See, this information is very conflicting. Let’s say that car is driven, super conservatively, 100 days per year. (For reference, a typical commuting car is probably driven about 260 days per year). That means it’s only driven 53 miles/day on average. But then in the same breath you’re saying charging takes forever and batteries aren’t big enough and they’re impractical? I mean, which is it? 50 miles/day or 500 miles/day?
Or is the claim that people only drive the cars 50 miles/day because it’s impractical to drive them more? That’s ridiculous. I did 130 miles today and still had 100 miles of range left when I pulled into the garage.
Oh, I see:
Using our preferred difference-in-difference specification, we find that Teslas add 0.236
kWh per hour (s.e. 0.014, p < 0.01) to household consumption, while non-Tesla BEVs and
PHEVs increase energy use by almost half this amount: 0.103 (s.e. 0.008, p < 0.01) kWh
per hour and 0.090 (s.e. 0.013, p < 0.01) kWh per hour, respectively. This is likely to be
explained by a combination of factors, including battery capacity and differential household
selection into EV types.
So PHEVs (Plugin hybrids, that are glorified gas-burners) don’t result in many EV miles, but cars with actual usable-sized batteries get driven more. That makes sense.
Absolute range is only a small part of it. So you plug in to charge overnight. Then your kid takes the dog out for a walk, kicks the power cord stretched across the sidewalk, and you wake up in the morning with a only enough juice to get halfway to work. Or maybe you just forget to plug it in, or the power goes out, or other cars are in your building’s charging stations, etc, etc, etc. It’s not just about how far you can get on a charge, it’s more about the lack of options when you dont have enough charge, for whatever distance and whatever reason. The difference is a 3 minute delay to fill up, verses being stuck for hours.
You know the feeling when you are on the freeway at 2AM and your low fuel light comes on, right after you pass an exit with a sign “next exit 37 miles”? It’s that feeling, only constantly because you’re always stuck waiting until the next time you can plug in for a long time; there is no quick solution for when things dont go as planned.
And dont say that’s extreme or unrealistic - plenty of people run out of gas as it is, even with a station on every corner that takes 3 minutes to prevent happening.
Tesla sales fell much as 4% on Tuesday following the release of its first-quarter earnings report. The company exceeded analyst estimates and booked a record quarterly profit, in-part driven by the sale of regulatory credits and bitcoin.
I think the electric car market will dry up once the government subsidies end. That will not be for a long time with the Democrats in power but if the Republicans can (politics edited) be elected to power, those could end.
As an electric car owner, range anxiety is real. Especially in Winter in northeast. I agree with glitch that as an apartment dweller, it charging was a problem. But lucky for us we have a charging station within walk-able distance.
Where i disagree with glitch is this concept of battery exchange. It requires all car manufacturers to agree on battery size, type and interface. It is near impossible to achieve a standard. There is no single standard for plugs leave alone above parameters.
I think the best bet is to have something like Samsung phones, where in 30mins of charging, you reach 50-60% of capacity. Great for rest stop or convenience stores. Businesses will love it.
NIO has an effective automatic battery swap system. The procedure takes 3-5 minutes. You can stay in your car and do it with an app from your phone. They have over 200 operating and have done over 2 million battery swaps.
I think that refers to something like cap-and-trade carbon credits, not subsidies. Carmakers are required to sell at certain average MPG across the entire fleet, and if they can’t (or don’t want to) meet that target, they buy credits from other automakers that exceed that target. Or something like that. Tesla has been profitting from this trade since the beginning.
I consider cap and trade interference by the government in the car market to be a subsidy to the electric car companies at the expense of people who drive gas powered cars
wow. That seems really complex. for this to work all the manufacturers will have to agree on a standard battery and mount. otherwise each brand would have to have a network of battery swap stations. Also, my understanding is batteries have a limited lifetime, so what if you swap a new battery pack for an older pack that’s on its last legs?
The car manufacturers have arrived at a standard fuel. Or fuels if you include diesel fuel. That’s probably about as complex as a battery so I guess the electric car manufacturers could agree on a standard battery. But gasoline chemistry seems almost determined by the physics of an internal combustion engine.
I consider the externalized costs of environmental damage from oil extraction and gasoline production and combustion to be a subsidy to the gas car companies at the expense of all humans.
It’s simple. All manufacturers do not have to agree. This is for a single company’s cars. They don’t put in batteries that are no good. All batteries are tested and monitored continuously. They have successfully done over two million battery swaps.
All manufacturers agreeing on fuel has never happened, even with the different grades of gasoline and diesel. They build cars for the available fuel, not vice-versa. Just like all EV manufacturers build cars that run on electricity. None of them created the fuel or power or agreed together on it.
This works well in China where 90% of urban dwellers live in apartments and do not have easy access to charging spots, so would work well in some US areas, especially for apartment dwellers, and for anyone who wants complete refueling in less than five minutes. Also, the company can sell the car without the battery price, thus the upfront cost is as much as $10,000 cheaper.
