For on-street parking I wonder whether buried wireless charging is the way to go... I know the ones that are coming to market now have guides in the info-tainment system to help you park so that your car's receiver is above the transmitter. I can see parallel parking in a spot and moving forward until the system tells you the receiver is properly positioned.
Someone else mentioned lamppost charging cables, but I think that will be interim. Too many problems in bad weather, and with inconsistent placement of charging doors on cars.
Check out WiTricity for an example of a wireless charger (that isn't intended for on-street parking).
Sure electric cars are nice but they aren't free. They cost more for the people who wants to buy them. They could force everyone to buy one and do all kinds of policy but if the car is too costly it will stay costly no matter what.
ICE costs, adjusted for inflation, have been rising in recent years. In the mid '60s, a car would cost the equivalent in today's dollars of about $23K. That stayed about the same until the early '80s when the price started to steadily increase to $25-$28K. The prices plateaued and even dropped back to $25K around 2008 (because of the global financial crisis preventing many people from buying new cars).
In just 5 years we've seen EV and PHEV prices drop by $10K, from $45K to $35K and all indications are that that will continue until BEV prices drop below ICE prices, probably around 2025.
My own experience was leasing a Honda Fit EV which was a really nice little car (which Honda may be putting into regular production soon). It only had 85 miles of range so it wasn't a complete replacement for an ICE vehicle, but it was nice enough that I knew I would go BEV as soon as possible. That car got crashed and we replaced it with a used Volt (3 years old, for $13,000 - quite a deal) for use by my two daughters. Meanwhile I had my last of 3 Subaru STi sports cars which I loved, but I have to admit that towards the end of owning it I was really starting to get tired of the noise and the $50 fill-ups.
I waited for about 5-6 months for my Tesla Performance Model 3 and I have to say, I would never go back to an ICE now. If something caused me to have to sell the Tesla I would replace it with another BEV... They are that much nicer to drive than an ICE.
The Tesla is the most expensive car I ever purchased, kind of a splurge, but I've always driven sports cars so the Volt and the Bolt didn't tick that box for me, but I'm confident that we'll see plenty of sporty BEVs besides the Tesla become available in the near future. Still, if I hadn't been able to afford the Tesla, I probably would have gone with a Bolt... even though it's no sports car it's still a fun car to drive, much more fun than an ICE.
The most recent study I read says that an EV in West Virginia (which gets almost 100% of it's electricity from coal) is on a level with a Prius for CO2 emissions. Everywhere else it's as good or better than the best of the hybrids, and much better than an ICE.
Yeah, I think most manufacturers recommend brake fluid change every 2 years, but I also have never done that in 45-50 years and have never had problems that I would associate with water in the brake fluid... (i.e. I can't remember ever having to deal with master cylinders and such... it's always been pads and rotors, maybe calipers on Fiats but that wasn't because of the brake fluid, it was because of the crap Fiat design:-)
I had to replace the brakes on my Volt. The probable cause was that the calipers seized. Also, I can hear the pads on my Tesla after a couple days of non-use... I suspect the pads/rotors won't like not being used regularly in order to keep them clear of rust.
They'll probably outlast an ICE car, but I have a feeling they won't be as trouble free as everybody thinks. Probably will depend somewhat on whether you try for almost 100% regen, or use the friction brakes regularly when driving...
Funny, when I was a kid my folks trained me to look for the reverse lights to come on a car, and when I saw them to not walk behind that car - to wait until the car pulled out and left (or you made eye contact with the driver).
But as a driver, I can't count how often people walk behind my car even after I start moving out of the parking space. Are they hoping I'll hit them for a big cash award? I'm very very careful in a parking lot, but this happens all the time (it happened in my VERY loud Subaru STi, and it still happens in my silent Tesla M3 so it's nothing to do with engine noise or lack thereof).
I personally like the silent Tesla. My old EV (Honda Fit EV) made a weird UFO sound below 13 mph, and instead of warning people to look out, they would be staring at the sky looking for spacecraft. Seriously, I don't think it was effective, partly because the sound wasn't particularly directional. I'd rather have a silent car, and I simply move slowly and keep my head on swivel when I'm driving in a parking lot.
Seattle (for example) is pushing zero parking condominiums and apartments. Making the tenants scurry after limited on-street parking.
We're going to have to find a solution for on street parking... it's simply too common to ignore. There have already been articles about introducing chargers-in-light-poles, etc. Probably not the hardest problem we have to solve...
Wireless charging for parking lots may be an option as well...
The number of people who can charge at home will outnumber those who can't. The market will serve them.
I think this is highly dependent on which country you live in, and whether you live in a major city (but have a car).
I think it's more like: we have to find a charging solution that works for people who don't live in a single family home. Some of that will be legislation (as in California) that forces landlords to provide charging infrastructure, but some of it will have to be designed to address people who are forced to park on street.
Until we do that, we won't get as wide spread adoption of BEV as we need.
