Ford Mustang Mach E Leak: Mustang goes Electric

Mchart said:
I don't find the comparison to the horse, ICE, and EV to be very logical. It's more of horse -> ICE/EV/Whatever. An ICE and EV largely give the operator the same speed, ability to travel great distance, etc. That's totally different from the jump from horse -> car.

Shit, EV's were some of the first motorized vehicles to be invented, but of course battery technology back then was complete garbage so it didn't make sense.
Click to expand...
I do find it humorous how people don't know that EV came before ICE. That EV is some kind of modern revolution in automotive technology.
 
Armenius said:
I do find it humorous how people don't know that EV came before ICE. That EV is some kind of modern revolution in automotive technology.
Click to expand...
I'm convinced a good portion of Tesla owners, in particular, wouldn't give a crap about it being an EV if they weren't 'wowed' by the tablet with Netflix on it and all the other associated technology that has nothing to do with it being an EV.

The funny part is i'd be more on the EV bandwagon if I could get a cheaper EV with decent range/power that DIDN'T have all the garbage that is on these current EV's.
 
Mchart said:
I'm convinced a good portion of Tesla owners, in particular, wouldn't give a crap about it being an EV if they weren't 'wowed' by the tablet with Netflix on it and all the other associated technology that has nothing to do with it being an EV.

The funny part is i'd be more on the EV bandwagon if I could get a cheaper EV with decent range/power that DIDN'T have all the garbage that is on these current EV's.
Click to expand...
Ja, the tablet that replaces ergonomic controls and gauges highly turns me off from EVs, in general, now that seemingly everybody does it.
 
Armenius said:
Ja, the tablet that replaces ergonomic controls and gauges highly turns me off from EVs, in general, now that seemingly everybody does it.
Click to expand...
Yep. I was considering the 2022 Golf R for the wife, but when we saw that they got rid of controls for everything and have those awful touch/swipe controls for the heat/fan and you have to use the touchscreen for everything else… No thanks. The Tesla is the worst in that regard though.

The reason they’re all doing it is because it’s cheaper, and it’s one of those current trends that average idiot buyers like to see on a vehicle. Driver safety/ease of use be damned.
 
Mchart said:
I'm convinced a good portion of Tesla owners, in particular, wouldn't give a crap about it being an EV if they weren't 'wowed' by the tablet with Netflix on it and all the other associated technology that has nothing to do with it being an EV.

The funny part is i'd be more on the EV bandwagon if I could get a cheaper EV with decent range/power that DIDN'T have all the garbage that is on these current EV's.
Click to expand...
I suspect you're always going to get touchscreens and a degree of techiness; that's the way cars are already going, and sitting on top of a giant battery makes that easy. I'd say it's more a question of focus and cutting the frills. I'm particularly curious to see how mainstream brands like Ford and Hyundai do entry-level EVs. If they can already make $40K models that seem to be worth the money while carrying loads of tech, plainer $30K or $25K models might not be as far off as you think.
 
Mchart said:
I don't find the comparison to the horse, ICE, and EV to be very logical. It's more of horse -> ICE/EV/Whatever. An ICE and EV largely give the operator the same speed, ability to travel great distance, etc. That's totally different from the jump from horse -> car.

Shit, EV's were some of the first motorized vehicles to be invented, but of course battery technology back then was complete garbage so it didn't make sense.
Click to expand...

Well to be fair the Horse was faster then the first cars. It took several years for them to become faster and more reliable and have the range needed. However infrastructure had to be built as well before cars really became useful to the public. EV technology is in fact quite old, but battery tech was way behind the power needs of the electric motors. However I do get a laugh at people thinking that ICE is going away tomorrow, it still has decades of time left before they finally start to phase them out, for now they will just get smaller.
 
