The Best, and Worst, Places To Drive Your Electric Car

sciencehabit writes For those tired of winter, you're not alone. Electric cars hate the cold, too. Researchers have conducted the first investigation into how electric vehicles fare in different U.S. climates. The verdict (abstract): Electric car buyers in the chilly Midwest and sizzling Southwest get less bang for their buck, where poor energy efficiency and coal power plants unite to turn electric vehicles into bigger polluters.

Comments

Don't do it

[Anonymous Coward]

ELectic cars are a death trap.

Frosty Root Beer is the Best.

No story?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's the story? What, we don't get the story no more? Cheap Dice....,

Re:No story?

[Maddog Batty]

I'm guessing that this is the link: http://news.sciencemag.org/cli...

Re:No story?

[Maury Markowitz]

Read the actual numbers... "(170 Wh/km), whereas the upper Midwest fared the worst in terms of energy efficiency (196 Wh/km; red)". We're talking about a 13% difference - the article uses the 15% figure from 170, cheating IMHO. BFD, one way or the other, yet the graph varies from green to BRIGHT RED!!!!

More numbers; even if you power your electric car on 100% coal, its about twice as clean per mile than a gasoline engine. The math is trivial and I suggest everyone try it themselves:

https://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/wells-to-wheels-electric-car-efficiency/

Re:No story?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention that even if you have to charge it 15% more, in the red areas that are not in the desert regions or Texas, the cost of electricity is 50% or less the cost of electricity in the green area. Overall, seems like a good deal to me.

Re:No story?

[doccus]

WEll, having owned an electric vehicle, I thought they were going to talk about the best and worst *types* of places to drive them i.e. highways vs city - short hops vs loong trips,.. Of course chargers are now more common, and mine being a bike was able to plug into house current.. but when you're stuck out in the middle of the highway there's not a lot of outlets available, tho..

That's unpossible.

[Anonymous Coward]

Saint Elon said that's not true!1!!! And me and my one share in TSLA that I'll buy when I grow up say otherwise too.

Re:That's unpossible.

[AmiMoJo]

He's right, EVs are ideal in our temperatures and very popular in northern Europe. A low centre of gravity makes them handle well on slippery roads and pre-heating is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Range is reduced a little but as long as your name isn't Broder and you planned for that they are wonderful.

Speaking as a Leaf owner in northern Europe.

Re:That's unpossible.

[Anonymous Coward]

and pre-heating is the greatest thing since sliced bread

Pre-heating isn't the greatest thing since sliced bread, although it usually happens comes an hour or two before the slicing, but what has either do with transportation? Do you mean you need to make a small fire under the car in Northern Europe before you drive?

Re:That's unpossible.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you heat up the inside of the car to make it habitable for humans. It also makes it possible to get into the car in case of ice (plug it in and let the car heat up so you can open the doors).

Re:That's unpossible.

[nukenerd]

pre-heating is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

What is pre-heating and what has it got to do with electric cars?

Re:That's unpossible.

[Mr D from 63]

Pre-heating is heating up the interior while it is still charging, so as to use less charge for heating once you depart. Heating takes a lot of energy and drains the battery faster, as I understand even more than cooling.

Of course, gas vehicles can be pre-heated as well, you just start them up a bit before you depart ( but you don't want to do that in a closed garage!)

Re:That's unpossible.

[AmiMoJo]

Basically you have a timer that you can programme to turn on the heating. I have mine turn on Monday to Friday 15 minutes before I go to work. When I come out the car is nice and warm inside, and any mist/ice on the windows has been cleared. Because the car is plugged in it doesn't drain the battery at all.

I can also activate it remotely via a web site or phone app.

Re:That's unpossible.

[MightyYar]

But why is this an advantage of electric cars? I have a button on my gasoline Camry key fob that starts the car and runs it for 10 minutes. When it is 0 degrees F outside, you get into a toasty car.

Re:That's unpossible.

[Kjella]

pre-heating is the greatest thing since sliced bread

Well electric block/interior heaters is hardly exclusive to EVs and diesel cars can generally do this without a grid connection using its own fuel. But yes it does come "free" by having to plug in the car to charge anyway and you have to if you want the advertised range. From what I gather if you're at a cabin with no/solar power and can't plug your EV in it'll use a lot of power just to get started in the cold.

Re:That's unpossible.

[Anonymous Coward]

You wouldn't do that with your car in the garage.

Not if you wanted to survive the trip into the car.

Re:That's unpossible.

[Mr D from 63]

If the car is in the garage it is already relatively warm, it is the car sitting outside that benefits the most from preheating.

Re:That's unpossible.

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to misunderstand it.

Engine Block heaters, heat the engine block, they do not heat the interior of the car. When you have an eletric car, they heat the seats, not the air. It uses less power.

ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) vehicles rely on the engine running, even if it's electric HVAC. Electric cars, especially late model ones have entirely eletric HVAC.

But in the end, it's never about heating the car, it's about how inefficient it is to maintain a stable temperature. If you can start the car and not turn the heat/cooling on you get better milage... even in a ICE vehicle. However because of the heat generated by the engine being added to the heat generated by driving and the ambient heat, electric cars will perform poorer in hot environments because the parts get hotter and can't be cooled as effectively.In a ICE, the thermal limit is higher, but even regular ICE vehicles will suffer in a desert.

When it comes down to it, the most efficient energy usage is actually electric rail vehicles (and I'm not talking about light rail, I'm talking about grade-separated heavy-rail/commuter rail, and driverless metros), this is because "people" over-apply brakes, and make a lot of inefficient driving decisions for acceleration. However even real systems suffer in high temperatures. Rails actually buckle if they're not welded and bolted to concrete ties.

Re:That's unpossible.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, the garage would only be "relatively warm" compared to outside, NOT necessarily compared to what the engine wants when starting, or the driver wants to be able to drive without problems.

Re:That's unpossible.

[dasunt]

I have an unattached garage. It's temperature tends to lag the outside temperature - meaning the garage is colder than the air temperature in the morning.

Re:That's unpossible.

[nukenerd]

Pre-heating is heating up the interior while it is still charging ... Of course, gas vehicles can be pre-heated as well, you just start them up a bit before you depart ( but you don't want to do that in a closed garage!)

Why is this particular to electric cars? I understand that in really cold countries like Russia and Canada, gas cars have electric heaters in the cooling water circuit that you plug in on a timer to pre-warm the engine (and hence the passenger heater too). I am in the UK and during very cold weather even I put an electric fan heater inside the car the previous night on a mains extension lead, which I switch on from the house 10 minutes before I use the car next morning. It would not be very hard to build such a feature into the car.

So electric cars have electric heaters; I had not thought about that aspect before. That would be a considerable inefficiency; OTOH gas cars use the engine waste heat for heating.

Re:That's unpossible.

[AmiMoJo]

EVs use no power to start. There is no starter motor, they don't work like that. The motor stops completely when the car does, it's not like an ICE that has to keep rotating all the time or be electronically re-started.

In other words, EVs don't use any energy to start and don't have any problem starting in the cold either. There can be some loss of range when batteries are very cold (like below -10C) but it recovers as they warm up while driving, so even that isn't a big deal. More over, for most EV owners range isn't an issue they worry much about anyway.

Re:That's unpossible.

[TrekkieGod]

OTOH gas cars use the engine waste heat for heating.

What do you do with that waste heat in the summer?

Re:That's unpossible.

[AmiMoJo]

It's not exclusive to EVs, but it does cost you less in them because electricity is much cheaper than petrol. It often works better as well as ICE cars usually rely on the engine to provide heat, meaning they need to waste time waiting for it to warm up before they can begin warming the cabin. EVs usually have some other method of generating heat for the cabin, such as the heat pump in my Leaf.

Re:That's unpossible.

[Hognoxious]

Waste it. But that's still better than wasting it all year round.

Re:That's unpossible.

[Maury Markowitz]

> Why is this particular to electric cars?

Electric cars will generally have a 230V/30A connection, rather than 115/15. So they get four times the power.

They also have electrically powered heaters. So they can turn on the interior heat without having to start anything else.

> gas cars have electric heaters in the cooling

These slightly warm the fluid or oil. They are useful, but don't heat the interior.

Re:That's unpossible.

[Kjella]

Way to misunderstand it.

Consider your post is the clueless ones and mods have sent it from 0 to +3, well...

Engine Block heaters, heat the engine block, they do not heat the interior of the car. When you have an eletric car, they heat the seats, not the air. It uses less power.

All heaters help, which is why I said block/interior. Even a block heater will help the usual warming system deliver warmer air much faster, interior heaters warm the entire interior and there's the "full package" that does both. And the last car I saw without electric heating in the seats was in the 90s, still doesn't change that windows fog up, your hands get cold and so on. This "seat only" warming is a power saving measure since using power for heating steals range. How comfy do you really think it is to have one hot side - your backside - and one cold side?

ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) vehicles rely on the engine running, even if it's electric HVAC. Electric cars, especially late model ones have entirely eletric HVAC.

*facepalm* Take a look at DEFA warmup, ZeroStart or any other of a ton of integrated or not so integrated solutions to do what you say they don't. Do you live in California or something? The exact same kind of pre-heating solutions have existed for decades.

But in the end, it's never about heating the car, it's about how inefficient it is to maintain a stable temperature. If you can start the car and not turn the heat/cooling on you get better milage... even in a ICE vehicle.

That is blatantly false:

At -20C, the use of a block heater can improve overall fuel economy by as much as 10 percent. In a test program conducted by Environment Canada, a vehicle sitting at -25C was warmed using a block heater and then driven over a simulated urban driving cycle. This resulted in a 25 percent reduction in fuel consumption compared to cold-starting the vehicle and driving it over the same route

For the metric and Google-impaired, -20C and -25C is -4F and -13F respectively.

However because of the heat generated by the engine being added to the heat generated by driving and the ambient heat, electric cars will perform poorer in hot environments because the parts get hotter and can't be cooled as effectively.In a ICE, the thermal limit is higher, but even regular ICE vehicles will suffer in a desert.

Deserts are kinda the opposite end of the scale here. In cold weather, ICE cars perform weak and electrics worse. And yes, electrics like Nissan Leaf use an electric heater to heat the battery when it's too cold. Tesla doesn't, which makes it sluggish the first minutes in the cold. And heating the interior will use electric power that could have been used for range in both. In ICE cars it'll just sap a little of the battery that'll recharge as you drive, in EVs it's a real drain.

Re:That's unpossible.

[Mr D from 63]

Why is this particular to electric cars?

Its not. I hope I didn't imply it was, I was just answering the question.

Re:That's unpossible.

[chihowa]

Heating in gas cars is accomplished by diverting some of the engine coolant to a small radiator in the cabin ventilation system. In the summer, you simply don't run hot coolant through the cabin and run it all through the radiator outside of the cabin.

