Darunion
Supreme [H]ardness
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Electric Vehicle Sales Fall Far Short Of White House Goal
- Thread starter HardOCP News
- Start date
Thanks for the compliment
So I need to plan ahead so I can switch cars with the wife when the one with the electric cars needs to make a long drive? Then I need to take the larger van/suv that gets poor mileage when I make a long trip? Kind of defeats the purpose of having the electric car in the first place.
And what do you do when the unexpected happens?
We where away from home, I had a medical emergency and I was in the hospital for 4 days. If we where driving a Leaf or similar car, the wife would have had to worry about finding a place to charge it (more than once) as she drove back and forth from the hospital to the closest relatives house. Instead, even with a half tank of gas in my hybrid, she didn't have to worry and we even had enough gas left to drive home after the 4 days.
What happens if your kid borrows the car and forgets to plug it in? (sorry boss I'll be 4 hours late while my car charges). Not a problem with an ICE, as you just need a couple minutes to put $20 of gas in.
D
Deleted member 108676
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Thats because a c-max isn't meant as a highway cruiser. Its an in-town commuter. Samn deal with my Fusion Energi.
That's like buying a Lamborghini to use as a delivery service vehicle for furniture and bitching that you can't put a couch in it.
You dream about driving for 12 hours? Mine tend to shoot a bit higher than that
Remember, this is at the point when the car is driving me around.
And how long will it take the battery to charge
(assuming it didn't weight so much it would kill the mileage and leave no room for people)
12 hours at 65 mph is 780 miles.
Based on the Tesla model S (265 miles/86 KWH battery), that would take around a 255 KW battery.
The standard Tesla charger is 11KW, so it would take over 23 hours to charge.
Even their Supercharger station (up to 120KW), would take over 2 hours for a full charge.
byusinger84
Gawd
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Actually, it is an EV. It's fully electric for 40 miles. Then after that an electric generator comes on to sustain the battery level before you can charge again. The drive train is all electric as are the motors.
I can go weeks between filling up the 9 gallon tank because I hardly ever need the gas unless I need to go far in which gas the generator gets 35 in the city 40 on the freeway and I can go up to 300 miles on a full tank. So yes, it does have gas but in my opinion it's the best of both worlds right now. The 2016 Volts go up to 50 miles before needed to recharge and still have the gas generator if needed for longer trips.
How do you like the performance when merging onto the highway or passing with the Fusion Energi? I may consider one when I buy a new car in 18 months if they can get a little more EV range for it. I wish we could get an AWD version.
I had one of the first Fusion Hybrids made and was shocked at being able to get from Cincinnati to Chicago O'Hare and back on a single tank. That is 630 miles.
byusinger84
Gawd
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It had 58,000 on it. Leather too.
Wasn't that car originally rated at 47? Now it's only rated at 37 highway.
My Camry Hybrid is rated at 38 highway, but I usually get closer to 45 mpg if I keep the speed under 70 mph.
I had looked at the c-max, but I'm glad I didn't fall for the 47 mpg hype. Also didn't like the lack of a spare tire or any place to put one.
That's gotta be a very small subset of drivers. The Leaf is a commuter car and most commutes are less than 40 miles/day. That's 4.1 years if you do that every day of the year. I just can't imagine many driving that car 60k in 4 years.
Just looked this up. more than 99% of Leafs are using their original batteries, so reliability is pretty high, so far.
That's because it went away. But at one time they were subsidized. I believe it started in 2005 (give or take)
sfsuphysics
[H]F Junkie
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I'm not disagreeing with this, they have limited ranges due to the limited energy density of existing batteries. That said, companies sell mopeds for the same reason, they are not meant to be driven any distance, they are what they are.
Again, I'm not disagreeing with the financial side of things. Part of the cost though is the fact that this is "relatively" new territory that companies are venturing into, so there's R&D money that needs to get recouped so companies will end up lobbying to get subsidies from the government, so they can charge a higher price because the consumer will see the lower price, so net result they can charge more for their car and still potentially sell it.
See here's the thing, I'm not saying multiple vehicles, I'm saying quite a few people probably don't drive as far as they think they do. Many autos have gone to work and back, and various stores. Now everyone is going to be different, and yes IC cars don't have any such limitation, but the average person should ask themselves how often they really need a car with a 300+ mile range, took a trip every few years by car? They renting might be feasible. Sure there are people who do quarterly trips to Disneyland or something, so obviously those don't apply. Do you know anyone who doesn't even have a car? I'm not sure where you live, but that's a very real possibility where I live, and if you need a car there are rental options (Zipcar for instance).
