You have to attach sugar cubes to lampposts.
Jesus Christ.
This is incorrect. A bad or dead 12 v battery in most EV’s will mean it will not start. (At least I know this is true for a LEAF) And will have to be jumped. And yes, you can jump an EV with an ICE vehicle if the 12 v battery has been discharged.
If you don’t have a charger at home, you should buy a more efficient electric car with a smaller battery.
But if you are buying a big, powerful EV with a humongous battery, a level 2 charger at home would be a must, IMO.
So for example, the Tesla Model 3 uses 253 Wh per mile. A typical level 1, 120V charger will charge at 1.2kW. So, you could go about 4.7 miles after an hour of charging, or 37.6 miles in 8 hours.
So if your driving is less than that per day, a level 1 charger is all you need. Even if you drive a little more than that on average and deplete the battery a bit each weekday, if you can get in a long charging session here or there you might be able to stay topped up.
At the other end, a Rivian R1S needs 488 Wh per mile. So your level 1 charger would only provide 2.5 miles per hour, or 20 miles in 8 hours. Unless you don’t drive very much, you would have to top off that vehicle at a supercharger on a regular basis. And supercharger power is much more expensive.
Most of the luxury EVs like the Audi e-Tron, Jaguar i-Pace, Porsche Taycan, etc are over 400 Wh/mile Most of the mainstream EVs are in the 300-400 range. A few like the Teslas are under 300. I’d look at those first. The Hyundai EVs are almost as efficient as Teslas.
So,whether or not you can get away with level 1 charging very mich depends on the vehicle and how much you drive it. I would not buy a Lightning or a Rivian or similar without a home level 2 charger.
Oh, I forgot that EVs still have low voltage systems with batteries. You are correct.
The joke amongst LEAF owners is:
Car won’t start? 12V battery
Car slows unexpectedly? 12V battery
Strange dash lights? 12V battery
Whining noise? 12V battery
Dirty floor mats? 12V battery
Car missing? 12V battery
Heh.
Is there a reason why this needed to be done? Was it not possible to step down voltage from the main battery? I assume that’s what they are doing in the Cybertruck with its 48v low voltage system, but maybe I’m wrong,
As I understand it, you need a reasonably significant charge in the 12v battery to power up the computers that monitor the HV battery and then close the contactors to engage the HV into the circuit.
No clue. All I know is my 12v battery is required to start the car.
I know virtually nothing about electric cars, but this seems to be so obvious to me that it hurts my head to think otherwise.
It would certainly be a major pain if I did not have the ability to plug in at home (I just use a 15 amp circuit - no special charger.) The convenience of having a fully charged car in the morning with no need to think about the location of public chargers is huge.
According to a road assistance service in Norway, electric vehicles fail at a lower rate than gas-powered cars in the extreme cold.
To be fair, this data doesn’t adjust for the age of the vehicles. Older gas-powered cars fail at a higher rate than the new ones and electric vehicles are obviously much more recent on average.
Also, subscription rates might certainly vary between old cars and new cars.
Finally, it seems like Viking oughta be able to break out subscriptions between EVs and ICE. (though after I typed that, I considered that a company like Tesla might subcontract to this company, and might be paying on an activity basis)
My young cousin lives in Seattle, has a pure EV and lives in an apartment that doesn’t provide charging. She loves her EV and hasn’t found it to be a problem since there is plenty of charging available in that city. She claims there are many free options and her work provides this as a bonus.
So, if you live in a big city, I think you can get by without charging at your domicile depending on your commute and lifestyle.
I just hear on NPR someone saying that one of the main reasons for the reduction in range in cold weather is actually running the heating system. This makes sense. With an ICE, all of heating is pretty much taken care of by redirecting the waste heat from the engine into the passenger compartment. Since electric cars are highly efficient you can’t do this and so you basically have to use the battery to run an electric heater.
With a Cybertruck, you throw a gas powered generator in the bed and snake an extension cord into the cab and fire up your space heater. Problem solved.
The new Dodge Ramcharger is a series hybrid pickup truck. It runs on a 94 kWh battery, but retains its 375HP engine strictly as a generator for the battery.
I think this is the future for large, heavy vehicles. Pure electric is hard to do iin a truck, but a series hybrid works fine. It makes the vehicle a little heavier and a little more complicated, but completely removes range as an issue. The Ramcharger can go 1100km on a full charge and a full gas tank. But in normal use it will go 141 miles on battery alone.
So it’s an electric truck that will always be battery-only in city use, but in winter or when you need to tow, the engine gets you there.
Don’t we already have a few EV threads? Is all this necessary?
I don’t think we have one in the Pit, maybe create one called “Stick this in your charging port”.
But yeah, this went from mocking Musk about EVs struggling in the cold to an informative and sober discussion on EV and ICE technologies.
Then let’s get it back on topic with something I call “all my kingdom for a door handle”.