Yeah that's nice, but the reality is if you live outside of a city. ICE is the only way life goes forward. That's life in the US, doubly so in Canada. Unless battery technology jumps in leaps and bounds and becomes dirt cheap by then, and can hold enough of a charge to get you 500km/300mi in a single trip with no issues when it's -35C or colder outside.
Well, I have both a Volt and a Tesla... and for the people like you mention that BEV won't work for, PHEV can work pretty well, especially if the PHEV has a descent electrical range like the Volt (mine->42 miles, newer ones 50ish).
This. Even my old EV with only 85 miles of range, I forgot to charge once... I still had enough charge to do the next day commute (and, there was a charger within 1/4 mile of work if I had needed it, but I didn't). That's been the only time I've forgotten....
With the Tesla M3 I could forget 3 or 4 days in a row and still have enough charge...
It really isn't a big deal with newer EVs with adequate range.
BTW, a few weeks back we got an emergency call at 2:00 am... had to jump in the Tesla and drive halfway across the state... no problem, plus there were two superchargers if I had needed them, but I didn't... So, having a large battery negates a lot of these negative possibilities... Could you construct a bad scenario? Sure, but in practice, in 5 years, it hasn't happened to me.
Yeah, not sure what cars he's talking about. My Honda Fit EV got 4 miles per kWh if you drove normally, if you really worked at it you could get 6.5 miles per kWh... No way the Tesla could do that... But I'm happy with the ~280-300 Wh/m I'm getting on my M3P+... It's a lot better than the 19 mpg I was getting with my Subaru STi...
He probably is talking about some of the newer cars like the Jag... whatever...
How many people can actually afford these vehicles when insurance and the like is added in?
So, my performance M3 was 1.6 times as expensive as my Subaru STi, and yet the insurance was almost exactly the same price. I actually asked them to double check in case they had made a mistake. They hadn't. Not sure whether it's the safety rating, or that it's not a boy racer car like the STi, but insurance doesn't seem to be a problem for most of the people I've talked with...
We probably won't see eye to eye on this... I live in Boston but used to travel to LA a few times a year. The California CAFE laws were definitely needed and definitely worked. The air pollution in LA was awful in the 80s. There's been a huge improvement. There is no way the automobile manufacturers would have produced cleaner cars without the CAFE laws.
Like a lot of people, I'm concerned about CO2. If you don't believe in global warming you can probably stop reading now, but I personally do and think it's a question of survival of the human race (and unfortunately a lot of innocent species that had nothing to do with it).
Right now Transportation, Electrical production, and Industry produce 75% of the greenhouse gasses. They're roughly equal contributors. (Transportation 28%, Electricity 28%, Industry 22%). A fairly large percentage of each could be brought way down if we set our minds to it.
Some forms of transportation (I'm thinking aviation Jet fuel) don't have an obvious quick fix. However, a large percentage of automobiles and trucking could be converted in 1-2 decades if we start now and are aggressive.
Electrical production is already moving towards renewables, and a lot of work on storing energy is making the renewables a workable solution. The pricing of energy production is driving us in that direction, so I think we'll continue to see an aggressive move towards renewables.
Short haul trucking, likewise, will probably move rapidly towards BEV and hybrid solutions because of the economics. Bussing is another example where the economics are driving the transition towards electrifications.
Passenger vehicles, however, are a weird case. The purchase decision is only partly influenced by economics. People want what they want. If for whatever reason they want a huge SUV like a Lincoln Navigator, or a Chevy Suburban, it's difficult to get them to choose a more eco friendly vehicle. I have a friend who has a Chevy Suburban which is used around town for errands. It weighs 7,500 pounds! By comparison our Chevy Volt weighs 3,800 pounds, and a Honda Fit weighs 2,650 pounds (1/3 of the weight of the Suburban).
I have a friend who recently bought a 700 horsepower car. It will be used for commuting and running errands. I get it... it's a cool car and he's always wanted one like it.
The question is, for those of us who believe in global warming, how do we get people to start making choices about their personal vehicles with an eye towards reduction of CO2? I really don't see a way without passing laws. Yes, eventually BEV will be so good that everybody will want one. But that's probably 3 decades away. I'm not convinced we have that much time as a species. So, how else do you influence people except by passing laws?
Personally, I think we either should mandate improved mileage, or else tax people on the excess CO2 they're going to produce by choosing certain vehicles. That's a tough one to get right, and I'm open to suggestions, but doing nothing... I don't think that's wise.
I've had two electric cars so far, waiting for my Model 3 to be delivered. One of the cars is a Volt, so I've some experience with PHEVs...
I don't think pure BEV pickup trucks will be popular in the near future. For people who want to tow, I don't think BEV will have the range for a while. However, hybrid should be a really good fit with a pickup truck. The torque available from an electrified drive train fits really well with towing etc. Everyone remember this stunt? https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/...
