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Electric Cars: Drivers Love 'Em, So Why Are Sales Still Low?
cartechboy writes "The electric car challenge is what insiders call "getting butts in seats" — and a lot of butts today still belong to humans who are not yet buying electric cars. The big question is: Why? Surveys show drivers are interested in electric cars--and that they love them once they drive them. EVs also cost less to maintain (though more to buy in the first place) and many experts say they're simply nicer to drive. So what's the problem? Disinterested dealers, uneven distribution, limited supplies, and media bias are some potential challenges. Or maybe it's just lousy marketing--casting electric cars as a moral imperative or a duty, like medicine you have to take."
Infrastructure
Range
...when I can buy a used one for $5,000 and expect it to last me five to ten years without major maintenance.
A cheap electric car that performs well will sell like crazy.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
It's as simple as that.
I live in an apartment building. I've discussed the matter with the building management but we haven't come up with an answer. While new buildings must have electrical hookups for electric cars, there is no incentive to retrofit old buildings.
...laura
How about they're too fucking expensive? Ever considered that?
Let me know when a used one is in my working-class budget range, and we'll talk.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
PRICE!! I'd buy one in a heartbeat if they were a sane price compared to a gasoline equivalent.
Seems obvious to me. I, like many others, live in an apartment. My parking spot doesn't have an electrical outlet anywhere nearby, and neither does my office parking lot.
I think that's the right order.
Initial outlay for the car is expensive.
You have limited range unless you shell out for a high-end Tesla. Supercharging is awesome; but too expensive (see previous reason).
The software sucks and/or wants to do things it should't do, like phone home about your driving habits. Get the privacy issues worked out, and use the KISS philosophy in your design. Separate the infotainment crap from mission critical systems, and audit the shit out of your code NASA red/blue team style and/or Open Source. That'll inspire a lot more confidence.
Strategy is in some ways a combo of all the other points. I've half-jokingly said that I'd like to see so many EVs on the road that gasoline demand actually drops. First the cost of gasoline would drop, hit a bottom, and then creep back up when gasoline becomes a specialty item. If it gets to the point where you have to go out of your way to find a gasoline supplier, you're way past the point where you should switch to EV. It's not known if drivers of existing ICE cars will ever see this EV didvidend, but it's nice to think about it.
The three year lease on my Nissan Leaf is over in a few months. I absolutely adore the car. It's been the best commuter vehicle I've had in all ways but one -- range. This is the biggest complaint of all those I've shown it to, as well. Many of the co-workers and friends who have ridden in my car over the years want one! Then they hear what the range is like and they lose interest.
My daily round trip (+lunch) comes in at just under 50 miles. With the highway speeds in my area (75 and up) and putting slightly better tires on it instead of the no-traction-in-rain stocks that I went through all too quickly, my real-world run-until-empty range is about 65 miles (When new with the super-eco tires and driving 65 on the freeway, I could get closer to 80-85 miles of range). This means that by the time I get home I can go back out to shop and return, and that's about it. I cannot use the Leaf for longer weekend runs, road trips, or even for the once every three weeks that I have to commute from San Jose to San Fran (about 120mi round trip). Therefore I have to have a second gas-powered car.
Being that I work in Silicon Valley, owning one gas car and leasing an electric car alongside is feasible. With how much I save on gas the lease is nearly 75% covered anyway. With my office soon installing chargers at work my range will extend considerably. But for most of my friends having more than one car is out of the question, budgetary-wise, and the limitations of a car that can only go about 65 miles before it has to charge for 5 hours (my usual L2 charge is 4h:40m or so, overnight) are just too restrictive. With L3 chargers being few and far between, and often having a cost associated with their use, they don't help much. So, no EV for them.
When my lease is up I'll probably try to get a Toyota RAV-4 EV. It supposedly has a real-world range of over 110mi - nearly double my Leaf. It's more affordable than the Tesla models, and more important to me, I can fit in it (I'm very tall-torso and short-legged; I simply can't get in the sports-car-low roof line of the Model S, and no Model X's exist that they will let a consumer sit in to see if they fit!). I'm bummed that Nissan hasn't found a way to 2x the range of the Leaf, or I'd gladly stick with that model. The Tesla-drivetrain RAV4 is still more expensive than I like, but it'll fit my EV driving needs far better.
When battery technology increases enough that 150+mi range EVs are Leaf-level affordable _then_ you will see sales take off in the urban areas. Any advancements in fast-rate (L3 or better) charging will help that too. Until then, for all of their benefits and wonderfulness to drive, they'll remain a niche for packed-urban-area dwellers who can afford to have a second, dedicated commute car.
Up here, at least. In the depths of winter I think you'd be using a lot more power for heating than for driving. Though, it would blow hot air right away, which would be nice.
I imagine battery performance would be seriously hurt by the cold as well. I don't know how bad NiMH and Li-ion drop off in cold, maybe not as much as lead acid but still quite a lot I imagine, being how chemistry works... Get a big battery blanket, I guess.
I'm yet to notice any EV rollin' around here, anyway.
Sent from my PDP-11
More government stimulus, in the form of direct payments to people, like Bush did. Make it a permanent basic income. There is no production capacity problem, only a demand problem.
People have been driving combustion automobiles since the industrial age. It takes time for new technologies to move through adoption stages, not to mention time for manufacturing costs and yields to improve.
I routinely get 40 mpg in my econobox car, and it only cost me 15k brand new. An electric car would be great but with my current gas bill I would never break even
How long does the battery last before it must be replaced? And will that cost offset any savings I've obtained during the life of the vehicle?
How does the environmental footprint of the battery compare with the environmental footprint of an oil burner?
My personal "why": I code from home, so my car leaves the house twice a week and even then only to go 5-10 miles. My car is a '98 Mustang Cobra with a supercharged V8. I paid 15k cash for it used in 2002. I only get 17 miles to the gallon, but so what? I fill up maybe once every two months. I do a lot of my own maintenance. An all-electric vehicle would be perfect for my needs, and I could easily afford one, but I plan on driving my '98 until it rusts out from under me. It is a blast to drive, and the cost of fuel is a non-issue for so few miles.
Vonnegut was right: Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, "It might have been."
Electricity generation in the US, by energy source.
"Coal 37%
Natural Gas 30%
Nuclear 19%
Hydropower 7%
Other Renewable 5%
Petroleum 1%"
People have been driving combustion automobiles since the industrial age. It takes time for new technologies to move through adoption stages, not to mention time for manufacturing costs and yields to improve.
Sigh. Not this 'electric cars is new technology!' nonsense again.
Our ancestors had been driving electric cars for years before the internal combustion engine came along. They are an ancient technology, not a new one.
They dumped electric cars almost immediately when internal combustion engines became viable, because electric cars sucked so bad. They still suck, for all the same reasons they did then.
I believe that the cost of an electric car is still significantly higher than for a low-medium end conventional car (Honda Civic for example). The operating costs might be lower, but its not clear that is true. Now a Tesla is a much nicer car that a Civic, but out of the price range of most people. (If this isn't true, and electrics really are cheaper overall, then their marketing departments are doing a bad job).
Then there is the range issue. I can get in a standard compact car and drive pretty much anywhere, I don't need to check if there are gas stations on the way. If I want to drive from the SF bay area to Los Angeles, I can stop for lunch anywhere on the I5, fill my tank in 5 minutes and be on my way. With an electric I'd need to be sure that a station was available, and it would take considerably longer to charge than it does to fill a gas tank.
Its true that probably less than 5% of my driving would cause any range concerns, but I still want to be able to do that 5%. Renting a car for those missions is time consuming.
An electric sounds great as a commute car - charge at home, charge at work (if available), no wasted time at gas stations. It might be a perfectly reasonable car for a person or family with 2 cars. It does need to compete though with the very reliable, high quality, low cost cars that are already on the market.
