Guest post by David Middleton
Even with up to $10,000 in federal and state incentives, only 4% of car buyers in California chose electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles last year. That’s a huge problem in a state with rising greenhouse gas emissions from passenger vehicles, and with a goal to more than quadruple the number of zero-emissions vehicles on the road by 2025.
How can the state kick-start EV sales and hit its target of 1.5 million zero-emissions vehicles? To Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco), the answer is simple: Spend $3 billion on dramatically higher state rebates — as in, upping the state’s ante from $2,500 to $10,000 or more per vehicle.
Under Ting’s proposal, AB 1184, the state rebate program would be redesigned to make the cost of a compact electric vehicle comparable to a similar gas-powered one.
[…]
But there are several problems that make Ting’s current proposal a no-go. For starters, there’s the staggering $3-billion price tag, which is six times more than the state has spent on rebates since 2010. There’s talk about dipping into the cap-and-trade auction revenue, but there already are lots of proposals for how to spend that money to reduce carbon.
More fundamentally, there’s no analysis of why Californians aren’t buying more electric cars.
[…]
Could it possibly be that 96% of Californian car buyers don’t want to purchase EV’s?
I work in Houston and live in Dallas. Last Thursday, I “evacuated” to my house in Dallas. Our downtown Houston office was partially up and running yesterday. We expect it to be fully operational by Tuesday. My Houston apartment complex never flooded and apparently never lost power. CenterPoint, the local grid operator, mangaed to keep the power on to 95% or more of their coverage area throughout the storm. They are now back to about 99%. Houston METRO, the local mass transit authority, was 50% operational yesterday and expects to be nearly 100% by Tuesday.
I plan to head back to Houston Monday or Tuesday. It’s about a 255 mile drive. My Jeep can go about 360 highway miles on a tank of gas. North Texas is currently experiencing a gas shortage. Most of the gas stations near my house were dry yesterday. I have to plan on not being able to buy gas between here and Houston.
What would it take to persuade you to buy an electric car?
An electric Jeep that can ford 2-3′ of water, with a 360 mile range and be rechargeable in less time than I might have to wait in a gas line in Houston next week… might be what it would take to persuade me to buy an EV… Only if it cost less than $40,000. But that’s just me… What about you?
Featured image from this article:
Bad Weather Guide: What to do if Your Electric Car Has Been in a Flood
BY NIKKI GORDON-BLOOMFIELD • FEBRUARY 13, 2014
It’s something we hope nobody who reads this has to encounter, but given the propensity for extremes of weather we’ve seen over the past few years — not to mention the weather the UK has been subjected to continuously for the past six weeks — waking up one morning to find your prized EV submerged in water is a real possibility.
Here at Transport Evolved, we’ve already discussed how you should drive in stormy, winter weather, but what should you do if your EV ends up in more than just a puddle? What if the water level is above the bottom of your car’s doors, and there’s muddy, wet water in the footwell? What if the only bit of your car you can see is above the water line?
[…]
The car would have to be given to me free, and all future maintenance must be paid for. I’ll never be a buyer, not interested.
There is not such thing as a “zero emissions” vehicle. All vehicles require power of some king and all means of creating or releasing energy we have so far invented involved “emissions” and waste products of some kind.
Always makes me cringe when I read sentences such as the opening one of the above excerpt: “Even with up to $10,000 in federal and state incentives …”
Should it not read: “Even with up to $10,000 in TAXPAYER-PAID incentives …”?
Or, maybe it should read: “Even with up to $10,000 in SCREW YOUR FELLOW CITIZEN incentives …”?
This is why my family and I will NEVER buy a car under these terms; whether we believe in AGW, or GW, or basic Climate Change [which we do], we will NEVER put, for reasons of personal gain, an extra burden on our fellow tax-paying citizens. We do not want the GOVT WELFARE [bribe?] primarily because of this immorality; in fact, we understand why they do it — for the money — but we shake our heads in disbelief why so many of the wealthy amongst us are so willing to screw their fellow citizens — many of much lesser incomes — by forcing them to pay for such self-serving gains.
Johnny, bravo, and I wish there were many more like you!
Vboring below is about to miss the point that he did not buy his ev if there are subsidies. You want it, pay for it yourself. He makes many other incorrect statements, yet is correct, modern coal plants are very clean.
EV’s are mostly popular with “gadget buffs.” The pocket-protector folks who went from HAM radio to early adoption of computers, now are embracing home robotics and EV’s. Part of it’s a love of technology, of impressing one’s fellow nerds by being “cutting edge,” and the virtue-signaling and camp-meetings around the (few) charging stations are all part of being “in the club.” Literally, here, there is an EV club that has “meets” and “rallies” and brags about lobbying for chargers at the railroad station. I actually see FEWER Priuses lately, Tesla is the thing to have now. Any Ford or GM offerings seem to be non-starters. For the price tag, I can see why!
“There’s not (sic) such thing as a “zero emmisions” vehice”. Yeah, that’s right but the really amusing descriptor for a “clean” vehicle is pzev, partially zero emmisions vehicle.
T Gannett
How long do you think it will be before some genius figures out that millions of electric cars are going to generate a lot of ground level ozone?
All this was known to governments in the mid-1990s, yet they continue to push these dud vehicles on us.
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/08/29/business/another-accepted-truth-under-fire-electric-cars-cleaner-air.html
Also, about 56% of fine particulate matter pollution from motor vehicles is unrelated to tailpipe emissions, from brake dust, road dust and other sources.
Sorry, but Teslas still emit fine particulate matter.
Johnny C., I understand where you’re coming from, but another viewpoint is “I paid for that incentive – I want my share!”
I myself have almost no interest in any of the electric cars. I also despise Social Security, as people (some intelligent) make the assumption that they don’t have to save for their old age, because Social Security will save them. I didn’t expect SS to be around when I retired, so I saved. But every year until I retired, I paid the maximum amount into SS, including those first years when I could hardly make ends meet. That was a lot of money taken from me and poured into a Ponzi scheme. You can bet that I want back out of it as much as I can, even if it is only 15% of my income now. Just like any Government taking, I had no choice, and in the case of SS, no loopholes to escape it.
That’s how a lot of people feel about EVs. I have a friend still working who makes millions a year. He bought the Tesla S because he not only gets a big break on buying the car, but a huge break on the electricity required to cool his $12M home.
Trump, too, used the system imposed by the Government to get ahead. One of the things he campaigned on was that he knew those loopholes for the rich, and wanted to eliminate them. Big reason why I voted for him. So far, he has not disappointed. I haven’t been able to say that for 28+ years.
@kaliforniakook
Is participating in acts of immorality because you were forced by government fiat to contribute to it a valid excuse?
An admittedly extreme example might be Seattle, a city in which hypodermic needles and a “safe space” to use them are being provided by the city at (I assume) taxpayer expense.
Because you’re being forced to participate in this “incentive” with your tax dollars, would you then make the choice to get some heroin and “get your share”, so to speak? Probably not.
Another not-so-extreme example would be my case. I own a corporation and from the income of that corporation I pay myself a wage. Some of the taxes I’m forced to pay (both corporate and personal) go toward funding social programs for the poor. The wage I pay myself from the corporation is well below poverty level, however, for various reasons it is lawful for me to pay most of my living expenses out of the income from the corporation, with the effect being the personal income I earn is pretty much just pocket money.
I could, if I wished, go down to the social welfare office and likely get food stamps or other social benefits because of the low wage I pay myself using the same argument as your friend.
“I paid for that incentive – I want my share!”
But that would be immoral (at least in my view) because I don’t really need it.
The point is that government forces us all to pay for some things we certainly would not do on our own, but that might not be a good reason to participate in that which violates our principles because we’re mad about it. The individuals creating this tax based social policy system understand what they’re doing and are banking (no pun intended) on others to perpetuate the bad idea by enticing them with their own money.
If no one bought an EV until it were properly able to compete in a fair market, there wouldn’t be a continuation of “incentives” because there wouldn’t be an EV to buy.
So just how does Bartleby’s electric car create ground level ozone.
I’m not talking about the source of the electricity being maybe an ozone source; but the electric car itself. What about it makes ozone ??
G
Electric cars are the only cars you can buy today that actually run on coal – or whatever fuel supply you want, really.
They improve ground level air quality. There are many nonsense studies about EVs increasing pollution. They don’t reflect anything like regulatory reality. Coal plant NOx and SOx emissions are extremely low and rapidly falling in the US.
They charge in well under five minutes. It’s more like 30 seconds to plug it in when you get home or at work. And then it is full when you need it. For cross country trips, drive 3-4 hours, stop for an hour, drive 3-4 hours. Chargers are being installed today that will reduce that hour stop to about 20 minutes.
Over their lifetime, unsubsidized Bolts probably are already cheaper than comparable gas compact cars. Depends on your assumptions about fuel and maintenance costs, battery life, etc.
In any case, the user experience is better. Quieter, safer, more fun to drive, lower maintenance. There is nothing to maintain. You can visit the dealer once a year to replace air filters, rotate the tires, and inspect the suspension, if you want. Data from properly managed batteries indicates that they’ll last about a million miles.
And you never have to service the air conditioner.
“Data from properly managed batteries indicates that they’ll last about a million miles.’ Even in freezing temperatures?
And you can peacefully sleep without thinking about the child labor that mined the lithium for your batteries, because you’ve offset that by being so good to the local environment …
They also do the housework and bring you cups of coffee whenever you click your fingers
As the driver of a non-Tesla, your statement about 300 second charge is so far off as to be total fantasy. Even with the optional charger (240V 30A circuit required) the charge time is 3.5 hr. With the freeby charger you get with the vehicle, plan on ~20 hr if you totally drain the battery. With my range extender (2 cyl gasoline motor) I can get a total distance of ~ 185 mi., 105 on the battery, and an additional 80 mi on the 2 gal of gasoline in the aux tank).
Would I have an electric vehicle if the manf hadn’t thrown it at me? Probably no, I’d had a diesel 330i BMW and loved it. NOTE: despite what the press has been writing, BMW hasn’t come close to violating the mileage testing. With each service the urea tank is topped up.
If, and it’s a big if, the current successful testing of LENR reactors at MIT (running since 2012) and other places leads to real products, then I would say that with reasonable prices, I’d be delighted to drive an electric vehicle that didn’t require a charging station. Other than that case, no way.
Yeah, “drive for 3-4 hours, stop for an hour” would increase my cross country drive time by about 25%. A 10 hour trip now takes 12 to 13 hours. Driving a gas car my only stops are 5 min for gas once or twice, and a stop for food. Maybe and hour total for the whole 10 hour drive, if I eat slow. Longer trips will have even greater impact. It’s only more fun if you stay within its single charge range. Those mandatory hour longs stops are definitely *not* fun.
The Safety factor is much more likely to be related to the type of driver that self selects for EV than anything inherent to the platform. Anything that could be said to be an inherent advantage (like lack of a solid steering column) can be easily applied to traditional gas cars.
Face it, EV cannot compete with the versatility of a gas vehicle, and that is why most people will not by one. It is more cost for less functionality.
And a million miles for a battery? Maybe in lab conditions. Out in the real world they last about a quarter as long. They are subject to extreme temperatures, wildly fluctuating discharge cycles and mechanical abuse. Fast charging also dramatically reduces lifespan, so those sup 30 min charges actually cost you quite a bit if you factor that in. They also cost about half as much as the initial purchase, since they are the single most expensive piece of the car. Sure prices are expected to drop to maybe 1/8th to 1/10th the cost (in line with a full engine replacement in a standard car) but they are not there yet, nor do we actually know when they will actually get there. Buying an EV today is a rather big gamble from that perspective.