Last edited:
Mchart said:
I don't find the comparison to the horse, ICE, and EV to be very logical. It's more of horse -> ICE/EV/Whatever. An ICE and EV largely give the operator the same speed, ability to travel great distance, etc. That's totally different from the jump from horse -> car.
Click to expand...
Actually the jump from horse to car isn't as smooth as you are making out, early cars were not better than horses at all, they were largely novelties. More on horse to cars in the next paragraph. But regardless of advancements my point was based on infrastructure for the "new" vehicle which largely didn't exist, because everyone is worried about powering EVs or finding places to charge etc. Basically just saying that people acting like every ICE will be replaced with an EV and "oh no the infrastructure doesn't exist right this second!" are the ones who are acting irrational much like every horse was not replaced with a car over night. But as EV popularity grows the infrastructure with them will absolutely need to grow too.

Now why did ICE cars replace horses? I think it was Henry Ford who said (something along the lines) "People don't want faster horses, they want less horseshit" and as comical as this sounds in growing metropolitan areas this was absolutely becoming a MAJOR problem, tons of crap, swimming pools worth of horse piss, and oh yeah "horse died imma leave it right here because not my problem anymore" (FYI, we largely haven't left this mentality as evident by the large number of masks people just dispose of on the ground) along with all the health problems that arose from all that pollution. I see part of what's happening here with the push for EVs to be similar "We don't want faster cars, we want less car farts" which I'm not going to argue the potential global impact of that but at a local scale can absolutely be a big problem... again in rural areas probably not going to notice auto pollution impacts unless one is warming up right in front of where you are sitting, but again in large metropolitan areas it can be a pretty big issue. Yes most power is still produced by burning stuff, but that burning of stuff isn't happening in the middle of your city unless we're talking about ICE transportation.

Armenius said:
I do find it humorous how people don't know that EV came before ICE. That EV is some kind of modern revolution in automotive technology.
Click to expand...
Why is it humorous? The first EVs were not rechargable at all, they were quite literally the analogy of pushing a car down a hill and then saying "look gravity powered cars!" The big revolution was rechargable technology, which still isn't anywhere close as energy dense as gasoline but compared to lead-acid like the failed (or purposefully killed ...) GM EV1 it is a pretty god damn big revolution.

That said I'm not quite sure EV came before ICE, I know late 1600s there were ICE designs using gun powder (never made... dude probably blew himself up!) :D, but the basic design was there for an internal combustion engine, where as the electric motor didn't come about until the 1800s. There was one guy in 1804 (I think) that made an ICE vehicle, not gasoline but also not gunpowder either! But like all firsts it wasn't really good at all, much less compared to what we have today. Then there were a number of steam powered vehicles too. Either way, the EV is a modern revolution of automotive technology, because until recently no one figured out how to do it right... and bring it to market.
 
Mchart said:
There is no question that the grid rates will go up in line with shifting the demand from gasoline to the grid. It will get to the point where I imagine people having to get special meters at home for their EV’s so the power companies can charge more for that specific usage.

It doesn’t help that no one is building nuclear plants, and in fact many areas are shutting down their plants with no replacement. So the grid prices will only skyrocket.
Click to expand...


You know, I keep hearing that electric vehicles will cripple the power grid, so I decided to do the math for myself and see what I'd find.

American refineries sell about 60 million gallons of gas per day. It's been a little bit less lately due to the pandemic, but I have no doubt it will go right back here when all of this is over.

Let's assume the average mileage of that is about 20mpg to account for some really efficient cars and some really inefficient ones as well as a mix of city and highway driving, so that translates to about 1.2 billion miles driven per day.

Tesla's electric cars range between 0.28 and 0.34 kWh per mile driven with all regenerative braking and everything else factored in. The average is about 0.31.

So that means, replacing all gas powered cars in the U.S. with electric ones would wind up using about 372 million kWh per day.

But we are not done yet. Charging efficiency takes some of that away (~15%) as do grid losses (~5%) so we wind up with ~461 million kWh per day.

Total U.S. power generation is about 4000 billion kWh per year. (odd units, but those are the officially reported numbers, so I'll go with it)

If we annualize the 461 million kWh per day, that's about 168 billion kWh per year.

So, if we were to replace all gasoline powered cars with electric ones, we'd increase U.S. power demand by about 4.2%.