And you obviously are not the demographic for an electric car, that's fine, however your argument should start and end with this. Don't justify why other people shouldn't want a car just because you like vroom vroom sounds.
There are many ways to look at what would be comparable when it comes to range/recharge time. You are right, if we are talking 350miles as the top achievable then yes it will never live up to that at less than 30 minutes of charge time. However if the range was more like you say of 1000 miles, then the recharge time becomes a moot issue. Generally speaking I'm not going to drive 1k miles in a day and if I do I'm not going to be wanting to get back on the road in 30 minutes or less. So that kind of capacity would actually in fact completely invalidate the entire charge time argument. However as it stands now where running the same distances as the average car is the bar, then yes 30 minutes for the pathetic range they currently get is as someone so eloquently put it already (Fucking useless).
As for the comment on my hipster remark. Not everything is an ad hominem attack mate. Sometimes things are just tongue in cheek. I'm pretty sure in the same post I said I would own an EV if it met reasonable criteria, so I'm obviously not attacking them for the sake of it. I'm pointing out very real problems with them and why they do not in fact compete with IC cars. As has been mentioned over and over, they are novelties for those with very limited travel needs and excess cash. Or to put it more frankly, the majority of the people that can use them could likely also largely get by on public transportation just as easily.
If you can't handle taking the right car for the job, then you are correct, an EV is most certainly not for you.
You could get an EREV like the Volt, but just stick to what you know, then you won't have to deal with any of that scary change stuff.
Chunder
Gawd
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The goal simply wasn't met due to the ever decreasing gas prices falling far too low. Lower gas prices are good for the economy/country in the short term for a quick economic boost... but long term all these people buying big expensive SUV's will be regretting buying their 12MPG vehicles, and an ever increasing future gas price will only drain money from other sectors of the economy..
If that happens, mission accomplished.
So by that token, those people who have these newfangled Intel processors and Titan X video cards are hipsters because they don't meet the requirements of the every day joe? Clearly, attaching the label hipster has to be the least emotional to response in comparison to saying, say, "the current EVs do not current meet my needs or budget".
Silly strawman is obvious.
I think that's physically impossible. A standard 120 volt outlet maxes out around 1500 watts. In 4 hours, you can get 6 kWh.
According to Tesla's site, that's enough to get you around 14 miles in a Model S.
Hey, whatever is convenient for you. It's definitely easier to deflect than to take ownership of one's thoughts on the internet.
Aside from the physically impossible charging times, this is a Chevy Bolt.
200 mile range, ~$30K with incentives.
It has a 60KWh battery.
Charging on 120v wall outlet(level 1) = ~33 hours
Home charging on 220v (level 2) is ~9 hours.
DC fast charging gives you 90 miles in 30 minutes of charging.
Just like last time.
Gas prices went up, and these people where dumping their big SUV's at a loss and over paying for small cars and hybrids.
Now they are paying high prices for SUV's and Toyota is heavily discounting their hybrids. My brother bought a Prius late last year because it was so discounted it was about the same price and a similar sized ice car.
So it would even coat more than my car to drive, not even consider in that its more expensive to purchase. 6kwh = 14 miles. So 1kwh = 2.33 miles. I average 32 mpg in my skyactive Mazda 3. 32/2.33 = 13.7 kWh to equal 1 gal of gas.
My utility charges 30 cents per kWh over 750 kWh per month. We are at 650-700 average now so if in had an electric car I'd go over. .30 x 13.7= $4.12 per 32 miles on an electric car. Well over the price of gas.
D
Deleted member 126051
Guest
Put it this way, if they could come up with a usable EV that could pull a thousand mile charge, that DIDN'T leak charge when parked like water through a sieve, I'd seriously think about buying one. THAT, at least, I could drive for a full day, have enough left in the "tank" to tool around on errands at a stopping point, then set to overnight recharge.
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Deleted member 126051
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The thing is, even with polluting source like coal as your primary power generation, moving over to EV is STILL cleaner. Because the pollution generation is centralized (and reduced compared to the output of that many cars). Even so, renewable-backed nuclear would be an ideal setup.
