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Electric Cars Are Already Cheaper To Own and Run Than Petrol Or Diesel, Says Study (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Electric cars are already cheaper to own and run than petrol or diesel cars in the UK, US and Japan, new research shows. The lower cost is a key factor driving the rapid rise in electric car sales now underway, say the researchers. At the moment the cost is partly because of government support, but electric cars are expected to become the cheapest option without subsidies in a few years. The researchers analyzed the total cost of ownership of cars over four years, including the purchase price and depreciation, fuel, insurance, taxation and maintenance. They were surprised to find that pure electric cars came out cheapest in all the markets they examined: UK, Japan, Texas and California.
Pure electric cars have much lower fuel costs -- electricity is cheaper than petrol or diesel -- and maintenance costs, as the engines are simpler and help brake the car, saving on brake pads. In the UK, the annual cost was about 10% lower than for petrol or diesel cars in 2015, the latest year analyzed. Hybrid cars which cannot be plugged in and attract lower subsidies, were usually a little more expensive than petrol or diesel cars. Plug-in hybrids were found to be significantly more expensive -- buyers are effectively paying for two engines in one car, the researchers said. The exception in this case was Japan, where plug-in hybrids receive higher subsidies. The study has been published in the journal Applied Energy.
Pure electric cars have much lower fuel costs -- electricity is cheaper than petrol or diesel -- and maintenance costs, as the engines are simpler and help brake the car, saving on brake pads. In the UK, the annual cost was about 10% lower than for petrol or diesel cars in 2015, the latest year analyzed. Hybrid cars which cannot be plugged in and attract lower subsidies, were usually a little more expensive than petrol or diesel cars. Plug-in hybrids were found to be significantly more expensive -- buyers are effectively paying for two engines in one car, the researchers said. The exception in this case was Japan, where plug-in hybrids receive higher subsidies. The study has been published in the journal Applied Energy.
At the moment the cost is partly because of government support, but electric cars are expected to become the cheapest option without subsidies in a few years.
So it's cheapest -- as long as you ignore that pile of money over in the corner that someone else is paying, and one we promise will go away Real Soon Now. Good grief.
A recent analysis from Bloomberg New Energy Finance suggested that electric vehicles could account for half of all new cars sold by 2040. While electric vehicles consume electricity, they can also export power to the grid as mobile energy storage units. An increase in electric vehicle adoption may mean more flexibility for the grid to respond to supply and demand.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
I can't afford Petrol or Diesel.
Let's not forget that in most markets electric cars get a free ride on public roadways. Gasoline taxes are collected to pay for the infrastructure combustion engines drive on, electricity has no such taxes so plug-in electrics pay no taxes based on usage, and hybrids only pay minimal taxes, based on the gasoline they use when the charge runs out.
Ken
Wow, that seems totally do-able, I can't think of a better way to move electricity than in battery packs in electric cars...
Ken
Considering the lurking question mark that exists the moment over your head when you buy an EV, "Will there be a situation where my car is not charged when I really need it?", I consider this an even trade-off. The thing that makes it uneven (and even unfair) is the fact that the public is paying for your use of that vehicle in terms of road maintenance costs you aren't contributing to and subsidies you are getting. The whole situation stinks. EVs should stand on their own in the market or not exist.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
How much does an electric minivan cost, what's it's passenger capacity, and how much does it cost?
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Given the tax bill the republicans just passed, ahahahahHhahahhahahahahahahahahahaha
The tax revenue loss for gas will have to be made up somewhere. Roads don't pave and maintain themselves.
eGolf lease deposit - $4000
Lease monthly payment - $50
Price to drive to work 12000 miles at 4m/kWh and $0.11 per kWh - $330
Total cost of ownership over 3 years - $6740
Golf lease deposit - $3000
Golf lease monthly price - $170
Price to drive 12000 miles at 36mpg and $2.60 per gal - $867
Price for yearly service - $300
Total cost of ownership over 3 years - $12451.
Does the battery have to be recycled at the end of its life? How much does that cost?
I notice that the projection in ownership costs is only for four years. I do have to wonder if they chose that time frame because of the five year warranty some Electric Vehicle manufacturers have on the battery pack. If you factor in a battery pack replacement to those costs for the longer term running of an electric vehicle, then those figures don't look so rosy for EVs.
I also wonder if they have factored in the cost of installing high output charging outlets in homes to accommodate electric vehicles. When charging from a standard 110V outlet EVs, such as the Tesla, will only get about 5 miles of range charge per hour. It would take a couple of days to fully charge most EVs at that rate. Faster charging is done by installing higher output outlets (using twin chargers, or 240V lines, or three phase). EV advertising typically show people plugging their cars in when they get home, so that is clearly an intended use case. However, upgrading a residential switchboard to handle a high output EV charger is a significant expense, and one that reasonably needs to be factored into the total cost of owning an EV.
The other issue is that the electricity has to come from somewhere. While some countries have the benefit of renewable energy, other countries still rely heavily on coal and fossil fuels for power generation (for instance in the US 70% of electricity comes from coal & fossil fuels). With the use of EVs predicted to dramatically increase, the demands on electrical grids is also going to dramatically increase. While hydroelectric powerstations are cheaper than coal / fossil fuel plants, they can only be built in limited places. Both wind and solar are very expensive, and again can only be built in limited places. That leaves coal/fossil fuel and nuclear as practical generation alternatives. With nobody investing in new nuclear, that just leaves coal/fossil fuel plants. Burning coal is far worse for the environment than refined fuels (such as gasoline and diesel). Burning bulk natural gas and liquid petroleum is not much better. It seems to me that while EVs are directly free of emissions, they are just moving the Greenhouse Emissions issue further up the chain. In the US, more Greenhouse Emissions come from electricity generation than from transport.