As Hog said, you waste it all in the summer. It's an added efficiency to the whole system in the winter.

Re:That's unpossible.

[WolfWithoutAClause]

> So electric cars have electric heaters; I had not thought about that aspect before. That would be a considerable inefficiency;

To some extent. The main problem is that it flattens the battery more quickly and impacts range in winter time, the actual cost of the heater for an hour or two is generally relatively trivial compared to the other costs of running the car.

The newer electric cars have much less of an issue though. Instead of using electric heaters they run the air conditioner in reverse (it's an 'air source heat pump' in fact) and most of the heat energy then comes from the external environment rather than resistive heating. The heat pump uses about 1/3 of the power.

Re:That's unpossible.

[swillden]

So electric cars have electric heaters; I had not thought about that aspect before. That would be a considerable inefficiency; OTOH gas cars use the engine waste heat for heating.

You have an odd definition of inefficiency. The fact that ICEVs generate a lot of waste heat is the real inefficiency, even if it does provide a "free" solution to the problem of cabin heat. An efficient vehicle doesn't waste energy and then sometimes apply a small percentage of the waste to do do something useful.

Re:That's unpossible.

[swillden]

As Hog said, you waste it all in the summer. It's an added efficiency to the whole system in the winter.

Rather, I'd say that it's a somewhat reduced inefficiency during the winter. An efficient system wouldn't produce the waste heat to begin with.

Re:That's unpossible.

[Anonymous Coward]

An efficient system wouldn't produce the waste heat to begin with.

Let me know when you figure out how to burn something without producing heat.

Re:That's unpossible.

[ganjadude]

and pre-heating is the greatest thing since sliced bread

I think betty white is the best thing since sliced bread

Re:That's unpossible.

[MillionthMonkey]

An electrical outlet is not at the boundary of a closed thermodynamic system. With an electric car, the waste heat is produced at the power plant before the energy is converted to electricity and sent on its way to you in the first place. In general heating is a wasteful use of electricity; if your utility burns fossil fuels to generate power, you'll have a lower carbon footprint from heating something with oil or gas than with electricity. That waste heat can go into your house or car instead of the air above a cooling tower miles away.

Re:That's unpossible.

[angel'o'sphere]

'Pre heated' gasoline cars usually have a special heat reservoir close to the engine, that is heated up during driving and conservs heat for about 2.5 days. It is used to hear up the engine and the interiour of the car.
Preheating the engine in cold climates ensures prompt starting as well as a huge cut in fuel spendings during the 'warming up' phase.
The car needs to be special equipped for that.
In north europe that is standard. No idea about the USA or Canada, would make sense to have it as standard there as well.

Re:That's unpossible.

[X0563511]

That's less for comfort and more for not breaking the engine. Generators tend to have a coolant heater as well.

If the coolant system is frozen, it doesn't work, and the "ambient" heat transfer from the engine to the auxiliary equipment isn't fast enough. The engine will damage itself before the coolant system is thawed enough to begin functioning.

Re:That's unpossible.

[Anonymous Coward]

More over, for most EV owners range isn't an issue they worry much about anyway.

Range is the number one issue for EVs. I suppose EV owner don't worry because only people that have very short commutes would buy an EV in the first place.

Re:That's unpossible.

[AmiMoJo]

To give you an idea my Leaf loses about 5% range if I have the heating and air-con (dehumidifier) on. In other words, about 5 miles of range. It's really not a big deal.

Having said that, I rarely keep the heater on for very long. The car is pre-warmed or warms up quickly. The AC has a dehumidifier so the windows defog in less than 10 seconds. The rear window heater uses the 12V battery so does not impact range at all, as do the heated seats and heated steering wheel.

Re:That's unpossible.

[swillden]

An electrical outlet is not at the boundary of a closed thermodynamic system. With an electric car, the waste heat is produced at the power plant before the energy is converted to electricity and sent on its way to you in the first place.

Of course. And there are also transmission losses. However, large plants have significantly higher efficiencies than small engines. Net, EVs powered by oil-fired power plants use less oil per mile traveled than gasoline engines, by a large margin, even when you include electric cabin heat.

Re:That's unpossible.

[swillden]

An efficient system wouldn't produce the waste heat to begin with.

Let me know when you figure out how to burn something without producing heat.

There are lots of ways to generate power that don't involve burning anything.

Re:That's unpossible.

[Anonymous Coward]

But there are no ways of generating power that don't produce waste heat.

Re:That's unpossible.

[chihowa]

That's another way of stating it, I suppose. All systems produce waste heat, though. Even looking at the EV as a closed system, you don't see 100% efficiency. Any time you can use waste heat to do meaningful work, you're increasing efficiency or reducing inefficiency.

Politics aside, there's no difference between increasing efficiency and decreasing inefficiency. Both statements mean the same thing. Increasing the efficiency in any system is good, even internal combustion engines and even in light of electric vehicles being the better choice. EVs are capable of being overall more efficient, but this little subthread was discussing how ICE heaters work, which is in fact a clever use of waste heat.

Re:That's unpossible.

[MightyYar]

Well, they cost you less if you ignore the massive capital investment :)

Re: That's unpossible.

[Anonymous Coward]

In addition to being able to afford them. As an urbanite, you're either very rich, or poor.

Re:That's unpossible.

[swillden]

But there are no ways of generating power that don't produce waste heat.

Some produce much more than others, though.

Re:That's unpossible.

[KreAture]

Yep. Heating eats a LOT of extra power.
If I could have I'd gladly pay extra for the heatpump system in my e-up.
My pure resistive electric heater in the e-up is 6kW meaning if I don't use pre-heating before driving to work my short 11km commute changes from a 12kWh/100km to 16-17 during cold winter.
In summer I do it on 11kWh/100km due to no heating and less rolling resistance on tyres.

Re: That's unpossible.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Well, they cost you less if you ignore the massive capital investment :)"

Which massive capital investment would you be referring to? I already have power outlets in my garage... Electricity is pretty common in the USA these days.

Re:That's unpossible.

[Anonymous Coward]

Rather, I'd say that it's a somewhat reduced inefficiency during the winter. An efficient system wouldn't produce the waste heat to begin with.

Not going to happen without violating the second law of thermodynamics.

Re: That's unpossible.

[MightyYar]

The car. It would be far, far cheaper for you to install an electric resistance heater in your gasoline car and plug it in than it would be to purchase an electric car.

Versa: MSRP $12,000
Leaf: MSRP $29,000

Yeah, yeah, tax credit brings it down to $21,500. $9500 still buys you a lot of gas and morning 10-minute idles.

Re:That's unpossible.

[swillden]

Rather, I'd say that it's a somewhat reduced inefficiency during the winter. An efficient system wouldn't produce the waste heat to begin with.

Not going to happen without violating the second law of thermodynamics.

Obviously, some waste heat will always be produced. Internal combustion engines, however, waste 75% of the input energy as heat.

Re:That's unpossible.

[TrekkieGod]

Waste it. But that's still better than wasting it all year round.

Who's wasting it year-round? Why would you turn on the electric car's heat in the summer?

Re:That's unpossible.

[TrekkieGod]

Let me know when you figure out how to burn something without producing heat.

The amount of heat matters. Internal combustion engines are ~40% efficient at absolute best. Electric motors are ~98% efficient.

They're both producing waste heat, but one is producing *a lot* less per mile driven.

Re:That's unpossible.

[TrekkieGod]

All systems produce waste heat, though. Even looking at the EV as a closed system, you don't see 100% efficiency.

No, but you do see >90% efficiency as compared to the ~40% at best from combustion engines.

Re:That's unpossible.

[chihowa]

If I come out and directly say that I like electric vehicles and wish that we could stop burning gasoline in cars, could I get some replies to my comments that are actually replying to my comment and not refuting weird arguments that I'm not actually making? I see now why people put those disclaimers at the end of their posts to try and head off these kinds of replies.

You do see that nowhere, in any of my posts in this thread, was I comparing the efficiency of gas engines to electric drive systems, right? I was merely referencing the technical implementation of heating systems in gas burning cars and being a pedant about the use of the terms efficiency vs inefficiency.

Ugh. The posts here aren't even about nerdish oneupsmanship and pedantry anymore. Slashdot is increasingly driven by boring ideological quibbles and a dearth of reading comprehension.

Re:That's unpossible.

[Anonymous Coward]

To quote you:

An efficient system wouldn't produce the waste heat to begin with.

Re:That's unpossible.

[swillden]

To quote you:

An efficient system wouldn't produce the waste heat to begin with.

Pedantically, I was wrong. But I think it was obvious I was speaking of a system producing so much waste heat that it was usable for cabin heating.

Re:That's unpossible.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're wrong a lot from what I read here http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

Re:That's unpossible.

[swillden]

You're wrong a lot from what I read here http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

Heh. I'm wrong a lot, definitely. Anyone who says they aren't is lying.

In that particular case, however, I never said what you claim I did. I never took a position one way or the other on hosts files as an ad-blocking tool. I just said you're annoying... and I greatly appreciate your continuing to demonstrate the fact!

Re:That's unpossible.

[DriveDog]

Exactly. And after the cabin's warm, for most of us within 10 minutes, most of that heat is again wasted because we don't really want the interior to stay above 80F.

Re:That's unpossible.

[Toshito]

Having said that, I rarely keep the heater on for very long.

Then you don't live in a cold climate.

This week in Quebec you have to keep your heater on at full and the fan at almost the highest speed just to keep the windows from frosting (forget fogging, here the fog freezes on the windows IN the car).

Even then, when we're 5 or 6 in the car it can't keep up and you only have the windshield and part of the side windows that stay defrosted. And it's currently only about -20 to -20C, at -35C it's even worse.

And forget about the AC dehumidifier at those temps, even when the AC is turned on the compressor is not running, below a certain temp it's prevented from running because it could be damaged.

The heater is not only for comfort, it's primary use in our cold climate is to safely defrost the windows and see where you're going.

No Link?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is the link in the article for me to not click on?

Re:no link?

[Mr D from 63]

I would say that if you could find a "Supermodels Who Love Environmentalists" convention, that would be the best place to drive an EV to.

Story link

[SternisheFan]

Found this link in submissions...- http://news.sciencemag.org/cli...

The Missing Link

[ragnarok]

http://news.sciencemag.org/cli...

Drama Online

[Anonymous Coward]

Watch Pakistani Dramas Online in HD Quality. Latest Episodes of Drama Online on Bathak.com

Re:Drama Online

[Anonymous Coward]

At last, some useful info on /. !

More on-topic, this is IMHO an incredible misconception: if electric energy is produced with highly polluting coal power plants, then the electric car is the culprit.