The only thing that you had right is the power source. Clean coal does indeed have a relatively small environmental impact, and it is a single point of maintenance. This does indeed make it cleaner than car exhaust, since while modern cars are remarkably clean when well maintained, many cars are not well maintained, and so have emissions that are less than optimal. Of course this assumes clean coal. If you are a rich person buying an EV in a developing country like China, then the EV very likely will emit far more noxious gasses than a new luxury car powered by gas.
I would by an electric car is the rebate covered the entire purchase price plus license and taxes. Also they would have to include free replacement batteries when needed and a free $1,000,000 life insurance policy in case the battery explodes or burns. Also, they would have to provide free AAA towing, free charging when needed, and a $1,000,000 cash bond that I would receive the first time the car stopped and failed to run for any reason. Finally, it must include air conditioning, and other amenities specified by the purchaser (me).
@ vboring
You need to see your dealer for a seriously urgent reality check.
The charging times you mention are complete pie in the sky – “well under 5 minutes”…and 1 hour will not do it either. How about 3 hours or overnight depending on the charging station. This is one of the EV’s multiple Achilles heels.
Everyone in the business knows that lithium-ion batteries can only be recharged so many time before they reach the end of their useful lifespan of 36-48 months before crashing. In the EU Renault-Nissan in fact makes the exchange of battery packs mandatory every 24 months [against a fee] to prevent users from experiencing that painful moment.
Have a look at last June’s Swedish study [commissioned by their Min of Transportation and Min of the Environment] that nobody in the EV business wants to touch with a barge pole, which quantifies the CO2 emissions involved in the manufacturing process of lithium-ion batteries, and which shows that you can drive a regular 2L I4 engine car for 160,000 km [100,000 miles] before the emissions from that vehicle catch up with those built into the batteries of a Tesla S and 70,000 km for the batteries in a Nissan Leaf. Those numbers are the proverbial head shot for the EV right there, assuming you’re prepared to compare CO2 apples to CO2 apples – which the green Stalinists of course will not do..
The Tesla S electric motors use the equivalent of 4.5L gas/100km, the Nissan Leaf 3l/100km, electricity produced NIMBY somewhere else -so no zero emissions. Last month I drove a 1.2L I4 Fiat 500 for close to 600km on one tank with the AC on all the time, including 300km [190miles] on a French free way at sustained 130-135 km/h [80miles+/hour] resulting in an overall 5.7l/100km [41m/US gallon] fuel consumption. Try running the oh so sporty Tesla S at 130km for 300 km with the AC on and see how far you get.
Remove the obscene tax payer funded subsidies or and barring an Orwellian diktat by green politicians to force their adoption [ I keep some spare lamp posts and a coil of braided rope in store for just such an event..] the EV is a dead man walking.
Riiigghht. I live on I395, there is a Tesla charging station in Inyokern, near my house. I drive by this station twice, sometimes more a day. 20-30 days go by between sightings of of a car charging there. I see the car twice, once going by in one direction, once coming back from where i went to. Usually a few hours apart. Inyokern is a pea-digging desert town without a lot to see. I assume the Tesla owners are over in the Sierra Pub, nursing their drinks, checking their apps for the Second they can hop back in and continue on to Mammoth, or back to whatever Socal hellhole they live in.
I would buy an electric car if:
1. It provided a range of 300 miles in -30 deg C (-18 deg F) with, of course, a comfortable cabin temperature.
2. It could be recharged in about half an hour, which is the rest period I would normally take after driving 300 miles, and assuming recharging stations were as easily available as gas stations are now.
3. Its service life were at least 150,000 miles with no major parts replacement, which is what I expect from currently available ICE automobiles.
4. Its purchase price were about the same as an equivalent ICE automobile, without any government subsidies.
5. Its maintenance costs were no greater than that of an equivalent ICE automobile.
Given all of this, I would happily purchase an electric car.
Lining up to put gas in your car is bad enough, now imagine the line ups when it takes ten times or longer to get the same amount of energy in your car. Drive for one hour, line up for ten hours.
It’s fine when a tiny percentage of the population drives electric cars, but if everyone drives, then the lineups will be unbearably long.
There is also the problem of a massive increase in electrical infrastructure. The Tesla battery capacity is 50 kWh or 50,000 * 3600 seconds = 180 megajoules. If a fill up requires 30 minutes, the power required is 180 MJ / 1800 seconds = 100 kilowatts. The average American house consumes 1 kilowatts ( https://hypertextbook.com/facts/2003/BoiLu.shtml ). In other words, every electric car filling station requires the electrical infrastructure of 100kW / 1 kW = 100 houses.
Since the charging time is so long, a huge number of filling stations will be required to keep wait times down, think of shopping mall parking lots where each parking space is a filling station and each parking space requires the energy infrastructure of 100 houses.
It just ain’t happening.
Since riding in one of those tiny rolling coffins totally creeps me out, thermal activity in the theological place of eternal punishment would need to decrease significantly below the level necessary to prevent the transition of all available hydrogen oxide to solid state.
Give me one paid for out your own pocket, and I might keep it to drive to and from work (about a 12 mile round trip)…in the summer.
(Would I need to keep it plugged in to run the windshield and rear window defroster in the winter? Do they come with a 6 mile extension cord?)
“For cross country trips, drive 3-4 hours, stop for an hour, drive 3-4 hours. Chargers are being installed today that will reduce that hour stop to about 20 minutes.” You forgot the queue at the charging park. When was the last time you were at a gas station and stayed for an hour (20 minutes)? I remember in the 1970s during the gas crisis people going literally berserk. Great, EVs, how to begin to hate your fellow man.
“As the driver of a non-Tesla, your statement about 300 second charge is so far off as to be total fantasy. Even with the optional charger (240V 30A circuit required) the charge time is 3.5 hr.”
I generally try to avoid speaking for other people, but I presume he meant that for the most part, owners of electric vehicles waste less of their time refueling than do drivers of gas/diesel cars. At least with a Tesla where the range dwarfs the typical daily mileage you put on the car, you pop the plug in every night on your way into the house and you’ll rarely have to waste any time refueling. In other words, virtually no one has the opportunity to top off the tank of their gas-powered car every night in their garage. An electric car owner does.
As for the road trips, and again with respect to a Tesla with a large capacity battery the extra fueling time isn’t that big of a hassle – the chargers are spaced closely enough that 15-25 minutes will get you to the next charger. Plug the car in, take a restroom break, buy something to drink, and by that time it’s only an extra 10-15 minutes or so and your good to drive for the next 2.5-3 hours.
Nitpicking over refueling time misses the point, because for most every person’s usual daily driving habits you don’t need to go out of your way to refuel at all. On those rare occasions when you do, it’s a slight hassle, but it’s not going to be a game changer for the vast portion of the public – especially those who have more than one car. And because regular fueling stops will be a thing of the past for 90% of most drivers of electric cars, there won’t be a need for nearly as many charging stations as gasoline stations. I think Tesla has a little over 300 supercharger stations in the U.S. to service well over 100,000 cars, and most of those stations usually have at least 2-3 empty stalls at any given time except for some places in California where stations are so dense that owners are taking advantage of Tesla’s free supercharging to use them for their daily driving.
As for the question posed in the original article, I presume that, except for those like the author of the post who seems to have a reflexive need to condescend electric cars, most people will be willing to buy an electric car when its cost-competitive. You can quibble about when and if that’s going to happen, and point out that this should consider subsidies that in an ideal world would end, but that’s the basic, and obvious answer to the long and drawn out post here.
Certainly there is significant fuel savings to be had, and given the relative simplicity of an electric car’s power and drive train there should be significant savings in repair costs and perhaps a longer vehicle life. Electric motors should last at least 20 years. With the Tesla I think it’s certainly possible to be driving one for 10-13 years with minimal repairs compared to a typical car, then only have to replace a battery and be good to go for another round. This may be optimistic, but time will tell.
“They improve ground level air quality.”
Yep. They get it cleaner than clean.
Those 5 minute charges are murder on battery life.
Bolts aren’t unsubsidized, yet are much more expensive than comparable ICE cars, and that’s without counting the cost of replacing the battery back every few years.
Kurt, it really doesn’t matter how long the motor lasts, the big cost for EV’s is replacing the battery pack every few years.
They will never be more fun to drive then a stick shift 2004 VW turbo diesel powered Golf on Pennsylvania country roads and has a range of 600 miles on a single tank of petrol.
If they are so good, then they don’t need the subsidy! Remove it immediately.
People who can afford such a vanity, will probably have a garage. A lot of people wont, especially where an electric vehicle may make some sense (in the centre of large towns/cities where large numbers of the population live). The absence of a home plug-in point is an obvious reason why sales are limited.
SteveT
Well vboring, if your electric bolt’s 5 minute source of “fuel” is in your garage, then please just divide your driving range by three (3).
As any old fighter pilot could tell you (really old) , when you go out on a mission, you have to figure the fuel used getting to the combat zone, plus the actual mission combat time, (which I suspect could be very fuel consuming, ) and then you need fuel to get your rear end, and the aircraft itself back to your base.
These days it is not nice to bail out of your billion dollar bomber, because you run out of fuel; or ditch it in the ocean either.
The only reliable (I can drive anywhere I like) source of fuel for your Bolt is in your garage.
G
It’s going to have to successfully compete and win on the exact same field as the fossil-fuel powered machine for every category of machine in that class.
Norway managed to introduce 25 000 EVs (mainlyTeslas) at the price of the owners not paying tax on the vehicles, and no money for toll-roads (free), and on ferrys, etc. Free charging of batteries, free parking, etc, etc. So, – Norway is the Window for other nations – but it has a huge cost for the taxpayer. Let’s see how long Norwegians can keep this up…We don’t know yet.
Until the first generation of cars’ batteries crap out all together, I suspect. Now, while we’re talking about technology no one really seems to want, how about THIS: What would make you buy a DRIVERLESS car?
Yes and they purchased these vehicles with their “ill-gotten profits” from oil. Doesn’t any one see the irony in this exercise?(sarc)
“BY NIKKI GORDON-BLOOMFIELD
It’s something we hope nobody who reads this has to encounter, but given the propensity for extremes of weather we’ve seen over the past few years — ”
Say what?
This was the first serious storm in FOURTEEN years.
” Incentives ” implies that the lack thereof, would result in you NOT doing what they want you to do; usually because it is NOT a sensible thing to do.
Bribery would be another word meaning the same thing.
What it would take for me to buy an electric car is if that was the best choice of things for me to do.
So that means lower (real) cost, better performance; (I can go around 700 miles ion one “charge” of my gas tank.) ready availability of that energy ANYWHERE, I wanted to go in my car; things I would do because they make sense.
Electric cars make no sense to me; same goes for “self driving” cars.
I have three self driving cars; I drive them myself. I wouldn’t let some machine programmed by the same maroons who program traffic lights, take over control of MY car ; well any more than they already have. Like they tell me to stop and waste all of my kinetic energy, when any fool sitting where I am can see there is NO earthly reason for me to stop when and where they tell me I must.
I can tell when I need to stop; like there’s another car right where I was planning to be very soon.
Traffic lights are programmed to distribute vehicles uniformly over all of the available roads. So when there is not enough traffic on some particular road, they stop all the cars on the other roads, and leave a green light on the road without enough cars, and pretty soon, more drivers discover that empty road will get them there sooner, so they get onto the road with the least traffic.
If you turn on the green light pretty soon the cars will come; it never fails.
G
nothing…ain’t gonna happen
Be able to recharge in about the same time a can fill my gas tank, and cost the same as a similar gas powered car (without government subsidies).
Don’t forget to include the cost of replacing the battery pack every few years.
That’s why for me they would also have to offer to give me a completely new car for free every time the battery ran out of charge, no questions asked.
ok and a million dollars too. since they asked.
It could come to something like that.