I really do think EVs are great, but they aren't perfect (yet) and they don't solve everything.
>"Electric Cars Are Already Cheaper To Own and Run Than Petrol Or Diesel, Says Study"
Is that INCLUDING replacing a $20,0000+ battery pack when it gives out after warranty? What exactly is the "trade-in" value of an electric car at that point? Is the 5-year-old car essentially "totaled"? Will it disposable like phones now seem to be?
I love electric cars, and want one. They have far fewer things to replace and "maintain" compared to ICE cars, and electricity as a fuel is cheap compared to gasoline. But massive, complex battery packs are VERY expensive.
> At 20 mpg, that costs 600 gallons of gasoline, or around $1500/year. Over a ten year lifetime, fuel costs are only around $15,000
The cost of 600 gallons of gas is $1,260. Forty cents a gallon per gallon is TAX, which pays for things like subsidies to people buying electric cars, "free" charging stations, etc. It's paid buy people using gas cars, but it's the cost of electric car subsidies, roads (used by freeriders in electric cars), etc.
Really? Having your car out of power in a natural disaster means you can't easily go somewhere else for a little while to wait for them to fix basic infrastructure. If something is significant enough to knock out power for a week, being able to use the car would be one of my largest concerns.
To support AC's point:
http://www.dollarsandsense.org...
https://www.energyandcapital.c...
https://www.huffingtonpost.com...
From the first one, discussing the US defense-related costs as just one aspect: "Put all these numbers in perspective: The price of a barrel of oil consumed in the United States would have to increase by $23.40 to offset military resources expended to secure oil. That translates to an additional 56 cents for a gallon of gas, or three times the federal gas tax that funds road construction. If $166 billion were spent on other priorities, the Boston public transportation system, the âoeT,â could have its operating expenses covered, with commuters riding for free. And there would still be money left over for another 100 public transport systems across the United States. Or, we could build and install nearly 50,000 wind turbines. Take your pick."
But there are many other external costs to fossil fuels like health care costs (the legacy of leaded gas is still taking a tremendous toll on our society, but air pollution in general is a killer). For example:
https://thinkprogress.org/here...
"The average cost of a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. right now is $2.47. If that cost took into account the environmental and human health costs of burning the gasoline, however, it would more than double, according to a new study. The study, published this week in the journal Climatic Change, created models for the âoesocial cost of atmospheric release,â a method of determining the costs of emissions beyond their market value. According to the study, accounting for the social costs of burning gasoline would add an average of $3.80 per gallon to the pump price, raising the price to $6.27. Diesel has an even higher social cost of $4.80 per gallon. The study also measured the social costs of other fossil fuels not used at the pump. Coal, for example, would jump from 10 cents per kilowatt hour to 42 cents per kilowatt hour, the study found. And natural gas, which has emerged in recent years as a cheap source of fuel, would see its price rise from 7 cents per kWh to 17 cents per kWh."
And on the legacy of leaded gas (and how it has contributed to the USA's huge prison populations): http://www.motherjones.com/env...
A related essay I wrote in 2009 on "Why luxury safer electric cars should be free-to-the-user":
https://groups.google.com/foru...
"This essay explain why luxury safer electric (or plug-in hybrid) cars should be free-to-the-user at the point of sale in the USA, and why this will reduce US taxes overall. Essentially, unsafe gasoline-powered automobiles in the USA pose a high cost on society (accidents, injuries, pollution, defense), and the costs of making better cars would pay for themselves and then some. This essay is an example of using post-scarcity ideology to understand the scarcity-oriented ideological assumptions in our society and how those outdated scarcity assumptions are costing our society in terms of creating and maintaining artificial scarcity."
But the real answer (if maybe not politically acceptable) is not to subsidize electric cars. It is to tax *all* the externalizes of fossil fuel use at the point of purchase, bringing the cost of gas to, perhaps, US$10 a gallon or more. The tax could be redistributed as a basic income to everyone.
Perhaps the deepest irony about all this (mentioned in the above essay) is mentioned here by B
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
If you're going to factor in the production and transmission efficiencies of electrical power, you need to do the same for gasoline or you are comparing apples to oranges.
Or instead, instead of playing amateur scientist on the net, the GP could listen to actual scientists who've studied the issue. ;)
Pinkypants -- my favorite!
Do you always keep your gas tank at least half full in case of disaster? If infrastructure goes down, fuel shortages will be an issue anyway.
A friend owns a Tesla though, and is expenses are hard to get lower: he pays around 12 euro per year for maintenance. I think wiper fluid was his biggest single expense. Fuel is provided by solar panels and thus pretty cheap.
I suppose tires don't count.
And why do tesla offer maintenance plans that are around 500 euros per year? Is it a scam?
Meanwhile, here's what its actually like to have an EV in a natural disaster.
Pinkypants -- my favorite!
If you want the cheapest car to operate, buy an electric. But a hybrid or electric are not the cheapest to buy and nobody is recommending you buy a used Prius or something similar. There's a segment of the market who isn't concerned about such things which is why Chevrolet is bringing out a new 755 horsepower Corvette ZR1. The fuel mileage is atrocious, it costs $120k and they'll probably sell as many as they can make. Some people get excited over that while others want a blender on wheels. Go figure.