While I can appreciate how a holistic vision can be important for the decision process (in choosing transportation method alternatives, that is), this is totally non-productive.

The electric car is hugely more efficient than thermal-engine based ones (something like 3 times as efficient), we should develop non-polluting methods of generating electrical power and solve the power for once and forever; but we keep saying the gas motor is better out of pure laziness and that means no progress can be made towards more efficient cars.

And we get more polltuion as deserved karma, too.

Re:Drama Online

[nukenerd]

The electric car is hugely more efficient than thermal-engine based ones... we should develop non-polluting methods of generating electrical power and solve the power for once and forever

The elecric motor it is just one link in a chain. You might even better say that an axle shaft is 100% efficient so we should develop non-polluting methods of putting power into axle shafts and solve the power problem for ever.

but we keep saying the gas motor is better out of pure laziness

Yes, l'm a lazy bastard. I don't want to push my Tesla the last 130 miles of a 400 mile journey after the battery runs out.

Re:Drama Online

[Ichijo]

I don't want to push my Tesla the last 130 miles of a 400 mile journey after the battery runs out.

What do you do differently when your internal combustion engine vehicle runs out of fuel?

Re:Drama Online

[Anonymous Coward]

No, your extrapolating to the ridiculous doesn't make the OP's assertion ridiculous, only your efforts to discredit it.

Oil refined to petrol burnt in an engine of an ICE to move it can be compared to coal burnt in a power station to produce electricity stored and used in an EV. These ARE equivalent. "Oh, but you have to transmit the electricity over wire!" and petrol has to be transported to the gas station. "Oh, but you have to move the coal to the station!" and Oil has to be moved from the well to the refinery.

And taking that into account, they're equivalent.

And the EV is about 3x more energy efficient a mode of transport.

Something you hate to have be know, hence your ridiculous attempt to muddy the water.

PS Top Gear faked that Tesla running out, they ADMIT they faked it, and they *successfully defended* themselves against a lawsuit from Elon by claiming that Top Gear *WAS KNOWN* not to be factual but ENTERTAINMENT, therefore "NOBODY takes their claims seriously". Except you appear to be far more gullible than top gear think anyone is who watches their show.

Elon could take your post and use it to reopen the case and likely win.

Well done, you gullible shitheat!

Re:Drama Online

[Anonymous Coward]

> The electric motor it is just one link in a chain.

This is the kind of mentality I'm saying is wrong. Of course, my POV is debatable; but by repeating the exact thing I criticized, you managed to make yourself look like a stupid parrot. Congrats.

> You might even better say that an axle shaft is 100% efficient so we should develop non-polluting methods of putting power into axle shafts and solve the power problem for ever.

Yep. It is exactly that. Mechanical energy -- potential or kinetic -- is even better than electric. Maybe we come to a design based on it which is feasible; right now, I think we might settle on 90% efficient electric motors and solve the pollution problem in obtaining electricity.

> Yes, l'm a lazy bastard. I don't want to push my Tesla the last 130 miles of a 400 mile journey after the battery runs out.

We'll solve that. We'll have lighter, bigger capacity batteries. And we'll solve the energy conundrum, e.g. by getting it directly from the sun, or making roads which transmit energy to cars, changing batteries, changing cars, whatever...

Right now, as you admit it, the electric car works well up to 270 miles... which is more than a lot of people need. In that range, the gas engine loses.

Re:Drama Online

[rossdee]

Electric cars can be charged during off peak hours by wind or other non-carbon producing energy production.

Re:Drama Online

[michelcolman]

Who said anything about Top Gear?

Re:Drama Online

[Anonymous Coward]

> The electric motor it is just one link in a chain.

We recently had our cars rated regarding energy consumption. For simplicity, let's say an average economic car might consume 1.6 MJ/km (that's mega Joules per kilometer). Which Google says it's 444 Wh/km.

Please note the article is about bad EV consumption of 196 Wh/km, still less than 50% of an economic gas-engine car consumption.

It's important to take into account that electricity use makes possible some energy recovering techniques which are impossible in a gas-only car -- that's why hybrids are better.

The following page might be useful for those who are unit-impaired:

http://gm-volt.com/2009/08/28/should-mpgs-be-retired-how-to-calculate-efficiency-of-new-technology-cars/

PS:
Source: http://motorshow.terra.com.br/noticia/motor-news/conheca-os-carros-mais-economicos-do-brasil

Actually, original source indicated in that article. Use Google translation if you care, it's not needed for number comparison.

Re:Drama Online

[nukenerd]

I don't want to push my Tesla the last 130 miles of a 400 mile journey after the battery runs out.

What do you do differently when your internal combustion engine vehicle runs out of fuel?

It goes the 400 miles.

Re:Drama Online

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't want to push my Tesla the last 130 miles of a 400 mile journey after the battery runs out.

What do you do differently when your internal combustion engine vehicle runs out of fuel?

That happened to me, but I was not far out of town.
I called a friend who brought a can of gasoline and then I was on my way.
If far out of town, I would call AAA for that sort of thing.

Re:Drama Online

[nukenerd]

Oil refined to petrol burnt in an engine of an ICE to move it can be compared to coal burnt in a power station to produce electricity stored and used in an EV.

Wow, tell me about it.

PS Top Gear faked that Tesla running out. .... Except you appear to be far more gullible than top gear think anyone is who watches their show.

I haven't the faintest idea what you are talking about. Faked what Tesla?

Elon could take your post and use it to reopen the case and likely win.

LoL! 400-130 = 270 miles. The FTP-75 figure for a Tesla's range with a 85kWh battery is 265 miles.

Well done, you gullible shitheat!

Wow, LoL! My original post wan't really that serious, but it obviously all went over your head. When the OP talked about "laziness", a completely wrong and arrogant assumption about the motives of anyone with contrary arguments, I immediately thought of walking instead, and then of pushing a car. You really need to lighten up a bit, this is not religion or politics.

Re:Drama Online

[Anonymous Coward]

I did.

That's where nukenerd got his "I don't want to push my Tesla the last 130 miles of a 400 mile journey after the battery runs out", from a Top Gear hatchet-job on a Tesla. A faked "test drive" by TG that "left them stranded without power when the battery ran down".

Re:Drama Online

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and of course you're doing that 400 mile journey every day, and of course, because you are doing it every day, so is everyone else.

Fucking idiot. Grow a brain.

Re:Drama Online

[Anonymous Coward]

>>> I don't want to push my Tesla the last 130 miles of a 400 mile journey after the battery runs out.

>> What do you do differently when your internal combustion engine vehicle runs out of fuel?

> It goes the 400 miles.

Why bother to post that?

Your car ran out of gas. That's the question. What you can do now? Are you some kind of telemarketer following a written routine... because it seems you chose a random answer.

BS. Oh, wait, maybe that's how it works! You adapted your to work on BS. How ecological!

Re:Drama Online

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the same can be done with EVs. Like a small battery to help a car reach the next recharging station. It could be delivered by motorbike as an insurance service.

An electric motorbike, of course... ;-P

Re:Drama Online

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think wind and solar panels grow themselves?

There are no "non-carbon producing energy production" methods. It's disingenuous (fundamentally dishonest) to state otherwise.

Re:Drama Online

[Anonymous Coward]

> Do you think wind and solar panels grow themselves?
> There are no "non-carbon producing energy production" methods. It's disingenuous (fundamentally dishonest) to state otherwise.

And so we complete a circle going back to what I stated in my original post.

The basic proposed idea is that such reasoning is wrong, because it's kind of an egg-chicken problem: you cannot improve the car, because the resources to charge it are themselves polluting. This is a fallacy IMHO.

Do *now* what you can: make the car as efficient as possible. That means an electric car with current technology. Do not pay attention at first to how you will charge it and / or how to build the equipment to do so.

In a second moment, focus on cleaning the charging plant, eventually getting rid of polluting technologies. For example, replace coal with solar or wind, use robots or 3D printers (themselves using solar energy) to make solar panels, etc.

We're bootstrapping the electric car. Don't expect the first to be better than a traditional mature (but inefficient) technology like the combustion engine.

Do expect, though, the electric motor to make the gas engine obsolete and comparatively more costly. Do expect easy to reach auto-charging points at home and work. Do expect "refueling" to be a thing of the past. Think about new businesses thriving on providing you convenience -- easier to operate because dealing with batteries is safer than transporting gasoline. Do expect less problems as there is no impure electricity (what do you do when your gas has weird compounds in it?)

> It's disingenuous (fundamentally dishonest) to state otherwise.

Be honest with thyself. The only thing inevitable is that technology will advance. The gas-engine will still have some uses, but these will severely diminish, just like in the case of the steam engine.

Re: Drama Online

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop sucking Musk's disk you hipster fag

Re: Drama Online

[Anonymous Coward]

Most gas cars get around 250 miles /tank. As such, similar range to the tesla.
But the big difference between Tesla and your pos is that you pay more than $100 to drive that 400 miles, while tesla driver SC for free.

Re: Drama Online

[Anonymous Coward]

If u own a tesla, u call them and they take care of it.
However, tesla owners rarely get into trouble. Besides, far more places to get electricty than there are gas stations.

Re:Drama Online

[michelcolman]

I think he just got it from the 270 mile EPA 5-cycle range officially published for the 85D. I don't see any reason to link his post to Top Gear. They never featured the Model S anyway, only the Roadster.

Re:Drama Online

[macpacheco]

No, its because he's a wimp that can't do math. In regular cars in most situations you have a gas station every 10 miles or so in the city at a gas station every 20 miles or so at a highway. So most owners aren't afraid to push it to 50 mile reserves when they know there are gas stations everywhere.
If you're lucky there's a supercharger every 100 miles along your route. Often a long trip needs planning, and some nerve for those that are usually lazy. Oh, and cold weather makes it worse.
For us engineers, physicists, IT guys, pilots, their predicament is stupid.
It's being fixed. It's called supercharger expansion and free HPWC equipment (Tesla medium power chargers) for businesses. Give it until end of 2016 and that argument will be squashed like a bug.
For some it will take a 100 kWh battery pack plus some other range improvements that are bound to happen given Tesla insane innovation pace to finally kill this argument. By 2020 a top end Tesla should manage 500 miles range @ 60 mph and no ac or heating. At that point those people will feel comfortable to drive an actual 300-350 miles on a charge.
PS: Nissan LEAF is a compliance car. Its a glorified golf cart. Until they get to at least 160 miles, they are a joke. When you have a 100 mile car in normal conditions, and add winter problems, the LEAF becomes next to useless in cold weather. And their real plans to upgrade the battery aren't spontaneous, they are driven by the Gen 3 Tesla and the Chevy Bolt. It's called compliance cars.