Another advantage is you can easily upgrade the battery as needed, either for longer drives or just to get the newest or most powerful version, for minimal extra cost than the upfront cost of a whole new battery system.
Technology is moving very fast. It’s going faster than before because of the synergistic effect of computer power and AI.
In Taiwan, Gogoro EV scooter also has a battery swap system. They’ve done over 140 million battery swaps. Other EV scooter companies are joining Gogoro’s network.
Also…the battery swap is optional. You can buy a car with a battery, or, even if you’re in the battery swap program, you can charge the battery and skip the station sometimes if you want.
The whole swap station here seems like it should equate to getting your oil changed. It’d have to be a much lighter battery and more manual process to equate to a gasoline fill-up.
To someone else’s comment - AA batteries are pretty dang standard and used by thousands of manufactures for countless products. So are the batteries used in ICE cars now; there are numerous different specs, but the basic design and connections are pretty universal. I think when the technology is developed that allows for light, swappable battery cells, a standard will be quickly adopted.
I wouldn’t bring that as the example of what could be. What good is a standard when there are dozens of other standards for the same thing? Also battery size standards aren’t even standard – they leave wiggle room! Which, if Amazon reviews are to be believed, sometimes leads to poorly made batteries not fitting into poorly made slots
Computer standards (PCI, SATA, USB) are a much better example because, even though they are constantly evolving, a whole bunch of different manufacturers stick to these standards for many years. OBD is a car standard, so they could do it if they wanted to, or if they were forced to (EU has laws for OBD and USB).
Technology is moving too fast in some senses and too slow in others to really know how the EV world is going to shake out.
Some people say the way of the future is not owning your own car - it sits in a garage or parking spot most of its life - a huge waste of space and a car. When cars can drive themselves to your door, I could see car membership clubs becoming a thing in some cities (if the price to have a car on demand is lower than the price to own). Getting more use and less downtime out of a car is not good for car manufacturers. Personally, I think car ownership and land is too cheap in the US for this to ever become a thing outside of New York City.
Another answer to EV charging is self-driving. It’s hard to guess which technology will improve faster - autonomous driving or power storage. If autonomous driving improves more quickly, after you get home, your car can drive itself to a charger and then drive home to you when it’s charged.
The current solution to the charging dilemma is the easiest one - the concept behind the Chevy Volt - a plug in hybrid that has a gas powered engine that works as a generator, not to propel the car, that kicks in when your battery level gets low. Sadly it didn’t sell well and is now extinct in favor mostly of pure electric vehicles. My hypothesis on that is most people that are buying all electric vehicles also have gas vehicles that they will use if they are worried about running out of power for a long trip. I don’t know how many plug-in hybrids are on sale now, but I do know Volvo’s don’t use the same concept as the Volt. Instead of the gas engine working as a generator, it actually propels the car along with the electric motors, so when the battery runs out, you’re just driving a regular ICE car. I’m not sure how many on sale now are like that vs the Volt’s concept.
I’m wondering why the clash between the income inequality socialists and the green new deal socialists hasn’t happened yet. Oh wait, it’s because they are somehow the same people. I don’t understand how you can hold both viewpoints at once when they are so incongruous. The rich have too much money, but climate change is so bad that we need to subsidize new “green” cars. In practice, that subsidy money only goes to the rich because poor people can’t buy new cars even with the subsidy, and they don’t live where they can charge an EV. It’s a completely regressive subsidy. I don’t see nearly as much a problem with climate change or income inequality, but I can spot a regressive handout when I see it. It’s sad so many people that call for these regressive handouts aren’t shut down by the electorate.
And here I thought the subsidy went to the manufacturer, not to the buyer of the new car. I mean, you gotta spend that money to get the tax credit… and I’m pretty sure the resale price is never (or rarely) higher than the sticker minus subsidy…
There are all kinds of subsidies that go to the manufacturer that I also disagree with, but the tax credit for buying one goes mostly to the consumer. How do we know? The price of the cars don’t drop by almost the exact same amount as the tax credit the moment they expire. The tax credit helps the manufacturer sell more cars, don’t get me wrong, but the msrp of the car isn’t based dollar for dollar on the tax credit.
I don’t remember where you are located meed18, but Californians need & use their vehicles. In most CA homes you will see 2+ cars & if young people still live at home you might see 4 cars parked there. I remember a time when that was happening at our home. Also gas prices in CA are out of sight. So I don’t know, maybe we just live with it. True CA folks are leaving, I suspect we are even losing a seat in Congress. (probably going to Arizona or Texas)
I’ve never lived in large metropolitan cities, but in CA there is such a distance to travel, so cars are invaluable. Remember the distance some of us traveled to obtain those covid vaccines.
My son & spouse have a Tesla + 2 sports & a truck. Only 2 people reside in that home. Originally the Tesla was a company car & had subsidized power in their garage. They have kept the Tesla now for their own because new ones are not subsidized. (that’s what they told me)
Their Tesla is a beautiful deep blue one, traveling around town is easy enough with power in their garage, not so easy on long trips. They must gage travel on highway I-5 to not run out of fuel on long trips. But no complaints!