Would that be challenging? Certainly. Would it be impossible? Probably not.

I was honestly expecting this number to be way way higher. I've double checked my math though, and I don't think I've made any mistakes.

There was a judgment calls about what average fuel mileage to use, and that was a little bit of an educated guess, and could be off by a little bit, but that's about it.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
You know, I keep hearing that electric vehicles will cripple the power grid, so I decided to do the math for myself and see what I'd find.

American refineries sell about 60 million gallons of gas per day. It's been a little bit less lately due to the pandemic, but I have no doubt it will go right back here when all of this is over.

Let's assume the average mileage of that is about 20mpg to account for some really efficient cars and some really inefficient ones as well as a mix of city and highway driving, so that translates to about 1.2 billion miles driven per day.

Tesla's electric cars range between 0.28 and 0.34 kWh per mile driven with all regenerative braking and everything else factored in. The average is about 0.31.

So that means, replacing all gas powered cars in the U.S. with electric ones would wind up using about 372 million kWh per day.

But we are not done yet. Charging efficiency takes some of that away (~15%) as do grid losses (~5%) so we wind up with ~461 million kWh per day.

Total U.S. power generation is about 4000 billion kWh per year.

So, if we annualize the 461 million kWh per day, that's about 168 billion kWh per year.

So, if we were to replace all gasoline powered cars with electric ones, we'd increase U.S. power demand by about 4.2%.

Would that be challenging? Certainly. Would it be impossible? Probably not.

I was honestly expecting this number to be way way higher. I've double checked my math though, and I don't think I've made any mistakes.

There was a judgment calls about what average fuel mileage to use, and that was a little bit of an educated guess, and could be off by a little bit, but that's about it.
Click to expand...
The problem here is that you can't just take the total power generated and use that as the only input data on that end. Obviously, there is a lot of power generated across the country. The issue is delivering that power, and some areas of the country already have issues delivering that power even without EV's during the summer months. Some regions are even getting rid of their nuclear & nat-gas power plants, etc.

And again personal transport is literally a drop in the big oil drum when it comes to oil usage. Great, you've just made every passenger automobile in the United States an EV, and absolutely no impact has been made when it comes to global climate change since most oil is used for manufacturing, shipping, etc.
 
Mchart said:
The problem here is that you can't just take the total power generated and use that as the only input data on that end. Obviously, there is a lot of power generated across the country. The issue is delivering that power, and some areas of the country already have issues delivering that power even without EV's during the summer months. Some regions are even getting rid of their nuclear & nat-gas power plants, etc.
Click to expand...

Agreed, and a lot of people are also putting between 10 and 20kW solar panels on their roofs taking load off of the grid.

As I said, I know it would be a challenge, and I know the grid is close to its breaking points in many places, it just doesn't look as if it is quite as much of a challenge as people seem to suggest.

Electric cars arent the only thing putting new pressures on the grid. For instance, environmental concerns are starting to push people away from natural gas and home heating oil to heat their homes to elecric heat pumps. This used to only be possible down south where they don't get real winters, but it is starting to become a thing in the north too. People are also ripping out gas stoves and replacing them with induction cooktops, etc. etc.

With or without electric cars, the grid is antiquated and is going to need an overhaul, and soon. The cars only add about 4% to the problem, which is smaller than at least I expected.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Let's assume the average mileage of that is about 20mpg to account for some really efficient cars and some really inefficient ones as well as a mix of city and highway driving, so that translates to about 1.2 billion miles driven per day.
Click to expand...

The US is 3.2 trillion vehicle miles per year or 8.77 billion miles per day.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M12MTVUSM227NFWA

Daily US consumption of gasoline and diesel in 2019 was over 550 million gallons per day (13.4 million barrels/day * 42 gallons).

https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/dat...03.05#/?f=A&start=1949&end=2019&charted=16-12
 
I have a Model 3, and a buddy with a 4wd focus (RS?) and an over hour commute borrowed it for a day. After finishing his commute (only 20 min from my house) and shopping on the way back to my house he wanted to understand charging number for real. I said the easy way to look at it is that look at your current MPG and weekly gas cost. Now your car gets 100+ MPG, and charges for that cost (about) in electricity at home. He's sure I'm not covering all the real cost even though I showed him the 14-50 outlet that I installed next to my main panel. I know there are lots of loud opinions, and can't say my next car will be Tesla, but I can say that as much as I miss my RX-7, my next car will be electric.
 