Re:Drama Online

[macpacheco]

In the meantime, the Tesla tells you how much range you have left projected in real time.
Unlike many gas tanks, Tesla remaining power indications are reliable. There could be some change in kWh/mile consumption (going from flat to montain terrain, going from city to highway), but its way more accurate than gas cars.
In the meantime, most cars can't even tell you how many gallons you have left with decent accuracy. Cars also greatly vary in miles/gallon rate due to changing driving conditions.

Re:Drama Online

[macpacheco]

The oil situation is utterly bad.
In the worst case, refining heavy oil consumes so much natural gas just for refining that should that oil be left underground, and that gas went into an efficient natural gas thermal plant (60% efficiency), the Tesla would go further on the natural gas electricity alone vs the produced gasoline be put into a Prius. Now, most oil isn't heavy, but refining even the lightest easiest oil does consume lots of natural gas, in the end a Prius end up being about 20% efficient from well to wheel, while a Tesla gets above 40% from baseload natural gas (and even better in CO2/mile from the average USA grid generation).
When you consider Canada Bitumen Oil, the pollution is even higher, as natural gas is burned to make steam to extract the oil from the ground, then more natural gas used for refining. The final quality of Bitumen Oil is good enough, but when the whole thing is added up, its even worse than heavy oil imported by large oil tankers.

Re:Drama Online

[macpacheco]

If that guy is actually doing a 400 mile journey every day, the Tesla will come out free after five years, since even without free supercharger electrons, charging a Tesla is wayyy cheaper than buying gasoline, even with today's prices.
A 85kWh Tesla * average US$ 0.12 / kWh = US$ 10 bucks to charge your car. With solar panels you can get that down by a bunch.
That drives an average 250 miles. Or 4 cents per mile.
So a full million miles would cost just US$ 40k in electricity !

How much does it costs your car to drive 250 miles ? Just Gas and Oil change to keep it simple.
Teslas don't need to change engine oil or spark plugs. Most of maintenance is tire related. Mechanical breaks are there, but due to regen breaking, they wear very little.

Most people pay at least US$ 50 to drive 250 miles in gasoline alone.

Interestingly, I did the math for the 2015 Prius, which advertises 50mpg combined, with US$ 2 / gallon gas, would also put the Prius @ 4 cents / mile, excluding maintenance. Prius maintenance isn't quite a cheap as the Tesla, but since the Prius is less than half the price of a Tesla, money wise its interesting. But the Prius has nothing on luxury, performance, style and status of owning a Tesla.

no link?

[turkeydance]

best: wherever Tesla's YouTube videos are made. worst: real world.

Electric not the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

I think unless batteries get much better in capacity vs weight and someone can figure out how to recharge them a lot faster. We will never see EV's as a viable solution to the masses. The trouble right now is no alternative is getting large numbers of people onboard which is required to be successful. You need another energy source like gasoline to spread throughout the world as the replacement. Not hit and misses like hydrogen, electric, solar, natural gas and so on. When you look at sales like Tesla selling world wide 34,0000 vehicles give or take. This is not a revolution by any stretch. This is a small niche market that makes no sense for anyone to invest in infrastructure for thousands of charging station to accommodate such small numbers. Elon Musk created a brilliant well designed and engineered vehicle for the time. But it lacks the stuff needed for mass market appeal. The clouded judgments of environmentalists simply make bad decisions because they don't understand the point of view of the masses. If your point of view does not match the majority, your ideals won't fly no matter how good you think they are.
I myself see uses for EV's in defined areas like mail delivery, package delivery, and other standard delivery routes. Also, in short distance commuting. But the masses are not onboard with the increased initial costs of EV's.

Re:Electric not the answer

[xonen]

I don't think the average Tesla buyer buys the car because it's 'green'. They buy it because it's electric sports car. Being electric, the (peak) power output is much much higher than achievable with combustion engines.

Then, the battery problem will likely solve itself over the next decennia. We may not have reached the optimal solution, but Tesla clearly shows there is a market for what is available with current-day technology.

Other car manufacturers are going the hybrid road to increase efficiency. But i do agree that the 'green' aspect is misleading, in general. If we want to be green, best thing we can do is reduce the amount of times and distances we (need to) travel; improve public transport and promote/easify carpooling. Yet, i think electric cars are here, and are here to stay, just as gasoline cars are, for the foreseeable future.

Re:Electric not the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the real issue is cost. Li-ions are much lighter and can store more energy than their antiquated lead-acid batteries.

Re:Electric not the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

I plan to buy an EV for my next car (well, a Chevy Volt, however you want to classify that). Not because I'm a greenie, but because it's an amazing car to drive. Most people who don't think that EVs are a good idea have never driven one. They're just a totally different driving experience. No noise, never having to fill up with gas (the Volt has plenty of range for my daily commute). Plugging in when I get home? It takes 10 seconds to do. Even the feeling of the regenerative breaking makes me more aware of my driving habits, I rarely had to use the breaks once I got the hang of it and so it does promote more efficient driving styles as well.

Re: Electric not the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong, wrong, and wrong. (As a Tesla owner.) Charge time is largely irrelevant. I plug in every evening (just like with my phone) and next morning have full range available. Meanwhile, my wife often has barely enough gas in her car in the morning to be able to get to the gas station. And battery technology is going to continue to improve. Why wouldn't it? With solar in my roof and a battery buried in my back yard, I will soon be living with free energy. As long as those who want us all to continue to live in the past don't blow us up first, anyway.

Re: Electric not the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

so your wife gets 240 miles on a tank of gas? a ford fusion gets over 350 miles on a tank.

Re:Electric not the answer

[knightghost]

ding ding ding we have a winner!

Everything comes down to economics - and government subsidies are not economics, they hide economics.

Even the Prius isn't economical unless you life in stop-n-go traffic and gas is $5/gallon. Current electric car costs are even worse. The numbers simply don't work out - and electric cars (and solar, and wind) will continue to fail until they are more economical than the current alternatives.

Re:Electric not the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Then, the battery problem will likely solve itself over the next decennia

...you mean decade?

Re:Electric not the answer

[mrvan]

1500 Tesla's were sold in the Netherlands last year out of 400k in total, or around 0.4% [link]. However, in total electric+hybrid cars were about 4.3% of total [link]. So, while they are obviously not the majority, they are certainly not rare either. Amsterdam has almost 500 public charge locations [link] and in the center (where parking space is scarce) there are designated parking spaces for electric cars where they can charge, see e.g. this street view of what would be the closest parking spot to my house if I had an electric car. There are two taxi companies that use electric vehicles exclusively, which is good news since taxis have disproportionate impact on air pollution, one drives Nissan Leaf and the other Tesla. As far as I know they are not directly subsidized apart from general subsidies on electric cars, so they must be commercially viable.

All in all, electric cars are not some sort of pipe dream, they are out there and have small but growing market share, and infrastructure is growing with it. For each consumer a different tradeoff will be in order (e.g. I use my car a couple times every month so got a small gasoline car instead, while a friend commutes 50km every day so he got a Tesla). It still uses some government subsidy, but honestly, so do oil and traditional car makers.

Re:Electric not the answer

[BostonPilot]

I think unless batteries get much better in capacity vs weight and someone can figure out how to recharge them a lot faster. We will never see EV's as a viable solution to the masses.

I have an EV (Honda Fit). I think that they're already useful for something like 3/4 of the population. Lots of parts to the equation. Right now they're better as the second car of a two or more car family, but they can be the only car depending on your driving pattern. They're great for someone who has a defined commute, as opposed to someone who drives to work and then drives around as part of their work. They're better when you have a garage or dedicated driveway, probably not so good right now if you have to park curbside. Right now some of them suffer pretty big range loss in cold weather (mine has about 50% range in the dead of winter compared to summer time and that definitely needs to be addressed, but I don't see why it can't be improved substantially).

Charge time is only an issue in rare circumstances; the problem is that people who don't drive an EV tend to think of recharging like going to the gas station; something you do when the tank runs low. That's not how most of us use the EV, though. Typically I use it on trips which I know I can make without recharging. (in warmer months I can drive 100 miles without recharge). The recharge happens at night, or between trips. A typical trip for me is to drive 50-60 miles and get home with 1/2 charge. I plug in to the dryer outlet in my garage and within 90 minutes it's full again. So, I may run some errands, go home and grab lunch, and by the time I'm done with lunch the car is fully charged again, ready for more errands. Or, if I commute to work I get home with 1/2 charge and again, within 90 minutes it's fully charged if I want to go out to dinner etc. Even if I use the full charge (which is very very rare) I typically recharge overnight so by the time I wake up in the morning it's ready to go. My point is that with a few exceptions you don't notice the charge time because it charges while you're doing something else. This means that I almost never have to wait for the car to charge. That said, if I had to do a road trip I could see myself doing it if I had to spend 20 minutes recharging every 200 miles. I'm sure high speed charging will improve, and by the time we hit 10-15 minutes to recharge after 200 miles of driving I think we hit diminishing returns, i.e. it'll be short enough I won't care whether they make it any faster or not.

Similarly, many non-EV people worry about the number of charging stations. Again, my typical use is that I don't have to use a charging station because I plan my trips so that I can make the full trip without recharging, but as an example if I need to drive into Boston (35 miles) I can make it there and back without a recharge, but if I also need to do another stop that's going to require more than another 20 miles of driving, then I'll plan to park in Boston at a charging station. If I've used 35 miles of charge, it only takes 20 minutes to fully recharge, so unless I'm running an especially short errand in Boston the car will be fully charged by the time I get back to it. One way to measure what percentage of my trips are EV friendly is to look at when I use the EV versus the gas car. During the summer, I find I use the gas car about once a month. That's about how often I have a trip to make that the EV doesn't have the range for. My next EV will have at least 200 miles of range and at that point I expect only 1 or 2 trips a YEAR won't fit the profile (and I'll just rent a car for those 2 trips).

All the calculations I've done show that my direct operating costs (i.e. cost to "fill the tank") is about 1/5th of what it costs when I drive a gasoline car. I also save on maintenance - there are no scheduled oil changes or tuneups... just a tire rotation that the dealership did for free. So, it's actually costing me quite a bit less than 1/5th of operating my gasoline car (Subaru Imprezza STi). Right

Re: Electric not the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

No, filling with gas isn't something you do every morning, dumbass, therefore you can find that you run out (or worrying about running out) because you haven't seen or taken an opportunity to fill up.

Pliugging in every day IS done.

Shit, you anti-EVers are morons.

Re: Electric not the answer

[Mr D from 63]

With solar in my roof and a battery buried in my back yard, I will soon be living with free energy. >

You got all that for free?

Re:Electric not the answer

[swb]

It strikes me that the Chevy Volt is a pretty good compromise. The advantage that it has is that it can be driven as a battery only electric but has the range limits of a gasoline car. The Volt's battery is a lot smaller than the Tesla model S which reduces the battery-only range, but for a lot of short-drive use cases may be adequate.