My brother in law is a plumber and I don't think a BEV pickup truck would work for him unless it had 300 miles of range - he can't predict where he'll need to run next, and someone with a plumbing problem isn't going to want to wait for him to recharge his truck first. On the other hand, fuel is a huge cost for him, so getting a much more economical vehicle would really help his bottom line.
I keep thinking a combination of hybrid + something like the Achates engine (https://www.trucks.com/2018/01/15/detroit-auto-show-achates-aramco-pickup-engine/) gives us a chance at ~50 mpg pickup trucks in well under a decade.
Now if we could just convince all those people who own pickup trucks and use them just as a passenger vehicle to switch to something more fuel efficient...
I leased the electric Fit. Would still have it if my daughter didn't crash it (into my car thus totaling both!).
I think using the word "abandoned" gives the wrong message. The cars were universally loved by everyone I knew who had one. Honda did a limited build of only a couple thousand cars... They were all hand built compliance cars. But they were very very popular with the lessors (it was lease only, you couldn't buy them).
I'm sure Honda lost a lot of money on each one, because hey, it was a compliance car. But now they may be bringing it back: https://cleantechnica.com/2018...
If they can really build one for sale with 180 miles of range (the one we had was EPA 85 or so - not really enough for Boston in the winter) for $18,000 I would definitely buy one (or two ). They were a very good car.
I watched the MIT Club "Are Electric Vehicles at a Tipping Point?" video... towards the end a (rather rude I thought) Tesla owner challenged the Daimler Benz guy, Fred Kim, about why a little tiny manufacturer (Tesla) was cleaning Daimler Benz's clock, why D.B. hadn't done more, etc. Like I said, I didn't think he asked it in a very nice way.
But Fred's answer was pretty interesting... Basically acknowledging that it's hard for a huge existing company to turn on a dime. Not only do they have existing product lines they can't just walk away from overnight, but there's a built in bias / inertia in their existing workforce that has to be overcome.
We see this plenty of times... why a small company like Microsoft can steal a market from a behemoth like IBM. Parent mentioned Kodak and digital photography which is a similar example.
There's no question that Tesla has a difficult road ahead and may ultimately fail, but I agree with many people who point out that they've already achieved their mission statement - if it wasn't for Tesla you can make a good argument that there STILL wouldn't be any good EVs for sale. The entrenched manufacturers were happy to sit on ICE technology forever.
I don't think any of the existing companies can turn on a dime and overwhelm Tesla. They can slowly, incrementally, add BEV vehicles to their product roadmap, but that won't transition into an immediate huge sales volume. Look at the problems they'll have getting their dealerships to push EVs! How long will it take to turn the bias against BEVs around at each dealership? Especially if BEVs end up cutting profits of the service center?
Tesla is far from out of the woods, but I think it's naive to think that the big ICE manufacturers can turn on a dime and crush Tesla anytime they want.
Most people drive their car to and from work. A small fraction of automotive traffic would require the Supercharger network.
That's true. But most people people want to be able to do those long drives occasionally. $35k is a lot of money for a car that is only a commuter car. A Leaf would be cheaper and just as effective.
I've had a BEV and now a Volt for my daughters. I'm buying a M3 for myself. There are things I don't like about the car (over-reliance on the center screen, door handles, etc.). But, the two things that helped me decide: the long range battery and the Supercharger network.
The thing is, even with the Supercharger network, a BEV is barely practical when you want to do anything other than your daily commute. Without the Supercharger network, you're definitely going to want to rent an ICE... Sure, some people do road trips in a Bolt, but I think it's more a thing to try than an experience you would want to repeat often. There simply isn't a robust enough DC recharging network available yet.
The competition (GM, Nissan, Porsche) keep wanting to put chargers at dealerships, but I've read too many people's negative experiences with that (charging station is blocked, only available when the dealership is open, too far from the highway)... Tesla seems to be the only company that understands what's required to be able to use the car for inter-city travel and they've stepped up to the plate and built a descent charging network.
I think the other manufacturers are happy to have poor charging options because it's another way to keep people buying ICE cars for a little while longer. When they start building out networks equivalent to the Supercharger network, or partner with Tesla on the existing Supercharger network, you'll know that they've finally decided to stop dragging their feet and are seriously trying to market BEVs.
Most people drive their car to and from work. A small fraction of automotive traffic would require the Supercharger network.
There is no doubt in my mind that an electric vehicle with ~200 miles of range is sufficient for a large percentage of commuting which is probably the majority of miles driven by most people. And it's certainly true that renting an ICE is a reasonable alternative a few times a year. But the only way the BEV was practical for me was because I also still had my ICE car. To actually be able to have the BEV as your only vehicle you either need a very long range battery, or a robust charging network. Eventually the public charging network will improve but right now it's not set up to allow inter-city travel.
Example: right now I live outside Boston. I have a friend with a place in Newport RI... it's almost exactly 100 miles. That's a little too far for comfort with a car that has 200 miles of range. In the winter here in New England we lose about 50% of the range, so the car could barely get there on one charge.