SLee said:
The US is 3.2 trillion vehicle miles per year or 8.77 billion miles per day.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M12MTVUSM227NFWA

Daily US consumption of gasoline and diesel in 2019 was over 550 million gallons per day (13.4 million barrels/day * 42 gallons).

https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/dat...03.05#/?f=A&start=1949&end=2019&charted=16-12
Click to expand...

I looked back at the report I had googled, and damn, yeah you are right. I totally misread the chart

Or rather, an idiot made the chart, using inconsistent units on the axes, and my brain autocorrected and filled in some numbers.

Going to have to do a do-over on that one.

Using the 8.7 billion daily vehicle miles (which isn't perfect, as that includes ALL vehicles, not just personal ones, and it throws off some of my other numbers) we land on needing 31% additional power generation.

That is more along the line of what I expected when I started running the numbers.
 
Last edited:
Zarathustra[H] said:
I was honestly expecting this number to be way way higher. I've double checked my math though, and I don't think I've made any mistakes.
Click to expand...
Now do all the infrastructure, including allotting charging stations to apartment buildings with hundreds of parking spots.
 
DWolvin said:
I have a Model 3, and a buddy with a 4wd focus (RS?) and an over hour commute borrowed it for a day. After finishing his commute (only 20 min from my house) and shopping on the way back to my house he wanted to understand charging number for real. I said the easy way to look at it is that look at your current MPG and weekly gas cost. Now your car gets 100+ MPG, and charges for that cost (about) in electricity at home. He's sure I'm not covering all the real cost even though I showed him the 14-50 outlet that I installed next to my main panel. I know there are lots of loud opinions, and can't say my next car will be Tesla, but I can say that as much as I miss my RX-7, my next car will be electric.
Click to expand...
I mean, a RX-7 or even something more modern like a Focus RS is for an entirely different market/segment of people.
 
Mchart said:
I mean, a RX-7 or even something more modern like a Focus RS is for an entirely different market/segment of people.
Click to expand...
I mean, a RX-7 or even something more modern like a Focus RS is for an entirely different market/segment of people. Hell, my 3 is about the slowest (1 motor, large battery) and hangs with his RS.

But I digress, I hate that Ford called it a Mustang, but it's a good looking tall wagon / CUV whatever the abbreviation is these days. And the one around here in something close to candy apple red is really nice.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I looked back at the report I had googled, and damn, yeah you are right. I totally misread the chart

Or rather, an idiot made the chart, using inconsistent units on the axes, and my brain autocorrected and filled in some numbers.

Going to have to do a do-over on that one.

Using the 8.7 billion daily vehicle miles (which isn't perfect, as that includes ALL vehicles, not just personal ones, and it throws off some of my other numbers) we land on needing 31% additional power generation.

That is more along the line of what I expected when I started running the numbers.
Click to expand...
Here's the thing, though: transportation represents 29% of US greenhouse gas emissions, and that's ultimately the more important figure. The logistics of reworking the power grid would easily be worthwhile if it meant that drastic a cut in emissions, especially as it would likely involve a transition to low- or zero-emissions electricity sources (including nuclear, if necessary). We can always improve the power grid's capacity, if slowly and imperfectly; we really can't afford to keep the emissions levels we have.
 
Aurelius said:
Here's the thing, though: transportation represents 29% of US greenhouse gas emissions, and that's ultimately the more important figure. The logistics of reworking the power grid would easily be worthwhile if it meant that drastic a cut in emissions, especially as it would likely involve a transition to low- or zero-emissions electricity sources (including nuclear, if necessary). We can always improve the power grid's capacity, if slowly and imperfectly; we really can't afford to keep the emissions levels we have.
Click to expand...
I wish people would read figures they cite.