It'd be interesting to see what it would be like if they could scale the Volt up in terms of battery capacity to push all-electric range closer to 100 miles. That kind of range makes plug-in, all-electric driving viable all for but the most extreme commuting cases. The gas engine covers those as well as long distance driving.

Re:Electric not the answer

[MightyYar]

"Decennia" is plural, so presumably he means over the next couple of decades.

Re:Electric not the answer

[burtosis]

Do your calculations include the cost of a replacement battery?

Re:Electric not the answer

[Mr D from 63]

Total cost of ownership is really what matters. That must consider purchase price and resale value, maintenance & repair, fuel/electric costs, the need for a second vehicle, insurance, etc.

I think the greatest unknown for EVs is resale value, and maybe cost and frequency of battery replacement.

Re:Electric not the answer

[desdinova 216]

then why not just simply say decades? Using a word that very few people understand isn't sounding intelligent, it's pretentious.

Re:Electric not the answer

[BostonPilot]

Do your calculations include the cost of a replacement battery?

No, and this is not well understood yet. When I was a kid cars seldom lasted more than 60,000 miles. Now 200,000 is pretty common. So, a good question is what's the average life of a gasoline car, and how many battery swaps might you expect in an EV over the same mileage?

Another thing to consider is that many people believe the cost of replacement batteries will decrease substantially over time, so how long it takes you to put 100,000 or 200,000 miles on the car may substantially change what you end up paying to replace the battery pack.

According to Wikipedia:

The Fit EV employs Toshiba's SCiB batteries that can be recharged to 80% capacity in 15 minutes and can be recharged up to 4,000 times, more than 2.5 times that of other Li-ion batteries.

So, that could mean up to 400,000 miles if you believe them, but I'm skeptical of hitting numbers like that. But it might suggest that 150,000 to 200,000 miles on a battery pack is a reasonable expectation. Unfortunately, because my Fit is a compliance/lease-only car I'll never get to find out - I'll need to return it long before I can put enough miles on it to see the battery degrade. But I'll get back to you after I put a couple hundred thousand miles on my next EV ;-)

Re: Electric not the answer

[CrimsonAvenger]

Meanwhile, my wife often has barely enough gas in her car in the morning to be able to get to the gas station.

I take it that either

a) the nearest gas station is ~100 miles away, or

b) your wife is an idiot?

Face it, it's not that hard to stop at a gas station on the way home from work rather than drive till there's teacup of gas left in the tank.

For that matter (anecdotal evidence from where I live) there are half a dozen gas station within five miles of where I live - it takes even the worst performing of our cars less than a quart of gas to go five miles.

Either way, having "barely enough gas in her car in the morning to get to the gas station" is a situation that shouldn't happen "often"....

Re:Electric not the answer

[Mr D from 63]

Interestingly, the Nissan Leaf outsold the Tesla last year, but there is this desire to focus on Tesla as the game changer. I think your point is a very good and it is quite likely that a higher percentage of Leaf purchases are based more on practicality than Tesla purchases. A lot of Tesla buyers get them simply because they are really cool and unique cars.

Re:Electric not the answer

[rossdee]

"We will never see EV's as a viable solution to the masses. The trouble right now is no alternative is getting large numbers of people onboard which is required to be successful."

Sounds likr you nrrf electric buses if you want to get "large numbers of people onboard"
They do have electric buses in some countries, (the overhead wired type known as trolleybuses) and battery power could work for school buses.

Re:Electric not the answer

[MightyYar]

This isn't USA Today - he should be able to use his full vocabulary - it is trivial to right-click the word and learn something.

Re:Electric not the answer

[swb]

The Leaf's sales numbers are probably all about price -- at $35k, it's much more in the range of the typical middle class income. I think the Tesla gets the most focus because of cool factor and also because it seems to have the fewest compromises -- long range and it's pretty big.

I think a lot of people look at it from a perspective of having it "just work" with their lifestyle. Enough range for pretty much any metro area driving and enough size that it would be comfortable.

The Volt would work for me since there's no specific range limit, although the size I find kind of limiting. I work as a consultant so I don't have a defined commute pattern, but 50 miles isn't uncommon and I'd like a vehicle that could do that on all electric which the Volt couldn't do.

IMHO, Chevy is kind of missing the boat on this. I think they get the generator part right but the all electric range seems to come up short. It'd be interesting to know how many additional kWh of battery they would have to add to get the range up to 100 miles. It may just be that the additional weight of battery would be just so power-sapping that it wouldn't work.

It's also surprising the engine has a cast-iron block. I would think that an all-aluminum block would be a valuable weight savings, allowing for more battery "for free".

Re:Electric not the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah... but big words are scary!

Re: Electric not the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously not; new infrastructure never is, but so what? People drop hundreds of thousands on house renovations and end up with -- a nicer house. Also, the money I spend will go to people making stuff, instead of to people digging stuff out if the ground and burning it. I think the former is more useful.

Re:Electric not the answer

[Moof123]

Can we end all the petroleum subsidies then?

Re: Electric not the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, so let's say her car gets 400 miles to the tank, and she always fills up when it's 1/4 full. Then her average range in the morning is 250 miles -- the same as mine. And I never have to "stop by the gas station" (a fun time, maybe, but I don't miss it at all).

Re:Electric not the answer

[short]

You can check those with Tesla Roadster 2008 - resale value is high (USD 60000 - 50% of purchase price) and batter capacity is also still fine (80% and more).

Re:Electric not the answer

[knightghost]

What subsidies? I keep hearing about them but never details. Are you talking about the ones like R&D and capital building that every company gets?

Well, subsidies besides trillions spent on useless middle east wars based on lies.

Re:Electric not the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Then, the battery problem will likely solve itself over the next decennia

...you mean decade?

If I were grading his paper and saw "Then, the battery problem will likely solve itself over the next decennia", I would mark off for vagueness. The phrase "over the next decennia" doesn't mean anything.
Compare it to saying "Then, the battery problem will likely solve itself over the next decades"
We don't know if by "next decennia" he meant the next two 10-year periods, or if he meant the next thousand 10-year periods.

Re:Electric not the answer

[AmiMoJo]

There are taxi companies in the UK that use Leafs. Some of them have 150k miles on the clock, mostly rapid charging which is the harshest for the batteries, and they are seeing around 10% degradation after about 2.5 years of that kind if punishment.

Tesla have tested their packs up to 750k miles with about 16% capacity loss. It was an artificial test of course but suggests that battery life isn't going to be an issue for most owners, and meets the spec of the cells they use (300 miles from a full charge, 3000 cycle lifetime = 900,000 miles to 20% capacity loss).

Basically, unless you pack has some kind of fault lifespan should not be an issue for most people. Nissan offer replacement packs for $4000, but no-one has ever bought one. Even when the pack does get to 80% capacity it could still be useful - a Tesla will still do 200+ miles on that, or it could be used as a storage system for a house.

I'd say you are no more likely to need a new battery than you would be to need a new engine in an ICE car. Most people never will, unless they are very unlucky or do so many miles that the savings over an ICE will have paid for the battery many times over anyway.

Re: Electric not the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong, wrong, and wrong. (As a Tesla owner.) Charge time is largely irrelevant. I plug in every evening (just like with my phone) and next morning have full range available. Meanwhile, my wife often has barely enough gas in her car in the morning to be able to get to the gas station. And battery technology is going to continue to improve. Why wouldn't it? With solar in my roof and a battery buried in my back yard, I will soon be living with free energy. As long as those who want us all to continue to live in the past don't blow us up first, anyway.

I'm not an EV owner and don't want to buy one at the present time.
However, it's been 14 degrees outside and with a 20MPH wind blowing lately
I think it would be great to refuel my car in the garage overnight instead of standing at a gas station freezing my butt off every few days.

Re:Electric not the answer

[Hognoxious]

Economics are singular. Like meccanoes.

Re:Electric not the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

> Using a word that very few people understand isn't sounding intelligent, it's pretentious.

M$ Word signals in green underline whenever I use the word "equally", suggesting I use "likewise" (actually, it's not English but it's the same situation).

I find it soooo dumbing down -- yet that what is available at work. Libreoffice is not "homologated" by the IT dept. (yeah, quite dumb of theirs).

Now responding to the OP AC:

> I think unless batteries get much better in capacity vs weight and someone can figure out how to recharge them a lot faster. We will never see EV's as a viable solution to the masses.

That already started. Apple is joining Tesla. These guys are great in riding the wave before anyone else. Expect Microsoft to copy them in 5 to 10 years.

> When you look at sales like Tesla selling world wide 34,0000 vehicles give or take. This is not a revolution by any stretch.

Tesla have been top sellers in Norway (a *very* cold place): http://jalopnik.com/heres-why-the-tesla-model-s-is-the-1-selling-car-in-no-1651261025

Some revolutions go unnoticed until is too late. Beware.

> The clouded judgments of environmentalists simply make bad decisions because they don't understand the point of view of the masses. If your point of view does not match the majority, your ideals won't fly no matter how good you think they are.

That can be said of the bicycle (inventor mocked), the plane (if man were to fly, we'd have wings) and the telegraph (we got our horse postal service), among others.

Re:Electric not the answer

[Ost99]

The economics of fossil fuel is also hidden. We're do not pay to offset the environmental it causes. Gas should be at least $10/gallon, probably >$20.

Re:Electric not the answer

[knightghost]

Show us the math that got you there. Otherwise 78% of statistics are made up on the spot...

Re:Electric not the answer

[Ost99]

The EV sales accounted for 12.5% of new cars sold last year where I live - it's already mainstream.

Re:Electric not the answer

[Mr D from 63]

What is your source? A price, an actual sale, or book value? That particular car is more likely considered rare/collectible and I wouldn't take that as representative of a more typical EV resale value. Multiple data points needed.

Re:Electric not the answer

[Ost99]

New cars registered last year: 144 202
Zero emission cars: 18 094, of which 4 were hydrogen and 18 090 were EV.

100 * 18090/144202 = 12.54%
Source: http://www.ofvas.no/aktuelt-1/... (in Norwegian)

There's also a Wikipedia page in English with statistics for parts of 2014:

During the first quarter of 2014 all-electric car sales reached a record 14.5% market share of new car sales, and for the first eight months of 2014 the all-electric segment market share was 13.0%, and climbs to 14.2% when plug-in hybrids are accounted for.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...

EV sales the last quarter of 2014 dropped a bit, probably in part because almost everyone with a Tesla-order with delivery in that quarter changed their order to the 4WD 85D with delivery in 2015.

Re: Electric not the answer

[chihowa]

Yeah, that really is an apples to oranges comparison. His wife's issue doesn't center on the gas station vs the charger plugging. If she neglects filling up the tank when it gets low, she'll likely also neglect plugging in the car at night. Both types of vehicle are capable of running out of fuel and yet most people manage to not run out of fuel.