All cars are driverless.
All cars are electric.
All cars are identical.
All cars are owned and maintained by the government.
You order a car when you need one and it is there within seconds.
You take it to your destination.
You complete your foray and get into a different car to go home.
You exit the car at home and it goes away for Android their to use.
“Bryan A
September 1, 2017 at 8:56 am
It could come to something like that.
All cars are driverless.
All cars are electric.
All cars are identical.
All cars are owned and maintained by the government.”
And, in the land of the free – if the government of the day dislikes your attitude to – say – Christianity, might they be able, in future, to program their car to deliver you to a re-education bureau?
Possibly?
I can see problems with acceptance right there.
Auto
It would appear in this era more likely the delivery to your local Attitude Adjustment Center would come from those ascribing to a Statist belief system rather than the Christian belief system:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/5/irs-reveals-list-of-tea-party-groups-targeted-for-/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/10/22/exxon-hits-back-on-ridiculous-rico-allegations-when-it-comes-to-climate-change-read-the-documents/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/11/20/exposing-the-well-funded-manufactured-campaign-of-blame-on-the-exxon-knew-climate-change-would-be-dangerous-fiasco/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/03/03/doj-refers-exxon-climate-crime-to-fbi-for-decision-on-action-if-any/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/04/14/exxon-strikes-back-against-the-climate-witch-hunt/
http://www.dailywire.com/news/19950/google-now-working-liberal-groups-shut-out-joseph-curl
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/08/15/how-facebook-is-tackling-hate-speech-after-the-charlottesville-rally/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/08/31/i-criticized-google-it-got-me-fired-thats-how-corporate-power-works/?utm_term=.1c3718080d57
Sure, companies like Google are private, I get that. Nevertheless, it would appear they lean heavily toward the side of Liberalism, a.k.a., Statism (at least in my view), philosophically.
In “Stranger In A Strange Land,” Ben Caxton’s “autocab” did take him straight to the goon squad. I seem to remember several other SF stories using that plot element although I’m not sure enough of title/author of any right now to claim them by name.
“. . . the cost of replacing the battery pack every few years.”
That’s just silly. I drove around a Honda hybrid and the battery pack, which had to suffer through deep cycling sometimes 3-4 times per outing, still lasted over 10 years. I’ve been driving a Tesla for over 2-and-a-half years and have seen no battery degradation at all – it’s still showing the 306 miles per charge that it showed when I first got it. Batteries tend to degrade faster towards the end of their life, but still the expectation based on past experience with the Tesla Roadster and tests on Tesla’s modern battery pack is that you should get at least a decade of useful life out of the battery.
And how to dispose of the old one.
This is why I am waiting (in vain?) for a hydrocarbon fuel cell equipped electric vehicle. It takes exactly as long to recharge as to fill a gas tank and you go further between fill ups. As it only needs to store energy from braking, the lithium-ion battery can have the plates further apart and separated by an insulator mesh, trading energy density for crash-worthiness and longer life before it self-destructs. It may even be possible to have useful regenerative braking with lead-acid batteries. As these fuel cells will shift an automaker’s average fleet economy upwards, they could even bring back the land yachts that were so popular, before CAFE struck them from the drawing boards.
Lack of compression means that there is no formation of NOx.
Of course, if I am buying a warehouse forklift, it would not take me a second to choose the electric model, as the 3000 pound lead-acid battery over the rear wheels is a feature, not a bug (petrol, diesel, and propane fueled forklifts need heavy steel counterweights at the back to make up for the lack of a dense and massive battery).
Honda has their fuel cell cars on the market. I’ve seen a couple around Goleta, CA, recently. Of course, you’re talking about yet another non existing fueling infrastructure. Speaking with an owner, he seemed to think because hydrogen is light it’s safer than gasoline…Uh, Hindenburg, exploding car batteries, etc., Hello Mr Green-Zealot, are the lights on in there? Certainly an interesting machine, but there will only be one long term alternative to gasoline. Supporting multiple fueling infrastructures nationwide will never be more than a pipe dream. Somebody is going to win, and the others will suffer accordingly.
I’m with you Richard. And I believe an electric-motor-powered automobile is the ultimate solution. And I agree the fuel cell would be (within known reason) the best source for the electricity because fuels are more energy dense than known battery technologies. I’d like to have see a hydrogen economy and infrastructure to fuel the fuel cell, but that would have to happen as a natural demand driven progression. Of course fuel cell powered cars should also only develop because the free market desires it. I think it soon may. And we won’t have to wait long to find out because these cars are being produced now. Think of all the moving parts in an ICE, and compare to an electric motor. Likewise on maintenance. Lots of other benefits, too.
RG, hydrogen storage in cars today is fairly safe, some think safer than petrol. The biggest problem (hurdle), I think, for hydrogen powered fuel cells is its manufacturing, and distribution infrastructure.
https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/10/05/you-wont-believe-how-safe-toyotas-hydrogen-car-is.aspx
Widespread use of hydrogen will be associated with abundant leakage of hydrogen gas into the atmosphere, especially if electrolysis of water is distributed among wind and solar farms. Hydrogen gas is lighter than air. Thus the leakage will rise through the atmosphere until it reaches the stratosphere, where it will react with the ozone, reducing the protective effect of that gas, and creating water vapor, which will promptly freeze into little crystals of ice, changing the Earth’s albedo. I’m not sure that is preferable.
TedL, I defer to you on the chemistry involving the ozone, and you’re right about hydrogen leaking. It can find the tiniest of holes. But hey, think of the opportunity to have exploding envioro heads. With a hydrogen powered electric car whose sole emissions is pure water (if you forget all that went into getting the powering hydrogen or fossil fuel), you’d presumably have happy environmentalists and warmistas – greatly reduced CO2 emissions. But then as you say, the ozone starts breaking down. When the dilemma stares the environmentalists dead face on, they start shaking and vibrating real hard and then their heads do a collective 10:10. Let’s face it, until 5 Billion people are killed off, environmentalists won’t be happy.
Clay, hydrogen doesn’t need holes in order to leak.
WarkW, I did some more research on hydrogen storage. I see what you mean, it can apparently pass thru molecular structures of certain materials, but in some materials it can take years. Anyway, the point is well taken. There are infrastructure issues for hydrogen gas storage and production, which is probably why Richard Bell wanted to go with a hydrocarbon/reformer supplied fuel cell – to bypass hydrogen gas storage and other hydrogen gas issues. I hope a fuel celled powered electric car doesn’t go the way of fusion – always just 10 years away from implementation…
Clay…..“always just 10 years away from implementation ??????? ”
…
You can buy one today from Toyota: https://ssl.toyota.com/mirai/fcv.html
Good luck filling the tank…
https://www.afdc.energy.gov/fuels/hydrogen_locations.html
Are fuel cell vehicles subject to the same restrictions as liquid petroleum gas vehicles? Being unable to use ferries, and some tunnels/underground spaces might be a tad inconvenient.
SteveT
I am replying to my own comment, because I do not see a reply clicky for any the response to my comment.
Readers are confusing “hydroCARBON fuel cells” and “hydroGEN fuel cells”.
Hydrogen fuel cells take hydrogen and oxygen as inputs and output water and electrical energy. There is minimal infrastructure for supplying hydrogen for vehicles, as there is no good solution to storing the hydrogen on or off the vehicle.
Hydrocarbon fuel cells take a hydrocarbon and oxygen as inputs and output water, carbon dioxide, and electrical energy. The infrastructure to replenish the fuel reserves of hydrocarbon fuel cell equipped vehicles already exist, because they can directly convert gasoline to electric power. Hydrocarbon fuel cell powered electric vehicles deliver more energy to the wheels, because converting electricity to mechanical work is more efficient than converting heat to mechanical work. Despite CO2 being an output, the hydrocarbon fuel cell powered vehicle puts out less CO2 while being driven than a comparable internal combustion engine running on the same fuel.
Fuel cell efficiency is 50%. Electric motor 90% so 45% together. Advantages: wasted heat warms the car, no gearbox needed. Less maintenance.
I wonder if Kurt’s ten year old Electric Honda, was routinely charged on one of those five minute chargers, or even a 30 minute charger. Batteries do not have zero internal resistance, and the fast charging I^2R losses, go up as the square of the charging current, which is after all, why they are called I^2 R losses.
Let’s just see how Elon’s Tesla’s batteries last when ROUTINELY fast charged; like out on the highway; not in the garage.
G
When the State of California passes a law that the State, and ALL state employees may purchase ONLY Electric cars for any State government function that the tax payers must foot the bill for, and may not spend taxpayer funds on any fossil fuelled vehicle, of any kind, then I might consider they are serious about me buying an electric vehicle.
G
Electric car of today’s technology is a good city car – meaning, a second car. This is an attempt to double the number of cars in California.
I’d love to have an electric two door hatch-back for zipping around town.
My current 8 year old gas powered zip around needs to occasionally make the Manitowoc – Milwaukee round trip of a little over 150 miles. It cost way less than $20,000 and so far since 2009 I’ve run about $4,000 worth of gasoline through it – works out to around $2,500 per year.
My practical side won’t allow the purchase of a car that won’t perform that well.
The ability to go 400+ miles without charging the batteries
The ability to charge the batteries in 5 minutes
With no compromise on speed.
Homework assignment – Calculate the amperage needed to fully charge the typical EV Battery fro 15% capacity to 100% capacity in 5 minutes.
Bonus – What size wire will cable on this charger be? Can the typical person handle a cable of this size? can the typical home handle the amperage? Can the typical utility handle this power surge in the evening hours for a city the size of Chicago, Cleveland, etc…?
Ha… not for me to work out. We were asked what it would take to get us to get an electric car. I gave my “requirements” so to speak. If I was doing more than the range of the car in a day.. I wouldn’t want to sit around for hours half way to get the car batteries “filled up”.
Possible solution…remove the battery and power the vehicle through induction
@Bryan A “power the vehicle through induction” In theory should work, however, what of the wasted power over the vast expanse of just the interstate system in the 4 to 10 lanes and the millions of miles of vacant highway? Then there is the coupling loss to consider. Seems like another 25% efficient Renewable Energy source.
Actually, Induction powered cars and powered roadways may be just the answer. But I wouldn’t remove the battery, just scale it down. That way you wouldn’t have to power every driveway and parking lot, and they’d have at least some ‘off grid’ capacity’.
The price for electrifying all those roads would be an obstacle of course, but then again if you started off adding Induction to the EV’s we have today, and electrified the roads as part of their maintenance cycle, you could build up to it slowly. Then once you had a significant part of a cities roads electrified you could start marketing cheaper ‘grid-optimized’ cars with, say 30 to 45 minutes travel on just batteries.
The best part is, no plugging in or charging times. The battery is topped up any time it’s on the road, though any place they are likely to be parked for long periods (airport parking lot) may be a good place to put trickle charging induction fields to keep them from bricking.
~¿~
@usurbrain
Alas, my knowledge of Induction Power is limited to what I know from using an induction stove top and from my electric toothbrush that somehow charges while setting on it’s stand despite not having any electrical contacts.
In short, I know THAT it works, not HOW it works. >¿<
I pretty much was operating under the impression that it would work much like the trains or busses that get their power from electrified rails or wires, but without actually needing exposed contacts (and the risk that entails), and probably a small loss of efficiency.
I take it from your post that the losses would be… substantial?
~¿~
usurbrain-
Good questions.
Assuming the energy required to charge the EV battery from 15% to 100% is 50 kWhr, the lossless charging power to complete this in 5 minutes (or 5/60 = 0.083 hours) is 50 kWhr / 0.083 hours = 600 kW. At 240 V, that requires a current of 2500 Amps.
Typical homes have a utility feed of 100 A – 200 A at 240 V, which is about a factor of 12 – 25 too low.