That’s 29% of everything total. Planes, ships, etc.

Passenger automobiles are a minority fraction of that 29%.

Again, this is a fool’s errand believing you will make any dent in emissions by forcing the working class into switching their vehicles to EVs.
 
Aurelius said:
That's true, but that's still a sizeable amount... and there are plenty of efforts underway to electrify heavy-duty vehicles (big rigs, construction and the like).
Click to expand...
Is it? Do you honestly believe that will have any impact on global climate change? Is it worth the economic impacts of the government regulating the middle class into something that is more expensive just so you can feel better?
 
Mchart said:
Is it? Do you honestly believe that will have any impact on global climate change? Is it worth the economic impacts of the government regulating the middle class into something that is more expensive just so you can feel better?
Click to expand...
Doing nothing has gotten us to where we are today. Had we started this conversion back in 1990 when the first IPCC report came out, it wouldn't be such an issue. But, kicking the can 30 years down the road makes for more drastic measures to be implemented.
 
Endgame said:
Doing nothing has gotten us to where we are today. Had we started this conversion back in 1990 when the first IPCC report came out, it wouldn't be such an issue. But, kicking the can 30 years down the road makes for more drastic measures to be implemented.
Click to expand...
Right, but that was 30 years ago. The numbers available that we're looking at basically show that it's impossible to bring down the numbers at this point without severe economic impacts that would cause human suffering greater than the climate change itself.

I'm not saying we should do nothing by the way, but thinking you'll make any difference by converting passenger automobiles is a joke. Even if everyone stopped flying, even if every ship stopped using fuel for transport, even if every fossil fuel plant were shut down, even if we stopped manufacturing plastics/etc with oil - It would have almost no dent in the problem. Oh, and you also need to convince every developing nation to stop using fossil fuels. Are you going to go to war with most of the world and force them to stop doing anything?
 
Mchart said:
Is it? Do you honestly believe that will have any impact on global climate change? Is it worth the economic impacts of the government regulating the middle class into something that is more expensive just so you can feel better?
Click to expand...
Combined with electrified heavy-duty vehicles, yes. Cutting a third of the US' emissions just through this one category (transportation) gets us much closer to climate targets. And again, it's part of a holistic approach. We need to cut as much as possible, everywhere — cars, power, industry, homes. I know there are major challenges involved with it, but we don't exactly get a do-over if it turns out we weren't ambitious enough.
 
Aurelius said:
Combined with electrified heavy-duty vehicles, yes. Cutting a third of the US' emissions just through this one category (transportation) gets us much closer to climate targets. And again, it's part of a holistic approach. We need to cut as much as possible, everywhere — cars, power, industry, homes. I know there are major challenges involved with it, but we don't exactly get a do-over if it turns out we weren't ambitious enough.
Click to expand...
Again, I don't think you understand the scale of the problem. Or you do, and you just want to do some token gestures that will make you feel better, but ultimately achieve nothing in regards to the end state. To achieve the targets needed as defined by bodies like the IPCC, you'd basically need to cull half the worlds population. Once you do that, you start working from there with other alternative solutions. Good luck. Was it worth it?
 
Mchart said:
Again, I don't think you understand the scale of the problem. Or you do, and you just want to do some token gestures that will make you feel better, but ultimately achieve nothing in regards to the end state. To achieve the targets needed as defined by bodies like the IPCC, you'd basically need to cull half the worlds population. Once you do that, you start working from there with other alternative solutions. Good luck. Was it worth it?
Click to expand...
Even if we accept that premise (do you have supporting data?), we have to do something. "We can't be perfect, so screw it — kill the planet" isn't exactly a viable option. We do what we can to limit the damage, and if it's still not enough, we at least tried. Besides, there are immediate environmental benefits like improved air quality and lower noise pollution.
 