In fact, the reinforcement of habit aside, a spacey or forgetful person is more likely to get in trouble with a vehicle that needs to be attended to every day than one that needs to be attended to once a week or month.

Re: Electric not the answer

[chihowa]

No, filling with gas isn't something you do every morning, dumbass, therefore you can find that you run out (or worrying about running out) because you haven't seen or taken an opportunity to fill up.

Pliugging in every day IS done.

So if she forgets to attend to fueling her vehicle one in five times, she'll not make it to work once a week with an EV instead of once a month with a gas vehicle?

I like EVs, but your situation seems to more about your forgetful wife than different vehicle technologies. Most people manage to keep their vehicles fueled.

Re:Electric not the answer

[short]

Googled some U.S. used car shop. For Model S I see 90% of price for 2014 model - similar Skoda has 70% price. It makes sense to me it keeps its value - the motor does not wear and the battery will be still OK even after 10+ years (when 7 y.o. Roadsters are 80%+).

Re: Electric not the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to fill your tank every few days?

Re:Electric not the answer

[Mr D from 63]

Picking a couple of cases or prices isn't a real good indicator of the true market. KBB uses large numbers of actual sales combined with mileage and condition to provide a pretty good estimate for value of a given car, that data isn't yet in for EVs yet, IMHO. When I Google resale values for EV's, I see a lot of different results, including some pretty pessimistic outlooks. I'm really not focused on Teslas as much as the EV market in general, nor do I care about assumptions on what they might be in the future. There is not really a good historical database yet, as there is for gas cars, so the risk is certainly present.

I would not assume "the motor does not wear" in EVs. They certainly will wear, but it is also very possible that they may last a lot longer than ICEs. We'll see in 10 years when we have a lot of cars with a lot of miles on them under a lot of different conditions. Body resilience & condition is a large part of resale value as well.

Re:Electric not the answer

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Not only cost though.

People just like having great cars. Electric cars are quiet, zippy, reliable and easy to use. When you go back to a fossil fuel car afterwards, it's like going back in time.

Re:Electric not the answer

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Actually rapid charge isn't that bad; you normally only rapid charge to 80%. It's rapid charging to 100% that's the most problematic.

Re: Electric not the answer

[swillden]

If she neglects filling up the tank when it gets low, she'll likely also neglect plugging in the car at night.

If this is a problem, it's fairly easy to mitigate, assuming you have a dedicated parking spot (e.g. a garage): Install wireless charging. You take a hit on charging efficiency of about 25%, but considering that electricity is 1/4 the cost of gasoline that's not a killer. With that, every time you park at home, you're charging.

I've seriously considered installing it for my Nissan LEAF. It's kind of pricey, though, about $4K for a system. That would be okay if I were certain I could use it for 20 years or so, but the industry is in its infancy and standards aren't yet well-established.

Re:Electric not the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Electric cars are quiet, zippy, reliable and easy to use. When you go back to a fossil fuel car afterwards, it's like going back in time.

Yes, it's like going back to a real car that can actually go anywhere.

Re:Electric not the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Fortunately for you, the new Volt will be out for the 2016 model year, most likely (assuming rumors are correct) with a 50 mile battery range, and a different engine - although, I'd assume they factor in a lot of things when deciding whether to use cast iron or aluminum and probably went with what made more sense for the use case.

Re:Electric not the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but it's not even as mainstream as manual transmissions. Perhaps they should have said "We will never see EV's as the most common solution for the masses", but I'm not sure that's really what they meant.

I've never driven or ridden in an electric car and (unless you count the Volt) I've never seen one on the road, but I live in the Lansing area of Michigan, and they'd be a horrible choice here until affordable vehicles have a 150 mile range with the A/C or heater blasting and the headlights on. I've seriously thought about electric cars, but most of them would only barely get me to and from work, and then only in the spring or fall, probably only during daylight, with no margin of error at all.

As for actually driving one to work, it's around zero degrees outside, you need headlights until around 8:30am and need them again by 5:30pm. Oh, and I live 35 miles from work, and I work 3rd shift.

Re:Electric not the answer

[angel'o'sphere]

Probably ;D
But from the sound of it he perhaps ment multiple decadons of millenia ... multiple tenth of thousands of years.

Re: Electric not the answer

[angel'o'sphere]

A loss of 25% efficiency in wireless charging is hard to believe.
Did you mean efficiency drops to 25%? That makes much more sense.

Re: Electric not the answer

[swillden]

I looked it up to verify and actually it's about a 10% loss, so 90% efficiency. There are several manufacturers, so quite a bit of information available on-line. Here's one: http://www.evwireless.net/

Re:Electric not the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Do your calculations include the cost of a replacement battery?

Battery replacement is highly exaggerated.

We have a 2001 Toyota Prius (1st generation hybrid), according to the oft-touted myths, we should be nearing end-of-life on our second battery... but we are still going strong on the original battery. The vehicle has not been well maintained (I would categorize it as poorly maintained, bordering on abused) but the thing still runs and the battery is still good.

My point is that batteries last a lot longer than you think they will.

Re: Electric not the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

So what you're saying is that electric vehicles are already superior to gas vehicles, because your wife can't plan (fill up the night before, before coming home or leaving work, or...), and you come home every night (to the same climate, presumably)?

Does your wife seriously drive over 180 miles a day? Because that's about the minimum 'per fillup' mileage you could get with a small tank, large displacement vehicle (15mpg, 12 gallons). That's not a combination you're likely to see, either, even in older vehicles.

I guarantee you lack the depth and breadth of experience as documented in the article.

Sadly, the "durr Tesla GOOD!" mentality you demonstrate is pretty par for the elitism EV proponents typically demonstrate. You do no good for the cause of reducing dependence on Arab oil (and reducing overall use). You're just a high tech troglodyte who's got more money than sense.

Don't get me wrong... "alternative" energy sources are the future: solar, geothermal, capacitors, and wind all play a part of the picture. Wind won't likely due so, to a significant degree, but it'll be around for a while. But you do nobody any service (including yourself) by being an idiot about the facts.

Re:Electric not the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

"Meanwhile I expect battery technology to move forward quickly. As an idea of how much research is being done into battery technology just compare the number of articles in the press today versus 10 years ago."

And yet, how much has battery technology progressed since 2005? Not much, except in combining existing technology into pre-assembled packs and changing how existing technology gets integrated. That's important, but there's not much room on improvement left without improving the materials used. And that's not even on the horizon at this point...

Re:Electric not the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, most vehicles are going to be in a similar ballpark - if not more.

Eg. MSRP on a 2014 Ford Raptor SRT was 46k. Ebay says they're going for about $67k now.

(See! Anyone can come up with meaningless numbers...)

Re: Electric not the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

The "idiot wife" scenario isn't that simple. For me it's fairly typical that I will not go to the gas station on my way home from work, because I want to be home at a certain time (say, for dinner) and the detour would make me miss it. Then in the morning, taking off at the usual time means I don't have time to go to the gas station on that trip either or I'll be late to work. I have to remember, and make an effort to put re-fueling in my schedule because it's not part of the daily routine. With an EV, plugging it in would be an automatic part of arriving home - just like I plug my phone in as soon as I get home every day. It doesn't take any time, and it doesn't require (literally) going out of my way to re-fuel. This is one of the reasons why my next car will likely be electric.

Re:Electric not the answer

[Smauler]

I would not assume "the motor does not wear" in EVs. They certainly will wear, but it is also very possible that they may last a lot longer than ICEs. We'll see in 10 years when we have a lot of cars with a lot of miles on them under a lot of different conditions. Body resilience & condition is a large part of resale value as well.

Very few cars are scrapped because of engine failure. Engines don't generally break unless you do something stupid to them.

Re:Electric not the answer

[markass530]

Lithium Titinate batteries are bad ass, wish they were more available at the consumer level

Re:Electric not the answer

[edb]

I have a Volt, for almost 1 year now. I've been getting 38-40 miles on a charge, and that's even driving on hilly terrain in the San Francisco coastal mountains. On longer drives, or trips where I don't have time or opportunity to plug in and charge, the gas generator is getting about 36 mpg. That's not too shabby. Overall, in the last year the car calculates 191 mpg. Doing the numbers differently, considering cost of electricity/mile and cost of gas/mile, it's more like 140mpg. Fluctuating gas and electricity prices make that a hard number to settle on.

I really depend on the fact that I can recharge the gas tank in minutes and continue a long drive. But for the majority of my trips, and all of my normal commuting to the Day Job, I charge at each end and drive on battery only for about 40 miles. A side trip might eat into that battery range a bit, but that only means that the gas generator kicks in just before I get home, and the silent drive gains a little rumble.

So far I'm quite pleased.

Re: Electric not the answer

[davester666]

Maybe you should get that leak in the gas tank fixed and she won't have to worry about making it to the gas station every morning...

Re:Electric not the answer

[swb]

What's the Volt like for interior comfort? I'd guess that its better than most small cars simply because you don't have to listen to a lawnmower engine scream for mercy, but what about seats, climate controls, ride, noise, etc?

I'm pretty spoiled now, my current car is pretty much the opposite side of the automotive equation -- a Volvo S80 V8. Mileage is awful by any standard, about 18-20 for my typical driving (pure long-haul highway is about 25).

But about 2/3rds of the time my daily driving is 60 miles or more and it sure is nice to spend it in a quiet, comfortable car with good climate controls.

Re:Electric not the answer

[Mr D from 63]

I hope I didn't imply cars are scrapped due to engine failure. Very old engines can be replaced or rebuilt, motors can as well. It impacts cost of ownership.

Re:Electric not the answer

[edb]

Very nice inside. Lots of leg room, good head height, cargo capacity is about the same as our Prius, slightly less than the Subaru Outback wagon we had.

Pretty quiet, same road noise as you'd expect from any car of similar size and weight. A couple of annoyances with the electronic controls and the "Entertainment Center", but that actually might be changed by software updates.

Re: Electric not the answer

[mjwx]

Face it, it's not that hard to stop at a gas station on the way home from work rather than drive till there's teacup of gas left in the tank.

I have a car that averages 12L per 100 KM and has a 65L fuel tank. Unless you're running it on empty (in which case you're an idiot) you wont be struggling to get to the petrol station.

Work has an EV (I work at a university, there is a policy that all new pool cars must be hybrid or electric) and it spends more time on a flatbed being towed back to the garage for recharging than it does on the road. So how fuel efficient is a 9L diesel Cummins? Does it put out a lot of Carbons?

I live in Australia, so its not the cold that's doing it either.

Re: Electric not the answer

[angel'o'sphere]

Ah, I forgot about those magnetic based near field transmissions.