Lincoln Electric provides welding cable guidelines for choosing copper welding cable size based on ampere rating of welder.
A 1500 Amp welder operating at 100% duty cycle and up to 50 foot cable length requires 5 parallel cables of size 4/0 for each polarity.
A 2500 Amp EV charger operating at 100% duty cycle will require at least 16 cables of size 4/0 (8 for each polarity).
A single 4/0 welding cable weighs about 0.7 pounds per foot. With a cable length of 25 feet, that comes to 17.5 pounds per cable, or about 280 pounds of total cable bundle weight.
Seems a little unwieldy…
This might work until the first utility company arrived to dig up the road. The logistics, practicality and costs would be horrendous.
Plus regular road maintenance.
SteveT
Super charging must also not compromise battery life, as it does today.
Super charge? Is that like a nitrous system for EVs?
Why? Supercharging is a rare event in the driving experience of most Tesla owners.
And those induction powered roads must not radiate any EM energy, or create any RF interference on any frequency band already in use for some purpose.
There’s actually a nut job at I believe it is Stanford, who is seriously considering induction powered cars, and it requires a variable frequency for it to work the way he claims it will.
There are more looney tunes masquerading as educators, than you know of. Remember if you can’t do anything useful, you can always become a professor and teach. Oh I forgot; professors don’t teach, it’s some grad student doing the teaching, and (s)he’s right up on it, having just passed finals in that subject.
G
Give me a million dollars. Then I will buy a new Toyota Tundra and laugh as I drive away with $950,000 left over.
You could use it to tow the EV… 😉
Or get 3 other people and pick it up and put it in the bed. Would be room for a couple of coolers and grill, too!
3 other people to pick it up? The batteries alone weigh 800 kilos!
Aren’t they lighter when they are not charg,,,,,,,,,Damn! I couldn’t even type it without busting out laughing. Which is the exact reaction when I read or hear the words electric and car together.
I used to work at the top of a long steep hill and had a colleague who was a bit older than me and couldn’t quite manage the cycle ride. So he got an electric bike and was really pleased with it – initially. Problem was with each overnight recharge the performance dropped a little so he was having to work harder with each passing day. Unlike a conventional bike where you get a bit fitter every day and the ride becomes easier his journey was getting each day just that bit more onerous. Totally unmotivating. He doesn’t do that anymore.
Well, this post gives an advantage to the EV (or the hybrid). It is easier to transport electrons than bulk gasoline.
Huh? Where did you get that from?
While electrons don’t weigh much, the thing you need to store them in is very heavy and expensive.
He said the gas stations where dry but the power was still on.
If you live in a place that gets cold in the winter, you would also need a battery that doesn’t poop out when the temperature goes below freezing.
What about hot weather. I have a battery strimmer that uses the same technology as the car batteries and it is fine and does our full garden until the temperature gets above 25C. Above that it cuts out if used continuously after about two thirds at most.
Also the car range if you have air con or heating must be really pathetic.
Be able to recharge in 5 minutes to give a 400 mile range carrying 4 adults and their luggage in all weathers day and night. Power points to recharge as easy to find and access as gas stations. Sufficient baseload power in the grid to support all the charging. A way of recharging when car bricks due lack of charge at night miles from nearest power point.
It will never happen. The energy density of batteries is insufficient, the charging rates are insufficient, the grid power is insufficient.
Spot on.
The only way electric cars will ever become widespread is when a “hot” rail is implanted in major thoroughfares that will allow charging while driving. Building rails and roads was required before mechanical transportation was widely available in the past. Then we can address the problem of burning 3 times as much fossil fuel to generate enough electricity to replace a gallon of gasoline.
Yup.
Should solve the problem of those annoying jaywalkers as well.
Ten dollar gas might do it. Which is apparently what some enthusiasts have in miind.
The same enthusiasts also want upwards of two/three dollar Kw/h electricity as well.
We must never lose sight of the agenda behind all of this “frontage” – the destruction of the western way of living. There is a core of activists and a large number of “useful idiots” the latter thinking they are caring environmentalists etc.who are really aiding and abetting the continuing suppression and deaths of the poorest people around the world.
The champagne socialists, politicians and multi-billionaire backers all expect to be part of the small elite running the planet once the population gets to a “manageable” size. Most of these have UN connections.
SteveT
with a goal to more than quadruple the number of zero-emissions vehicles on the road by 2025
OK, Green Utopia California, where exactly would the electricity come from to charge all those cars?
Problems, problems…
Easy, they will make electricity so expensive that nobody else can afford to use any. Then there will be plenty of subsidized power available for electric cars.
Recycled bong water from all the pot those moonbats are smoking!
My present car can go approx. 1000KM on a tank of gas. It operates in cold and warm temperatures, is very reliable and was not expensive to buy. Why should I buy an EV??????????…..Unproven claims of doom days coming is not a reason.
That’s easy. A portable source of energy, instead of a mere storage.
Mr. Fusion?
^¿^
1. recharging EV’s is not common sense. Change batteries and load directly from RE sources.
2. low range limits use to cities.
3. hi price
it takes a lot of (blind) idealism to buy an EV.
Finally: if trees could speak they would say: “thank you” to every SUV passing by. Driving gasoline powered cars greens the world.
Electric car rebates are welfare for rich people (both the buyers and producers like noted welfare queen Elon Musk). I think it’s pretty disgusting to take money from the middle class and give it to the rich so the rich can feel smug about how much they’re doing for the environment. In any just world, the subsidies would have never existed.
The middle class doesn’t pay much in income taxes anymore.
The bottom 50% of income earners pay only about 1% of all taxes.
MarkW
True, but who pays most of the gasoline tax, corporate taxes (through higher prices) and any other fee or hidden tax in goods purchased, not to mention SS money that has been raided to be used for general funds?
Yes, but do the same calculation for the Social Security and Medicare tax. Then add in the lottery and get the true picture of how much the bottom half pays in taxes.
President Reagan came very close to effectively implementing a flat tax when he managed to get rates to, as I recall, 15% and 28% for a brief time. The combined SS/Med tax was around 13% at the time and the 28% rate kicked in at about the level of income that SS/Med tax was no longer collected.
The result was that everyone was paying around 28% after they hit the standard deduction. If they’d have put everyone on a standard deduction and done away with itemizing them, we’d have been very close to a flat tax on income. Didn’t last long, however.
The poor get back everything they pay into SS and Medicare and then some.
The lottery is a tax on stupidity, and is 100% voluntary.
Gasoline tax is based on how much you use, and many urban poor don’t even have cars.
Corporate taxes are also based on how much you consume.
Right on. Take from the poor and give to to the rich. Most subsidies are like that. Concerning Mr. Musk, I do not recall hearing about Mr. Ford, Mr. Chrysler, and zillions of others, based their enterprise on subsidies from the Gov’t.
Musk is a loon, and one of these days his investors are going to see through his dreams of futuristic avarice and his stock is going to TANK. You can only go so long on hot-air castles before having to actually produce some tangible return. If the subsidies are pulled, the cars will NEVER sell beyond 1%. “Space-X” may have some viability as a trucking company to low earth orbit, but the rest is a Trekkian dream. As for the newly-launched “neural interface,” you really want Borg implants? Hyperloop, REALLY? When this guy’s dreams are exposed as non-starters by someone who’s actually conversant with the laws of physics and economics, he’s going to leave a pretty big smokin’ hole in the stock exchange.
My sentiments exactly.
I live and commute in the LA area. Most drivers on the roads will never be able to scrape together the $$ to buy an electric vehicle. However, taxing them to subsidize this low cost is akin to opening the refrigerator door to cool the kitchen.
There must be some analogous economic principle to the 2nd law of thermodynamics:
“You cannot tax individuals into prosperity.”
I would say “The economy cannot be taxed into prosperity.”
SR
Socialism is the belief that by taking money from the people who earned it and using it to buy votes, you can improve the economy.
California is real trying to control GHG emissions – Sure they are controlling the CO2 emissions by doing everything possible to shut down every ZERO CO2 producing Nuclear power plant. How many Wind Turbines and/or Solar panels does it take to replace Diablo Canyon? If of the CA NPPs had remained open, 73 percent of power produced in California would be from clean (very low-carbon) energy sources as opposed to just 34 percent. Of that clean power, 48 percent would have been from nuclear rather than 9 percent. And the 9% will be 0.0% in just 7 years. How many cars, SUVs, truck does it take to produce 53 Million Megatonnes of CO2?
Just how do you charge the EVs at night when your car is at home and pluged into its charger? Makes no sense to charge a battery during the day while your car is parked in a parking lot to be used to charge up the battery in your car when you come home. That means twice as many environmental polluting batteries. The Greenwhackos are not thinking through their Renewable model.
How are Californians going to charge their EVs in the daytime? Look at the Renewables “duck” curve –
“Thinking through?” You don’t “think through” a religious belief, you just . . . BELIEVE!!!! Gaia will provide, or at least Al Gore!
The day of the Eclipse me, my Sister and a friend drove 6 hours from Fort Wayne, Indiana to Bowling Green, Kentucky. We spent an hour there watching the Eclipse and having lunch, then drove 6 hours home.
It was a crazy Road Trip made with 2 days planning, real spur of the moment.
When they have an Electric car that can do that, and doesn’t cost much more then my Jeep Grand Cherokee, I’ll seriously consider it as a next car.
They need 3 to 5 min charging time or long trips will simply be too much trouble.
The base Tesla model 3 for 35K would have let you done it. You would have had to plan a little extra time each way to stop for charging, but there are several places to do it on that route.
Oh, and your annual fuel costs will be cut in half, at least, and if you drive less than 100 miles in a typical day, you will rarely have to stop to refuel at all. If the Jeep Grand Cherokee is your standard, you should start looking into electric cars right now,
Try this one. Sit and watch it on telly and save the planet.
Get a flight to Nashville , then a taxi.
Try picking somewhere closer on the eclipse path
Schittzree, it should be I not me in your opening sentence. 2 days planning? Get some modern technology like a satnav or a map.
My Initial Offer: Voucher for full upfront purchase price, waiver of all taxes on purchase, voucher for battery replacement, and $10,000 for convenience factor in cost of less reliable system with range issues. I reserve the right to sue in the event that there are unforeseen safety issues with these small cars on busy under-funded highways and bridges.
I don’t understand wasting even more money on EVs when they are not building more generation capacity. When Diablo Canyon shuts down, where are they going to get all the electricity to charge all these new EVs, especially at night when solar is off line and the hydro systems are wanting mucho MW to pump their water back up hill for the next day??? Right now, the only people that can afford to buy and operate EVs are the well off, and most of them don’t need a subsidy. I hate paying (with my taxi) for other peoples toys!
I’m sure that one could divert some of the electricity that they use to pump up the hydros.
A gas powered generator in the car hooked up to the electric motor 🙂
They’ve thought of that.
http://www.eptender.com/
Now ask, why not just use an ICE vehicle and skip the unnecessary Thermo2 tax? :]
Second offer: Fire Nancy Pelosi and most of the current party leaders and retire the Moonbeam and I will consider buying one.
Looked at Transit Evolved (transportevolved.com) and instantly saw an additional issue with EV I haven’t seen before — heating/cooling. An article there boasted that it only reduced range by (at most) 19%.
So, here in Texas (I, too, live in DFW) where distances between major cities (and even within metro areas) can be considerable and, yes, it sometimes gets cold and definitely gets hot, you must factor out 10-20% of the range so that you don’t sweat/freeze. (The article noted that the range only decreased t 195 miles, or just a little beyond Austin on our friends trek to Houston.)
So, a one-day trip becomes a 2 day journey with a stay in a hotel (likely pricey) that has a charging station. That becomes a non-starter.