Yeah, it seems the absolute cheapest way one can drive - if the range is sufficient for them - is a used Leaf. They sell for almost nothing (unlike Teslas, which hold their value surprisingly well) and cost almost nothing to operate.
Pinkypants -- my favorite!
Might have been before, but now electrics are getting CO2 emissions similar to 50-150 MGP cars, depending on your local electric company's mix.
"The researchers analysed the total cost of ownership of cars over four years, including the purchase price and depreciation, fuel, insurance, taxation and maintenance."
Yo Sparky,
Apparently 9 years ago is "history", and I infer from your comment that you didn't do too well there.
The bailout began on Bush Jr's watch. Bernanke and Paulson brought a single-page set of required steps to the U.S. Congress in October 2008 to prevent an immediate and complete meltdown of a worldwide financial system.
Following up on the Bush bank bailout, Obama had a challenge: Continue supporting the bailout of the motherfuckers that almost took out the world economy, or put up with the fallout of the worldwide depression without it.
<conjecture>
I am guessing that you and your other apparatchik friends are all good with the new tax bill the U.S. Senate just passed. You may think that by sucking up to the new oligarchy that they will grant you some space in their world. You are wrong.
</conjecture>
History (there's that word again) shows that societies destabilized by extreme inequality always fall and when they do, they tumble down hardest on the general population.
Most people lease cars now-a-days, don't they? They'll just lease a new one. It's someone else's problem. The *used car market will become a pile of dead batteries, but hey screw the little guy he doesn't count.
* Sorry to be correct it's now 'pre-owned'.
The cost of the eGolf lease is dependent on the $7500 Federal EV tax credit, and probably the $2500 California credit as well. Add that $10k to the eGolf's lease price and you get a very different picture. Which was GP's point.
Also, I'm curious where you were able to find it for a $50/mo lease payment. When I almost leased one a couple years back, the lowest price I could find was $79/mo.
Yeah because the math is different for them and everyone shouldn't reach the same conclusions.
I love this new science.
But the "journal of applied energy" report they reference said "To address this gap, this research provides a more extensive Total Cost of Ownership assessment of conventional, Hybrid, Plug-in Hybrid and Battery Electric Vehicles in three industrialized countries – the UK, USA (using California and Texas as case studies) and Japan – for the time period 1997–2015."
So they had almost 20 years of data but reported on only the first 4 years of car ownership. Such a short period seems suspect to me.
People are gonna be pissed when they discover how much it's going to cost them to replace the battery in about 3 years.
My EV is 4.5 years old and the battery has 97% of the capacity it had when it was new. I have not seen any degradation at all the last 3 years, what little I've had was all in the first year. Try again.
All used to MAKE electricity. Plus, the raw materials needed to make the "electric" cars are toxic. No, petrol cars are still economical. Take away the tons of subsidies and they are WAY more expensive than the electric car.
Good article, but party foul for the fact that you wrote it in the first place...
Let's not forget that ICE vehicles cause massive illness and death due to pollution. I would imagine that unnecessary human deaths probably add up to a bit more than a few pennies at the pump.
I don't respond to AC's.
Your information is out of date.
My wife and I just bought two Prius model 2 cars (one last week, one yesterday) and spend $25200 including all taxes and fees and with the 8-year extended warranty on each. The price of the car would be about $21000. These are 2017 models, and Toyota is offering a $2000 rebate.
Moore's law has brought the cost of perception, computation and automated controls down so quickly and effectively that our new cars have all sorts of safety options (lane assist, blindspot monitor, impending collision warnings, parking assist, etc. etc.) without all the upcharges.
For a few more days, I have one of the VW diesels that were the subject of the recent pollution control action. (I am choosing the "sell back to VW" option). That one cost $25500 or so in 2010.
I admit that we have a strong addiction to efficiency, and are willing pay a bit for that efficiency. I estimate that we could have equivalent quality, performance, features, etc. for about $2000-4000 less if we were willing to give up on the safety features. Based on my study of the market in preparation for buying the new cars, we noted that the safety features we seek are available only in the $23000+ price range, efficiency or not.
Anecdotal observations are not a preponderance of evidence. By contrast, while Tesla is claiming great performance over tens of thousands of miles, they qualify that by saying it's "simulated" miles.
Part of the reason they're cheaper is their lower depreciation. However for those of us in the UK who are sensible and would never buy a new car to see half to two thirds of its value lost in the first two years in depreciation then an electric car becomes far more expensive.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
Electric cars simply don't work if you use your car to drive somewhere without electricity. It's that simple. Just like all electric objects, they work great within the electrical grid, and they die a horrible useless death when there's no electricity around.
Sure, I drive my car around the city. But that's not far, and that's not long, and that's not expensive.
I also drive my car to other cities, and through mountains, on vacations and car club trips. Electric cars are useless in such territories.
I frequently drive two hours between cities, or four hours of concrete slab at a time. That's the fun of roads. Once they are built, they cost nothing until maintenance day. That big highway in the middle of nowhere doesn't breakdown with any degree of frequency.
And you want to put live power lines along it? To supply electricity to charging stations? You want 5'000 miles of powerlines between cities? Not being used for anything but electricity transport? With repeaters and cables and poles and towers? Think of the crazy amount of maintenance. Oh, and winds and ice and animals and no security of any kind?
Any bets electric cars will charge off of gas-powered charging stations? Congrats.
I'll say it again. Electricity doesn't work outside of cities. Just like sewers, and any other kind of infrastructure.
Change the fuel to whatever you want, but the idea of portable fuel is lack-of-infrastructure. Cars are the definition of portable.
