jefnvk

Not that anyone bothers to read it when they ask this same question and I post the same response, but here you go: https://www.wired.com/story/electric...electric-grid/

Warp Factor

Thanks for that. We also need to consider electrical transmission power losses, and how much battery charging and recovery energy is wasted as heat. It's not as simple as some people say, or as simple as I would like it to be.

BKorsaire

You are right ! : pouces:
that's what they want here, registering a ZO6/O7 cost me 15K€, now it's 23K€.

I believe more in hydrogen even if electrolysis requires a primary source (electricity from a nuclear power plant for example). The problem with batteries is that the rare metals used in their composition are by nature...rare! and look at the population of India and China! Thomas Robert Malthus had already predicted the disaster about limited resources for an exponentially expanding population compared to linear and limited agricultural resources for extractions.

And for the moment, no one knows how to reprocess these mountains of batteries in the future, the industry does not yet exist. Here we are burying our nuclear waste for 1000 years because 75% of our electricity comes from there.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

mschuyler

Half? One doubling and it will be there, probably in a year or two at the outside. Battery capacity (mileage) is a non-problem. Range anxiety is all in your head anyway. The average commute is 25 minutes one way. Only 3.3 million people are classified as "stretch" commuters which takes them 50 miles each way. Any serious EV on the road today can handle that easily right now. Plug it in when you get home. Want to go cross country on vacation? Take the other car. Or wait two years and take the EV.

Warp Factor

Yup, future wars may be fought over battery materials, rather than over oil.

jefnvk

I've got a 100mi round trip commute. Even if I ignore the fact that my employer encourages EV usage by giving us more preferential parking than handicapped and free charging stations in our massive parking lot that takes a good four-five minutes to walk from the back, range is not my issue at all. A low end Tesla or Bolt can easily cover what I need.

My issue is getting them to drop that last $15-20k or so to match a base ICE sedan price. When I can go buy a decent new one with 200mi of range at $20k (heck, even $25k), I'll jump on one. Give me another ten years into middle-career auto engineering world, I probably won't even mind today's $35-40k prices.

Warp Factor

Who pays for the "free" charging?

jefnvk

My employer, who is actively trying to get folks to use new auto technologies.

But even if I were paying it myself, it is still cheaper than gas.

Warp Factor

Who is reimbursing your employer to subsidize this? The government (us), the utility (us), or consumers of the company's products (us)? Someone is paying, regardless of whatever cost concealing strategies might be in place. There's no such thing (yet) as free electricity.

Chrisrokc

My employer has one charger that is free for employee use. The electricity is not metered and the company does not receive any kick backs from the government or utility company.

vndkshn

My typical "commute" is from my home to the airport, where the car will sit for the week, then be driven home. One way mileage is just about 100 miles. The problem, long term parking lots don't generally have charging stations. And even the "short term" ones typically only have them in the "1 hour or less" parking area (which I can't understand) and the price is nearly double. So If I were to get an EV, drive it to the airport through heavy traffic on a hot day, park it for the week, would it get me home through a long hot, heavy traffic drive? That's the concern. My wife's commute is a little shorter, but she has the same issue, limited charging stations at her work.

So no, "range anxiety" is not in my head.

Fortunately, she goes in once or twice a month and I travel usually no more than once a month so the rest of our commutes are as green as then can get: a short walk from bedroom to one of two home offices, with a quick stop through the kitchen. :-)

Personally, I don't buy into the whole EV trend in general. I think it makes sense in hybrid modes, but it is not as "green" as everyone makes it out to be, and it is still very location and situation dependent. Until batteries material is not so environmentally damaging and there is a massive change in how power is generated, we are really just making ourselves feel good with EV vehicles.

jefnvk

My guess would be them. Doubt the couple bucks a day it costs them really touches out bottom line. Heck, they run an autonomous shuttle around the lot to get us used to that technology too.

nyca

This average commute thing means little unless you have multiple cars - for most people, a car needs to serve for both short and long trips, getting stuck in unplanned traffic jams, use in cold weather, etc.

The ICE engine is far from done - still alot of new technology coming in combustion methods (see the newest Mazda engines) that will lower emissions and raise MPG. The world is awash in oil. And most people still do not want EVs - Tesla M3 sales in the US are crashing.

Michael A

"In the real world, however, electric vehicles are only slightly more popular than root canals. Scratch that; I had a root canal last month and while the pain was intense it lasted just a couple of hours. Having something like a Nissan Leaf as my primary mode of transportation would be considerably more miserable."

https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-cul...039/ev-future/

I think this writer is pretty much on the money.

Michael A

"In that respect, the EV isn’t like Netflix as we now know it–it’s more like the company that designed and engineered the Netflix box in 2005. You don’t remember the Netflix box because it never made production, but the idea behind it was that you’d pay a lot of money for a computer that would download and store your Netflix videos. Fortunately for the investors, somebody at the company got a look at YouTube and realized that most people would be totally fine “streaming” to their own computers."

https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-cul...039/ev-future/

Another quote from this well written article.

zland

Fewer corvette owners so by definition they would be the cult.

jefnvk

That article misses the point completely. To put it bluntly, most automobile journalists are way out of their element trying to write outside the automobile sphere, and this one is no exception. Yes, I can come up with a list of individual technologies that failed, but that completely belays the trends they were following that did move forward, leaving old technology dead on the side of the road (pun intended).

If I want to use Netflix as an example, maybe that one iteration of a Netflix project failed. Now I can buy a TV with Netflix built in. I can buy dedicated Netflix streaming devices. Netflix still effectively killed the video store, the ICE is the video store analog in this example. How is that really supporting EVs not panning out? The Netflix box was GM EV1, the current gens are the bulk of the population in the late 00s getting broadband service capable of handling streaming video and Netflix getting their full range of movies online.

And still, I don't even have to use that analogy. Reading that article in its entirety, even the author is conceded to the point that EVs will eventually replace gas. He's just trying to drag up every tired old argument those who are unwilling to change keeps tossing out.

Michael A

Netflix killed the video store, but it wasn't their video box that did it. Same analogy. EVs may kill ICE, but it probably won't not be battery EVs that do it. Lithium ion batteries certainly aren't going to do it. Heavy, low energy density, slow charging, temperature sensitive.

And does this sound appealing to you, and the type of thing that will kill the ICE?

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/05/tesl...ng-temps-.html

No way am I turning off my heater and freezing my butt off just to get around in an electric car. This type of thing is for EV fanatics, not the general public.

Chrisrokc

Granted I don’t live up north and the car is garaged, but we have been seeing single digit temps. The battery in the Model 3 has seen only a slight dip in range on those days. Some on Tesla forums says this has been overstated by the media.... like everything else these days.

17C7

A lot of variables with battery electric to be sorted out yet. One big one is cold climate operation and vastly reduced mileage per charge and general charging times. Unless the auto makers know something about batteries that we don't battery powered cars still have lots of hurdles to jump before they could ever become main stream in the near future. I have a neighbor with a Tesla and he has stated that in cold weather his mileage becomes greatly reduced and can make some trips dicey.