Assume I have a Nissan with DC Fast Charging. Along the route there are 4 public DC Fast Charging sites showing on PlugShare. One is close to home, so that might be useful on the way back, but on the way down isn't useful. There's one at a Nissan dealership about a third of the way there. It's open 24/7 so that might work, except there's only 1 CHAdeMo charger, so if someone else is using it I might have to wait a while or try to find an alternative. There's a CCS charger at a Whole Foods 2/3 of the way there... but... Nissan wants a CHAdeMo, not a CCS (are there adapters?). And, again, only a single station so if someone is using it I'm screwed. Finally there's a BMW dealership just a little further down the road, but again CCS, and I'm not sure what the BMW dealership is going to say about me trying to charge a Nissan there. And again.. only 1 charger so if someone else is using it, and I can find an adapter, and the BMW guys are nice and will let me charge... I might still have to wait quite a while.
Yeah, there's at least one more - maybe the Bolt - that uses paddles to increase the regen - I've never driven one of those so I don't know how good that is...
When a tester is testing maximum BRAKING, there isn't going to be any regen vs friction brake decision... At those pedal forces the friction brakes will be working at 100%...
Of course ABS is a different story. If the system is not taking the tires to the limits of adhesion, you'll get longer stop distances.
Yes, you get significantly lower range in the winter. Both my FitEV and Volt take about a 50% hit in cold weather.
The air conditioning certainly affects range, but not anything like the heater in the winter. It's small enough I don't worry about it...
The other thing from above is that the Tesla doesn't have a heated steering wheel. I had that in my Ford Focus RS. It was really nice. I went back to a Subaru STi that doesn't have heated steering wheel and I really miss it. I can take pretty cold cabin temps if my hands are warm.
As for the lack of dedicated knobs on the Model 3, I'll still buy one, but I feel it's a major drawback to this vehicle.
Certainly this is something people differ on. I prefer the opposite - I like one pedal driving and with the two electric cars I've had (Fit EV and Volt) I would have wanted even more regenerative braking, i.e. I love one pedal driving.
the idea of applying regenerative braking when you just lift off the accelerator is stupid. Using the kinetic energy off the car to maintain speed will be more efficient than converting it into chemical energy in the battery and then converting it back to kinetic energy via the motor.
Yeah, but that's not generally what's going to happen... when you need to coast, you just let off the pedal enough to coast... It's pretty obvious when you have the pedal in the right position... but then when you want to decelerate even more you just let off a little more. It's much more natural than having to move your foot back and forth. Most of the EVs have a drive mode that's similar to what you're used to... like an automatic transmission car, and then they also have a "more regen" mode for people who are used to one pedal driving.
My biggest complaint is that some of the EVs don't have enough regen... it should be a driver setting. I liked the Fit EV which would decelerate going downhill... but even then there were cases that I wish I could have dialed in more regen.
I have mixed feelings on your posting. On the one hand, our aviation experience tells us that humans do not perform well monitoring automation (we get lulled into complacency) and it takes much longer for us to come back up to speed and deal with an issue when we were just monitoring, versus when we were doing the task ourselves.
That said, the first thing I thought when I saw the video was that the person was there to ensure the vehicle didn't get into an accident, and yet the person wasn't paying any attention at all. Watching that person do their job made me wonder why they bothered to put a person there at all - the person was totally ineffective.
I'm of the opinion that the safety driver should be charged with vehicular homicide.
If people can't do that job, then the self driving car companies need to come up with some other way to keep the public safe, or else not test in public.
It's true that it's going to take time to hit the brakes and slow down, but on a road like this you also have the choice to swerve the car. That takes a lot less time, because you only have to move the trajectory of the car a few feet to the right or left to miss the person.
I had a bicyclist dart out in front of me a year ago... I had about 3 car lengths between me and him when he pulled in front of me... Certainly not time to come to a stop. However I swerved and missed him. Unfortunately the car behind me hit him, but luckily he had only minor injuries. (But the $6,000 bicycle was totaled).
It's not like you have to think "oh, there's a bicycle, let me formulate a plan on avoiding him". It's pretty automatic to swerve around an object that suddenly appears in the road in front of you.
There are courses that teach you that skill - Bob Bondurant had a swerve lesson in his driving school, I believe, It's something I certainly practice now and again.
There's a huge variation in the effectiveness of headlights. Of our Honda Fit (EV) and Chevy Volt, Toyota Rav4, Ford Focus RS, and Subaru STi, the Honda Fit and the Chevy Volt both had pretty bad headlights. Both brightness, and amount of light being cast to the side... in both the Honda and the Chevy, it's sometimes difficult turning right or left onto a side road, because the lights simply aren't casting much light there.
The Rav4 is much better, but the Ford and the Subaru are both night and day (ha!) above the rest. The Ford had headlights that turned with the steering wheel, and it was really really good. The Subaru doesn't have steerable headlights, but they're bright and cast a lot of light to the sides as well as being brighter...