They will do this because it offers a competitive advantage, the same way that offering free wifi does.
You have got to be joking - do you have ANY concept of how much it costs to add a WiFi router to an internet connection the business already has, vs. running a high-load electrical connection out to even just TWO parking spaces? Not to mention cost of the electricity, not to mention the high likelihood of outside connections being vandalized...
There is no way you can justify the cost of adding car charging outlets to every small business.
This is the reason Electric is failing, because there's just so large a gap between the fantasy and reality.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I don't drive too far, too often, but when I do a typical trip is 50 miles out and 50 miles back, with no guarantee of a charging station "on the far side..." that makes a claimed 115 mile range.... unimpressive. Even at 150 miles of actual range, I'd feel restricted, and I don't think I'm driving all that far, am I?
show me an electric car I can slap my truck nuts on without it looks like I'm doing it ironically, and you got yourself a sale
how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
If you can afford an electric car, your budget likely isn't being squeezed by the cost of conventionally fuels. Those who actually would be helped substantially by the savings an electric car provides generally don't have the income and/or credit score to purchase a brand new electric vehicle. The other problems with electric vehicles:
Range - For the most part, you can drive a conventionally fueled vehicle so long as it's mechanically sound and has fuel. Trip from Florida to Alaska? No problem, so long as you remember to stop for gas.
Inconvenience - Forget to fill up your tank and you can solve the problem with a call to a friend (or a long walk) and 5 gallon fuel container. Forget to charge your EV and you need a tow, which is generally a lot more expensive than doing the walk of shame, to a gas station. You have to plan your trips around the level of charge in your car. Just got home from a road trip to your aunt Susy's and now the school is calling that your kid needs to be picked up because he puked his guts out? Sorry, little Jimmy, you'll have to wait while the car has enough capacity to make it to school and back home.
Electricity - Sure, it's cheaper than gas today, but what happens if electric cars started catching on? They'd have to build more coal and natural gas plants (there's still that pesky fear of nuclear and renewables aren't feasible everywhere) and everyone gets to pay for them in higher utility costs. See, very little petroleum (roughly 1%) is actually used for electricity generation, so a shift towards electric cars would actually just make gasoline and diesel cheaper, while every fucking thing you use electricity for becomes more expensive. Now, I'm sure the car buyer who walks past the Model S isn't worried about it costing twice as much to microwave a burrito or watch the Superbowl on his 60" TV, but it is still something to consider.
Battery lifespan - If the battery craps out, you could be on the hook for an extremely expensive repair. This will be a bigger problem in the future as more electric cars start entering the second-hand market.
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
"All propaganda has a direction. The quality of this direction determines whether propaganda has a positive or negative effect. Good propaganda does not need to lie, indeed it may not lie. It has no reason to fear the truth. It is a mistake to believe that the people cannot take the truth. They can. It is only a matter of presenting the truth to people in a way that they will be able to understand. A propaganda that lies proves that it has a bad cause. It cannot be successful in the long run. A good propaganda will always come along that serves a good cause. But propaganda is still necessary if a good cause is to succeed. A good idea does not win simply because it is good. It must be presented properly if it is to win. The combination makes for the best propaganda. Such propaganda is successful without being obnoxious. It depends on its nature, not its methods. It works without being noticed. Its goals are inherent in its nature. Since it is almost invisible, it is effective and powerful. A good cause will lose to a bad one if it depends only on its rightness, while the other side uses the methods of influencing the masses. We are, for example, firmly convinced that we fought the Great War for a good cause, but that was not enough. The world should also have known and seen that our cause was good. However, we lacked the effective means of mass propaganda to make that clear to the world. Marxism certainly did not fight for great ideals. Despite that, in November 1918 it overcame Kaiser, Reich, and the army because it was superior in the art of mass propaganda."
- Speech by Joseph Goebbels on September 6th, 1934 to an audience of party members at Nuremberg , a series of training talks for Nazi party members
1. I like to do a lot of my own maintenance but the high voltage warnings under the hood scare the bejesus out of me.
2. I don't drive enough to make it economically justifiable.
3. I'm old and cantankerous and have noticed mostly hipsters drive electric cars. Not really a hipster fan.
Yeah! And none of this $600 crap, either. I want a million bucks.
Here in Australia the Leaf and Miev are both above $50k. I can buy two corollas and ten years of fuel with that amount of money.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
If you're asking the question, you probably don't realize how utterly clueless it is.
Consider the case of a great princess. When told that the peasants were starving and had no bread, she suggested they eat cake instead.
There are two obvious reasons (and every other comments makes them so I'll refrain). But if you live in a bubble, yes, you probably wonder why everyone doesn't buy an electric car.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
It's the same thing that let MSDOS stuff into the office while everyone loved the Sun workstations and similar. An electric vehicle may be a lot better for some situations but the cost to buy one is very high compared with the competition.
It's the whole "getting stranded" thing that doesn't exist with conventionally-fueled vehicles. I don't want to get a $300 towing charge to a recharger just because I want to drive around.
I think fuel cells are the real answer. Batteries, even the express battery replacement option, won't answer the demand for people who don't want to get stranded in their overpriced electric vehicle.
This is just reality.
Kriston
Are we talking true electric or hybrid here?
Both can be more expensive to maintain if you keep the car long enough to replace the batteries. If you don't keep it that long then it becomes the next chump's problem, but you still feel it in reduced resale value.
Pure electrics have a serious problem with range. A multi-car family might be able to work with that for one of the cars, but a single person gets screwed. And they really get screwed if they have a second car that they use for longer trips, they end up being forced to buy liability insurance on each car, even though they can only drive one at a time. Note that I'm talking about the required liability insurance here, not the usually optional collision or comprehensive insurance. And I don't believe the big lie that the insurance is on the car, not the driver. Get a teen-age driver in the family and watch what happens to the liability insurance rate on the same car, or get points on you license or a DUI. The insurance is clearly on the driver, but that driver has to pay for it again if he wants a spare car to resolve the range problem. There is no way that I would ever buy an electric car (or even a tiny high mileage gas powered car with no carrying capacity) unless the lawmakers stop taking their instructions from insurance company campaign donations and clear up this insurance company windfall.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
People have been driving combustion automobiles since the industrial age. It takes time for new technologies to move through adoption stages, not to mention time for manufacturing costs and yields to improve.
They adapted fine to most everything else.
Power steering, power brakes, steer by wire, brake by wire, cd player, seat warmer, rear defrost, powered side mirrors, keyless entry, keyless start, alarm system, electronic fuel injector, unleaded gas, powered seats, ICE's with computer chips, satellite radio, dvd player, radar detector, cruise control, remote start, airbags, pressure sensors for the tires, halogen lights, powered moon-roof, shoulder belts, ABS, rear video camera, radar assisted parking, radar warning for when you are about to hit the car in front of you, automatic transmission, lojack, etc. I remember when most of these didn't exist. I remember having to warm up the car because it had a carburetor, thank goodness for EFI. Some of these features make a big difference in driving a car, try driving without power steering, or even parking a car without it. Hybrid cars are a seamless change from regular cars, took me seconds to adapt to my Prius. Obviously a non-hybrid EV is a much bigger jump, but if someone doesn't like changes in cars, they're screwed, because cars have been changing every couple of years and if gas prices go high enough I'm guessing less people will stay loyal to ICEs.
Come back when oil is $500
That will be some time in the next couple of years when a loaf of bread costs $50. It is just a matter of time.
Price, range and infrastructure.
Maintenance, schmaintenance, when was the last time you heard of an American spending more in something and thinking ahead to spend less later? (see: phone contracts)
Anything that only goes only 60 miles at a time and then takes all night to be able to start again is worthless other than for very short, painstakingly planned, local trips.
Even if the infrastructure *was* there, who is able to stop every 60 miles for several hours on end?