Nevertheless impressive that they manage 90% efficiency.

Re:Electric not the answer

[BostonPilot]

Interesting article addressing why we're not seeing new chemistries/materials:

http://fortune.com/2014/08/15/...

Calculations

[Anonymous Coward]

If we assume, that the average human fornicates one time a month, and they actually experience an orgasm every time they fornicate, we can calculate THAT 30000 PEOPLE ARE HAVING AN ORGASM, RIGHT NOW WHEN YOU READ THIS, and only if you are a fast reader and read it in 1 second.

Re:Calculations

[Anonymous Coward]

It felt so good, I read this a few extra times.

Location, location, location

[the grace of R'hllor]

Well, at least the pollution they caused wasn't being ejected into city centers where people would immediately breathe it in, but instead at a centralized location where big bucks could be spent to achieve big gains of pollution reduction.

The main benefit of electric vehicles is the ability to move to an electricity-based society, at which point the problem that would remain is getting clean electricity. Filling a desert with solar power plants would probably do it.

Re:Location, location, location

[gewalker]

Considering that so many are focused on CO2 as a pollutant, they won't care about the pollution scrubbers at the centralized plants because we don't capture the carbon. Ans yes, lots of greens don't appear to understand this connection.

Re:Location, location, location

[Anonymous Coward]

If you claim CO2 isn't a pollutant, please put yourself in a sealed room. You'll die long before O2 levels fall below respiration rates because CO2 is toxic.

A crisp packet isn't pollution when it's used to hold the crisps I'm eating. When I throw it to the ground it becomes rubbish and when it's swept by the winds and tides into the wilderness, it's pollution.

Unless you're claiming CO2 production is the REASON why we're burning fossil fuels, it's a pollutant. We don't want it, we want the energy.

Re:Location, location, location

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't want the water that is a product of combustion either - is the water vapor a pollutant?

Re:Location, location, location

[Anonymous Coward]

Last I check water vapor easily condenses out of the air, unlike CO2.

Re:Location, location, location

[MightyYar]

No one is claiming that CO2 levels will approach anywhere near toxic levels. The danger with CO2 is almost exclusively global warming, though sometimes you do hear ocean acidification raised as a possibility. Unlike with your crisp packet, plants just adore extra CO2 and it does not harm animal life at the levels we are talking about.

I agree that it is a pollutant, but I don't think your thought experiment about the sealed room is persuasive.

Re:Location, location, location

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, yes, they do. Apollo 13 had a problem because the scrubbers weren't taking out CO2, and it was rising to toxic levels.

If you mean "Our atmosphere within the next few centuries", then I didn't either, so why the fuck are you bringing it up?

All I needed to do was to show that CO2 is toxic and that we don't want it when we combust fossil fuels, we want the energy.

"Unlike with your crisp packet, plants just adore extra CO2 and it does not harm animal life at the levels we are talking about." Nope, if that were true, we'd not have rising CO2 since those plants "who just adore extra CO2" would be taking it up. Unless you're talking about how plants don't care about high CO2 levels unlike animals, in which case, "Sop the fuck what?". And, yes, it DOES harm animals at this level: Climate change, dumbass. Climate change. Extinctions of species happen when climate changes. No animal likes to be in a species that goes extinct: it's quite harmful.

Re:Location, location, location

[Type44Q]

where big bucks could be spent to achieve big gains of pollution reduction.

Indeed, they certainly could... :p

Re:Location, location, location

[MightyYar]

All I needed to do was to show that CO2 is toxic and that we don't want it when we combust fossil fuels, we want the energy.

It's not toxic at all in any quantity that will be released from the burning of fossil fuels. It's a red herring and you do the whole debate a disservice by even mentioning it.

Nope, if that were true, we'd not have rising CO2 since those plants "who just adore extra CO2" would be taking it up.

Well, they are taking it up - just not as fast as we can burn it. They take it up on the geological time scale - we are burning it all in a few centuries.

And, yes, it DOES harm animals at this level: Climate change, dumbass.

Climate change is likely to help some animals and hurt others.

No animal likes to be in a species that goes extinct: it's quite harmful.

No, but the remaining species are quite fond of the newly-plentiful resources.

I'm not in any way arguing that man-made climate change is good, but your arguments are not really relevant and calling an ally a "dumbass" seems pretty counter-productive to your implied goals.

Re:Location, location, location

[Anonymous Coward]

But how much pollution is created with the creation of solar panels?

Solar panels only go so far. Charging your car at night doesn't take advantage of solar panel, unless it was stored somehow.

I think we need things such a solar, wind, nuclear, etc. A good combination of things. As long as nuclear is done safely.

Re:Location, location, location

[the grace of R'hllor]

I said solar power plants, not solar photovoltaic power plants. If your 'fuel source' becomes solar panels, it's not exactly renewable. There's a 300+ MW solar power towers in the Mojave desert for example. It uses heliostats, not solar panels.

Re:Location, location, location

[swillden]

But how much pollution is created with the creation of solar panels?

Large scale solar power plants don't usually use solar panels. They are of the Concentrated Solar Power variety. The environmental impact of producing the large number of mirrors and motorized mounts required for these plants is pretty small.

Re:Location, location, location

[nadaou]

though sometimes you do hear ocean acidification raised as a possibility

it's not just a possibility it's a basic chemical reality based on partial pressures. the acidity of the oceans has already increased by 30% since the start of the industrial revolution.

http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/s...

http://www.wunderground.com/cl...

Re:Location, location, location

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry about that. I should have been more clear. But even so, will the solar POWER generated be able to be carried over to nighttime use?

Re:Location, location, location

[MightyYar]

Yes, but - and this will probably simply expose my ignorance - shellfish and coral existed back when atmospheric CO2 was high.

Re:Location, location, location

[Anonymous Coward]

Last I checked CO2 is easily removed from the air.

Re:Location, location, location

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, yes. I don't remember what they use (I'm thinking sodium, but could be wrong) something they can melt, then recoup the heat from it at night, then do it all again the next day.

Re:Location, location, location

[Neil Boekend]

Replace those damn coal plants with nuclear plants. It lowers the amount of radioactive material the power plant produces.
Many coal plants even dump all of their radioactive material in the atmosphere as a component in the dust. Others filter the dust out and sell it as a filler for concrete and plaster. Including the radioactive materials.

Lower the amount of radioactive materials around us. Build nuclear plants!

Re:Location, location, location

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. The main reason to go electric is the dam thing is QUIET. I can listen to the classical station for a change.

Love my Volt, it is a shockingly good car.

Cell phones will never take off

[Anonymous Coward]

because it takes too long to charge them. ...oh wait.

"hate cold", but Norway is Tesla's biggest market

[Anonymous Coward]

from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Motors :

In December 2013, and with a 4.9% market share, the Model S topped one more time the best selling new car list in Norway.
In March 2014 Tesla Model S became the best-ever selling car for over a period of one month in Norway.
10.8% of all new cars registered in Norway in March 2014 were Tesla Model S.[147]

To be honest, I've been wondering why.

This is nonsense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone knows that Global Warming is well established, and we won't see snow again in our lifetime.

Anyone who does not agree with this is a denier...

Electric vehicles have other advantages too

[occasional_dabbler]

Such as performance, see Tesla's insane button or this review of the Zero motorcycle

Re:"hate cold", but Norway is Tesla's biggest mark

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent low speed control, block heaters, cheaper to run (and Norway have large renewable reserves), less likely to break down with snow-laden mud unable to affect so many more different moving parts, and a sense of social responsibility.

No one is focusing on co2 as a pollutant

[burtosis]

If (local/state/nation) governments were focusing, all vehicles that had a low co2/distance rating per region would get subsidy. This would make diesels the best bet because they are by far the cheapest co2 reduction per dollar spent. People/governments have a limited amount of money, we should do the most good with it.

go ahead flamod me as I crashed in flames on the last ev article, but yes if you live in a few select areas (80% of the world dosent) or have a custom solar installation then yes electric is the best for the enviorment. Power plants take decades to plan and build it's likely your area has no plans on upgrading (mine dosent). Hybrids are great co2/dist but still cost too much - around half of people can't spend 30k a car. However give the same 7-10k subsidy to a clean diesel - a 5k usd diesel would get everyone lining up to buy.

Re:No one is focusing on co2 as a pollutant

[Anonymous Coward]

"enviorment" "mine dosent)".

1) You can't even spell or punctuate correctly. Quit posting your cretin spewings
          and learn English.

2) The electricity has to come from somewhere, and in many cases that
          wil NOT mean reduced CO2.

You are hereby ordered not to breed. You are too stupid and the gene pool cannot affrod

Re:No one is focusing on co2 as a pollutant

[angel'o'sphere]

You don't need to upgrade plants or build more.
First of all 60% of your power plants are ideling at 5% load or less at night, or are completely offline.
Secondly even if all your cars over night would turn into EVs, the amount of power they need is abysmall.
The Tesla has a 85kWh battery, loading that in 2h draws 22kW. A million cars will draw 22GW (if they all load at the same time). With smart grids you can easy manage the loading, you use the cars as balancing power. If a great amount of power users (or big power users) drop their usage, instead of powering down the power plant, you remote control the cars to start loading the battery.

Of course, with 400millin cars, if all wanted to load at once, you would need to upgrade the power infrastructure imensly.

Drive it up the ass of Slashdot "editors"

[Anonymous Coward]

Trust me, they'll love it.

After all, they are not doing anything else, like actually editing, so
they may as well do what they do in their spare time, which is be FAGGOTS.

And how does it compare to gas engines?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know that my current gas vehicle (2010 Elantra) gets about 360 miles per tank in summer, and goes down to 280 miles per tank in winter, due to (Canadian) road conditions and temperature.

If an electric only gets 15% worse, as the article seems to imply, this is still an improvement over my increased gas consumption in winter...

Re:And how does it compare to gas engines?

[karnal]

Don't forget the fun that is "winter gasoline". The change in formula to bring about easier winter starting and combustion scrapes some number of MPG off the chart (10%? I'll admit I don't know, but that seems right.)

Re:And how does it compare to gas engines?

[Anonymous Coward]

Afaik only diesel fuel changes from summer to winter. Gasoline stays the same.

Re:And how does it compare to gas engines?

[Muad'Dave]

Wrong.

prius in winter: 30mpg. prius in summer: 65mpg

[lkcl]

i heard of someone who bought a prius: they live in scotland (south west, near ayr). they noticed a huge drop in fuel economy (down to 30mpg) so recorded it, and year after year they found a clear correlation between winter and the drop in fuel economy. the extra cost of the vehicle, the insane pricing for replacement batteries (over $1200 per battery and there are 30 of them), and, finally, the fact that they were not actually getting better fuel economy than an equivalent ICE car, they sold it... and used their daughter's 10-year-old VW diesel Polo which got a consistent 55mpg all year round.