There's also a difference in highbeams - the Chevy Volt... there's not a huge difference with the highbeams on or off. The Subaru... WOW... really bright.
So, I'd love to see us all go to NVGs (Night Vision Goggles) but until that happens, I'd like to see a standard for minimum light ahead and to the sides... Not sure WHY the Honda and Chevy are so bad... but they're really quite bad.
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For on-street parking I wonder whether buried wireless charging is the way to go... I know the ones that are coming to market now have guides in the info-tainment system to help you park so that your car's receiver is above the transmitter. I can see parallel parking in a spot and moving forward until the system tells you the receiver is properly positioned.
Someone else mentioned lamppost charging cables, but I think that will be interim. Too many problems in bad weather, and with inconsistent placement of charging doors on cars.
Check out WiTricity for an example of a wireless charger (that isn't intended for on-street parking).
Sure electric cars are nice but they aren't free. They cost more for the people who wants to buy them. They could force everyone to buy one and do all kinds of policy but if the car is too costly it will stay costly no matter what.
ICE costs, adjusted for inflation, have been rising in recent years. In the mid '60s, a car would cost the equivalent in today's dollars of about $23K. That stayed about the same until the early '80s when the price started to steadily increase to $25-$28K. The prices plateaued and even dropped back to $25K around 2008 (because of the global financial crisis preventing many people from buying new cars).
In just 5 years we've seen EV and PHEV prices drop by $10K, from $45K to $35K and all indications are that that will continue until BEV prices drop below ICE prices, probably around 2025.
My own experience was leasing a Honda Fit EV which was a really nice little car (which Honda may be putting into regular production soon). It only had 85 miles of range so it wasn't a complete replacement for an ICE vehicle, but it was nice enough that I knew I would go BEV as soon as possible. That car got crashed and we replaced it with a used Volt (3 years old, for $13,000 - quite a deal) for use by my two daughters. Meanwhile I had my last of 3 Subaru STi sports cars which I loved, but I have to admit that towards the end of owning it I was really starting to get tired of the noise and the $50 fill-ups.
I waited for about 5-6 months for my Tesla Performance Model 3 and I have to say, I would never go back to an ICE now. If something caused me to have to sell the Tesla I would replace it with another BEV... They are that much nicer to drive than an ICE.
The Tesla is the most expensive car I ever purchased, kind of a splurge, but I've always driven sports cars so the Volt and the Bolt didn't tick that box for me, but I'm confident that we'll see plenty of sporty BEVs besides the Tesla become available in the near future. Still, if I hadn't been able to afford the Tesla, I probably would have gone with a Bolt... even though it's no sports car it's still a fun car to drive, much more fun than an ICE.
The most recent study I read says that an EV in West Virginia (which gets almost 100% of it's electricity from coal) is on a level with a Prius for CO2 emissions. Everywhere else it's as good or better than the best of the hybrids, and much better than an ICE.
Yeah, I think most manufacturers recommend brake fluid change every 2 years, but I also have never done that in 45-50 years and have never had problems that I would associate with water in the brake fluid... (i.e. I can't remember ever having to deal with master cylinders and such... it's always been pads and rotors, maybe calipers on Fiats but that wasn't because of the brake fluid, it was because of the crap Fiat design :-)
I had to replace the brakes on my Volt. The probable cause was that the calipers seized. Also, I can hear the pads on my Tesla after a couple days of non-use... I suspect the pads/rotors won't like not being used regularly in order to keep them clear of rust.
They'll probably outlast an ICE car, but I have a feeling they won't be as trouble free as everybody thinks. Probably will depend somewhat on whether you try for almost 100% regen, or use the friction brakes regularly when driving...
Funny, when I was a kid my folks trained me to look for the reverse lights to come on a car, and when I saw them to not walk behind that car - to wait until the car pulled out and left (or you made eye contact with the driver).
But as a driver, I can't count how often people walk behind my car even after I start moving out of the parking space. Are they hoping I'll hit them for a big cash award? I'm very very careful in a parking lot, but this happens all the time (it happened in my VERY loud Subaru STi, and it still happens in my silent Tesla M3 so it's nothing to do with engine noise or lack thereof).
I personally like the silent Tesla. My old EV (Honda Fit EV) made a weird UFO sound below 13 mph, and instead of warning people to look out, they would be staring at the sky looking for spacecraft. Seriously, I don't think it was effective, partly because the sound wasn't particularly directional. I'd rather have a silent car, and I simply move slowly and keep my head on swivel when I'm driving in a parking lot.
Seattle (for example) is pushing zero parking condominiums and apartments. Making the tenants scurry after limited on-street parking.
We're going to have to find a solution for on street parking... it's simply too common to ignore. There have already been articles about introducing chargers-in-light-poles, etc. Probably not the hardest problem we have to solve...
Wireless charging for parking lots may be an option as well...
The number of people who can charge at home will outnumber those who can't. The market will serve them.