This story is disingenuous. If they had said the cars are competetive costwise without the subsidies, the title would have been justified. The way it is, its propoganda for the liberal agenda.
Frank W. Miller
This simply isn't true.
Wow, and what is wrong with that?
I'm not allowed to link to my own blog article? My diploma thesis? What is next?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
because it's much, much easier to control the emissions from a central location powering a million cars than from each of those million cars. Also, not sure about your country but America mostly stopped burning coal. Natural gas is much, much cheaper and also cleaner. And that's before you factor in that you can have your power plants pretty far away from where people breath, which is nice (again, that may be an American thing, we've got lots of space to spread out).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
by oil subsidies, especially if you include the 'subsidy' that is our constant military expansion to secure cheap oil. Let's face it, we're not fighting wars in the middle east out of the goodness of our hearts. It's for the oil. Take that away and you could slash our military budget. We do the same thing with tobacco. We tax the hell out of cigarettes then subsidies tobacco growers.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Switching to electric vehicles gives us more control over where and when polution is released. If we abstract the energy extraction process from the vehicle itself, we create resource independent vehicles. Freedom and eliminating localized polution, two things which are probably worth the cost.
The next thing to consider is adoption. When electric vehicles are considered a basic cost, the economy will restructure itself around the "higher" cost of electric vehicles. As long as emissions standards are raised to eliminate cheaper alternatives, electric vehicles will be affordable for Americans. The economy can't function without providing workers with a mode of transportation, its a cost of doing business.
Without emissions controls, there are several ways we can increase the energy efficiency of the vehicles we have today. As recently demonstrated by Volkswagon. We to decide what is important to us, and legislate it to protect it from those who would selfishly take it away for their own profits.
After five hours of driving, a half hour break isn't a big deal?
I think you underestimate the value of a forced 30 minute break in a five hour trip.
Do you always keep your gas tank at least half full in case of disaster?
No, but I keep a 20 litre jerry can of fuel in my garage.
Flexibility in time, rather than location.
Can you think of a better way to store massive amounts of energy than in battery packs in electric cars...
Because if you can, there are a lot of people that would like to talk to you.
They pay taxes like every other business does. No business pays federal income taxes on EXPENSES. That's the main thing the people trying to trick you call a "subsidy", which is just friggin ridiculous. Here's how it works:
Your local bookstore starts out with $100,000 dollars.
They buy a bunch of books for $100,000.
They sell half the books for $75,000.
They now have $75,000 plus half a shipment of books, worth $50,000. That's $125,000
They started with $100,000 and ended with $125,000 so that's a profit of $25,000
They pay corporate taxes on $25,000 profit (and stockholders pay taxes again on the same $25,000)
Note they would be LYING if they told potential investors or a bank they wanted a loan from that they had made $75,000. The $75,000 in sales cost them $50,000 in books and failing to account for that would be fraud.
An oil company starts with $100,000
They buy / lease land with oil for $100,000
The sell half the oil for $75,000
They now have $75,000 plus half a shipment of the oil, worth $50,000. That's $125,000
They started with $100,000 and ended with $125,000 so that's a profit of $25,000
They pay corporate taxes on $25,000 profit (and stockholders pay taxes again on the same $25,000)
Again it would be fraud for them to claim $75,000 - they only made $25,000. ($75,000 sales minus the $50,000 it cost them to get the oil they sold).
That's the main thing that silly "green" propagandists / click bait sites try to tell you is a "subsidy" - the fact that LIKE ALL OTHER BUSINESSES they don't fraudulently claim their expenses as profit.
...all the over-priced food and drink you end up buying while waiting for your EV to charge?
It's all very well to extol the virtues of an EV, as long as your single-journey length is less than the max range of your car, or that your dwell time between trips is sufficient to top it up for the next one (and there's a suitable location to charge it).
Otherwise, your journey is punctuated by enforced breaks of indeterminate duration while you wait for the car to charge...
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I fully agree. Such a trip would be illegal if made by a commercial driver in Europe.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
that, according to the report, is down to manufacturing. Remember its taken 100 years or so for ICE to become almost totally reliable. Where has anyone said EVs are maintenance free, did you mean less maintenance?
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Disclaimer: I work in automotive (not by Tesla)
Complexity of cars goes like this:
Hybrid > Diesel > Otto (traditional gasoline) > Pure electric
The only problematic component of a pure electric vehicle is the battery array. Everything else (compared to traditional cars) is both cheap and/or lasts forever. Hence, ignoring battery, it is hardly surprising that PE vehicles are cheaper to keep running.
You do realize that the petroleum automotive complex was implicitly subsidized for almost the entirely of its existence?
For one thing, the road system was greatly overbuilt on government money.
For a second thing, our entire modern (inefficient) civic structure has been designed to accommodate the automobile since the last pony pile was scooped into a golden box and trunked off (in luxury) to the Smithsonian.
Third, in round numbers, from 1930–1990 the annual motor vehicle fatality rate in America was in near or above 20 deaths per 100,000 population. And you really think all of the associated costs were paid directly (or even indirectly) by the car owner?
It's harder to dig up cumulative historical statistics on spinal cord injuries.
Spinal Cord Injury Facts — 2009
Swimming pools, horses, boating accidents, motorcycles, and primary industry (forestry, mining, farming) would all be large contributors, but you can bet automotive (including the aforementioned motorcycles) takes the largest slice out of the crown.
And of course, all those (extremely large) costs are precisely allocated, too (in some Randian fantasy world of your dreams).
