Electric Vehicle tipping point soon?

[K1052]

No matter what happens cars are still going to kill people. They will probably kill far fewer people than they do today (particularly when emissions are accounted for) but the nature of moving meat bags at acceptable speed means death is inevitable.

Going to be interesting watching autonomy making inroads and see what kind of resistance there is. Even if a really really good autonomous system only killed like 3% of the people that human driving does will people accept it? I think getting over that hurdle is will be hard for a lot of people.

 

[desy]

Nice try at a good old fashioned FUD post.

There is no history of EV batteries bursting into flames. There have been a couple of accidents where the battery was damaged and caught fire but they don't explode, there is lots of time to exit the vehicle. All in all it looks better than gas cars which catch fire with regularity and many people have been caught in them.

Maintenance is negligible on EVs, much less than regular gas cars. Aluminum car crash damage is not maintenance.
A Tesla Model S hits 300,000 miles in just 2 years – saving an estimated $60,000 on fuel and maintenance

One bad Tesla collision repair experience is NOT a reason to Avoid EVs. It seems like a lot of the problem was aluminum construction related. Model 3 is steel, and there are big companies selling EVs (See Chevy Bolt and soon, Everyone).[/QUOTE

Idon't buy that you 'save' 60000 on fuel and maintenance even at CDN gas prices I'd only burn 30G of fuel in that time and nowhere near 30G in maintenance on a Ford Flex , in two years span that would mostly be highway miles so my maintenance would be substantially lower
Hyped up EV article, I agree I don't see hydrogen cracked anytime soon either without a significant development, batteries getting incrementally better will beat it out

 

[Ajay]

filling up with gasoline once a week is like 50 trips to the gas station a year. that's 250 minutes! that seems more inconvenient to me than topping off my EV in my own garage.

Huh? So the one minute a day to plug in your car and unplug it is going to be a deal breaker?

 

[local]

Even if I didn't have special conditions that everyone agrees makes me immune to electric for the foreseeable future I would be against them. And because of people with conditions like me something like ICE or Hydrogen will always be required.

Unless you can get unlimited constant energy but then most of our problems would be solved for everything.

 

[Rifter]

filling up with gasoline once a week is like 50 trips to the gas station a year. that's 250 minutes! that seems more inconvenient to me than topping off my EV in my own garage.

Yes so easy to take your garage with you on trips. That is if you even have a garage to begin with.

 

[Rifter]

Haven't you been paying attention. EVs ARE Winning over hydrogen. You can also Drive a Tesla from LA to NY. Try that in a Hydrogen vehicle.

It's also a lot more convenient to NOT go to a gas station when you can just fuel up at home, where you have to go anyway.

Its easier to retrofit hydrogen filling stations into existing gas stations than it is to install the infrastructure to charge the vehicles at home for the people that do not have there own detached houses. Not to mention most people in the city live in apartments or condos with no garages and its unlikely the strata council will agree to install it into the common parking areas. Its been tabled twice at meetings in my building to install electric charging stations in the underground parking lot, it was almost unanimously voted down both times, the owners just do not want to incur the increased monthly fees to cover the costs to install them. The quote obtained by my Strata to install only 4 charging stations was over $100,000(would apparently require running all new power lines and serious upgraded in the electrical room, current electrical infrastructure in building simply not enough, was built in the 70's)

I see this being an issue for alot of apartment/condo dwellers.

 

[PeterScott]

Its easier to retrofit hydrogen filling stations into existing gas stations than it is to install the infrastructure to charge the vehicles at home for the people that do not have there own detached houses. Not to mention most people in the city live in apartments or condos with no garages and its unlikely the strata council will agree to install it into the common parking areas. Its been tabled twice at meetings in my building to install electric charging stations in the underground parking lot, it was almost unanimously voted down both times, the owners just do not want to incur the increased monthly fees to cover the costs to install them. The quote obtained by my Strata to install only 4 charging stations was over $100,000(would apparently require running all new power lines and serious upgraded in the electrical room, current electrical infrastructure in building simply not enough, was built in the 70's)
I see this being an issue for alot of apartment/condo dwellers.

And my buddy had a Level 2 charger put into his garage for ~$1000.