I think this is highly dependent on which country you live in, and whether you live in a major city (but have a car).
I think it's more like: we have to find a charging solution that works for people who don't live in a single family home. Some of that will be legislation (as in California) that forces landlords to provide charging infrastructure, but some of it will have to be designed to address people who are forced to park on street.
Until we do that, we won't get as wide spread adoption of BEV as we need.
Yeah that's nice, but the reality is if you live outside of a city. ICE is the only way life goes forward. That's life in the US, doubly so in Canada. Unless battery technology jumps in leaps and bounds and becomes dirt cheap by then, and can hold enough of a charge to get you 500km/300mi in a single trip with no issues when it's -35C or colder outside.
Well, I have both a Volt and a Tesla... and for the people like you mention that BEV won't work for, PHEV can work pretty well, especially if the PHEV has a descent electrical range like the Volt (mine->42 miles, newer ones 50ish).
That also takes care of the cold issue...
This. Even my old EV with only 85 miles of range, I forgot to charge once... I still had enough charge to do the next day commute (and, there was a charger within 1/4 mile of work if I had needed it, but I didn't). That's been the only time I've forgotten....
With the Tesla M3 I could forget 3 or 4 days in a row and still have enough charge...
It really isn't a big deal with newer EVs with adequate range.
BTW, a few weeks back we got an emergency call at 2:00 am... had to jump in the Tesla and drive halfway across the state... no problem, plus there were two superchargers if I had needed them, but I didn't... So, having a large battery negates a lot of these negative possibilities... Could you construct a bad scenario? Sure, but in practice, in 5 years, it hasn't happened to me.
Yeah, not sure what cars he's talking about. My Honda Fit EV got 4 miles per kWh if you drove normally, if you really worked at it you could get 6.5 miles per kWh... No way the Tesla could do that... But I'm happy with the ~280-300 Wh/m I'm getting on my M3P+... It's a lot better than the 19 mpg I was getting with my Subaru STi...
He probably is talking about some of the newer cars like the Jag... whatever...
How many people can actually afford these vehicles when insurance and the like is added in?
So, my performance M3 was 1.6 times as expensive as my Subaru STi, and yet the insurance was almost exactly the same price. I actually asked them to double check in case they had made a mistake. They hadn't. Not sure whether it's the safety rating, or that it's not a boy racer car like the STi, but insurance doesn't seem to be a problem for most of the people I've talked with...
We probably won't see eye to eye on this... I live in Boston but used to travel to LA a few times a year. The California CAFE laws were definitely needed and definitely worked. The air pollution in LA was awful in the 80s. There's been a huge improvement. There is no way the automobile manufacturers would have produced cleaner cars without the CAFE laws.
Like a lot of people, I'm concerned about CO2. If you don't believe in global warming you can probably stop reading now, but I personally do and think it's a question of survival of the human race (and unfortunately a lot of innocent species that had nothing to do with it).
Right now Transportation, Electrical production, and Industry produce 75% of the greenhouse gasses. They're roughly equal contributors. (Transportation 28%, Electricity 28%, Industry 22%). A fairly large percentage of each could be brought way down if we set our minds to it.
Some forms of transportation (I'm thinking aviation Jet fuel) don't have an obvious quick fix. However, a large percentage of automobiles and trucking could be converted in 1-2 decades if we start now and are aggressive.
Electrical production is already moving towards renewables, and a lot of work on storing energy is making the renewables a workable solution. The pricing of energy production is driving us in that direction, so I think we'll continue to see an aggressive move towards renewables.
Short haul trucking, likewise, will probably move rapidly towards BEV and hybrid solutions because of the economics. Bussing is another example where the economics are driving the transition towards electrifications.
Passenger vehicles, however, are a weird case. The purchase decision is only partly influenced by economics. People want what they want. If for whatever reason they want a huge SUV like a Lincoln Navigator, or a Chevy Suburban, it's difficult to get them to choose a more eco friendly vehicle. I have a friend who has a Chevy Suburban which is used around town for errands. It weighs 7,500 pounds! By comparison our Chevy Volt weighs 3,800 pounds, and a Honda Fit weighs 2,650 pounds (1/3 of the weight of the Suburban).
I have a friend who recently bought a 700 horsepower car. It will be used for commuting and running errands. I get it... it's a cool car and he's always wanted one like it.
The question is, for those of us who believe in global warming, how do we get people to start making choices about their personal vehicles with an eye towards reduction of CO2? I really don't see a way without passing laws. Yes, eventually BEV will be so good that everybody will want one. But that's probably 3 decades away. I'm not convinced we have that much time as a species. So, how else do you influence people except by passing laws?
Personally, I think we either should mandate improved mileage, or else tax people on the excess CO2 they're going to produce by choosing certain vehicles. That's a tough one to get right, and I'm open to suggestions, but doing nothing... I don't think that's wise.
I've had two electric cars so far, waiting for my Model 3 to be delivered. One of the cars is a Volt, so I've some experience with PHEVs...
