Thread on viability of Electric Cars

In My Humble Opinion
21

It’s bizarre that they can’t see that. Maybe that’s the tradeoff you get for trading innovation against quality–a degree of conservatism can lead to a highly refined product, but also holds you back.

I’m with Euphonious_Polemic here. I don’t know exactly how things will go down, but I agree that there will be damn few gasoline cars sold in developed nations in 20 years. Zero in some places, and only a few in others.

Car companies face a tough choice–go all-in with EVs, and possibly still fail–or don’t try (or half-ass them) and guarantee you will fail. It’s not a great situation to be in but one choice is clearly better than the other.

22

Obviously, electric vehicle manufacturing is very different than manufacturing IC engine vehicles. An electric vehicle motor contains only the rotor, stator, armature, commutator, windings and bearings. So the tools, equipment, factories set up to make transmissions, engines and so forth are no longer needed. And what happens to all of the men and women in the factory trained in how to make IC engines? Will most of them no longer be needed? I think this issue was a concern in UAW’s last round of negotiations with the automakers.

It’s possible that some of the existing automakers will no longer be as dominant in years to come, much as how IBM is no longer dominant in computing because of shifts in that industry.

23

I could easily see this in the entire civilized world with the exception of the USA.

Between pig-ignorance, worship of pickup trucks, and worship of the 5% of the populace who lives hard-core rural, I can see ICE pickups being 85% of the “cars” (ordinary family-owned vehicles) sold in the US 50 years from now.

24

I don’t see it, personally. Once we actually see a variety of pickups hit the market, I think even the pig-ignant will discover the virtues of EV trucks, such as:

  • Crazy torque that could tear a normal truck in twain
  • Insane power, too
  • Perfect application of said torque to conditions (ice, mud, etc.)
  • A huge honking power source for power tools, welders, etc.
  • Ability to use that power source even when generators aren’t allowed (inside, quiet hours at campsites, etc.)
  • New form factors and storage compartments enabled by the compact motors and batteries that don’t have to be in any particular location
  • True “off the grid” living, no fuel deliveries of any kind needed

Yeah, there might be some coal-rolling holdouts, but personally I think most people are just unimaginative rather than being actively opposed to new technology. You need to reach a critical mass to convince the rest, but it doesn’t necessarily require a huge percentage of people.

It’s not necessarily what will happen here, but I’m thinking of a couple of my Tesla referrals (I have 5 total now). While some were already big Tesla fans, others were just looking for a new car of any kind, not even particularly interested in EVs. What’s interesting is that I hardly did any “convincing”. I think that more than anything, my mere existence gave them the comfort they needed to go for it. Like: hey, Dr.Strangelove has one and he doesn’t have problems making trips or whatever. And we can always go to him for questions if we need. One of them wasn’t even shopping for an EV, but during our D&D sessions one of them said “We were trying out SUVs, but they’re all so dark feeling inside. They all have these really thick window frames that make it feel cramped.” Almost jokingly, I said they should try out a Model Y, since it has a glass roof and frameless windows. A week later I get a text asking for my referral code…

25

What do you receive for referring someone who buys a Tesla?

26

Currently, just some Supercharger credits. Fairly lame. But for the early referrals I got a wall charger and a set of 20" rims.

27

For the light vehicle segment, there’s really four, maybe five, problems with EVs that I can think of:

  • The up-front cost is higher than for a comparable ICE vehicle (though TCO is already comparable)
  • The range is still somewhat less
  • Infrastructure still isn’t quite there yet
  • Some vehicle classes aren’t covered yet (full-size SUV, eg)
  • Charging takes longer than tank-filling

The first four simply aren’t going to be issues in ten years. The top-end of the current crop of EVs have long-range versions of 300+ miles. Battery prices are coming down, kwh/pound is increasing, and miles/kwh is increasing: range is going get better with every generation. Cost is going to fall. Infrastructure is getting built. New models are coming out.

Only the charge time is likely to remain, and for most people that’s offset by hardly ever needing to charge away from home/work, or being able to do it while taking care of other errands. If you’re driving a thousand-mile trip every week, sure, it may be an annoyance.

The 2030-2035 as the sunset of ICE light-duty vehicles is seeming about right. A lot of countries are targeting that range, and now we’ve seen GM do the same. Whatever ICEs are sold in the early 2030s will still be on the road in the 2040s, sure, but they’ll be a dwindling portion of the fleet. It can’t come soon enough.

