Before Covid I would travel a lot (2-3 times a month). I think I’ve only found one place that DIDN’T have their column.
Actually heat for the car isn’t bad with the use of heat-pumps.
A lot of towns around here have solar street lights also…but they also have power backup. Kinda dumb for your town to just have solar without backup.
I don’t care to get caught in a blizzard in any vehicle.
But electric resistant heat IS 100% efficient…
Clearly efficiency is not the only factor to consider as @oldtimer-11 and others have pointed out.
The heater thing also requires nuance. Yes, running the heater on full blast reduces range, sometimes by 35% or so, which is significant.
However, it’s not always necessary to run the heater on full blast. Especially since there’s something electric cars can do that gas cars can’t, without reducing range. They can automatically bring the cabin up to a set temperature while they’re still plugged in and you’re getting ready for work. So you start out warm rather than having to blast the heater to get things comfortable.
And some have been worrying about dropping the range below 200 miles, when newer Teslas start with a 370 mile range, so even if you cut that by 35% by blasting the heater, you’d still have around 240 miles in the “tank.”
Dunno about you guys but I have never had a 240 mile round trip commute, and don’t intend to either.
Sure, maybe for the once or twice a year road trip I take rather than flying the range will become an issue. Actually it’d only be an issue going to visit my wife’s family because they live in a rural area and the route there doesn’t have any superchargers (yet). The other road trip I take, I could easily make it halfway with a lot of range left, then charge at a supercharger while eating lunch and be topped off for the rest of the trip.
So for the couple of times a year we go out to her family we could rent a gas-powered car assuming we didn’t have one ourselves (and we’re not getting rid of our pickup, so we would).
I think we need to get away from the idea that a car has to be ready to do any job we set for it. 99% of my driving is 100 miles a day or less. Usually far less. For the very rare occasion where I might need to drive 400 miles in a day… Well, a long-range Tesla still works in many cases depending on charging availability along the route. And for the very few cases where that wouldn’t work, like I said, there are other options.
My next car is almost guaranteed to be electric. I’d rather not burn gasoline 51 weeks a year and figure out what to do for that one road trip than burn gasoline 52 weeks a year just so that 2 days worth of driving is doable with the car I have.
We already do that in other aspects of our lives. I rented a power sod cutter to remove a bunch of grass last year, because buying a $6,000 sod cutter to use maybe once every 5 years would be silly despite it being more convenient to just go out to my shed and grab the cutter. Auto parts stores rent rare-use tools because for many shadetree mechanics it doesn’t make sense to spend thousands of dollars on one-time-use equipment. It doesn’t make sense that we can’t make that logical leap with our cars.
I do agree with @shadowfax that electric is our future, yet it’s indeed much more complicated that comparing one set of numbers (MPG vs MPGe or power plant %% vs ICE %%).
Even that comparisons are very rosy on the new technology side as it does not count the electricity delivery/distribution and charge/discharge losses, high battery costs, wear, etc…
New solid-state battery technology announced recently by Toyota is likely the answer on the problem of the costs and insufficient energy/mass density, so that side of the puzzle is likely to be solved in relatively short time.
Still, I would not expect 2.5x costs reduction as a result, I would be happy to see if the final “true ownership cost” will end up in the ballpark of what we have now with gas-driven cars.
What concerns me the most is that likely it will require much more investment not even on the cars and their related infrastructure, but rather on the nation generation and distribution grids, which will have to meet all this new demand, which is currently conveniently served by the cheap liquid fuel.
The only reason Tesla was profitable in 2020 was through the sales of emissions credits for about $1.6 billion (amounting to about $3,200/car they sold). Otherwise it would have lost money. What happens when that market disappears, when other makers have their own EVs?
Tesla’s dirty little secret: Its net profit doesn’t come from selling cars - CNN
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I meant to ask you - how long ago was that 16 hour trip? It should at most be 2 stops for power, and each should take well under an hour at a supercharger station. These days, plenty of those on the road to Walnut Creek. Yes, it takes longer, but not that much longer.