I don't think pure BEV pickup trucks will be popular in the near future. For people who want to tow, I don't think BEV will have the range for a while. However, hybrid should be a really good fit with a pickup truck. The torque available from an electrified drive train fits really well with towing etc. Everyone remember this stunt? https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/...
My brother in law is a plumber and I don't think a BEV pickup truck would work for him unless it had 300 miles of range - he can't predict where he'll need to run next, and someone with a plumbing problem isn't going to want to wait for him to recharge his truck first. On the other hand, fuel is a huge cost for him, so getting a much more economical vehicle would really help his bottom line.
I keep thinking a combination of hybrid + something like the Achates engine (https://www.trucks.com/2018/01/15/detroit-auto-show-achates-aramco-pickup-engine/) gives us a chance at ~50 mpg pickup trucks in well under a decade.
Now if we could just convince all those people who own pickup trucks and use them just as a passenger vehicle to switch to something more fuel efficient...
I leased the electric Fit. Would still have it if my daughter didn't crash it (into my car thus totaling both!).
I think using the word "abandoned" gives the wrong message. The cars were universally loved by everyone I knew who had one. Honda did a limited build of only a couple thousand cars... They were all hand built compliance cars. But they were very very popular with the lessors (it was lease only, you couldn't buy them).
I'm sure Honda lost a lot of money on each one, because hey, it was a compliance car. But now they may be bringing it back: https://cleantechnica.com/2018...
If they can really build one for sale with 180 miles of range (the one we had was EPA 85 or so - not really enough for Boston in the winter) for $18,000 I would definitely buy one (or two ). They were a very good car.
I watched the MIT Club "Are Electric Vehicles at a Tipping Point?" video... towards the end a (rather rude I thought) Tesla owner challenged the Daimler Benz guy, Fred Kim, about why a little tiny manufacturer (Tesla) was cleaning Daimler Benz's clock, why D.B. hadn't done more, etc. Like I said, I didn't think he asked it in a very nice way.
But Fred's answer was pretty interesting... Basically acknowledging that it's hard for a huge existing company to turn on a dime. Not only do they have existing product lines they can't just walk away from overnight, but there's a built in bias / inertia in their existing workforce that has to be overcome.
We see this plenty of times... why a small company like Microsoft can steal a market from a behemoth like IBM. Parent mentioned Kodak and digital photography which is a similar example.
There's no question that Tesla has a difficult road ahead and may ultimately fail, but I agree with many people who point out that they've already achieved their mission statement - if it wasn't for Tesla you can make a good argument that there STILL wouldn't be any good EVs for sale. The entrenched manufacturers were happy to sit on ICE technology forever.
I don't think any of the existing companies can turn on a dime and overwhelm Tesla. They can slowly, incrementally, add BEV vehicles to their product roadmap, but that won't transition into an immediate huge sales volume. Look at the problems they'll have getting their dealerships to push EVs! How long will it take to turn the bias against BEVs around at each dealership? Especially if BEVs end up cutting profits of the service center?
Tesla is far from out of the woods, but I think it's naive to think that the big ICE manufacturers can turn on a dime and crush Tesla anytime they want.
That's true. But most people people want to be able to do those long drives occasionally. $35k is a lot of money for a car that is only a commuter car. A Leaf would be cheaper and just as effective.
I've had a BEV and now a Volt for my daughters. I'm buying a M3 for myself. There are things I don't like about the car (over-reliance on the center screen, door handles, etc.). But, the two things that helped me decide: the long range battery and the Supercharger network.
The thing is, even with the Supercharger network, a BEV is barely practical when you want to do anything other than your daily commute. Without the Supercharger network, you're definitely going to want to rent an ICE... Sure, some people do road trips in a Bolt, but I think it's more a thing to try than an experience you would want to repeat often. There simply isn't a robust enough DC recharging network available yet.
The competition (GM, Nissan, Porsche) keep wanting to put chargers at dealerships, but I've read too many people's negative experiences with that (charging station is blocked, only available when the dealership is open, too far from the highway)... Tesla seems to be the only company that understands what's required to be able to use the car for inter-city travel and they've stepped up to the plate and built a descent charging network.
I think the other manufacturers are happy to have poor charging options because it's another way to keep people buying ICE cars for a little while longer. When they start building out networks equivalent to the Supercharger network, or partner with Tesla on the existing Supercharger network, you'll know that they've finally decided to stop dragging their feet and are seriously trying to market BEVs.
There is no doubt in my mind that an electric vehicle with ~200 miles of range is sufficient for a large percentage of commuting which is probably the majority of miles driven by most people. And it's certainly true that renting an ICE is a reasonable alternative a few times a year. But the only way the BEV was practical for me was because I also still had my ICE car. To actually be able to have the BEV as your only vehicle you either need a very long range battery, or a robust charging network. Eventually the public charging network will improve but right now it's not set up to allow inter-city travel.