Just last night my wife and I watched a documentary (of sorts) titled Comedy Warriors: Healing Through Humor (2013). It features five Iraq was veterans who returned home as amputees (4), with chronic spinal pain (one odd, pregnant lady), or as a burn victim (just one guy missing 25% of his original sheath to a total depth ++ underlying tissues, who kind of still had both his hands, but elected two years later to give one up when the effort to keep it saved just wasn't worth while). I made a dark joke to my wife as we were watching this: "that last guy looks like a Wookiee with his eyebrows seared off by a trash compactor methane supernova". (If you've never looked closely at a Wookiee before, a Wookiee's "eyebrows" cover his entire face and head. Use a camera, as it's not polite to stare.)
This film was better than expected, but you have to like visiting the real world, and make some reasonable allowances. Every spouse sat there quietly on the sofa concealing a hundred years of normal sorrows (see My Left Foot). Comedy therapy is about putting all that hidden anger to work, and it did (personal coaching from Lewis Black sure doesn't hurt). This was all certainly good for the vets. I wasn't finally so sure about the spouses (and ultimately you realize that there were propaganda guardrails firmly affixed, and that this was at least filmed in cooperation with Veterans Affairs or the suitable stay-positive-about-the-real-cost-of-freedom public agency; see The Tillman Story.)
Soldier Speaks Up A Decade After Pat Tillman's Friendly-Fire Death
So there's several layers of graduate school in precisely who pays, if you're paying attention, and doing the math.
Finally (returning to the almost trivial), the negative externalities of mere automotive noise and mere automotive air pollution have long had serious deleterious effects on the surrounding human populations.
Then an option comes along that's prospectively (in the fairly ne
"Is it a scam?" - Depends, do you count insurance as a scam.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
And most of that is tax. I cannot see governments anywhere being happy to lose that revenue when every vehicle on the road is electric. So it seems to me to be inevitable that sooner or later the electricity used to recharge EVs will become the subject of an additional level of taxation. Whether that is on the power itself, an annual tax on the vehicle (based on mileage) or some other levy.
So to suggest that the cost comparison made today, under the financial conditions that presently apply, is any reason to make a decision for anything but the near future makes no sense.
What WILL make a difference is when cars become autonomous. I can see a very fast transition from petrol driven to electric AVs. Purely because the insurance premiums on a human driver will become astronomical.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
The untelligentsia will be all over this like a cheap suit. They'll be squealing about nobody being able to plug their cars in overnight (blissfully unaware that over just a couple of weeks a small Ontario town where I grew up put in dozens of outlets for block heaters back in the 1960's). They'll whine about the lack of power outlets on highways (blissfully unaware that even the lowly Bolt is good for 200 miles per charge). They'll scream about resale value (blissfully unaware this will change as low-range first generation EV's leave the market and battery durability stats over long periods become a matter of record). They'll rage about subsidies (blissfully unaware that gasoline cars and oil companies have benefitted from government subsidies on a scale that dwarfs anything EV manufacturers could even dream about).
None of it will matter, in the end. EV's are coming and all the pissing and moaning from the "we hate everything new" crew won't make a bit of difference.
It's happening already. The place I work shares a fleet of cars with other agencies. Some cars are gas and diesel, others are hybrid and electric. The latter two varieties are consistently the cheapest to operate. As far as maintenance...the electrics have been virtually maintenance free. Brake pads, coolant (ours have thermal management systems) and tire care have been the whole story. Fleet management is putting away $500 per year per EV for eventual battery replacement.
I suspect the fleet will be at least 80% electric within five years. A few diesels will be kept around for special occasions and the gasoline and hybrid vehicles will be gone. There are two competing plans for dealing with the EV's as they age. One says replace the batteries (probably at about 10 years) and drive them 'til they die. The other is to replace the battery packs after eight years and sell them. Used EV's with brand new battery packs will probably have a great resale potential. If not...Plan A.
So now I'm going to relax and enjoy reading the flood of comments from that sub-set of Slashdotters who will confidently predict the failure of electric vehicles...like they predicted the failure of 64-bit operating systems, solar power, Space X and just about everything else new and innovative that doesn't involve slaughtering an endangered species.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
"the cost of regularly replacing the batteries as they expire" - how often do you think they "expire"?
"but I am against the idea of so readily selling them as less-polluting and more-energy-efficient than the alternative," why? they are.
"widespread use all over the world is trains fed from overhead wires." - thats going to change - battery powered train being developed here https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
"The exact reason for that is because that design avoids completely the need for huge, expensive, consumable battery packs." - more like the technology wasn't ready when they started to build the rail infrastructure - see previous point
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
this might help https://insideevs.com/tesla-le...
quote form the article "it appears that most users are retaining over 90% of their vehicles’ original range, even after the odometer rolls well into the 6 digits."
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
https://insideevs.com/tesla-le... - read this article for an update... in case you don't, a quote "it appears that most users are retaining over 90% of their vehicles’ original range, even after the odometer rolls well into the 6 digits."
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
include "yet" in your thoughts
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
You can go buy a Hyundai Accent today for $14k MSRP and usually less if you bother negotiating or wait for incentives.
They get around 40 MPG highway and 30 MPG city and have a 10 year powertrain warranty. If you put 14k miles on them a year that's 400 gallons a year or around $1k at current prices. Assume $1k a year average for regular maintenance and oil changes.
Total cost of ownership at 10 years is $14k up front then $2k/yr for 10 years ~ $35k.