Aurelius said:
Even if we accept that premise (do you have supporting data?), we have to do something. "We can't be perfect, so screw it — kill the planet" isn't exactly a viable option. We do what we can to limit the damage, and if it's still not enough, we at least tried. Besides, there are immediate environmental benefits like improved air quality and lower noise pollution.
Click to expand...
I'm not saying we shouldn't do something. We need a full hands-on deck movement forward to move to nuclear power, for instance. We should also be upgrading the grid to support the transition to EV's without fucking over normal people economically. Etc.

I think Bjorn Lomborg has laid out the problem with the available data pretty nicely. Unless there's a massive revolution in power generation technology, we aren't getting there with current technology unless you cause mass human suffering. it doesn't help that every major country has been walking away from Nuclear.

Again, my issue with the current politicized movement for 'green power' is that they are offering token gestures to idiot voters, and selling it as the solution to the problem. All the while, these regulations are just screwing over normal people economically. Absolutely nothing from politicians is being put forward to build more nuclear plants, to upgrade the grid nation-wide, etc. Oh, and you have the final slap in the face when these a-holes all fly to Europe for the week to talk about how to fight climate change. As if Zoom doesn't exist.
 
Last edited:
Aurelius said:
Even if we accept that premise (do you have supporting data?), we have to do something. "We can't be perfect, so screw it — kill the planet" isn't exactly a viable option. We do what we can to limit the damage, and if it's still not enough, we at least tried. Besides, there are immediate environmental benefits like improved air quality and lower noise pollution.
Click to expand...
Noise pollution comes from tire friction against asphalt, not vehicle exhaust. The majority of cars on the road emit little to no noise from their exhaust anymore, and the noise that does come from exhaust is overpowered by tire noise. Replacing ICE vehicles with electric isn't going to reduce the noise pollution.
 
Armenius said:
Noise pollution comes from tire friction against asphalt, not vehicle exhaust. The majority of cars on the road emit little to no noise from their exhaust anymore, and the noise that does come from exhaust is overpowered by tire noise. Replacing ICE vehicles with electric isn't going to reduce the noise pollution.
Click to expand...
Live in a state without vehicle inspections and that is no longer accurate. When you have shitty windows near a main road you generally only hear exhaust noise from either shit boxes or the asshats with modified vehicles.
 
computergeek485 said:
Live in a state without vehicle inspections and that is no longer accurate. When you have shitty windows near a main road you generally only hear exhaust noise from either shit boxes or the asshats with modified vehicles.
Click to expand...
I live in a state without vehicle inspections. I can't even remember a time that I was annoyed by the sound of somebody's car. The only annoyance comes from motorcycles.
 
Everyone has their own likes/dislikes for those sounds. The older I get, the more I hate those modified shit boxes as well, TBH. The trucks with the straight pipes are pretty annoying. Motorcycles are annoying. Those shitty subaru's with that awful 4 banger boxer engine sound are annoying.

But if I heard this every morning instead of the subaru I hear i'd be pretty happy -



Of course, again, it's all personal preference.
 
Armenius said:
Noise pollution comes from tire friction against asphalt, not vehicle exhaust. The majority of cars on the road emit little to no noise from their exhaust anymore, and the noise that does come from exhaust is overpowered by tire noise. Replacing ICE vehicles with electric isn't going to reduce the noise pollution.
Click to expand...
My azzhole neighbor with his tiny penis mandated jacked up truck with mega exhaust would disagree with that. And all my interstate road trips where it's like 3 to 1 semi trucks vs cars. All I hear is trucks....
 
Gideon said:
Well to be fair the Horse was faster then the first cars. It took several years for them to become faster and more reliable and have the range needed. However infrastructure had to be built as well before cars really became useful to the public. EV technology is in fact quite old, but battery tech was way behind the power needs of the electric motors. However I do get a laugh at people thinking that ICE is going away tomorrow, it still has decades of time left before they finally start to phase them out, for now they will just get smaller.
Click to expand...
Early EV's were like 5 mph-ish. They were used by the wealthy for status and leisure, kind of like that Tesla that pretty much stays in the driveway.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top