Even if you're buying it to be "green" (ugh), how much energy was needed and how much pollution was created in the manufacturing process vs. that of a dead-dinosaur automobile? There are reports that these figures are tremendously high *just* for the batteries. Are you really causing less pollution or just relocating it?
Speaking purely in terms of range capability, I think the Chevy Volt has the right idea. The propulsion is 100% electric. The batteries are charged by plugin or an gas-powered generator, so you use no fuel for short trips but can still make longer ones when you need to.
First, we are a 2 truck family, so we could easily replace 1 of them with an EV, leaving 1 gas truck for long trips (or a "volt" technology version with plenty of range).
Selection is a problem. All of the current EVs are little cars, which are only useful for people who want little cars. There are no big vehicles in EV trim.
Price is also a problem. The EV version of all the cars is much more expensive than the gas powered version. The price needs to be the same, then you'll find customer interest.
Give me a EV version of my 2012 GMC Yukon XL Denali and sell it to me for about the same price as I paid for this one ($58K) and I'm seriously interested. Even better, put Volt technology into it, give it a small engine for generator duty for long trips, batteries for all the small around town trips, and I'd pay about $5K more for it than I did for the gas only version.
I suspect that the true cost would have to be $20K more, which I won't pay, which is why there isn't a "volt" version of the Suburban/Yukon/Escalade line of full size SUVs.
Electric cars are still just too expensive for most buyers and don't come in the right options. No EV minivans, full size SUVs or pick-ups means a lot of buyers can't find an electric version of the type of car they want. I think the Model S is an awesome car but it's effectively a luxury sedan and the market for luxury sedans isn't that big. To get "butts in seats" someone has to come up with an EV pickup and sedan which get comparable range to their gas counterparts at the same price point.
Hopefully battery prices will fall significantly with the new technologies being developed, but until they do I think we'll continue to see more gas powered cars than hybrids, and more hybrids than full EVs.
They're cheaper than they used to be. And some people like quieter cars that don't emit excessive heat and belch poisonous gases, the more you get used to them, the more other cars sound like harleys. Some people like harleys, I find them excessively noisy.
Give me coal any day, what have you got against the hillbillies working their butts off in Appalachia? You insensitive clod!
... and in the DRM, bind them.
Because money?
Part of it is cost of the vehicles. Let's face it a Nissan Leaf is 30 grand. The other part is charging infrastructure. Until such time as places of business start installing quick charge stations you're not going to see widespread adoption of electric vehicles.
The other thing that kills it is the range of electric vehicles. The Leaf gets about 60 miles on a charge. That's not good.
Serious question:
We are a 1 car family in California (yeah, really) Carmel, actually, where Teslas are amazingly common.
Our driving is local; but for long trips to San Jose / SF / Marin, we plan ahead. One of us stays home, other gets the car. For the last 4 years, we've needed 2 cars 3 times. And Enterprise / Hertz solved that problem.
So in that scenario, why not keep the electric, and rent when you need a long-distance haul?
Until electric cars can stand on their own merit on price they will not sell.
Like LED and florescent lighting before it, they are trying to sell them for $60, because technically that would be cheaper than buying $1 incandescent light bulbs. Well I bought a couple when they finally hit the $20 mark because I wanted some lights be to dimmable. When Lowe's started putting them only sale for $8-9 a piece I replaced every light in my house with LEDs.
Electric cars will be the same way. When you see a "regular" sized/performance electric car with at least a 100mile range for $25,000 that will last for 15 years, they won't be able to build them fast enough.
In Norway they sell well.
Then again they have a high income and the government have likely tried to force people into that direction, they likely have a higher social environmental interest than people in the U.S. do.
Right now electric cars are for very specific people who have fairly specific needs plus they are missing critical features.
There are two sorts of people who can use a modern electric car: People who commute well within a basic battery range (less than 100km round trip) and the other are people like me who live downtown and mostly need a car to avoid using the terrible bus system or bike in bad weather.
Quite simply it is impossible to build a reasonably priced electric car that can match a gasoline car so the simple solution is to not bother. So if you make a case to the less than 100km round trip commuter that they will basically never buy gas for their commuting again then you will have their attention.
If you tell me as a very infrequent driver and generally short trip driver that I will never buy gas again then you will have my attention.
But if you lie to me and tell me that electric is basically the same as a gas car then I will call BS and you won't have my attention.
On top of all that there are a few bad design decisions. First is they keep trying to put too big a battery in the cars; this is just stupid until batteries get cheaper and better. Just meet the average commuter's needs for a round trip with margin and you will sell them a car. The next design disaster is when they try to simulate a real gas car by putting a piston engine in as in the volt. The best solution would be to have a low power gas turbine (5-10hp) that can charge the car's battery slowly. This way you eliminate range anxiety by allowing the person to realize that they don't have enough juice to complete the journey so they kick in the turbine (or automatically when they set a destination that is beyond the battery's range) which will buy more range. If the turbine doesn't provide enough immediate range the driver could pull over and get a coffee while the turbine adds a mile of range every minute or two.
Then you roof the car in solar so that the battery is charging during sunny days. For a commuter this would be great as they might use 30% of their charge getting to work and come out having recovered 10%. Then when they get home they would get an hour or two more charging not quite topping them up but reducing their electrical bill.
For an occasional user like me a solar roof might mean that my battery is nearly always charged as it should get topped off most sunny days.
Lastly there are all kinds of engineering gaps in these cars. One interesting one is heating in colder climates. In the winter around here a smaller battery would be eaten just keeping me warm, especially if I am waiting in the car. One simple solution would be to have an alcohol heater which would be simple and single purposed for keeping me warm. This would be great if you could turn it on 10 minutes before you get into the car and it would warm up the car and maybe even the batteries.
Then the last and most important bit which is battery life. That is how many years will these batteries run the car. We all have laptops where the batteries have cacked after a year or two; often fairly suddenly, one moment we had a battery life and then the battery is complaining seconds after unplugging the laptop. So the car companies need to either warranty the batteries and maybe even set an eventual replacement price in stone. This way you know that in 8 years they will sell you a new set of cells for $2,000 or something. This might be a bit of a risk for the car companies but I would think that the odds are in favor of better cheaper batteries being generally available in less than 8 years.
Lastly there is nearly zero customer education. Most people don't know that most of these cars can be charged slowly with a normal outlet and that the "advanced" outlet is basically a higher amperage dryer plug. The slower charging is important as they know that they can do things such as go to the cottage and charge the car overnight.
The stupid thing is that without fixing the above they are
They cost more upfront & most people don't think past the now.
For web based services imo, more people choose "month-to-month" versus a yearly package. Even though yearly is much cheaper & the retention is over 12 months.
Frankly, I drive even less, just a few miles here and a few miles there. An EV would be perfect for me, if the price were similar to the gas version and if they offered a full-size SUV EV.
I do need one gas car because we do take family road trips, but I'd also consider a "volt" EV type truck with a range extender as the second "gas" car. I'd pay $5K more over the gas only version for that truck.
When that comes out, I'm a customer, I personally think EV is the future, the cost just needs to come down.
I'd love a diesel hybrid, especially a truck (can you say "jobsite power"?), but the reason we don't have cars with electric motors in each wheel is the unpleasant things which happen to wheels.
Putting complex parts outboard where they'll get a water (or in the Rust Belt, salty water and urea in winter) bath isn't great for longevity. Cables would wear and short, especially on the front wheels. Multiple motors would be very expensive and at the size needed could not be very robust.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
My daily commute is less than 10km, and I would love to have and affordable, safe, less-consumptive/polluting vehicle. I would be very tempted by a car-like EV that was very small and light with range 50km if it cost something like $5-7k. (for $10k I can get a small used ICE that burns absurdly little gas.) It has to be able to take me up a decent-sized hill at 50 kph, though. An in-town EV could make a lot of sense, market-wise, but I think it should be purposed-designed, not just an ICE vehicle with a the engine swapped out.