Not sure where you live, but in TX, you would get a different plan if necessary. I pay a bit over 6 cents/kwh. Plans are all over the map. Apparently some places have plans where energy is free from 9pm to 6am.
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Deleted member 126051
Guest
Some of this can be gotten around by higher capacitance. A thousand mile range would allow you to drive for 12-14 hours without even a maintenance recharge, grab dinner and run errands at your stopping point, and grab a long charge overnight. Leaving you ready for another full day.
In other words, it'd charge AROUND a drive schedule.
Centralizing on a form factor for charge cables, charge stations (with provisions for emergency charge options, such as the emergency extension cable) and disconnect protection would also help. And NOBODY in their right mind is going to CUT a charging cable. At least, not unless they're going for a Darwin Award (which sorta precludes the whole "in their right mind" thing).
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Deleted member 126051
Guest
Actually, I think you're wrong. People DO care. The problem is, when economics is involved, there are other incentives besides that which will INEVITABLY skew a person's decision.
It sucks that it's this way. But we're NOT living in a socialist utopia where money means nothing and everything is provided for free out of Star Trek replicators.
... Where do you live?!
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Deleted member 126051
Guest
8-10 years is about the max lifespan on Prius batteries. And yeah, they're expensive as fuck to replace.
Back when gas was $4 a gallon, and there was a tax credit for running EV/Hybrid, the cost differential between a straight gas car and a Prius made real sense...right up until you had to replace the battery, to the tune of about $4K (though there are some places that sell and install reconditioned packs that are good for 50-75K and warrantied for a year for about $1K).
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Deleted member 126051
Guest
That's being selective on multi-car households though.
And I'd challenge even the nebulous "most".
Just a "for instance": A multi-car household where dad uses his truck for work and mom hauls the sprogs to school/band/soccer. Not a lot of use there.
You wanna know the place where they could have the mightiest impact? Fleet vehicles.
Unfortunately the range restriction and lack of charge station ubiquity rules them out here.
DejaWiz
Fully [H]
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- 21,825
What is needed is a completely electric vehicle with a 1 cylinder gas or diesel powered generator that supplies enough power to fully operate the vehicle WHILE charging the batteries and automatically kick on when the batteries get to 30% remaining charge.
Biggest hold-ups:
1. Expensive
2. Short range.
3. Lack of charging stations.
4. Long recharge times.
5. Short range.
6. Expensive.
7. Expensive.
8. Short range.
9. Expensive.
But keep pissing away our taxpayer money, Federal Government...
Biggest hold-ups:
1. Expensive
2. Short range.
3. Lack of charging stations.
4. Long recharge times.
5. Short range.
6. Expensive.
7. Expensive.
8. Short range.
9. Expensive.
But keep pissing away our taxpayer money, Federal Government...
D
Deleted member 126051
Guest
I don't know about single cylinder. Or even a two-stroke.
But an ultra-efficient, compact diesel engine might be a great hybrid solution. Of course, we're in the midst of Diesel-Gate right now...
I'm just going to keep driving my impractical Tesla and recharge for free while everyone waits for the magical $500 EV that gets > 400 miles of range and recharges 0 to full in < 5min. It's not going to happen.
You can buy a used 2013 Tesla Model S for around 50k, or you can potentially get the Model 3 in 2018 for around 35k I think. There's the new Chevy Bolt with 200+ miles of range or so, but without fast charging options I don't think it is practical for long distances.
At least on my Tesla, I can go from 0 to 80% charge in 40min at a supercharger - now most people think having to "refuel" for an hour is impractical, but for I believe a good portion of people (or at least most Model S owners), that 40min means you get out of the car, take a bio break, get some food and by the time you are done the car should be ready. That has been my experience so far. Tesla superchargers are typically located at rest stops or convenient locations that are within walking distance to a shopping center or restaurants.
80% charge for me is aprox 240 miles, and full charge is almost 270 miles of range. It takes me 4 hours to charge 80% at home from 0, and ~5 hours if I were to do a 100% charge.
You can buy a used 2013 Tesla Model S for around 50k, or you can potentially get the Model 3 in 2018 for around 35k I think. There's the new Chevy Bolt with 200+ miles of range or so, but without fast charging options I don't think it is practical for long distances.
