets 25-40 miles per charge and then starts using gas. (That’s what mine got anyway, but I heard the new versions had more EV range)
Grease already had them.
That is what he meant, right?
Yeah, exactly. The rest of the post was specifically using the Volt as the example of the ‘bad’ EV.
Other bad info in that post:
- Houses only have 100 amp service
- Teslas require 75 amps to charge (and need that continuously)
- Only 3 houses per block of 25 houses could have an EV before the brownouts start.
EV makers need to put noise-makers on their vehicles. Judging by what I hear around here is that a large percentage of the population won’t be happy until they make loud, obnoxious noises when the tromp on the throttle, not just a louder.
Add a black-smoke bomb and they’ll be golden.
Actually, for pedestrian safety (especially for the blind), noise makers are not a bad idea.
It’s already a requirement in the EU and the US at low speeds. More of a ‘strange’ sound than obnoxious, though, so that may be a turnoff for some.
The Niro EV has just that. It has a reverse beeper and a fake engine sound. The fake engine noise sounds like a futuristic space ship (think: Jetsons). The reverse beeper is so ungodly obnoxious there’s a number of ‘hacks’ to turn it off (which also turns off the fake engine sound). In Europe, there’s a button on the dashboard to disable the sound. In the US, there’s no such button. The ‘normal’ way it gets disabled is to take off the front bumper and disconnect the speaker. However, some people have found that even though the button isn’t there in the US model, the wiring is, so they’ve added their own button.
One of the interesting problems the reverse beeper creates is that it’s so loud, a lot of people end up putting the car in reverse, punching the gas and picking up enough speed to either put it into neutral and coast the rest of the way (without the beeper) or just backing up really fast to get it over with faster.
Another interesting thing was that for a while there was a debate about how obnoxious the sound actually is. A lot of people, myself included, absolutely hate it. There was also a large swath of people that didn’t mind it at all. After a while people started realizing that, in general, the people that hated it were in the US, the people that didn’t mind it were in Europe.
You can hear the difference between the two models here (note: both cars make essentially the same “idle”/forward sound).
US:
Europe:
The ‘forward’ sound, while kinda odd, isn’t really a big deal. It’s pretty quiet and not at all jarring. It’s the reverse sound (on the US models) that annoy people. However, there is an upside. When backing out of a spot in a crowded parking lot, people will stop walking while they try to figure out where the sound is coming from (because they assume it’s a nearby truck backing up).
Also, I assume that the button to disable the sounds on the European version only lasts for that specific drive. I know when people add the button to the US model, pushing it once disables the sound, pushing it a second time turns it back on and it’s always on when you start the car. The idea being that it always defaults to on, but you can turn it off when, for example, you’re backing out of your driveway and don’t want to wake the neighbors. Presumably, that might also put more of the burden on the driver if they hit someone.
That’s what it was. A few weeks ago one of the entitled people Reddit readers on YouTube mentioned their EV sounded like “a cartoon spaceship” which enamored a small child to the point where an entitled mother demanded he (the child) be allowed to drive it in the parking lot.
The latest:
“I will never get an electric vehicle because you can’t use one to plow a 100 acre field”
OK dude. I really don’t expect my Nissan LEAF to plow a field, but you do you. I’m tempted to respond that his combine is no good, because you can’t use one to commute to downtown, and park in the underground parking. But I don’t think he’d understand.
I think part of the problem is the tendency for some people to be simply unable to understand that there are OTHER people out there with OTHER needs.
This may be the reason for the overlap between anti EV and anti-Vax people. They basically have no concept that there are people out there other than themselves. They are fundamentally ego-centric, and have no understanding of other people, or that society has complex structures that help everyone function effectively. It’s all about them.
It really does sound weird. Honestly, for a while I wasn’t 100% sure if it was a fake sound or if it had something to do with the motor or regen brakes*. However, the car is dead silent until you put it into drive and the noise abruptly stops once you hit a certain speed.
*To me, it sounds like a linear motor that you’d find on a roller coaster.
To all those people, I’m really hoping the F150 Lightening does well and that construction people take a liking to it like they have with the ICE F150. Not so much to rub it in their face, but that way they can argue with their friends/co-workers/boss about how stupid their truck is instead of arguing with me about it in line at the grocery store.
Also, it should probably be noted that less than a 100 years ago, that was pretty much the same argument you would have heard about horseless carriages. I’m guessing these guys wouldn’t have any interest in turning in their farming and construction equipment and replacing them with horses.
My old Ford Torus couldn’t plow very well either.
I think this is what’s going to break EVs wide open for more widespread use. Just reading about the Lightning makes me want one, and I think once people see it in the wild, and hear about how you can drive a truck and not break the bank at the gas pump, it’s going to go absolutely crazy.
I’ve been saying the same thing for a while. There’s a lot of pick up drivers that will dismiss EVs because that’s what they’re ‘supposed’ to do. But the business owners will buy one since, from what I can quickly see, it costs about the same to buy, but works out to about 2-4x the mileage that a similar ICE F150 gets.
I’ll bet it was pretty good at delivering the donuts though.
That’s probably true, but not for me. I’ve driven trucks, specifically the F150, for quite some time because they’re the only vehicles I can find I actually fit in comfortably. But I’ve been saying for years that the EV guys should be making EV trucks, because they overcome all the biggest limitations of EVs, both real and perceived.
The biggest limit has always been the range, and the easiest way to improve range is a bigger battery. But with small vehicles, it’s hard to put a bigger battery in the thing. But with trucks, they’re designed to carry lots of stuff, usually have a really large gas tank, and a big engine. The tank and engine space can be used for batteries, and if you need even more, you can sacrifice some of the cargo bed area as well, without seriously impacting the use of the truck as a truck.
And not only that, for tradespeople, they’ve added a lot of electrical outlets, so your truck can power most of your tools, eliminating the need for portable generators at the worksite. That eliminates one whole work system, and it’s related overhead of money and time, right there. Just pull up, plug in, and get to work.
Once a few guys see that on the worksite, they’re going to want in on it.