Show me an EV with a 10-year total cost of ownership like that and we'll talk. Bonus points if it gets 400 miles a charge (like an Accent on a full tank) and charges in 5 minutes (an accent's ~10 gallon tank takes about 2 minutes to fill). OK, that's just being a jerk, but recognize that a lot of people are going to see that as a big inconvenience.
Except that the eGolf is actually $28500, because of the federal rebate.
Also, KBB says a 3 year old Golf with 36000 miles on it is worth $9900, but a 3 year old eGolf with 36000 miles on it is worth $14200, so your resale values are deffinately off - the eGolf will be worth more (3 years was used here because that's the oldest eGolf available).
Here's the purchase version of it over 3 years:
Golf - $24k
12000 miles/year @$2.60 per gallon and 30mpg = $3120
Service costs - $300/yr = $900
Sold for $9900
TCoO = $6040/year
eGolf - $28.5k
12000 miles/year @ 4m/kWh and $0.11/kWh = $990
Car sold for $14.2k
TCoO = $5096/year
Especially the cheap plastic toys you'd get for a small child to practice with. By a factor of a thousand cheaper than an automobile at least. Doesn't mean they do the same job with the same level of capability or reliability.
The drivetrain problem was a defective mount with too tight tolerances. And Tesla replaced all the drive units for free. The cost of service (which includes an 8 year unlimited mileage warranty on the powertrain) is included in the vehicle price, so it's not something that you get to add onto the end as a service cost to the owner.
Pinkypants -- my favorite!
Typical degradation on Tesla packs is about 4% in the first year and under 1% in each subsequent year. There are Teslas out there with hundreds of thousands of miles on them.
Pinkypants -- my favorite!
AFAIK, the primary, if not only users of bunker fuel are container ships at sea. The fuel is one step away from asphalt in the refining process. It's so heavy that they have to bring it up to the right temperature before the diesel can use it. I don't think anybody uses it in a vehicle that runs on the roads. They're definitely not putting it in trucks in North America or Europe.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
The problem with gasoline vehicles is that they have a random amount of fuel in their tank at any point in time. Some will be almost full, some will be almost empty. EVs start each day with a "full tank".
Pinkypants -- my favorite!
Or, you know, you could just google it. There's about a dozen different ways to recycle li-ion battery packs. And if you were a recycler, would you rather one small, dense object of a low value metal per vehicle, or a large, lower density object containing higher value minerals per vehicle? It's a no brainer from a financial perspective. What, you have to use a forklift? Gee, like that's a showstopper to a scrapyard.
Pinkypants -- my favorite!
Ah, appeal to authority! The foundation of all science!
(That was sarcasm in case you didn't notice.)
Fine, let's wait until EVs have developed into a fully-arsed solution, then. Everyone seems to want us all to dump our old faithful ICE machines and jump on the electric bandwagon. Get some research done, present some reliable, independent data on running costs, lithium ion longevity and drivetrain reliability rather than the current cherry-pick the data to fit the desired result crap we're being fed and then get back to me. In the meantime, it's all starting to look like either a cynical ploy to stimulate The Economy or to restrict the general population's ability to travel at whim without being tracked and taxed.
Oh, and can heavy industry and corporations share a bit of this pain? We road users, including the buses and trucks, are only a third of the problem. Let's see the other two thirds getting reamed a bit to make it all seem a bit fairer. Oh, wait, we can't do that because investors, by which I mean politicians with massive portfolios and hopes of comfortable consulting sinecures after their current term in office is up...
Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
Where I grew up power outages occurred twice a year or more. Winter was better, you could burn wood for heat. Summer was miserable, it could get to 90F in the house quote easily. Used a gas generator just for the fridge. They rarely lasted longer than a week. An electric vehicle would be a problem there. Range to the nearest city would be an issue too.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
Big corporations and government want you to think that EV are much better for the environment and that is why you should buy one. That is why there are tax breaks for them. But it is all a lie. The REAL reason EVs are promoted is because it is a hot topic in the public and wink wink good for the environment. If you think about it you are only trading one fossil fuel for another or possibly the same fuel. EV cars need to be charged where do you think that electricity comes from mostly coal and other fossil fuels. So buying and EV does nothing to help reduce the use of fossil fuels. On top of that they are the worst land vehicle build for the environment. Making batteries is bad for the environment, disposing of bad batteries is extremely bad for the environment. Some EVs go back and forth across the ocean several times to be built. The ships that move those vehicles back and forth are worse on the environment than any land vehicle. Check out "Polar Star Films - Freightened the Real Price of Shipping (2016)". -WS
as long as the egolf still uses that glycol based crap as brake fluid you still have do that yearly service lest the brake lines fill with water which can start to boil when you need the brakes the most. citroen did it right back i the day with their green mineral oil based brake fluid
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Nope. Tesla packs are climate controlled. They have no "potential damage for heat" in the summer (or the winter for that matter). As for lower current in the winter, of course (it lets the pack get cold because that does no damage; it can be set to be heated, or just heat up on its own) - but on a car that does 0-60 in 4,8 seconds (Motor Trend measurement), I think it can spare some amps (on wintery roads at that). ;) As if gasoline and diesel cars perform at their max in frigid weather. On a really cold day you're lucky if you can get a diesel to start at all (Teslas always maintain a minimum temperature). Oh, and speaking of winter weather: EVs can preheat/precool. Including in enclosed spaces or right next to buildings, where carbon monoxide buildup would be dangerous. With no idling (noise, wear). Without draining a tank that you have to go to a gas station to fill, while standing outside in said bad weather. It's such a convenience that almost everyone does it. With the side effect that it melts ice and snow off your windshield, so no scraping either.