Otherwise, the problem is that EV or hybrids try to deliver long range and highway performance and wind up simply being too expensive. Hybrids in particular wind up carrying so much extra weight that you can usually do better pure EV *xor* ICE. It doesn't make sense to pretend that the technology supports non-premium EVs yet (Tesla is great, but it's a sports car at sports car prices.) In some sense, the problem is that petroleum ICE sets a high bar of energy density. I often wonder if there's a place for an EV that has an optional IDE add-in module for range (maybe fuel cell some day, maybe petroleum+turbine today or just a conventional diesel.)
98% of the driving I do work great with a basic EV. My daily commute is no problem. The vast majority of other common trips fit comfortably in its range. But, the other 2%.. a round of golf two hours away or a weekend ski trip are dealbreakers. Keeping an EV plus a basic gasoline vehicle is an option, but creates a lot of logistical issues for parking, storage, insurance, etc.
They dumped electric cars almost immediately when internal combustion engines became viable
Are you sure it wasn't anticompetitive maneuvering by GM?
The USA is very different than Denmark, in so many ways.
I would like to see a real study, unbiased done without a goal in mind, to see what would happen if the USA introduced a $2,000/month household basic income. What would happen?
Nuclear could be 75% of our power, that is the base load. Renewables could be the other 25%. (the percentages could vary, it could be 50/50, or 65/35, the principle remains the same)
Within a generation, if we wanted to, we could rid ourselves of fossil fuels completely.
For some reason, we just don't want to. I support it, but I feel like I'm in the minority.
If power from the wall is 60 cents a kilowatt hour and oil is $500 a barrel, what has changed?
My decade old saying was 'There's nothing wrong with EV's that a battery that costs half as much for double the capacity wouldn't fix'.
At the time they were using lead-acid, the switch to LiIon gave us the double, but at double the cost. We haven't reached the 'half the price' yet though.
I don't read AC A human right
I've seen a number of hybrids up here in Alaska, gas is expensive.
My idea is to use the fuel source best suited for purpose - in the extreme north install a small hydrocarbon heater - probably propane, but you have your choice of fuels otherwise. That way you have the energy density and 90%+ efficiency for producing heat(not a high penalty over the 100% efficiency of electric resistance, and it's cold enough to really limit the effectiveness of heat pump style heating), and the efficiency of electric for moving, where it's 90% efficient(over ~30% for gasoline).
I don't read AC A human right
Wish you what you want: http://metrotower.net/index.php/tin-tuc/208-him-lam-riverside
I'd buy a Nissan Leaf tomorrow if I could. But they won't sell it to me as I don't have a plave to instsll the required hardware for charging.
> Electric Cars: Drivers Love 'Em, So Why Are Sales Still Low?
Why? Because they are impractical for a lot of people. It would turn a lot of my driving into day tips, and day trips into multiple-day trips. Until we have ultracapacitors that fully charge as fast as filling a gas tank and "portable" reserve capacitors that we can trade in to services like AAA or walk to a "gas" station to exchange one and carry back to your car to get you to the station when you've run one flat two miles away, they simply won't work for people who live in outlying suburb or rural areas. For me, a drive to work is just under 100 miles, and driving between clients and meetings can cost 200 additional miles during a day. I often drive to western PA - that takes me six to eight hours sometimes not even having to stop to fill (if I don't need AC or the windows open), but with current battery tech it would turn into a multi-day trip. Even if I had a tesla and could use the rapid-charge stations, it would be a multi-day trip because in the Boston-DC corridor there are several public rapid-charge stations (which still takes a couple hours for a full charge), it would work if I stick to I-95, but anywhere else for long drives I'd be screwed. Also, using heat and AC, lights, wipers, etc. totally kills electric vehicle range to the point that you cannot rely on the trip computer for range. Finally, if you park the car and go on an extended vacation, the car can be bricked when the battery goes flat.
I like ICE - they give me freedom, and besides, driving conservatively my Saab gets >40mpg on long highway drives if I don't hit traffic, 35-36mpg if I hit traffic, and 29 mpg combined when I drive through Boston or NYC and catch rush hour. Likewise, even my ZR1 gets > 30mpg on the highway driven conservatively (it hits peak mpg at 93mph - about 30-31mpg at 66mph) and 27mpg combined driven conservatively. Of course that car is a pig in city driving - 18-19mpg on a good day. I love it when self-righteous people criticize me for driving a "gas guzzler" when I ask them what they get for MPG in their family sedan on the highway and I tell them what I get. I get the weirdest looks. And, I verify mpg by math when I fill up, and the trip computer is nearly always within a few tenths, and the Saab's computer within 1 mpg (but my scangage on the saab is nearly always within a tenth or two, and when I fill, it's within .1 gallon of what I actually put in).
I wish more cars came out in hybrid form; I would absolutely spring for another 'Vette if it had electric-powered front wheels, then I could get AWD and great efficiency when just commuting, but unfortunately vocal "purists" fear changing the car's layout. As it is there is an outcry against the rumored new LT5 V6 for the upcoming ZR1 Stingray ("ZOMG it's not a V8"), let alone a hybrid. Hell, even mid-engine rumors gets them whining but what most Corvette fans don't realize is that the Corvette is already mid-engine - it's a front-mid-engine layout. Putting the engine in the back would only further improve handling dynamics and would likely improve maneuverability. I don't get why so many fans are so resistant to changes in that car.
IMHO all vehicles should come with a hybrid option, preferably AWD. I like hybrid tech because it is practical and efficient, and doesn't leave you stranded when the battery goes flat.
Another tech I'd love to see is gas turbine generators in cars. Turbines are extremely lightweight for a given power output, waste heat is easily scavenged and can be used for peltier junction generators, heat, and even AC, and at highway speeds the exhaust could even add a little thrust so that power doesn't go to waste.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Not per various sources - puts the truck 5 years out - making 2018/9 closer than 2015.
As for towing - you have my attention at "100% torque at 0 RPM".
I don't read AC A human right
I really love the Model S. Beats the BMW every day, and actually not more expensive than a series 7...
...or maybe people don't really like electric cars as much as they say they do.
in texas it is illegal for tesla to sell their cars because the dealerships lobbied the government to stop them from cutting out the middle man.
If your car gets x mpg in the US, your cost of gasoline over the lifetime of the car is about $1M / x. ($5 per gallon * 200,000 miles / mpg) So a 20mpg SUV will cost you $50K in gas, or a 50mpg Prius will cost you $20K. (Pro-rate if you're just keeping the car a few years, of course.) If the price per mile for electric is equivalent to 100 mpg, then it's going to save you only $10K over a Prius, but $40K over an SUV.
I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. A lot of the driving I do is less than 10 miles each way, but there are a lot of 40-50 mile trips that I make frequently (one is to work, on the days I don't telecommute), also between Silicon Valley and SF or Berkeley. I'd need a car with at least 200-mile range that I can charge at home in 6 hours to feel really comfortable driving that. If I could afford to maintain three cars (I don't have parking for them, and would rather not pay for the insurance and registration), I'd be fine with the current electric cars, which would get used for most non-commute driving, but my wife and I would still have full-range cars if we needed them, though I'd rather wait a few years.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I'd love an electric vehicle but as of now the two limitations for me is price (almost triple what I paid for my Chevy Spark) and range (I'm limited to about 200 miles on a charge so I cannot travel to visit family without renting a car).
I don't care about range. It's a 5 mile drive to work. I'm fine. My household can easily have a gas car for long trips (seriously, why are people so hung up on range? A LOT of households have more than one car). My big thing is price. I'll buy when it's $15,000, in a heartbeat. Perhaps my first electric will be used. Works for me.