Re:"hate cold", but Norway is Tesla's biggest mark

[Klivian]

It's rather quite simple, but you have several contributing factors other than electric cars being quite nice.

- Tesla tend to deliver in batches to different markets, so they get some real good months in the statistics.

- Added benefit for electric cars, like free parking in some areas(e.g privately regulated parking). And being alowed to drive in bus lanes(With heavy comuting from wealthy areas, you get many who can afford a Tesla to get an edge in the morning trafic).

- No general road tax and free pasing of toll roads.Norway have lots of those.

- No tax when buying one. Basicly you get it nerly at halve price compared to a gas car.

Article fail

[Anonymous Coward]

Most EV owners charge at night. In Minnesota, most energy at night comes from nuclear and wind. The article, however, assumes most EV owners are charging at peak when coal is the primary source.

And I do just fine in Minnesota in the winter.

The tax breaks oil gets

[Anonymous Coward]

The underwriting of expenses, the international effort extended to ensure reliable oil (and therefore the Iraq war too), the political will given to any company in the business, the gifting of rights and rights-of-way, the absolving of all costs for cleanup, and so on and so forth.

Re:Electric is the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Foreign policy problems due to oil politics, loss of dollar value due to exporting money for oil, shipping infrastructure upgrades, pipeline infrastructure, environmental cleanup expenses, pollution damage, etc...

Let alone the amount spent to provide security for oil around the world.

Myth of EV pollution

[vanyel]

It's all to often claimed that EVs just shift the pollution to the power plant, however even to the very limited extent that is true (EVs are much more efficient than ICE cars, and so are the power plants) that fails to account for the energy cost of producing the gas in the first place, which is comparable to what EVs consume on a per-mile basis: before an ICE has even burned the fuel, it's already used as much energy as the EV will just by filling the tank.

Electric Vehicles In General

[Anonymous Coward]

There are people who have Youtube channels devoted videos living with the Tesla Model S and I have to say it works better than any gas vehicle. There is one youtube guy in Norway Bjorn Nyland has traveled all over Norway and Neighboring countries delivering goods for people for a fee in his model S. He does it as weekend fun and uses the free Tesla Super chargers so, he actually makes a profit doing it. He's been doing it for over a year and racked up I believe 100000 km and his video's even shows how Tesla deals with any problems that might arise with Bjorn's car. Anyway, after seeing his video's I believe that electric vehicles can work for everyone. My next car will be the Tesla Model 3 coming 2017 they hope to price it in around the $35000 price range making it affordable to most people. By that time the supercharger network will be available everywhere in north america. check out the supercharger network http://supercharge.info/

I am disappointed that the traditional auto manufactures are just figuring this out now but, I guess they've been making money the traditional way so why change for a car that requires no maintenance. We all know that no maintenance means no money for those traditional automakers.

"The Traditional's" like GM, Nissan and BMW with their EV's still are not funding their own supercharging network and that alone will limit their electric vehicle market. The public chargers are a real problem being that when these chargers break who will fix them? I've noticed a lot of Nissan Leaf drivers complain that public chargers are not operational when they need them most. They are slow too! who wants to wait for their car to charge where as the Tesla free super charging network can charge your car from 15 to 30 minutes depending on how depleted your battery is. I feel that this is a feeble way for the "traditional's" to implement their charging infrastructure leaving it to the consumer to figure out.

Tesla and Leaf are different

[Zobeid]

The study seems focused on Leaf, but the Tesla has an active cooling system that the Leaf lacks. Some Leafs in hot climates had a lot of battery degradation. That doesn't seem to be happening with the Teslas, nor should it.

Li-ion cells do degrade with both time and charge-and-discharge cycles. Data coming in from Teslas seems to indicate time is much less a factor, and charge cycles are the main determinant. The implication is that a bigger battery pack will last longer, since it takes more driving miles to put the same number of cycles on it.

Re:Tesla and Leaf are different

[dbc]

Also depends on how you charge it. The fast chargers will kill a battery faster. The chemicals in the goop do migrate, and though they start out evenly distributed, the uniformity of the chemical density degrades over time. Fast charging on a regular basis accelerates the degradation.

Understated problem

[uvajed_ekil]

Here's a general list of where NOT to drive your electric car:

Almost anywhere more than 50 miles away from your garage.

No big surprise but nice to see numbers

[cfalcon]

Whenever an electric car starts making the rounds, immediately all the ranges are "up to" whatever. In fact, on discussion forums, some electric zealots will usually march in and talk about how I don't *need* a range of X (where X is 80 miles, my round trip to and from work).

The other big piece is that it's not exactly obvious how the range shrinks with age. Personally, I have zero interest in an electric car until it can do 80 miles on a charge under ALL circumstances- snow, cold, 10 years old. Anything less than that will leave me stranded in some blizzard. Fuck all that. If a car is expensive and new it should be able to handle what my late 90s Subaru can do, period.

Not everyone has that need, and that's nice for them. But electrics have a long way to go if these numbers are hard to get or have some engineering wiggle room. 80 miles in the snow while being a decade old or just a toy IMO.

it missed funding of terrorism

[WindBourne]

The report missed how EVs keep the money local to the nation, while gas/diesel cars help fund terrorists around the world.

Not as much waste as you produce

[Anonymous Coward]

You trolled apk 1st & had to run "Forrest" http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... from facts apk put out that you can't handle or validly technically get the better of. So much for "Google" & its "security engineer" wannabes like swillden.

Re:Not as much waste as you produce

[swillden]

Yay, my AC stalker is back!

Re:Not as much waste as you produce

[Anonymous Coward]

You're still running from apk swillden http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... after you started trolling him first (so much for your allegedly working for Google or being a 20 yrs software developer too with a CS degree when you and google both obviously fear hosts files and you're both unable to combat them validly on a technical level instead removing them from your ANDROID smartphones KitKat onwards and sending a stooge like you to get your ass handed to you in eating your words vs. apk per the link above + here http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... where he took you on and you ran swillden, after you trolled him first here http://yro.slashdot.org/commen... . We can read swillden. You're online scum, nothing more).

Greenhouse gasses

[dimeglio]

Not all methods of electricity generation produce greenhouse gasses. Lowering coal and other ghg emitting plants should be where to put our efforts.

Re:replacement costs

[dhanson865]

Do your calculations include the cost of a replacement battery?

Do yours include the cost of a replacement transmission?

The majority of US cars have transmissions that are less reliable than the gas engine which is less reliable than the EVs battery which is less reliable than the EVs motor.

So I don't usually worry about replacement parts because every step closer to EV I go I see less repairs.

Compare my Late 90s and early 2000s Saturns with no EV ability with moderate maintenance (the 98 consumes oil randomly and has had transmission work twice in the first 100,000 miles but is still a daily driver at 130,000 miles, I had to replace the 12V battery once in it so far)

to my 2005 Prius with light maintenance (I had to replace the 12V battery in this one as well, I replaced the rear shocks for comfort, it burns oil enough that I top it off with a partial quart between 10,000 mile oil changes with 120,000 miles on the car) but will never need brake pads*, the rotors and drums will last the life of the car. I'll probably never replace the HV battery

to a Nissan Leaf (no oil changes, no engine filters, no real maintenance at all). with the leaf you might replace the battery some day for $2000 and some have already replaced the battery for free and one has paid around $6000.

Honestly you could have taken that guys Leaf with the "bad worn out battery" and given the whole car to me as is and I would have retired a Saturn and saved thousands of dollars on gas and repairs. I have a 15 mile commute each way and a 2011 or 2012 Leaf even with "severe" battery degradation would do the 35 miles a day I need to go to work, lunch, and home.

If you have a commute outside the range of the vehicle don't buy it. But for those of us that can drive the shorter distances its a fine car and will be more reliable than 90% of the ICE cars on the road.

so the progression is

ICE - less reliable
Hybrid - more reliable, lower cost per mile than ICE
EV - more reliable, lowest cost per mile (assuming you don't pay outrageous prices for electricity)

Then of course some troll will say: Yeah, but the up front cost...

and

Some other troll will say you drive it because it looks odd...

and to that I say, fffft. I buy used and right now a used Leaf is cheaper than a used Prius. I don't care what they look like or how green they are. I want a car that takes less maintenance, requires less repairs/parts replacements, and costs me less per mile. I don't care what it is. Give me a Tahoe that somehow gets me down the road for $0.01 per mile and I'll drive an SUV. Give me a Cadillac with spinners and curb feelers that gets me down the road for $0.01 per mile and I'll drive it too.

I expect a Leaf to cost me half the cost per mile of a Prius which cost me half the cost per mile of the Saturn.

I'm not married to a brand, a style, or an energy source. I happen to be moving towards electricity but I'd just as quickly move back to gas if gas somehow dropped to $1 a gallon and electricity became $1 a kwh. As it is at $2 a gallon and $0.10 a kwh I'm moving towards more electric and less gas.

*Prius, Leaf, Tesla, Kia Soul EV, doesn't matter ask anyone that has an EV for 100,000 miles to measure their break pads. They'll be like new for most drivers somewhere around 70-90% pad. People with a real lead foot might run through a set of brake pads in 300,000 miles, others will never under any circumstances wear out the brake pads even at 500,000 miles. Try that on an ICE vehicle.

You're SO full of shit... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't dare say a thing here http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... since you can't prove a thing wrong I said on hosts superiority to adblock on many levels.

Google's annoyed 144 million people http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... and you work for them. Who cares if you find it annoying? Do YOU OWN THIS FORUMS? No?? STFU!

You also shot your mouth off and had to eat your words on my hosts posts that were mod ups being outnumbered 60:1 on that account too!

Anyone can see you kept up your "my ac stalker is back" and for days in your post history and I didn't say a thing to you and I waited for you to reply here http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... and you ran.

I suspect you dislike hosts files since you work for google allegedly who removed hosts files from their smartphones kitkat onward. If Google doesn't fear hosts, then WHY REMOVE IT? After all - you're a security engineer for them allegedly AND YOU CAN'T PROVE HOSTS ARE "BAD"!

By now, nobody cares what you think.

We do care that you are a troll attempting to weasel your way out of this after goading myself for DAYS though. Your post history shows it with "I called apk out and he shut up" bullshit, you little punk!

No way Jose. You're an immature wiseass and I now don't have to worry about you in the future. All I have to do is point all this out and you're shot. You've blown it too many times vs. myself due to your big mouth and now you have to eat your words (and crow) for it.

Lastly You also started it with me clearly http://yro.slashdot.org/commen... and I am only rightfully FINISHING IT (and you with it, + Google too).

APK

P.S.=> Quit trying to play "innocent" weasel... apk