They are not retrofitting to hydrogen. It cost millions for the small low volume service stations they are building in California. These will have to sell Hydrogen well over $10KG to not lose money. That pretty much the equivalent to a gallon of gas. Why would anyone want a car has ZERO stations in most states, where the fuel costs 4x or 5x the price of gas. It's a complete non starter. It's mainly just Toyota and Honda chasing sunk costs (fools errand) at this point.

Hydrogen stations are only being built when the government pays for most of the cost. Meanwhile tesla is building thousands of superchargers all over the world on it's own dime. That is telling about who actually believes in the technology that they are selling.

If EV won't work for some people, they will just stick with gas. They won't go to Hydrogen which has no infrastructure and will have absurd prices for everyone (Taxpayers, drivers, etc..). Hydrogen FCVs are one the largest boondoggles in history.

 

[K1052]

I got my EVSE installed in my condo parking space for $1000 as well. Not bad considering my space is about as far from the power room as possible and required a crapload of conduit. No hassle from the management company since I wasn't the first (three Teslas and a Volt already have theirs).

 

[heymrdj]

I'm amazed at the back and forth here. Two groups of people that live very different lives and don't fit in each other's moulds. Electricity infrastructure, like our internet, is just about the worst ranked in the world. We aren't shifting loads from oil to the grid anytime soon. At best in the next 25 years we'll have lots of hybrids and a better grid. Full stop. Undertaking the grid problem will be decades of work. I work with this stuff. If you're installing new chargers for 1K, something was subsidized. The panel was there, the transformer was there, the phases were there. I've spent 7K just to get 1000ft of fiber from A to B, I've paid 1500$ just to get a single 240V 60A plug ran from panel to a truck station 85ft away through concrete. Those saying pure EV is anywhere close are delusional to your city dweller and house ownership lifestyles. We're not even close, home ownership is falling off because of the economy. More than ever people are having to rent. Brand new 2br apartments with no garage and no power are 1300$ a month here. Our economy is running entirely on credit, and that bubble will burst and the churn of new cars (and the innovation that money brings) is going to crash again like in 2007/8. Electric will come, when we have batteries capable of 500miles plus of charge in the winter with the heat on and can be charged overnight. Electrics will come when government comes in and subsidizes the installation of the power grid and the chargers. Electrics will come when the cars cost the same as our current hybrid counterparts. For now, hybridizing all the things is our best bet to get the benefits that each system brings.


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[Yuriman]

Something like the Volt is a fantastic compromise. I'm a big fan of plug-in hybrids.

 

[WackyDan]

Have they even solved the problem with batteries and winter weather?
I just don't see them lasting very long for the snow belt people.

Teslas and other EV's do just fine in winter weather. The data doesn't support what you are suggesting.

 

[Alpha One Seven]

A dominant feature of this years Frankfurt Motor Show seems to be Electric cars:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/mone...-suvs-dominate-buzz-frankfurt-show/656719001/

We are seeing more companies announce electrification of whole lineups, countries announce long term plans to ban Combustion engine cars.

I don't think there can be any more doubt that Electric Vehicles are going to dominate personal transportation in the future, and that future is fast approaching.

I realize that in all these threads, we always get people saying they won't switch until impossible conditions are met (400 mile range recharging 100% in 5 minutes).

But I think affordable 200-300 mile EVs that represent the kind of cars people want to drive and similar/lower prices will be a mass tipping point.

Cars like small SUVs that are so popular. Example CRV/RAV4 type EVs that don't cost more than their gas counterparts will shift things dramatically. How far away is this with battery prices continuing their march downwards and more EV competition every day?

Those goals might not be impossible after all.
If you want a battery that charges in seconds rather than hours, you go for a supercapacitor. There are some catches to that, though: either you give up the long-lasting energy of a chemical battery (like the lithium pack in your phone) or have to resort to exotic storage tech to get a long lifespan. Drexel researchers think they have a better balance. They've developed electrodes based on a nanomaterial, MXene, that promise extremely quick charging times for chemical batteries. The near-2D design combines an oxide-metal 'sandwich' with hydrogel to create a structure that's extremely conductive, but still lets ions move freely as the battery builds up a charge. In the lab's design, you can charge MXene electrodes within "tens of milliseconds" -- you could top up a phone in seconds or an electric car in minutes.