28

In Canada, our carbon tax is going up $15/ton per year, and will be $170/ton by 2030. That’s really going to hurt a lot of people, especially since Canada needs a lot of heating and almost everyone uses natural gas. ‘Turning the thermostat down a few degrees’ won’t do much when it’s -40 outside. So people won’t have much room to cut. As economists say, the demand for energy is fairly inelastic, especially in the short term.

We have an R2000 house and a couple of years ago I put in a high efficiency furnace. We have triple pane windows, etc. During the cold snap, our monthly energy bill hit almost $500, and we have some of the cheapest natural gas prices in North America. I’ve heard of people in Ontario getting $1500 energy bills. A $170 carbon tax will more than double the cost of natural gas to the consumer. Maybe triple it, once you factor in shipping and secondary price inflation.

Small businesses will be really hurt, especially the energy intensive ones like restaurants, coffee shops, etc. Tim Hortons and other such businesses will have to raise their prices significantly.

The Trudeau government plans to have a scale of rebates for some people, but that just gives them more control over the economy. By picking and choosjng who gets rebates, they can put their thumb on the scale of the economy even more. That’s bad.

The ‘social cost’ of carbon is a fictional number. There is no way to actually know it, and it depends on a whole lot of factors like the discount rate, how effective future mitigation is, how long we continue to burn carbon, what its effect will be decades down the road, what human migration patterns will be like decades from now, etc. No one knows any of these things. As a result, estimates of the ‘social cost off carbon’ start at zero and go up to hundreds of dollars per tonne.

A whole bunch of states are suing the Biden administration for using the social cost of carbon as a real number that justifies specific actions.

29

We’re shopping for a car right now and we’re probably buying a gas-powered one, although I hope it’s the last one we buy.

We want to be able to tow a camper trailer and while there exist PHEV and electric vehicles that can tow 5,000 lbs, they are cost-prohibitive. The cheapest one is the Ford Explorer Hybrid, which is $52k and up. Or we could buy something with similar towing capacity for $35k and up. Even if our electricity were free we’d never recoup the extra cost unless gas prices go up dramatically over the next ten years. If the federal tax credit were still there for that model, it would make the difference, but it is not.

With increasing sales of electric vehicles, I expect that gas prices will drop.

30

Yeah, that’s the difference between a ‘series hybrid’ and a regular hybrid in which the wheels are powered by both the engine and the electric motors.

I really like the series hybrid concept. You can use the same chassis as a fully electric car, saving on design and manufacturing. You need a smaller battery, saving lots of weight, but adding some of it back with a small gas or diesel engine.

Such a vehicle would be a great boon to anyone with unreliable power, and our power is all going to get more unreliable in the future. A series hybrid with a diesel engine is essentially a diesel generator with battery storage. You could run a remote site or power critical appliances in a blackout indefinitely. in an SUV, you can use it to drive to a camp site or work site, then use it there as a generator to provide all the power you need while also recharging the car battery.

I suspect you will see cars very soon that have the exact same chassis, but they’ll be available as all-electric or series hybrid. Want a generator with your electric to eliminate all charging worries? Delete the ‘frunk’, add the engine and extra parts for $5000, delete the $5000 long range battery option, and there you go.

That’s kind of what I’m hoping for. I’d love an all-electric vehicle that also has, say, a 5 HP diesel generator where the engine would have been. Something like that would only weigh a couple hundred pounds at most and could generate 7500W of power.

Add to that a charging circuit that automatically cuts me off the grid if it goes down and feeds power to my house, automatically starting the generator engine when the battery gets low, and it’s a hedge against blackouts, a tool for powering camp or wrk sites, and an electric vehicle with unlimited range so long as you can get diesel fuel and normal electric range without it. The best of all worlds.

31

I have a garage, but like many, it is full of crap, and my car has never actually been in there. I charge from the GFI plug that is just on the outside of my house by the driveway - I believe its the same plug that was put in when the house was build in 1966. Modern technology!

32

In a previous discussion on this topic (Not on SDMB) it was amusing to see the discussion with one particular gentleman.

He kept bringing up objection after objection. After each one was ruled out, he brought up another one. Ad infinitum. It was like playing whack a mole.