There is only one real issue impeding electric cars, there is no cost-effective quick charging battery technology available. The military can spend $100,000 for a nano-tube battery (Made in Cambridge, MA.) that can be fully charged in one minute, but I can't. When low-cost, quick-charging batteries are made, and I can drive into a service station anywhere and drive up to the Blue electric "pump", swipe my card and change my car in 5 minutes, I will have no desire to return to internal combustion.
Mass production brings down the prices, and lack of pollutants encourages subsidies. Electricity created at environmentally sophisticated carbon-sequestering generation stations are already on-line. We do not need to wait for a future of super-efficient solar cells, nor endless seas of bird-killing wind farms. All we need is a fast-charging battery at low cost. When we can drive from San Diego, California to Halifax Nova Scotia, we will instantly prefer electric.
...and frankly I can't charge them where I need to be able to charge them.
My house is off grid and solar-powered so you'd think that would be ideal. The problem is that when the sun is out I'm not at the house, I'm at work....where there aren't any places to charge something like this (military base). And of course when I'm home the sun isn't up--I'd have to pull down my batteries (which supply all the power to said house) to charge the car.
I could easily be sold on an electric car, but not until the price comes down and I've got some way to charge it up at work.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
What has changed? The price of solar panels. It will have come down even further.
The sun will be providing us with the same amount of energy every year for quite a few years to come. No shortages are expected.
More to the point: take a closer look at the math.
Item 1 $12
Item 2 $120
Difference in price (e.g saving): $108
Both items 5 times more expensive, the saving is $540. That is $432 more in the piggy bank.
Anyone doing the math on EV vs ECI should consider:
- more than the purchase price
- when doing the math, don't base the calculation on the current fuel/electricity cost, but the average cost over the next few years. (I drive ICE, here the price has gone up in about 8 years with over 30%, and there have been periods when it was 40% higher).
Bert
You could consider helping the environment by buying electric now/encouraging others to buy. Technological progress needs sales.
Even more people would sit home on their dead asses waiting for their check, while an ever-decreasing work force would have ever-increasing tax burden.
It's already like that, to some extent. Something like 50% of the population takes government handouts already, and workforce participation is as low as it has been since records have been kept.
Costs.
Electric cars are terribly expensive relative to a comparable gas or diesel car. Plus, with that money, you get a far less usable product.
I think electric is the future. I just do not thing the current battery model is the answer.
Not enough range, refueling takes too long.
Gotta fix one or the other.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
My personal opinion is EVs are just ugly... awfully ugly. The Tesla Model S is the only exception, but it's at least twice as expensive than any of the others.
After years of driving sweet looking sedans i just can't see myself driving an ugly little hatchback EVs every car manufacturer is spawning for some reason. Heck, even BMW is making it's EV as ugly as you could possibly design it.
I'll tell you what I would buy:
HTML is obsolete. It's time for a new, simpler and richer markup language.
Hope that clears that up.
Another question... at what point do machines and robots make enough "stuff" that most of us no longer need to go to a "job" anymore?
As it stands, our farm industry continues to employ fewer and fewer people. Already large tractors can drive around the fields without anyone in the cabs, machines can make machines, when do we no longer need an economy based on "manual labor" from most people?
Serious question, because I see the time coming when there is nothing left for most people to "do". McDonalds is looking into automatic hamburger machines, what happens when even fast food jobs are endangered?
Even if you have a place you own, like a condo, that doesn't mean it's simple to add electrical outlet. If you own a house, that has a garage and everything, then share the only issue is money. So long as you can afford to have the outlet hooked up, and possibly more power to your house run, you are good. However there are many situations where that isn't what you have, even when you own property.
I live in a condo, it's mine I am an owner have a mortgage all that kind of stuff. However it is an attached unit so there is a common area that I am a partial owner of that I have a "undivided interest" in. In that area, is my parking space. Well, I can't just go and make modifications to that. That has to be approved by the Board of Directors, and for something like this probably a full vote of owners. I can bring it up, I can try to get people to vote on it, but it's not something as simple as me just doing it.
Even were I to, there's the issue that all are parking spaces are out in the open and so is it really a good idea to have a bunch of electrical outlets there.
So anyone that rents as an issue, and more than a few people that own have issues. It isn't a situation where just anyone that wants to can install plug and go. I would really like an electric car, where I live it would work really well. However it really isn't that easy for me to get a charging station set up. I think it would be a very hard sell to have them installed.
What has changed? The price of solar panels. It will have come down even further.
Perhaps, or perhaps they will go up as well.
To get oil to $500 a barrel, you need massive inflation. Oil is priced in dollars, it won't go anywhere near that high, short of a major war, major shortage, or major inflation. All of those are likely to affect the price of everything.
Anyone doing the math on EV vs ECI should consider:
- more than the purchase price
- when doing the math, don't base the calculation on the current fuel/electricity cost, but the average cost over the next few years. (I drive ICE, here the price has gone up in about 8 years with over 30%, and there have been periods when it was 40% higher).
Where is "here"? In the US, gas prices are actually lower than they were 8 years ago. They go up and down, but overall, gas is unlikely to have huge spikes in the near future, not the timeframe of owning a car in any case.
As for "more than the purchase price", if you're referring to helping the environment, I'm not sure that is much of a valid reason. Replacing gas with coal doesn't strike me as a huge improvement. Yes, in theory coal fired power plants can be "clean", but most aren't, and I don't think many in Texas are very clean.
Frankly, if my goal is to help the environment, paying the premium to install solar PV on my roof would do more than buying an EV would.
"two words":
Oil
Auto
They've been colluding against electric cars for a century.
Any...and I mean any...discussion about "What are electric cars not X?" must acknowledge that the technology has been surpressed by the oil industry w/ the Big 3's help. How could we not still be feeling the effects? With all the legacy tech and wasted R&D (cupholders people? seriously?) it'll be another 50 years maybe before electric technology has recovered.
Gas prices.
No single factor is in any way more important to car owners in general. If you understand that truth then the suppression of electric car technology becomes painfully evident.
In open competition, electric cars would have beaten out gasoline decades ago...
Thank you Dave Raggett
This isn't the "duh" we're looking for...
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
There are huge difference between the types of car buyers. People who buy trucks and use them for work, people who buy trucks and use them as ego compensation device, people living in cities who think they need small cars, people who think they need big family cars, like vans, etc. Not all of them would go for an electric car. I assume that electric car buyers (beside Teslas) live in cities, they are rather liberal, they reflect their behavior, at least sometimes, and they like to be trendsetters. However, the same people have also access to other means of transportation, because they live in cities. Cities come with buses, trams, underground and local trains, taxis, and lately rent a bike facilities. So these people have alternatives and they use it. If the self-owned electric car shall become the norm among typical car buyers, they have to address all buyer types, but that would require to improve the technology in many ways. The more people must chance to use a new product the higher is the risk that they do not buy it.
For a gasoline car, a 5 year battery life is normal. However, a battery only costs $50-150 to replace on those. If you have a 5 year battery life on your EV and you have to replace $5000-$15000 of batteries, you get worried. That's the point. More so, EV batteries use chemicals that are common in our laptops and portable devices. Most don't last 5 year there, especially if you want at least 80% of the "range" you get from a new battery.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
People love Ferraris even more than EVs, but almost nobody is driving them. Why? Because they are costly and unreliable if you don't give them the costly maintenance. They have limited range and limited luggage space, you can't pull trailers and hitches with them, etc. etc. Or maybe it is about the fact that the people that currently drive them love them, but the rest doesn't? Ask anybody not driving a pickup truck if they love them and why they're not driving them. You'll probably get the same line of answers you'll get about EVs. Just loving a car isn't enough, people tend to be rather practical about their purchases when it comes to cars, apart from a small list of arguments that varies from person to person.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
You know, the total cost of ownership may make a lot of sense but there are differences in terms of affording a better car, be it EV or not.