Losses in charging/discharging Model S and X are about 80%. Should be a bit less for Model 3, probably around 85%, but we haven't confirmed yet with a Kill-A-Watt. Model S and X are induction, so average about 85% drivetrain efficiency. Model 3 is PM, so probably 90-95% average (there's a big efficiency difference between Model 3 and Model S, beyond just Crr/m/CdA; it's one of the most notable changes). I'm not sure what your point of this is, however. A modern combined cycle natural gas plant is around 60% efficient and the grid around 94% efficient. Meanwhile, a gasoline engine at its peak is about 35% efficient, but averages around 20% efficient. And we're not even counting the energy to produce the gasoline (which continues to grow over time).
Hahahaha ;) Sorry, but the Model 3 LR is as fast as a BWM 340i. The SR is as fast as a 330i. And this is before Tesla even breaks out the performance package; that should push it into the 3-4s 0-60 range. Meanwhile, the Model 3s are each $5k *cheaper* than their same-performing competitors, and save about $1k a year in the US / $2k a year in the EU. So over 5 years, $10k cheaper in the US, $15k cheaper in the EU, *not* counting incentives.
Almost all new energy going onto the grid in the US (and in most countries in the developed world) is a mix of wind, solar, and natural gas. Solar is the fastest growing component of these three. Coal is dying, and quickly. They're even starting to close plants that are A) large, and B) surprisingly young; it's no longer just the small, old plants that are being killed off.
Pinkypants -- my favorite!
A noxious ICE very much a deterrent for people walking and biking in urban areas. Even fuel efficient ICE scooters with bad exhausts. Get the stinker ICE out of the urban areas. For those in boonies especially very cold climates, ICE might be better option which is fine, there they pose little hazard to those walking or bikIng. Trucks bringing food a larger challenge since poor people need lowest cost, though long term in urban areas better to limit noxious emissions for health costs. So both techs have pros / cons and costs differ depending on location and type of use.
As for lower current in the winter, of course (it lets the pack get cold because that does no damage; it can be set to be heated, or just heat up on its own) - but on a car that does 0-60 in 4,8 seconds (Motor Trend measurement), I think it can spare some amps (on wintery roads at that). ;)
Because diminished battery capacity means performance of electric car is impacted? No. It reduces the range of the vehicle, not the acceleration of the vehicle.
Ken
Most housing units in California are "single unit, unattached", AKA "houses". Apartment dwellers are a minority.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Words do not take on whatever meaning you intend them to have; they have specific meanings. You said current; this is true. Now you're talking about capacity (energy). This is not true; Teslas heat when charging, and heat when in operation, so the available energy is the same.
*Current* affects acceleration, and that's what you talked about. If that's not the word you meant, use the right one.
Pinkypants -- my favorite!
I meant exactly what I wrote. New generation is a mix of natural gas, solar, and wind. Of that mix, solar is the fastest growing, having gone from almost nothing at the start of the decade to the largest component (by installed capacity) in 2016 (there was a small dip in Q1 2017, but it was still huge). Now, to be fair, NG has higher capacity factors. But (ignoring the Q1 blip), it's clear what the long-term trend is. Wind is roughly holding its own, while solar is steadily eating up NG's share.
Pinkypants -- my favorite!
You are way too pessimistic. We sometimes go and stay with friends who live in Oving, in Hampshire. Small village in the middle of nowhere. It has a church hall with two chargers (and free to use at that!). Charge-points are going to be much *more* ubiquitous than petrol stations over time, not less. The infrastructure required is an outdoor 240V plugpoint. Thatâ(TM)s it. Sure, it can be a 3kW, 7kW, 22kW, 43kW charger, but it doesnâ(TM)t have to be. The technology can be run out of existing electricity infrastructure, such as street lighting. Ubitricity is doing exactly that.
So you want to build cars ONLY for the average person?
Nowhere close to 50%.
I drove a return trip of 750km (about 500miles) yesterday with the temperature averaging about -6C which isnÂt that cold but cold enough. I stopped to charge and have coffee once on the way there and once for charge and pizza on the way back. Both times the charging was done before I was. This is the same as when I did the trip in the summer.
I donÂt know what the actual range reduction is but even 20% seems high.
I do think though that long distance EV driving is really only practical in a Tesla. Not because of range but because of the super charger network.
I'm not so sure I buy the TCO argument. When I look at EVs and hybrids, they're extremely overpriced in the fit-and-finish department. And aside from a few models (mostly adaptations of existing models), extremely out of class in the aesthetic department as well.
People don't pay $50,000 for, say, an Audi, because they're worried about gas milage. So when you stack that $50,000-$65,000 Audi up against the $65,000-$80,000 Tesla, the fuel savings aren't there.
And if you'll take a lesser fit-and-finish or general aesthetic to save gas money, be sure to compare that EV to a $15K Yaris.
I figure someone will consider an EV because a) they're very bad at math, or b) they've got cash to burn and they're investing the the future of technology, or c) they're a pretentious snob, or d) they've got cash to burn and they're wanting to take advantage of that insane torque curve.
Most people who have an EV say they would never go back to an ICE car at least partly because actually driving an EV is so much nicer.
Instant torque, near silent motors and regenerative breaking make for a very relaxing drive.
Pure electric cars have much lower fuel costs
Until everyone owns an electric car and the cost of the power being drawn from the grid goes up because we have to build more means to produce electricity and depending on the situation, that could cause more pollution. Supply and demand folks.