Example: right now I live outside Boston. I have a friend with a place in Newport RI... it's almost exactly 100 miles. That's a little too far for comfort with a car that has 200 miles of range. In the winter here in New England we lose about 50% of the range, so the car could barely get there on one charge.
Assume I have a Nissan with DC Fast Charging. Along the route there are 4 public DC Fast Charging sites showing on PlugShare. One is close to home, so that might be useful on the way back, but on the way down isn't useful. There's one at a Nissan dealership about a third of the way there. It's open 24/7 so that might work, except there's only 1 CHAdeMo charger, so if someone else is using it I might have to wait a while or try to find an alternative. There's a CCS charger at a Whole Foods 2/3 of the way there... but... Nissan wants a CHAdeMo, not a CCS (are there adapters?). And, again, only a single station so if someone is using it I'm screwed. Finally there's a BMW dealership just a little further down the road, but again CCS, and I'm not sure what the BMW dealership is going to say about me trying to charge a Nissan there. And again.. only 1 charger so if someone else is using it, and I can find an adapter, and the BMW guys are nice and will let me charge... I might still have to wait quite a while.
Yeah, there's at least one more - maybe the Bolt - that uses paddles to increase the regen - I've never driven one of those so I don't know how good that is...
When a tester is testing maximum BRAKING, there isn't going to be any regen vs friction brake decision... At those pedal forces the friction brakes will be working at 100%...
Of course ABS is a different story. If the system is not taking the tires to the limits of adhesion, you'll get longer stop distances.
^^^^ What b0s0z0ku said !!!
Yes, you get significantly lower range in the winter. Both my FitEV and Volt take about a 50% hit in cold weather.
The air conditioning certainly affects range, but not anything like the heater in the winter. It's small enough I don't worry about it...
The other thing from above is that the Tesla doesn't have a heated steering wheel. I had that in my Ford Focus RS. It was really nice. I went back to a Subaru STi that doesn't have heated steering wheel and I really miss it. I can take pretty cold cabin temps if my hands are warm.
As for the lack of dedicated knobs on the Model 3, I'll still buy one, but I feel it's a major drawback to this vehicle.
Certainly this is something people differ on. I prefer the opposite - I like one pedal driving and with the two electric cars I've had (Fit EV and Volt) I would have wanted even more regenerative braking, i.e. I love one pedal driving.
the idea of applying regenerative braking when you just lift off the accelerator is stupid. Using the kinetic energy off the car to maintain speed will be more efficient than converting it into chemical energy in the battery and then converting it back to kinetic energy via the motor.
Yeah, but that's not generally what's going to happen... when you need to coast, you just let off the pedal enough to coast... It's pretty obvious when you have the pedal in the right position... but then when you want to decelerate even more you just let off a little more. It's much more natural than having to move your foot back and forth. Most of the EVs have a drive mode that's similar to what you're used to... like an automatic transmission car, and then they also have a "more regen" mode for people who are used to one pedal driving.
My biggest complaint is that some of the EVs don't have enough regen... it should be a driver setting. I liked the Fit EV which would decelerate going downhill... but even then there were cases that I wish I could have dialed in more regen.
I have mixed feelings on your posting. On the one hand, our aviation experience tells us that humans do not perform well monitoring automation (we get lulled into complacency) and it takes much longer for us to come back up to speed and deal with an issue when we were just monitoring, versus when we were doing the task ourselves.
That said, the first thing I thought when I saw the video was that the person was there to ensure the vehicle didn't get into an accident, and yet the person wasn't paying any attention at all. Watching that person do their job made me wonder why they bothered to put a person there at all - the person was totally ineffective.
I'm of the opinion that the safety driver should be charged with vehicular homicide.
If people can't do that job, then the self driving car companies need to come up with some other way to keep the public safe, or else not test in public.
I had a bicyclist dart out in front of me a year ago... I had about 3 car lengths between me and him when he pulled in front of me... Certainly not time to come to a stop. However I swerved and missed him. Unfortunately the car behind me hit him, but luckily he had only minor injuries. (But the $6,000 bicycle was totaled).
It's not like you have to think "oh, there's a bicycle, let me formulate a plan on avoiding him". It's pretty automatic to swerve around an object that suddenly appears in the road in front of you.
There are courses that teach you that skill - Bob Bondurant had a swerve lesson in his driving school, I believe, It's something I certainly practice now and again.
The Rav4 is much better, but the Ford and the Subaru are both night and day (ha!) above the rest. The Ford had headlights that turned with the steering wheel, and it was really really good. The Subaru doesn't have steerable headlights, but they're bright and cast a lot of light to the sides as well as being brighter...
There's also a difference in highbeams - the Chevy Volt... there's not a huge difference with the highbeams on or off. The Subaru... WOW... really bright.
So, I'd love to see us all go to NVGs (Night Vision Goggles) but until that happens, I'd like to see a standard for minimum light ahead and to the sides... Not sure WHY the Honda and Chevy are so bad... but they're really quite bad.