In addition, I have friends outside of El Paso, a mere 610 miles away. To visit them would suddenly become, at minimum, a 3 day trip — one way — with all the attendant motel costs (and just try to find charging stations along I-20/I-10).
EV: As a nice little commuter-mobile, maybe. As the family car, never. As someone above noted, this is a good way to double the number of cars in California — or any state of any size outside the East Coast Corridor.
Pfft it doesn’t get cold in Dallas 😉
Problem is Dallas gets cold but not cold enough. I would much rather drive in the 6-8″ snow storms in the Midwest compared to driving in the 1/4″ ice storms that happened while in lived in Dallas.
Have you ever seen the automotive carnage from a Dallas ice storm?
And that’s assuming you can get to your destination without any wrong turns, heavy traffic, an out-of-date GPS map getting you lost, etc.
Unless every single individual in California is well fed, has a roof over their head and access to good education, it would be reprehensibly immoral to spend this kind of tax money on getting more folks into electric play toys just for political theatrics. There is NO scientific, environmental or economic justification.
I would take one if they came in packages of Cracker Jacks. Sadly, I believe Cracker Jacks cause cancer in the State of California.
It seems everything causes cancer and/or birth defects in the State of California nowadays.
Which would probably explain all the low IQ’s in the State of California. Either that, or the weed.
It would need to have the range of a ICE and be rechargeable in minutes, so it will likely not happen in my lifetime. A PEV, however, is quite practical because you can spin around town on an electric motor and then fire up that ICE when on the open road, but the costs are going to have to come down a little. A PEV (hoping for diesel hybrid) will quite possibly be my next vehicle purchase.
Errr I mean PHEV
What would it take? From the previous comments, we know that bribery won’t work and even giving away current-technology EVs won’t work. Hopefully Gov. Moonbeam isn’t reading this, but the proven solution is to legislate against internal combustion engines. Think the VW debacle. They effectively legislated against the VWs by refusing to allow renewal of annual registration at vehicle inspection time. Jerry or AQMD could dig deep into the California Vehicle Code to find an endangerment clause that prevents ICE vehicles from being registered. Simples, the “problem” is solved in a year or two without CA money, and there is no messy glass from Bastiat’s broken windows. There would be some Constitutional issues with interstate transport with vehicles registered out of state, but I’m sure Jerry could creatively get around that impediment like he does with the 1st and 2nd Amendments. This reply contains only a vanishingly small \sarc.
Re what the flooded electric car- junk it. That is what the dealer will do. Same for a gas powered car. While the car may be able to be cleaned to look good as a group flooded vehicles of any type are rolling wrecks. The water and salt get into every connector and starts corrosion. The whole electrical system will have to be replaced at way more than the car is worth .
Wuite a few states have laws that make it a crime to sell a rehabilitated flood car without informing the buyer.
Loved the article from Transit Evolved’. What to do if your EV is under water? You may be able to open the doors but don’t forget to turn off the power to the charger first! Wise advice I feel.
An awful lot of ignorance here and all around about electric cars. That’s about to change, big time.
Why these Californians are worried about selling EVs is unknown, when Telsa has a waiting list of over 500,000 customers, each having plunked down $1000 for the privilege of waiting 12 to 18 months for a $35,00 Model 3 (average prices as optioned for the group – $44,000. Base car has a driving range of 230 miles, but for an extra $9,000 you can order a larger battery, which provides 310 miles of range, plus the further possibility of dual electric motors and extremely quick acceleration). The base model does 0 to 60 in 5.6 seconds).
WARNING about Tesla Motors and their vehicles – service is a nightmare – just getting an appointment can easily take 60 days (each service center is responsible for over 2000 vehicles) and owners are also upset about the quality of the service – 50% report that they needed two or more trips to the service center to resolve a problem. Tesla’s Supercharging stations – are pretty sparse and only can handle travelling customers and not too well at that. This with less than 140,000 vehicles on the road. When the Model 3 reaches full production next year (200,000 per year, all pre sold), two things will happen – the service centers and the charging stations will be overloaded unless Tesla does something about the situation, They have announced a two-fold increase in charging stations but that ain’t gonna hack it. Ditto for their service centers, especially if the new Model 3 has significant quality issues. Tesla is building their own network of charging stations, a huge blunder in my opinion, sinnce all of the other two dozen automakers will be using a different charging protocol for their DC fast chargers, which are required for travel – German and American automakers are using SAE COMBO charging protocol and Korean and Japanese are using CHAdeMO protocol. Anyone can install and build a SAE COMBO or CHAdeMO station, but Tesla Supercharger stations are proprietary. The importance of this is that there is about to be an avalanche of electric models from ALL of the world’s automakers. BMW will sell electric versions of EVERY single model they make, including their Mini. Ford has an electric Mustang, F100 and SUVs ready to roll, Mercedes will follow BMW’s lead, and GM has a Chevy Bolt right now
and a Buick version the coming year and GM’s CEO said they have many,many other versions in the works. Volvo has already announced they will only build EVs and hybrids after 2019 I believe.
Honda has given upon hydrogen propulsion and has an electric ready to go, as do all of the Japanese and Koren automakers. Nissan already has the Leaf, scheduled for a much-needed increase in driving range. The Chevy Bolt is selling pretty good, despite its limited area of release
and some fictitious media articles that claimed it wasn’t selling and production had been halted. The truth is far different – the halt in production was planned, in order to reconfigure the production line, which was producing both the Bolt and the slow selling Sonic. Up to now the Bolt had only been sold in 18 states. Their unsold inventory at their dealerships was only 6 Bolts.
Virtually all the electrics will have a 230 + mile driving range and quite a few with over 300 miles. What this means is that charging stations for non-Tesla charging protocols will dominate and be everywhere.
My prediction is that the most likely scenario would be the transition, over several years, of gas filling stations to combination gas fueling and electric charging stations. It’s a natural – the stations are already in place and are EVERYWHERE, and are often a satisfactory place to wait for the 15 to 30 minute recharges.
Tesla owners can buy a plug for use on either SAE COMBO or CHAdeMO chargers, I believe.
But Tesla’s biggest problem is that their Fed tax subsidies will run out before they sell half a year’s production of Model 3s, and thereafter ALL of their competitiors will enjoy a $7500 price advantage over Tesla vehicles. Any subsidies California provides will be good for all electrics, not just Tesla vehicles, and those subsidies will only be available in California. Tesla now faces, for the first time, competition that will have no problem matching their vehicles and , as one stock analyst pointed out: Tesla Motors has no “moat” – no patents that would protect their products from competition.
Any automaker can buy and install the same motors Tesla uses for their cars. Ditto for batteries, and now comes areport that Tesla’s battery giafactory, which Musk had claimed would cut batery prices by a third, cannot produce the cells as cheaply as Samsung. They are using Samsung batteries for the battery storage facility they are building for the South Australian grid.
California needs to provide subsidies for electric cars like they need to subsidize beer drinking.
OK. Whatever…
Good Summary Arthur. I would disagree on two points. Firstly Tesla’s proprietary fast charge network is far ahead of today’s Chademo and SAE Combo – the peak chart rate is far higher. Secondly the supply of batteries is an issue for all the other makers: unless they get organised and start thinking about cell production the same way they think about engine plants, they are toast
And… There’s no Moore’s Law for batteries… http://www.pnas.org/content/110/14/5273.full
Dave Middleton: “And… There’s no Moore’s Law for batteries…”.
Lifted from Wikipedia “The Zoes produced until June 2015 are powered by a 22 kWh lithium-ion battery pack….In October 2016 at the Paris Motor Show, Renault unveiled a 41 kWh lithium-ion battery…” Similar story for the Nissan Leaf. It may not be doubling every 18 months but the trend in capacity is strongly up
Moore’s Law would be doubling capacity in the same volume or area.
An Alkaline Long-life D-cell battery has ~20 times the capacity of an Alkaline
Long-life AAA battery… And nearly 20 times the volume.
The Moore-equivalent for batteries is a doubling roughly every 60 years.
I had solar panels confused with batteries. The energy density of solar panels has a ~60-yr doubling period. It’s ~30 years for batteries…
http://pubs.rsc.org/services/images/RSCpubs.ePlatform.Service.FreeContent.ImageService.svc/ImageService/Articleimage/2011/EE/c0ee00777c/c0ee00777c-f2.gif
http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2011/EE/c0ee00777c#!divAbstract
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/why-moores-law-doesnt-apply-to-clean-technologies
His stopgap solution is:
He obviously lives where driving on snow covered roads is not typical.
In reality EVs get less than their advertised range in snowy cold areas. Cold battery, heater lights wipers on and then the often over looked range stealer. Pushing through a snowfall with unplowed or semiplowed roads.
In my town in northern Canada the goofy city administration leased a Leaf to “test”. Well that Leaf will barely make from city hall to the university five miles with a long hill in winter. If there is snow on the ground the heater cannot be used or it will die on the hill. They renewed the lease for another 4 years.
There is and will be insufficient power from the grid to charge all these electric vehicles. But please let California, UK and France go all electric. California will no longer force ICE standards on the other 49 states and all three will become brownout states much to the amusement of the others.
Seems like a heluva lot of trouble to go to over a “problem” which doesn’t even exist. I’ll keep my Tundra, thanks!
In the dead of winter, how am I supposed to heat up my electric car and still have enough juice left to drive somewhere? I have never understood how EV are supposed to address that MAJOR problem. Not everyone lives in LA LA Land.
AC sucks as much or more power than heating, so most of the Southern states have issues with EV’s on that issue too.
Not true. I designed HVAC systems for off-the-road vehicles (construction equipment) and the heater systems were much much larger than the AC. For a wheel loader, we were doing 10k BTU/hr for AC and 60k BTU/hr for heating. Of course the heat was free and the AC wasn’t. In an EV, your option for heating is resistive heat so your COP is max of 1 and probably more like .8-.9 (ain’t no chance of using a heat pump in Minnesota in January). So you’re looking at 15-20kW of heating and they say the range is only going down 19%. Also, in MHVAC systems, even when you use AC, you are still using heat. The air is blended over both the heater core and the evaporator core to get the desired cabin temperature. I have been wondering how they are accomplishing that in an EV. They might have more control over an electrically driven AC compressor. And of course, they’ve included using HVAC systems on max usage as part of their stated range, right?
Absolutely, and battery performance seriously diminishes with cold temps. It is a doubly whammy.
How are most people even going to charge their EVs? I’d bet that most people don’t have garages in which a costly charging station can be installed. Extension cords are not supposed to be used, and even if a 120VAC outlet is close enough, charging at that volatage takes forever.
But some people DO use extension cords to charge their EVs, contrary to manufacturers’ instructions. If you decide to go that route what are you going to do if you park your car on the street. Run a $100+ extension cord across the sidewalk and risk a lawsuit or theft?
ICISIL-
You have hit on a major problem. Drive around the older apartment areas in LA, where single family homes were torn down to build 6 unit apartments. With no parking except street parking. An extension cord isn’t going to work. If you come home late, you may have to park a block away from your apartment!
Recall – The Electric Launch Company, later renamed Elco Motor Yachts:
[ By 1900, electric-powered pleasure boats outnumbered the combined number
of boats powered by steam and explosive engines (as gasoline-powered
motors were called). By 1910, the advantages of the range and power of
gasoline came to dominate the market and Elco converted to motor boats. ]
“Range and power” were the two qualities that led to the demise of the Electric Boat in favor of gasoline powered boats. Seems those same two qualities are what describe the Electric vs ‘Explosive engine’ motor vehicle debate of today.
Strange, no electric boats? Better tell the submarines that.