As is often the case, the big challenge is scaling this up to production-quality energy cells. It could be years before this reaches something you can buy. However, its very focus on supporting chemical batteries makes it more practical. Factories would only have to adapt to the new electrodes, rather than throwing out their existing battery know-how. If nothing else, the existence of the MXene design shows that ultra-fast charging is becoming more realistic.

 

[Alpha One Seven]

Teslas and other EV's do just fine in winter weather. The data doesn't support what you are suggesting.

Yep, cooling a battery makes it last longer. The power wall has a thermal cooler inside it.

 

[WackyDan]

My tipping point moved....

I have a Model 3 reservation that I'm likely going to ditch...

I have four motor vehicles registered in my name and one travel trailer.... about to add an additional flatbed trailer.

Vehicle 1: 2005 Chevy Malibu with 100k miles bought new in 2005. Wife's car and this is the car that would be replaced with an EV. 99% of my wife's drives are very local as she is a stay at home mom and sub teacher. I also drive the car. We average 7-9k miles per year on it.

Vehicle 2: 2012 F-150. I average 5500-6000 miles a year on it and over half of that is towing. I work from home so that is why it has low miles. No EV is going to replace it due to it's towing duties.

Vehicle 3: 2017 Motorcycle. 7-8k miles a year... all long distance touring so an EV bike won't work for me either.

Vehicle 4: 1997 Jeep Cherokee customized to run as a rock crawler. Street legal but I put less than 1k miles a year on it.... Love the idea of EV rock crawler... just don't see that happening.

Two things are making me consider dumping the Model 3 reservation:

1. Used car prices have been pretty attractive and prior to these Hurricanes they were predicting that used car prices would remain depressed for a couple of years. This is explicitly true for our favored car type... The sedan. I can find 2 and 3 year old off lease sedans with way below average miles for 16k to 19k nicely optioned. This is looking attractive to me versus the Model 3. As much as an EV is a good fit for us due to my wife's driving, charge capability at home and that we have other vehicles to depend on, the financials on a good used ICE sedan make more sense today. We'll have to see if people put a draw on the used market after Harvey now and that might change my financials. I can afford the Model 3, but I don't have to... That is just smart.

2. The tipping point is also moving for me as I want more range than the Model 3 can deliver and I want it at a better price. Tesla launching the Model 3 with the larger battery woke me up to this. Yes, we could get by just fine on 210 miles of range and the 310 miles of range in the larger battery is also attractive but not for $9k more. Looking at all the makes out there moving to some form of hybrid or full EV in the future means that I think we are on the cusp (within 5 years) of having EV's with 400 mile+ ranges at affordable prices. That is where my head is at lately. 400 miles of range makes an EV a car that I can take on longer work trips around the state, or family trips. 400 miles gets us halfway to our home state and to what will likely be a hotel we can overnight charge at. 400 miles range makes it comparable to an ICE for longer jaunts... and spare me the drive 800 miles straight through routine. Used to do that and it got old and I got old. Now we have a 7 year old that while she travels well, I'm not going to subject to 13-14 hours in a car.

So i'm likely buying a decent used sedan and will keep it 5 to 10 years until I can get a 400+ mile EV for a competitive price. That is likely my tipping point.

 

[Alpha One Seven]

I have 3 ICE vehicles and 1 EV, a Tesla model S. The Tesla gets the most use and I charge it with solar.

 

[MuchTooSexy]

Yes so easy to take your garage with you on trips. That is if you even have a garage to begin with.

your point is taken. i still have an ICE for those situations. but an EV is my daily driver and is used for more than double the miles as the other vehicle. for me, the tipping point has arrived.

 

[thedarkwolf]

At some point you hit the limit of how much energy you can pass through reasonably sized wiring no matter how fast the battery/capacitor itself can take a charge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCVyIcnh2BE

 

[MuchTooSexy]

regarding getting level 2 charging on 240v.... its not always that expensive. existing infrastructure might already support it.

