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EVs In the Spotlight At West Coast Green Conference
DeviceGuru writes "Electric vehicles were prominent among the 'hot products' showcased at West Coast Green in San Francisco this week. The event's product expo featured an assortment of preproduction units, prototypes, and concept models based on two-, three-, and four-wheel designs, along with several of the vehicles' creators. Specifically, the EVs and plug-in hybrids that participated in the show included Wheego's Whip, Saba's Carbon Zero Roadster, Green Lite's three-wheeled plug-in hybrid, Brammo's all-electric Enertia motorcycle, and Mitsubishi's i-MiEV EV, which PG&E is evaluating for some unstated purpose. Notably absent were Nissan's LEAF, Chevy's Volt, Toyota's Prius Plug-in, and Tesla's sexy Roadster, though in fairness the conference wasn't an actual auto show. So how many Slashdot readers plan to switch over to a plug-in EV in the next few years?"
Give me something that goes the same distance of a tank of gas
I've heard that several times and it doesn't make any sense to me. If I am driving around town, I only need to fill up once every week, at most. If I can charge my car at home, I really don't need it to last an entire week. A little margin is required, in case I forget to plug it in one night, or decide to run extra errands, and accounting for diminished battery capacity over the life of the vehicle. Three days of driving is fine, which for most people is 90-150 miles. The Nissan Leaf can do that now. Some people have longer commutes, so that could be increased a bit, but I don't think the average commuter needs the 300-400 miles that a normal car can get on a tank if you can fill up at home.
On the other hand, if I am going out of town, there are very few places I can go on a single tank of gas. Even if there were charging stations available everywhere, the amount of time it takes to charge is unpractical for long drives. I would want to to hold a full day's drive, at least 1000 miles, and confidence that there would be a somewhere to charge where I slept, before I considered using a pure electric for out of town trips.
I don't see much added value in increasing the range over ~200 miles, unless you are surpassing ~1000.
And give me a million dollars, world peace, and a comfy pair of shoes or don't even bother.
Tell you what, junior. Why don't you give me a call when gas is six bucks a gallon?
Can you imagine if Thomas Edison had been working on the light bulb and this guy would have said, "Whaddya mean I need a cord? My candle doesn't need a cord. You can keep your stupid electric light until you don't need a cord.
Sport, that's just not how progress happens.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Of course Edison didn't say that. He said "hey this dude Swanson has something that I can make a ton of money off, so I guess I'll just steal it".
and no one will until those rich people subsidize production for long enough for the makers to figure out how to get the mass production costs down and the endurance up. think strategic. think long term. go rich people go!
~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.
When electric vehicles match the performance, convenience, cost and actually achieve eco-friendly PARITY with modern internal combustion vehicles, then I will consider one.
And not before.
To those for whom driving is simply a way to get from one place to another, and have fairly short distances to cover- yes, they may be a viable option even if they DO actually cause more environmental damage than a real car at this point. (When the full impact of production including fuel production is considered, as well as battery production and disposal.)
For those who actually ENJOY driving as an activity in its own right- no current EV or hybrid under 100,000 USD fulfills the requirements. And even those don't really do a good job of it.
Yes, hybrids do cover the range issues of pure electric- for minimal mileage gains and far increased pollution (again the batteries!) and greater cost.
The inexpensive hybrids currently available have barely any mileage benefits over a car with an internal combustion engine. The expensive ones.... well, the added weight and complexity of the hybrid system pretty much outweight the benefits and the buyer ends up with a car that costs more, does more damage to the environment (current battery tech is still not where it needs to be) and doesn't handle as well. It MAY accelerate slightly quicker though, thanks to the high torque at 0 rpm of an electric motor. But handling and braking will be worse thanks to the extra weight.
Pure EVs will someday be the ideal urban transport, once the battery issues are truly worked out (progress has been made but they are NOT there yet, don't kid yourselves.)
For suburban travelers and those who must travel greater distances, hybrids will also be prevalent one day.
But that day has not yet come.