I run one car the goes about 12,000 miles a year. Most are shortish journeys but one tenth are around 300 miles each way. An electric car would need t guarantee the round trip with no recharge and a battery life of at least five years at a reasonable cost. A lawn mower battery costs £100 and lasts only about five years so car batteries need a huge improvement to be viable in both life and operational journey duration to become even remotely practical.
Here in the UK our grid is clearly right on the edge thanks to solar and wind farm both of which are unsuited to our weather patterns and demand characteristics producing mainly when not needed and certainly not at night to recharge car batteries.
The reason why people are not buying electric is that Apple didn’t fabricate one yet 🙂 Happened before with touch screen phones, tablets and other stuff. Some say that Tesla is the new Apple of electric automobiles, and maybe they are right, but so far it was only producing something that few people can afford. With Model 3 this may start to change, but there is one more thing needed, they need to be able to mass-produce it. Having to wait 2 years to get your car is not cool.
People complain about prices and whether it makes sense economically to buy one. But car buying nowadays is not so much about making economical sense but about showing one’s status. People buy what they can afford regardless of whether it is the cheapest thing that covers their needs, and sometimes they do their choice DESPITE it doesn’t cover their needs. Many people buy this car or this other based on how it makes them feel or how cool they think it makes them look. And the price or the characteristics, while playing a role, are not the biggest players in that decision. Otherwise “expensive” brands would not sell many of their cars, only the really-top-of-the-game ones, because for their “normal” models there is always a similar car in other brands at a much cheaper price. So those models do not make economical sense, but they get sold anyway, because it is not about making economical sense. It is about making the user want to have one and feeling good about it.
‘Round here any dweeb can now lease a BMW for under $300 a month. Cachet = 0. So Maserati is the “new” BMW for nouveau trogs who want everyone to think they’re “cool.” Range Rovers for soccer mums, extra points if it handles like a box full of rocks.
I’d probably pay $5000 for today’s technology. $10K? No. Not worth it.
Since I have experience with EVs, my dad having owned one for about 12 years, and therefore know about their practicalities, I guess the only thing that would persuade me to buy one is if they were so heavily subsidised that you could buy a new one for less than 500 bucks. Anything more than that and I would have to seriously think whether it was money well spent.
“…….LA Times: “What would it take to persuade you to buy an electric car?”
@LA Times: I guess it would depend on how many millions or billions you have in your bank and investment accounts L.A. Times. I can’t be bought off cheaply.
If you need the state to bribe people to get them to buy something you want them to buy, then logic dictates that there must be something wrong with the product you want them to buy, right? But then Greenies like yourselves have never shown that logic is one of your strong points.
Oh, I am so sorry. Did I use the the word “bribe” in my comment above? I meant “subsidy.”
What would it take?….How about an electric car that can perform the same functions of my current car? 400 miles to the charge with everything running….heat, AC, radio, etc. Ten minutes to fully refuel. Ability to tow. And around $35,000 without having to steal money from other people to artificially lower the price.
Apple is famous about fabricating stuff that does NOT perform the same functions as their competence, like phones without earphone connectors, laptops without USBs or HDMIs… and yet they manage to sell their stuff. The key is that, if you do not offer a few things BUT you offer others that the user may want and will not find anywhere else… then you can make business. And I tell you, there is something about electric vehicles that the average user does not appreciate yet only because they didn’t try it. But it is a matter of time that they get the experience and they start to like it.
Inside the politician’s mind: First, we get them all in EV’s. THEN, we start taxing autos by the mile, not before.
Third Offer: Give me the value of the sales tax exemption given to newspapers like the LA Times and I’ll think about it.
Meh, I would have no problem owning an electric vehicle.
If.
If there is a readily available charging station at every gas station. If that charging station took less than 5 minutes to charge my vehicle. If they can engineer the vehicle to provide needed torque and power when I want it. If the batteries are not a fire hazard. If I can see sufficient proof that the EV has an expense ratio on par or less than a comparable gas powered vehicle. Last but not least, if there is a truly a need to have one.
Check back in 20 years after the driverless EV market has consumed the Federal and state budgets with tax credits for the rich. (That’s a credit and not a deduction by the way.)
Money for the rich? Say it isn’t so.
All the governments along the west coast of North America (California Oregon Washington and British Columbia) have been thinking about a mileage tax / toll for electric cars. As more and more fuel efficient and electric cars come on to the roads, governments will collecting less money in gas taxes. That shortfall in revenue has to come from somewhere.
Example:
Washington Road Usage Charge Pilot Project
Test Drive the Road Ahead
GAS TAX WON’T MEET FUTURE NEEDS
https://waroadusagecharge.org/
Your post makes it plain that EV’s are an awkward “solution” in search of a problem.
I had to calculate total cost of ownership for a few options of such cars for the past few years, and I can only say those cars are dedicated for the math-challenged folks.
Unintended Consequences of this plan: ALL EV’s nationwide will be purchased in California and sold as nearly-new to buyers in other states. Several websites will spring up out of nowhere to facilitate the transfers. Some people will make a career out of delivering nearly-new vehicles to buyers in other states. Some Californians will buy as many EV’s per year as the government will subsidize, even quitting their present jobs if that limit is set high enough. Due to the above, the budget for this program will be underestimated by a factor of five to ten times as CA subsidies drive all EV ownership across the nation.
$10,000 is a lot of money. The free market will find ways to distribute it, just not the ways the politicians intended.
Are they planning to offer these subsidies for electric motorcycles too? Give me $10k and I’d get a Zero.
Reduce cost and charge time, and increase range and charge station availability on the road.
I fueled up my diesel RAV4 the other day. There were six pumps going constantly and about 2 more queuing for each pump . It took about 7 minutes start of queue to driving away. I put in 555 miles worth of diesel according to the gauge. So when an EV comes along that can do 500 miles on a 7 minute charge AND drive across my copse to pick up logs AND tow my dinghy across Northern France AND tow a trailer full of fence slats to my holiday home 50 miles away AND costs less than a used RAV4 I’ll consider it. Not before.
Diesel rav4? You are obviously an enemy of the people 🙂
We have a petrol rav4 . Very good it is too.
We looked at getting a second hand renault Zoe electrc car.
The trouble is that it may be ok as a second car but we have lots of buses round here . To justify its cost it would need to be the ‘first’ car.
Would we drive it across dartmoor and back especially in winter, with headlights on, heater going, windscreen wipers working? Or take it on holiday four up with luggage to Wales?
No we wouldn’t risk it although the total mileage would be less than 100 miles in the first instance but could be hundreds of miles in the second instance
So it needs to make this leap from second to first car
Tonyb
I wouldn’t mind one for my wife, who is the primary commuter. But it would need to cost the same for a similarly equipped ICE car of the same class. It would need to have the same range capability (300 miles with all equipment running while cruising at highway speeds). And it would need to recharge in the time it takes to refuel a car.
One of those things might be possible, maybe, one day in the future. But as for me, I love the sound and the fury, plus the sweet exhilaration of a perfectly timed downshift to ever give up internal combustion. So for me, there’s nothing that could convince me to buy one.
A cheap battery that actually works.
Sadly that’s still in the realms of science fiction.
I’m waiting for a practical spindizzy instead.
Yup, ultra-cap or something will eventually come along and make all the gigafactories useless. Toyota is touting solid state batteries for 2020 which apparently are still lithium based and would likely be as expensive, but will have 25% to 33% more energy density and safer. I’d want to be able to go at least 500 to 600 km, with a fast charge time.
I like the idea of no more oil changes, no O2 sensors, no radiator fluid… and make it in my price range. I could get a new gas vehicle under $10,000 if I wanted… better t I might spend $30,000 on a new electric with available good portions of torque.
IF I could use the subsidy for a GEM car, I’d buy one. I live just outside of Ventura, CA, have a motorcycle for my longish rides into the city (lane splitting is a god-send in SoCal!), and a nice convertible 2015 Mustang GT for other stuff. Having a small, 2 seat GEM electric for the 2-10 mile runs around town for shopping/errands would be great, and with the car being 100″ long, would fit right in front of my motorcycle in the garage.
But I can’t. Because even though the GEM is NHTSA and DOT approved for use on-road, it’s considered “too small” to be a real car, and thus won’t qualify. So no rebate to buy a small electric to cover my short-distance errands.
I guess it’s not all bad – just more reasons to drop the top and listen to the glory of the 5 liter V8 sing down the road…
I live in Toronto, and make frequent trips to Northern Ontario.
I would need, say, 25 years of study concerning how well these cars work in Canadian winter conditions (i.e. snow and cold, and a car with WiFi, satellite radio, heated seats, heated mirrors…).
What, you expect me to give up all my modern driving conveniences?
I’ve seen too many automobiles stranded on the roads due to running out of fuel while stuck in a winter storm.
No thanks, but come and see me in 25 years, ok?
No need, your government will find you.
If gasoline was over $10 per gallon and they didn’t jack up the price of electricity to match.
Government employees have to shop the same place you do currently, generally, and when they jack up your prices there’s no way, they’re not going to steal more of your money to cover their own losses they instilled, when they stole from you the first time.
My neighbor had a top of the line Prius which she used daily after first purchasing. THe first day it snowed she could not get the car up the slightly sloping driveway. Even after plowing the driveway it was a 50/50 chance of getting up the drive. After the second winter and the same results with premium rated winter tires they gave up and got an SUV. I am glad to have my driveway back (they would leave it in my drive when they could not make it up the hill) and they are glad they do not have to walk up the hill.
Possibly with “Global Warming” we will have less snow and the EV will function in more areas.
I got held up by a Prius driver that could not make it up an icy hill ahead of me. I had to talk the driver into backing down and to the side of the hill toward some dry pavement to let me get on my way. It took several attempts to coax them into moving the car 20 feet down and over. They are definitely fair-weather types.
both my 97 crown vic and 2010 marquis have hauled a prius up hill hill here.
prius had small 4×8 trailer on it with lawn mower in it it. twice I have had 7×14 trailer with over 3K of manure on it hooked to my car WHILE I hooked chain to prius to get it over hill.
$20K purchase price including 20 years of pre-paid battery replacements, with a co-pay slowly rising after that. 7-15 minute re-charge time, 700 miles between re-charges (after the batteries are several years old). Roomy passenger and luggage space (I’m thinking like the 1950 family sedans). Hmmm, need some specific requirements on power and acceleration (doesn’t need to be a dragster, but able to do the occasional escape from some nut who seems to want to play bumper-cars at main street intersection), and cruising speeds (70-80 miles/hour).
First, there’s something seriously wrong with a product you have to pay people to buy. Secondly, people are supposed to want to “save the planet”, even if it means shelling out more money than they would otherwise. Maybe it means they need to double down on their climate communication. Because it seems to me that what we have here is a “failure to communicate”. Perhaps more cowbell would do the trick.
At this point, ALL the “climate!” hysterics sound like cowbell . . .
1:) would have to be diesel electric (like locomotives) with regenerative braking.
2:) the engine and braking must be enough to keep battery charged at all times w/o plugging vehicle into outlet.
3:) below 30 deg F system should always default to diesel engine during initial startup and warm up, no battery power used to heat vehicle. And that would mean pretty much from September to march here, already have 40 deg mornings.
4:) needs to haul a 7x14ft trailer (actually can haul 7×16 dual axle if needed) like my 2010 marquis can.
First off, it would have to be able to get the same cruising range as, say, a Honda Civic per charge. None of this 100 miles or less, with a realistic expectation of 50 miles or so per charge.
$40k. 10 year battery warranty. Half hour to 85%. 400 mile real world range. Small V6 performance.
Oh but the real requirements. California cannot limit/throttle/meter my recharging. California cannot consider my vehicle a load leveling device as part of the grid.