If I take the starting price of the EV car and compare with he starting price of my used Peugeot + fuel, they break even after a few years. The difference is that if I lose my job or if there is any other significant change, I can just stop paying for more fuel for the Peugeot, keep it off the road and stop the insurance until I'm back on my feet. The Nissan Leaf I compared with still has a monthly price for the battery rental and/or for financing the initial purchase.
I can't make considerations about the compared maintenance costs, other than there's plenty of mechanics out there who deal with Peugeot 206, while the alleged low maintenance costs of the EVs are based on the reduction of the number of moving parts. Who can maintain them and at what price when something does go wrong?
As of 2013 I think that the EVs are like many other high tech devices, good for those who have enough money to be early adopters. For me, maybe my next car will be a used hybrid. It will take me more than 1 car lifetime (mine are 5 because I buy old cars for £2500) before I can take the plunge and go a bit more upmarket.
I live 11.6 miles from my company out in rural America. An EV would be great for my commute, except when I look at the $30,000-$50,000 price tag of an EV versus the $2500 price tag of my reasonably middle range carbon fiber road bike, which burns neither gas nor uses electricity, the EV just can't win.
For short commutes, the bicycle solution is orders of magnitude greener than an EV, and far far far cheaper, especially when health benefits and lower cost of medical care are taken into consideration.
... people who are motivated to buy them, love them.
Maybe the (much larger number of) people who aren't buying them, uh, don't?
How well do you think they would be selling if the taxpayers were not footing the bill?
1. Nowhere to plug in at home. (Live in apartment in rural town)
2. Charging infrastructure. (Of the dozen gas stations within a five minute drive one has a charging station)
3. Initial vehicle cost for one with adequate range to compete with gasoline powered vehicles.
4. Battery lifespan.
Having battery swap stations and standardized battery technology would eliminate all but the cost issue from above. Just producing the cars is not enough, and plug-in chargers work for leisurely drives but not work commutes nor the average American's hurried lifestyle. Then there is the 30% - 40% of Americans (like myself) that don't own a home with a garage, or an older existing home and can't afford to add a 220v line to the garage. It will be difficult for the masses to own electric cars until a ubiquitous infrastructure, like that existing for gasoline cars for decades, is built up and can support more than leisure driving or the more affluent owners that can afford electric cars today.
Not practical and expensive
Maybe because electric cars are freaking expensive? If you want an electric car which isn't a glorified grocery getter, aka one which does more than 100km range, the prices are ridiculous. Most people can't spend more than 20000 on a car. The only electric car worth buying is the Volt, which might pay off in gas costs eventually. And only if you live in the US where it carries lots of incentives.
A common complaint about the all-electric Nissan LEAF has been its short range, officially 75 miles on a full charge according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. To address that challenge, Nissan could add options for consumers to purchase bigger battery packs to boost the LEAF’s all-electric range, Pierre Loing, vice president of product and advanced planning and strategy told PluginCars.com. “The packaging easiness (of the battery) makes it easier to put more batteries in the car, and you will see this,” Loing said during an interview this week at the 2013 Los Angeles Auto Show.
EV range is such a hard problem, unless you think about it.
Cryonics - Keep cool and carry on.
you didn't take into account servicing, oil changes, replacement of various moving parts that wear out like clutches, oil filters, exhausts, catalytic converters etc in gas cars
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
"The electric car challenge is what insiders call "getting butts in seats" â" and a lot of butts today still belong to humans who are not yet buying electric cars. The big question is: Why? Surveys show drivers are interested in electric cars--and that they love them once they drive them.
Perhaps simply because people buy what works for them and won't buy what won't work for them? It's silly to extrapolate that because your current users are happy that everybody would be happy with it.
For a one person, single car household you'd either have to keep two cars or go pure EV. The first is very expensive (depreciation, parking spot - very expensive in inner city, insurance, maintenance) and environmentally questionable anyway because of all the resources that go into production even if you drive cleaner. The other alternative is to go pure EV, which means I'd almost certainly push the limits and end up in "Can I get home with 2km of range, I really don't want to wait half an hour at a charging station" situations because the threshold to rent a ICE car would be rather high. And I couldn't go on a weekend cabin trip without buying a Tesla. Which is an excellent car I'm sure, if you're looking to spend that much money on a car but I don't.
For a two person, two car household a mixed pair works better because you have an ICE car for when one or both need it, unless you both happen to need it at the same time going to different things. Here I think it's more about people being possessive, it usually ends up being "his" and "her" car. One gets the big, comfy road trip car and the other the small commute EV and they don't like having to borrow or lending it away. They'd rather get two ICEs, one each and that's that unless one is in for repairs or if they need to swap for other reasons it feels like a more equal trade. Not to mention there's a ton of competition for small, cheap cars for inner city driving.
Hybrids are somewhat interesting but they're often the worst of both worlds as you get far more complexity, much less electric range and a tiny ICE for when you run out. Jack of all trades, king of none. And even my new apartment building (2013) doesn't have chargers for hybrids/EVs, so I'd have to go out of my way to get a charger at home. Meanwhile I pass three gas stations on the way to work, it's simple, it's flexible and it works. But give me a Tesla at half the price and I'd buy that, no problem.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Because sitting on the side of the road with dead batteries sucks. Paying five times the amount for the privilege sucks even more (Ok, I embellished a LITTLE). Who is vetting these articles?
I know, it sounds brash, but the statements pretty much sum up the situation. I would love a solution, just come back with one. At present, EV's present more problems than they solve (Economical, Infrastructure, Engineering, Safety....).
When oil is $500 per barrel, electricity is unlikely to remain at 12 cents per kilowatt hour.
If power from the wall is 60 cents a kilowatt hour and oil is $500 a barrel, what has changed?
That was sort of my point. It was more or less bringing up the issue of quantitative easing that has been policy of the Federal Reserve for the past couple of years and has really kicked into overdrive this past year. When the money supply is expanded by trillions of dollars, you should expect massive inflation to result.
Yes, this isn't going to be restricted to just oil purchases.
The other "shoe" to drop here too is a what-if possibility that the U.S. Dollar will no longer be the world reserve currency. There is no special status to the U.S. dollar, and a number of countries that are active (in particular China and India) in finding a "replacement currency" to dollars. If the U.S. Dollar loses that global reserve currency status, you will see the price of oil in particular skyrocket and become insanely expensive in comparison to other forms of energy for average consumers.
For those who suggest there is no inflation, assuming that the same standards for measuring inflation in 1980 were applied today, the current inflation rate would be hovering around 10% annually at the moment. Most ordinary Americans know in their gut this has been the case, even though official statistics substantially understate this inflation rate.
Hopefully there are some very smart people at the Federal Reserve that actually care about ordinary people and don't want to see the U.S. economy go down in flames. That is a whole bunch of religious-type of faith in people that don't exactly have a very good track record in deserving that kind of faith.
Price
And anyone claiming that erectric cars are lower cost to maintain is either naive or a salesman. On what basis is the claim made? One or two years of availability? Show me your maintenance bills after 5, 7, 10 years of regular dailiy use. Show me the effects of location (ie, climate) on maintenance. Then we can have a legitimate discussion of upkeep and repair costs.
My wife won't let me.
- Mike
I'd like to take a moment to introduce you to a fledgling little company known as Hertz.
Oh Hertz? You mean the car rental company stuck in the airport about 45 minutes drive away that charges an arm and a leg to rent a minivan (or anything larger than a basic car) if they even have one available? They are good for car rentals from the airport, not so good if you want something bigger than a car for a family trip and you don't live anywhere near the airport or downtown. We used to do this when all we had was a rather old compact car and a growing family. Taking everyone on a 1.5 hour roundtrip to the airport (because someone has to drive our car back unless you want to add expense airport parking to the cost as well) twice is a huge pain. That, and the expense, is why we bought a minivan.