We'll make great pets
Well, first you'd need a healthcare system to put the funds into. Like... An honest-to-god healthcare system, accountable to the nation it serves, not shareholders and medical billing beaurocracy (what are called "special interests" in the public sector).
And if all âoeexternalitiesâ were reflected in gosoline prices at the pump, the price would be over $10 per gallon. Similarly for diesel fuel, I assume. What would the comparison be then, without government subsidies ?
T Hagan
I keep my fuel tank full, because my fuel pump is old and if it dies I'm up shit creek :D
Sooner or later, I will get around to replacing it, but there have been numerous reports of counterfeit OEM (Bosch) fuel pumps. I'm considering trying something else, where I'm not paying for a name... but that can go badly awry as well.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I own an electric car. It costs me about $2 / day for 50 miles / 80kms of driving. It's mechanical simplicity requires almost do servicing beyond tires and brakes.... and not much brake wear because regen shows the car down most of the time, creating power as you drive. It's no contest. There are only people who know it because they already live it and people who don't know it yet.
Only boring people are ever bored.
rather than impose even tougher emissions which several automakers are showing they are incapable of meeting.
Horse shit. They are all totally capable of meeting the emissions targets. Even here in California, the regulators are finding that the automakers are actually capable of doing it ahead of schedule. The automakers who have cheated on emissions tests have chosen to do so, because if they meet the tests, their vehicles will be boring to drive. That especially goes for the diesel Golf. Mazda looked at bringing a diesel 3 to market sooner, but declined because they couldn't get the emissions and the performance into the same package at the time. They wondered how VW did it. Well, they didn't. But it wasn't because they couldn't meet emissions targets, that's a lot of hot cockery.
And this is why I watch Autoline. I got the words directly from the regulators and the engineers. (I won't click ads, but I will give plugs...)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
But UK is a totalitarian police state.
Let's not be offensive now! Police states are where civilians call the police "sir" because they carry guns and are keen to shoot you if you have the wrong ancestry.
In "free" America people drive a huge range of cars from f150 to fiats and even your mini coopers. It is very nice to own f150 believe me.
The reason trucks like that are uncommon here is not just tax, or even narrower roads. Good taste comes into it too.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
That was a fantastic read, thanks.
So everyone in the world buys Hyundai Accents. Got it.
One of the things that this story got me thinking about is the eventual end result.
So lets say we fast forward to the future, electric cars have replaced those that run on fossil fuels. Great.
However, as we all know, much of the cost we pay in fossil fuels is government tax, which they use to fund an awful lot of things.
How much tax is recovered by government, and how is that revenue going to be replaced once all the gas guzzlers are gone?
I suspect neither you nor I are scientists in that field, and actual scientists are in fact authorities on what they're working on. Given general agreement among the scientists, the evidence in favor of that agreement is almost always strong. Scientists make good proxies for evidence, when you're not in the field.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
How do you know whether someone is a scientist? How do you know whether they are "in the field"?
Climate change? It's interdisciplinary. What does "in that field" actually mean, and how do you think it correlates with authoritativeness?
"Is it a scam?" - Depends, do you count insurance as a scam.
Most insurance is a scam. The numbers are made-up bullshit and the formulas they're generated with are secrets, even though you're legally obligated to purchase the product. It's a scam from stem to stern.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You can always look up somebody's publication record, or, failing that, look at the job title, if you want to know if they're a scientist in the field.
Climate science is interdisciplinary. So's a lot of other scientific fields, such as astronomy. That doesn't mean you should go to a particle physicist to get starts explained.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Neither of those tells you whether they are competent or credible.
I suspect the average astronomer and the average particle physicist are both more competent at climate science than the average climate scientist; climate science is full of dunces and scientific wannabes.
I suspect the average astronomer and the average particle physicist are both more competent at climate science than the average climate scientist
What this claim smells of
Ezekiel 23:20
Ah, RationalWiki, the place where wannabe scientists and armchair philosophers gather. You fit right in.
Odds are that individual scientists with decent publication records are competent and credible. Science isn't a field you get into for the money. Obviously, there will be exceptions, which is why it's useful to compare what numerous scientists say. If they disagree on something, that's normal. If they agree on something, it's because there has been sufficiently strong evidence to convince everybody.
I suspect that you have a lot less ability to predict competence in scientific fields than you think you do, and that the average cat or dog are more competent at finding bogus scientific fields than you are.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You just go on believing that.
Neither is cleaning toilets. What's your point?
Like, for example, eugenics and scientific racism.
Well, be that as it may, the good thing is: I don't have to predict competence in scientific fields because I don't rely on competence in scientific fields for decision making.
Now you're veering into dumb insults. Keep going, you're showing just what kind of person you are.
Ah, yes, more ignorance and missing the point. If you're not going to bother judging competence of scientists and scientific fields, that's fine. If you are then going to malign scientist and fields of science, that's not fine.
I'd not expect my cat to identify any fields of science as bogus. I'd expect you to identify considerably more than are bogus. Overall, I suspect the cat would be right more often, although likely to make different errors.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I judge, and when necessary malign, scientists and scientific fields based on the content of their scientific theories when subjected to fact checking and rational analysis. I do not judge scientists and scientific fields based on notoriety or fancy job titles, which is what you are advocating.
You may think that if Brigham, Laughlin, Keynes, and Carrel of Princeton, Cambridge, and/or Nobel Prize fame advocate eugenics, you ought to shine your jackboots and march in lockstep behind them politically. But that represents your delusions and ignorance. I choose to think for myself.
Your judgment is clearly on completely inadequate information, and is obviously influenced by your politics.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You better believe it!