I would consider buying the smallest electric available if:
1. Golf courses would let me use it, and
2. They’d throw in a Ram 2500 Limited Crew Cab 4×4 as a buyer incentive.
Got to say the best electric battery would only make it halfway to El Paso from Dallas or Houston. Maybe. And West Texas is the last place in the world where you would want to run out of juice.
Still amazed at Volvo’s proclamation to scrap-heap combustion engines in 2018.
> “Still amazed at Volvo’s proclamation to scrap-heap combustion engines in 2018.”
Either all electric -or- hybrid. And it is 2019.
Able to commute to work during a blizzard, slippery snow rut roads, -18C (0 F), wipers and defrost on full for first 10 minutes then just wipers plus heater at max, 60 minute commute (30 minutes in good weather). Parked outside all day. No power. Commute home another 60 minutes. Parked outside overnight with just a block heater. Sound harsh? This represents about 50% of the commuters where I live. These conditions can occur from Oct to Apr! Calgary, Alberta Canada.
Musk Lemon: in this scenario, EVs have two big advantages. Firstly you can use your mobile phone or remote to start the car heating so it is toasty when you get to it. Secondly, traction control works far faster with an electric drivetrain so driving on slippery surfaces is easier.
If I would move to Athens I would, no smog restrictions on EV. If you live in Athens, Paris, London Tokyo or any other mega-city you will welcome a shift to electric cars. They are no solution for carbon emissions but definitely helpfull in reducing city smog. If you live on a Wisconsin farm, in the Ardeche or Scottish Highlands or any other remote place the prospect will not even produce a sorry smile.
Much reduced price, greater range, and much quicker recharge time. Also, changing batteries would have to be much cheaper.
I wouldn’t buy one.
a goal to more than quadruple the number of zero-emissions vehicles on the road by 2025.
=======
luckily 4 * 0 = 0. But why stop there? why not a million times more?
I’m sure it would be interesting to see how well the EV’s in the path of Harvey have coped with being awash and unable to recharge. If a normal vehicle is flooded you dry it out change all the fluids and most are none the worse. But I’m not sure how a charged battery pack would behave, might be an interesting experiment carried out from a safe distance of course.
James Bull
Seeing video and pics from flooding I always get a chuckle when I see submerged vehicles with their lights still on.
If California’s politicians ever walk their talk of climate change and decide to do what actually must be done in the near term future to convince a majority of vehicle owners in their state to look more seriously at buying electric cars, then those politicians must create an artificial shortage of gasoline and diesel fuel that mimics the real shortages that will begin to emerge in two and three decades time when the bow wave of peak oil begins to arrive and the price of transportation fuel everywhere in the country begins to increase at an ever-accelerating rate. (In other words, no near term pain, no near term or/ long term gain.)
If California’s politicians don’t enact a stiff tax on all carbon fuels; if they don’t adopt a policy of imposing what amounts to a carbon fuel rationing scheme on all the citizens of their state; if they don’t force an end to the extraction of petroleum from oil fields located within their state’s borders; and if they continue to allow the purchase of fossil-generated electricity from out-of-state sources, then they can be rightly accused of using the issue of climate change as nothing more than an excuse for pursuing their own California brand of crony capitalism.
Dave Middleton – for once I think we may be sort-of in agreement. I am an electric car enthusiast (for reasons that have nothing to do with the environment. I don’t do “green”), but I also believe that the job of good government is to keep the peace, to keep the lights on, and to administer justice. I don’t approve of politicians trying to “save the planet” (whatever that means), so I don’t go for the idea of huge subsidies. I think most of the 96% will migrate to EVs.
So I think your question is fair “What would it take to persuade you to buy an electric car?”. I already haveone, , but if I may rephrase your question slightly “What would it take to persuade most people to buy an electric car? My off-the cuff-answer:
1. Get them to drive a good one. Electric drive blows ICE engines out of the water as a driving experience, and freedom from big oil on the road is a good feeling
2. Get the purchase price down to parity with equivalent ICE cars. This will blow ICE cars out of the water on total cost of ownership
3. Get the range on a full charge up to 300 miles with heating or AC on. Most people on a long trip would like a potty stop and a coffee every 4-5 hours going cross country. For local driving, 300 miles is good for a week or two.
4. Get fast charge down to 20 minutes or less for an 80% charge.
The Californian politicians shouldn’t worry about adoption. All this will happen. What they should be worrying about is who will make the EVs. China is already building twice as many EVs as the USA and will shortly totally dominate lithium battery production. The Chevy Bolt has Korean battery pack and drive train. Americans should be cheering on Tesla because it is the only domestic game in town in this space. Forget Green. This is about survival of the auto industry
1. I know I would love to drive a Tesla Model S P100D… for about an hour.
2. That’s the lowest hurdle.
3 & 4. Not likely to happen any time soon at a reasonable price.
I’d need all of those along with 4-wheel drive and the ability to ford a couple of feet of water… I’d want those qualities even more than 0-60 mph in 2.5 seconds. Then, maybe, they’d get more attention than me just looking at them and saying, “Cool tech!”
Dave – 3 & 4 with 4WD have happened already but not yet combined with 2: Tesla Model X P100D. No idea about its ability to wade, but submarines use battery power submerged and diesel on the surface so making an X watertight shouldn’t be rocket science
I should have been more specific. A Jeep (w/o snorkel) can ford water for the same reason it can handle rough terrain. A 4WD Tesla doesn’t have off-road capabilities.
But does your electric car actually deliver the performance list you are advocating?
And given the dreadful environmental damage involved in the production of these electric toys do you feel happy about the prospects of wholesale adoption?
Incidentally the EU has just enforced another reduction in the power (wattage) of vacuum cleaners that people can buy on the specious grounds that this is an eco- friendly power reduction saving. Annoyed consumers however are already pointing out the stupidity of this claim because their experience is the wretched things don’t do as good a cleaning job and have to be run for much longer to do the same amount of cleaning. So, dirtier hygiene and no power saving.
How long do you really think it will be before they start reducing the power and range of electric cars to deter the deplorables from using too much power and traveling!
Answers on the back of an envelope to Angela Markell or Michael Gove please.
Moderately cross of East Anglia: no my EV doesn’t do that – but my next one probably will
heres my biggest issue really, I often tow trailers (7x14x3high full of wet manure weighs a LOT) with my marquis (21-23mpg) and if I got electric I would ALSO need second vehicle to tow.
waste of resources.
Here’s what it would take to convince me.
1. 8,000 to 10,000 pounds towing capacity
2. 300 mile range while towing a 5000+ pound load.
3 Can be fully charged from empty in under 30 minutes (no battery swaps)
4. Battery life of at least 2000 charge/discharge cycles.
5. Charging stations at least as ubiquitous as gas stations.
6. Purchase price under $50,000 with zero subsidies.
I would be an electric car if:
1. It flew, still waiting from my flying car
2. Was nuclear powered, not grid nuke – my personal nuke
You would have to convince me that I was missing out. That other people were getting something better than I was getting.
Making electricity expensive is probably not a good start. Making fossil fuel hideously expensive could work.
With existing battery tech, $5k purchase price and completely autonomous driving for my disabled wife.
With future battery tech, $10k purchase price and swappable non-toxic electrolyte like the sugar batteries people are playing with.
After hearing about lots of complaints about Tesla’s service problems, I hit the internet and found
this in a consumer review site :
https://www.consumeraffairs.com/automotive/tesla_motors.html
Takeway : these complaints have some pretty outrageous stories about Tesla and their customer relations (awful) and their policies (also awful) – can only have Tesla collision damage repaired at an “official Tesla body shop.” Guy reported a 2 MPH collisison , which gave him a flat tire and damaged wheel and small body damage. Estimate from Tesla shop : $10,000. Another had a low speed colision – battery needed replacement : $45,000 !!!!! According to Tesla, their battery cells cost $150 per kWhr. That battery was probably a large one , at 80kWhrs, which would make the cells cost around $12,500 plus whatever battery case parts needed replacement.
My takeway : AVOID Tesla Motors, at least until these horror stories stop occurring.
As I said before : electric cars are intrinsically simpler than ICE vehicles, ASSUMING you don’t design like Tesla – which has this bad habit of putting all manner of mostly useless gee whiz electronic crap in their vehicles (to impress their buyers), that only THEY can fix, and Tesla is not shy about hitting their customer’s wallet VERY hard. Seat headrests that cannot be adjusted – the car “automatically” adjusts them, usually in an undesirable way. Tesla seems to say “No!” to just about every customer request. I will personally convert my 57 Thunderbird to electric when a company provides a good DIY conversion kit. THis car would be child’s play to convert – it has no computers, etc – all it needs is a simple 12 volt feed from the battery to operate all the lights, etc.
And I would be able to perform any repairs myself. Screw Tesla. Screw Elon Musk, billionaire cheapskate.
Arthur: Now tell us what you really think.
As in the guy who sent a telegram as follows: F*ck you, strong letter follows.
Arthur – an electric 57 Thunderbird would be cool. I converted a Honda and the stuff I took out (a 2.2 turbo diesel) was a lot more complex than what I put in. Get good advice on managing the batteries though
These schemes, as seems always to be the case, are utopian.
Everyone has a suburban house with a big driveway, and has allocated parking at their work. They have high current car charging points at home, and their employer gives them free car charging. The climate is pleasant, not too hot, not too cold, car journeys are never too long, and they never have to go anywhere unexpectedly. Car charging stations on the highways are like huge parks, with drivers standing around relaxed, chatting and drinking coffee whilst they charge their cars, gently chastising themselves for having run the batteries down too far to be able to get home. No-one is ever in a hurry. No-one depends on them getting somewhere on time……
In the real world it’s Scotland in winter.
Me and my chums have just come off the hill after a day’s mountaineering. It’s late, dark, and sleeting, and 250 miles to get home, 5 hours at best, more like 6 in that sort of filthy weather. Then there’s the stops for refreshments etc..
My 12-year old diesel estate car, which has spent the day in a lay-by at the side of the road, miles form the nearest building, will do that journey back with what’s left in the tank from the outward trip.
It’s worth about £2,000, has done 120,000 miles, and is good for as much again.
Make that journey do-able in a battery powered car, without stops for re-charging, and I might just buy one, if they’re cheap enough…..and if I don’t have to replace the ‘tank’ every few years.
Oh, and they’d need to solve the charging issue for urban flat-dwellers. In my town we are lucky to get to park within 100 yards of home. Please tell me how I’m supposed to charge my car? Charging points at every parking space?
Nissan Leaf? Tesla?
What a joke.
Aside from the fact that electric cars cannot compete head-to-head with ICE cars, I resent the intrusion of government into my choice of vehicles. Cut out the inducements paid with tax dollars.
Just wait ’til they start “inducing” you to eat kale . . .
I’d buy an electric car when it comes with its own portable nuclear generator. Let me know when that happens….
“And I would be able to perform any repairs myself.” Amen Arthur. When I first started driving ( CENSORED ) years ago, I could fix ( and I mean fix, not just remove and replace) almost everything I needed to with just a few wrenches, a pair of pliers, and a couple of screwdrivers. Us kids just didn’t do things like buying new parts or hiring mechanics. That cost MONEY, of which most of us had almost none. True, us girls could usually get some help from guys by batting our eyelashes and looking perplexed, but that only went so far so for lots of stuff we were on our own.
I would buy an EV if it:
1) Had a range of at least 300 miles with A/C or heat, lights and wipers running
2) Could be 100% recharged in 5 to 10 minutes
3) Had 4-wheel drive and would have no problems driving in 6 inches of snow
4) Would have no problems running when it’s 10 degrees F (it can get cold where I live)
If, after you drive it for 150K miles, I would buy it from you for $4K – if it can go another 150K miles with only expenses for tires and brakes. That’s the kind of affordability/longevity EVs need to compete in the marketplace with ICE autos.