"Surveys show drivers are interested in electric cars--and that they love them once they drive them. "
Yeah, except the real-world has considerations outside the scope a 30-second commercial or magazine ad, or that marketers are 'uncomfortable' to address (and we're not *quite* to the point of Idiocracy where we simply do what the market-wonks tell us we should):
- range: most people seem to drive 20-30 miles to work, with commutes of approximately 20-45 minutes. Can I drive this (to AND from), plus run and get groceries, and maybe go out to a movie without being nervous about being UTTERLY out of power
- where am I supposed to charge the stupid thing? The 'spin' notwithstanding, nobody has the time to dawdle while these recharge on 220v plugs, much less the 110v-overnight-option.
- cost: contrary to popular belief, a lot of people can't afford a $30k car, particularly one that smells like it might need a new $10k battery pack after 100k miles.
-Styopa
Yea, it may work in city commute to and from work and that's fine, but maintanence of these cars is only for those who can afford it, ie.,middle-class singles/families. As far mileage, we have seen tech were cars can go 300-400 miles on a single charge, but electric cars are 125 miles at best and still take half-hour at best, and that's assuming that there's top-of-theline electric station around, which is very few and in between. The oil industry won't let go of exec's tits until there's a realization that their other alternatives and stop the greediness...
translated into dollars per mile over the entire time one owns one.
uuuhm ... you did check the price, right?
Because for many people it is easier to spend some 20k on a regular car and then 60k in gasoline over x years instead of 80k at once...
The Peugeot 3008 hybrid powers the front wheels with a 2.0 HDI (diesel) engine and the rear wheels with an electric motor. The diesel engine powers the battery as well so it can work all EV for a limited range.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdqjuYMqtvI
This HDI engine is used by Peugeot, Citroen, Ford and Mini (BMW).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSA_HDi_engine
It's not a truck but shows that it can be done and sold by Ford.
There's of course the range of an electric, and then there's how long it takes to "refuel." If you buy one, you have to have a 2nd regular gas car if you want to go on a driving vacation like I did earlier this year - Virginia -> Arizona -> Colorado -> Missouri -> Virginia. There just wasn't time to stop every 300 miles for 8 hours to recharge a battery.
We need someone to invent the "magic battery" that will let a car drive 300 miles and then recharge in a couple minutes and be cheap and not to big or heavy. Someone does that, we'll have 18 wheelers running on electricity.
But then we'll have a new problem. The electrical grid and generating capacity will have to be wildly expanded. Nuclear is probably the only choice to provide that much power, enough to move every car and truck and locomotive and ship using electricity instead of fossil fuels. It'll be incredibly expensive but still cheaper than fossil fuels due to the inherent efficiency of electricity vs. the heat engines burning fossil fuel.
Nobody seems to know what the heck anyone means by the cold weather problem. First, you run a heater that's probably at least a 1000W ceramic and there goes your range. Second, we have a golf cart at my landscaping company. In the winter, it runs slowly and runs out quicker and doesn't charge all the way. That's because when batteries that size get cold, they drop about a half volt to a volt. So that effectively limits the "range" of our electric golf cart. The gasoline cart goes faster because it's fuel injected and the oxygen density is higher so it sends in more fuel to compensate. It's like a mini-turbo or RAM air.
There will need to be a law that all gas stations must have at least one universal electric charging system by 201X.
Not only will that get the whole market going, that may be the only thing that will do it.
Whatever you want to call it, with pure electric vehicles it takes too long. The ratio of charge time to miles driven is off kilter.
I drive a VW Golf TDI. I can run it on #2 diesel, #2 heating oil, soybean oil, used fryer oil, basically any medium oil from any source as long as I can filter it and get in the tank spout.
The longest a re-fill takes me (from 6gal carry tanks) is about 10 minutes. At an average station pump fueling takes about 3 minutes.
On a full tank I can travel 720 miles of regular (non-babying) driving and up to 800 miles if I am very conservative.
That means about 13 hours of driving for every 3 minutes of fueling (assuming 55mph average speed between highway/city)
My car can carry 1000lbs of people or cargo
My car tows 1200lbs on a small trailer (at freeway speeds)
My car has killer air-conditioning so I can tolerate the 120F days here in Phoenix, AZ
When electric cars get an infrastructure that allows me to pull in to a refueling station and get a full charge in less that 5 minutes, I'll consider it. The stations need to be ubiquitous so I don't have to plan special stops or routes.
I don't care if the charging and battery technology improve to meet my charge rate requirements or if the entire battery pack is swapped out by a robot, charged then swapped in to someone else's car later that day.
My next vehicle will be either pure diesel or a diesel/electric hybrid and that will continue to be the case until an all-electric vehicle gets even close to those operational parameters above. And yes, I know my use profile is atypical. EVs make perfect sense for a person who commutes a regular route every day and has no other needs for a car and who has an employer adjacent compatible charging station.
Ring, ring. Hi honey, can you stop by the butcher and pick up some steaks for dinner?
Sorry, the car only has 30 miles of charge left, going to the butcher would take 42 miles to get there and home. We'll have to make another trip.
Get home... charge car for 2 hours, drive to butcher, drive home, charge car for 2 hours.
Yea, none of that sounds appealing to me.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
No, range is not bullshit. The fact remains that there is not even a Tesla would let me drive from where I live to visit friends that live on the other side of the state without stopping to recharge for 8 hours or so at least once, and that's assuming I could find a place that would let me do it. The various hybrids would of course allow it, but that rather defeats the purpose of driving an EV since hybrid mileage figures aren't competitive enough with gas-only right now IMO.
Don't get me wrong - I'd *love* to get an EV, but the price/performance ratio is just not there yet.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Tesla 0 - 60 about 4.6 seconds. How fast do you want to go, anyway?
Sales are bad because none of them are pickup trucks. Supposedly Tesla is working on one, then we'll see sales take off.
That's right. EV, electric vehicles, are an industry solution to meeting NHTSA and EPA regulations that cars meet standards for GHG. Manufacturer's cars don't pass the standard, states close the door on their market. Its a bright, shiny doorstop. GM's EV-1 is the EV gold standard which the world deserves but obsoletes an entire petroleum industry in the process. So they had to crush every single example for posterity sake.
Hydrogen the technology wasn't ready, economically or infrastructure-wise for the 21st century. The zero emissions platform for the future is evolving slowly, infrastructure first. In the meantime, EV and HEV, keep the doors open for the manufacturers.
The various hybrids would of course allow it, but that rather defeats the purpose of driving an EV since hybrid mileage figures aren't competitive enough with gas-only right now IMO.
Of course plug in hybrids do answer this. You do the daily commute mostly on battery, but have the gas available for those occasions when you have to drive long distance. Overall the fuel costs (and emissions) are far lower with the hybrid in that scenario.
I test-drove a Leaf in Michigan this summer and the car was awesome. It accelerated faster than my Honda Fit and was totally quiet. If I lived in the suburbs and commuted the average distance to work everyday, I would spring for one in a second. But we live in Brooklyn, and the lack of charging space, limited range, and higher price point are still sticking points for us. If I could afford a Tesla Model S I could get around the first thanks to its high range. So we're waiting until we can either afford a Model S or Tesla puts out a mass-market model we can afford now. After the gas shortages after Hurricane Sandy I am itching to ditch the ICE.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
OMG, you're killing me! It's amazing how many women have caught on to what an over-sized pickup truck with a dozen lights and super lift kit means. Since getting a Prius I noticed that some men(especially non-techies) looked down on them and women approved of them. I still don't understand the Prius hate, maybe if I bought a BMW or Humvee I would see the same thing.