No mention of the plug-in hybrid.
Drive electric around town, use gas on long trips.
You get the advantage of brake regeneration in stop-and-go.
You can tailor the gas engine for efficiency; the electric motor delivers low end torque.
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+1
besides, given rare metals shortage, plugin hybrids are much-much better option for the environment as they allow to cut on emissions for the most of the shorter commute miles, while giving all the utility of the “conventional hybrid”, which is abundance of fueling options, so probably 10x times more can be readily produced and make substantially bigger dent on pollution
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I agree, gallons saved per pound of batteries probably maxes out with a plug in hybrid. I’m considering the Rav4 Prime plugin partly for that reason.
It was last September I believe, somewhere around that time.
I really have no information as to where and how to locate charging stations, since I have no interest in having an electric car at this time, but I assume my customer would have the pertinent info, as he owns a Tesla. I also have no reason to doubt him when he said it took him almost 16 hours due to time lost looking for and using available charging stations.
I do wonder how the range is affected when driving through several mountain passes.
What about all the apartment dwellers or people who have to park on the street?
I agree that a plug in Hybred does away with most of my objections to a pure electric but what reason would someone who cannot charge at home, have to buy one.
Our electric supply system suffers power outages now, I would love to see the math on how much power would have to be added to fuel all our cars.
GM says it will no longer be manufacturing cars with I/C engines by 2035. It is extremely unlikely that I will be here then, but I know what side of that bet I would be on.
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Freezing to death. If you get stuck in a major storm on the NY Thruway, the very limited access points means you may be stuck for two days. A gasoline engined car can keep you warm enough not to die for at least that long if you have a half tank of gas. We have occasionally had storms here that kept people stuck for days no matter what road you are on.
I’ve seen pictures of the interstate with all the cars buried up there. Even here though if you are out in the country and get stuck in a storm, you might not be located for a day or two an no one may be able to get to you.
Friend of mine has a plug-in hybrid. The problem he has is that his commute is so short the engine never kicks in and the gas gets stale. He went almost 8 months on electric charge along.
They might have a charging station at work. The business complex I work at (or use to before Covid) has several.
Electric cars are not going to all of a sudden be the norm. It’s going to gradually build and the power companies will build accordingly. In fact they already are.
Right now electric vehicles are great commuter vehicles…Not so much for long trips. Getting stuck on the NY thruway doesn’t happen a lot…even in the snow belt between Syracuse and Buffalo. The NY thruway is does the BEST in snow removal of any road I’ve ever driven on. It’s even rare in the REAL SNOW BELT (I-81 Syracuse to Watertown). I agree it is a concern, but take precautions and the chances of it happening are near nil.
You can’t judge electric vehicles we have today to what they will be like 15 years from now. Just look at the huge increase in mileage for electric vehicles in just the past 10 years. In 15 years I’d bet the average electric vehicle range will be over 500 miles. This technology is changing very fast.
Rather than compare the efficiency of producing power at a plant to producing it on the fly, I’d like to compare maintenance tasks on the two vehicles. An electric would never need new plugs, wires, transmission fluid, transmission repairs, oil changes, timing issues, etc.
Imagine never needing another oil change. Doesn’t that sound nice?
Imagine never needing to stand in line at a fuel pump (for your commute). Doesn’t that sound nice?
I park on a city street.
In my area at least there are charging stations at grocery stores, mini malls etc.
I could imagine charging a plug-in hybrid while shopping.
There are several stores within 2 miles and an electric would be much more efficient than the 11-15 mpg I currently (due to COVID) get shopping once a week in a gas vehicle that gets over 30mpg on the highway.
I’ve driven 3500 miles in the last 14 months.
My next car might be a plug-in hybrid, if the price is right 5-10 years from now (knock wood).
An electric generally still has coolant and brake fluid changes, plus tires and wheel alignment that need periodic attention.
Then there’s a single speed transmission that needs gear oil changes.
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