SR
Wrong question.
The fact that the question even needs to be asked in this manner indicates that the product on sale is not currently worth it. McDonalds or Burger King (other fast-food products are available) don’t have to beg in this fashion because they sell a reliable product people want to buy at a price people can afford. People who have very limited disposable income. Electric cars have a long way to go. Honest people admit this to themselves and others.
Perhaps the question should really have been “What would it take to make you to buy an electric car?” Of course they are already working on the answer. The standard thinking of “planet-savers” is not persuasion but coercion.
Exactly right – at this point it would take FORCE to make me buy one. They cannot compete in the open market on a level playing field, for so many reasons among them price and performance and convenience and utility. As with self-driving or driver-less vehicles, there are just so many issues that are likely never to be resolved as satisfactorily as they already have been with ICE vehicles, only FORCE will suffice.
Is charging free at the Tesla stations? The price of gas is largely made up of taxes so how does the gov’t replace this revenue? Most EVs I believe are second cars that still need insurance and licenses so are the majority just replacements for second cars used to run around town? Just wondering!
I am willing to do my part but I cannot afford to part with any money over this. If the government will provide me with a free electric car and a home solar energy system to charge it up I am willing to make use of it but remember anything on my property I must own free and clear including taxes. The solar system must require batteries so that if I use the car during the day the car can still be charged up at night. I also require that the car have roof and hood solar panels so the the car can be changing up while parked in the sun during the day. I believe that we should do what we can to conserve on the use of Earth’s very finite supply of fossil fuels. But I also believe that the climate change we are experiencing today is caused by the sun and the oceans over which Mankind has no control and that my using an electric car will have no effect on climate.
The more you tighten your grip, the more drivers will slip through your fingers.
Also, the evangelism is getting a little creepy, turn the volume down, guys. Subtlety is appealing, shouty Mr. Sandwich Board is *not*.
Ok I’ll bite, here’s the science fiction that would get me to buy an EV:
1. Same price as a gas car.
2. Comes with two sets of batteries that are easily swapped.
3. These magical batteries can be recharged with standard sized solar panel allowing me to use one set to drive during the day while the other is solar recharged.
4. At least 300 mile range on a set of batteries.
5. Same magical properties that allow for solar recharging allow for a 5 minute recharge if I am taking a trip.
6. Comes with a coupon good for 5 free unicorn rides at my local unicorn ranch.
If it doesn’t sound and feel like a 66 Mustang with a Shelby built 289 I won’t buy it. That Detroit Symphony Orchestra response and feel is more important to me.
What would it take? First it would have to be at the same or lower cost than a gasoline powered auto WITHOUT any subsidies to the manufacturer or to the consumer. Then it would have to have a range of at least 500 miles on a single charge and able to reliably charge it at a price cheaper than the current price of gasoline. (Paying 30+ cents a kwhr for electricity AINT gonna do it). Have to full charge in two hrs or less and have lots of reliable chargers around with plentiful electricity supply to make it reliable. Then I would consider it. Currently, they do NOT meet even ONE of my conditions… and are a long way from it.
It would have to be competitively priced, and it would probably need to be powered by a solid oxide fuel cell—not a battery.
I would by an electric vehicle if:
I could drive from Denver to Washington DC in 27 hours in the middle of winter or the middle of summer (~24 hours of driving time).
Able to drive over the passes in the Rocky Mountains and be able to accelerate quickly on steep grades when desired.
It has 4 wheel drive (all-wheel drive).
The car can sit for a year without touching it and be fine.
Will go for ~150,000 miles with little maintenance.
Is extremely reliable (I drive a lot of roads which have few cars around).
Will have low running costs (which EV’s should have).
No more dangerous than gasoline-powered cars and don’t have to worry about special circumstances like perhaps driving through water any more than regular vehicles.
It has a lot of cargo space.
Will cost me about $5000 without any subsidies (I buy used cars).
Right now, I’ve got a Subaru Outback wagon approaching 170,000 miles and an old Infiniti in another state with almost 300,000 miles.
The Infinity is finally wearing out, but both cars fit all of the above criteria.
The owner of this site sells electric cars on Ebay, the name of them escapes me. Something like ‘Evo2Go’.
They seem like nice electric cars, good for zipping around town. It seems like this site would be a good place to advertise them, there are a lot of people who are interested in alternative energy, who read about climate.
We own a plug-in hybrid — a Ford C-MAX Energi, to be specific — and we couldn’t be happier. Around town (San Francisco), the system never kicks in its gas engine, seeing as how we get, oh, about 20 to 23 all-electric miles depending upon hills and temperatures. Out of town — we drive to Oregon somewhat regularly to visit our daughter and her husband — between flat stretches and downhill sections, we average well over 60 MPG on a 600-mile+ trip. The car is silent on electricity (nice), and switches between electricity and gas completely imperceptibly. Highly recommended.
What would it take to persuade you to buy an electric car?
To show off on a hot summer day
http://picture-cdn.wheretoget.it/7kfpmh-l-610×610-swimwear-pants-sweatpants-nike+pants-cute+pants-comfy-gray-black+bikini-nike-black-black+nike-black+nike+logo-logo-nike+logo-peace-golf-golf+cart-girls-triangle-triangle-triangle+b.jpg
You have two boyfriends too? lol
I bought an SUV last year, even though I always said I would never own one. I decided I needed to do my part to put more CO2 into the atmosphere for the good of the planet. Unfortunately it’s more fuel efficient than I thought. Maybe I should have bought the Hemi.
I took it on my recent trip to Idaho. I filled the tank on that Dodge Durango at the Shell on White & Arrow in La Verne, CA. I hit the Interstate and set the cruise control at 70 mph. 10 hours later I stopped at the Exxon on Wall & 12th in Ogden, UT to gas up after traveling 697 miles.
My fuel economy gauge on the dash kept showing a range of 726 miles but when I fueled up, it took 23.92 gallons leaving me thinking I would have been running on fumes if I has pushed it any farther. I would say I would never buy an electric but I said the same thing about an SUV for 20 years, so you never know.
Wrong preconditions. I dont want to be persuaded, I want to be convinced.
Battery driven electric cars are nothing but elec-trickery. The future of internal combustion is petrol, LPG, LNG and, probably, Hydrogenium. Later on they may power a fuel cell, but that’s music of the not so near future
di ethyl ether as synthetic motor fuel, produced by nuclear reactors (around 2500 to be expected)
Comrades, what makes you think the New World Order will allow you to have cars ? they’re intending to not allow you to have steak, why would they let you have a vehicle of any kind ? Agenda 21 -> Agenda 2030 -> 5 Year Plans.
LA Times: “What would it take to persuade you to buy an electric car?
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This!
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“Army discovery may offer new energy source”
http://www.arl.army.mil/www/default.cfm?article=3036
Very interesting and promising, but the other way round, the fuel cells, are closer to the drawing board than to practical application. Promising, yet fuel cells are still having considerable teething problems.
“What would it take to persuade you to buy an electric car?”
1) A three-car garage so I would have a place to keep the EV that I might use several times a week while also having space for our two existing IC vehicles we use every day. I really did look into an EV several years back and concluded I couldn’t replace either existing car — it would have to be a third vehicle.
or (2) an EV purchase deal which includes unlimited below-market rentals of IC vehicles. I read somewhere that Nissan was offering some kind of deal like this to purchase a Leaf, but I looked and as far as I could tell it was just a rumor. Come to think of it, this is like keeping a fossil thermal plant in spinning reserve so we can make greater use of wind/solar electricity. So for every 10 EVs you have on the road you’d need to keep perhaps up to 5 IC rental vehicles available to meet peak demand. Such an obvious and brilliant idea, it can’t be long before someone proposes it as a solution needing a public subsidy.
or (3) a practical liquid fuel cell (e.g., methanol).
The EV push is a perfect example of the perfect being the enemy of the good. “Good” today is hybrid vehicles; they work and don’t require mandates to promote adoption. You get a good bit of the benefits of EVs at a fraction of the total cost. I recently purchased a used Toyota Avalon hybrid and I like it very much. Saving money on fuel is not the main attraction; it’s the 650 mile range — I only need to fill up roughly every two weeks. I filled up just before Harvey hit Texas and with a bit of luck I won’t have to buy gas again until the price comes back down.
If you want to do better, spend research $$ on liquid fuel cells. Developing a practical solution there will provide almost all the benefits of pure EVs with none of the drawbacks.
But knowing how government works (especially left wing ones), they will pursue the mandate+subsidy route and proudly proclaim that all the disruption they cause will “create green jobs.”
An EV will not meet the transportation needs of most people. Hence, they are supplementary vehicles. Most people don’t want to spend money on a supplementary vehicle. Many don’t have spare parking space for them, either.
A toy for rich people. Subsidized by tax payers. Wealth redistribution!
Compare to wind/solar power. They cannot stand alone. Supplementary at best. Most people don’t want to pay for a supplementary power system.
A loan, co-signed by someone I really hate.
The only way electric vehicles will have a chance to become widespread is if a “hot” rail can be put on major thoroughfares that allow charging while driving. This process has been done before with rails and roads before autos and trains replaced horses and oxen.
While driving back from Idaho the day after the Eclipse, we ran into stop and go traffic about 60 miles east of of Reno NV, (not fun in the Shelby – besides the stiff clutch at idle in first its doing about 6Mph) that lasted over 2 hours (accident then wild fire) but had to laugh at the Tesla owners – it was dusk to dark and 90+ and a long ways to the nearest charging station
. . . and no reservations at charging stations. In a high traffic situation (or every day?), one could have to wait in line for hours just to get to a charger. Charging time isn’t the only issue on long distance travel.
Nother thing. I noticed a Tesla parked off the road on an interstate exit. I thought, “Hmmm . . . if you run out of gas, AAA puts a gallon in for you. What do they do if you run out of juice? Do they have to tow you to a charger?”
I would buy one if it is roughly the same price (under $30K), the same range (400 miles), has the same basic acceleration, has the same longevity (10 years), has the same or better cost per mile, is rated as reliable (like a Honda), does not require government subsidies, and most importantly if it can be charged from zero to full in less than 10 minutes, at every current gas station.
“What would it take to persuade you to buy an electric car?”
Bite me! I hate leading questions.
“Have you quit beating your dog?”
Nothing would. I need a car in heat, rain, cold, snow, sleet, hurricanes, etc. Imagine getting ready for work and realizing you forgot to charge the car last night. And, I would need a three car garage, with two parking slots reserved for junk and one for the car charging station.
A hybrid car would not be a hard sell to me, if there were sufficient subsidies.
Perhaps when Hell experiences the appropriate Climate change.
Most of us have experience with mobile(cell) phones or digital cameras. They use LiIon batteries that require particular treatment to maintain their integrity for as long as possible. Topping up on the charge on regular basis eats in to the life span of a battery. Ideally, you should charge them fully and let them exhaust fully too. But in reality, even for your phone or camera, this is not always practical. With normal use (if there is such a thing) typically a Battery will last aprox. 3 to 5 years. Bear in mind that over that realatively short time, the performance of the battery is diminishing all the time. They need to be charged more frequently, and subsequently, for less return for each charge. So, I’m thinking, the stats. for the EVs regarding charging times and ranges etc. are all based on a brand new battery. That’s as good as it gets, but fairly soon, that performance drops off.
Must have cheap power to recharge
Must be cheap to purchase
must be cheap to replace battery.
Must have 300 mile range.
Otherwise, it is a non starter. Like an airplane without wings.
let us not forget the 54.5MPG mandate of 2012, that’s why all the fuss over EVs at all…and the current President is working on revising that mandate, so, the whole EV rush will likely slow in about year once the mandate is actually reasonable for ICE, note that even most motorcycles would be violation of that 2012 mandate…