I do think that those days are getting closer all the time: in the near future we are likely to see hybrid vehicles appear that succeed purely on their benefits and not the hype and purchase/tax incentives,
Hell, even the Prius has almost become a practical car, and it's main selling point until now has been that driving one announces to the world that you want everyone who sees you to know that you are an eco-mentalist (to borrow Jeremy Clarkson's word.)
But for the immediate future modern internal combustion engines are the better choice for an automotive powerplant.
I do thank all of you who purchase them now however: without all of YOU the research that will one day allow some company to make a GOOD hybrid car would not get done.
Linux computers, watercooled, photography
[...] when I do drive, it's generally over 500 miles (my trips have been 700-1500 miles and I do maybe four or so of them per year [...] Even if I do transition to a typical commuter profile, I still am going to be very reluctant to maintain two cars (one for commuting and one for traveling) when all I really need is one car which has typical endurance (300-400 miles between refuel/recharge).
Two words: Rental Car.
You have the electric for most of your driving. When you need a car for some kind of distance, rent one. Especially if you're doing it only four times per year.
I like to do bike rides in my area. I'll rent a minivan for a day once a month, since I have a little sports car that won't fit a bicycle. It costs me around $50. That's cheaper than a car payment on a second car.
In a gasoline powered fuel, you walk to the nearest gas station, fill up a container with gas, walk it back to your car, and you are good to go. If we could come up with a similar mechanism for an electric car, and help people feel comfortable that the need to employ it would be rare, then the concern would be mostly gone.
We don't need to come up with one. There is one - at least for lead acid battery vehicles. Lead acid batteries 'recover' a small amount of voltage when left to stand, so if you run out of charge in a lead acid EV, you let the car sit for 10-20 minutes and you'll have enough charge to creep a few kilometers home. And in any EV, 'running out of charge' is a gradual process, it's not like in a fuel powered vehicle where you go from 100% performance to 0% instantly.
I think the best suggestion I've seen so far is make sure the batteries used are modular, and easy to replace. If you run out of power, you can go grab a single replacement, which would get you to the station, where you could swap out the rest.
This actually ain't bad. A 10kg lithium booster battery would hold enough charge to get you to the nearest charge point.
The problem with that line of thought is that battery technology, and electric car technology - is not yet at a point where it is "good enough".
Actually, for the vast majority of purposes and drivers, EV technology IS good enough. Sadly, when people come up against new ideas we love to play "what if" and come up with scenarios where the new thing won't work. It's a cheap, easy way to feel smart. That's why you talk to the guy from Chicago who does 20km a week, and he says "yeah but what if I want to drive to my aunt's house in London?" Bingo, electric cars are obviously useless and he gets to feel smug for 10 minutes knowing that he's smarter than whoever suggested electric cars to him.
The end result is that until a new technology is markedly better in every way than the old technology it replaces, it will see undeserved resistance from the general market.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
You're absolutely right. Sadly, a lot of people apply your logic the other way around - instead of saying "well, my Honda Accord won't tow a horse float or let me shift a ton of sand, so why should I expect an electric car to do so?" they say "what if one day I want to tow a horse float for 600kms on the beach with my dog in the car while carrying four friends and my kids?" And they conclude that despite the fact that they'd be perfectly OK with a Honda Accord for 99.999999% of their driving life, that they in fact really need a Canyonero.
And then they only ever drive the goddamn thing across the street to the supermarket and back.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
will be electric, or plug-in hybrid.
Yes, I know it's more expensive, but I can afford it, and the electric car industry needs help to get established.
Gas cars have had 100 years of development by some of the brightest people around.
It's not surprising that they are refined to such a high degree.
Yes, I know that the first generation electrics will not be as good as the gas versions.
but... WE NEED TO STOP BURNING OIL!
Batteries are still expensive. MSRP on the Leaf is $32k base. Base price on an A3 TDI is $30k (and yes, I'm purposely picking an expensive model here). You can get a much nicer gas or diesel powered car for the same price as an electric, and will until there's a major advance in battery tech in a cost/watt sense. Which is exactly why the government is throwing so much money at people for buying the things (especially the ones made by GM).