My laundry room is in my garage so I already have a 240v outlet. This outlet isn't used since i have a gas dryer. so i bought a level 2 charger for around $500. (no need to hire an electrician to install the charger.)

https://www.clippercreek.com/

 

[K1052]

1. Used car prices have been pretty attractive and prior to these Hurricanes they were predicting that used car prices would remain depressed for a couple of years. This is explicitly true for our favored car type... The sedan. I can find 2 and 3 year old off lease sedans with way below average miles for 16k to 19k nicely optioned. This is looking attractive to me versus the Model 3. As much as an EV is a good fit for us due to my wife's driving, charge capability at home and that we have other vehicles to depend on, the financials on a good used ICE sedan make more sense today. We'll have to see if people put a draw on the used market after Harvey now and that might change my financials. I can afford the Model 3, but I don't have to... That is just smart.

Only thing that would make me wary about the used market for a while is water damaged cars making their way into it like they did after Sandy and Katrina. Fraud was pretty rampant.

 

[PeterScott]

Yes so easy to take your garage with you on trips. That is if you even have a garage to begin with.

For trips you have the Supercharger and other networks. IIRC the first cross country trip in a Tesla was done before the Supercharger network was ready, by a Tesla owner using available charge points and even RV parks. Electricity is available everywhere.

https://www.tesla.com/findus#/bounds/49.38,-66.94,25.82,-124.38999999999999,d?search=supercharger
Interactive Alternate fuel map

 

[Viper GTS]

For trips you have the Supercharger and other networks. IIRC the first cross country trip in a Tesla was done before the Supercharger network was ready, by a Tesla owner using available charge points and even RV parks. Electricity is available everywhere.

https://www.tesla.com/findus#/bounds/49.38,-66.94,25.82,-124.38999999999999,d?search=supercharger
Interactive Alternate fuel map

If you click around that map you'll find some are legit EV charge stations but many are simply an open NEMA outlet.

It's available everywhere right now only because most devices that people carry can absorb trivial amounts of power. It's not worth locking down or policing external power outlets when the worst thing most people will plug in is an iphone. If electric cars are suddenly everywhere and people can pull real money in power you can bet those will no longer be available.

Viper GTS

 

[K1052]

If you click around that map you'll find some are legit EV charge stations but many are simply an open NEMA outlet.

It's available everywhere right now only because most devices that people carry can absorb trivial amounts of power. It's not worth locking down or policing external power outlets when the worst thing most people will plug in is an iphone. If electric cars are suddenly everywhere and people can pull real money in power you can bet those will no longer be available.

Viper GTS

I clicked around that map and all I see are Tesla Superchargers, Tesla destination chargers, and locations for future Superchargers.

If you look at sites like Plugshare you'll see just regular outlets if you set the filters right.

Edit: I see what you're talking about. Links ran together at a glance.

 

[PeterScott]

If you click around that map you'll find some are legit EV charge stations but many are simply an open NEMA outlet.

Lets be a little more accurate that using "many" and "some". You seemed to be implying that "many" NEMA was more than the "some" Level 2+ charging. In reality what you called "many" was less than 2% and what you called "some" was > 98%.

The NEMA outlets are a trvial (~2%) amount of the total. You can set the search parameters to exclude them.

16.2 K with NEMA
15.9 K without NEMA

The VAST majority of the Map was legit level 2+ charging stations.

Here it is with only Level 2 and above, charging stations. Essentially no difference:
Level Two and above Charging Map

 

[Viper GTS]

Yes revisiting the map I would agree that most and some would be more accurate. I was apparently just really lucky in my first few clicks.

Viper GTS

 

[heymrdj]

The issue I see on the map is chargers on route, but none where I'm at. Say that I'm visiting my parents, the nearest level 2 charger is 32 miles away, 37 miles if I don't feel like sitting in BMW's parking lot waiting 2 hours for my car to recharge. So rather than fuel up and be able to go days (450miles to a tank) after leaving the last town, I have to constantly find the charger. Using an example of the Bolt, at 4 miles per hour at 110V charging (all that's available at their house) our typical daily trips in the country would have to be no more than 30 miles, leaving 6 miles of padding. Otherwise we have to waste a trip driving 37 miles somewhere so the car can sit and charge for several hours, and then drive it 37 miles back home, leaving just under 200 miles left on the "tank". It could be done, but it'd have to be watched constantly. Also would have to plan your day sitting in some Florida town waiting on the thing to charge again.