I haven't seen the numbers in a year or so, but the last I heard, most people that bought an EV do not buy another one when it comes time to replace it for whatever reason. In other words, people who could afford one and were on board with buying one do not love it enough to replace it with another EV when the time comes. I'd bet a huge percentage of those who say they love it feel compelled by societal pressure, plus the accolades and oohs and ahhs from their friends. Once the long-term limitations begin to chafe, they quietly move back into gasoline powered vehicles. NOTE: These statistics were collected before the Tesla was around, so maybe it's just the carsof a few years ago (Prius, I'm looking at you!) were not there yet.
Some days it's just not worth chewing through the restraints.
In Claifornia the utility companies have a pretty streamlined process for it, complete with incentives.
So the business is not paying the thousands of dollars it takes to install the equipment, all of us are to benefit the 0.001% of drivers that have electric cars.
How awesome.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Pythons: Python owners love 'em, so why are sales still low?
Erotic fursuits: Furries love 'em, so why are sales still low?
Because the enthusiasm of enthusiasts has nothing to do with appeal to the public.
That would be a neat drivetrain for something the size of the old VW Caddy pickups, and with driven rear wheels offer better performance loaded.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
They're fine of you are a Metro sexual who feels all tingly about saving the planet when driving a Prius around. You can afford a Tesla just by cutting back on the cologne. But for a real soccer Mom it works like this:
Two youngsters in OSHA-approved car seats (nice and bulky), plus two teenagers who have reached adult size, two huge duffel bags full of equipment and clothing, a couple of D-sticks plus Goalie sticks for lacrosse. At least one diaper bag, a stroller, folding chairs, the portable tent for the sidelines, snacks for the kids, water bottles (big ones), and the inevitable snacks for the big kids. Plus Mom & Dad.
That's a full-scale SUV which is absolutely stuffed to the gills or take two cars. Suck it up. Not everyone leads the Yuppie lifestyle and in these cases, a Tesla is not going to cut it.
The electric market isn't taking off because the consumer has few choices. And just because a tiny electric can get good "mileage" does not solve the problem above where the advantage disappears just on weight alone. Make an electric that can actually do the job plus not have a range that is across town, but not back without recharging, and you'd have a winner. The market is not going to blossom until the manufacturers produce what consumers want to buy. And that's not the consumers' fault.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
Cost and Infrastructure and Recharge time.
The problems with range are actually problems with infrastructure. You can get pretty good range on one fillup. The problem is that when you do reach a point when you want to recharge you are going to want to easily find a recharging station. In the US at least there are not many regions where they can easily be found. Moreover when you do want to recharge you will have a wait on your hands.
Furthermore as an apartment dweller my options to recharge overnight are very limited.
The good thing is these are solvable issues.
So what? I said the hottest selling EV, not the hottest selling car. I'm fully aware it's still an insignificant amount of the market. If Tesla can get the cost of the car down to about half of where it is now they'd easily be able to sell a couple OOM more of them- which would be a significant portion of world sales, not just US.
I don't read AC A human right
Double check that research, that was an obvious BS work that has been debunked. In "Dust to Dust" they reference nickel mining techniques that were over 30 years out of date. They also based the energy cost on the lifetime of vehicle with the Prius having a lifetime of 109,000 miles and the Humvee 379,000, total BS. The same company revisited their biased article and reversed their views a year later, I'm guessing they were trying to save face.
Considering this all happened over 5 years ago, anyone still referencing that article obviously isn't very good at doing research. Environmental benefit was tertiary in my decision process, but I can't stand it when people reference ridiculously inaccurate articles in an attempt to make themselves look "smug".
Jetta drivers have been accused of being "smug". Do you feel you deserved that or did you buy a car that you liked and was happy with your purchase without thinking even once that you were superior. And when people stated that pickup trucks were more environmentally friendly than a diesel Jetta didn't you think it was frustrating that people could be so ignorant? And why the sudden need to compare suv/pickup trucks to high mpg cars? I suspect that whenever the gas prices increase, they get upset every time they go to the pump and they take out their frustrations on high mpg cars. Maybe they should stop trying to look bigger through their cars and instead consider getting a more frugal car like a Yaris, it's cheap, reliable, and gets good milage. I needed a bigger car, so I went with the Prius.
Most likely, massive inflation. That is what happened to university costs once easy money became available through loans and other means.
Ferrari's: Drivers Love 'Em, So Why Are Sales Still Low?
'Nuff said.
I'll buy the first car that offers 300 miles of range at a reasonable price (i.e. 35k). So basically waiting for that battery commercial breakthrough (i.e. 400Wh/kg density).
I went to buy a car a few years ago. I had a choice between regular, gas-consuming cards for ~18 grand new, or hybrids, for about 10 grand more. That is just not worth it!
Though, I also wouldn't buy an *all* electric car, anyway, until electric cars were as ubiquitous as gas cars, and it was just as quick and easy to recharge your electric car at a stop on the side of the road while driving hundreds of miles, as it is to stop at a gas station now. This might happen eventually, but it certainly isn't true now. A hybrid, though, I would totally love to have, if it weren't way crazy expensive.
EVs don't need to be half the cars on the road yet. Not even 1/4.
It's true -- if the median is near the mean, the 47 mile range leaf won't work for a big chunk of commuters (who can't charge at work, and have sufficiently large commutes). But even the most popular car on the road only makes up a few percent of the cars on the road. If EVs only work for half the commuters, and if each two-car-household would only buy one EV (so they can drive to grandmas this week), that's still 1/4 of all cars on the road. Sure, that's an upper bound since not every household is a two-car-household, but surely 1-in-10 could easily incorporate an EV with the leaf's range into their two-car-household.
If 10% of cars were EVs, that would be a substantial number, and it would result in dramatically improved infrastructure, lower prices, and improved R&D. That they don't work for everyone doesn't mean there's not a sizable market. See: SUVs, sports cars, minivans, economy cars, etc.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
The question implies that EVs aren't successful, yet no one argues that hybrids aren't successful and EV sales are ahead of where hybrids were at a comparable point in their adoption. It takes a while to get people convinced to adopt something new.
There are several factors.
Lousy marketing, mentioned in the article summary, is one. Traditional vehicles are marketed
extremely aggressively, with the result that people often have a significant emotional investment
in the vehicle before they even find out how much it costs. I've yet to see or hear anything
about electrical vehicle marketing that would make me think it compares.
Up-front price is another. When making a "big purchase", and especially when buying an item
that will no longer be available in the same makes and models by the time they go to buy
another one, people almost always take the nominal pricetag MUCH more heavily into
consideration than later maintenance costs. If you want to see the extreme end of
this, you only have to look at the market for printers. Inkjets *own* the market, despite
the undisputed fact that the TCO of laser printers is FAR lower if you print anywhere
near the median household quantity of pages per month. But new laser printers cost
quite a bit more than new inkjets, so everybody buys inkjets. I think they outnumber
laser printers by something like twenty to one in domestic deployments. (In business
environments, the margin is somewhat narrower, admittedly.)
Another factor is that electric vehicles were initially brought to market and heavily
publicized significantly too early, when the technology was clearly not really ready
for prime-time yet, resulting in a lot of rather unfavorable reviews and press. This
kind of thing sticks in people's minds, and while the newer models are significantly
improved, a lot of people still have the overall impression that electric vehicles
are not very good, for reasons that, while they still have some truth to them,
were undeniably much MORE true ten or fifteen years ago. (One of the best
examples of this is the impression most people have that electric vehicles are
impractical if you have to drive more than a few miles per day. The range is
still not practical for long trips such as going on vacation, nor will it be soon;
but many folks are under the impression that electric vehicles are impractical
even for moderate commutes, which was true in the early nineties but not so
much now.)
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
My wife's 2 month old LEAF gets 110 miles on a single charge with her driving solo and 90 with me driving (with her riding along). If you really like the car it might make sense to stick with it and just get the newer model.