He started out with the “The grid can’t handle it”. When it was pointed out that incremental changes to the grid were planned, and this was not a problem (as it was not a problem when AC units became ubiquitous), then he moved on to others.

Finally, we ended up with his final list of “absolute needs” before he could consider buying an Electric Vehicle.

He needed the EV to:

  • Cost less than $20,000 new
  • Have a range of at least 1000 km (because it turns out that’s his daily commute)
  • Be able to recharge fully in less than 5 minutes
  • Be able to haul a 30 foot 5th wheel
  • Have room for 10 bales of hay, plus farm animals in the back
  • Seat 7 passengers plus driver
  • Be easy to park downtown
  • Operate efficiently in temperature ranges from -50 to +120

Once that kind of EV was for sale (nearby of course, he didn’t want to travel far to buy one), then he said he’d consider it.

33

For a while, I was charging in my driveway as well, with a cord running under the door to the outlet. No big deal, the bottom of the door just kinda squished over it. Had I a dryer outlet, I could have been at L2 charging.

It is remarkable that an outlet style invented a century ago and never designed to power a car, nevertheless works perfectly for the task. If you had to bring a car back in time to 1920, you’d be much better off with an EV than a gas car!

34

I actually never thought of that, but you’re right!

35

If he wanted to carry farm animals he was some sort of agrarian. Those folks are not noted for being forward thinking.

A 1000km commute is impressive even in my business. One wonders how he has time to feed the critters while doing so much driving each day.

36

What’s funny about all these things is that if the situation were reversed–someone had driven EVs all their life, and was looking at gas cars–they’d have a similar list of “absolute needs” that could not be filled by a gas car.

Well, it’s what I’ve said elsewhere. People have a very clear idea about what they’re losing when changing any technology, but a very poor idea about what they’re gaining. I guess it’s to be expected, but it’s frustrating since it seems so willful at times.

37

He was a “throw it on the wall and see what sticks” kind of fellow.

I think we worked out that he was a Long-distance-travelling-saleman-farmer-rancher-RV owner-city-businessman.

38

I think people are also really bad at picturing the future. They seem to think everything else is going to remain exactly like it is now, hence the arguments about the power grid and charging infrastructure being inadequate. Unrelated to EVs, I kind of remember in the mid aughts people saying things like “This streaming television thing will never catch on, because no one will want to have to sit at their computer to watch TV.” It’s like people couldn’t imagine that the internet and the devices connected to it weren’t always going to be like the ones that existed at the time. I think we’re seeing the same thing with EVs now, with people unable to imagine that doesn’t look like what exists right now.

In all fairness, ranchers driving a long distance to take cattle to auction, along with an RV to sleep in afterwards because apparently these auctions are located in small towns without many hotels, is an actual thing. Apparently that’s the purpose of the Centurion Van Truck – capable of towing a 5th wheel trailer, but with the luxury of a conversion van that you can sleep in. But that is admittedly a fairly small niche.

39

Just FYI, this is exactly me (including the city). I park on the street, but am planning to charge 95% of the time at work. There are several places near me that I can charge up while shopping/eating out/seeing a movie as well - some are free. We just got our new EV this past weekend.

The maintenance schedule on our new car for the first 15,000 miles is basically two tire rotations and some filter changes at 15,000 miles. No emissions inspections needed, either :slight_smile:

40

I think 5 HP is about 3700 W. But even 7500 W is not sufficient to move the car at an acceptable speed. So what purpose would this generator serve ? Aren’t you better off buying a Champion generator at Canadian Tire to meet your emergency home power needs, and saving weight in the car by only putting the generator in the trunk when you’re driving to Whitehorse (or fleeing the megastorm) ?

I have a Chevy Volt, which has a ICE engine/generator (something like 93 HP I think) and a 18.5 kWh battery. The car works as an EV until the battery gets low, then it’s basically a series hybrid, but it switches to a parallel hybrid mode in some contexts where it’s more efficient; they called it the Voltec system. Like many Volt owners, I’m disappointed that GM has stopped making it, but then I read this article, which explains that Voltec doesn’t scale : it can only work efficiently for a small car. It’s hard to hit the sweet spot between pleasant driving, electric range, battery weight, ICE weight, gasoline consumption and the cost of the whole thing; for an SUV it may not be possible, so manufacturers are looking at full EV instead.