At least on my Tesla, I can go from 0 to 80% charge in 40min at a supercharger - now most people think having to "refuel" for an hour is impractical, but for I believe a good portion of people (or at least most Model S owners), that 40min means you get out of the car, take a bio break, get some food and by the time you are done the car should be ready. That has been my experience so far. Tesla superchargers are typically located at rest stops or convenient locations that are within walking distance to a shopping center or restaurants.
80% charge for me is aprox 240 miles, and full charge is almost 270 miles of range. It takes me 4 hours to charge 80% at home from 0, and ~5 hours if I were to do a 100% charge.
You mean the Chevy Volt?
Of course, it doesn't have a 1-cylinder engine, because a 1-cylinder engine wouldn't be able to make a 3,000-lb vehicle go 65 mph.
You don't magically get enough power out of a 1-cylinder engine to make an electric motor push a sedan along the highway, when you can't make that engine turn the wheels that fast directly.
http://supercharge.info/
I count 249 open Tesla superchargers, with 7 more being built and 9 permitted to start building. This is just for the USA. I don't think "lack of charging stations" really applies here.
Short range is moot. 90% of the time you are not driving 250+ miles in a single trip. Even if you were, you could still charge for FREE at superchargers, instead of paying for a full tank of gas every other day on avg.
It really does apply. I'd love to own a Tesla, but it simply couldn't be my primary vehicle. It's great to be able to charge at some random Supercharger, but they're not generally placed where you want to go. If I want to drive down to JFK and back, I'd need to charge at some point. No problem - there's a Supercharger at the airport! Problem is, it's "at" the airport in that it's a mile away from any of the terminals. I guess I could park my car, put it on the charger, and get a cab to the actual airport to pick my friend up. Or we can stop and hang out in the empty parking lot of the Tesla dealership in Paramus NJ at midnight for half an hour on the way home. Neither of those are really viable options.
There are literally 2 Superchargers in the entire state of Vermont. There are zero north of I-90 in New York. Zero in New Orleans.
Sure, it's possible to drive from X to Y, hitting Superchargers along the way - but the places you want to stop, or the destination you're going to 200 miles away, generally don't have Superchargers.
And what if I want to drive my car to the Boston airport to catch a flight to London? What happens when I come back a week later? I can't just leave it on a Supercharger all week, and it'll be just about dead by the time I roll in.
I guess I go an hour out of the way to the one Supercharger near Boston, 20 miles away, charge it up there for half an hour or an hour, then head to the airport. And hope it has enough charge to get all the way back there, again an hour out of the way, to top up for the drive home.
249 charging stations in the country is a great start. I hope they keep getting more popular and build them everywhere. But, right now, that's an average of 5 per STATE. That's not acceptable for actually going anywhere far from home.
I'm glad that works for you. When I drive 400 miles, it's typically non-stop, because that's barely a 5 hour drive. The Tesla is great for short trips. It's OK for longer trips (not great) if the route has lots of charging stations, but TX is a very large state and Tesla has invested little in infrastructure along I-10 or i-20.
That said, there will be cars that do 500 miles. We're just not there yet. We don't have to be, because these cars are mostly luxury items. Even the cheap ones are expensive (esp given their limitations).
I want one, but for now, I'd get a hybrid.
Going somewhere? Charge 80%, park it. Have fun on your trip. If the airport is > 200miles away, stop at a supercharger somewhere along the way to your destination. I do this all the time since I travel often for work. Yes I have left the car, alone for a whole week, and I could still drive home without charging. You do realize that many airports have EV chargers though? They are usually free too, like the ones in Logan Airport.
So what if there's only 2 chargers in Vermont? I live in NH and we're about the same size - it's not like you can't drive across the border without running out of charge. Now, you want to go to JFK on a Tesla from Vermont? https://evtripplanner.com/planner/2-5/?id=nh63 - depending *where* in Vermont you are, you could probably skip a supercharger.
Vermont to to Logan is even easier - the Hooksett, NH supercharger is literally right off the highway at the rest stop. https://evtripplanner.com/planner/2-5/?id=nh6f - Can't get more convenient than that.
I honestly had many of the same concerns you had before owning my Tesla. After doing many trips down into Connecticut, and all the way up NH and even Maine (where there's been no superchargers), I don't have the "range" anxiety that people who've never driven EVs have.
I've said this before - if you drive over 200miles a day? I totally agree that at that point the Tesla is probably not the best car for you. BUT if just you do the occasional trip, then just having to charge for 15-20min on part of your trip is really not that bad. You do not need to run the battery empty to charge at a supercharger.